Your Favorite Movie finally returns, after a month-long hiatus (give me a fucking break, I had another kid in the meantime, and blogging is tough on paternity leave). If this is your first time here, I'll explain. Basically, I get together with a friend (and occasionally, some extra guests), drink a few beers, and discuss his or her favorite movie of all time. I record the conversation, and I transcribe it for you to read a couple weeks later. Yes, you have to read it. No, this isn't a goddamn podcast. Are you not entertained?!
I was really excited to start this 2020 leg of the journey with my old friend Lamson. I've known this guy since high school, when we both did musical theater and hit on the same teenage girls. Halfway through my college experience, Lamson transferred to La Salle, where we drank a lot of beers together and lived together for one year off-campus (he didn't wash a single dish the entire year), and we've kept in touch since graduation, despite his move to Chicago to be a crossfitting improv-er. (And he's allowed me to use his surname instead of his first name, because, much like Dwyer, it better captures who he is.)
Lamson's favorite movie of all time is Gladiator, the Roman battle royal from 2000, a Russell Crowe vehicle that won the Oscar for Best Picture. It was a lot of fun to watch and to talk about! I'm starting to make a concentrated effort to talk more about the person I'm interviewing, and Lamson was admirably game for all the personal questions, for which I am thankful.
Thanks for joining me for another installment of this ongoing feature. If you want to be a part of it, let me know! Otherwise, enjoy the (long) read.
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Lamson: Wait, can I stop you?
Joe: Please.
Lamson: Why were you surprised? What were your preceding expectations that made you think you weren't going to like it?
Joe: I thought it was just going to be a gore-fest. I thought it was going to be a 300-type thing, a violent, comic book feel. But this wasn't just violence.
Lamson: It was a lot more.
Joe: There were personal stakes. There was legit empathetic drama in it. Does that mean I'm cynical as a movie-watcher?
Lamson: No, not at all. When you hear the word "gladiator," naturally you just think "killing."
Joe: This is kind of... well, it wasn't the first one, because of Spartacus. The first "gladiator" movie.
Lamson: I've never seen Spartacus the movie.
Joe: Neither have I.
Lamson: I've seen Spartacus the Starz series. Which was just a whole bunch of nonsense.
Joe: That came about after Gladiator.
Lamson: You're talking about Spartacus the movie though, right?
Joe: Right. That came first. I have not seen that.
Lamson: But yeah, 300 definitely came years after.
Joe: 300 was 2006. Gladiator is 2000.
Lamson: 300 is just straight murder and blood and... Gladiator is a great, well-rounded movie.
Joe: I should probably assume that if a movie is someone's "favorite movie," then it is more than likely a good movie.
Lamson: Well, I don't think you should assume that, because you've interviewed plenty of people that you totally didn't like their movie.
Joe: Only a few. Maybe three.
Lamson: Okay, alright.
Joe: Longtime readers will know which ones!
Lamson: [laughter] Sure.
Joe: But let's stay in this vein, and talk about some of the good things in this movie. What are some of your favorite things about this movie?
Lamson: It's funny—right after you say that you thought it might be "just a gore-fest," some of my favorite things are the battle scenes. Because there is such good story throughout, that allows the fight scenes to be highlighted.
Joe: There are stakes in those fight scenes.
Lamson: Oh, for sure.
Joe: It's not just violence for violence's sake.
Lamson: One of my favorite scenes is in the beginning. The opening scene is when he is the general.
Joe: The opening battle scene.
Lamson: Oh my god, it's an amazing scene. You watch movies—I know you say that you didn't like Lord of the Rings, but that opening scene of Gladiator reminds me of Lord of the Rings: Two Towers' Helm's Deep. The archers and the flanking of the horses. I actually think there are a lot of parallels there.
Joe: I dunno. Parallels, maybe, in the actual technical substance of the battle scenes. But I feel like the purpose of the battle scenes in Gladiator was way different than in Lord of the Rings.
Lamson: 100%. Different strokes. But I just do really like the way the opening scenes were shot, and then the next time you see him in battle, as a gladiator, he's a nobody. His first couple fights, he won't even admit that he's a general. But he's skilled at combat, and there's one scene where he slices somebody's head off using two swords, and throws the sword up into the audience, and yells, "Are you not entertained?!" That's a classic. As the movie goes on, the fights become more epic, but I actually like those first fight scenes as a gladiator. It's still sort of the beginning of the movie, where he is a nobody...
Joe: He's not trying to entertain.
Lamson: He's just trying to survive.
Joe: Well, he might not even be trying to survive. He might not just give a shit at all. He might stumble into victory because he doesn't give a shit.
Lamson: Once the slave owner, Proximo, starts to educate him, "You could earn your freedom if you fight well," then he starts to put on the "entertainment."
Joe: I definitely want to dig into a little more about why he maybe didn't care whether he won or not? At the end of the day. Because of the whole afterlife aspect of it.
Lamson: In the beginning, it's set up that all he wants to do is go home. Marcus Aurelius asks him, "What can Rome do for you?" and he says, "Let me go home." Aurelius is like, "No, can you take over for me?" and he's like, "No, I just want to go home and harvest my crops and see my wife and see my kid." So then when... spoilers.
Joe: Spoiler alert.
Lamson: When Marcus Aurelius asks him to take over, and Commodus is jealous of that, and kills his dad, and sends Maximus to his death. And then has his men go out and kill Maximus' wife and son. All he ever wanted to do was go home! And now that home is taken away from him. The physical place still exists, but what made it home is dead.
Joe: His wife and kid.
Lamson: So what does he have to live for? Maybe he's... Oh! What's the big guy's name? [laughter] I grew up watching this with my dad, and the big guy, the big tank—
Joe: Hagen?
Lamson: Maybe, I don't know. We called him "Moose." [laughter] I don't know why.
Joe: If he was a frat boy in Animal House, then his name would've been "Moose."
Lamson: For sure. So Moose throws his sword at Maximus, and is like "Why don't you fight?" and hits him on the shoulder wound. Maximus is like, "Who cares? Just kill me." Because he wants to go to the afterlife to be with his family. But for whatever reason... actually, I don't know why. Why does he go from not caring to then caring again?
Joe: Well, he kind of talks with Juba about—
Lamson: Who's Juba?
Joe: The Numidian guy. I only know the name because I wrote it down.
Lamson: When do they say "Juba" or did you have to look that up?
Joe: I literally looked at Wikipedia this morning.
Lamson: Okay, great.
Joe: But there was the big scene with him, and they're talking about the fact that Maximus' wife and kid are dead. Juba's wife and kid are probably alive still. The question is, "When are we going to see them again?" basically. And Maximus' thing was, "Well, I could see them today if I wanted to." But then, "I'm going to stay and fight, and I'll see them eventually." I guess to "earn" his place on this earth before he sees them.
Lamson: It's a good question. I feel like that explanation makes sense, but it's not substantial enough to explain it all. It's like, okay, you go from one second, wanting to die to be reunited with your wife and kid, to then all of a sudden be like, "Ehhh, but... I want to earn that death"? Because it's Roman honor, I guess...?
Joe: It's like Maximus called a suicide hotline, in Juba, and was convinced.
Lamson: Maybe it was the friendship? Because they related on that level, and it was... friendship is powerful. Maybe he wanted Juba to get back with his wife and kid. I dunno!
Joe: Yeah... I don't know either.
Lamson: Either way, it's very fun to see him turn around and start fighting, because he's very good at it. He does it very well.
Joe: We'll dig into this—what do you think about the afterlife? What are your beliefs about the afterlife?
Lamson: ...I was not expecting that question whatsoever.
Joe: But you had to have thought about it. Not that you had to have thought about it while you were watching Gladiator.
Lamson: Something I've stood by, even since I was like thirteen, when you start having thoughts about life and death. You and I grew up going to Catholic grade school, Catholic high school, Catholic university.
Joe: For better or worse.
Lamson: Sixteen years of Catholicism rammed down our throats. I fucking hate all that shit.
Joe: So you don't believe in a big bearded man in the sky?
Lamson: I don't think we're capable—well, maybe we're capable, but we're missing information. Right now, I'm not able to comprehend the mysteries of the universe. Life is too complex for there not to be something that explains it all. If you literally think about the intricate details of every single tiny thing... you could look around, wherever you're at, look around and it's like... it's so complex. There has to have been something that started it all. Whether that's a spiritual, divine intervention, or... dude, I don't fucking know. But there is something going on in life that you and I clearly don't get. So, who knows what happens when we die? I think there's a really fucking good chance that we die, and boom—that's it, it's black, it's darkness, and we're unaware. Sometimes, that's comforting, like, if we die tomorrow, it's sad, aw, but you wouldn't even know!
Joe: You can't even comprehend it. That's kind of where I fall as well.
Lamson: Which is scary, but it's also comforting.
Joe: That is how I feel. Unfortunately! I wish... I wish I had the capacity to believe in some type of afterlife, to believe that this is all for something.
Lamson: There are a couple fun theories that I like to think about. Somebody once showed me a YouTube video—maybe it was of Elon Musk—talking about how we are all in a computer program. How the mathematical odds that we are not in a computer program are so low, and I'm just like... you listen to him talk, and you're like, "Fuck, dude, I am literally 1s and 0s."
Joe: This is right after Elon Musk ripped a huge joint. A billionaire's joint.
Lamson: For sure. And there's another theory that's fun to think about. When you die, and your brain is going through that process—in a split second, a succession of chemicals are released. You know how people say their life flashed before their eyes?
Joe: You "see the light."
Lamson: If you lead a good life, your base consciousness will release happy memories, and that's like going to heaven, right? You live in this weird, perpetual moment that is good. Or if you lived a bad life, you have bad thoughts that weigh on you, and those get released. Although it's over in a second, for you it's an eternity, and you're living in this hell. So... I dunno. Maybe we're all just going to be soil one day.
Joe: That last theory sounds like a good way for a scientist to rationalize a "heaven."
Lamson: It'd be really nice if we could all just go to a sweet party, like when you and I and everybody went to Vegas, and we were in a pool. We're all just 22, and feel great. Though... would it be weird for you if, in heaven... okay, it's a utopia, and we're at a Vegas pool party, but everybody gets to be 22, but your mom and dad are there, but they're 22, and you have kids now, and they'll be 22. And we're all... 22. [laughter].
Joe: And they are all there on the day that we were at the Vegas pool party?
Lamson: Yeah, we're all pissing in the pool, having a great time.
Joe: So the first time I ever saw [redacted]'s nipples, 22-year-old Willow is there, and 22-year-old Martha is there? [laughter]
Lamson: No comment. No comment.
Joe: But bringing it back to Gladiator... do you feel like Maximus' thoughts about the afterlife were a burden to him? Or, like, maybe an excuse for him to act irrationally? Or... do you feel like his thoughts were a positive or a negative, for him as a widower?
Lamson: ...Wow. I don't know why I'm having such a hard time with that question.
Joe: Because it's a hard thing to judge people on their thoughts about the afterlife. That's not fair to even a fictional character. So I understand why you'd be reluctant to say.
Lamson: Within the scope of the movie, I guess if I'm just thinking practically, I think it was a burden. Because, let's say he didn't care about rejoining with his wife and son, maybe he would've just been a dope fucking gladiator, and he wouldn't have given any shit to Commodus and gotten himself killed. Like, Proximo, he was a gladiator that won over the crowd—you heard him say that throughout the movie, "Win the crowd, Maximus!"—and maybe if Maximus did that, he could've just been like, "I'm really sad, there was this woman that I really loved..." And you're not going to just get over that, you're going to mourn, and want to die. He was probably, what, 30?
Joe: Sure.
Lamson: Given that time period, he had at least another good 20 to 30 years left?
Joe: I don't know what the life expectancy at the time was.
Waitress: Mozzarella sticks?
Both: Not us.
Lamson: You definitely have to keep that in. He probably had another good 20 or 30 years. He could've gone on and been happy, ya know? And not gotten killed by this dickbag fucking Joaquin Phoenix.
Joe: He was a dickbag, for sure.
Lamson: Dude, I hate Commodus, and I love Joaquin Phoenix. He does such a good job. I do not like Joaquin Phoenix in the new Joker. Well, I do like him in that, but I see him in interviews, and I'm just like, "This guy is fucking nuts." As a person.
Joe: Sometimes, I feel like actors just have to enter this deep dark place for their roles, and have a tough place getting out of it.
Lamson: Maybe that's him. But I think he does... when I first watched the movie, when I was ten or twelve, I was like, "I hate this guy! I hate this actor!" But as I get older, I realize that he does such a great job with this part. You hate him, but you understand where he's coming from.
Joe: Oh yeah, he's a shitbag, but you get the motivation. He's not just evil.
Lamson: Spurned by his father. He's... a little creepy with his sister.
Joe: For sure.
Lamson: I think the actress who plays his sister does a really great job.
Joe: Connie Nielson. I wrote that down too.
Lamson: I don't think I've seen her in anything else.
Joe: Not at all. [Editor's note: I combed through her IMDB page, and there is literally nothing else on there that I've seen. Of course, that's just me. You've probably seen something else. You're not a neophyte.]
Lamson: She does a really good job in that role.
Joe: She's put in a tough position. Trying to keep her kid alive.
Lamson: And please her father while he's alive. She likes this guy who clearly isn't into her. Her brother's into her, but there's still this weird family bond, so she's trying not to get involved with him. It's a complex character!
Joe: And of course, we have Richard Harris as Marcus Aurelius, the dad.
Lamson: He's so good. He's amazing.
Joe: He was! He brought a warmth to the role that wasn't really even necessary. It was the warmth that he brought to Dumbledore before he died.
Lamson: Dude, so he was the first Dumbledore, and he was awesome. And when he unfortunately died, and they switched to the other Dumbledore, I was pissed. And... I grew to like the other Dumbledore. [Editor's note: Booooooooo.] Anyway, him as Marcus Aurelius... he's such a good actor. Again, same thing as when I watched this for the first time—I wish you would've watched it when it first came out, like I did, just to have this totally different perspective. How old is it now? It's gotta be more than a decade.
Joe: It'll be twenty years next year.
Lamson: Two decades?! So my perspective on film, and acting, and the afterlife, and everything, is so different than when I was nine.
Joe: So you watched this when you were nine.
Lamson: It was one of my first favorite movies ever. Saw it when it came out.
Joe: Tell me about that. Did you see it in theaters?
Lamson: Probably? I know that I watched it when it first came out, with my dad. I loved it, my dad loved it, and it was a cool thing we had together. I also liked it more because my dad liked it, because I valued his opinion. There were so many things about Gladiator that, as a nine-year-old, I didn't understand. It's weird, to watch a movie from the time you're nine to the time you're 29. I probably watch it every couple years, and I've seen this movie so many times. The things that you pick up along the way... when I first watched it, I didn't get how weird it was that Commodus was kissing his sister. I didn't grow up with siblings. I just that they were just weird. At the beginning, when Aurelius is talking to Maximus, I didn't understand why it was controversial of him to ask him to be the new Caesar. Also, his acting is funny with the [Richard Harris impression] "There's a whisper now, Maximus!" The way he talks so softly, I thought that was weird. But as I get older, his performance is perfect, in my mind. I like him as an actor.
Joe: So you enjoyed this with your dad.
Lamson: Yeah.
Joe: I guess one of the cruxes of the movie is that Commodus is spurned by his dad. So would you... I'm not asking you to compare or contrast your relationship, but would you say you have a more solid relationship with your father?
Lamson: ...then Commodus and Marcus Aurelius?
[laughter]
Lamson: I think most people do!
Joe: I'm not asking you if you're going to kill your father.
Lamson: No, I'm not going to smother him with a pillow because he wasn't going to make me the emperor of Rome.
Joe: But figuratively, has your father ever spurned you?
Lamson: No, never. Absolutely not.
Joe: That's great! And that's what I expected. Because you're saying that you shared this memory with your dad, watching this. So this is not an aspect of the movie that you can relate with.
Lamson: I think this is going in a weird, different direction than you're trying to take this—
Joe: No, I appreciate any direction.
Lamson: —as much as I hate the character of Commodus—earlier I only said that I admire the performance of Joaquin Phoenix as Commodus—the character of Commodus, you're designed to hate him. It's weird, there's a part of me—or of you, the royal you—that is drawn to Commodus, because he just wants his father's approval so hard. I don't want to say everyone does, but most people do.
Joe: Everyone does, absolutely. Young men want their father's approvals.
Lamson: It makes you think. Say you're in Commodus' position, and you're not the perfect fit, and your father offers the job that was destined for you to somebody else. Commodus has this whole perfect monologue—"My virtues were not on your list, Father. I had different virtues. Ambition can be a virtue!" I love that. I use that in everyday life. When I say someone is ambitious, it's like, "Hey, I don't want you to take that the wrong way." Because associate the term "ambition" with a negative context. I think I do because of that movie, sometimes.
Joe: Okay, so let's flip it. Do you feel like you fit the role that your father saw for you?
Lamson: Ya know what, that's an awesome question. I think there's a part of it that's yes, and there's a part of it that's no. I think I'm so different from my dad. He was an athlete, a wrestler—
Joe: But he didn't expect that from you, to be an athlete.
Lamson: No, he didn't expect that from me. I feel like I want to be a father one day, and the things that I value the most, like comedy... and, ya know, I wanna show my kids sports. I grew up playing basketball, football, baseball. Right now I'm big into fitness, I want to introduce crossfit. There are things that you value that you want to share with your kids, and you hope they pick those things up. My dad, I grew up playing soccer and baseball, basketball, football, everything, wrestling. There are things that I took to, and others that I didn't. But there was never a time when I felt that he was upset that I didn't gravitate toward a certain thing. Right now, I do comedy, and that would have never even crossed his mind.
Joe: I'm sure he was confused as to what improv even was.
Lamson: Oh, for sure. Imagine my dad—a man's man, such a badass. I'm imagining him as our age, and you're walking down the street, and imagine you get in a fight with somebody... he would murder anybody. And I'm not that type of person. Me, in the middle of high school, going from freshman football, and quitting, to picking up wrestling, and quitting, to sophomore year having no extracurriculars. And then in junior year being like, "Hey, I'm gonna do musical theater." [laughter] I just imagine the internal reaction being like, "What?!" But he's so supportive! So supportive. Which is amazing.
Joe: That's great, man.
Lamson: So to go back to the Commodus thing. I feel like everybody, or most people, just want nothing more than the support—approval, approval is the right word—of their father.
Joe: It's probably unfair to even compare the two relationships, Commodus and Aurelius against any other father and son team, because there was a specific role that Marcus Aurelius needed to fill, and that typically would be his son—
Lamson: A high-status job that could affect a lot of people.
Joe: It would be like if your dad was your wrestling coach and needed you to run the wrestling team. There's a difference. Like, my dad probably expected "more" of me than just being a social worker, ya know? He expected me to do something that was impacting the world more. On a larger scale. Not like... not to say that he was "disappointed" in me.
Lamson: For what, not solving global warming?
Joe: For not being a doctor, or a lawyer, or some shit like that. But, definitely, there is always that sense of "am I disappointing my father?"
Lamson: Do you think it's a weird thing, or maybe this is just me, but—people have a sense of "I don't want to disappoint my father," but they don't have any sense of "I don't want to disappoint my mother"? Is that unfounded? I feel like I never want to make my mom upset or mad or sad. But that's day-to-day, like when I'm at a family thing, "Gotta be on your good behavior, have the right manners." Moms are on top of that. But dads are long-term—"You have to be a doctor," ya know what I mean?
Joe: I can see that, but I also see it as more of a gendered topic, like, maybe if this were two girls talking—
Lamson: It doesn't have to be a gendered thing, yeah, like if there were two moms, or two dads—
Joe: No, I'm saying that if I were a girl, and you were a girl, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Mothers and daughters may have similar relationships. I dunno... Well... Dad... [laughter]
Lamson: I hope we've made you proud, Dads!
Joe: He did ask me, "Why are you interviewing people?" It's a hobby, relax! [laughter]
Lamson: Exactly. We're having fun.
Joe: It's like, would you rather me talk to you about your favorite movie, The Big Chill, or would you rather it be a different hobby? Would you rather me force you to come into the basement to look at my model trains?! You got off the hook!
Lamson: "I could be weirder! It could be worse!" Oh, you did this with your dad?
Joe: Yeah, it was pretty good. The Big Chill?
Lamson: Never seen it.
Joe: Good boomer movie.
Lamson: Dude... the term "boomer" has come up so much in the past few months.
Joe: I think it all started with me accusing him of being a boomer in that interview.
Lamson: Sure, you started it.
Joe: Okay, so we kind of skirted around the idea of Gladiator starting this global interest in the idea of gladiators, and the Roman times, and a general interest in that. It was what was called the "Gladiator Effect." There was a measurable uptick in book sales about this time period after the movie came out. People got into it! Do you feel that you got into the whole idea of Roman times after you watched this movie? Or was it just a movie?
Lamson: Um...
Joe: Like, did you write a fucking book report about it or anything?
Lamson: [laughter] "Did you write a fucking book report about it?!" Uh... no. Here's what I'll say. After watching this movie, I did not then go and expand my horizons to watching anything or everything about gladiators or Roman times.
Joe: You were not privy to the Gladiator Effect.
Lamson: No. Maybe not the primary effect. But maybe a subconscious effect? Any time I saw anything about swords and shields and spears, I would be like, "This looks dope." Also, it translated later in life. We were talking about this earlier—Sparticus, the TV series, which is on Netflix, but originally on Starz. And it's... not good. But I've seen it twice, because I love it. It's pretty freaking corny, and Sigourney Weaver is in it, and she's not great in it. But I think because of how much I like Gladiator... maybe that's my Gladiator Effect.
Joe: So are you into the swords and whatnot because of Gladiator, or were you into it already, and Gladiator just fit into that interest?
Lamson: No, I saw Gladiator first.
Joe: So you had no interest in gladiators as a subject before the movie Gladiators?
Lamson: It's a really hard question to answer. I was nine years old when it came out, so I was fucking into dinosaurs and planes, ya know?
Joe: No, that's fair.
Lamson: But it's an interesting thing to think about. I had never even heard of the "Gladiator Effect."
Joe: It was a measurable thing, apparently.
Lamson: I'm trying to even think... imagine that movie comes out now. It's a good movie. Imagine that movie came out now, there'd be a million HBO shows about it. Think of something people like now, like Game of Thrones. Now there's all these spin-offs, all these books. When people like something now, it's catastrophic, like a ripple effect.
Joe: Do you feel like people would've thought it was a rip-off of Game of Thrones, just in a different time period?
Lamson: That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that if Gladiator came out now, just because of the level of quality and how good it is—you liked it—take that quality now, and boom, there's spin-offs, there's books, there's TV shows. People try to adopt that.
Joe: But that's literally what happened then.
Lamson: It would have been even more severe today.
Joe: The craven, capitalist marketing economy.
Lamson: I wouldn't be surprised at all.
Joe: Are you surprised there hasn't been a sequel to Gladiator yet?
Lamson: No, and I'm so fucking thankful there wasn't a sequel.
Joe: It's in production now.
Lamson: Are you fucking serious?
Joe: Yeah.
Lamson: [sighs] Fuck.
Joe: So let's talk about sequels—
Lamson: Why would they do that?!
Joe: As of June 2019, there was official confirmation that one was in development. No plot details were given. Obviously, in the past twenty years, there has been chatter about potential sequels. So before I tell you what has been talked about in the past, what do you see as the best-case scenario for a sequel to Gladiator?
Lamson: It's hard for me to give you words right now, because my knee-jerk reaction is that I'm a little pissed off. Because it's such a good movie, and it doesn't need a sequel! There's no tee-up for it to continue. He fucking dies! Where do you go from there? Like, is it about Commodus' nephew?
Joe: Give me your best-case scenario. Someone hands you 100 million dollars and says that you have to spend this on a Gladiator sequel, what do you do? The movie is Gladiator 2, what is it about?
Lamson: Alright. Fine! Best-case scenario. Who do we care about? We care about the fellow gladiators. Moose—
Joe: Who died.
Lamson: —and Jeebers.
Joe: Juba?
Lamson: Juba.
[laughter]
Lamson: We've had a pitcher of beer. Anyways, so Moose is dead, so who cares. Proximo, dead. Juba is the only one who's alive. In my mind, the only thing you can do is about him. Or... I think the kid, Lucius, Commodus' nephew—
Joe: The Unbreakable kid.
Lamson: I like the kid, Lucius. He liked gladiators, and he was kind to them. So maybe there is some type of story where he frees a lot of gladiators that he likes? Or maybe it's Juba reuniting with his family? Or maybe it's... I dunno, man. I'm just pissed off that they want to do it. It's like, why does every movie that's really good need a sequel? They're going to ruin it!
Joe: So I'll tell you, there's been two sequels that have been chatted about in the past. The first one was pretty much like Godfather II. Have you ever seen that?
Lamson: I've seen all of the Godfathers at some point.
Joe: It was going to be two different stories happening in parallel. One, the origin stories of Maximus, and that would be the prequel part of it. And the sequel part of it would be Lucius becoming a gladiator.
Lamson: Wait, so Lucius would become the gladiator?
Joe: Yeah. But that's half the movie.
Lamson: But he's nobility.
Joe: Well it was shitcanned, so...
Lamson: Thank god.
Joe: You're saying "thank god," but listen to this second one.
Lamson: Oh god.
Joe: The second one was written by... have you ever heard of Nick Cave?
Lamson: Who?
Joe: Nick Cave. He's an indie rock artist. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds?
Lamson: No. I thought you were saying "Nick Cage" wrong.
Joe: Apparently he wrote the script to this potential sequel, and it was about... [laughter] the Roman gods reincarnate Maximus...
Lamson: No! Stop!
Joe: In order for him to fight persecution against the Christians? And then they keep reincarnating him, so that he can fight in the Vietnam War? And then he eventually works for the Pentagon?
Lamson: [laughter] Are you making this up?
Joe: I swear to god. You can find it online if you want to read it. [Editor's note: Download it HERE. I will not be downloading it, but you can let me know how it goes if you choose to.]
Lamson: I would love to watch that as a joke movie though. That sounds awesome! So the tagline is "The general who became a slave, the slave who became a gladiator, the gladiator who defied an empire... who then dies, and is reincarnated to work for the Pentagon." That's a good tagline!
Joe: That was in 2006 that he wrote this, so it's been a while since it got shitcanned. On a somewhat somber note, that I found morbidly interesting in this context... Nick Cave—I've tried to listen to some of his newer music, it kind of sucks—but a lot of people like his music. His nine-year-old son died in 2015, and since his son died, a lot of his music has since been very somber. Very slow, dirge-y. Which I don't listen to music for that reason, I guess?
Lamson: To get that feeling?
Joe: But I guess my thought was, what if he took another run at the Gladiator 2 script. Would it be different? And you're laughing, but I'm not trying to make a joke.
Lamson: Where would he take it?!
Joe: Well, Maximus' whole fucking thing was that his son died, right?
Lamson: How did the guy's son die?
Joe: It was an accident.
Lamson: Ah shit. I was imagining it was cancer, so that in the movie they reincarnate Maximus so that he can cure cancer.
Joe: Oh jesus... I might cut all this, I dunno. [laughter]
Lamson: Totally cut it, dude. [laughter]
Joe: Jesus christ. We still have a lot to talk about.
Lamson: Great, man. Let's make this a 10,000-page thesis.
Joe: You mentioned Game of Thrones earlier—
Lamson: No, you did!
Joe: Did I? No I didn't.
Lamson: I said I love Game of Thrones.
Joe: I thought it was interesting comparing Game of Thrones and Gladiator, in that, I feel like Game of Thrones' whole thing was that goodness and being noble was punished. Like, Ned would fit so well in the Gladiator world. He was a good guy, he was noble, and he would ultimately be rewarded. Whereas in Game of Thrones, he got his head chopped off.
Lamson: I want to disagree. I want to think in Gladiator, it was perpetuated that goodness was rewarded, but every single thing that Maximus did ended poorly for him. He tried to be good, and left and right, all he was met with was adversity. At the beginning, he's offered this job, and says he wants to think about it. Before he even accepts, boom—this dude kills his dad and sentences Maximus to death. He escapes, goes home, and boom—his kid is already dead. He becomes a gladiator, says he's not going to fight, and then ends up fighting—
Joe: But he ultimately becomes "Maximus the Merciful." His reputation is intact. Whereas Ned dies in disgrace.
Lamson: I think that is because of the warping of Joffrey and Cersei and Tywin—
Joe: And Commodus!
Lamson: But here's the thing. Commodus dies the same time that Maximus does. There's no opportunity for him to twist Max's reputation. I feel like if Commodus had killed Maximus, and had survived, he would've used Roman propaganda to...
Joe: That's the reason that Maximus wasn't killed outright, because the people liked Maximus, right?
Lamson: ...You've just changed my mind. "Quintus, give me your sword!" And they don't. "Fuck you, man!"
Joe: Joffrey is Commodus unhinged.
Lamson: That's a good way to put it.
Joe: But... there's a lot fewer boobs in Gladiator.
Lamson: Yeah.
Joe: We'll move on. Does it bother you that there were things in the movie that weren't "historically correct"?
Lamson: No.
Joe: It doesn't matter to me either.
Lamson: What are top three things that are not historically correct? Just off the top of your mind.
Joe: I mean, I don't give a shit, so I don't have it off the top of my mind. But I do have a list.
Lamson: What was inaccurate?
Joe: I printed out this list to make this point, but again—I don't care.
Lamson: It's just a fun movie!
Joe: That was the big thing about Green Book last year, like, "Oh, did you know none of this actually ever happened?" I don't give a fuck. I didn't like the movie for other reasons, but...
Lamson: It's just a character story.
Joe: So, okay... [reading] Marcus Aurelius wasn't actually murdered by Commodus. There's no indication that Marcus Aurelius wished to return the republic to a democratic form of government. The film depicts Aurelius defeating the Barbarians, when in reality the war was still going on when he died. Etc. Etc. Etc. Commodus' sister was implicated in a plot to assassinate her brother, along with her husband, and several others. I don't care. I don't care. That doesn't add or subtract to the story. I wanted to see if you had any strong feelings on it.
Lamson: Not at all.
Joe: Okay, good.
Lamson: For me, I just accepted the movie as it was. I didn't care enough to be like [nerd voice] "Um, fact check!"
Joe: That's how it should be. It's called "movie magic" for a reason.
Lamson: If a movie says at the beginning of it, "Based on a true story," I'll go, "Oh, okay! Some of this is sort of real!" Otherwise, it's just complete... I don't want to say Gladiator is complete fiction...
Joe: It can draw on something and still take liberties.
Lamson: Gladiator is in no way advertised as a historical account. It's just a fun tale about what happened, roughly, with gladiators, and what may have happened to this guy. So, yeah, sorry! This is boring reading! No strong opinions on that!
Joe: I actually thought it was more interesting when the movie makers purposefully did not do something accurately, because they thought it would confuse the audience.
Lamson: Oh, I think I know what you're talking about. Um... nope, I'm thinking of Braveheart. Please continue.
Joe: Lamson's other favorite movie.
Lamson: No, no, no. Have you interviewed Drew A******** for this yet?
Joe: Unfortunately. [laughter]
Lamson: What was his favorite movie?
Joe: There Will Be Blood.
Lamson: "I drink your milkshake!" How many times did he say that? [laughter] He was telling me Braveheart one time, and about how General Cornwallis was shot with multiple arrows in real life, and survived, and it was taken out, because the audience would not buy it, and that's where my brain went.
[Editor's note: It's really hard to do research on movies I know nothing about and haven't seen. But here's what I can gather. There is a character in another Gibson movie, The Patriot, called General Cornwallis. The main guy in Braveheart has the last name Wallace, but I'm 99% sure that Lamson said "Cornwallis." Either way, googling "Cornwallis arrows" turned up jackshit, so I guess Drew is going to have to correct us all on Facebook when he reads this.]
Lamson: So what about Gladiator did they change because the audience wouldn't believe it?
Joe: Two main things. The first was that, in ancient Roman times, during gladiator matches, the gladiators would actually do product placement for products, like, I dunno...
Lamson: They were doing Geico insurance commercials!
Joe: I guess, yeah! But they thought it was too outlandish of a truth to include in this, and they cut it from the movie.
Lamson: That makes sense. Not this past summer, but 2018, I was driving to Madison, Wisconsin, with my old boss, and we were listening to this podcast about torture...
Joe: [laughter] Sounds like a good road trip.
Lamson: No, dude, it was really interesting! There was a part of it that was about Roman times, when people were subject to, ya know, "Hey, listen you're going to be a gladiator, and that's how you're going to die." And what the whole arena would look like, and how, when there weren't battles going on, people were just walking around, and there was food and drink. Imagine going to a Phillies game, but instead of watching the game, you're there to watch people kill each other.
Joe: A Mets player getting beat to death.
Lamson: There are souvenirs, and you can eat ice cream, and drink beer, and the seventh-inning stretch, people are using a T-shirt cannon.
Joe: Yeah, that was actually the other thing they had to cut, because they really had T-shirt cannons back in the day.
Lamson: No, they were T-shirt trebuchets, alright? [laughter] That's what the "T" stands for.
Joe: The other thing was, apparently, ya know how Commodus gives the thumbs up and thumbs down?
Lamson: Right, live or kill.
Joe: Apparently, in Roman times, thumbs down was the good one, and thumbs up was the bad one.
Lamson: Thumbs up meant kill, and thumbs down meant don't kill?
Joe: Right. But that would definitely confuse audiences.
Lamson: It was reversed.
Joe: In ancient Roman times.
Lamson: Wow. I think I may have heard that. You know what? That kind of pisses me off a little bit. In the movie, if they had just given us the context, if the crowd had reacted the same way, we could've picked it up.
Joe: What, like cutting to someone in the crowd saying, "He gave the thumbs up! That's bad! That's bad! He's going to die!" [laughter]
Lamson: Super-blatant, like, "Oh no! That's the symbol for death!"
Joe: Have you ever seen the meme that's the thumbs down thing?
Lamson: No.
Joe: That surprises me. You strike me as a meme guy.
Lamson: Big time! [laughter]
Joe: Do you know what the other meme is from Gladiator?
Lamson: Maybe.
Joe: The "are you not entertained?" thing.
Lamson: Oh yeah.
Joe: I had to explain to Pam what exactly a "meme" is.
Lamson: It's a picture with captions on the top and bottom.
Joe: I said it was the structure of a joke.
Lamson: Set-up, punchline.
Joe: So the "are you not entertained?" thing would be a punchline meme. And you put something before that. It would be like... If I was... If it was a stupid news story... oh, you're looking them up now.
Lamson: Sorry. I don't really see anything about the thumbs up, thumbs down one.
Joe: It would be like, talking about something you disagree with, you use this as the structure of the joke, by presenting the opposing viewpoint... okay, say... I dunno, I'm not a meme guy.
Lamson: Okay.
Joe: But it would be the set-up with the thumbs up, and then the dismissal of that statement next to the thumbs down.
Lamson: I'm surprised I haven't seen that before. But yeah, that's such a great part of the movie, where he does the fake out, and then the thumbs down, and the audience reacts. Ah... such a good movie.
Joe: I mean... it inspired two memes!! [laughter]
Lamson: "How do you judge how good a movie is?" "It's based on the number of memes." [laughter] It inspired two memes!
Joe: This was another thing I was explaining to Pam. She was like, "I don't know what this meme is from, so I don't get it."
Lamson: Like, if you've never seen Gladiator, you wouldn't understand.
Joe: No, my point was that, ya know, before I had ever seen Gladiator—
Lamson: You didn't get it.
Joe: No, the opposite! I got it. You don't have to see Gladiator to get the structure of a joke. You see some random fucking dude with a thumbs down, or you see a random fucking Roman dude with his hands out yelling "Aren't you entertained?" and you get what the joke is supposed to be. You don't need to see the movie. If there was a RuPaul's Drag Race meme, I don't need to see RuPaul's Drag Race to be able to get what the meme is.
Lamson: Makes sense.
Joe: I'm discussing comedy with the comedian! I thought you'd have more to say about memes. [laughter]
Lamson: ...
Joe: Note the thirty second pause.
Lamson: I don't know what else to say. I don't like making memes. I like taking memes that have already been made, and forwarding them.
Joe: And let the record show that I fucking hate memes! I hate them.
Lamson: Do you really? Aw, I love memes. Let the record show I love memes.
Joe: Three or four years ago, I was at Jim C****'s house, and him and all the boys were sitting around like, [Jim C**** impression] "Yo, did you see this meme?" "Ha. Yeah. Did you see this meme?" "Ha. Yeah." I was like, "What the fuck are you guys even talking about?!"
Lamson: I think five or six years ago, I liked memes. When I think of memes, I think of the original memes. It was a picture, and a top text and bottom text. For a long time, there was an arsenal of accepted template memes. Baby with the thumbs up, Awkward Brian, there was the stick figure with the hand over his head, Thumbs Up Jesus...
Joe: Douchebag Dan?
Lamson: Oh, Scumbag Steve! Yeah. So you get what I'm saying. There was this arsenal, people would recognize these memes. And then, over the past five years, meme culture has warped into something very absurd, and... what is the word? Kind of dark, and doesn't make sense. Like, you could put a random picture of a stock market, and it'll just say "STONKS" with a picture of a ladybug? There will be twenty thousand likes on Instagram! This type of abstract, absurdist—
Joe: I think you're showing your age, man. All these teenagers are using TikTok, it's some crazy bullshit. They're technically memes.
Lamson: I guess so. And the whole thing is that you don't laugh anymore. The reaction is just audibly exhaling through your nose is a sign that you enjoyed something.
Joe: So is it a generational thing that we would be using Gladiator memes? Are there any Gladiator TikTok memes? [laughter]
Lamson: I guarantee you there is zero Gladiator TikToks. And also, the fact that you said "TikTok memes" is a sign of your age. [laughter]
Joe: I am 31 years old, for the record.
Lamson: There is no such thing as "TikTok memes."
Joe: Yes there is! Bullshit!
Lamson: I think TikToks are separate from memes in the same way MySpace is separate from Facebook. They're all social media, but they're different things. That would be like your dad saying, "Hey, how may twitter xangas do you have?"
Joe: Ah jesus, let's change the subject.
Lamson: Sure, back to Gladiator.
Joe: Alright, so I'm starting this new bit where the person whom I did the last interview with asks a question, blindly, to the next person doing the interview.
Lamson: Oh, great.
Joe: I haven't seen the question yet, but Pam wrote down a question for you about Gladiator. Or maybe not about Gladiator! I don't fucking know.
Lamson: Just a question.
Joe: Just a question. Okay. "Who is your favorite Greek god, and why?"
Lamson: Wow.
Joe: Let's make the note here that this is not a Greek movie, this is a Roman movie. But you should answer the question straight-up. Who is your favorite Greek god, and why?
Lamson: Was Achilles a Greek god?
Joe: Probably.
Lamson: So here's why. Achilles was a man who was dipped into a pool. Either Zeus or somebody else grabbed him by the ankles, and held him upside down, and dunked him into the pool [Editor's note: Thetis did this to him in the River Styx]. The pool made him mostly godlike, except for the fact that he was being held by the ankles. So that's why the Achilles heel is the only part that's vulnerable. I guess that's called a demigod? Anyway, he's my favorite, and I'll tell you exactly why.
Joe: Because you tore your Achilles heel.
Lamson: No, I never did!
Joe: Not even falling off your longboard?
Lamson: Fortunately not. I broke my wrist, I bled out my kneecaps.
Joe: Got MRSA in your dick.
Lamson: Yup, I got dick MRSA. No, I like Achilles... dude, the Gladiator Effect! Do you remember Troy?
Joe: No, I do not.
Lamson: If you liked Gladiator, you would probably like the movie Troy. Within the next month or two, watch Troy. It stars Brad Pitt. How do you feel about Brad Pitt?
Joe: He's fine. He'll be nominated for Best Supporting Actor this year.
Lamson: I fucking love Brad Pitt. Are you talking about Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood?
Joe: Yeah.
Lamson: I just watched that last night.
Joe: Oh yeah! I'm trying to bring this bit back too, the one where we apologize to Drew A*******. Because he doesn't think that Brad Pitt is even going to be nominated. So let's spin the bit and say that we are not apologizing to Drew A*******.
Lamson: I don't have to apologize to him for anything.
Joe: In this specific regard, you are wrong about movies!
Lamson: Drew loves movies, and is very knowledgeable about them, and has a good eye—
Joe: He doesn't know shit about Brad Pitt!
Lamson: I fucking love Brad Pitt. I think he's so cool. He plays the same character, for the most part, in everything he's in. But I fucking love him. He's the star of Troy, he plays Achilles, and he just plays that part so good. And he's [Editor's note: Alright, that's enough, I'm cutting the rest of the extensive Troy plot points]. Dude, at some point, you should watch it.
Joe: I will not.
Lamson: I think you should. If you like Gladiator, you will like Troy.
Joe: If someone's favorite movie is Troy, I will watch it. But otherwise, no. I go to bed at 8 PM! I don't have time to watch movies anymore!
Lamson: Is that your only reason? Do you have any other reservations?
Joe: Well, let's go back to the beginning of this conversation. I'm fucking cynical! I'm a cynical movie watcher.
Lamson: I'll say this, and then we can drop it if you want. In the same way that you thought Gladiator was going to be nothing but a gore-fest, but it had a story that you enjoyed, Troy is very similar, in that you expect it to be nothing but fighting, but it has a really good storyline. It revolves around Helen of Troy, that's part of it. The other part is the backstory of Achilles, and how he became a demigod. Anyway. we can move on.
Joe: Please.
Lamson: [laughter] What a dick!
Joe: No that's Pam's fault. If she had said "Roman god" then we wouldn't have had to talk about goddamn Brad Pitt. But now that we're talking about Brad Pitt, and whether he's going to be nominated this year... let's talk about Oscars. Did Gladiator deserve the Best Picture award?
Lamson: Was it nominated?
Joe: It won.
Lamson: Oh, then yeah. What was it up against? Again, I was nine, I didn't pay attention, I don't know, I don't look back on these things.
Joe: I don't know either, and don't do the phone thing, I'll just put a note here later. [Editor's note: It was Chocolat and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Erin Brockovich and Traffic.] But it won. And obviously, you would make the case that it deserved it, because it is your favorite movie of all time.
Lamson: Uh huh. Frickin love it, dude.
Joe: It won five out of its twelve nominations. It won Best Actor, Best Sound, Best Costume, Best Digital Effects.
Lamson: I agree on all of those.
Joe: It lost Art Direction and Cinematography to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
Lamson: Yeah, because, I mean, it wasn't shot tastefully. It was shot well, but it was more about the acting, the story... When you say it won Best Visual Effects—there was never a moment when where I was like "This looks bad" or "This looks fake."
Joe: I actually disagree with you that there was never a bad-looking moment. There was that effect—
Lamson: The slow motion.
Joe: Yeah.
Lamson: Okay, fair. But that's not—
Joe: I think I read that they fucked up a scene, and they had to use that effect to fix it, and then they retroactively used it for a bunch of other scenes to justify it.
Lamson: Honestly, that makes more sense, which kinda sucks. But ya know what? That kind of adds to it.
Joe: I feel like it dated the movie. It looked like a late '90s movie.
Lamson: I really agree with you on that. If they could have fixed that one thing, and didn't have to recreate that to "cover" it, it would've been a perfect movie. That is my one beef with it, which I forgot, and I'll totally give you that.
[Editor's note: Some clarifications. What we're talking about here is shutter speed. Basically, during these types of scenes, there is a lower framerate, which makes it look choppy (or strobe-like), but doesn't slow it down. Apparently, this movie was inspired to use it by Saving Private Ryan, which also used it. And I may have stretched the truth by saying that it was a "mistake." There was a mistake with one of the shutter speed decisions, but they fixed it in post. Read more about there HERE. I may have just been plain mistaken too, with the "mistake" allegation. I have no clue. In any case, I'll stand by my claim that it makes Gladiator seem dated and it looks shitty.]
Joe: Let's see... it lost Best Original Screenplay to Almost Famous. Which is a good movie.
Lamson: Yeah. And that makes sense, because Gladiator isn't necessarily "original." Roman sword fighting, that's not original. Almost Famous is more unique. I'll give it that.
Joe: Eh, that's pretty much all I need to talk about with that. Oh, um, Best Supporting Actor, lost.
Lamson: Joaquin Phoenix lost?
Joe: Yeah.
Lamson: That's surprising.
Joe: To Benicio Del Toro in Traffic.
Lamson: I've never seen Traffic.
Joe: I've never seen Traffic either, but he was really good in It's Always Sunny as Pappy McPoyle.
Lamson: Wait... I'm looking this up now.
Joe: Don't look it up now.
Lamson: I'll look it up later.
[Editor's note: Maybe he should have looked it up, because then I would have had the big realization a week earlier than I eventually did—Benecio Del Toro and Guillermo Del Toro are completely different people. I have no idea how I went my entire life assuming they were the same person, but that should tell you how far I still need to travel on the road to actually knowing a single goddamn thing about film. P.S. Guillermo Del Toro as Pappy McPoyle is still hilarious.]
Lamson: No, but that's upsetting, because Joaquin Phoenix did so good. Bummer.
Joe: Oh, yeah, I meant to bring this up. For Beerito Christmas Pollyanna, Allison gave me "The Big Movie Quiz." It was a hundred questions for three different categories, one was Comedy—so not Gladiator—but then Action Movies, and Oscar Winners. Out of 200 fucking questions, you'd think Gladiator would be in there. It wasn't!
Lamson: You read through all of the questions?
Joe: I just flipped through it.
Lamson: I guess if you think about it—how many movies exist?
Joe: It was a big Oscar winner though! I dunno. Also, I guess the question would've been something like "What 2000 movie starred Joaquin Phoenix?" Okay, I'm just going through my notes here. So have we gotten around to why this is your favorite movie? Do you have a specific reason? Or did we touch on it, for the most part?
Lamson: I feel like maybe we've grazed it in a couple ways.
Joe: Let's solidify it.
Lamson: I watched this movie for the first time when I was nine or ten. It's stayed my favorite for all these years, because when I first watched it, there were a lot of things that made sense and hit hard.
Joe: Like what?
Lamson: A lot of the things at the time I didn't realize? One thing, when I was a kid, I would watch movies like Gladiator, or Lord of the Rings, or medieval war movies, and I would think, "There's no way I could ever be a soldier." When I was a kid, that terrified me. So I admired that. I admired people who had the ability to suppress fear and move forward without it, being able to go into battles. That was cool and admirable and noble. Beyond that, I think the fact that my Dad thought it was such a good movie, I took his opinion away from that. I thought the fight scenes were so cool, I was like, "This is a cool movie!" And I think also because of the fact that there were intricate interpersonal relationship sideplots—like with Commodus and his sister, like with Maximus and the sister, at the beginning with Maximus and Aurelius—all stuff that I didn't fully grasp yet. The movie was so thoughtful that I wanted to understand it. So I was like, "This movie is good because I don't get it." So I think there's a lot of different areas where I was like, "This is a good movie, it's cool to watch, I don't fully get it yet." Maybe that's why I kept wanting to watch it as I got older. And then probably, you watch it three or four more times, you get older and start to understand things, and it never got bad! Like, I watched Phantom Menace when I was a kid. It was great! But I watch it now, and am like, "This is garbage!"
Joe: It doesn't hold up.
Lamson: Gladiator is one of those movies that, every time I watch it, I'm like, "Oh, it holds up." There are other movies—"I love Gangs of New York!" and "I love Dodgeball!"—but Gladiator had always been number one, and has never been bad.
Joe: Do you watch it nowadays and see yourself in a character?
Lamson: Yeah, I'll project and want to be Maximus.
Joe: Do you relate to Maximus?
Lamson: My initial reaction is no. I want to say yes. Like, "Oh, yeah, I'm noble, and strong, and wise, and good a strategic planner." It's like, I don't fucking know.
Joe: You don't think you're any of those things?
Lamson: Maybe, I don't know. I really don't relate to that.
Joe: Some self-reflection.
Lamson: He's happily married with a wife and a kid, and he's a general in the biggest army in the world, and is able to think his way out of slavery, and I'm just like... fuck. Maybe it's more just from a place of admiration. Maybe the sad thing is I relate more to Commodus? I don't want to, but it's like, "Fuck, maybe I relate more to that guy." He's stuck with a shitty situation, and you try to make the best of it, and you make mistakes. He's too proud. I feel like I don't relate with Commodus that he's so proud that he would kill Maximus. I don't think I would ever do that. [laughter] I relate the most to Lucius, the kid.
Joe: That was—
Lamson: Actually, no. I'm going to take a step back. I think I relate to Commodus' sister the most. What was her name?
Joe: Lucia.
Lamson: Lucia... oh, that makes sense why her son's name is Lucius. I think I relate—and I've never had this thought before, you're putting me on the spot right now—I think I relate to her the most, because of the fact that she's put in this extremely difficult situation, and she doesn't necessarily come out on top, but she does the best that she can given her circumstances, and tries to navigate through it, and is just trying to look out for her and her family. She goes out for what she wants, and she doesn't get it, with Maximus. She's not special.
Joe: So how is this you? I did not expect that answer.
Lamson: Okay, like, people ask me what house I would be in at Hogwarts. I want to say Gryffindor. It's like, well, I'm not! Everybody wants to say they're Gryffindor. Or like, in Star Wars, everyone is like, "I'm Luke Skywalker." It's like, are you? I think I'm good at a lot of things, I think I'm a good person, I don't think I'm a lord general who can trick an emperor, and escape slavery, and... I think of her as somebody who's doing their best to navigate and stay afloat and not drown. She's the most real person.
Joe: I didn't expect to be in this position, that I would be defending you as a person.
Lamson: Did you think I was going to say Maximus?
Joe: I thought you were going to say Maximus. Because I think there are certain similarities you share with Maximus.
Lamson: There's a little bit of everybody. But go on.
Joe: Up at the Poconos during the La Salle Friends trip, you were a good leader, in terms of cultivating your friends' strength, in the crossfit class you ran. You were a crossfit leader, we did a crossfit class. You exhibited leadership in that. You obviously feel that strength is a positive attribute, right?
Lamson: That's fair. Okay. I do enjoy... "being the center of attention" is the wrong phrase, but I do enjoy that. When people look up to me, I enjoy that. Which is also—
Joe: Yeah, but then that's interesting, because that's also a Commodus thing. Because, ya know, he was like, "I need people to appreciate me, so I'm going to have 150 days of parties."
Lamson: Saying "need to" is different than saying I like that.
Joe: I'm saying that Commodus, as a character, needed the appreciation. And we already talked about it, how he was not appreciated by his dad in the way that he wanted to be. He's kind of trying to make up for it, or—what the fuck's the word—compensate for it.
Lamson: Let me try to solidify why I think Lucia is the perfect answer. I think she is a perfect combination of qualities from both Commodus and Maximus. She's in a position of power, being as she is the daughter of Marcus Aurelius, but she's a woman.
Joe: Is she in a place of power? I don't know if I agree with you there.
Lamson: She can influence senators, and garner favors, because she is the daughter of Marcus Aurelius, and the brother of Commodus. But because she's a woman, in that time, she's fighting an uphill battle, because women were not as powerful as men back then. So it's like, she has this status, without having a status, so she has to get creative and navigate.
Joe: It seems like you're describing a Slytherin.
Lamson: I would say Commodus is a Slytherin. I would say Lucia is a Ravenclaw.
Joe: I dunno.
Lamson: You would agree that Commodus is clearly a Slytherin, though? Out of the four houses. Or would you say something else?
Joe: He's not cunning. His weaknesses are on his fucking sleeve.
Lamson: But then what would he be?
Joe: I dunno. Maybe that's just the weakness of the four-house system.
Lamson: Anyway.
Joe: But okay, so I guess Maximus and Commodus are leaders in their own ways. They are leaders in very different ways. Do you see yourself as a leader?
Lamson: Yeah?
Joe: I do too. In what specific ways?
Lamson: I think personally... something I really enjoy is pulling people together. I feel like a lot of people are hesitant to break the threshold. I'm the type of person that, if I'm at a grocery store and I don't know where something is, I'm like, "Hey, you work here? Can you tell me where to go?" Or if I'm lost, I'll roll down my window, "Hey, tell me where to go?" I don't care if I don't know you, let's make the connection and move on. So in terms of, ya know... you could think back to college, when we were at parties, I'm always like, let's get everyone in a room together, and let's just fucking go. Let's have fun and have a good time. I'm the type of person who really enjoys bringing people together. And I think a big weakness of mine can be thinking beyond that. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. But it's like, listen, I get excited about things, and when I get really excited about something, it's genuine. That genuine excitement pulls people in. I think people sniff out fakeness, and people are drawn toward meaningful and genuine intention. I feel like I exude that. If I like something, I'm an evangelist for that thing. And people are drawn to that, and I think that's a huge quality of mine.
Joe: I'm glad we're headed in this direction, but it's something that I find so interesting about you, and about our relationship, I guess, between me and you. You are absolutely correct in that you pull people together. And sometimes... I don't want to say that that's a bad thing, but sometimes, my own...
Lamson: If you're afraid of hurting me, say whatever you want.
Joe: No, no, not at all. I guess I just feel like that exposes my own flaws as a person, sometimes. Let me think of an example. So, you definitely bring people together, you're definitely a leader in that way. That's awesome. But then in the act of bringing people together, it sometimes rubs me the wrong way. Like, okay, remember that time that you brought a bunch of kids to the Maeve Rave [a La Salle party]? It was like, "Oh yeah, I'll pay their five bucks later." And to me, that was like, I know Lamson is never going to pay me those five bucks. These kids have to pay me the five dollars, or get the fuck out of my house! [laughter] Or, like... and then also, on top of all this, this is definitely making me sound like an asshole.
Lamson: No, for the record, not paying five dollars is a big fucking flaw. I'll take the heat on that.
Joe: But let's go to a couple months ago. Let's go to the Poconos trip. The leadership role that you took on to organize Garyball—which, I guess I'll have to make an editor's note about what Garyball is [Editor's note: a drinking game, I'll explain some other time]—Garyball requires chugging some beers. It was right when me and Pam and Willow got there. You organized the game, got a bunch of Hamm's from my cooler, that I had rationed out for the whole weekend. So this is good, this is what you needed through the leadership role, in that you needed cheap beer, but then it was... they're taking my fucking Hamm's! Ya know?
Lamson: That goes right back to what I said about not thinking past it to that next step. It's like, in my mind, we're all going to have a bunch of cases of beer, if we run out and get some more beer.
Joe: Right, and I get it, I get it.
Lamson: But I didn't think, "Oh, you brought this, this is for you, should I ask permission, should I ask if it's okay with you?" So that's just not even being practical.
Joe: But then it turns into me, three fucking months later, talking on record about you stole a 47 cent beer from me. I feel like the asshole!
Lamson: Ah man... I'm sorry. [laughter]
Joe: Don't be sorry, that wasn't the point. So... fifteen years ago, I got my Eagle Scout honors, and Ed McG****'s dad, who was our scoutmaster, had to give a speech. He said that the quality that he sees most in me is "leadership," but he warns me—the leadership can be good or bad. You can misuse your leadership, I guess. Which... has haunted me, I guess. I've lead people to do stupid shit. I'm definitely not... definitely, definitely not trying to say that you've been a bad leader. I dunno. I dunno. I'm fucking drunk, man.
Lamson: I wanna throw a comment out there. A lot of these things are... I feel like it's weird that we're doing this in the context of—
Joe: Of Gladiator? [laughter]
Lamson: I feel like we're both saying some serious truths through the venue of this. I think it's funny, man. To hear you say these things like "I see you as a leader," it feels really good. And also, it's interesting, because I've always held you in high status, seen you as a leader, and your opinions and thoughts have had high value for me. I feel like any time I let you down or don't have your approval on something, it weighs heavy on me. So it's weird to me when you're like "Aw, I'm a bad leader," that's just interesting to hear you say.
Joe: I've feel like I've been too hard on you sometimes.
Lamson: I dunno. I think we're all pretty thick-skinned. I think that's just the nature of our friend group. So maybe. I don't think you've ever done it if you thought I couldn't handle it.
Joe: I just... I dunno. There's a history of you doing little things that piss me off that shouldn't piss me off. It makes me feel worse about myself, because I know that you don't mean to do these things. I know when you—this is so fucking stupid!—I know when you took a Hamm's out of the cooler, I know you didn't mean to piss me off, and I know you didn't mean to slight me in any way. And then when I get pissed off, that's me self-reflecting, like, "How could I possibly be pissed off at somebody taking a 47 cent beer?" It doesn't make any sense. That makes me think that I'm a shitty person.
Lamson: I guess... and I know, the person I am now, and the person I was ten years ago, are very much the same person. I think I've changed a little over the past decade, but I know that I've done things that have pissed some people off.
Joe: But it's stupid bullshit.
Lamson: Either way, any time you have a thought like that, I wish you would just be vocal about it.
Joe: Well, I do.
Lamson: Fair. Maybe that's on me for not recognizing it, then.
Joe: But, ya know, you're walking a tightrope, because when I say, "Oh, they're using my Hamm's for Garyball," then it becomes, "You know I needed to use these for the whole weekend, right?" and then it becomes, "But did I really need to use them?"
Lamson: "Let's just go buy some more."
Joe: Right. And then what, am I going to Venmo charge you a dollar fifteen?
Lamson: I would have been more than happy to buy you a case the next day. You didn't ask me to.
Joe: Exactly, because that's me. I'm holding it in.
Lamson: Sorry man.
Joe: No, you don't have to be sorry. Who am I in Gladiator? Give me your worst.
Lamson: [laughter] One of the senators.
Joe: Yeah, a shitbag senator who doesn't say shit!
Lamson: No, there's the good one. Graccus? You're Graccus. He's the good one!
Joe: I'm a Commodus, man. I'm a Commodus.
Lamson: You're not Commodus, dude. I don't think you're Commodus.
Joe: Was I too harsh?
Lamson: Not at all. I think this brought us closer together, actually.
Joe: Any negative thought I've thought about you, I've always come back around and said, "This is on me, this is not on Lamson."
Lamson: Man... it sounds like you've had a lot of negative thoughts about me.
Joe: No. It's always petty bullshit.
Lamson: I'm sorry.
Joe: Stop. C'mon, stop. This is insane.
Lamson: So... who are you in Gladiator?
[laughter]
Joe: Oliver Reed, who fucking died.
Lamson: Who is that?
Joe: Proximo.
Lamson: No, who would be Proximo?
Joe: Oh, are we going to cast our friends?
Lamson: Sure.
Joe: Nah... let's make the readers cast their friends in the comments.
Lamson: Here's a fun little thing, a little trinket. It's so fucking stupid, don't even add it. But I'll tell you! When I first graduated college, and I lived with Drew A******, and we did catering for a few months, and that sucked, so I moved back in with my parents, before I moved to Chicago. When I lived with my parents, I worked at a Chili's for a while.
Joe: I remember that!
Lamson: Four months. When I was working at Chili's, we had this whole bit that the only way to get good tips was to "win" that table, to get them to like you. Me and my Dad had watched Gladiator around then. There's the quote that goes [Proximo voice] "Win the crowd!" My Mom started saying that any time I would go to work, she would say "Win the crowd!" so I could get good tips that night.
Joe: Did it work?
Lamson: Yeah, I would walk up to tables, and just try to be fun and weird and shit, and...
Joe: And they wouldn't say anything, and you'd be like "Are you not entertained?!" [laughter]
Lamson: Yeah. "Welcome to Chili's, motherfuckers!"
Joe: What would be a Chili's cocktail based on Gladiator?
Lamson: Shit, dude.
Joe: Commo-Dos Equis?
Lamson: Maxi-margarita?
Joe: Proxi-mojito?
Lamson: There ya go. That's where you end the interview.
