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Ira and Louis discuss Beyoncé’s impending album Cowboy Carter and other artists who’ve shifted genres, nun horror flick Immaculate and other nun-related films, the Chateau Marmont, 2024 bingo cards, and responses to Kate Middleton’s announcement. The Veronicas join to discuss their new album Gothic Summer, their film influences, and more.

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TRANSCRIPT

 

<AD>

 

Ira Madison III And we are back with an all new episode of Keep It. I’m Ira Madison the third, and I am here in the studio with my sister, my coworker.

 

Louis Virtel It’s such a throwback. I’m Louis Virtel here, feeling like it’s 2019. This is an old style Keep It for those who have been around since the beginning.

 

Ira Madison III Quibi is around. It’s downstairs.

 

Louis Virtel Once upon a time, you would walk into this building and there would be Quibi nearby and you’d be like, oh, I wonder what? That’s the future. I wonder what they’re cooking up this week? And it turns up they were cooking up bankruptcy.

 

Ira Madison III Someone was making a joke about Quibi at a party the other night? And I was like, first of all, I got a really good check from Quibi.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, that’s right, you worked for them. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Nicki Fresh.

 

Louis Virtel Yes.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Nicole Richie.

 

Louis Virtel Which Nikki wasn’t, they canceled that right quick.

 

Ira Madison III They canceled all of them, though.

 

Louis Virtel That’s true. Yeah. Everything lasted literally 15 minutes. Actually. The app set out to do what it did, and.

 

Ira Madison III I think they’re all somewhere else because someone told me they saw that show, but they said they didn’t see it on Quibi.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, okay.

 

Ira Madison III So I think they’re all on Roku.

 

Louis Virtel Got it.

 

Ira Madison III There we go.

 

Louis Virtel Okay. I remember every once in a while someone be like, oh, I have a Roku stick. I’ll go and watch that, will you? I don’t know, yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Anyway, I am in LA because I’m getting an award this evening.

 

Louis Virtel I hope it’s not a trap, but.

 

Ira Madison III I’m getting arrested.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, okay.

 

Ira Madison III Now I’m getting an Ambie, which is. I’m sorry. Emmys. Shout out to them, but I’ve been googling, like, all week what Ambie stands for, and I don’t think it stands for anything.

 

Louis Virtel It’s about podcasting, right?

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, it is about podcasting.

 

Louis Virtel Now, correct me if I’m wrong. None of those letters are P.

 

Ira Madison III No, no, you know, but maybe it rhymes with I don’t know.

 

Louis Virtel Okay. Rhymes with Bambi. Love him.

 

Ira Madison III Audio music, books, ideas, education.

 

Louis Virtel And allies.

 

Ira Madison III Say that. Yeah. But no, I’ve got a an audio impact award, so thank you, Ambies. And Malcolm Gladwell was also being honored. So obviously we’re on the same plane here and Trixie Mattel is hosting. I don’t know what’s going on at this awards now.

 

Louis Virtel All right. If you get her info glam that means some money went into it.

 

Ira Madison III John Lovett will also be there because it’s his first nomination for Best Comedy Podcast. We’ve never been nominated for this award, by the way. But he’s getting nominated.

 

Louis Virtel But you get an impact award. Okay.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel One day we’ll get into the comedy sphere. I don’t know, laughs will be generated somehow. We’ll have a meeting, we’ll figure it out.

 

Ira Madison III You know, I had plenty of laughs. I was tell you to today. Last night I went to the Chateau Marmont. I was being very LA.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. Being somebody’s dad, wanting to see whatever Seth Green out in the wild.

 

Ira Madison III Actually. So I was having drinks with our producers, Kendra and Chris.

 

Louis Virtel Yes, we enjoyed it.

 

Ira Madison III And I was supposed to have drinks, Harlow with friends. And then I ran into the problem that I forgot LA has. Why is every restaurant here closed on Monday and Tuesday?

 

Louis Virtel Oh, yeah. No, the the restaurant right next to my house, like, is open like three days a week, like it’s a miniature golf course or something.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. So that was close. I also really wanted to go to this new place called Holy Water, which is next to Nora.

 

Louis Virtel Not named after the Madonna song from Rebel Heart.

 

Ira Madison III No. Okay. I do love that song about.

 

Louis Virtel Love Is Strong.

 

Ira Madison III There’s that’s like one of four good songs on that album.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, there’s definitely for good songs. I just don’t know why that’s one of them.

 

Ira Madison III It’s this new place. I just like Woody Harrelson.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, okay.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel So, On a Good day is probably a fun hangout. And other days I don’t want to hear his ideas.

 

Ira Madison III We ended up going to the chateau, because I was like, this is tacky. Let’s go. It’s fun. And everyone was there. So I was like, okay, so the girls are still going to The Chateau.

 

Louis Virtel Which is shocking. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III I run into Chloe Sevigny.

 

Louis Virtel Which a rare LA sighting. This should be my life. And yet it is yours.

 

Ira Madison III Also, I did that weird thing with a celebrity where you see them and then you smile at them because it’s like you sort of feel like you know them.

 

Louis Virtel Right.

 

Ira Madison III And she she was with her side and like gave me this look like, let me get my child and run away from you. Mostly because I’ve met her brother, but I’m like, what are you supposed to say? Like when she’s in a hotel lobby with her child.

 

Louis Virtel Right.

 

Ira Madison III I know your brother.

 

Louis Virtel Right? Oh, yeah. You’re one of the swans.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, I was I ran into Alice Eddleman there.

 

Louis Virtel Whom we love. Keep It alum.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. I ran into, Katherine Newton.

 

Louis Virtel Lisa Frankenstein zone.

 

Ira Madison III Yes. Okay. I will apologize to Catherine Newton on this podcast, because when she first walked out, I was like. I was working with Sabrina Carpenter, and she was kind of a.

 

Louis Virtel Category of young stars that happens that all kind of belong facially to each other. Thomasin McKenzie is in this world. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III There were also with Zelda Williams.

 

Louis Virtel Director of Lisa Frankenstein, daughter of Robin Williams.

 

Ira Madison III Who is very chic like dark energy, but she’s not. She she was dressed.

 

Louis Virtel Just like me.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel You know.

 

Ira Madison III You’re like Lilith Fair energy.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, well, excuse me, I think the Venn diagram is, you know, a circle.

 

Ira Madison III I’m saying this in, like, in a compliment. She was dressed so chic, like she was dressed like blue from tailspin.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, wow. An adventurer.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Okay. Like and like like pilot coat. Yeah. Yeah. Suit look very hot.

 

Louis Virtel An aviatrix.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. And then who else ambles out? But Casey Afleck.

 

Louis Virtel We got to put our best actor winner somewhere.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel And today it was the Chateau Marmont. Fine actor.

 

Ira Madison III Amazing actor. Actually, I wish he would go back to that. Yeah, actually, he was in Oppenheimer.

 

Louis Virtel Right.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel But again, who wasn’t?

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel If you were, if you were a worn down looking man, you had to be an Oppenheimer. It’s like how we used to put them all in Westerns. You got to be at Oppenheimer now.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. So those were my L.A. adventure.

 

Louis Virtel Honestly, that’s a lot for a fucking Monday. You did pretty well.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Thank you.

 

Louis Virtel Which is crazy, because I’m going to New York tonight.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel For the rest of the week. And I organize my New York trips around seeing plays. So I’ll be seeing Cole Escola’s Oh, Mary! Cole Escola plays Mary Todd Lincoln, which, by the way, is a hilarious reference anyway. Like what? But I have a friend who’s going through it. I’ll be like, He’s Mary Todd Lincoln crazy right now. And apparently it’s a, a very farcical movie. Conrad. Ricamora, who is in Fire Island, he’s also in it. The.

 

Ira Madison III Star, by the way, aside from called, you know, James Skully, also JamesScully is amazing, the whole cast is really fucking funny, but Conrad is like, Conrad is so hot. He’s always gorgeous.

 

Ira Madison III Like.

 

Louis Virtel Very appealing. Yeah, yeah. I want to say about Cole Escola, I’m so glad that this play is catching on, because Cole Escola is one of the wilder people to exist in terms of any comedy. It’s sort of like if Amy Sedaris was multiplied by queerness. I mean, you know, so it’s already weird, and you’re getting to this other place. I remember Cole Escola one time talking about how they purchased an old actual dress that Olivia de Havilland wore to the Oscars or something in the 1980s. So it’s this. So in the 1980s, Olivia de Havilland is already old. It’s like, so it’s granny wear that Cole somehow came across. It’s just so amazing. I’m so psyched to see it. And I’m also seeing the Sarah Paulson play appropriate or is it appropriate?

 

Ira Madison III I don’t know because I haven’t seen it yet. Okay, but it is a Brandon Jacob Jenkins play. You know, he wrote, The Octoroon. So, it could be appropriate. I don’t know, I have I that one is on my list to see. It was just extended. So.

 

Louis Virtel All I know is she’s not going to be performing on stage in any way that Holland Taylor would say is less than an A-plus. So I, I know she’s there taking notes.

 

Ira Madison III To wrap that up and connect it to appropriate or appropriate. How do you pronounce Rihanna’s album? Someone asked me this recently.

 

Louis Virtel Oh Oh Oh. Anti.

 

Ira Madison III Okay. You’re right. Yeah. It’s Anti. Someone was someone like a friend sent me a text. I was like, I’m having a hot debate. Is it anti or anti? And I was like, I remember this this interview that she did with the paparazzi. She was like anti like anti everything. And I’m like okay Rihanna.

 

Louis Virtel I feel like if you’re talking about just the prefix it’s anti. Yeah. Like antithesis. There’s different ways to pronounce it when it’s connected to words. But I would say anti is correct. Okay. What’s happening on the show today?

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. So first of all we have the Veronica’s as a guest.

 

Louis Virtel I first of all instantly transported back to college where I am listening to only The Veronicas wearing exactly a purple American Apparel hoodie. I wish I still had that hoodie. It felt great, but their music is so consistent and their new album is fabulous.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, listen, they’ve been untouched by us for so long. Another here.

 

Louis Virtel Got it.

 

Ira Madison III And also, we are going to talk about music genre specifically because Cowboy Carter is coming.

 

Louis Virtel And we’ll talk about how optimistic we are about Cowboy Carter.

 

Ira Madison III I am actually very optimistic to be honest.

 

Louis Virtel Okay. You’re going to have to defend that. It’s going to be exciting.

 

Ira Madison III Yes. Imagine me not being optimistic for Beyoncé album.

 

Louis Virtel Well, you do it out of fear, right?

 

Ira Madison III That’s like you not being optimistic for, I don’t know, Amy. Man’s a line of teabags.

 

Louis Virtel Ding! Yes! No, we said it.

 

Ira Madison III You stay in a Teavana.

 

Louis Virtel She would have an album called Earl gray.

 

Speaker 4 Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Also, the hot new movie everybody is talking about is Immaculate.

 

Louis Virtel Yes.

 

Ira Madison III So we’re going to talk about nuns in movies.

 

Louis Virtel Which it turns out is fascinating. And there are so many tropes associated with nuns in movies. And we’ll figure out why we’re so, enamored of their lifestyle, shall we say?

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. And why are the best nuns in any movie that one seen in Charlie’s Angels?

 

Louis Virtel Yes. Wow. Yeah, they did a lot there.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. All right. We will be back with more. Keep It.

 

<AD>.

 

Ira Madison III It’s Cowboy Carter Week. And to quote Queen B herself. This ain’t a country album. This is a Beyoncé album.

 

Louis Virtel Technically true. I mean, nobody was questioning that. I don’t know why that needed to be established.

 

Ira Madison III This ain’t a country album. This is a Ladysmith Black Mambazo album.

 

Louis Virtel We’re going back to Graceland with the outside.

 

Ira Madison III Either way, it’s still a genre shift for an iconic artist. So to celebrate, we’re going to run through some of our favorite musicians who have made genre shifts in their careers.

 

Louis Virtel I think it’s hard to categorize this because the fact matter is, if a genre shift is successful, you don’t even think of it as a shift. You know, it’s so organic to them that it just works. I think the greatest genre shift of all time is the BGS going into disco. Like, now that you have to explain to people that they were basically folk artists and that they’re at the beginning of their career with songs like Massachusetts, they existed alongside like The Mamas and the Papas, but that’s something you have to, like, explain to people. It doesn’t seem rational anymore. How pissed would you have been to be a disco artist alongside the BGS, as they just come up and decide to be the best at it? I mean, that must have been so wild.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, I mean, Saturday Night Fever is still you throw that on. That’s like the most iconic like disco album you’ve heard.

 

Louis Virtel And then also it’s like, let’s say you’re not super enamored of these three fluffy white men singing disco. Then they interspersed a couple other artists too. It’s a soundtrack, so you can just put that on and, enjoy that. But I mean, like, once they appear and like, Jive talkin then into the main tracks on that album, like, Stayin Alive, You should be dancing Night Fever, I just like, how did they get all of this in one album? It’s it feels like you would have to spend 30 years to construct all of that.

 

Ira Madison III Well, you know, that’s when people made albums.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, right. Now it feels like we get five albums a year, but there are 700,000 releases a year.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. I actually didn’t even know that about the Beatles until I saw that documentary. Yeah, which is amazing, by the way. It’s like one of the few good music documentaries that have come out the past few years.

 

Louis Virtel And as Trace Lysette reminded us, Lorene Scafaria is doing a BGS biopic sometime in the future.

 

Ira Madison III And that I’m excited for.

 

Louis Virtel I because we don’t have the casting on that yet, as far as I know. I’m very curious. I wonder what they’ll do.

 

Ira Madison III You think Justin trying to get in there?

 

Louis Virtel You fucking know he is. Okay, well, I was excited cuz they were having fun. And then you said Justin Timberlake is going to be in the BGS biopic.

 

Ira Madison III Look at my SNL take. You know, he did a genre shift into bad music. But

 

Louis Virtel Genre bad.

 

Ira Madison III I like I let.

 

Louis Virtel You go to Best Buy, let me go to the bad.

 

Ira Madison III Section. We talked about it last week, where I like the album. Yeah, but he did his whole country share. See, that’s that’s the thing about the country shifts, because for a lot of people, it feels like they’re, I don’t know, like getting to their roots or something like country. I always feels like the roots, you know.

 

Louis Virtel Unless, of course, you’re Lady Gaga, in which place you did country to prove you can do it or to prove you can sound like pink, weirdly.

 

Ira Madison III I think she did not like that in high.

 

Louis Virtel Right.

 

Ira Madison III I you think I think this was I think this was some like Beyoncé is Cowboy Carter is getting revenge on the CMAs and the people who are racist towards her. I think she had a bone to pick with Joanne and her mom and and dad, like open in that restaurant, Joanne’s Trattoria. She was like, I’m tired of hearing about this bitch.

 

Louis Virtel So I’m going to make music that is the worst of mine to sabotage her. It’s always 40 chests with her, which, by the way. Okay, I’m sorry to indulge this. What did you think of Azealia Banks is rant about Cowboy Carter? Did you think about it?

 

Ira Madison III Now, Are you trying to get me killed?

 

Louis Virtel Oh, sure.

 

Ira Madison III Okay. As you know, I do love Azealia Banks. You know, even though, as I’ve mentioned before, she did say that podcasts are the brokest form of media and my.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, it’s not the richest.

 

Ira Madison III Yes, in my DMs, I am so sad that the argument that I had with her was not public.

 

Louis Virtel But how did that happen?

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, I’m not in the Wikipedia list of beefs.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, I see. What!

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, I hope I screenshotted that I should post it someday.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, well, for the good now it can be vintage. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Vintage fight. No, I am always willing to entertain a critique of Beyonce. And I always love, Azalia’s cultural critiques. Honestly. You know, she should have a podcast. To be honest.

 

Louis Virtel If, if anyone was podcast worthy, it is. This person will.

 

Ira Madison III Be listening to it. Okay. She like she could revive Pitchfork.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. No. By the way, she can turn ten words into 5000 also, which is what a podcast is.

 

Ira Madison III Okay, she could get them out of the 9/11 rubble. Bring them back. That’s a reference to a hostage tweet. But my whole thing of when that came out, I was like, none of us have heard the album, right? It’s the everyone has been jumping to do a quick like, we’re talking about Cowboy Carter, like we’re critiquing like Beyonce’s intent or whatever. I mean, you’ve heard two songs, right?

 

Louis Virtel This critique that she put out, she was saying that it was inspired by either some random white person criticizing her or something, and that she made this album in response to that. And she criticized the iconography. The. Album cover of Cowboy Carter and what it stands for. And then she did say something I thought was interesting, which is that Beyoncé deserved a rock vocal Grammy for.

 

Ira Madison III Sugar Mama.

 

Louis Virtel Sugar Mama from B-day, right.

 

Ira Madison III Always agree with that bitch.

 

Louis Virtel Sorry, sorry to be. This is like the least interesting part of what I was talking about. Would you call that a rock vocal?

 

Speaker 4 I would, you would?

 

Louis Virtel Okay, I would.

 

Ira Madison III Sugar man like.

 

Louis Virtel It sounds too much like one thing by Amerie to me. Which baby. That’s rock.

 

Ira Madison III Is it? No. Isn’t that, Crazy In Love?

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, I guess.

 

Ira Madison III I don’t know, it feels downhome. You know, they’re singing that in The Best Little Whorehouse.

 

Louis Virtel Sure.

 

Ira Madison III Those are the sugar mamas. But we’re paying for that song so much. It’s actually my favorite Beyonce song. It’s.

 

Louis Virtel Really?

 

Ira Madison III Yes. My favorite. Hands down.

 

Louis Virtel Not Get Me Bodied?

 

Ira Madison III No. It’s Sugar Mama.

 

Louis Virtel Okay.

 

Ira Madison III It always has been. And it’s also, there’s this funny thing online recently where people were discussing, how B-Day is Beyonce’s loudest album.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, Ring The Alarm.

 

Ira Madison III Yes. They say that every.

 

Louis Virtel Deja vu is screamed at.

 

Ira Madison III You. They said that entire album is in capitals. When you listen to that song, it’s like, yeah, ring the alarm. She’s screaming the end. The sugar mama. Like she’s just screaming. Yes. And like, sit on mama’s lap and. Yeah. Freak Em Dress. You’re Holding Up Traffic. Green Means Go like she’s just screaming the entire album. Now that’s great.

 

Louis Virtel In retrospect, maybe all the albums that followed are just her being like, let me settle down like this vocal rest compared to that album.

 

Ira Madison III She was also on one in that performance era, and so I’m excited for the country album, but I’m more excited for the rumored rock album because when she was performing, like even Deja Vu on The Tyra Show that era, Beyoncé was, she was giving so much on stage. Convulsive? Yes, yes.

 

Louis Virtel Nina.

 

Ira Madison III Turner ask, you know, like that was the rock era.

 

Louis Virtel So we’ll get Madonna out of the way quickly. What’s interesting is for all of her reinventions, there really wasn’t much in the way of a genre shift like it was off some version of pop, but I think my favorite of hers would be Bedtime Story. I like the way that we love Body Language by Kylie, where it’s. I would never have thought R&B were a natural fit for either of these people, and then it turned out to really suit their, shall we say, chill vocal.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. You know, Bedtime Stories is like my favorite. And I love she’s done so many almost genre shifts. Like you would almost think that Don’t Tell Me was like a whole country era, but it wasn’t right.

 

Louis Virtel Well, it’s also kind of like obviously there was the country art on that album, but like, not much on that album is truly like country troubadour shit. Like I Deserve It sounds a little bit like that, but for the rest of it is like a continuation of Ray Of Light. I would say.

 

Ira Madison III That almost outsold kind of all over the place.

 

Louis Virtel Yes.

 

Ira Madison III Because you go from like music to Don’t Tell Me. And then I’m like, what else is going on that.

 

Louis Virtel I know, like that country ish ballad gone at the End or Paradise Not for me, which is like electronic. She was merging a bunch of styles, not my fave.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Speaking of another blond chanteuse, there’s Gwen Stefani, who was rock and like, you know, punk as I was sort of like scar.

 

Louis Virtel We’re also her number one favorite genre shift is race. No, she’s a Native American.

 

Ira Madison III That was in, looking hot video. Yeah, I’m no doubt.

 

Louis Virtel I also forget that in the mid 90s, she straight up had a bindi. Yeah, right. Not right, not rainbow. Didn’t. I guess the answer is everybody had a.

 

Ira Madison III I had a bindi on and Tamagotchi.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III She went straight into pop, which is, it’s actually so wild to try and are like a Gen Z person. That this version, of Gwen Stefani existed before because, you know, No Doubt is playing Coachella. And I think a lot of people are going to be like, oh, what are these songs.

 

Louis Virtel Right? No, I mean, they’re really old. They’re all these now, these are like 30 years old songs, but, I it it it’s interesting only because once she went pop, it felt so inevitable. Like you knew she would never return to something resembling rock again. Like even her subsequent No Doubt releases like Push and Shove, like, that’s not rock music. No, not that they were ever purely rock and divorced from pop, but they were never going to go back to that.

 

Ira Madison III I mean, she told you what she wanted, you know.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III She just she wants to be married. She wants to be a wife.

 

Louis Virtel Yes.

 

Ira Madison III She don’t want to be doing push ups on the stage.

 

Louis Virtel Yes. Which are fine era. But it’s like once upon a time you would have considered them contemporaries to, I don’t know, Green Day. And then, I mean, she went away.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. There were that whole Lollapalooza era, you know. But now they’re not anymore.

 

Louis Virtel I think we can safely say that some of the best and worst genre shifts in music come from people attempting disco.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel And if you have not checked out Karen Carpenter’s shelved disco album, there is one song that is fucking amazing which is called My Body Keeps Changing My Mind, okay? And they they shelved it because they thought it was not in fitting with, you know, her image of being an adult contemporary queen. But a song was written. For that album that I think she must have recorded, but. Oh no, no, she turned it down. Rock with You by Michael Jackson was written for Karen Carpenter. Oh how crazy. When you listen to the album, it’s not that surprising because it’s like a chill, dancey vibe as that song is. But for Michael Jackson, obviously that’s more of a one of one of the lighter tracks on a harder dance album. Off the Wall.

 

Ira Madison III Cookout music.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. Precisely.

 

Ira Madison III You’re not invited, but.

 

Louis Virtel Karen. Karen. Karen it is, let’s talk about Karen Carpenter’s potato salad. If you could take ingredients out of plain water, it would be that.

 

Ira Madison III She has the vibe of, like, you know, nice white teacher, who lends me, my favorite book in middle school. Yes.

 

Louis Virtel Right. Yeah. How nice of you. Yeah, that’s exactly what she has.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Who else has gone disco?

 

Louis Virtel Barbra Streisand, of course.

 

Ira Madison III Okay, that worked though.

 

Louis Virtel Well, it’s like, well, when you can sing fucking anything. Yeah. And then you have Donna Summer, the other person who can sing anything. That song is fantastic.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Enough is enough. Yeah, obviously.

 

Louis Virtel And then it feels like cocaine is being invented there. I don’t, I don’t I know that it existed before, but the levels they’re going to are jazzed up.

 

Ira Madison III Would you qualify Guilty as disco?

 

Louis Virtel In the way that I would say Karen Carpenter solo album is disco? I would concur. Definitely has, Barry Gibb on it.

 

Ira Madison III It’s it’s easy listening.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Which is. Which is weird. It’s like to say like that because. Because, like easy listening. Obvious like, is the station. But it’s weird when you hear music that is easy listening. I would classify, like, the Backstreet Boys as easy listening.

 

Louis Virtel Right. Also, that’s, Guilty is something that would, I think, ordinarily be called yacht rock, except a woman is singing on it, which I feel like women don’t get to be yacht rock, generally speaking.

 

Ira Madison III Women are  on yachts, I always have bitches on my yachts.

 

Louis Virtel As a rule.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. So, bitches and dollars.

 

Affirmative action for you. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III A lot of people have, you know, who should have done a disco shift. Christina Aguilera, do you remember the Get Down Baz Lurhman show?

 

Louis Virtel Oh, it’s like the most expensive show of all time or something.

 

Ira Madison III Christina Aguilera has a song on it that Nile Rodgers wrote. That song is amazing. And I’m like, why don’t you go in a disco? But honestly, she’s a person who has so many genres that I felt like she could have gone into, but did it because she has such an amazing voice, but she loves to caterwauling.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. Is the concern that she can’t dance?

 

Ira Madison III Do you have to dance to be a disco artist, though?

 

Louis Virtel Barbra Streisand obviously is not, you know, giving us the, John Travolta on the dance floor.

 

Ira Madison III But, like, you could be a disco artist who moves or there’s very much the vibe is just like you’re a woman disco. And you just sort of like, you know, moving the hands. Well, this is why we men dance around you smart.

 

Louis Virtel This is also, of course, what we love about ABBA, where they sang about dancing, couldn’t dance and compensated by pointing. That’s called a white solution.

 

Ira Madison III Okay, there’s obviously also Taylor Swift, who went from country to pop the opposite.

 

Louis Virtel Yes. And also talk about the most inevitable shift ever. That’s sort of like I mean, I would also compare it to Kacey Musgraves in a way, once you get to a certain level. It would be weird if you only did country. You know what I mean? Just like you’re it’s like the world is begging for your audience to be bigger. It’s like trying to expand.

 

Ira Madison III Now she makes woodland flute music.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. I have to tell you, the album is sinking its leafy tendrils.

 

Ira Madison III And I saw you on Instagram posting about it. I am not listening to that album.

 

Louis Virtel Throw on Jade Green. I know you enjoy a blend from time to time. It’s. I think the lyrics are still maybe her worst ever, but in terms of every once in a while, you do want a vibe. I’m sorry to say that. And it does sufficiently do something.

 

Ira Madison III I do love vibes, you know, but like, there’s a new Empress of album, like that’s what’s right now, right? Right. Tyla’s album’s out. That’s vibes. I’n vibing.

 

Louis Virtel I’m not concerned about it.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, yeah. And the vibrations are good.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. No. Your vibe magazine.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, yeah. oh. Who else?

 

Louis Virtel Obviously we should talk about that time in the early 2000 when a ton of rock artists went and attempted pop, and I think our favorite, if I’m doing a Metacritic, average of our tastes is Garbage.

 

Ira Madison III Yes.

 

Louis Virtel When Garbage did Beautiful Garbage, I think that’s some of their best music.

 

Ira Madison III It is a gorgeous album, and I like, first of all, like, I know Shirley Manson.

 

Louis Virtel Which, how did this happen? I’m just saying. I’m Louis, right? Shirley Manson walks in. Who is she picking to hang out with? You? What?

 

Ira Madison III We have two random connections. One, I feel like my friend Sean Connelly, like, years ago. Sort of like, knew her. But also, I went to, like, Garbage signings about album signings. And like, I tweeted at.

 

Louis Virtel Her, they don’t have a bad album, by the way. I’m not.

 

Ira Madison III Garbage. Absolutely not. At Twitter her before something but like she is a person who remembers all of her fans like truly. Yeah. Like I was in when I first went to get one of my album signed at like at not Tower Records. Whatever. One in LA that is still open, but it moved.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, amoeba.

 

Ira Madison III Okay. I mean, I went there and she was like, saying hi to like, people in that line who, like, she’s known for years, so wow. She remembers people’s faces. And then also before I’m my old trainer in Los Angeles, she goes to him,.

 

Louis Virtel Got it.

 

Ira Madison III So I went in one.

 

Louis Virtel Like.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, I don’t know. I was like, I am once I’m leaving. And I’m like, wait, is this Shirley Manson coming in? And I walk in and yeah, so we realized we have the same trainer.

 

Louis Virtel Also, That is an amazing skill set. If she really remembers fans that well, especially since there’s something about, women from the 90s really where like, fans connected with them in such a way. I just read a story about how a fan went up to, to Tori Amos and said, your music saved my life. And she said back, no, you saved your life or something. And it was meant to sound supportive. And yet also, I believe that is self-protection, because who needs to hear these stories of treachery from fans who are saved by your. It’s just it’s too much for one person to deal with.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. I mean, I feel like there’s a few people who, like, really remember people. I mean, I feel like I feel like Gaga remembers people.

 

Louis Virtel Probably. Well, I think Taylor Swift is honestly really good at that.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. You know.

 

Louis Virtel I mean, obviously there’s way too many fans.

 

Ira Madison III Well she’s  keeping her file. Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel Some. It’s like The Devil Wears Prada. The two assistants behind her are like writing it down.

 

Ira Madison III She’s tracking them like the X-Men. Okay, there’s there’s, there’s a registry.

 

Louis Virtel The FBI is on the dial. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III And she also has all their Social Security numbers and credit cards. Right. She calls that. She calls them up. I see you did not buy six vinyls last week. What’s going on?

 

Louis Virtel Oh my God. It is. It is weird to think about what she’s aware of and what she isn’t, because she’s got to be a chronically online person in some secretive way, right?

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Okay.

 

Louis Virtel Burner accounts et.

 

Ira Madison III I’m going to get to this in my Keep It. Okay. Which is about Kate Middleton? But I was talking about this yesterday with Kendra, about, you know, like, what people are aware of, right? Yeah. Like, when you think of the Crown and you think of Kate Middleton. Yes. Obviously, in this castle, you know, Princess Peach. Stop. Yeah. What does she watch and what does she consume? And the question is, do people watch whatever she’s going to watch before she watches it?

 

Louis Virtel Oh.

 

Ira Madison III Like she’s like, I want to watch this new Julia Roberts movie. Is it someone’s job to watch the movie first, to make sure that it’s okay for her to watch?

 

Louis Virtel God, that’s a good question. I assume it’s like a case by case basis. Like, some things seem more, problematic up front than you than other things. But you’re a god. I wonder because. Because each individual person in the royal castle is, like, has, like a siloed off team. Yeah. So it’s like they got to be doing something.

 

Ira Madison III And I feel like Harry and Meghan are the only ones who are constantly online. Yeah, yeah. Everyone else, it’s like no phones, no nothing. Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel Kate Middleton simply gorgeous hair. And that video she released though. Yeah I it was like this.

 

Ira Madison III Cecred.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. Yes. It was Dynasty.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. All right. When we are back, we will be joined by the, I mean, iconic Veronicas.

 

Louis Virtel The fabulous Veronicas.

 

Ira Madison III <AD>

 

Ira Madison III You know, our guests from their iconic hits like Untouched and Forever in My Blood. They’re an Australian powerhouse that has captivated audiences worldwide with their distinctive sound, unapologetic lyrics, and mesmerizing presence. And we are thrilled to talk about their really fucking great new album, Gothic Summer. Please welcome to Keep It the amazing, the dazzling Jessica and Lisa of The Veronicas.

 

Jessica Hi, angels.

 

Ira Madison III That’s right. That’s right.

 

Louis Virtel And you just told us you’re in California right now. You’re about to kick off a tour. What’s your history with just being in the LA area? Like you’re from Brisbane. So what? What’s your what’s your take on our side of the universe? Our hemisphere.

 

Jessica Los Angeles is a home away from home for us. We actually moved here when we were 19 years old for the first time from Brisbane. And so it was a very long time ago now. And, we were making some music over here. So for us, it’s like we know it as well as we know Australia. You know, back then it was like Google Maps, you didn’t have a GPS. So I would print out the instructions to go to all of our sessions and we’d drive there. And so I know the streets like the back of my hand.

 

Louis Virtel I you just brought up a memory that is I needed on earth, which is I would print out directions when I moved here in 2009. What could be more harrowing than navigating through LA with just words near you on the passenger side seat? So horrible.

 

Jessica And 100%. And I was like, we are not taking taxis. I’m going to land these streets. And, you know, and then songwriting sessions were anywhere from like, had to learn how to get to Calabasas and then all the way to like, you know, Echo Park. So it was like one end of, of LA to the other. And we love it here. There’s so much energy, there’s so much spirit. It’s, you know, a town of collaboration and, and health food. And, you know, we’ve learned so much growing up here. We did a lot of partying obviously early on in the first like five years of living here because we were from Brisbane. We, you know, hadn’t left Australia really beyond a couple of holidays. So, it was very exciting to be here for the first time and, and sort of growing up and in Los Angeles in our 20s.

 

Ira Madison III You recently had an interview with, Britney Spanos in the Rolling Stone, who I adore. You talked about how this album sort of came as almost a surprise, like you were, you know, just having coffee or you’re like, yeah. The album just sort of like came to you like sort of. What’s it like were you weren’t planning an album, really? And then there’s a spark happens and you’re like, well, I guess we’re doing an album. And now I guess we’re going on tour. When you hadn’t planned it.

 

Lisa So it was it was spontaneous. And for us, we, we’re songwriters first and foremost. So we’re always writing in the studio. We just weren’t necessarily creating music or an album for The Veronicas. So, you know, we went to our friend’s house. His name’s John Feldmann, and he has this home studio in Calabasas, and he works with so many incredible artists. He’s such an artist’s artist, and artist producer that he’s always just got people round meditating, drinking coffee or just, like, chilling out at his place. So, I mean, he invited us around and we went into the studio. He had another friend that, Sierra Denton, who’s an incredible songwriter, and we all decided sort of like talking about, you know, music that we were listening to and loving. And we and we just sort of like jamming some, some ideas. And, by the end of that day, we had perfect and Invisible from Gothic Summer, and we were all very excited about it. And that really spurred the motivation, I suppose, to just create the rest of this record and just sort of, you know, seeing where it went. And it was just. Yeah, it was just a really beautiful energy. It was it was all created in the spirit of having fun and just like true collaboration. And there was no sort of labor, a process. Sometimes it’s a lot of purging or it’s trying to, you know, find inspiration. Whereas this record just came very easily for us. And, yeah, that’s what we spoke to Brittany about, to which she’s amazing. We love chatting to her, about that process. So it was just a really special time. It definitely, it definitely sort of encompassed, you know, a feeling that we had this last year of just these songs.

 

Louis Virtel When I look back through all the songs you’ve done going back to, and I can’t believe how long you’ve been around at this point, because I remember the first time I heard forever, and I can’t believe how long ago that is now, like 17 years ago or something. Anyway.

 

Jessica 20 years next year, anniversary of that release.

 

Louis Virtel Yes, Lord. Something that is uniform about your catalog is you guys have such a sense of, like, rowdiness and fun and humor and everything you do. Like, not every artist, like, gets to be, like, funny while making pop music. How important is it for you to have that kind of lightheartedness, to have a sense of humor in your music that you put out into the world?

 

Jessica I love that you said the humor, because this, this album was, like a dark comedy humor. We’re saying that we write these songs because we, you know, we laugh so we don’t cry, you know? And that is what a gothic summer is to us. It’s just being human, right? Finding the finding the humor, in life and, you know, being able to express that in our sort of, you know, in our tone and our own way. Is very much been the theme for Gothic Summer.

 

Louis Virtel It feels like Australians in general, you would be hard pressed to find an Australian who doesn’t have a bit of a sense of humor, am I wrong?

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Lisa We do love to laugh. We love to laugh at ourselves. It’s a very self-deprecating kind of humor that happens in self-deprecating culture in Australia. It is. So I think that, yeah, Australians love a laugh.

 

Ira Madison III I think going even off of what Louis was saying about, you know, like it’s a he’s 20 years, you know, so it’s forever. And I want to say that anytime I’m at a party, always throwing on untouched lights that will set off any gay party. You’re on Fire Island, you’re at a house party. Like, doesn’t matter where you are. Like people are going to go up for it. And I just wonder, you know, you’re prepared to go on tour again and you have these songs in your catalog that you’ve been performing, you know, for almost 20 years at this point. Do you ever feel like you want to, like, play them differently? Like, how do you keep yourself excited, about music that you’ve just had in your life for years?

 

Jessica I think it’s, you know, the fans that keep us so excited. The reaction to the music, every time we play it, it’s different. And it’s so, you know, it’s so huge. The way that they throw energy at us and sing along and seeing the faces as soon as, like the first few chords start in any of the first, you know, few albums, you know, it’s like they go through this, this very visceral, like feeling of sitting in front of you. So it’s really hard not to just, like, dive into that feeling. Also, when the live shows themselves, it’s it’s when you’re on stage and you’ve got the those the full band. You know, it does take on a whole different energy than just the records. So I think we’ve always prided ourselves on the energy of the live show and how we can translate the songs in kind of different and unique ways. I mean, sometimes we’ll play them even acoustic. Oh, so I have to say, we’ll do them like our live show is very. Yeah, it’s very raw. It’s very rock and roll.

 

Lisa But also like, to be honest, when we’re on stage, we’re not overly conscious. Like as performers you’re sort of like channeling and, and you’re so in it that it’s you’re not on stage having this conscious thought like, oh, I’m so bored singing this song. Like it’s going off into every moment. It’s not for me. It’s not a conscious, headspace to be in. It’s it’s very like, I don’t know. Well, yeah. So it’s almost otherworldly to be on stage and, performing. So I don’t know, I don’t know, it would be bizarre to me if I ever heard a performer say that they were bored on stage or over it, because I feel like that would mean that they’re not quite in the moment. Like, you know, you’re transported to where you were when you were writing it, and it’s a lot of different things that happen. I think when you’re when you’re on stage and you’re almost re-experiencing the music through your audience’s eyes and that sense, you know, and it’s such a blessing where we feel so lucky that, you know, almost 20 years later when we sing that song, everyone is still passionately, if not more passionate at the top of their lungs. They were. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III I need you to play Leave Me Alone. Oh, that’s. That’s my jam. That is my jam. You will see me screaming.

 

Lisa That’s that’s true. Fan. That’s a true fan song, right? That that’s so sweet. We would love to play that live for you. For you.

 

Louis Virtel Here you are also said, in an interview that among your only regrets while making music is when you sort of listen to people at the label more than you listen to your own voice when putting together music. And to me, that says you two generally agree most of the time, what are you likeliest to disagree with one another when it comes to making music?

 

Jessica Well, we don’t, to be honest.

 

Lisa I’ll say I’ve got something for you.

 

Ira Madison III Okay.

 

Lisa I got something. So the only time you’ll see Jess and I creatively disagree is when we love a song so much, we both want to put down the lead vocal. So we will fight over who gets to sing what. But it’s purely. We always say like, that is usually the indication of a really good song, because we both really otherwise would be like, you go in and put that vocal you would sound great on. This part, it’s you, it’s your voice, so you vibe for you. Whereas if we’re fighting over who gets to sing what we’re use and we’re very excited about it, and I think that’s like, that’s like the tick of approval that, okay, this is we got something special here. So it’s usually if we’re not fighting, that is the problem that.

 

Ira Madison III You’ve been said before to, you know what, you are just sort of like thinking about music. You’re always writing music first, whether or not it’s supposed to be a new Veronicas album. I’d be interested to know, you know, what kind of, things you create that don’t end up becoming sort of a Veronicas album. Like, are there certain sounds that you go into the studio or maybe even certain genres that you’ve played in before that aren’t really appropriate for? Like if you put it out as a Veronica album, your fans would be like, okay, this is a genre shift. Like like what other sounds, and things to you to love creating?

 

Lisa We’ve been blessed in The Veronicas, where we’ve been able to channel a lot of different influence. So I actually think, you know, as songwriters first, which we signed a publishing deal at the age of 17. So two years before we ever even, signed a record deal. And so the heart of us are truly songwriters. And in that sense, I think how you produce the song kind of creates the genre almost because the blueprint of The Veronicas sound is our songwriting and our harmonies and our sort of intrinsic connection as sisters, in which we kind of have our own language, I guess, which is the DNA of the blueprint of what we do. And then as far as the way we produce that up. I guess it’s whatever’s really inspiring us at the time. Now, Jesse and I have never really felt like we were stuck to one genre in particular. Like, I guess that’s the true blessing of music and the way we express ourselves as writers as well. I think we could write absolutely anything. And, you know, our fans, the people who love our music, connect with it because it’s authentically us. We draw a lot. I mean, you know, the music that we listen to that’s, you know, people are always like, oh, do you listen to pop music? And we’re like, not anymore. Not really. We’re not listening to the top 40. We’re not really listening to a lot of, mainstream pop stuff. We listen to a lot of blues, we listen to country, we listen to. I listen to a lot of meditation, like Hindu music, pretty much any genre that is doing something different to pop. So I think we do draw inspiration from a lot of different places. That being said, you know, we have I think we are known for, you know, I maybe I, I don’t know, I suppose like the songs that have really connected and hit in, at least in Australia in a big way is the dancefloor anthems. We were very much inspired when we wrote that that era of woke me up. The whole album was very much inspired by that sort of underground electronic electro dance pop scene that was going on. With a lot of cool bands like Shiny Toy Guns and Under the Influence of Giants and all those guys that, you know, I’m not sure a lot of them are even bands anymore. But, at different periods of our lives, the stuff that’s kind of inspiring us is what we tend to create from. And I don’t know that we’ve I’ve been overly conscious or thought that we need to create stuff that we’ve never put ourselves in a box. I guess what I’m saying artistically is our pop baby. Like, it’s our it’s our space to put our, you know, all that creativity to do with pop culture, which is why so much of this new album is social commentary on pop culture. But also so much of this record is crushed across genres, like we have, you know, a punk ska song called Detox  Pop Punk, I guess you call it. And then we have like, you know, a heartfelt, like ballad called Rib Cage. And then there’s your, your, your straight up rock pop stuff like Perfect and Invisible. And then, you know, at the end we’ve got a song called Jungle that is like wild throwback surf guitars and stuff that we grew up with. You know how parents were, my dad was in a band. Our mom was a beach babe of the 60s, that surf culture. So we really drew a lot of the influence from the stuff we grew up listening to, which I would say is nothing like anyone’s ever heard from The Veronicas before. So it was a lot of fun for us to actually inject a lot more of the stuff we love, and that is truly a part of our DNA into, the music.

 

Louis Virtel Also, it must be said, the origin story of the name The Veronicas is one of my favorite band beginnings, which is inspired by the movie Heathers. Yeah. When, somebody asks, are you a heathen? And and Winona Ryder responds, I’m a Veronica. Which to me says, that’s a movie that’s important to you. What other? And also speaks again to the humor of you guys like the kind of the the maudlin quality. What, like movies, like, have stuck with you over the years that you guys, consider most important to you?

 

Jessica Oh, I love that question. There were a lot of 90s films that, you know, definitely impacted and shaped us. The Craft was one came out in 1996.

 

Louis Virtel Please. Yes.

 

Jessica The thing was that cast and the, you know, the whole perspective of just magic and, power and female power was very cool. What else? I mean, there was, we also grew up reading Archie comics, so, you know, it was Betty and.

 

Louis Virtel The other Veronica.

 

Jessica Yes, yes. Which was sort of our our taste into, like, American culture as well. And how cute that was. Like, actually the whole high school, it was just such a it’s so funny because it was such a kind of foreign idea to us in a way, like the diners and the milkshakes, and that 50s kind of feel is so cute.

 

Lisa I mean, the the thing with Veronica is like she embodied as well as Winona Ryder, being Veronica and heavy was headed, very strong headed women. You know, they kind of they may actually be on their own to do, it was the alternative to them, a bit of the rebel. And we always loved that spirit. But like Jesse said, like the 90s was a massive influence on us. So, you know, Courtney Love, Whole. You know that, riot girl movies. You love movies. What movies have influenced you?

 

Jessica I well, I mean, I watch I watch a lot of like, like monsters, right, with goon and. Yeah, like monster movies. Yeah. Creature of the Black Lagoon. Oh, sorry. I mean, like Bela Lugosi’s Dracula.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Jessica Old school, kind of. They were really creepy films. I’m going to be honest. Way more scary than the stuff they make now. But I think there was a lot of mystery about them. That’s what I loved about old cinema is they didn’t show all the gore. It was like it was all in here, you know, that.

 

Lisa There was a lot of Tim Burton stuff, like stuff that felt whimsical and enchanting rather than like horror. I think when we reference gothic culture and we go and we sort of reference like, you know, sort of that kind of cinema, it’s for us it’s the whimsical enchanted stuff. Not not like horror, horror based. It’s like, you see today, we’re actually a bit, too sensitive for a lot of horror films. I can’t watch them, but anything that feels like enchanting and a little bit scary, on an esoteric level, and it’s, you know, I think we love it. Those worlds, those characters. I like them fantastical stuff. Yeah, like the monsters and, you know, like Mancini’s Frankenstein and just stuff where it’s like the monster we were just found it interesting in a lot of those kind of in that cinema where the monster was sort of the outcasts of society, but also the product of the society.

 

Jessica Like the Grinch.

 

Louis Virtel Yes.

 

Jessica Constructing that idea of the villain and and the monsters and how all they want is to be loved. So in a way, I guess that was a huge influence for Gothic Summer. It’s like the shadow part of the human self, like the human experience where all the monsters and we’re all, you know, the God consciousness, it’s it’s what you tap into. And, I think that just that whole, that whole construct is, fascinating to us. And so for Gothic, someone we definitely, you know, just dove into some of those ideas and tried to make it into pop music.

 

Louis Virtel I love that The Veronicas are universal horror queens. Yeah, that’s we love to hear it. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. I mean, you mentioned Whole as well, you know, and we’re I feel like 90s, rockers, female rock bands are like the bat signal to me and movies. Oh, yeah. And you’ve been, you know. Yeah. You don’t ask. We, we we talked about garbage, earlier and.

 

Louis Virtel I have all of those Liz Phair’s albums on vinyl, so. Yes. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III As women who’ve been, in the industry, you know, for over 20 years now, and just are there any sort of, other bands, artists who maybe you’ve performed with or did on the same bill with or something that you feel like you’ve sort of developed maybe a special kinship with, or like you learned something from them early on in your career that you’ve always taken with you.

 

Jessica You know, we grew up when we first moved to Los Angeles, we lived next door pretty much to Katy Perry.

 

Ira Madison III Oh, wow.

 

Jessica So it was really fun because on the weekends our we lived with a million people. It was like this really crazy communal household. And on the weekends, everyone was so in love with music and creativity. We would hold these big nights. Where if you were an artist, you could get up with your acoustic guitar and sing your songs. And so, you know, a house like a house party, but you get about 200, 250 people coming through and.

 

Lisa Just getting up and performing. And so Katy would get up and she would sing her songs on the acoustic guitar and we would get up. And there were so many other amazing artists at the time that would just like wanting to share what they were doing or what they wrote that way, and it was just such a beautiful community that we were welcomed into. From the very beginning of our time here in Los Angeles and, you know, we learned a lot from those people. There’s another guy, Jay Buchanan, would get up. He’s the lead singer of, a band called Rival Sons. And just like incredible artists at their rawest, in their rawest form in that way, like, just them and acoustic their voice and that’s us songs. So with Phoebe Bridges, we would go and watch her play sort of singer songwriter nights in Nashville and then some, some in Los Angeles, and that would be like, you know, 50 people in the room kind of thing. And there’s so many. That’s what’s so beautiful about America is like, there’s so many opportunities or they have to be, I don’t know, it’s different now with the internet. This was again like a little bit pre-internet, the first, you know, from 2005 to 2010. You know, there was so much community going on and, and ways to really just share within that, that artist space. It’s a bit sad now. I think with the rise of the internet, you lose that a little bit. Or maybe there’s other ways to do that online. I think now it’s an online community, that you see that, but there’s nothing like sitting physically in front of an artist, and experiencing that, like, you know, you sort of not like you just feel like, wow, this is so special. I feel like I’m experiencing something that is going to affect me for the rest of my life in a way. And I think that was really a pivotal time for us growing up in the industry. It was the songwriter using these amazing songwriters that were women, that were our age, that were, killing it. And I mean, gone on to do incredible things. So yeah.

 

Louis Virtel Well, the new album is fabulous. Thank you both for joining us, and we’ll be listening to you for the next 20 years and then 20 years beyond that.

 

Jessica Thank you, you love these guys  so much.

 

Ira Madison III <AD>

 

Ira Madison III All right, let’s talk Nun Sense.

 

Louis Virtel Please.

 

Ira Madison III Sydney Sweeney is back. Has the bitch ever left?

 

Louis Virtel I going to say she was here minutes ago.

 

Ira Madison III She’s the only.

 

Louis Virtel Irish. Goodbye.

 

Ira Madison III She’s the only person releasing movies in this quarter.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. No, five in a row.

 

Ira Madison III She’s back as she’s taking a break from the rom coms and deadpan superhero movies to dip her toes into religious horror with her new movie Immaculate, where she plays a nun who, you guessed it, has a seemingly immaculate conception.

 

Louis Virtel I think I would have loved this movie more had I not seen any other movie in my life, because I’m stealing this tape from my friend Jordan, because it’s like they introduce this nunnery or whatever that she’s a part of, and something’s off about it. And so you have to sit there, be like, oh, I wonder if a Suspiria is going on. And that ends up being this, like, the men are running a Rosemary’s Baby operation, and then, oh, now it’s that movie is basically if Mother Mary were a final girl. That’s the pitch. You can picture the pitch meeting, and the movie.

 

Ira Madison III Is a little boring.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, it’s boring too.

 

Louis Virtel It’s boring to.

 

Ira Madison III A lot of the movie to seem very inspired by, like, repulsion. Yeah, yeah. You know, like the hands coming out of the wall grabbing at Catherine Deneuve. Right? That’s mentioned that name and forever on this podcast.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, speaking of throwback, it must be 2019. No, but I think that’s also a part of why this movie isn’t good. It’s too pastiche. It reminds you of every other movie about this subject. And I do like the subject of nuns in movie. I would also say nun is how many stars I would give this movie. Gonna give you some Gene Shalit right there.

 

Ira Madison III I have none of that.

 

Louis Virtel And then there were none of that. I mean, like, I like the idea of if there are nuns in a movie, usually somebody is a naive or something crazy happens and you get to see a nun. Gulp. I don’t think there’s such thing as a nun movie where you don’t see the nun gulp and be, scandalized and astounded by something that is happening.

 

Ira Madison III Maria. She was constantly shocked. Please. Yeah, yeah.

 

Louis Virtel She knows what’s going on.

 

Ira Madison III She would try to solve a problem, too.

 

Ira Madison III There’s more. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Okay. Nun movies that you like, then?

 

Louis Virtel Okay, I am going to start with. Oh, okay. I’ll start with Sister Act.

 

Ira Madison III Okay.

 

Louis Virtel I mean that because that is actually nun. Yes. Yeah. That movie does not follow any of the conventions of a nun movie, other than there are nuns who gulp it. How? Yeah. How much she’s breaking the rules and stuff. But in terms of the liveliness it conjures, just the fact that it’s a comedy and it’s not really about just how uptight the nuns are. That is, that’s what makes it.

 

Ira Madison III Because she’s on the run from the mob. Yeah. You know, I always forget that she is what, Harvey Keitel at the beginning of that movie. And I always forget how hot Harvey Keitel was.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, yeah. And by the way, he was the Sydney Sweeney of his day. He was in every movie at that time.

 

Ira Madison III Sydney Sweeney of the day

 

Louis Virtel Right. But just like he was in everything from the piano to that. Yeah. So.

 

Ira Madison III No, I mean, sister X is the perfect movie. Sister act two is a perfect movie. Allegedly, they’re all Sister act three, but I just think that that maybe that was one of my first introduction to nuns. You know, I was raised Baptist, so I wasn’t seeing these nuns run around.

 

Louis Virtel And what about those morals, would you say?

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. You know what? I lost some dancing. Okay. Should have been dancing.

 

Louis Virtel Real Footloose shit. Yeah. I will say my favorite drama about nuns ever is a movie called. I think I’ve brought it up on this podcast before. The nuns story, which is from the 50s. Audrey Hepburn entering a convent and without giving it away. It’s about a woman just questioning her choice to be there and, like, interacting with the rituals of catechism and questioning them. And it’s. It seems like a really small movie. It is directed by, known epics great Fred Zinnemann, who did like From Here to Eternity, among others. Julia, whatever. And it’s my favorite Audrey Hepburn performance. I really, really recommend this movie. And also, all of the nuns in it are like the most famous character actresses of that time. So you have everyone from the Oscars. I was going to start screaming Dame heat! If that happens to Mildred, to Beatrice straight like everybody who ever was nominated for supporting actress, for being somebody that hit someone with the ruler there in the movie.

 

Ira Madison III You know that is your best performing YouTube video.

 

Louis Virtel Apparently.

 

Ira Madison III Talking about the women.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, I did a Best Actress video that’s apparently catching on in YouTube. Please watch it again.

 

Ira Madison III Okay. That’s like one of the few Audrey Hepburn movies that I think I haven’t seen, actually.

 

Louis Virtel So there’s not too many Audrey Hepburn movies.

 

Ira Madison III So, yeah. You know, she died on that boat.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel Of course. Yes. And I love this movie by my favorite director, Almodovar. Dark habits.

 

Louis Virtel Let me just say the play on the word habit. A slay every time. Yeah. Change of habit with Mary Tyler Moore and Elvis Presley, where she plays a nun. And after filming that movie, Elvis had said that he slept with all of his leading ladies except for one. And Mary Tyler Moore said, well, I know who the one is.

 

Ira Madison III She wasn’t having any of that.

 

Louis Virtel No, she’s like, this is toxic. I’m gonna go back to Grant Tinker over here.

 

Ira Madison III She was calling my house. Priscilla, get out. Out in the air, Priscilla.

 

Louis Virtel That would’ve been such a good scene in Priscilla.

 

Ira Madison III Mary Tyler Moore just calls her.

 

Louis Virtel I have a car. Get out!

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, girl, he’s tried to fuck me. I’m not doing that. Dark Habit is is one of his early films. I’ve been sort of revisiting the earlier films that I hadn’t seen before, or that I haven’t seen in a long time. And Dark Habits is just. It’s wild. It’s just nuns, snorting cocaine.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, good.

 

Ira Madison III Drinking. It’s, you know, it’s Almodavar, you know, so, like, it’s always going to be some fucked up shit happening. And it’s a it’s a really funny movie.

 

Louis Virtel I just want to say also that Pedro Almodovar is one of the greatest interviewees of all time. Literally just take an afternoon and read any interview he’s ever done. He’s so insightful and knows everything and is very, choosy about what a star is, which I love.

 

Ira Madison III Yes. Famously, you know, Angelina Jolie chasing him on that Oscars carpet and he’s like, just me.

 

Louis Virtel And he’s like, I’m just not sure.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. He’s like, you don’t speak English. And now he’s making his English movie side. He has not called her.

 

Louis Virtel Strange.

 

Ira Madison III She’s by the phone like Diane Warren.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel No kidding. We’d love to see her in a nun movie. By the way, somebody who is in two of my favorite nun movies of all time, Deborah Carr, who’s in this movie called Heaven Know Mr. Allison in the 50s were Robert Mitchum, and it’s basically the original six days, seven nights. Two people are on an island and, like, they don’t seem like they’re going to match up. He’s really gruff. She’s really prim. Wearing the habit all the time. And then it’s also in the middle of World War two. So they’re dealing with, like, invaders and hiding themselves and survival so good. It is so entertaining. It’s just a real star chemistry movie. And but of course, she’s also in maybe one of the most revered, nun movies of all time, which is called Black Narcissus from the 40s, which is the most beautiful Technicolor movie you will ever see? Maybe number one, I’m not kidding, where she plays a nun who is sent to the Himalayas and deals with honestly, some some of the most exoticized form of natives you will ever see. So there’s some problems there. But the art direction of the movie, which is Oscar winning. Unbelievable. And you also get Gene Simmons, who is in Guys and Dolls, among other movies. She is in brownface in this movie, but for a wordless performance.

 

Ira Madison III Pretty good.

 

Louis Virtel She also plays an Elmer Gantry, this woman who is sister something I don’t know if she’s technically a nun. She calls herself a sister, but Elmer Gantry, a movie about televangelists and the money you get from, like, riling people up in religious ecstasy. Awesome fucking movie. I recommend that, too.

 

Ira Madison III Okay, adding both of those to the Letterboxd watch list.

 

Louis Virtel Which you so you do Letterbox’d reviews?

 

Ira Madison III I love Letterbox’d.

 

Louis Virtel But how? Am I not? Oh, I know why. Because they don’t let you do four star reviews. We talked about this.

 

Ira Madison III You got to get over that.

 

Louis Virtel I’m sorry. I’m right and they’re wrong.

 

Ira Madison III First of all, let’s categorize a five star review okay. For me. So like I will go through what I think like some reviews are okay I put Dead Reckoning at a three.

 

Louis Virtel Okay. Responsible. Thank you. I thought you wrote to say it was a five. And I was like, I’ll leave my no.

 

Ira Madison III It was a four when I first saw it. I just I just, you know, you can re log movies.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III It was a for when I saw it because it was thrilling, but it wasn’t, like my favorite. Mission impossible. Rewatching it on the plane here, I gave it a three because I’m like, it’s tedious.

 

Louis Virtel And also like, do we really need to parachute onto the fucking train? I mean, like what? Like pre Hitchcock shit is this?

 

Ira Madison III I think a three star movie in like a five star category is like perfectly in the middle. It could be bad, it could be good, but I enjoyed it.

 

Louis Virtel Okay. And I know, I mean, Vanessa Kirby’s chattering pupils almost elevated a half star.

 

Ira Madison III And then four is like four is a really good movie. You really enjoyed it. This is a missing that you know that that Genesis qua. Five is like I’m getting.

 

Louis Virtel You right.

 

Ira Madison III You know.

 

Louis Virtel Okay okay. So you think there are meaningful demarcations between all that. Does this mean you don’t use half stars.

 

Ira Madison III I do use half stars.

 

Louis Virtel That’s just it. When you add half stars there’s too many gradations. I just feel like for three and a half, three, two and a half to two and a half or one and a half, and then bam, as Leonard Maltin would say, that’s the ideal range.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Well, I mean, there’s a lot of movies here with like, just half a star.

 

Louis Virtel Okay.

 

Louis Virtel For review, because, you know, I wouldn’t give anything zero stars because somebody was working. Even with scratch surfaces. I got to support the team.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. Right. Right.

 

Ira Madison III Also I love about Letter Box is they have their, like, basically just like the watch lists. Like, where you at? Things to watch. It’s like, I literally have all these movies that I want to see.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, no, that is nice. I have to say, I forget to keep track of what I say. I want to say it’d be nice to have that all in one.

 

Ira Madison III Place, so it’s beautiful to have that.

 

Louis Virtel So I saw Saint Omer on that list. Really good.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel I should say something quickly about Agnes of God, which is a Jane Jane Fonda movie from the mid 80s where she’s like a detective investigating a woman who has this, religious stigmata esque thing occur to her, and they’re wondering how it happened or why it happened. Meg Tilly was nominated for an Oscar for playing this nun, and it’s based off a play in which Amanda Plummer won a Tony. If you want to see, like, a haunted nun movie, that also just feels a little bit like a mystery. I would recommend.

 

Ira Madison III That right from insurance, just like The Nun two.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. The same. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III There’s also Ken Russell’s The Devil.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, Vanessa Redgrave. Yeah, that’s when you should. We should have known. This bitch is zany. She’ll do anything.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, that is on criterion now. Still, I think at least in, like, a month. So I just watched it recently. It’s fucking amazing. Yeah, yeah.

 

Louis Virtel One of a kind movie.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. I mean, Ken Russell is a director, as you well know what you’re going to get, right? You know what you’re going to get. But it’s crazy.

 

Louis Virtel It’s that Cronenberg thing. I’ve. Here I go again. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Oh my God. Yeah. I don’t know. Like I mentioned it before, the Charlie’s Angels scene, I just love a movie where people dress up as nuns, too.

 

Louis Virtel Sure.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, I find it. Yeah. It’s funny, I feel like. I feel like Scooby Doo is dressed up as a nun many times. Probably.

 

Louis Virtel It’s also a, weirdly, a constant slay Halloween costume. Why? Why is it so good?

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, I will say that. Maybe it’s because I went to a Jesuit school, but I routinely remember, like just a straight guy dressed as a nun. It’s funny to me.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, I guess there’s just a whole personality associated with being a nun. So in addition to wearing an outfit, you’re putting on a, a prim, self-serious persona. Here’s the thing. I do enjoy the movie. Doubt.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel And the nominations therein. You’ve got your Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, Meryl Streep. I think I’d probably rank it like 15th or 16th among her acting nominations, though.

 

Ira Madison III Meryl.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, I feel like it could have been other people. In fact, right now on Broadway, it’s, Amy Ryan, Oscar nominee for what movie?

 

Ira Madison III Oh, The Fighter?

 

Louis Virtel Nope. Gone, Baby. Gone.

 

Ira Madison III One of those Boston rough and tumble movies.

 

Louis Virtel You know what, fair guess. Fair guess.

 

Ira Madison III You know. Yeah, she she had Casey were knocking them back last night, probably.

 

Louis Virtel I think we hit most of the major nuns.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel Movies.

 

Ira Madison III I love Doubt, though, by the way, you did. Because Viola in that, like, she she’s the top tier. Yeah. Movie.

 

Louis Virtel No, that’s that’s the explosion moment for her. The the what? Amy Adams happened. But what happened in Junebug for her is Viola Davis in Doubt. Yes.

 

Ira Madison III I mean, that’s obviously a great moment in a movie, but that is the sort of thing that you can tell this came from a play, because that that just scene in the play is just mesmerizing.

 

Louis Virtel I also, you know what, as much as I want Viola Davis to take lead roles and dominate a movie when she comes in with a sneak attack performance, she’s so good at it too. I love Bewitched just a little bit.

 

Ira Madison III You don’t watch the DC things, like The Suicide Squad and stuff, or then Peacemaker, the TV show where she plays.

 

Louis Virtel Too busy having sex.

 

Ira Madison III You can do both.

 

Louis Virtel I I’ve never seen it done.

 

Ira Madison III Well, for some people  that’s a turn on.

 

Louis Virtel Okay, okay.

 

Ira Madison III Watching Viola Davis as Amanda Waller. That is my turn on. Okay, okay. But I heard a nice suit just walking around, being bossy, I love it. Okay, what are we gonna do with Viola Davis?

 

Louis Virtel I know.

 

Ira Madison III Well, I want more for her.

 

Louis Virtel Well, but it’s also one of those things where, again. When you look through Angela Bassett filmography, you realize she’s played every iconic role there is really for, you know, like, like black women in history, like time in memoriam. She’s played them all and like, we we need more people writing specifically to those people, I think, for how iconic they are.

 

Ira Madison III But we need a twist, you know, because I’m like, we can think of Meryl Streep’s filmography because Viola Davis always says in interviews, people call me the black Meryl Streep, but I don’t have Meryl Streep roles. You know, give her a She-Devil, give her a Death Becomes Her.

 

Louis Virtel Yes. And she is. I mean, Viola, so funny in interviews.

 

Ira Madison III Violet and Angela, in A Death Becomes Her type movie.

 

Louis Virtel Please God.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel Oh my God.

 

Ira Madison III But those are the kind of movies they don’t get.

 

Louis Virtel No. And in fact, for a while we would make Angela Bassett third build and things. She would be literally in Music of the Heart as somebody who’s telling Meryl Streep, you better play the violin for those kids.

 

Ira Madison III A very haunting West Craven movie.

 

Louis Virtel Right? That once was supposed to star.

 

Ira Madison III I don’t remember.

 

Louis Virtel Madonna. And then they had creative differences. I assume Madonna was creatively different and how she tried to act. Like a Meryl Streep role almost went to Madonna. Society should be talking about this more.

 

Ira Madison III I would love to be in the room with maybe no one ever told Meryl.

 

Louis Virtel Right? You won’t believe.

 

Ira Madison III Until later.

 

Louis Virtel I mean, it’s literally like, yeah, this almost went to Pia Zadora.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, she’s fully dating Martin Short, right?

 

Louis Virtel Okay.

 

Ira Madison III There is a theater together.

 

Louis Virtel First of all, I don’t know why they would lie to us in a Kate Middleton way, but they are doing that.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel And also, it’s like, I hate to say this, Meryl, your performance is unconvincing. It’s upsetting to me, Martin. But also like that, like footage of them leaving a restaurant, and then they’re getting in separate cars and he’s like, love your kid or whatever. And she says something similar back. It’s like, guys, let’s, let’s, let’s talk about the verbiage here.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah it is giving. It is giving. Classic rom com though.

 

Louis Virtel Yes.

 

Ira Madison III Older actors for taking. They’re not together for the press. I don’t know why.

 

Louis Virtel That should be a movie. How is it not a movie.

 

Ira Madison III How have they done anything together besides Only Murders?

 

Louis Virtel I don’t think.

 

Ira Madison III So. Okay, I know I gotta, I gotta catch up then.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, right. Right. No, this is great promo.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Maybe that’s what they’re doing.

 

Louis Virtel Hmhm smart.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, a promo relationship. You know, a Schwanna Camilla.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, remember those days?

 

Ira Madison III Yes. All right, when we’re back, Keep It. And we are back for our favorite segment of the episode, Crosstalk

 

Louis Virtel I’m Paul Begala, who was on that show Crossfire. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III All right. So Louis, what is your Keep It?

 

Louis Virtel My Keep It is a very general stand up-y Keep It.

 

Ira Madison III Okay. Love that. What is the deal?

 

Louis Virtel Precisely. Yeah, that’s exactly what’s about to happen. Just Keep It to in 2024, still using the phrase so-and-so was not on my bingo card.

 

Ira Madison III Oh, okay.

 

Louis Virtel Excuse me. I still see it all the time. This feels like a niche problem at this point. Like, I know you first saw this phrase online in 2018 or 2019 or something. I still see it all the time.

 

Ira Madison III I hear people say it. Out loud.

 

Louis Virtel Right.

 

Ira Madison III And that is even crazier.

 

Louis Virtel It’s like I’m going to say Gen X women are still saying it all the time. And I say this as somebody who keeps buying your albums, stop.

 

Ira Madison III Please stop doing this.

 

Ira Madison III Tori Amos does it.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, people like that. So however, somebody posted a picture of Dua Lipa holding a vinyl of Mariah Carey’s Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel, and the caption says Dua Lipa being a memoir stan was not on my bingo list. A bingo list, girl, let’s get the phrase , right? I haven’t played bingo there’s no list.

 

Ira Madison III She was holding that album?

 

Louis Virtel Yes.

 

Ira Madison III You know, I love that album. That album is iconography. Yeah. Okay. Memoirs of An Imperfect Angel. It deserves more credit in Mariah’s discography. And I hadn’t seen that photo. You know this. I might need to get back on Twitter.

 

Louis Virtel I was just talking about.

 

Ira Madison III I miss things.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, no, I didn’t write things like this. It’s so exciting. I also just want to say, in an unrelated gamer way, Keep It to when you play Scrabble and you use all seven tiles in your rack. Do you know what that’s called?

 

Ira Madison III A Scrabble?

 

Louis Virtel A Bingo.

 

Ira Madison III Oh.

 

Louis Virtel Excuse me. That’s a different game. If I’m playing Uno and I’m down to one card. You know what? I don’t yell Yahtzee. Keep the games to separate. Stay in your lane. Bingo.

 

Ira Madison III I love that you’re still playing Scrabble.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, please.

 

Ira Madison III Scrabbling.

 

Louis Virtel Me and my mom and Roxane Gay. Great Scrabble player.

 

Ira Madison III Oh, I thought you were saying, like the three of you play together.

 

Louis Virtel I’d like to see it. Yeah. We’re rarely in the same place at the same time.

 

Ira Madison III I think that if people are going to keep doing the bingo card joke, we should be required at the beginning of the year to make pop culture bingo cards.

 

Louis Virtel Yes. Let’s just actually liberalize this. Yeah, exactly. No. But like, literally, if you have the instinct to say so-and-so was not on my bingo card, hit the delete, and then just say, this surprised me. Just like, get past the cliche and just say what you want to say about this, which is that this news is shocking to you.

 

Ira Madison III I like how she loves this album that I also love. That’s great. Yeah. That makes me relate to Dua Lipa.

 

Louis Virtel Take the joke out of it and sound like somebody who just learned English.

 

Ira Madison III Yes, I think that’s also a problem of the internet. Currently it’s no one can actually just express, oh, this shocked me, or oh, I’m elated by this. You know, like I enjoy seeing someone do this, right? It’s always you have to make a joke about it.

 

Louis Virtel And you have to borrow some word template that’s been used 25,000 times before. And that counts as content.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. And it’s like, okay, kudos for sharing that.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. Oh my god I like how fast that one burned.

 

Ira Madison III Okay.

 

Louis Virtel So in Drag Race last week, somebody said in response to somebody’s very harrowing personal story. Kudos for sharing that. Thanks for spilling.

 

Ira Madison III Yes. Yeah for Plain Jane said that to Q. I do want to say, that was after Q shared their, HIV diagnosis. Besides the point, the most harrowing part of that whole scene for me was Q said that they had been diagnosed for two years, and they got their diagnosis when they were 24. And I’m sorry, Q is not 26. What is that the face of a 26 year old?

 

Louis Virtel Drag queens have a whole different metric when it comes to how old they are. Or were it just everybody’s every age at all times? It’s like Celine Dion.

 

Ira Madison III Baby, Gen Z, Gen Z, the way they’re aging, I don’t know what’s going on. Q looks like a golden girl. I do miss getting things like that. Like just daily gay updates from Twitter, like Dua Lipa holding a Mariah Carey album.

 

Louis Virtel Ain’t nothing wrong with a Twitter account called daily Gay updates.

 

Ira Madison III By the way. But I will say the lack of one means that that thanks for spilling meme did not burn for me. It’s still funny for me.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, I see.

 

Ira Madison III Only sing to jokes of it like in meme form on Instagram.

 

Louis Virtel Oh god you’re behind.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel I’m to say it for the sake of this podcast, get back on Twitter.

 

Ira Madison III I know, I know because I’m honestly in group threads now and people are like sharing news with me. I. I’m t like I used to be the news sharer.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, I imagine someone having to share news with you. Yeah, like, you know, let’s get you to bed, grandma.

 

Ira Madison III I mean, like I used to be one yelling, read all about it. Yeah, that’s my little tricycle throwing the paper.

 

Louis Virtel The loudest newsy in the neighborhood. You slept on the top bunk.

 

Ira Madison III Oh, okay. So my Keep It this week, chile, the Kate Middleton shit.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, my. I’m actually so overwhelmed that you would even say the words.

 

Ira Madison III Okay, first of all, this isn’t a direct response to a video that John Lovett might have made for Crooked Media, but it’s not. Not a direct response. And also to the people post Kate Middleton. Obviously there were the rumors, the nastiness. People are like, where is she? And then she came out and said, you know, she has cancer. So there is now a lot of people online who are jumping on their Kacey Musgraves high horse and saying, how dare you, you know, shame and bully this woman into revealing personal information, you know, like she deserves privacy and, sure, women deserve privacy in their, you know, medical history. Whatever the procedures that they’re going through. Most women and people writing about this and comparing themselves to Kate Middleton are not figureheads of a monarchy with a history of colonialism and bloodshed. And like murdering Princess Diana. Okay. Like, first of all, it made sense to question what was going on with Kate Middleton’s disappearance because they’ve disappeared people.

 

Louis Virtel And also, by the way, it was the most botched PR of all time, right?

 

Ira Madison III First of all, the first announcement said this is not cancer, right?

 

Louis Virtel And they kept saying she was well, they kept saying she was well.

 

Ira Madison III And then two, while she’s recovering, the PR team is running around releasing bad Photoshop of her. And then also claiming that she is the one who did the bad Photoshop.

 

Louis Virtel Right. They, like, blamed it on her or she decided to take the fall. She or she felt obligated to take the fall. No idea what happened there. There’s no clarity about that issue.

 

Ira Madison III So with all this crazy PR bungling going on, people are going to be wondering, like, you’re the royal family.

 

Louis Virtel Yes.

 

Ira Madison III And I don’t know this. I don’t know how we jump to this point where now you’re defending, like everyone involved with the royal family and privacy, etc. like you join the royal family.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Like the whole point of it is, you’re the state. And it’s just going back to this thing of, like, whenever there’s a news story. People always try to find some way to relate to it and make it about them. And I’m sorry, I’ve had people in my family who have had cancer as well. And like, I’m sorry for other people who are going through that currently. But you are not Kate Middleton, right?

 

Louis Virtel It’s it’s not comparable at all.

 

Ira Madison III Right. There was a piece in the Atlantic where someone compared their story to Kate and said, you are shamed and bullied her into revealing her diagnosis. I also want to point out there is no way Kate Middleton has seen any of the things that people have written about her online

 

Louis Virtel Right. Oh yeah.

 

Ira Madison III She’s not seen she has not seen late night show jokes about it like she is in that castle. They do not see that she. I don’t even think she has a phone.

 

Louis Virtel Also, I just want to be clear. People didn’t even know what they were joking about. Like we had no information about her. And in fact, we only had misdirection. Yeah. So it’s just like, just to be safe. Don’t make jokes about anything, ever. Because it might turn out that there’s a sad component to it. Like, what are you saying?

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. This implication that you could bully someone within the royal family, like the levels of walls of access between someone tweeting a joke and anyone in the royal family seeing that is very slim.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, right. I like to imagine Meghan Markle is really savvy and just like, oh my gosh, that guy’s that funny girl.

 

Ira Madison III I mean, she’s online all the time. Yeah. Okay. Podcast and blogging by buying things off QVC like Meghan. Meghan Markle is in it. She, she and Harry stay online, I’m sure, but Kate will have no idea what anyone is saying about them online at all.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, I don’t think there’s been no indication otherwise.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, I’ve.

 

Louis Virtel Never seen them crack anything close to a joke, which would indicate they have some sardonic impulse that would put them online.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, and it’s really just a lot of people acting like, oh, you’ve, you’ve you’ve treated this woman horribly. I’m like, she’s not saying it right.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, a lot of projection.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, there’s a lot of projection.

 

Louis Virtel Monday morning quarterbacking, you know.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel To use a sports metaphor, which I’m sure works.

 

Ira Madison III Which also, by the way, you’re accusing, like, the media, you know, profiting off of the mystery surrounding Kate. And now the media is profiting off of shaming people for profiting off of the mystery, right? You know, like, it’s. You’re still talking about her.

 

Louis Virtel And now I’m in the future. I’m sure she’ll become an advocate in a certain way or whatever. I’m not. It’s it’s a horrifying, harrowing situation. But, anyway, it’s a story we can now put behind us, I think, even though. So, did she have a body double a couple times?

 

Ira Madison III That too.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III That was not her. I’m sorry. It was not her.

 

Louis Virtel That that video where she’s, like, walking by that farmer’s market. So that wasn’t her? It was her? I just want to know. That’s. So does everybody. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Never mind. It’s not behind us at all. I’m still thinking about it.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Anyway.

 

Louis Virtel That’s our show.

 

Ira Madison III That’s our show. Thank you to The Veronicas for joining.

 

Louis Virtel Good Lord, did we cover a lot today? Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Baby, that’s what we do here.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, my God, I’m going to New York. I’m taking time off. Don’t call me.

 

Ira Madison III Don’t forget to follow Crooked Media on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. You can also subscribe to Keep It on YouTube for access to full episodes and other exclusive content. And if you’re as opinionated as we are, consider dropping us a review.

 

Louis Virtel Keep It is a Crooked Media production. Our producers are Chris Lord and CJ “Siege” Polkinghorne. Our executive producers are Ira Madison, the third, Louis Virtel, and Kendra James. Our digital team is Megan Patsel, Claudia Sheng, and Rachel Gaewski. This episode was recorded and mixed by Evan Sutton. Thank you to Matt DeGroot, David Toles, Kyle Seglin, and Charlotte Landes for production support every week.

 

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