Back in the day, Lynch helped usher Daniels from metal meathead to art fart--not that you can't be both. Jones didn't know much about Lynch before recording but was game to learn more. To put it another way, Daniels started the night with a can of PBR, and Jones had a nice cold Heineken. Now it's dark.

The bros invite another bro, filmmaker Harry Walker, to talk about 1986's The Hitcher. But first, Kelly provides a report from academia, the inside scoop about the university chancellor who got fired for making and posting porn movies of him and his wife. A rollicking convo ensues.

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm3512053/

https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-hitcher-1986/

The script is flipped from last time. Kelly doesn't like to mix magic with his sci-fi; Steve just thinks it's an enjoyable movie. Without any love in his heart, Kelly turns to smut and DEI jokes. It ain't pretty.

From Slate: Whose idea was it to turn Minority Report into a mushy declaration of humanism? It ends up as less of a warning about an Orwellian police state than a protest that Pre-Cogs are people, too. It's Dick-less. Ebert's 4/4 star review: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/minority-report-2002

Is Die Hard a Christmas movie? Who cares? The fresh question is about Terry Gilliam's gonzo dystopia, Brazil!, set in a bleak industrial wasteland and taking place over the Christmas holiday. You've got jackbooted goons singing carols, mall shopping with the Consumers for Christ, and Santa hats galore in this delicious piece of grotesque weirdness.

Also, Steve uses the episode to introduce the "Stevometer," which gives this classic work a 4/10, while challenging Professor Daniels to change his mind. Will the good doctor succeed? Does he even want to succeed? Find out in this spine tingler and ringadingler.

https://www.thefilmagazine.com/brazil-1985-a-cut-above-the-rest/

Steve traipsed around Morocco last summer, breaking from his 5-Star comfort zone into (gasp) a room without air conditioning, among other horrors. This hardship prompted a dive into the warped fiction of the great Paul Bowles--buddy of William S. Burroughs, acclaimed author and composer, famous ex-pat, lover of men back when that kind of thing could get you in trouble, and generally an interesting cat. The stories under consideration: "A Distant Episode" and "The Delicate Prey." Good thing the MUW boys never get tongue-tied, and let's hope it stays that way.

The Paris Review is one of the most iconic literary magazines in America. They've also got a podcast. It's good (the podcast, but also the magazine), self-consciously artsy, with all kinds of content from the mag's illustrious history. On this episode, Dude One and Dude Two discuss a couple of edgy PR stories: "A Dark and Winding Road" by Ottessa Moshfegh, and Sam Lipsyte's "The Worm in Philly" (read by Marc Maron).

https://www.theparisreview.org/podcast/6040/missed-connections

https://www.theparisreview.org/podcast/6044/the-listening-forest

Daniels's recent trip to Ireland inspires this discussion of two great Irish short stories, one modernist, the other contemporary, linked by sexual perverts. You're going to want to keep your tab open for this one.

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2814/2814-h/2814-h.htm

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/claire-keegan/antarctica-2/

If you're going to talk about 1984, it's only fair to flip the coin to it's counterpart, from brutal oppression to death by pleasure. So hail a taxicopter and join the dudes for a scintillating discussion on happiness: what is it, exactly, and how much are we willing to sacrifice for it?