Dark Matter by Blake Crouch – Episode 12
The Buddies jump into the many worlds of Dark Matter, a page-turning psychological thriller by Blake Crouch. The Buddies pretty much become scientists as they delve into a number of topics ranging from Schrödinger’s Cat to the exact smell of a Whole Foods. They also manage to offend a number of professions including: artists, ER doctors, authors and actual scientists.
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Welcome to the Buddy Book Club. Thanks for joining us. I’m here with my good buddy Keith, as always, to break down some best sellers. If you’d like to reach out to us regarding this book or any of our past or future episodes, you can visit our website Buddy Bookclub. Com or co slide into our DMs on Twitter or Instagram. Buddy Book Club podcast is where we’re at on those two platforms. You can listen to us on itunes and Spotify, so please download and subscribe. And this time I really mean it because after ten episodes in the can we have officially launched, I’d like to take a moment if you don’t mind to congratulate us. Well, not this version of us, but the version of us in the universe where our podcast immediately shot up the charts. And Joe Rogan, who is a vegan and has never smoked a Bull in his life in this universe, asked us to come on his podcast to give him some advice on how to grow. So we appreciate that Joe will be on in that universe anytime. Fortunately for us, though, we are in this universe, and we get to stay humble because that’s the most important. And in this universe, a guy named Blake Crouch wrote a book called Dark Matter, and that’s what we’ll be talking about today. Keith, what’s Dark Matter about Dark Matter? So it is a story about Jason Dessen, who is basically. And when I’m going to tell this plot summary, I’m going to do a little bit of analogies because I don’t like, really summarizing. So I’m just going to use some references. I love your summaries. They’re my favorite. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Jason does it. He’s basically Sean McGuire from Goodwill Hunting, where he’s this fucking super smart scientist, but he chose family over his career, right? He never regretted a day in his life, though not one day. But the question becomes, what would happen if he went on to be a scientist? Well, we find out that answer because himself in another universe comes and kidnaps him, brings him into that world. Basically, the book revolves around the rest of the story being him. Jason. Jason won, in this instance, putting the pieces back together, bouncing between worlds like the TV shows Sliders. That’s literally what I was going to say. Just say sliders that’s as it is, and then trying to get his family back some good resources. Our Darkest Timeline episode by Community coherence the movie, which I’ve recommended to you. There’s a bunch of YouTube videos on the Schroder Cat theory, which I’ve had a lot of dinner party discussions about as of late, which I fucking love. I love that you have dinner party. Well, any time someone says they’re a scientist, I’m like, oh, yeah, hot shot, which you didn’t know until I didn’t really understand it then. And now I feel like I’m basically an expert. I think that summarizes it did I cover it? Do you think I did a good job there? Yes. I look for your approval. You doubled through it, but it was really good. I wouldn’t want any other one. I need a warm up warm up. Yeah. So 2016 novel, I guess Blake Crouch had a previous hit with Wayward Pines, this trilogy that then got turned into a TV show. I’m not familiar with those, but supposedly they were well received, but Dark Matter is basically a thriller with a backbone and speculative science. So we both love Sci-Fi stuff and easy read books, and this was recommended to us as a beach read, and I think that fits. So I think one of the best. This isn’t really part of the summary. But Jason, like, when he initially comes into the next world and he’s super confused and doesn’t know what’s going on, he initially thinks this may be like an elaborate prank, and I just kept thinking I couldn’t even read the book because I was just thinking about how hilarious that would have been, like, Ashton Kutcher just jumping out of nowhere? We held you at gunpoint? We stripped you naked, we beat the shit out of you. We injected you with ketamine and redecorated your house. We totally got you. Like, there’s a camera, there’s a camera, there’s a camera that would have been the most elaborate prank. He’s like, Is this a prank? I was like, Dude, you got held at gunpoint and beat the shit out of like, yeah, this would be the most fucked up prank for someone to pull on you. Before we really dig deep into this, we got a bunch of categories we’re going to go through. We like to have a libation to enjoy through the episode, usually something that is referenced in the novel itself. In this one, there’s a lot of uncorking of wine bottles, Jason and Danielle at the beginning of the book, Jason and Danielle at two halfway through the book, Jason and Danielle at the end of the book and several times in between. So I personally, you all can do whatever you like, whether it be wine or grape juice or something totally different, but I’m going to be uncorking and by uncorking, I mean, hitting the tap on the Boata box of some fine Cabernet saviour. Oh, fancy. Okay, first, I’d like to go over the science. We’re not going to deep dive into this, but I just think it’s important considering this book is so heavily reliant on science and specifically quantum mechanics, they’re complex ideas that are made harder because they’re hard to visualize. But you’ve mentioned some stuff that you can watch that touches on this idea and this theme. Also, I know that Blake Crouch used this guy Aaron O’Connell’s Ted talk called Making Sense of a Visible Quantum Object as a reference point. I watched it. I was stupider. After listening to it, I just realized how dumb of a person I am, because I understood none of it. The words made sense, but it’s like when you’re reading and you read, like, ten pages and you don’t realize that you’ve read ten pages because your mind was elsewhere. That’s how I felt watching that. But with this book, we’re going to be talking mostly. The focus, I guess, is the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, which is basically that every decision you make creates, like, a fork in the road. And in one universe, there’s a version of you that went down one path, and in another universe, there’s a version of you that went down another path, and that’s for literally everything. So it’s infinite, infinite universes, infinite stuff going on. There’s a universe where Blake Crouch decided not to write this book and instead became a serial killer. So normally we like to start off by picking our favorite character. There’s really not a character we relate to or just someone that was funny, but there’s not really a lot of characters in this book, but I have a question for you quickly. Which life would you rather live? Jason Ones or Jason Twos? I think this one was a pretty much a nobrainer, it didn’t make any sense to me. Why Jason Two would want to be Jason one, you’re rich, you’re successful, you’re everything you ever wanted. And then now you can literally go meet Danielle, who’s single, who you can literally start a relationship with rather than going back, like, the whole point of being married for ten years is that you have all these shared memories, right? So you can literally start a relationship if you’re dating two with the person, create all those memories and all that shit. And you’re Rick. It wasn’t like he lived in the universe where Danielle didn’t exist. It didn’t make any sense to me. Yeah, I mean, I’m 100% with you. We didn’t talk about this, but he already did all the things professionally he wanted to accomplish. And even Jason one when he got to Jason two’s timeline just goes and bangs Daniella. That’s the first thing he does, bro. She just opened this awesome art installation. Go see it and woo her. And she’s rich, and he was like, oh, she’s way hotter in this universe. So I was like, wait, what are we doing? Yeah, it made no sense. Just say, hey, I did this. I made the box piece out sketchy organization that I work for. I’m going to go see Daniella, and we’re going to have kids now. Or if you can’t have kids, whatever. Adopt a kid, whatever. It’s not a big deal. Kids suck, too. Don’t fuck with Chuck, all right? But, yeah, it didn’t make a ton of sense to me now because they often say, you can’t have your cake and eat it, too. But this Jason could have. Instead, he decided to potentially die or go down this crazy path of spending, like, three quarters of a year in this quantum realm to hopefully find a version where he had already married Daniela, and they had all these memories and then just like, he doesn’t remember. And also it involves, like, him fucking up a different version of himself. Jason too. You got to figure it out, man. I think he went a little crazy. Maybe he fumes when he was, like, soldering the box together or something.
Participant #1:
Yeah. Did you realize that Jason two was the one that was kidnapping Jason one? That’s one of my actual hates, which I’ll get to. But the book just started with him waking up being like, I’m not in the right world or, like, I might be going crazy. That would have been such a better because right away I knew he was like, oh, you must be kidding up by himself because they were like, oh, his voice sounds so familiar, and I’m like, oh, so it’s just him right away. I had my antennas up if you just started and you’re like, Is this dude actually crazy or what’s going on? Are people playing tricks on him? It would have made way more sense if we didn’t get that beginning part. I do think you need to set up to show. Well, you could have started remembering certain things being like, I remember getting hit in the head or things like that where he slowly pieces it together. But we already knew all that shit. So we’re basically waiting for him to catch up to what we know which kind of it’s fair. Yes, you could have done it in, like, a flashback form or something like that. But I do think it’s important to set up the relationship that he had with Daniella and Charlie once he was talking about, like, we chose this path of having a kid and living this life together. I knew that I was like, okay, so there’s another path that he took, and this is going to be some time traveling shit or not time traveling, but other universe stuff. Fair enough. Fair enough. Do you have anything else for the section before we get into favors scene? Are we going to do the perfect world? Let’s do it here. What was your question when they’re in the box where they can go to any universe they want, they would write down what University they would want to go to, and basically they imagined it, and then they’d be there. So I wrote down mine was somewhat similar to Amanda’s because Manda’s universe looking was awesome, but mine was in less than two sentences. This might be run on. Technology is awesome and beneficial to all. Like, we’re in some cool Sci-Fi movie. Everyone is much friendlier as a result of the technology, the general disposition you like, that word is out of a wedding dance floor or 4 July Beach weekend. Ps. It goes without saying people are much more promiscuous and book club podcasts are all the rage. Yeah, that’s basically what I that’s mine. Well, we don’t want book club podcasts to be all the rage, because then we get drowned out in the Echo Chamber, specifically, specifically ours. They’re just taking off. Yeah, I want one. Where Tom Brady spent 20 years in New England, and I get to every other week or so chat with my good buddy Keith about some fun books we’ve read and spend my time on some sort of body of water, whether that be Lakes or oceans. Oh, my God. I’m in the universe. It’s amazing. I know you’re saying everything’s going to say, except Brady stays with the Patriots. It doesn’t go to the box is what I’m assuming. It’s been 20 years here. Hey, I’ll take what I can get. I appreciate it. I appreciate it all the time. All right, fair enough. I’ll adjust it. So we’ve spent one more season, one last Championship. Okay? And they go literally at the Super Bowl, got on a horse and rode off into the sunset. That’s the universe I want to live in. Tip favorite scene. Let’s get into our favorite scene for the book. What did you like? The most generically? I would say that the world building was my favorite scene. I thought it was the coolest thing ever when they would just jump to a new world that they didn’t know where they were going. And it was like that ice world, the disease ridden world, all these different worlds that were somewhat similar, which is kind of the sliders feel. Just bring back sliders is what I’m saying. That’s what we’re getting to a great show. My favorite scene because I thought I was getting a hold of things until in the new world, they broke in and just killed Daniela. I thought that was like, where I was like, oh, shit. What the fuck’s going on now? So I actually really thought that was the best scene in terms of creating some action when you weren’t expecting it. That was my favorite in the world building. Those two things. Really? We really are a particle held in the quantum realm because we are existing and we’re the same thing existing in two different places because I have the same thing. My first is when Danielle two got murdered. It was like, Holy shit. This is getting real, like, cool. That was the most, like, page Turnery part, for sure. And then the first time they get in the box. And just like you said, it reminded me of the first 15 minutes of his episode of Sliders, where it’s like, oh, what is this world there in, like, what Egyptian temples are in Maine. How did that happen? Just like any Dales. It’s like when you watch a superhero movie, the best part is the origin story, right? I have that same vibe, like seeing all those different Chicago. And I actually think there’s a nod to Chicago when they go to the snow covered world and Jason describes it as a white city, which was the name of the Fairgrounds at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, which was like, the World’s Fair that was Chicago is famous for. So I don’t know if that was an odd to it, but I think it was because it was like, oh, it’s a snow covered city. It was like a city of white city. And if you’re like a Chicago person, which I think he is, then that’d be a good kind of secret nod right there. You lost me a little bit, but I like it. Yeah. Check out the Devil in the White City. Eric, Larry good book. Also, add to it the gun store. I think that was another one blown. Yeah. I was like, oh, you were here two days ago. And another version three days ago. Where do you think they end up? I know this is probably for later in the pod, but it was pitching at me. So the final scene is basically they go into the box and he lets Charlie pick which door they open, presumably, so that no other Jason’s can follow them because of Charlie picks. Then it’s up to Charlie. Granted, another Jason could find another Charlie. So where do you think they end up? What’s Charlie’s idea? I don’t know, Charlie. I didn’t like Charlie. I didn’t like them at all. They probably went to some artsy fartsy fucking world. Hippie Dippy shit that you’d loved, man. I’m out on him. They should have let Daniello pick. It not Charlie. Really? Yeah. I don’t know if your 18 year old self were able to pick the world right now. You think your 30 year old self would like it? Well, Charlie is 15, so I’m picturing something more out of, like, Rick and Morty, and they just end up let Morty pick what the adventure was. They just end up in this world where there’s, like, naked women everywhere. He’s 15. Come on. There’s naked women everywhere. That’s what I’m saying. Yeah. All sorts of weird stuff. And it’s like, Danielle, there’s nothing wrong with that. That’d be. I mean, truthfully, the amount of times that that kid had to listen to his parents having sex in this book, I wouldn’t be surprised. There was a couple of times I was like, Come on, guys. I know that you’re all under one roof, but it felt like a Mongolian yurt. Just like listening to your parents. Have your next sibling like, shit. We’re all stuck. They’re in a cabin and they’re just banging away on the floor as Charlie’s right below them. It’s like, God, the kid has had enough trauma in his life for a day. Like, give him a rest. I remember class in College. One of the professors showed a movie. It was supposed to be during the 1930s or something, and they just depicted a mom and a dad just banging in front of five kids, and he’s like, this is normal back then, and I was just like, oh, my God, what the fuck? And they’re like, smiling at the kids while they’re doing it. I was like, all right, this is the most disturbing eye contact. Everything was cool about that until eye contact came into it. This is a five minute clip and two minutes of it was that. And I was like, Wait, what are we watching this for? This is like, you go to Sturbridge Village or Plantation, and they’re like, oh, this is what typical daily life was like. And it’s just a couple of actors banging away in some room while their kids are huddled on the floor. Yes. Hey, don’t void eye contact. Don’t break eye contact, Billy. Let’s get into stock up. Stock down. What are you buying this week for dark matter? Stock, stock up. First one fucking over yourself. Stock up. I mean, this book, it just proves that as humans, we’re willing to fuck over other selves or our future selves. You think about Friday nights and I’m drinking twelve beers Saturday morning, Keith. Fuck him. I don’t give a fuck about Saturday morning, Keith. Or when I eat, like, 15 hot wings and a full pizza night. And Monday, Keith just is the most miserable person of all time. You know what? Fuck that, Keith. I don’t give a shit about him. So when they’re like, oh, I’m going to go kill all my other future cells and fuck them over. I was like, yeah, that makes perfect sense. No qualms. Continue drinking a case of beer on a Saturday night and feeling miserable in the morning. Yeah, well, that’s Sunday, Keith’s problem not getting my problem. I’d say the chicken wing, Keith. He could just buy some wet wipes. And I’m not talking about the mouth kind for Monday, Keith, just help himself out. Yeah, I got you. Stock up for me was emergency rooms. Emergency rooms kind of get a bad rap. All the wait is really long. They send you a bill. That’s like, kind of crazy. But in this book, Jason one goes to the emergency room, gets an MRI immediately, and the results come in overnight. The doctor takes it upon herself. She’s an overnight Er doctor, like, probably one of the most underpaid doctors. She went through, what, six years of medical school and then three years of a residency to become an Er doctor, not get paid as much as her other classmates. And she takes it upon herself to become a private investigator and find out who Jason is. I mean, this is no easy feat. She goes through the faculty websites of every University and College in Chicago, and I did some sleuthing myself. I’m no private investigator, but I did a little bit of sleuthing. And there are, like, 50 plus colleges and universities in Chicago. I stopped counting. I wasn’t even that much of an investigator. I had to stop. So the fact that you went to each one of these College websites and looked through the faculty of the science Department to see if his name was in there. Phenomenal, phenomenal job by that Er doctor. I don’t know where the Er stock is. I feel like it’s not high, but I’m buying it because if there’s doctors like this in the Er, I want them on my side. Simple as that. Two things, though. Real quick. How about her being like, I’m going to send you to a mental of the two and you can’t do anything about it. Excuse me. First of all, either you don’t tell them that or Secondly, what are you, a prison guard now? She’s also just fucking like, yeah, you’re not out of here, but you can walk out that door, by the way. By the way, that door is unlocked and the elevators to your right feel free to leave, but you can’t leave. I just looked up Er doctor’s salary between 100K to 420K. So I think they’re okay. That’s a wide range. That’s a ridiculous range, although I do see emergency position starting at 36K on zip coders. I don’t know what that means. What else do you have for stock up, stock up artist work ethic. Okay. Artists typically get a bad rap. Most people pick it up as a hobby. Yeah, well, like people that get, like, art history degrees. Okay. Got you. What’s the best thing? You know, the jokes around that all the jokes around artists being kind of like lazy pieces of shit. I don’t know those jokes, but I know that our art history majors get better at people that are artists are typically thought of as like, lazy or kind of Drifters, right? They’re not with mainstream society. All right, I’ll hear you out. Do you have too many artist friends I’m making fun of right now. I don’t have any artist friends, I don’t think. But they cut their ears off. They fucking. You know what I’m talking about? Okay. But anyways, and then most people pick up as a hobby, painting different art type thing when they have kids. Sure. But Daniella, for some reason, loses all artistic inspiration when she has a kid. So fuck Charlie for that. That’s one. But then when she doesn’t have a kid and she has all this extra free time and can take her use her work ethic to become a better artist, she becomes famous. So stock up artist, work ethic. Yeah. If you have more time and more effort to that, then you become better. Yeah. To all artists out there just don’t have kids. And you be an absolute superstar. That’s what I heard. It didn’t really make sense to me, but it made more sense that she was like a musician that couldn’t travel or something, right? Like she was in the Symphony. But totally, it really didn’t make a ton of sense that she couldn’t continue her art career. Well, I said Charlie fucked over her artistic inspiration she basically was like, as a kid, I don’t even fucking care about art anymore. I don’t know. Maybe her muse was gone because she was like, oh, I already created the most beautiful thing in my mind. I don’t need to create anything else. Other thing for stock up. I had. I’m not buying that stock, by the way, but other stock up for. I had cooking for and with your loved ones. So this stock is I feel pretty high, but I’m finding Microsoft right now. In this book, Jason asked Daniella to start the pasta, which means putting pasta in boiling water, which she refuses and says she likes to watch him Cook and which he creepily responds, Does it turn you on? And I just want to be clear that if putting pasta in water turns someone on, then I have the sex appeal of Patrick Swazie in his prime, like, Roadhouse Dirty Dancing into Roadhouse. That’s where I’m at. So I’m down for that. Also, Daniella, too whips up some homemade chicken soup when Jason sick and some bomb bean stew. That was like a pass down recipe. So there’s some deeper feels to that and what comes out of it? They have and I quote, Fumbling groping back seat of the car unprotected. Because who gives a fuck? Proton smashing together. Sex. Wow. I mean, she cooked some two homemade meals and they’re having Proton smashing together. Sex. Yeah. Proton smashed together. Is that nuclear? Well, yeah, it’d be fusion as opposed to fission. See, this is why we have the expert scientists on the pod. I appreciate that. I was thinking of any pod. We needed a guest. This would be the one to have some scientists come on, and we just shit on them. No, it doesn’t sound right. We really should have had an artist on so they could have immediately hung up after your previous take. I was getting artists credit. If you dedicate yourself, it actually is important. And you are like, no, I’m not buying that. Stocks. Artists all suck is what you said. Got them. I mean, even Charlie gets in on the cooking. At one point when they’re in the cabin, he’s whipping up pancakes for the family. I don’t know many 15 year old. I mean, I have an 18 year old brother. He leaves plates and cups and dirty stuff all over the place. This Charlie’s up at, like, seven in the morning, making pancakes from scratch for the family. Like, oh, dad, will you make that special Apple sauce that you make? Apple Maple sauce like, fuck. Damn, this is a good family, good cooking family. I do have to call out Daniella, though, when she’s making the bean stew are swimming goggles really necessary for chopping one onion. I appreciate the hack. It’s a decent kitchen hack. Put the goggles on so the onions don’t burn your eyes. I get it. But you’re supposed to be like, a pretty good Cook. From what we can tell here, and you’re cutting up one onion. It’s not going to make you cry that much. Relax, Daniel. I mean, it look good. Feel good. Play good. It’s like you put on, like, the kiss the chef apron. You know, you’re not spilling it yourself. You just got to put it on. It’s a swag thing. I thought I have an apron and I just spill shit all over myself all the time. Never use it. Okay, fair enough. But, yeah, cooking four. And with your loved ones, stock up. What else you got covet up. Okay. I think I know where you’re getting hit a lot, but we saw that what logic covet was like in that other world. Everyone’s bleeding out of their eyes, the government’s chasing people down, shooting at them. The streets are fucking just deserted. That seemed a little bit worse to me. So Covet getting a bad rap. I think we’re giving it a little stock up. That universe reminded me of, like, Escape from New York, the movie Snake Pliskin. Great character name, but just cool world shattered up. But I don’t know if the stock is necessarily up, because in that universe, Jason is unmasked. Faucey would be pissed. He’s unmasked and just, like, goes up to Daniella in this world and is like, talking to her as she’s, like, coughing up blood in his face. And it’s like, dude, everyone has died from this virus. And you’re just, like, chilling out here. Does he have any ill effects? No, none at all. So basically, Covet isn’t real. Bottom line, we’re going to get kicked off of all the platforms. Good. We’re joking about that. Don’t get vaccinated. Yeah, I’m with you there. I like that one another stock up for me. Chicago the city itself. I mean, this is a good Chicago book. This is a really good Chicago book. He spends a few pages talking about, like, a day in Chicago that they have. I think it’s Jason one hanging out or Jason two hanging out with Daniella, whatever the case is. But they catch an afternoon ball game at a historic ballpark in Wrigley Field. He talks about the smells in the air, the roasted peanuts, the popcorn, the plastic cups of Lukewarm beer, which, if you’re at Wrigley, you got to be drinking old style. That’s for sure, the roar of the crowd. I mean, come on. And then you follow that up with a trip to Navy. Pierre, maybe hit the Ferris wheel, which was invented in Chicago, the Ferris wheel for the 1893 World’s Fair that we mentioned before. And then after that, you can take a walk to Giordano or sorry to all peak quads or Illuminati’s fans out there. But Jardano is right there on Navy Pier. Just a great Chicago day. Wow. He breaks it down. And I appreciate that, because Chicago is a wonderful city. So Chicago, your stock’s pretty good. Pretty good. But I’m buying you’re going to be surprised by this one because I’ve been selling it a lot. But dreams stock up. Whoa. You’ve sold so much dreams. You’re buying dreams? Yeah, I’m buying. That what I realized. Are you buying the Dip Mid book? Is that basically new worlds are just dreams, right? Like, nothing impactful happens in them. It’s fine. You just go to new worlds. Like, I know he cheats on his wife with the other Daniella and the dreams. They basically just go to new worlds. I don’t know why he cared about other people in those worlds. They had no impact at all on your actual real life. Right. So that’s why I felt like it was just a dream for them. It was just a cool vacation, but it didn’t impact anything. You wake up and go to the real world. Yes, I liked it. It’d be like if your dreams were like, other, the people in your dreams were real people, though. So you’d be impacting their world. But if you don’t care about them, then that’s cool. Here’s a really far out there. Maybe when you earn a dream, you’re in another world and you are impacting that world. If that’s true, I have some fucked up dreams. So there are some fucking crazy worlds out there. It’s possible I’m always down to buy dream stock. There’s infinite world. So it could be true. I mean, that’s what you told me for my past. Stock down to you like, hey, there’s infinite world. That could be real. I’d be like, oh, shit. All right. Hey, whatever you’re putting into dreams, put it in for me. I’ll pay you stock up for me. Drug use stocks actually going pretty good. But once again, we’re buying high and we’re going to keep watching it. Soar Jason takes a ton of intravenous drugs throughout this book and is totally fine. The drug seems a lot like heroin to me, but he’s chill afterwards. I mean, he takes, like, 40 miles, no dependent. He does become homeless and staring at his house at one point, like, not shaved, not eating, begging for change. So I don’t know about that. Yeah, but he’s not using it because he’s dependent on the drug. He’s just like, yeah, I’m good. That’s important. I mean, he even gives the drugs to his kid. Cool enough to be like, yeah, Charlie, you got to try this shit out. This shit fucks you up. If you take acid and you literally go on the worst trip and then you’re not no longer dependent on the drug, but you’re out in the street begging for change. Would you say that’s a bad drug or good drug? Well, acid wouldn’t make you do that. But that’s not what this podcast is about. That’s neither here nor there. I’m just saying, let’s not argue with semantics, sir. I’m just saying, my point is that he takes the drug without any real side effects or issues. Hooray drugs also weed Daniella to the amazing artist Daniela the cooler Daniella likes to choke up. They said that previous Daniella stopped smoking when Charlie was around. And this Daniella smokes weed. So maybe the artsy factor is just that she’s smoking weed. Is that what allowed her to create entanglement? I think so. Basically, smoke weed become a creative genius. Simple stock up. Buy it. That makes a lot of sense. Artists work ethic and weed combined. Stock up Tok up, stock up. I’m all in. What else you got? Stock down. Being a cabin owner. Stock down. Let me set the scene for you here, D man. You’ve been working 60 hours weeks. It’s dead of winter. Need a break? You need some rest and relaxation. You need a winter cab weekend. Get in touch with nature. You know that smell out in the Woods. You just need that, right. Your life made some burning wood. You pull up to the cabin that you’ve had all your life that your father built with his bare hands. You roll in to notice that the door has been ajar and someone has broken in and you walk in and you’d see the mess around there like, oh, my God. I can’t believe this is happening. You stumble into your bedroom and see your bed isn’t slept in, and then you walk it back into the kitchen and you see five dead clones. They basically just left all these dead bodies at this random cabin. What a tough fucking week for that person. Holy shit. I felt so bad the whole time. I was like, Jesus Christ, can we do this somewhere else? Is this someone’s cabin? It’s funny you say that knock down order, because when I read that part of the book, I was like, wow, imagine what the police are going to do when they show up here and they see all these dead bodies that are literally the same person who’s finding her. And then I saw the picture of the girl from CSI or whatever. Like looking at the vials of blood and telling the guy while the dramatic music plays, they all have the exact same DNA
Participant #1:
crazy. Yeah. So that’s going to be really confusing for the whole world. Once that’s figured out stock down for me is the security at a super secret underground layer. I mean, even Doctor Evil had better security. Amanda was the only one on duty the night that they escaped. You have Jason there. Who you now know is a different Jason. Why wouldn’t you have all hands on deck? That seemed like the one time that maybe we shouldn’t just leave one person in charge of everything tonight. They don’t deactivate Jason’s security card or his code. What are you guys doing? These guys are incompetent completely, and they never even considered the most probably the most important part. They never even considered that the Jason coming out of the box could be a different Jason that went in, even though they know the box goes to other parallel universes. Like what? They’re just like, oh, yeah. Jason, thanks for coming back. He’s like, I don’t understand anything that happened. It’s like, no cool. No problem. You’re good. Do whatever you want to do. Secret underground layers, security. They need to get better. Yeah. I also didn’t understand why they’d be upset that it’s a different Jason. It’d be like, Holy shit. This thing works. It’s fucking awesome. Tell us everything about you. We’ll try to get you back. That would be a good thing, though. I didn’t understand. That why they’d be like, You’re lying to us. We’re out to kill you now. Plus, at the same time, their original Jason is gone. The only way they could figure the box out would be potentially using this. Jason right. The guy that still has the same brand. Yeah, when you want to get into his good graces so that you could figure it out, considering the hundreds of billions of dollars you spent on this. But what if. What else do you ever stock down? That last one was Swisher Sweets. I’ve never had one of these. Yes. Swisher Suites. Delightful. Well, he pulls one out after a nice breakfast. Most cigars actually have a somewhat pleasant smell, especially named Swisher Sweets. I assume it’s good, but everyone looks around like, basically, he pulled his pants down and took shit on the table. Everyone’s leaving, like fucking yelling at him. I’m like, relax. It’s a fucking cigar at a fucking diner. It almost adds atmosphere. That’s a little pizzazz to there, but apparently such shit. So stocked out. No sushi suites. I mean, they’re cheap. I think that’s like what we used to get in high school or whatever to feel like we were cool, even though they weren’t. But, yeah, they’re trash. They’re not good. I guess the stock is already low. Stocks way low. It’s like the cheapest thing you can buy. We are sponsored by Switchers. Also, thanks to Switcher Suites. Nature’s sweetest thing. I’m not sure if this was down or up, but I had to mention it Whole Foods. So Jason, he goes to get ice cream at the beginning of the book and describes Whole Foods as a place that quote, smells like the hippie he had dated before. Daniella. A tincture of fresh produce, ground coffee and essential oils that hits Whole Foods on the head. And, yeah, it sounds good, but then it doesn’t sound bad at all. But then to be like, oh, it smells like this hippy. I used to date someone’s like, hey, what’s whole food smell like? It smells like this hippie I used to date is produce fruit, or is that vegetables? I don’t really want to smell like vegetables. Fruit. Yeah, I love that. Is it both? It’s both. It’s both. Yeah. If it’s like, broccoli, it’s like, gross. But if it’s fresh strawberry, we love that. Let’s get into some love hate. What did you love about this book? I already talked about the world building, but also there’s a book that really made you think along the way, there’s a lot of twists and turns. Super introspective of, like, what you do and how would you react? Type stuff. Definitely super original. Really loved all that about it. I also like that there was a character in the book named Dylan, and he wore skinny jeans and was an artist that quote, bangs everyone. But then got cockblocked by Jason. So it’s a great Dylan in the book
Participant #1:
who could have been a different version of me. No, that is you. That is the version of you. This version of me. I don’t own skinny jeans. So that’s a slight difference. And I also like the ending. I thought that was the only way to end the book. It’s just kind of let them out into the world. That was good. Yeah. I thought it was a good ending, considering there’s so many. I mean, there wasn’t a ton of loose ends, but it was just like, this is a crazy book about all these other worlds. Like, how are you going to end it and kind of leaving it open to interpretation. Where do they go? What kind of thing happens? I thought that was nice. I dug that one of the things I loved about this book and probably what I love the most, maybe was Entanglement Danielle’s art installation. That thing sounded awesome. I mean, if I go to an art installation, which would be my first time going to an art installation and they take my phone, I’m already thinking, like, okay, this is going to be sick. This is going to be something fucking spectacular. It had, like Planetarium vibes with a plexiglass labyrinth that looks or seems to the viewer to go on forever. There’s white noise playing in the background, like TV static. And I wasn’t sure when I read it because it’s an interesting feature. I wasn’t sure if this was to disassociate you as you’re going through this. Or was it a nod to the universe itself because TV static is the cosmic microwave background, which sums from the sun and some from stars, other stars and Astral phenomenon. But 1% of TV static is actually from the Big Bang itself. So I didn’t know if it was kind of like a nod to that or if it was just, like, for the art itself, because it definitely ties into the universe. But I thought it was interesting. And then they talked about it as you lost me a little bit. There weed stock up. No. So if you turn on TV and there’s TV static. Yeah, that is actually a signal you’re receiving or a microwave signal from the universe itself, like just from the air from the outside world. And that static is coming from different things that are interacting with it, including our sun, which is probably a lot of it. And then, like other stars and Galaxy stuff, but 1% of TV static is actually like resonance from the big bang itself. Wow. All right. Yeah. Entanglement was just sick. I wanted to go to it. I was like, that was the one thing I read this book. Shit. I wish they would just create Entanglement because I want to go there. So I loved it. As you can tell, my last love. The first thing, Jason one as Danielle won after reuniting. I mean, this guy has been through a harrowing journey through all these different universes. Almost died countless times. I mean, he used his last ampule to get there. He finally reunites with his wife and son, who he’s been trying to get to this entire book. And the first thing he asked her is whether Jason Too was better in bed than he was like, guys, am I right? This is just such a dude thing to say. It’s like, all right. I’m so glad I found you, but did you bang Jason too? You did. Was he better than me? I don’t know. He was you. What the fuck? And the best part is that he had sex with another Daniella, but holds that back. He doesn’t say that. Yeah, of course. He waits. Whatever she brings it up. I’ll talk about it, but it’s just like, I can’t believe you banged him. It’s like what it was you. What do you have for hate? There’s got to be a few things you hated about this book. Yeah, I went through a couple. I’m already. I think the beginning could have been. I think it would have been better if we didn’t know that I really didn’t like Jason. I don’t think there is many things that could happen that would change me into a killer that would want to go and just start killing clones and shit like that. And then also one of the clones shot at them in the car with his wife and son in the car. I was like, seems like these dudes are fucking psychopath. Jason. One of them, right? Like, they’re all fucking psychopaths. Yeah. Honestly, what he really should have done, I think would have been almost a better story is he finds out that Jason Too is actually better for her. I think that would actually been a better story. And then he goes and starts a new life with Amanda. I think that would have been a cooler ending. Like this wasn’t meant to be, but this person is a better fit for her now. Yeah, I’m with you. I get that a traumatic event could totally change you psychologically. And who knows what other traumas like these Jason went through. Also, when Jason Two came into the world, who obviously seems like a little bit more of a touched Jason, and he’s a little crazier considering the shit he did to Jason one different. Jason Twos would have found that area, too. So some of those Jason’s were Jason once they were different versions of Jason two, but I’m with you. There the whole Jason’s thing. I didn’t like when it got to be like, all the different Jason’s. It was like that Spiderman, meme of each Spiderman pointing at a different Spiderman, it almost became, like, silly to me. It became an episode of Rick and Morty. It was just like, okay, yeah, a little bit. They’re just like, all these different ones. They’re pointing at each other. They’re like, fighting each other. This is kind of silly. And the message board, the message board aspect, like, she’s mine. It’s like, no, she’s mine. It’s like, oh, my God. Like, really Bros. And also the idea that Jason had the original Jason the lottery idea, like, I’ll just give her away to one of these other Jason Blake. That’s what you came up with as an idea for how you’re going to advance the story a little bit. It didn’t make any sense because it just was goofy. Figure out a way in this realm that you created to have, like, a couple of Jason’s, or even if they have a dozen Jasons, and one of them is like, crazy, murderous, just like, saw some fucked up shit in the other universes, and he’s going around killing all of them. So it’s like, oh, there’s this one Jason, who’s trying to fuck shit up because it got a little silly, all of them shooting at each other. This is the first time we brought Amanda up on this podcast, and Amanda was a pivotal character for, like, a third of the book, and then she just vanishes. So my hate is what the fuck happened to Amanda? That’s exactly my hate. She puts her ass on the line for him for not really much of a reason. They don’t give her any backstory. I mean, we’re kind of made to assume that they had a relationship, but really, the only thing that she says is like, I didn’t know what this place was. I didn’t know how bad this was, that they would try to kill you or whatever. You didn’t know who you were working for. There’s like, 27 people at this company. How do you not know what you’re doing? Why are there people guns? Why are they imprisoning people? You don’t understand what the stakes are at this company. Like, what makes no sense whatsoever. And then she just splits the money and the drugs and then leaves the fact that they didn’t tie it in there at all. And your idea of, like, oh, he should just have moved on with Amanda and done that. I feel like that would have been a good storyline, but just the fact that why wouldn’t they just have one of the henchmen kill her or something? Just tie her storyline together somewhat. She was just kind of a floating character, and I feel like there’s a lot of floating characters in this book, but she was a glaring one. So I didn’t like. I completely agree. Why wouldn’t Jason, too? It’s not even his world. Why wouldn’t you just bounce once all those new Jason’s came? Whatever. I’ll go back to my world or I’ll go find another Daniella. That is single. I can just do this again. I’m not tied to this world anyway. What does it matter? Go find another world. Where the only difference is Daniella decided to go to a different coffee shop that morning. Literally. That’s it. Everything else is the same. My last one was why was Jason too, so well trained at kidnapping and fighting? I didn’t understand. He was like, Jason Born. Was there any backstory to that? He’s like, I’m proud of you even fought back, but I was expecting that. It’s like, Wait, why? You’re a fucking scientist. You should be worth off of anything. Yeah. Maybe he spent the last year when he realized this box was going to work, like training up on kidnapping techniques. Just watch Liam Neeson and take him, like, 20 times I needed to. He has a bunch of karate or karate trophies in his house, and he’s like, oh, I knew it was my house because there’s a bunch of karate trophies. I would have been tied together. That’s all I wanted. That’d be so good. The only other one I really had was there’s just no way you’re finding your original universe. Even if you wrote all those things down and you thought your happiest thought it just doesn’t make any sense that he would be able. Obviously, some Jason would find that universe. But our Jason the one Jason would find that universe. It’s so unlikely. The chances are so minuscule that I didn’t really like it very much. And then I was thinking about it. I was like, oh, maybe this wasn’t the Jason who we started with. Or maybe the world he found wasn’t actually his world. It was a slightly different world that he has yet or had yet to realize was different. Maybe Charlie’s Foot got run over by a car in the squirrel that he’s only got three toes. I don’t know. Yes, but maybe there’s slight indifferences, but it just seemed a little crazy that he would be able to find his own world by wishing it into existence. All right, let’s get into casting the movie. So, like I said, this movie was bought by Sony. The rights of this movie were bought by Sony before the book even came out, which is quite a good get for Crouch there, and he’s actually started working on the screenplay for this in 2020, so it looks like this is actually going to happen. We’ve got a few characters here, but who would you cast? Let’s start with Jason, obviously. Yeah. I think the movie would have to be a little bit different. I think we’ve alluded to it a little bit, but for Jason, I had Kellyanne Murphy. I feel like he can play a lot of roles, which this is going to require. I just saw a quiet place, too. He can kind of play that crazy homeless person. He can play the buttoned up guy wearing a suit from Inception. He can play another crazy person in the Batman series. What about the Piki fucking blindness and the Pikki Blinders? Yeah, obviously, I really like him as an actor. I think he could be very versatile. And this role kind of calls for someone that’s pretty serious. So. Yeah, I think he fits the bill. What about you? And it’d be fun if he had obviously, he was doing his American accent, but then there were some versions of him where he was doing his English accent and be like, Wait, what? He has one of the best American accents. He has a really good American accent. Oh, for sure. Yeah. No idea. I’m going to let you do Danielle before I do my Jason. What do you got for her? Oh, okay. Charlize, they’re on. Oh, that’s funny. That was actually the first thing that popped in my head, although I changed it. All right. Yeah. I feel like she could be the mom cooking at home or the fancy art person. Yeah, but I think Daniella has to have some deeper ethnicity to her based on the stew she made. Like she made this stew that was passed down from her great great grandmother. I think she’s Hispanic or of some sort of Latin American isn’t. Surely they’re on South African. That’s something. So. Yeah, for Daniella. Then I had Eva Mendes, who I thought would fit in pretty well as the Daniella. And we could give her a smock with some paint on it for Daniella, too, in which case, if we went that way, it just seems smart to me that we’d cast Jason as Brian Gosling, her husband in real life for this kind of role is Jason. This is a big role. You need a big star for this one if you’re going to sell. Yeah. So Will Smith. You’re saying so hitch too? Yeah. You could have Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith, but I don’t know if they’re on speaking terms. No, I’m talking about hitch. Yeah. Eve Mendez, Will Smith. And come on. No, I’m with you. So. Yeah, I’m going for a real couple going into this and they can really embrace their relationship. You know what I mean? I feel like you can really get into the character with this kind of stakes at hand. So, yes, even Mendes and Ryan Gosling. I don’t think they have a 15 year old kid. Otherwise, I’d put them for Charlie. But did you have anyone for any other characters? I just real quick. I did. Finn Wolf hard. Not soft. Wolf hard for Charlie. He’s from Stranger Things. I don’t really like him in Stranger Things either, but I feel like you play that annoying kid. Is that like the main character, the skinny kid? Yeah, like the curly hair in love with 9711. Here we go. Add them together, take away six, and then Amanda. I had from the Prestige Scarlett Johansson’s character, but that’s like, the exact same character that she plays like a girl that comes in that wants to help out, falls in love and then bounces. So I was like, oh, I was just thinking of that. I don’t know if that made sense, but it checks out, and I love her that checks out for sure. I love it. The only other person I have is Charlie. I figure because we’re not doing what doesn’t it be today? We can kind of take anyone in my history. Granted, we usually lean to today just because recency bias. But I’m thinking Will Wheaton, he was on Star Trek. He actually played Gordy in the Stand By Me movie, which is based on the book The Body, which is a previous episode of ours. But, yeah, that kind of vibe seems like he’s hit fit, and actually he reads audiobooks. Now you probably listen to an audiobook. Oh, really? Yeah. That’s like, his new thing. He does. I actually don’t love the sound of him on audiobooks, but that’s what it does. So let me see the most popular ones so I can find him. Oh, he did. Ready player one. I fucking love that. Oh, that’s where I saw him. He did the new Ready player two, and I was like, oh, my God, this book sucks, and his voice is horrible. Ready one was awesome. Well, I mean, maybe it was just better material. I’ll give him another shot. Let’s get down to brass tacks. Would you recommend this book to our listeners or anyone else in your life? Yeah, I think it was a good book. It was a great thinker book. Great world building, Super Super original, which I think is important, and I think that’s enough to put it over the edge of all some of the questions you brought up, which I think obviously this is like, very out there book, so it’s hard to be perfect, but I really liked it. What about you? I’m with you there. I think we were looking for a beach read, and I think that’s what we got. You don’t need to delve too deep into the questions about it. It’s definitely a page Turner. Every time I sat down to read it, it was one of those things I was looking at the clock, which is like a huge thing for me. Like, oh, my God, it’s been an hour, so it fit those criteria for me. And like you said, original story. Interesting idea. We did bring up some parts that were a little bothersome for sure, but that middle third of the book was so good that I was willing to put up with kind of the shenanigans at the end, and I liked the beginning, too. How the hell did he get here? What was the story? So I’m a fan. It was recommended to me by a couple of people, and I’m going to continue to recommend it to others. If people want kind of like a fun Sci-Fi thriller, change things up a little bit and great dinner party discussion. Yeah, I really wanted to at the beginning. You’re a shorter years cat guy. Be like, all right, you’re an expert now. So give us the explanation. But we’re not going to do that. We are going to tell you about our next book, though. Keith, what are we reading next? Scifi thriller. Maybe kind of similar, right? Yeah. Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card. I think this is probably one of the first books you recommended to me, so, yes, give it another shot. Probably eight or nine years later. I’ve dug into it. The audiobook is awesome. I’m really liking it so far. It’s one of my favorite young adult books, for sure, and definitely a page Turner. I consider it a great summer beach read, so I hope it fits into everyone else’s style. So if you haven’t yet, pick it up. We’ll be coming back to you in a couple of weeks with Enders game. So check us out on Instagram and Twitter and follow us on Spotify and itunes. That’d be great. Otherwise, we’ll see you for Enders game. Bye.
