Why Crypto Needs BlackRock (EP.314)

24:27I'm now fully convinced that the jobs number, GDP calculations, all of it, It's all completely fake. And then Elon tweeted, the numbers don't make sense. Something is off kilter. And you laugh, but this shit scares me. Like just complete mistrust of data. Well, I think on the one hand, yeah, it's okay to question things, certainly. I don't think you should take everything at face value, but I feel like it's going to a dark place that makes me uncomfortable. I think this is another outcome of 2008 where people thought that being contrarian was the same thing as being smart. I'm blaming Michael Lewis for like 20 % of this.

25:08I love Michael Lewis, but I think the big short really screwed people's brains up. And I think a lot of people thought, I'm going against the grain like these people did because that makes me smart. And so they go against the grain. You're blaming the book? You're blaming the book? I'm tongue in cheek here, firmly in cheek. I also think because everyone has their own microphone now. You just folded like, I'm sorry, you just folded like a cheap suit. I asked you to defend your take and you totally walked it back. Yeah, I was joking. But I think people who've gained success in one area in life now have this megaphone to go and talk about other things.

25:41And I think we've learned that successful people in one area of life, they can be brilliant in that one spot. But when it comes to things that are out of the realm of experience, and a lot of that is like politics and economics, the fact that they've been so successful in one area, they assume it translates and so many times it doesn't. And when they're proven wrong, then they say, I'm not wrong. It's actually the numbers are wrong. How can I be wrong? I'm smart. Look at all this money I have. And I think that's the thing is like the contrarian streak and the fact that these people aren't used to being wrong or they're not used to being told no.

26:10And they get on social media and people say, no, you're an idiot. You're wrong. And they say, no, that can't be right. I'm actually right. It's just this stuff's wrong. So I think the rich and powerful people now just – they don't want to ever admit that they were wrong about something. But it's not just the rich and powerful though. They're very influential. And then they galvanize like armies very, very quickly. Yes. There's a lot of – I think there's just a lot of people out there who want the world to just form fit to their view of how things are. And like, are economic stats perfect? No, because they're based on surveys and a$26 trillion economy is hard to gauge.

26:53Well, not all of it is based on surveys. What about like jobless games? That's hard data. That's not a survey. And they don't trust that. Thinking that everything's fake, it's like, I'm just saying like the stuff is not perfect because it gets revised. And so that kind of stuff does change, but it's the trend that matters. And I think you can get a good sense of how things are going based on the trend. But if you are using anecdotes like the stuff you hear on social media or the stuff that one or two people say, you think that's the economy, then yeah, you're way off base. All right, let's talk about crypto.

27:25I can't – there's a lot going on here. They're going to approve a two-time levered Bitcoin futures ETF before they get a spot one. Is this real life? I don't get, yeah, I honestly don't get what the SEC is waiting for. It does seem like last week was the first time, though, where people thought, oh, BlackRock's going to be here, Fidelity's going to be here, all these big-name asset managers. Last week felt the first time in a while that people thought, okay, this could actually happen, the Bitcoin ETF. The leverage thing is truly bizarre to me, and I can't really explain it. If they're talking about investor protection, I just don't get it.

28:08It doesn't seem to make sense. Larry Fink had, please correct me if I'm wrong, I feel like he'd been an outspoken critic of crypto in the past. Is that right? I think so. I'm like 70, 80. Maybe I'll dial it up. I'm 80 % sure that he had said some really not nice things. I think most traditional finance CEOs have said something bad about Bitcoin or crypto in the past. Yeah, I'm sure he has. Anyway, last week he was in an interview and he said, the hits on our website was$3 ,000 for monetary policy. and 600 ,000 for Bitcoin. Quote, many people are fascinated about it. Many people are excited about it.

28:44So yeah, I was saying to Josh last week, I think there was like, depending on what happens, could be looked back on as the watershed moment for crypto. Why is the picture of Larry thinking this tweet looks like it's taken from like 1984? The picture wasn't necessary. Yeah, that's a good point. Somebody wrote Stack Holder. So now the asset managers who thought Bitcoin was cooked are jockeying to secure a position before the ETFs go live. but 70 % of the supply is already in the hands of psychos who didn't even flinch when FTX blew up. Look at me in my laser eyes. The bidding begins at 100K. This sort of made me laugh.

29:17Okay. That's not bad. Like BlackBoss is going to take the Bitcoin from my cold dead hands. My initial thought on this was if there was an ETF, Coinbase is cooked. How could Coinbase still be a$13 billion company if we get a Bitcoin ETF, right? Who's going to transact act on Coinbase now. Well, they're going to custody the ETF for BlackRock. So the Wall Street Journal wrote about this and they said that Coinbase, let's see, another winner in any scenario might be Coinbase. On the one hand, easily tradable spot ETF could take some market share among individual investors who otherwise might sign up on its platform.

29:52On the other hand, Coinbase is also the Bitcoin custodian for BlackRock's proposed trust and for the Grayscale trust and earns fees doing so. A steadier revenue source than the transaction volume-based fees. Coinbase's institutional business is also poised to be a hub for market makers that make trades around spot ETFs. So there you go. My initial thought there was probably a little off base. But that, to me, seems like a commodity kind of thing, doesn't it? Unless no one else wants to do that, why couldn't someone else come in and do that? Here's my thoughts on the matter as far as this pertains to Coinbase.

30:23Going forward, there will be two types. Let's assume that a spot Bitcoin ETF gets approval. There will be two types of people who purchase Bitcoin, Ether, whatever. It's going to be people that are cold storage, right? Like the real, real, real hardcore, don't want anything to do with TradFi. I want my Bitcoin and it's mine. I'm sorry, but those people are wrong. Like crypto needs TradFi. The people who have that libertarian. I'm just saying those people, they've been proven wrong. That doesn't work. Proven wrong half. traditional, the crypto universe cannot police itself. We need, crypto needs traditional finance if it's going to take the next leap forward.

31:05That's the only thing that I can say definitively from the last three years of watching the circus that has been this space. Okay, fine. Fair enough. But be that as it may, I think there are people that are going to want to own their keys, right? The whole not your keys, not your wallet, not your keys, not your crypto, whatever. There's gonna be those people. Then there's gonna be people, normal people that are thrilled to get it through an ETF. My point is, how much demand is there going to be to buy Bitcoin on Coinbase when you could just get it in an ETF inside of your brokerage account? Right.

31:38Did you make a prediction about the assets in this when you're talking to Josh Eswick? What was your prediction? Oh, I think I said - If a spot ETF comes. Yeah. So not just one, but spot Bitcoin ETFs will have$100 billion in under three years. a hundred billion money that's a lot of money yeah you know i'll stick with it okay that's a all right that's a lot big that's a big number maybe i should cut that in half but you know what i said i'm gonna stick with it um last week uh crypto assets had their largest inflows of the year which is you know not surprising over a year so yeah i think it's important i think it's very important um and obviously the market thinks so with with what's going on with price.

32:25I don't think BlackRock and Fidelity would be getting into this if this wasn't real. That's my only takeaway. Yeah, I agree. I don't think that BlackRock's like, yeah, let's see what happens. Right. I would assume they know something. All right. So we got a big housing start number. Month over month rose 21%, which was the highest level in the last, or I'm sorry, it rose 20 % month over month, which is only the fifth time in the last 20 years. Is this, so you spoke about trends earlier. The trends on housing starts is not great. So is this, is this a one-off or is this, is, is this the bottom?

32:58Don't we just assume that this is, it's again, it's, it's all a new builder thing. Like builders are the only game in town. Isn't that the idea? You know what happens when you assume, right? What? You make an ass out of you and me. I know. I know. That was how many times, uh, did you hear that? I feel like that was a good way to identify like the corny dads back in the day. I think that will die with the millennials, right? That that's a little, that's a step too far. How about this? I, I pledged to you. I'm talking to you. I will. I'm pretty sure those sorts will never come out of my mouth to my children.

33:31Fair. I did see a Jeep Wrangler today. Speaking of your Jeep that on the tire cover, like you have to put a cool, ironic, funny thing. And it was a gear shift and it said like a millennial security device installed on this saying like millennials can't drive a stick shift? I can't drive a stick shift. No, I can't. Okay. My very first, I'm an old millennial. So my very first car was an 89 Honda Accord, just a pile of crap. And it, it was manual. And the, my, you know, my dad took me into the parking lot to try to teach me how to drive it. But the first time I ever drove it to high school, when I got my license, I saw that like six times on the way to school.

34:08It's hard, but it's actually kind of fun to drive a stick shift because it feels like you're a race car driver. I was always impressed with people and were able to drive it. It's totally unnecessary. Yeah. Yeah, totally. I could do it. I bet I could do it now if I had to, but it's totally unnecessary. Okay. According to Redfin, their date only goes back to 2012, but last month, there were fewer homes for sale in May than any other month on record. I mean, are there any homes for sale in your neighborhood? Because there's like none in mine. Super dry. There is the one. I mean, not much. much. So housing supply has fallen 38 or 39 % from pre-pandemic levels this May, which is just, yeah, just continues.

34:46There's just not much activity. This is a good one. I can't remember where this is from. First American. All right. Remember the idea in the 2010s that millennials were just never going to settle down? They're never going to buy houses, never going to buy cars. Sure do. As of 2022, per census, 51 % of millennials are homeowners. The bulk of millennials are over Over the age of 33, nearly half are married and 40 % have a bachelor's degree, making millennials the most educated generation in American history. Their whole point was the 2008 crisis pushed things back, but also people just got more educated.

35:16At age 30, 42 % of millennials owned home compared to 48 % of Gen X at the same age. Over the past decade, however, at age 41, millennial homeownership is 62 % while Gen X stood at 64%. This is one of the things that I think I blogged about back in 2013 saying eventually millennials are going to grow up. I saw all my friends doing this. they moved to a big city and then eventually when they settled down, they moved to the suburbs and buy a house. That's just, that's the rite of passage. You knew it was going to happen eventually. This is an interesting one from Denver. I think this is, this is probably bad for people who are hoping for really good housing prices.

35:48Someone, I think Carl continued to tweet this story. And I had to lean on our guy, Sean, our research analyst who lives in Denver. I said, I'm not going to pay for a Denver post subscription. What do you got for me? And his grandma came through and she had There you go. Grandma Russo. What are people from Denver called? Are they Denverites? That doesn't make sense. Denveronians? So the peak, they were saying the peak last year of a median single family home in Colorado was$600 ,000, and it went all the way down to$520 ,000 in January. So 13 % decline, that's pretty good. But by May, it was back up to$575 ,000.

36:22So even with rates going up, so now because mortgage rates are higher, the payments, as we've talked about, are way higher. So even though you had that 13 % decline, it lasted for like nothing. And there's 23 % fewer homes sold. So there's fewer homes for sale. Rates are higher. And the prices have basically round tripped. So like if you were waiting to time the housing market, you had like two months to do it. We didn't speak about this, but last week I saw a few data points about home pricing, home prices being down in California fairly substantially. I don't think it was quite 10%, but I guess it's not that substantial.

36:57In some areas, it might be that. I'm in Manhattan Beach right now, which is spectacularly beautiful. And Chris and I were walking this morning past a realtor's office. You know, they show you like pictures of houses that were sold. And I'll put this in the show notes. There's one that was sold for$4 million. And I guess you can't see the inside, but it just looks like a regular house. An absolutely regular house. Hey, Duncan just slacked us. Duncan just said, this is back in 2017 from CoinDesk. Fink said Bitcoin was, quote, an index of money laundering. I don't, I understand why crypto people, like crypto natives are like mad about the hypocrisy.

37:44They're just in it for the money, whatever, whatever. But in Fink's defense, and I guess in others like it, what's wrong with changing your mind? And in his defense, in 2017, was crypto not, I mean, I know there was, not everybody was money laundering, but it certainly was a lot of shady shit going on. Good point. That's the other thing, the rich and powerful thing we've talked about being contrarian. It's okay to change your mind, right? Yeah, you can't change your mind, especially on a new, whatever we're calling it, technology asset class. You can't change your mind. Credit to us for not using John Maynard Cain's quote here.

38:18But yes, it's okay to change your mind. Credit to us. I'm talking about that. Okay. I think last week or two weeks ago, we talked about how rents have finally started to fall, and that's a good thing for people renting and who want to buy a house but are staying put. This is Lizanne Saunders. Through May, number of multifamily housing units, number of multifamily housing, that's apartments, right? Condos. Under construction rose again and is now a tie for the record set in 1973. This is one of the places where the biggest problem for residential housing is they're not building enough of them. But multifamily housing, they've stepped up to the plate and they're building a ton more units.

38:50And that's one of the reasons that rents are falling is because they've stepped up to the plate and they're building more units for people now. This is a good thing for renters. Yes. Although, did you see, I saw a data point this morning. Manhattan rent hit an all-time high. It's over$4 ,000 on average. It just boggles the mind. I don't understand how people pay for it. Yeah, but what they do get out of that is they can put the trash right on the sidewalk. So that makes up for it. Don't you dare. I'll never understand that. I don't know where else they can put it, but the trash on the sidewalk thing, like, did they have a board meeting about this and be like, ah, screw it.

39:26Just throw it on the sidewalk. I know that there's no other good solution, but that's always, but that, that has never made sense to be in New York is, is that there's like, that'd be my one platform as mayor. I'm not going to allow trash in the sidewalk anymore. I'm going to clean it up somehow. I don't know how, but I'm going to do it. There's going to be semis. I don't know. Lance Lambert tweeted, they're talking about like a open door, which it looks like they're just dumping homes at wild losses. So I don't even get this. They bought a home. This is just a one-off. But this is, where is this?

40:01Arizona. In Gilbert, Arizona. They bought this house in January. Go ahead. I'm sorry? They bought this house in January. Wait, sorry. I'm interrupting you right now. But on last week's YouTube comments, you got a lot of praise from the audience because they said Michael's not interrupting as much anymore. Tons of praise. Really? Yes. Everyone said, great show this week, Michael. You didn't interrupt Ben as much as you usually do. Did you notice that? I didn't notice. I'm just used to it. So they bounce off me. Okay. They bought this house in January for$670 ,000. And then a month, not even a month later, three weeks later, they listed it for 586.

40:45and then they sold it for 582 in March. I don't understand. And this is not a one-off. There's a whole thread of this. So can we put this to, will we see iVirus again? Did the first iteration not work or is there a way to do this? I feel like this is a - I'm going to say it can't be done. I think this is a 2020 idea. This idea sounded amazing in 2020 in the pandemic. This was a$21 billion market cap And it's come up a little bit since the lows, but it's still like$2 billion. I don't know. I just feel like this is just never going to work. Also bad timing. I wonder if - Had this been done in a normal market environment?

41:27Possibly, yes. It was a really bad time for it. But I just don't know if the real estate industry is disruptable or not. The FDIC accidentally posted an unredacted document showing that the big VC firm Sequoia, this is from Wiesenthal, had$1 billion on deposit at SVB when it collapsed. Oof. So the VC guys who don't - But it's weird because Sequoia was, a lot of fingers were pointed at them for like being at the epicenter of causing the run. So the VC guys who don't trust the government data should be sending a big thank you card for the bailout then, right? Fair? Yes. Okay. All right. Ramit, I didn't listen to this, but I just saw the article on Yahoo Finance.

42:09Here's the headline. A couple who retired early with$4.3 million is a fire lifestyle is wearing thin quote. We don't want to just keep throwing money on the pile and keep being cheap. We haven't spoken about fire in a while. Um, I think it was like a big 2019 thing. Uh, but listen to this. I want to, I want to talk about this for a sec. She and Carl recalled a time when they were out to breakfast and their daughter bought the most expensive item on the menu for$20 resulting in a$99 bill with tip, not a big dent in their millions, but something that amounted to a lot of financial anxiety for them nonetheless.

42:39Their attitude towards money is a byproduct of what Carl says is a scarcity mentality he developed growing up, as well as the years they spent saving to become financially independent. So anyway, the big thing here is just like, it just sounds so exhausting. And unlearning that scarcity mentality, like being financially independent, forget about the fire movement, it's about freedom, right? Like the liberation of being tied to money. And that can mean a lot of things to different people, but with this, it becomes like the epicenter of your decision-making. It almost, not almost, it feels like it gives you a lot more anxiety than it gives you freedom.

43:18It also like, if you get to that point where I'm going to hit this number and I can live off it, you're not automatically going to be able to change that scarcity mindset they talk about. Trying to change that and turn it around is almost impossible. So you're just never going to enjoy it then. So what's the point of having it? Just so you don't have to have a job, you can say, I don't have a job and now I just blog full time. Well, great. But if you can't enjoy it, what's the point? Obviously, this doesn't go for everyone. I'm sure there are people that retired early that are, you know, living their best life and are not crippled by financial anxiety.

43:50But I see this as a natural byproduct of this sort of mindset for most people. I think I think that would probably happen to most of us. I'm sure that there's a lot more regret with this than if you would have just balanced it a little bit more and enjoy yourself a little now and still saved a lot. Like the fact that these people have high savings rate, that's a great thing. That should be applauded. But do you need a 70 % savings rate so you can retire at age 35 as opposed to, well, why don't we have a 30 % savings rate, enjoy ourselves a little bit, retire at 50 or something, some sort of middle.

44:20There should be some sort of middle ground. That's where I've come down on this. Ben, just FYI, we've got a 15-minute warning. Okay. Oh, here's an interesting one from Sam Moreau. I've gotten a ton of questions from those people. Like what happens when the student loan moratorium is done and people have to start making payments again, is that going to screw the economy over? This is from Morgan Stanley via Sam Rowe. So this is like the Michael Scott, Wayne Gretzky one. Put Sam Rowe under Morgan Stanley. I still can't believe you still haven't seen it yet. Do you at least have to do it? The office?

44:49It's just not my humor. I have seen an episode or two. Okay. It's the kind of, yeah. You kind of got to get used to the humor, I think. Here's something. Steve Carell, I hesitate to say I don't think he's funny because that's not fair. He doesn't tickle my funny bone. For whatever reason, I thought his character in Anchorman was incredibly unfunny, the only unfunny part of the movie. Brick Tamlin? You don't like Brick Tamlin? I hated it. Nothing about – I love Lamp, not funny. Just not even close to funny. For me, I know comedy is subjective. Steve Carell is not funny. It's a hot take. No, no, no.

45:21I didn't say that. I said he doesn't take on my funny bone. That's fair. It is subjective. Laughter is subjective. Although I did love 40-Year-Old Virgin. That I did like. Okay. We estimate the hit to disposable income from the end of student loan moratorium lowers PCE this year by 8 to 12 basis points and real GDP by 6 to 9 basis points. Basically a non-event. It's like a couple decimal points, right? Basis points. All right. Great tweet from Buko Capital. If you bought Netflix in 2018 because you thought they had one streaming, you would have been right and you would have made no money. Netflix is flat over the last five years.

45:59Just incredible. And I feel like we talk about this all the time, right? That is. That's incredible, especially since. Oh, the thesis played out. They won. How much money has streaming lost entertainment companies? Billions and billions of dollars. Like in stock price, market cap gains, right? This is a great example of the stock market. This is a great example of the stock market gaslighting companies, not even companies, right? Investors loved the idea of the recurring revenue model, growth. Both companies saw Netflix getting awarded. Give us Netflix as multiple. No, sorry, you're not getting it.

46:32Be careful what you wish for. Oh, God. I see this question in here. From a guy who has no pet peeves, this is the question I'm reading in the doc. Can you ask an Uber driver to load the music? Well, yesterday, I got a ride to the airport from Syed. And I had my AirPods in, as I normally do. and he's playing his country's music. I don't know what country he was from, but I'd say I enjoyed the music. However, it was loud. Like I came in, I almost couldn't hear my podcast because it was that loud. Did you ask? I did not. I did not. I chickened out. Although credit to Syed, he saw me dozing off, my eyes started to close and then he lowered the music.

47:21But what do you do if you get into an Uber and the music's just at an inappropriately high level. You wouldn't say anything. I bite my tongue and don't say anything. I think it's more annoying when they're just on speakerphone the whole time. Like put in your AirPods and talk like a normal person, not like a boomer, right? Real quick, this has happened multiple times with me and I don't like it. I don't know what to do about it. I think the answer is I can't. There's something I can do. So the kids wanted to have s'mores the other night. So put some firewood in the fire pit, lit it, made s'mores, and come inside.

47:55And Robin's like, don't get mad. I'm like, what? Our neighbor texted Robin and asked us to put out the fire because their kids were coughing, which I'm sorry. I just don't believe that. That's one of the greatest summer smells in the world too, like a burning fire. It's not every time I light a fire, but they've asked me multiple times to put it out. And I'm not like a confrontational guy like that. I'm not going to be like, do something about it. That's not my personality, but it is wearing a bit thin. That's a big ask. Put your fire out. Seriously. I mean, if you were like burning piles of leaves in your backyard, sure.

48:30I can see saying something, but a fire pit and they're, they're, we don't have a relationship, but they're nice enough people, but this is starting to irk me. I feel like I'm, I'm going to get pushed too far. That's a lot. That that's a big ask. All right. What do you have for recommendations? Okay. Um, I was watching Indiana Jones with the boys, just the first scene of Raiders. God, what a banger. And I was listening to Indiana Jones. I love Indiana Jones so much. Indiana Jones, the rewatchable was in The Last Crusade. I don't think I've seen the movie in 25 years. Last Crusade, I put it on again too.

49:03All of them are on Disney. I put it on again. I had to watch it again. How is it? Holds up? I'm sure it does, right? I love it. Sean Conner, yeah. Harrison Ford is, I mean, they still have the Indiana Jones show at, which one is it in Florida? Disney, Disney World. So we saw it, we saw it. So I don't know why they, they were talking about this on the rewatch. I don't know why they didn't make more of these. It feels like it could have, they could have done eight of them. Here's where they were wrong though. The second one is good. I don't know why they don't, the people on the rewatch. Temple of Doom.

49:29That's great. I love Temple of Doom. I love that movie. So I think, I think Indiana Jones, not Indiana, my goodness. I think Harrison Ford, for my money, is the most charismatic onscreen actor I've ever seen. As Indiana Jones? I think so. No, no, no. Just, just Harrison Ford. Himself. Yes. He has like the most, He just seems like a confident person. I mean, between Han Solo and Indiana Jones, it doesn't get more iconic. I was thinking about Black Mirror because you and I were talking about, I was like, huh, why did I not see those seasons? And then I realized I did see the seasons, not all of them.

50:01But as I'm watching this, there were seasons that had like three episodes. I'm not a guy, like I couldn't read a fiction book of short stories. I need a long, so the fact that Black Mirror is like a one episode thing and that's it. I watched the first season and I'm like, ah, it's pretty interesting. It's creative, but that's why I don't, I never went back. I get that. Personal preference. So there's a lot of cameos in the season. Josh Hartnett, for example, who I haven't seen in decades. Rob Delaney. What happened to that guy? Salma Hayek. So the first episode of the new season is excellent. And I was thinking about – actually, I was listening to the Prestige TV podcast, and they were talking about – my favorite episode was called The Entire History of You.

50:43You ever see that one? It's the guy that like has like a chip in his eye and he's able to rewind his memories. Maybe it's a while ago. Okay. I highly recommend you watching it if you haven't. It's one of the best episodes of TV I've ever seen. And they were talking about it. Jesse Armstrong of Succession wrote that episode. Oh, wow. Love that guy. He's got a, apparently he's like an old British show that people keep telling me I should watch. What, do you know what it is? I don't know. Okay. Last thing. I caught like 20 minutes of a movie that I probably saw twice when I first saw it. I saw it.

51:17It was so good. I rewatched it again, and I haven't seen it since then, which – when did this movie come out? The City of God is – I love that movie. I don't know what my top 10 list is, but I would guess if I took the time, this would be my top 20. Oh, 2002. Wow, 20 years ago. So this is one of those movies that, I'm going to use critics' words. It's visceral. It's gripping. It sticks to the bones. I feel like this movie packs a gigantic wallet, but it's not super rewatchable just because it's so strong and depressing and definitely one of my favorite movies of all time. This is also the kind of movie that never gets made again.

52:00This would be like a series now or a Netflix show. They don't make this kind of movie. All right. We sailed through the show Love and Death on HBO Max. It's Elizabeth Olsen, who is like the Olsen twins sister. She was the WandaVision one. She was fantastic in this. So this is a true story. And this is a true story one. And I knew there's affairs and someone dies. That's all I knew. I went totally clean slate. I had never heard of this story before. But it happened in 1980 in Texas where there was an affair. True story. Someone got killed, and I read up on the actual story, and it sounds like the show stayed pretty close to the actual events.

52:39And I read a bunch on this, and it's the kind of show where you leave and you go, I don't know how to feel about this. But it was so well acted. Landry from Friday Night Lights was on it. I know you're and Buddy Garrity from Friday Night Lights. I know you're another Friday Night Lights person. And the brother, Laura Linney's brother from Ozark was on it. He was great in it and just really well acted. And just, it's a crazy, it's just a, the story is, it's like one of those truth is, strange is in fiction kind of things. So it's a recommend? Yes. I would watch it and just don't read anything about it beforehand.

53:11And you just, you know, something is going to happen. You don't know what it is. And it was, it was very good. Seven episodes. That's it. I forgot one. I saw this movie. Robin watched some of it with me. She doesn't really get scared, but she was scared by this. A movie called The Host. It was made during the pandemic and it's a cross between, oh yeah, I think it's 2020. Every horror movie is now a cross between this and this and this. No, listen. Is there any original horror movies anymore? Come on. The host, it was very original. It's five, four friends on Zoom and they - My eyes just rolled back in the back of my head.

53:50Okay, keep going. So they have like a – the word I'm looking for, I'm going to – this is not the right word. A sayer? A seance? What's that thing? The person that can like speak to the spirits? Yeah, a seance I guess. Is it a seance? Is that right? Anywho, they do it as a goof and it is frightening. So it's a cross between Blair Witch with like the self-camera type stuff and paranormal activity. and it was excellent. Excellent, excellent. No bullshit. I'm not joking. If you like horror movies, this is a strong, strong, strong recommendation. Eight thumbs up. Super duper scary. Okay. It doesn't sound original, but sure.

54:36By the way, Duncan's in my mentions saying that Steve Carell is on The Office is the funniest overall character in the history of TV. Now, listen, you have to - He's in the top 10 for sure. You have to punctuate that with, in my opinion, obviously, right? These are all opinions. But I feel like with comedy especially, it's very subjective. And I know Duncan hasn't seen every show in the history of TV. So this is - But for some reason, you have a gaping hole and you've never seen Seinfeld or The Office. So you like haven't seen any of the - those are two of the greatest TV comedies in history. Hang on.

55:09I write it. No, I write it to Seinfeld wrong. I saw like five seasons. Okay. You need to watch some Seinfeld. Okay. All right. I'm sorry. I'm not saying Steve Carell's not funny. I'm just saying it doesn't make me laugh. Fine. You know what? Fine. Maybe I'll try. It's dry humor. But the thing is, you have to watch at least the first season. And they're like 22-minute episodes. Okay. All right. Give it a try. AnimalSpiritsPod at gmail.com. And I'm sure next week we'll have some stories from Michael's trip back from L.A. to New York. You can give us a comparison of L.A. lounges versus NYC lounges.

55:44Oh, LAX. What a horrible airport. My God. My God, makes JFK look good. Are there any good airports though? Like, has anyone ever gone to an airport and go, that airport's awesome? All airports are terrible equally. No, when we were actually, when we were at the Tampa airport, we were saying lovely airport. Every airport outside of New York is great. I would say, now I'm gonna say outside of New York and Los Angeles. Okay. All right. See you next week.