April 17, 2024 • 80 mins
Noah is a 28-year-old with Spina Bifida. He's played sled hockey for a decade and is an avid fan of the reality show Big Brother.
EPISODE DESCRIPTION
In this episode, Noah and I play a quick would you rather game and dive straight into the new season of survivor. It's obvious that Noah approaches shows like Big Brother and Survivor with an analytical approach. His dissection of the show and discussion of tactics is really next level and unlike anything I've seen. We then start talking about Big Brother and the reasons Noah loves it. It's a real 24/7 show. Finally we finish up by talking about what it's like living with Spina Bifida and how it's made Noah's job search very difficult.
GO CHECK OUT NOAH
Twitter: https://twitter.com/NoahMussay
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheEntertainmentZone679
TIMESTAMPS
-
00:00 - Intro
- 09:17 - Survivor
- 30:07 - Big Brother
- 51:17 - Life with disabilities
PODCAST INFO
Podcast Website: https://www.bangtwothree.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bangtwothree
Twitter: https://twitter.com/BangTwoThree
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Who do you think would be better at Survivor
(00:03):
Donald Trump or Joe Biden?
Oh, boy...
Um...
[laughs]
Would you rather cake or ice cream?
Um...
Ah, I guess ice cream.
Do you not like cake?
(00:23):
Uh, I mean, no, I like...
I like cake, but...
I guess I was just thinking there's more flavors of ice cream
that I'm open to, whereas with cake, it's not...
Um...
It's more limited there for me.
I'm more of a...
Pizza.
(00:44):
Uh, oh, pizza.
That's easy, yeah, that's pretty easy.
Would you rather be rich or be beautiful?
[laughs]
Uh, hum...
Uh, I guess rich, because money...
Money fixes all problems.
[laughs]
Right?
What would you do honestly if you had a billion dollars right now?
Uh, if I had a billion dollars right now,
(01:07):
you know, I don't think much would change about my life, you know?
I would just...
Put that money into something that I'm passionate about.
That's it, so...
That's...
That's...
That's such an unconventional answer, you know that, right?
No, I know, I, you know, it's not like...
Um...
(01:27):
Not gonna buy a big mansion or anything.
I'm a very simple guy.
I don't want for much, so...
Um...
Yeah, right now I just think...
Uh...
Being able to go into an early retirement and just kinda...
Put that money towards something that I am very passionate about would...
(01:52):
Um...
Kind of be the route, because like I said, I...
There's not much that I need to make me happy.
Well, don't you think with that type of money you can buy yourself as a contestant on Big Brother?
Um...
Um...
I don't think so, because uh...
(02:15):
Yeah, Big Brother is kind of a physical competition, so I don't see them bustin' down my door any day soon.
No matter how much money I have.
That is so fucked, I didn't even think about that, dude.
Damn, would you rather be stoned to death by pickles or drown in mayonnaise?
(02:38):
Oh, keep in mind, keep in mind, like these aren't like hard pickles.
Like the...
It's gonna take a long time to get stoned to death by pickles.
It's gonna be like professional baseball pictures, chunking them at you.
I guess I'd go with the pickles, cause uh... yeah, drowning.
I... I...
(03:00):
I'm pretty picky, so uh...
I don't think I would like the taste of mayonnaise as I'm slowly dying.
Do you like pickles?
No.
Me neither.
I think I would take the pickles, and here's my strategy, okay?
I... like...
I am hoping to get hit in the head and just not me unconscious.
(03:21):
It'll be quick, right?
I don't want to have to like, I'm gasping for air, and I'm like, "No!
What's that taste?"
Oh, mayonnaise!
Oh, and then I'm dead, right?
That would be horrific.
Right.
Would you rather have the head...
A head the size of a tennis ball, or the size of a watermelon?
Uh...
(03:43):
What was the...
Sorry, say that was tennis ball?
Tennis ball head?
Uh... a tennis ball head or watermelon head?
Uh, probably watermelon head, because of...
It would be really weird.
I would wonder like, what your vision would be if your...
Uh, if your head was that small.
(04:07):
Yeah, I would imagine that you would either see things like much larger and up close, or...
Um...
Yeah.
Do you think though that if you did have a tennis ball head, you would be the most awesome Halloween guest?
Because you could be like the headless walking guy, isn't that a Halloween costume?
(04:29):
Oh, like the headless horseman?
Uh...
Yes.
Yeah, that's very true, very true.
Yeah.
Well, I guess the other thing, too, I would think about is with the watermelon head,
do you get like three times the brain, too?
Because if that happens, then you're essentially salt like your cure and cancer tomorrow.
(04:50):
Exactly.
That would be awesome.
Would you rather get eaten by a great white shark or beaten a death by a gorilla?
Uh...
It's a dark, I'm sorry.
It's just what I thought of.
Uh...
I guess get eaten...
Eatin' a death, because kind of like what the pickles it'd be fast.
(05:16):
Oh, yeah, that's true.
Yeah, that's true, because one bite in the right spot is gone.
Okay.
Right.
Would you would you rather be an extra in an Oscar-winning movie or the lead act in a box office bomb?
Um...
I guess I would be an extra, uh, because...
(05:38):
Yeah, then I can be like, hey, you can take all the credit for this thing that did really well,
even though you have a small part in it.
Uh, whereas if you're the lead in a box office bomb, then, uh,
you will get all the credit, but for making it suck.
That is a great point, or if you bomb, you can just deflect, right?
(06:04):
You can just like, oh, the director sucks or something, right?
Right, yep.
Yeah, just said, hey, it's not my fault.
What are you talking about?
I'm the lead actor.
Like, for example, if...
Let's say who's the big movie?
Uh, Tom Cruise movie.
Said Tom Cruise movie comes out and it bombs.
Do we really think it's because of Tom Cruise?
No, it's not, not usually, I think most people...
(06:28):
There's a lot of people that think he's never made a bad movie, so if he did come out with a bad movie,
it would probably be on the director or screenwriter, anybody, but him.
No.
Do...
Have you watched a lot of Tom Cruise movies?
Um, not a ton.
(06:51):
Like, you know, I've seen
a pop gun, I haven't seen the new one.
I've seen a couple of the Mission Impossible movies.
I saw Edge of Tomorrow, which is surprisingly really good.
Yeah, and then I've seen parts of cocktail.
(07:15):
So, not super into him, um, but like I said, he doesn't seem to make a bad movie, so good on him.
Who's your favorite movie star?
Oh boy, um, you know, I...
I can't say that I really have one, so I'm going to go with the unconventional answer and say weird
(07:44):
out.
Yeah, that is awesome, man.
Do you watch movies like whenever they first come out, or are you a big movie person?
Um, I'm not like a huge movie person, you know,
there will be a movie every once in a while that's like something that I've really been waiting for.
(08:08):
So, you know, something that's based off of a book, or maybe something that, uh,
like I've seen the last couple of scream movies, and, uh, I love those movies, so I had to seek them out
as soon as they came out.
But yeah, I, I, I need to watch more movies because I find it kind of difficult to just sit and watch
(08:35):
something just by myself. It has to be something that I have really been looking forward to.
Yeah, I agree. It is kind of hard.
Like, I think also because I don't watch that much like cable TV, I don't see the, uh, like the trailers
and stuff like that. Um, for example, if you had to ask me, hey, what's playing in a theater right now?
(08:58):
I don't, I don't think I could name a single movie.
Yeah, I don't think I could do that either. I haven't really been following the trailer much.
Yeah, do you watch, um, that you see that you got the new season of Survivor? Do you watch Survivor?
Yes, I do. I love, I love Survivor, not as much as Big Brother, but I've, uh,
(09:22):
in the last few years, really gotten into Survivor and it's been, it's been okay. Uh, we had kind of a bumpy
start to the season, uh, but something they've been doing the last couple of years is getting into
90 minute episodes. And so that really gives, uh, gives the show time to breathe.
(09:47):
Really lets you kind of get to know the players and the strategy better. So, um, I've,
I've been enjoying it so far and I'm interested to kind of see where the season ends up.
Yeah, same here. I've probably watched maybe four seasons of Survivor.
And I just started watching the new season yesterday. In fact, I'm like through the first episode,
(10:10):
but that's it. I kind of got to build up. Yeah, don't spoil it for me.
No, I won't, I won't. So far, my favorite guy is the Harvard guy, the Harvard Taylor Swift guy.
Oh, yeah, Charlie. Yeah. Uh, I feel like he's either going to be gone really soon or he's going
to go really far. Yeah. Um, I, I've liked what I've seen from him so far. Uh, I think they're, it's,
(10:41):
it's always hard to predict who's going to win on these shows on any given season because it's like
sometimes the nerdy guy does really well. Other times you have the challenge beast that ends up
doing really well because they start picking off those nerdy people. Um, so I could kind of see it
(11:05):
going either way for Charlie, um, right, right now, I, I think he's in a place where he can make a,
a good run of it. Yeah. You know what I noticed too. I feel like at the beginning of the season,
specifically before the merge of every season, it feels like the women always team up. And they're
(11:26):
always successful. It always seems like, uh, you know, everyone's mingling, hey, hey, hey, hey,
but it always seems like at the end or at the beginning of the show, but come tribunal time,
the women always stick together, man, and the men fall for it every time. Yeah. I, I, I, I would push back
(11:48):
a little bit because I, I kind of feel like they don't have the, um, they typically don't do very good.
When they band together because they always at any time that a women's alliance starts to form,
(12:10):
they always try to get all of the women together. And so what that does is create a situation where
there's a lot more inviting because you have all these different personalities that are clashing
because when you have a, um, when you have something like a guy's alliance, the guy's, uh, the guy's,
(12:35):
a group of them will stick together, but it's not like they're inviting everyone into the pack.
So there's a lot less of that in fighting that goes on. And so, um, and so typically then if you
have a bunch of challenge beast guys, I do see them usually being able to, uh, you know, make a deep
(13:00):
run more often than not. Even though I will admit in the last few seasons, this new era of survivor,
we definitely have had a lot more, uh, women, women winners that have been able to do really well
because they stick together. So, uh, yeah, who knows?
(13:23):
What, what would, if you win on survivor, right? And you were, you were able to compete in what
that or, or let's say maybe if you were, you built the perfect survivor contestant. Like what,
what does that look like? And what do you think is the best strategy going in to win?
Yeah, so I think in, I think in this new era of survivor because they, they're down to 26 days now.
(13:55):
So it goes by really, really fast. I think it's just a matter of finding, making enough connections
with people, um, you know, and, and making sure you're liked, but making sure that you're a number
(14:16):
that people can count on, but they don't feel like you're that threatening, like as a social player
or anything, because then I feel like you can kind of hide in the pack until you get to the merge
and then from there you can use all of these relationships that you've built up and, you know,
(14:38):
start to make a deeper run into the game. Yeah, I always feel like the, maybe the best strategy,
especially at the beginning is to kind of lay low a little bit. And whatever I say by laying low,
is you still want to play the game. You start want to go talk to people, you know, it's,
(14:59):
be, you know, active, but you, I feel like sometimes people put a target on their back by being such a big
personality. Yep. And, and it's like, I'm always, whenever I see someone coming in and they're like,
oh, yeah, I'm the loud, brash guy. And I don't want to help around camp and stuff. And like, do you
(15:19):
even watch the show at all? I get so frustrated. Yeah, yeah, you, you, it's, you see this happen
every season because it's like, and I think Jeff said it in the first episode of the season is that
there are people that no matter what are going to have no chance, they, they aren't going to win.
(15:42):
They aren't going to be liked. They're not going to be respected or they're, you know,
going to find themselves out of the game very early on. And it's so interesting to me how people
fall into those archetypes no matter what the season is. You know, I, I think that these players,
(16:05):
you know, because you're on survivors, so you want to play, you want to do all of the things.
But if you want to win survivor, you have to be able to take a step back and kind of, you know,
let, let your tribe eat their own and, and kind of being the background, just watching it all happen.
(16:29):
I always say in big brother that the best winners of big brother are the people that if there's
like a big fight that's going on, they're the people on the outskirts just watching it that you're
able to like bond and laugh with and be like, oh my god, can you believe this is happening? But like,
(16:54):
those are the people that you gravitate toward because they're not getting in on the drama. And so
I find that if you want to be good at these types of games, that's kind of what you have to do. You
just have to be very level headed and really be aware of what it is you're doing at every moment in the
(17:19):
game. Yeah. And that, that's hard too. It is because I could understand like maybe put myself in
the shoes of someone on there and it's, it's like, okay, I kind of, it's hard to not be yourself
for 26 days. But you kind of want to, you don't want to slip up, right? You don't want to. And another
(17:42):
phenomenon I see is that it seems like come vote time. It's almost, it's almost like random. I feel
like because they, they just start talking and then someone throws out a name, Bob, like, yeah,
Bob, I seen Bob. He was over there looking for coconuts and he didn't bring any back to camp.
And it bam. And I think everybody, it seems like they jump on the ship just because it's like,
(18:06):
hey, Bob isn't me. So as long as he goes and not me, then that is okay. So do you think a strategy
would be, hey, just start throwing out names, right? And see what sticks. And as long as it's not your name,
you're, you're on the green. Yeah. Well, it's interesting that you mention that because I don't know
if you know who Sandra is, but that was her strategy to a tee. Anybody but me, it doesn't matter.
(18:36):
And I think as long as, as long as you're, like I said, being aware of what your position in the game is,
that that strategy can be fine because, you know, you also have to keep in mind that it's like
a trust game, right? So you have all these different pieces and they have to go at the right time.
(19:01):
So you still have to be aware that like, it's not always good to just jump on the bandwagon because
you don't want it to be your name. Sometimes you have to play more actively, but I think in Sandra's
case, like she's been able to do that to a tee where she has been able to jump on that bandwagon
(19:27):
and her name never comes up. And then she gets to the end and it's kind of wild that she's done that
two times in a row. So yeah, if you watch her, she has this weird way of, I want to say it's like a
womanly way of just kind of like, when she talks, you're kind of like, yeah, you're right. Like we should
(19:49):
vote Bob. You kind of make a good point. And she, she always seems genuine when she talks. Like she,
it seems like she really believes it. Like this is, this person should go. And so I think that is a
great strategy. I don't know if I can name a winner who came out the gates and was a big
(20:12):
brash, like kind of like bold person. Can you think of one? I can. Yeah. Tony, Tony Vlacos.
Yeah, he came in to survivor Coggyon, which was the 20th season. And he was, he's the guy that
(20:33):
people oftentimes call him the survivor unicorn because he did that very brash kind of gameplay where
he just came hot out of the gates. And there's just something about him that is so magnetic that even
though he's doing all of this stuff in full force, he was able to win the game. And it, it was
(20:59):
incredible, incredible to watch. That is awesome. I wonder, do you think that, like, how do you manage that
too? Because I feel like even if people like you, then they still kind of play with their head.
Because some people, it's like they will play with their hardest like, oh, I don't want to vote
(21:25):
him out. He's a nice guy. And some people will just play with their head and say, I don't care.
So it is crazy to hear him coming in, being brash and kicking ass the whole season.
Yeah. I mean, he was a nice guy. I don't mean like he came in like this big jerk, you know, I'm
(21:49):
hot shit and all of that. But I think what helped him and I think what would help someone in a
similar position is that you have to have somebody that you trust in the game that can kind of
clean up your messes for you that can kind of round out the edges of your game so that if you're
(22:12):
doing a little bit too much, they can either help you pull back a little bit or they can do damage
control for you. Yeah, that's a great point too. If you could make like that strong alliance at the
beginning and you know what, so funny, people would try to make alliances about anything. They're like,
(22:33):
yeah, bro, our favorite color is blue. We got to be an alliance. You know what I'm saying?
But anything and then like that same person will turn around and be like, hey, yeah, girl, our
favorite color is red. We got to make an alliance. It's just like they're so desperate, man. I couldn't
imagine what that feels like. Oh, yeah, I don't know. I don't remember if this was in the first
(22:54):
episode. It's not a huge spoiler or anything, but there's these two guys that were bonding over
the Andy Griffith show and like they made an alliance based off of the fact that they had this
common interest. And so yeah, I think right out of the gate, you're looking for those small little
(23:19):
things because in our daily life, that's how we connect with people, right? Our common interest
and that's kind of where you start and then you're able to build something bigger. So
but I do find it funny watching the show and seeing people like making an alliance very early on and
(23:42):
being like, you're my day one, you're my writer, die. And then a few episodes later, they're like,
oh, actually, you know what? I think I got a got a vote. Yeah, it's very funny to
because that's another thing that you see happens so commonly and it's so funny when it happens because
(24:06):
that's just people playing the game. That's just kind of people falling into these same pitfalls
that you see every season. Doesn't it seem like the winner is luck because of stuff like that
what you're saying. It seems like it's almost no way for you not to get double crossed or something.
(24:30):
Someone could double cross you because they had a dream or something like that. So doesn't it feel
like the winner is just ultimately the luckiest person? I would agree with that. There's a fair bit of
a fair bit of luck like going back to Sandra. The initial I believe her tribe, yeah, it was her tribe
(24:56):
that was the first to code a tribal council in her first season. And the vote was going to be on her
like she was the one that was going to go home and I forget what happened. But somebody else
ended up leaving so either she was able to get the name on somebody else or there was a meta-back or
(25:19):
something. But it's crazy to think that this two-time winner might not have been that had
had things not kind of happened the way that they did. Who do you think would be better at survivor?
(25:43):
Donald Trump or Joe Biden? No, I think it's actually a tough question, right? It is kind of tough.
Yeah, it is tough. Here's the thing. I don't think either of them, even if they had all of the other
(26:07):
qualities, I don't think either of them could win. But if I had to choose one, yeah, I guess I would have
to go with Biden because with Trump, like people are just going to laugh him off and drag him to the
(26:27):
end. Whereas with Biden, there's still there's many winners of survivor that win just because
they aren't this other person that they're sitting next to. So I think Biden would fill that spot
pretty well. I think Biden actually has a personality that maybe could win survivor because he is
(26:55):
kind of like, hey, I'm just go with the flow. Well, he's older now, too. I don't know what he was
like when he's younger, but he's just like, hey, I'm just kind of, I'm just here. I'm go with the flow,
but you give him my chance to talk and I'm going to make my point and then I'm going to shut up,
right? I'm going to lay back here. But on the flip side, Donald Trump, Donald Trump, see,
(27:17):
they get voted off first or he's winning. Guarantee, I couldn't imagine. Hello, yes, these are the best
coconuts ever. I picked all of the coconuts. It's like, Donald, dude, you haven't picked a single
coconut. He's a pathological liar, too, which is really bad. Right, right. I could see a similar
(27:41):
situation where he wins just based on who he's sitting next to because if people hate you enough,
they'll vote for the other guy. And so I think they're both spite, spite winners, but yeah, you make
(28:04):
a compelling case. That is a good point. You actually just made a great point, which is whenever
there's obviously somebody who is a dickbag and just fucking terrible, they'll say, yeah, Rodney,
listen, let's just save Rodney. He's not going to make it to the end. So let's vote off Susan now,
but we'll save Rodney because he's kind of good at challenges. That is a viable tactic to be so
(28:29):
annoying that people are just like, yeah, there's no way you're going to win this game.
That is a common strategy. Typically, those players are called goats because they're the scapegoat.
They're the person that you can drag to the end and they're going to get zero votes because nobody
(28:52):
respects the game or the way they played it or they feel like they didn't play it at all.
There's obviously a great example of that is Russell Hans from Survivor Samoa and Survivor
Heroes vs Villains. He is that brash player. He is that player that's a dickbag and nobody likes
(29:21):
and he's very good at the strategic end of Survivor. He's always able to set up the pieces so that he's
able to get to the end, but a large part of why he's never in danger of going out before then is
because people know they're going to be able to beat him in the end. You see that so much in Big Brother 2,
(29:51):
that it's a valid strategy. It's not the most entertaining finale situation to watch,
but it's a valid strategy. What's your favorite thing about Big Brother?
I see you seem to like it and I've only watched like two episodes. What is it about it that you like?
(30:16):
The thing about Big Brother that sets it apart from any reality television program is that it is a 24/7
show that you can watch. On Survivor, what you're getting is the edited version of the show.
(30:44):
Shoot the show a year in advance. They edit it. They know the ending before it's released.
When you watch it, you're getting the producers version of what happened on that season. Whereas
with Big Brother, there are hundreds of cameras and microphones in the Big Brother House.
(31:08):
So you're getting a live video feed from the house virtually 24/7.
So you get to watch every single second of the game and the strategy that's going on.
And so you can follow a really great player for weeks on end and see as they're slowly starting to gain
(31:32):
hour or take it away from somebody. And then of course you have the produced show which definitely is
corny and is definitely edited in a way that aligns with how the producers feel about the different
players in the house and is more aligned for the casual viewers. But if you're a hardcore fan of
(31:59):
Big Brother, like you get a feast for three months. Like it's insane how much time you can spend watching
the live feeds. There are people that have podcasts where they dissect the strategy day after day.
And it's just a really cool community experience that you don't really get with Survivor.
(32:27):
Or any show I did not know about the live feed. Where is the Big Brother live feed? Is it on like YouTube or something?
It's on the Paramount Plus website. So you buy Paramount Plus, you buy a subscription and then you get
access to the Big Brother live feeds which are on the Big Brother homepage on the Paramount website.
(32:53):
That's interesting. I did not know that. That does make it extremely unique. Could you, what is like the main
objective of Big Brother? Like how do you win? Yeah, so it's similar to Survivor. You basically have
the season start with 16 house guests moving into the Big Brother house. And each week they
(33:19):
fight or they compete for power and for safety. And so the week always starts off with a competition called
the head of house old competition. And whoever wins that has the power to nominate two players for
eviction. And so then from that point, you have these two players that get nominated that are able to
(33:46):
compete along with the head of household and three other players in a competition that's very much
like the amenity challenges of Survivor. And so whoever wins that challenge has the opportunity to
either take one of the nominees off the block or keep the nominations the same. So that means that
(34:13):
the nominees have the opportunity to potentially save themselves. And then depending on who's on the
chopping block at the end of the week, there's a house vote where the house will of course vote for one
of the players to leave. And you just keep repeating this cycle. It gets a little bit different
(34:41):
in the structure of the game once we get down to the final four, but that's the basic structure of
the entire game. And then it goes down to a final two that similar to Survivor, you have two players
that are going up in front of the jury, which is their evicted house guests and having to make their
(35:08):
case for why they should win the game. And I'm guessing the house vote is where like the
polyticking comes in. It's where a lot of game games mission ship occurs. Yeah, absolutely because
and there's a lot of downtime on Big Brother. So typically the head of household competition takes
(35:31):
place on a Thursday night and then the head of household will have basically all of Thursday night
into Friday to kind of have their meetings with people to kind of decide what it is that they want
to do. And then Friday night, you have the nomination ceremony where the two house guests get
(35:57):
nominated for eviction. And then the following day that Saturday, they have the power of veto
competition, which is the immunity challenge. And so there's all of this in between time. Like the
whole week plays out over a week, you know, in contrast to Survivor where it's a three day cycle.
(36:27):
So you have a lot of time for this polyticking to happen.
Wait on the live feeds. Can you see them like addressing and stuff? Do you see a little like nudity?
You can see nudity. Yes. The house guests are pretty good at this point about being able to
(36:49):
hide it. Like even when they take a shower, the showers are made so that you're not seeing them
buck naked when they're in the shower. You're not getting too much of a show. But yes, some nudity does
(37:10):
occur on the show. All right. Well, Noah, today we learned why you love Big Brother.
Yeah, it's for the strategy. I just like to make that clear. Yeah, of course. Of course.
Right. That is crazy. I did not know this because this is why you're explaining exactly why I only
watched two episodes because I watched the produced episode. And like you said, it did come off as
(37:35):
like really corny and silly, but it kind of didn't hit me. I'm like, I know this is one of the most
popular shows in history, but this is so hard to watch for me. Yeah, you can, you know, with Big Brother,
you do have to give it some grace because it's not like survivor where they're on an island and
(37:58):
they're watching people starve. Like they're in a house. They've got all of their luxuries that they
have in the outside world, you know, except for, you know, television or the internet.
So there's not a ton. There are a lot of segments on the show that are stupid just because
(38:23):
they don't have too much to show. That, that being said, if you can get asked with corneanus,
the strategy segments are usually really interesting. And, and like I said, if you're following it online,
you're getting some extra details, but I can see how watching previous seasons without the life
(38:53):
feeds wouldn't be as fun. Yeah, I actually met a woman who is a contestant on Big Brother.
This was a long time ago, man. She was, this was probably 10 years ago. Okay.
Ish. Eight to 10 years ago. Anyways, I was at a gas station. My car was broke down. No, it was not
(39:15):
broke down. My keys were locked inside. I punk gas, go to get in the keys are locked inside. And so I
have this clothes hanger and I'm trying to Jimmy my lock. And this girl, I think she was blonde.
She just comes up. She's like, hey, yeah, she's very, like, and this is Southern Louisiana. So I'm
guessing she's from Louisiana. She's like, hey, look, I could do it here. Give it to me. I'm like,
(39:35):
who the hell are you? And she's like, no, I was on Big Brother. Trust me. I could do it. I'm like, what?
And I think she told me her name, but I forgot. But I was just like, who is this girl? She's trying to
Jimmy the lock and stuff. And like she, she hung out with us for like 15 minutes. And I think that was
my introduction to Big Brother was a contestant. Jimmy and my lock on the car was crazy.
(39:58):
That's pretty interesting. I don't, I wish I had like an encyclopedic knowledge of
these players outside of the show. Because I couldn't tell you where any of these players are from.
But, but that's very, very interesting. No, would you say that like Big Brother is your favorite hobby?
(40:24):
I would say so. Yeah. It pretty much takes up a good chunk of my time in the summer. I have
friends that I watch it with. And so that's pretty much all we're talking about for that three month
period. And so, yeah, it's stress. Like I said, it is a community experience unlike any other.
(40:53):
I don't think that Big Brother gets the amount of love that Survivor does. It doesn't get
the amount of love that I think it deserves. Even though I will say like, the highs of Big Brother
are great, but the lows are very, very low. And so it can be very, very hard to enjoy a full season of
(41:21):
Big Brother. Well, it's pretty obvious why they don't get the hype of Survivor is because they
don't have Jeff. Oh my gosh. He's the best host in the history of like TV shows, right? I love Jeff.
Yeah, Jeff is very, very good. How sometimes he'll just make up his own rules or something,
(41:43):
or he'll be like someone with kind of cheat or use a weird strategy and just like, no, play on.
You can do it. Jeff, you just made up a rule. And he just shoots from the hip. I love watching that
drop. Yeah, like, Sabaya with the immunity, the wax immunity, idol that she brought to try
(42:05):
the last season. Yeah, you know, I think Jeff, he sees Survivor as a labor of love. You know,
I don't always agree with the decisions that he makes with the game and the way that it goes.
But yeah, he definitely treats it like a labor of love, whereas our host of Big Brother,
(42:33):
Julie, Jen, she just treats it like a job. She's only there once a week.
So she, her heart's really, really not in it. And that can be pretty disappointing because,
because then yeah, we're not getting the, if she's not excited, then it's hard for us to get excited.
(42:59):
Yeah, that's a great point. If you could change one thing about Big Brother, what would it be?
I would remove all of the dumb twists. And I would say the same for Survivor, because
I'm a purist when it comes to those games. So I like just, I like it when these shows just trust
(43:28):
the cast that they have, you know, and they just are like, all right, we're letting you loose.
Go, go play the game. Because I feel like, I feel like the most interesting twist in a season of
Big Brother is the different choices that people are making, you know? And when you put in some
(43:56):
game breaking, production, centered, twist into the game, I just feel like that doesn't give the
players the room to maneuver. And then it just ends up making things stale.
Yes, I totally agree. And I think it's, I feel like it's a common mistake on a lot of game shows or
(44:20):
those type of shows. It almost feels like overproduced even, even sometimes in the way I'm,
and I'm talking about Survivor in a way that they present it. I really want, like, I wish they focused
more on the gamesmanship, the manipulation that's going on and stuff like that. But sometimes I
feel like they can overthink it. Absolutely. I mean, people, okay, I don't want to say that because I
(44:47):
don't want to spoil the season. So I'll say something more general is that, you know, a lot of times
you'll have this situation where it's like, okay, this person doesn't have a vote. This person
has two votes. This person can steal a vote and you just have to keep track of all of these different
(45:12):
pieces. That, you know, it doesn't even make watching the show fun because you get confused in the details.
Where as it's, it's more fun if things are just kind of laid out in a more simple way.
(45:36):
Totally agree. And if there were twists, what I would personally like is a twist like this is like,
hey, like Jeff comes out or something like that and it's like, hey, we're going to play tic-tac-toe or
whatever. And you get to choose to listen in on the conversations of two of your contestants, right?
(46:01):
Any two because they're wearing mics. So like something like that, like, hey, they were talking in
the woods. We'll play it for you. Like something like that that kind of exposes something because I
feel like if we did something like that, then the fallout would be incredible, especially if,
let's say, that we're on a alliance, right? We're the cool guy alliance. And then like, I hear that
(46:26):
you're talking with Samantha in the jungle about Double Cross Me. I think that that would make for
beautiful TV. Yeah. Yeah. I see what you're saying. I kind of, that's another problem that I have with
twists is that I feel like if people are scared to play the game, then they'll pull back,
(46:46):
which kind of makes this strategy more safe. But I mean, I do think twists that kind of
are more social in nature, you know, are more in line with what the core of the game is
(47:11):
would be something that survivors should employ. I just, I don't know, I feel like they haven't,
they throw everything at the wall. And I don't know that they found the thing that sticks.
I think like hidden immunity idols, those were something that were only introduced. I think it was
(47:39):
season 11. And I think that was a great game mechanic because like, okay, if your tribe loses,
and you know that there's going to be one specific person that everybody wants to get out,
but then that person finds a hidden immunity idol. I love that that kind of shakes things up.
(48:03):
So I think small little things like that are really, really what
production of these types of shows should be doing. Like, but like I said, I don't think they understand
why the things that work actually work. So they haven't been able to replicate them.
(48:26):
I know I would, you made such a good point. The immunity idol is the ultimate because it never feels like
it's too overpowered or it's unfair. It always kind of also kind of plays into this aspect of luck
since everything's, you know, kind of about luck that hey, if you are on the bottom and you are
(48:48):
kind of getting screwed, you have like this final lifeline. Has there ever been a twist or an
addition to survivor that's been as good as the idol? I can't say that I've watched it long enough
to be able to do that. I do think that there was, I forget the name of the twist. It was in the
(49:21):
winner's season that survivor did a few seasons ago where there was a player that had to get coins.
Like, all of the players had a certain number of tokens. I think it was their fire tokens that
because Jeff was trying to create like a survivor economy. And so they all had these tokens
(49:45):
and they could exchange them between their different tribe-mates for different things. And so in order to,
I think, keep his vote. There was a player that had to go around and acquire a certain number of
tokens from people. And I think that was a great twist because it made him have to exhibit
(50:14):
the social skills that you need for survivors. So it was kind of working that muscle.
So, and I remember that episode being really fun to watch. Like, they centered the entire episode
around this guy trying to get these tokens. And it, like I said, it was a lot of fun to watch because
(50:39):
it was kind of at the core of what survivors all about. I think we are best friends. No, I'm so glad
you said that because I'm definitely going to go watch that season. That is an awesome twist.
I love that. That's the thing about survivor. And I'm sure big brother in a lot of these shows
is like, there's like 40 seasons. Man, there's a lot of like cool nuggets and moments in there
(51:04):
that people don't pick up on. That is an awesome twist. Thank you so much.
Could you tell me about like what like your day to day life? Like as far as like how you live,
right? You're in a wheelchair. Could you first start off with like what puts you in the wheelchair?
Like what's going on? Yeah, yeah. So I was born with a spinal cord disorder called Spina Bifida.
(51:30):
So basically it's a disability where basically within the first few months of pregnancy,
the spine starts to develop, but it doesn't close. And so what happens is the spine,
the spine is exposed. And in some cases, because the spine is exposed,
(51:58):
it can get exposed to amniotic fluid, which ends up killing the nerves, the nerves like around the
spine. And what that basically does is it jacks up a lot of things. And so I am paralyzed from the
waist down. Like you said, I use a manual wheelchair. Are you jacked? You must be so strong, dude. No,
(52:26):
no, I am not. No, this is what I'm working with. Yeah, yeah. So there's different levels of
spine Bifida. Because so basically what happens is once I was born, I was born with this like big,
(52:49):
gaping hole in my back. And my spine was protruding, you know, outside of my body essentially. And
depending on how big the hole is, depending on where it's located on the body, there's different
like different levels of paralysis, different levels of things that can happen.
(53:14):
So like there are people that have spine Bifida that are able to walk, but maybe they just have
back pain. You know, so there's different kind of things that go along with that. My day to day life
is fairly normal. It's just there's a lot of physical limitations that I have. There's a lot of
(53:42):
assistance that I need in my daily life, which admittedly can complicate kind of
has complicated my ability to kind of be more independent. So yeah.
(54:03):
Do you have like someone there kind of helping you out? Yeah, yeah. So I live with my parents
currently. And so one day the hope is to be able to live on my own and be fully independent.
Not quite there yet, but that is the hope. And yeah, you know, it is obviously difficult, but
(54:37):
like I said, my life is fairly normal, just like anybody else's, just with a unique set of challenges.
Yeah. Are you able to like work and do stuff like that?
I am. Yeah. I am right now looking for remote work. I graduated in 2018 with the bachelor's in
(55:00):
communications. And so I had started looking for work in 2019 and wasn't really finding anything
and then the pandemic hit. And so basically my entire working life, I've worked remotely, which
(55:24):
has definitely been something that's been very positive because then I'm working within my space.
And there's a lot of things that I'm not having to figure out how I'm going to make work in
a, you know, office space. Of course. Were you home school? Did you go to public school?
(55:48):
Oh no, I went to public school. Yeah, I had a normal childhood. I went to school.
I said, what was public school like? That had to be in brutal, man. Kids are assholes.
I so, you know, it wasn't really like that for me. I have had the suspicion that like, you know,
(56:14):
I had it really easy in that department. So maybe the adults in my life were just protecting me
from things. And maybe I was just oblivious to people saying things behind my back.
But, you know, it was a relatively positive experience. I had friends. I had a social life, you know.
(56:40):
I was still a very like introverted kid, but I was able to make friends. And the academics
were very definitely something that I was able to handle. And I had a great support system
that was helping me all throughout my elementary through high school career. So I'm very, very
(57:06):
lucky. Yeah, man, you are. And that is awesome that we do have one out of a million schools in
America that wouldn't be a fucking asshole, man, because kids are such jerks. It's crazy.
What would you say is kind of your biggest day-to-day challenge? Like, what's the toughest part?
(57:28):
Well, I mean, I do still think the looking for work is something that is a big challenge,
you know, especially like, you know, remote work is great. And it has, it's something that's
increased since the pandemic started, but it is a situation where, you know, people want
(57:53):
employees back in the office. So looking for those jobs that are still offering work from home is
kind of difficult. It's very difficult even when I am applying somewhere that's outside of the home
to kind of consider how I am going to manage working in an office space, but also
(58:23):
even like applying as a disabled person because like the minute you say you're disabled,
then people are having all of these preconceived notions about what it is you're capable of.
And in a lot of instances, your application just gets thrown in the trash.
(58:45):
You're talking about that checkbox, right? Oh, man, you talk. So they have, I think it's,
because I'm pretty sure it's like a legal or something to ask someone if they're disabled.
So they put like an optional checkbox, right? And it's the same thing I think with like race and
religion too. And maybe correct me if I'm wrong. It's like, hey, you don't have to answer this,
(59:06):
but if you don't answer it, you go straight to the trash. And maybe for you, if you do answer it,
you go to the trash. Man, that's so fucked, dude. Yeah, yeah, and that's something that I'm seeing more
and more is so usually, well, I won't get into what I do. Just lie on the application, dude. You can do that.
(59:26):
But it's such a hard thing because you don't want to disclose your disability before you even have
the transfer and interview. But at the same time, you don't want to say, I choose not to answer,
(59:48):
because that's almost a confession. And if you say, well, no, I don't have a disability, well,
that's lying. So there's just so many different things that you have to think about. And I have heard
that technically it's legal because it is, it's not about the hiring process. It's about
(01:00:12):
demographics for the federal government. So, you know, so they're not using it for the hiring process. But
I'm like, somebody is definitely looking at it. So they know what you're answering. So who knows?
Yeah, I just want to know as a guy who did a lot of fucking lying in his life, I lie, listen,
(01:00:38):
I lied my whole damn all the way up to I was like 24. That's all I did was lie. You asked me what color
the sky is. I'd say purple. Listen, there's a difference between lying and a mistake. It said, hey,
I'm sorry that my hand slipped when I clicked the button. I'm so sorry. But by the way, if you hire me,
(01:01:00):
I will do a great job. It's come on like sometimes because the cards are stacked against you, dude.
So sometimes you may have to do a little bit of cheating. I hear you. Yeah, it's it like I said,
it's just it's one of those things that's really messy. You know, and makes the whole process
(01:01:23):
so much more bleak because you're like, all right, I just spent an hour on this cover letter. And
now is it even gonna matter? You know, and you know, able-bodied people, you know, everyone goes
through the rat race of having to apply for jobs and wondering if it's even gonna matter. But
(01:01:49):
having that added weight just makes that feeling 10 times worse.
Dude, my heart honestly does break for this type of shit. I hate this fucking type of shit.
How do you like, how do you mentally, emotionally approach your disability? Are you better? Do you
(01:02:12):
like, do you think about it often? Yeah, yeah, the way that you do that is you go to therapy.
Now, I mean, here's the thing, if, you know, I am not, there are days that I'm bitter. There are days
(01:02:34):
where, you know, I think in the disability community, there's this idea of disability pride, right?
You want to be prideful in who you are because other people will tell you that you're insignificant,
right? That you're not good enough. So I think for a lot of disabled people, there's this need
(01:03:01):
to always be positive about their situation because you don't want to be adding, like you don't
want to be telling the people that think you're insignificant that they're right. And I don't
think they're right, but even still I have moments where, yeah, you just have to kind of accept that
(01:03:23):
things suck sometimes and, you know, you have to kind of wallow and kind of mourn this idea that
things could have, could be different. But at the same time, like it's not healthy to let yourself
(01:03:44):
go completely down there. So it's very difficult. And I think that's why I just focus on all of the
things that are good in my life, all of the, you know, that's why I pour my attention into something
(01:04:04):
like big brother or listening to weird out is because, you know, there's a lot of great stuff
in this world and you never want to lose sight of that. And I think being able to focus on
all of the good that you have in your life definitely can help kind of pull you out of those
(01:04:26):
places, those moments where maybe you're not feeling is great about yourself as you'd like to.
How many days out of 10 would you say are bad days where you just kind of feel shitty like,
man, I wish, I wish stuff was different. I don't know, you know, it's not like, it's not like I,
(01:04:49):
I'm just down into dumps every day, you know, it's just moments here and there. And some weeks,
those moments are, you know, greater. And other weeks, you know, I'm totally fine. And my energy is
put into places that are, you know, more positive for me to be putting my energy into.
(01:05:20):
So really it just depends. Yeah, I really hate to hear kind of what you said earlier about
kind of how people can view you and the disability community because I'll just be honest,
whenever I see someone who's disabled and in almost any type of way, almost any type of way,
(01:05:40):
like fast-seeing you in Walmart or whatever, you, you and all the entire community serve as an
inspiration to me because first of all, I see you and I'm like, holy fuck, like because I'm over here
tripping on my bullshit, right? Like, oh, you know, I stubbed my toe or something like that. But this
person has to overcome so much more than me every single fucking day, you can't escape it. There's
(01:06:06):
nothing you can do about it every single day just to live. And so it really kind of reminds me,
a to check my bullshit at the door. And probably the second feeling I have is one of curiosity. I'm like,
I'd really like to talk to this person, but I don't want to make them, I don't want to make you feel
odd or something like that. And I don't want to talk to you, be like, hey, yo, what's it like? I just
(01:06:29):
want to be like, what's your name? Hello, like, you want to like hang out or something like that?
Because I just think that you live such a different life and that really intrigues me. But to hear
that anybody would say, oh, look at these people wallowing or something like that, I think that's a sick
fucker. Yeah. So, so I'm gonna push back a little bit because I think it's good, good to educate
(01:07:02):
people. So there's, there's this idea that there's this thing in the disability community called
inspiration one. And the name is deceiving. It is not not as dirty as it sounds. But basically,
(01:07:24):
it's this idea that able-bodied people have kind of a tendency to objectify disabled people
for their own gain. So, for example, like, if you've ever been to a doctor's office and you've seen
a poster of a disabled person like doing some incredible physical feat and there's a caption
(01:07:50):
at the bottom that says something like, what's your excuse? Or the only disability is a bad attitude.
That is meant, like you said, to inspire able-bodied people to kind of check themselves and kind of
kind of consider that their problems are small beings, right? But the thing is,
(01:08:18):
that is a very like reductive view to me of what it means to be a human. So like, yeah, maybe you've
got your own bullshit that you're dealing with and maybe you see someone that, you know, has
obvious physical limitations and you're thinking to yourself, oh, they have it so much worse than me,
(01:08:43):
like, I need to check myself. I need to let go of whatever bullshit I'm hanging on to.
You know, I kind of reject that because everybody has something, you know, they have their things
that they're going through and they don't need to, they don't need to, you know, play the
(01:09:06):
oppression Olympics, right? They don't need to be comparing their struggles to somebody else's.
Because, you know, just people's lives are way too complicated to say that one person doesn't have
(01:09:27):
the right to, you know, cry because they broke up with a significant other or, you know, they lost
their house or whatever. Like, it's just, it's not worth it to compare yourself to other people.
And I find also that, you know, people are very quick to, but disabled people on a path,
(01:09:54):
had a store when we're doing something that they don't expect us to be able to do. But like,
if I was going around wallowing about my situation, people would be very quick to also look at me
and tell me to tough enough or to tell me that I'm not trying hard enough because then they would
(01:10:17):
be comparing me to other disabled people that, you know, have achieved these great things.
So, yeah, like going back to what I said, just humans are too complex for us to be playing the comparison
game. It doesn't do anyone any good. So are you saying that like by me kind of, are you saying that
(01:10:44):
maybe I would be using you as an object to make me feel better by comparison? Is that what you're
saying? And that's kind of not cool? Yeah, essentially. You know, you're, because you're only seeing,
you're seeing this grandiose version of this person, you know, you're not seeing them on their
(01:11:10):
bad days. So, you're only seeing the positive, you're only saying, oh, they've overcome something,
you know, when the reality is, they're still overcoming it every day and some days are harder than
others. You know, I'm, like I said, I am not always happy about myself. I'm, I'm some days, you know,
(01:11:38):
kind of down in the dumps. And that when I am down in the dumps, that would not be a very
inspiring display to see. But people only have, have these very narrow views. That again, yeah, they're,
(01:12:00):
they're using, like, motivate themselves. They're, they're using it for their own benefit. Yeah.
Yeah, that's a good point. I kind of do that with almost anybody that I see that maybe
I may be better off at a certain thing. For example, if like I see someone with like really crappy
(01:12:25):
shoes on, I'm like, shit, I'm so glad to have good shoes. If I see like, you know, I see the homeless
people and my heart fucking breaks, this type of shit. So what, like what type of way do you think
disabled people should be perceived by folks like me? Honestly, it's just as human beings. It like,
(01:12:48):
people want to complicate it so much when they see us, that it's just like, we are human beings,
just, just like you are. And so it's like, talk to us like we're human beings. Don't talk to us,
like we're some angelic figure. Talk to us like we are this three-dimensional
(01:13:14):
human being that is just trying to get through life just like you are.
You know, it's not something that you have to
lose sleep over trying to figure out how to approach a disabled person. Just do it like you would
anyone else. I would caution like, don't go up to someone and ask them what happened to them.
(01:13:42):
Don't do that because like in this type of scenario, that's okay. This is, you know, a podcast,
this is an interview, it's a conversation that is tailored to asking those types of questions,
but like, because like me, I was born this way, but there's tons of us in the disability community
(01:14:11):
that weren't born this way. And, you know, probably had a very traumatic experience in the process
of becoming disabled. That if you're going up to them saying, hey, what happened to you?
It's very likely that they're still dealing with that trauma and so you don't want to be bringing
(01:14:35):
bad things up for them. And also like, you wouldn't, you would be offended if someone
went up to you and started asking you about your medical history. It's just not something that
we do in polite society. That's a great point. I think a lot of people are intimidated by disabled people.
(01:14:56):
myself included. It's like you don't know how to approach it. Like you said, do you just treat them
like a normal person? Do you like kind of put on the kids gloves and, you know, kind of tip to
around stuff? I think there are certain groups of people that because they come off as intimidating
for some reason or another, they become misunderstood. And I think that for me personally, I think
(01:15:22):
disabled people are one of those groups for me. I think another one is like trans people. People
terrified of trans people. Don't want to talk to them. And so that's why I guess I'm just, I'm just
thankful that you would take the time to talk to me and let me ask all my silly questions.
Yeah, you know, people are, people are scared by what they don't understand. And I think that
(01:15:50):
the pursuit of knowledge is is something that we can all kind of stand to be in pursuit of, you know,
because that's the way you connect with people is, you know, not being afraid to go up to someone
(01:16:12):
and start talking to them. It's something I could be better about. I definitely could be better
about, yeah. Yeah, dude, you're, you're inspiring me to just go kind of break down these walls and
just go talk to these, these people. If you had like, like, if you were able body for a day, you can
(01:16:34):
walk and run and all of this stuff. What do you think you would do? Oh boy, you know, I don't know.
Like what would be the first thing? Like what's the most important thing that you'd be most excited to do?
You know, I don't, okay, this, this is going to be random. But I would go to Philadelphia and run
(01:17:03):
up the rocky steps there. I have never thought about it before, but that, that seems like
something that would be cool to do. And so giving you another unconventional answer there.
That's awesome. No, that's, that's probably the best answer. Have you ever had like,
(01:17:25):
rude encounters in public where people were assholes to you?
Rude encounters. I mean, yeah, you know, mostly growing up, it was like, you know, little kids,
because they're unfiltered, you know? Yeah, yeah. So a lot of times they'll be the ones asking me,
(01:17:51):
like, what happened to you? You know, I've had, I've had these two old women,
pray for me in the middle of the department store. And so that, that was really weird. Luckily,
nothing too untoward has happened in a while. So I'm very lucky. And my luck will probably run out.
(01:18:20):
Now that I've said that. No, no, do not listen. Well, you should carry around like a pepper spray and just,
just blast their ass, man. You don't think you would do that?
No, I'm not very much of a confrontational person. So I just try to get out of any kind of situation
(01:18:41):
like that as, as soon as I can. Yeah, that, that probably wouldn't end well, man. That probably
wouldn't end well, but people shouldn't be assholes. No, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you so
much for talking to me. Take it the time. I think this was more of like an educational podcast,
because I learned so much about Big Brother. I got to peak behind your mind. You should be the producer
(01:19:01):
of a game show. I think that you're calling. And I got to ask some, some questions that I've been
dying to ask, you know, a disabled person for probably over 20 years. So I genuinely appreciate
your time. I think I'll walk away better because of this podcast. You want to let people know
where they could find you? Yeah, so you can find me at, Noah Mussay on Twitter, that is
(01:19:25):
M-U-S-S-A-Y. And then I do have a YouTube channel called the Entertainment Zone,
spills exactly as you would think it is spelt. And I typically talk about Big Brother on there. I
(01:19:45):
started it up at the end of last season. So I have some videos talking about last season of Big Brother
and then I love Doctor Who. So I have some videos up about the 60th anniversary specials. I'm looking
at uploading some reviews of the classic Doctor Who series, but I haven't got around to doing that
(01:20:13):
yet. So hopefully by the time this is out, I have done that. If not, give those other videos some views.
Sounds good. I'll put all that in the show notes. Once again, know what you're all so. Thank you for watching.
Thank you.
(upbeat music)
(01:20:35):
(upbeat music)
[MUSIC]
Who do you think would be better at Survivor
(00:03):
Donald Trump or Joe Biden?
Oh, boy...
Um...
[laughs]
Would you rather cake or ice cream?
Um...
Ah, I guess ice cream.
Do you not like cake?
(00:23):
Uh, I mean, no, I like...
I like cake, but...
I guess I was just thinking there's more flavors of ice cream
that I'm open to, whereas with cake, it's not...
Um...
It's more limited there for me.
I'm more of a...
Pizza.
(00:44):
Uh, oh, pizza.
That's easy, yeah, that's pretty easy.
Would you rather be rich or be beautiful?
[laughs]
Uh, hum...
Uh, I guess rich, because money...
Money fixes all problems.
[laughs]
Right?
What would you do honestly if you had a billion dollars right now?
Uh, if I had a billion dollars right now,
(01:07):
you know, I don't think much would change about my life, you know?
I would just...
Put that money into something that I'm passionate about.
That's it, so...
That's...
That's...
That's such an unconventional answer, you know that, right?
No, I know, I, you know, it's not like...
Um...
(01:27):
Not gonna buy a big mansion or anything.
I'm a very simple guy.
I don't want for much, so...
Um...
Yeah, right now I just think...
Uh...
Being able to go into an early retirement and just kinda...
Put that money towards something that I am very passionate about would...
(01:52):
Um...
Kind of be the route, because like I said, I...
There's not much that I need to make me happy.
Well, don't you think with that type of money you can buy yourself as a contestant on Big Brother?
Um...
Um...
I don't think so, because uh...
(02:15):
Yeah, Big Brother is kind of a physical competition, so I don't see them bustin' down my door any day soon.
No matter how much money I have.
That is so fucked, I didn't even think about that, dude.
Damn, would you rather be stoned to death by pickles or drown in mayonnaise?
(02:38):
Oh, keep in mind, keep in mind, like these aren't like hard pickles.
Like the...
It's gonna take a long time to get stoned to death by pickles.
It's gonna be like professional baseball pictures, chunking them at you.
I guess I'd go with the pickles, cause uh... yeah, drowning.
I... I...
(03:00):
I'm pretty picky, so uh...
I don't think I would like the taste of mayonnaise as I'm slowly dying.
Do you like pickles?
No.
Me neither.
I think I would take the pickles, and here's my strategy, okay?
I... like...
I am hoping to get hit in the head and just not me unconscious.
(03:21):
It'll be quick, right?
I don't want to have to like, I'm gasping for air, and I'm like, "No!
What's that taste?"
Oh, mayonnaise!
Oh, and then I'm dead, right?
That would be horrific.
Right.
Would you rather have the head...
A head the size of a tennis ball, or the size of a watermelon?
Uh...
(03:43):
What was the...
Sorry, say that was tennis ball?
Tennis ball head?
Uh... a tennis ball head or watermelon head?
Uh, probably watermelon head, because of...
It would be really weird.
I would wonder like, what your vision would be if your...
Uh, if your head was that small.
(04:07):
Yeah, I would imagine that you would either see things like much larger and up close, or...
Um...
Yeah.
Do you think though that if you did have a tennis ball head, you would be the most awesome Halloween guest?
Because you could be like the headless walking guy, isn't that a Halloween costume?
(04:29):
Oh, like the headless horseman?
Uh...
Yes.
Yeah, that's very true, very true.
Yeah.
Well, I guess the other thing, too, I would think about is with the watermelon head,
do you get like three times the brain, too?
Because if that happens, then you're essentially salt like your cure and cancer tomorrow.
(04:50):
Exactly.
That would be awesome.
Would you rather get eaten by a great white shark or beaten a death by a gorilla?
Uh...
It's a dark, I'm sorry.
It's just what I thought of.
Uh...
I guess get eaten...
Eatin' a death, because kind of like what the pickles it'd be fast.
(05:16):
Oh, yeah, that's true.
Yeah, that's true, because one bite in the right spot is gone.
Okay.
Right.
Would you would you rather be an extra in an Oscar-winning movie or the lead act in a box office bomb?
Um...
I guess I would be an extra, uh, because...
(05:38):
Yeah, then I can be like, hey, you can take all the credit for this thing that did really well,
even though you have a small part in it.
Uh, whereas if you're the lead in a box office bomb, then, uh,
you will get all the credit, but for making it suck.
That is a great point, or if you bomb, you can just deflect, right?
(06:04):
You can just like, oh, the director sucks or something, right?
Right, yep.
Yeah, just said, hey, it's not my fault.
What are you talking about?
I'm the lead actor.
Like, for example, if...
Let's say who's the big movie?
Uh, Tom Cruise movie.
Said Tom Cruise movie comes out and it bombs.
Do we really think it's because of Tom Cruise?
No, it's not, not usually, I think most people...
(06:28):
There's a lot of people that think he's never made a bad movie, so if he did come out with a bad movie,
it would probably be on the director or screenwriter, anybody, but him.
No.
Do...
Have you watched a lot of Tom Cruise movies?
Um, not a ton.
(06:51):
Like, you know, I've seen
a pop gun, I haven't seen the new one.
I've seen a couple of the Mission Impossible movies.
I saw Edge of Tomorrow, which is surprisingly really good.
Yeah, and then I've seen parts of cocktail.
(07:15):
So, not super into him, um, but like I said, he doesn't seem to make a bad movie, so good on him.
Who's your favorite movie star?
Oh boy, um, you know, I...
I can't say that I really have one, so I'm going to go with the unconventional answer and say weird
(07:44):
out.
Yeah, that is awesome, man.
Do you watch movies like whenever they first come out, or are you a big movie person?
Um, I'm not like a huge movie person, you know,
there will be a movie every once in a while that's like something that I've really been waiting for.
(08:08):
So, you know, something that's based off of a book, or maybe something that, uh,
like I've seen the last couple of scream movies, and, uh, I love those movies, so I had to seek them out
as soon as they came out.
But yeah, I, I, I need to watch more movies because I find it kind of difficult to just sit and watch
(08:35):
something just by myself. It has to be something that I have really been looking forward to.
Yeah, I agree. It is kind of hard.
Like, I think also because I don't watch that much like cable TV, I don't see the, uh, like the trailers
and stuff like that. Um, for example, if you had to ask me, hey, what's playing in a theater right now?
(08:58):
I don't, I don't think I could name a single movie.
Yeah, I don't think I could do that either. I haven't really been following the trailer much.
Yeah, do you watch, um, that you see that you got the new season of Survivor? Do you watch Survivor?
Yes, I do. I love, I love Survivor, not as much as Big Brother, but I've, uh,
(09:22):
in the last few years, really gotten into Survivor and it's been, it's been okay. Uh, we had kind of a bumpy
start to the season, uh, but something they've been doing the last couple of years is getting into
90 minute episodes. And so that really gives, uh, gives the show time to breathe.
(09:47):
Really lets you kind of get to know the players and the strategy better. So, um, I've,
I've been enjoying it so far and I'm interested to kind of see where the season ends up.
Yeah, same here. I've probably watched maybe four seasons of Survivor.
And I just started watching the new season yesterday. In fact, I'm like through the first episode,
(10:10):
but that's it. I kind of got to build up. Yeah, don't spoil it for me.
No, I won't, I won't. So far, my favorite guy is the Harvard guy, the Harvard Taylor Swift guy.
Oh, yeah, Charlie. Yeah. Uh, I feel like he's either going to be gone really soon or he's going
to go really far. Yeah. Um, I, I've liked what I've seen from him so far. Uh, I think they're, it's,
(10:41):
it's always hard to predict who's going to win on these shows on any given season because it's like
sometimes the nerdy guy does really well. Other times you have the challenge beast that ends up
doing really well because they start picking off those nerdy people. Um, so I could kind of see it
(11:05):
going either way for Charlie, um, right, right now, I, I think he's in a place where he can make a,
a good run of it. Yeah. You know what I noticed too. I feel like at the beginning of the season,
specifically before the merge of every season, it feels like the women always team up. And they're
(11:26):
always successful. It always seems like, uh, you know, everyone's mingling, hey, hey, hey, hey,
but it always seems like at the end or at the beginning of the show, but come tribunal time,
the women always stick together, man, and the men fall for it every time. Yeah. I, I, I, I would push back
(11:48):
a little bit because I, I kind of feel like they don't have the, um, they typically don't do very good.
When they band together because they always at any time that a women's alliance starts to form,
(12:10):
they always try to get all of the women together. And so what that does is create a situation where
there's a lot more inviting because you have all these different personalities that are clashing
because when you have a, um, when you have something like a guy's alliance, the guy's, uh, the guy's,
(12:35):
a group of them will stick together, but it's not like they're inviting everyone into the pack.
So there's a lot less of that in fighting that goes on. And so, um, and so typically then if you
have a bunch of challenge beast guys, I do see them usually being able to, uh, you know, make a deep
(13:00):
run more often than not. Even though I will admit in the last few seasons, this new era of survivor,
we definitely have had a lot more, uh, women, women winners that have been able to do really well
because they stick together. So, uh, yeah, who knows?
(13:23):
What, what would, if you win on survivor, right? And you were, you were able to compete in what
that or, or let's say maybe if you were, you built the perfect survivor contestant. Like what,
what does that look like? And what do you think is the best strategy going in to win?
Yeah, so I think in, I think in this new era of survivor because they, they're down to 26 days now.
(13:55):
So it goes by really, really fast. I think it's just a matter of finding, making enough connections
with people, um, you know, and, and making sure you're liked, but making sure that you're a number
(14:16):
that people can count on, but they don't feel like you're that threatening, like as a social player
or anything, because then I feel like you can kind of hide in the pack until you get to the merge
and then from there you can use all of these relationships that you've built up and, you know,
(14:38):
start to make a deeper run into the game. Yeah, I always feel like the, maybe the best strategy,
especially at the beginning is to kind of lay low a little bit. And whatever I say by laying low,
is you still want to play the game. You start want to go talk to people, you know, it's,
(14:59):
be, you know, active, but you, I feel like sometimes people put a target on their back by being such a big
personality. Yep. And, and it's like, I'm always, whenever I see someone coming in and they're like,
oh, yeah, I'm the loud, brash guy. And I don't want to help around camp and stuff. And like, do you
(15:19):
even watch the show at all? I get so frustrated. Yeah, yeah, you, you, it's, you see this happen
every season because it's like, and I think Jeff said it in the first episode of the season is that
there are people that no matter what are going to have no chance, they, they aren't going to win.
(15:42):
They aren't going to be liked. They're not going to be respected or they're, you know,
going to find themselves out of the game very early on. And it's so interesting to me how people
fall into those archetypes no matter what the season is. You know, I, I think that these players,
(16:05):
you know, because you're on survivors, so you want to play, you want to do all of the things.
But if you want to win survivor, you have to be able to take a step back and kind of, you know,
let, let your tribe eat their own and, and kind of being the background, just watching it all happen.
(16:29):
I always say in big brother that the best winners of big brother are the people that if there's
like a big fight that's going on, they're the people on the outskirts just watching it that you're
able to like bond and laugh with and be like, oh my god, can you believe this is happening? But like,
(16:54):
those are the people that you gravitate toward because they're not getting in on the drama. And so
I find that if you want to be good at these types of games, that's kind of what you have to do. You
just have to be very level headed and really be aware of what it is you're doing at every moment in the
(17:19):
game. Yeah. And that, that's hard too. It is because I could understand like maybe put myself in
the shoes of someone on there and it's, it's like, okay, I kind of, it's hard to not be yourself
for 26 days. But you kind of want to, you don't want to slip up, right? You don't want to. And another
(17:42):
phenomenon I see is that it seems like come vote time. It's almost, it's almost like random. I feel
like because they, they just start talking and then someone throws out a name, Bob, like, yeah,
Bob, I seen Bob. He was over there looking for coconuts and he didn't bring any back to camp.
And it bam. And I think everybody, it seems like they jump on the ship just because it's like,
(18:06):
hey, Bob isn't me. So as long as he goes and not me, then that is okay. So do you think a strategy
would be, hey, just start throwing out names, right? And see what sticks. And as long as it's not your name,
you're, you're on the green. Yeah. Well, it's interesting that you mention that because I don't know
if you know who Sandra is, but that was her strategy to a tee. Anybody but me, it doesn't matter.
(18:36):
And I think as long as, as long as you're, like I said, being aware of what your position in the game is,
that that strategy can be fine because, you know, you also have to keep in mind that it's like
a trust game, right? So you have all these different pieces and they have to go at the right time.
(19:01):
So you still have to be aware that like, it's not always good to just jump on the bandwagon because
you don't want it to be your name. Sometimes you have to play more actively, but I think in Sandra's
case, like she's been able to do that to a tee where she has been able to jump on that bandwagon
(19:27):
and her name never comes up. And then she gets to the end and it's kind of wild that she's done that
two times in a row. So yeah, if you watch her, she has this weird way of, I want to say it's like a
womanly way of just kind of like, when she talks, you're kind of like, yeah, you're right. Like we should
(19:49):
vote Bob. You kind of make a good point. And she, she always seems genuine when she talks. Like she,
it seems like she really believes it. Like this is, this person should go. And so I think that is a
great strategy. I don't know if I can name a winner who came out the gates and was a big
(20:12):
brash, like kind of like bold person. Can you think of one? I can. Yeah. Tony, Tony Vlacos.
Yeah, he came in to survivor Coggyon, which was the 20th season. And he was, he's the guy that
(20:33):
people oftentimes call him the survivor unicorn because he did that very brash kind of gameplay where
he just came hot out of the gates. And there's just something about him that is so magnetic that even
though he's doing all of this stuff in full force, he was able to win the game. And it, it was
(20:59):
incredible, incredible to watch. That is awesome. I wonder, do you think that, like, how do you manage that
too? Because I feel like even if people like you, then they still kind of play with their head.
Because some people, it's like they will play with their hardest like, oh, I don't want to vote
(21:25):
him out. He's a nice guy. And some people will just play with their head and say, I don't care.
So it is crazy to hear him coming in, being brash and kicking ass the whole season.
Yeah. I mean, he was a nice guy. I don't mean like he came in like this big jerk, you know, I'm
(21:49):
hot shit and all of that. But I think what helped him and I think what would help someone in a
similar position is that you have to have somebody that you trust in the game that can kind of
clean up your messes for you that can kind of round out the edges of your game so that if you're
(22:12):
doing a little bit too much, they can either help you pull back a little bit or they can do damage
control for you. Yeah, that's a great point too. If you could make like that strong alliance at the
beginning and you know what, so funny, people would try to make alliances about anything. They're like,
(22:33):
yeah, bro, our favorite color is blue. We got to be an alliance. You know what I'm saying?
But anything and then like that same person will turn around and be like, hey, yeah, girl, our
favorite color is red. We got to make an alliance. It's just like they're so desperate, man. I couldn't
imagine what that feels like. Oh, yeah, I don't know. I don't remember if this was in the first
(22:54):
episode. It's not a huge spoiler or anything, but there's these two guys that were bonding over
the Andy Griffith show and like they made an alliance based off of the fact that they had this
common interest. And so yeah, I think right out of the gate, you're looking for those small little
(23:19):
things because in our daily life, that's how we connect with people, right? Our common interest
and that's kind of where you start and then you're able to build something bigger. So
but I do find it funny watching the show and seeing people like making an alliance very early on and
(23:42):
being like, you're my day one, you're my writer, die. And then a few episodes later, they're like,
oh, actually, you know what? I think I got a got a vote. Yeah, it's very funny to
because that's another thing that you see happens so commonly and it's so funny when it happens because
(24:06):
that's just people playing the game. That's just kind of people falling into these same pitfalls
that you see every season. Doesn't it seem like the winner is luck because of stuff like that
what you're saying. It seems like it's almost no way for you not to get double crossed or something.
(24:30):
Someone could double cross you because they had a dream or something like that. So doesn't it feel
like the winner is just ultimately the luckiest person? I would agree with that. There's a fair bit of
a fair bit of luck like going back to Sandra. The initial I believe her tribe, yeah, it was her tribe
(24:56):
that was the first to code a tribal council in her first season. And the vote was going to be on her
like she was the one that was going to go home and I forget what happened. But somebody else
ended up leaving so either she was able to get the name on somebody else or there was a meta-back or
(25:19):
something. But it's crazy to think that this two-time winner might not have been that had
had things not kind of happened the way that they did. Who do you think would be better at survivor?
(25:43):
Donald Trump or Joe Biden? No, I think it's actually a tough question, right? It is kind of tough.
Yeah, it is tough. Here's the thing. I don't think either of them, even if they had all of the other
(26:07):
qualities, I don't think either of them could win. But if I had to choose one, yeah, I guess I would have
to go with Biden because with Trump, like people are just going to laugh him off and drag him to the
(26:27):
end. Whereas with Biden, there's still there's many winners of survivor that win just because
they aren't this other person that they're sitting next to. So I think Biden would fill that spot
pretty well. I think Biden actually has a personality that maybe could win survivor because he is
(26:55):
kind of like, hey, I'm just go with the flow. Well, he's older now, too. I don't know what he was
like when he's younger, but he's just like, hey, I'm just kind of, I'm just here. I'm go with the flow,
but you give him my chance to talk and I'm going to make my point and then I'm going to shut up,
right? I'm going to lay back here. But on the flip side, Donald Trump, Donald Trump, see,
(27:17):
they get voted off first or he's winning. Guarantee, I couldn't imagine. Hello, yes, these are the best
coconuts ever. I picked all of the coconuts. It's like, Donald, dude, you haven't picked a single
coconut. He's a pathological liar, too, which is really bad. Right, right. I could see a similar
(27:41):
situation where he wins just based on who he's sitting next to because if people hate you enough,
they'll vote for the other guy. And so I think they're both spite, spite winners, but yeah, you make
(28:04):
a compelling case. That is a good point. You actually just made a great point, which is whenever
there's obviously somebody who is a dickbag and just fucking terrible, they'll say, yeah, Rodney,
listen, let's just save Rodney. He's not going to make it to the end. So let's vote off Susan now,
but we'll save Rodney because he's kind of good at challenges. That is a viable tactic to be so
(28:29):
annoying that people are just like, yeah, there's no way you're going to win this game.
That is a common strategy. Typically, those players are called goats because they're the scapegoat.
They're the person that you can drag to the end and they're going to get zero votes because nobody
(28:52):
respects the game or the way they played it or they feel like they didn't play it at all.
There's obviously a great example of that is Russell Hans from Survivor Samoa and Survivor
Heroes vs Villains. He is that brash player. He is that player that's a dickbag and nobody likes
(29:21):
and he's very good at the strategic end of Survivor. He's always able to set up the pieces so that he's
able to get to the end, but a large part of why he's never in danger of going out before then is
because people know they're going to be able to beat him in the end. You see that so much in Big Brother 2,
(29:51):
that it's a valid strategy. It's not the most entertaining finale situation to watch,
but it's a valid strategy. What's your favorite thing about Big Brother?
I see you seem to like it and I've only watched like two episodes. What is it about it that you like?
(30:16):
The thing about Big Brother that sets it apart from any reality television program is that it is a 24/7
show that you can watch. On Survivor, what you're getting is the edited version of the show.
(30:44):
Shoot the show a year in advance. They edit it. They know the ending before it's released.
When you watch it, you're getting the producers version of what happened on that season. Whereas
with Big Brother, there are hundreds of cameras and microphones in the Big Brother House.
(31:08):
So you're getting a live video feed from the house virtually 24/7.
So you get to watch every single second of the game and the strategy that's going on.
And so you can follow a really great player for weeks on end and see as they're slowly starting to gain
(31:32):
hour or take it away from somebody. And then of course you have the produced show which definitely is
corny and is definitely edited in a way that aligns with how the producers feel about the different
players in the house and is more aligned for the casual viewers. But if you're a hardcore fan of
(31:59):
Big Brother, like you get a feast for three months. Like it's insane how much time you can spend watching
the live feeds. There are people that have podcasts where they dissect the strategy day after day.
And it's just a really cool community experience that you don't really get with Survivor.
(32:27):
Or any show I did not know about the live feed. Where is the Big Brother live feed? Is it on like YouTube or something?
It's on the Paramount Plus website. So you buy Paramount Plus, you buy a subscription and then you get
access to the Big Brother live feeds which are on the Big Brother homepage on the Paramount website.
(32:53):
That's interesting. I did not know that. That does make it extremely unique. Could you, what is like the main
objective of Big Brother? Like how do you win? Yeah, so it's similar to Survivor. You basically have
the season start with 16 house guests moving into the Big Brother house. And each week they
(33:19):
fight or they compete for power and for safety. And so the week always starts off with a competition called
the head of house old competition. And whoever wins that has the power to nominate two players for
eviction. And so then from that point, you have these two players that get nominated that are able to
(33:46):
compete along with the head of household and three other players in a competition that's very much
like the amenity challenges of Survivor. And so whoever wins that challenge has the opportunity to
either take one of the nominees off the block or keep the nominations the same. So that means that
(34:13):
the nominees have the opportunity to potentially save themselves. And then depending on who's on the
chopping block at the end of the week, there's a house vote where the house will of course vote for one
of the players to leave. And you just keep repeating this cycle. It gets a little bit different
(34:41):
in the structure of the game once we get down to the final four, but that's the basic structure of
the entire game. And then it goes down to a final two that similar to Survivor, you have two players
that are going up in front of the jury, which is their evicted house guests and having to make their
(35:08):
case for why they should win the game. And I'm guessing the house vote is where like the
polyticking comes in. It's where a lot of game games mission ship occurs. Yeah, absolutely because
and there's a lot of downtime on Big Brother. So typically the head of household competition takes
(35:31):
place on a Thursday night and then the head of household will have basically all of Thursday night
into Friday to kind of have their meetings with people to kind of decide what it is that they want
to do. And then Friday night, you have the nomination ceremony where the two house guests get
(35:57):
nominated for eviction. And then the following day that Saturday, they have the power of veto
competition, which is the immunity challenge. And so there's all of this in between time. Like the
whole week plays out over a week, you know, in contrast to Survivor where it's a three day cycle.
(36:27):
So you have a lot of time for this polyticking to happen.
Wait on the live feeds. Can you see them like addressing and stuff? Do you see a little like nudity?
You can see nudity. Yes. The house guests are pretty good at this point about being able to
(36:49):
hide it. Like even when they take a shower, the showers are made so that you're not seeing them
buck naked when they're in the shower. You're not getting too much of a show. But yes, some nudity does
(37:10):
occur on the show. All right. Well, Noah, today we learned why you love Big Brother.
Yeah, it's for the strategy. I just like to make that clear. Yeah, of course. Of course.
Right. That is crazy. I did not know this because this is why you're explaining exactly why I only
watched two episodes because I watched the produced episode. And like you said, it did come off as
(37:35):
like really corny and silly, but it kind of didn't hit me. I'm like, I know this is one of the most
popular shows in history, but this is so hard to watch for me. Yeah, you can, you know, with Big Brother,
you do have to give it some grace because it's not like survivor where they're on an island and
(37:58):
they're watching people starve. Like they're in a house. They've got all of their luxuries that they
have in the outside world, you know, except for, you know, television or the internet.
So there's not a ton. There are a lot of segments on the show that are stupid just because
(38:23):
they don't have too much to show. That, that being said, if you can get asked with corneanus,
the strategy segments are usually really interesting. And, and like I said, if you're following it online,
you're getting some extra details, but I can see how watching previous seasons without the life
(38:53):
feeds wouldn't be as fun. Yeah, I actually met a woman who is a contestant on Big Brother.
This was a long time ago, man. She was, this was probably 10 years ago. Okay.
Ish. Eight to 10 years ago. Anyways, I was at a gas station. My car was broke down. No, it was not
(39:15):
broke down. My keys were locked inside. I punk gas, go to get in the keys are locked inside. And so I
have this clothes hanger and I'm trying to Jimmy my lock. And this girl, I think she was blonde.
She just comes up. She's like, hey, yeah, she's very, like, and this is Southern Louisiana. So I'm
guessing she's from Louisiana. She's like, hey, look, I could do it here. Give it to me. I'm like,
(39:35):
who the hell are you? And she's like, no, I was on Big Brother. Trust me. I could do it. I'm like, what?
And I think she told me her name, but I forgot. But I was just like, who is this girl? She's trying to
Jimmy the lock and stuff. And like she, she hung out with us for like 15 minutes. And I think that was
my introduction to Big Brother was a contestant. Jimmy and my lock on the car was crazy.
(39:58):
That's pretty interesting. I don't, I wish I had like an encyclopedic knowledge of
these players outside of the show. Because I couldn't tell you where any of these players are from.
But, but that's very, very interesting. No, would you say that like Big Brother is your favorite hobby?
(40:24):
I would say so. Yeah. It pretty much takes up a good chunk of my time in the summer. I have
friends that I watch it with. And so that's pretty much all we're talking about for that three month
period. And so, yeah, it's stress. Like I said, it is a community experience unlike any other.
(40:53):
I don't think that Big Brother gets the amount of love that Survivor does. It doesn't get
the amount of love that I think it deserves. Even though I will say like, the highs of Big Brother
are great, but the lows are very, very low. And so it can be very, very hard to enjoy a full season of
(41:21):
Big Brother. Well, it's pretty obvious why they don't get the hype of Survivor is because they
don't have Jeff. Oh my gosh. He's the best host in the history of like TV shows, right? I love Jeff.
Yeah, Jeff is very, very good. How sometimes he'll just make up his own rules or something,
(41:43):
or he'll be like someone with kind of cheat or use a weird strategy and just like, no, play on.
You can do it. Jeff, you just made up a rule. And he just shoots from the hip. I love watching that
drop. Yeah, like, Sabaya with the immunity, the wax immunity, idol that she brought to try
(42:05):
the last season. Yeah, you know, I think Jeff, he sees Survivor as a labor of love. You know,
I don't always agree with the decisions that he makes with the game and the way that it goes.
But yeah, he definitely treats it like a labor of love, whereas our host of Big Brother,
(42:33):
Julie, Jen, she just treats it like a job. She's only there once a week.
So she, her heart's really, really not in it. And that can be pretty disappointing because,
because then yeah, we're not getting the, if she's not excited, then it's hard for us to get excited.
(42:59):
Yeah, that's a great point. If you could change one thing about Big Brother, what would it be?
I would remove all of the dumb twists. And I would say the same for Survivor, because
I'm a purist when it comes to those games. So I like just, I like it when these shows just trust
(43:28):
the cast that they have, you know, and they just are like, all right, we're letting you loose.
Go, go play the game. Because I feel like, I feel like the most interesting twist in a season of
Big Brother is the different choices that people are making, you know? And when you put in some
(43:56):
game breaking, production, centered, twist into the game, I just feel like that doesn't give the
players the room to maneuver. And then it just ends up making things stale.
Yes, I totally agree. And I think it's, I feel like it's a common mistake on a lot of game shows or
(44:20):
those type of shows. It almost feels like overproduced even, even sometimes in the way I'm,
and I'm talking about Survivor in a way that they present it. I really want, like, I wish they focused
more on the gamesmanship, the manipulation that's going on and stuff like that. But sometimes I
feel like they can overthink it. Absolutely. I mean, people, okay, I don't want to say that because I
(44:47):
don't want to spoil the season. So I'll say something more general is that, you know, a lot of times
you'll have this situation where it's like, okay, this person doesn't have a vote. This person
has two votes. This person can steal a vote and you just have to keep track of all of these different
(45:12):
pieces. That, you know, it doesn't even make watching the show fun because you get confused in the details.
Where as it's, it's more fun if things are just kind of laid out in a more simple way.
(45:36):
Totally agree. And if there were twists, what I would personally like is a twist like this is like,
hey, like Jeff comes out or something like that and it's like, hey, we're going to play tic-tac-toe or
whatever. And you get to choose to listen in on the conversations of two of your contestants, right?
(46:01):
Any two because they're wearing mics. So like something like that, like, hey, they were talking in
the woods. We'll play it for you. Like something like that that kind of exposes something because I
feel like if we did something like that, then the fallout would be incredible, especially if,
let's say, that we're on a alliance, right? We're the cool guy alliance. And then like, I hear that
(46:26):
you're talking with Samantha in the jungle about Double Cross Me. I think that that would make for
beautiful TV. Yeah. Yeah. I see what you're saying. I kind of, that's another problem that I have with
twists is that I feel like if people are scared to play the game, then they'll pull back,
(46:46):
which kind of makes this strategy more safe. But I mean, I do think twists that kind of
are more social in nature, you know, are more in line with what the core of the game is
(47:11):
would be something that survivors should employ. I just, I don't know, I feel like they haven't,
they throw everything at the wall. And I don't know that they found the thing that sticks.
I think like hidden immunity idols, those were something that were only introduced. I think it was
(47:39):
season 11. And I think that was a great game mechanic because like, okay, if your tribe loses,
and you know that there's going to be one specific person that everybody wants to get out,
but then that person finds a hidden immunity idol. I love that that kind of shakes things up.
(48:03):
So I think small little things like that are really, really what
production of these types of shows should be doing. Like, but like I said, I don't think they understand
why the things that work actually work. So they haven't been able to replicate them.
(48:26):
I know I would, you made such a good point. The immunity idol is the ultimate because it never feels like
it's too overpowered or it's unfair. It always kind of also kind of plays into this aspect of luck
since everything's, you know, kind of about luck that hey, if you are on the bottom and you are
(48:48):
kind of getting screwed, you have like this final lifeline. Has there ever been a twist or an
addition to survivor that's been as good as the idol? I can't say that I've watched it long enough
to be able to do that. I do think that there was, I forget the name of the twist. It was in the
(49:21):
winner's season that survivor did a few seasons ago where there was a player that had to get coins.
Like, all of the players had a certain number of tokens. I think it was their fire tokens that
because Jeff was trying to create like a survivor economy. And so they all had these tokens
(49:45):
and they could exchange them between their different tribe-mates for different things. And so in order to,
I think, keep his vote. There was a player that had to go around and acquire a certain number of
tokens from people. And I think that was a great twist because it made him have to exhibit
(50:14):
the social skills that you need for survivors. So it was kind of working that muscle.
So, and I remember that episode being really fun to watch. Like, they centered the entire episode
around this guy trying to get these tokens. And it, like I said, it was a lot of fun to watch because
(50:39):
it was kind of at the core of what survivors all about. I think we are best friends. No, I'm so glad
you said that because I'm definitely going to go watch that season. That is an awesome twist.
I love that. That's the thing about survivor. And I'm sure big brother in a lot of these shows
is like, there's like 40 seasons. Man, there's a lot of like cool nuggets and moments in there
(51:04):
that people don't pick up on. That is an awesome twist. Thank you so much.
Could you tell me about like what like your day to day life? Like as far as like how you live,
right? You're in a wheelchair. Could you first start off with like what puts you in the wheelchair?
Like what's going on? Yeah, yeah. So I was born with a spinal cord disorder called Spina Bifida.
(51:30):
So basically it's a disability where basically within the first few months of pregnancy,
the spine starts to develop, but it doesn't close. And so what happens is the spine,
the spine is exposed. And in some cases, because the spine is exposed,
(51:58):
it can get exposed to amniotic fluid, which ends up killing the nerves, the nerves like around the
spine. And what that basically does is it jacks up a lot of things. And so I am paralyzed from the
waist down. Like you said, I use a manual wheelchair. Are you jacked? You must be so strong, dude. No,
(52:26):
no, I am not. No, this is what I'm working with. Yeah, yeah. So there's different levels of
spine Bifida. Because so basically what happens is once I was born, I was born with this like big,
(52:49):
gaping hole in my back. And my spine was protruding, you know, outside of my body essentially. And
depending on how big the hole is, depending on where it's located on the body, there's different
like different levels of paralysis, different levels of things that can happen.
(53:14):
So like there are people that have spine Bifida that are able to walk, but maybe they just have
back pain. You know, so there's different kind of things that go along with that. My day to day life
is fairly normal. It's just there's a lot of physical limitations that I have. There's a lot of
(53:42):
assistance that I need in my daily life, which admittedly can complicate kind of
has complicated my ability to kind of be more independent. So yeah.
(54:03):
Do you have like someone there kind of helping you out? Yeah, yeah. So I live with my parents
currently. And so one day the hope is to be able to live on my own and be fully independent.
Not quite there yet, but that is the hope. And yeah, you know, it is obviously difficult, but
(54:37):
like I said, my life is fairly normal, just like anybody else's, just with a unique set of challenges.
Yeah. Are you able to like work and do stuff like that?
I am. Yeah. I am right now looking for remote work. I graduated in 2018 with the bachelor's in
(55:00):
communications. And so I had started looking for work in 2019 and wasn't really finding anything
and then the pandemic hit. And so basically my entire working life, I've worked remotely, which
(55:24):
has definitely been something that's been very positive because then I'm working within my space.
And there's a lot of things that I'm not having to figure out how I'm going to make work in
a, you know, office space. Of course. Were you home school? Did you go to public school?
(55:48):
Oh no, I went to public school. Yeah, I had a normal childhood. I went to school.
I said, what was public school like? That had to be in brutal, man. Kids are assholes.
I so, you know, it wasn't really like that for me. I have had the suspicion that like, you know,
(56:14):
I had it really easy in that department. So maybe the adults in my life were just protecting me
from things. And maybe I was just oblivious to people saying things behind my back.
But, you know, it was a relatively positive experience. I had friends. I had a social life, you know.
(56:40):
I was still a very like introverted kid, but I was able to make friends. And the academics
were very definitely something that I was able to handle. And I had a great support system
that was helping me all throughout my elementary through high school career. So I'm very, very
(57:06):
lucky. Yeah, man, you are. And that is awesome that we do have one out of a million schools in
America that wouldn't be a fucking asshole, man, because kids are such jerks. It's crazy.
What would you say is kind of your biggest day-to-day challenge? Like, what's the toughest part?
(57:28):
Well, I mean, I do still think the looking for work is something that is a big challenge,
you know, especially like, you know, remote work is great. And it has, it's something that's
increased since the pandemic started, but it is a situation where, you know, people want
(57:53):
employees back in the office. So looking for those jobs that are still offering work from home is
kind of difficult. It's very difficult even when I am applying somewhere that's outside of the home
to kind of consider how I am going to manage working in an office space, but also
(58:23):
even like applying as a disabled person because like the minute you say you're disabled,
then people are having all of these preconceived notions about what it is you're capable of.
And in a lot of instances, your application just gets thrown in the trash.
(58:45):
You're talking about that checkbox, right? Oh, man, you talk. So they have, I think it's,
because I'm pretty sure it's like a legal or something to ask someone if they're disabled.
So they put like an optional checkbox, right? And it's the same thing I think with like race and
religion too. And maybe correct me if I'm wrong. It's like, hey, you don't have to answer this,
(59:06):
but if you don't answer it, you go straight to the trash. And maybe for you, if you do answer it,
you go to the trash. Man, that's so fucked, dude. Yeah, yeah, and that's something that I'm seeing more
and more is so usually, well, I won't get into what I do. Just lie on the application, dude. You can do that.
(59:26):
But it's such a hard thing because you don't want to disclose your disability before you even have
the transfer and interview. But at the same time, you don't want to say, I choose not to answer,
(59:48):
because that's almost a confession. And if you say, well, no, I don't have a disability, well,
that's lying. So there's just so many different things that you have to think about. And I have heard
that technically it's legal because it is, it's not about the hiring process. It's about
(01:00:12):
demographics for the federal government. So, you know, so they're not using it for the hiring process. But
I'm like, somebody is definitely looking at it. So they know what you're answering. So who knows?
Yeah, I just want to know as a guy who did a lot of fucking lying in his life, I lie, listen,
(01:00:38):
I lied my whole damn all the way up to I was like 24. That's all I did was lie. You asked me what color
the sky is. I'd say purple. Listen, there's a difference between lying and a mistake. It said, hey,
I'm sorry that my hand slipped when I clicked the button. I'm so sorry. But by the way, if you hire me,
(01:01:00):
I will do a great job. It's come on like sometimes because the cards are stacked against you, dude.
So sometimes you may have to do a little bit of cheating. I hear you. Yeah, it's it like I said,
it's just it's one of those things that's really messy. You know, and makes the whole process
(01:01:23):
so much more bleak because you're like, all right, I just spent an hour on this cover letter. And
now is it even gonna matter? You know, and you know, able-bodied people, you know, everyone goes
through the rat race of having to apply for jobs and wondering if it's even gonna matter. But
(01:01:49):
having that added weight just makes that feeling 10 times worse.
Dude, my heart honestly does break for this type of shit. I hate this fucking type of shit.
How do you like, how do you mentally, emotionally approach your disability? Are you better? Do you
(01:02:12):
like, do you think about it often? Yeah, yeah, the way that you do that is you go to therapy.
Now, I mean, here's the thing, if, you know, I am not, there are days that I'm bitter. There are days
(01:02:34):
where, you know, I think in the disability community, there's this idea of disability pride, right?
You want to be prideful in who you are because other people will tell you that you're insignificant,
right? That you're not good enough. So I think for a lot of disabled people, there's this need
(01:03:01):
to always be positive about their situation because you don't want to be adding, like you don't
want to be telling the people that think you're insignificant that they're right. And I don't
think they're right, but even still I have moments where, yeah, you just have to kind of accept that
(01:03:23):
things suck sometimes and, you know, you have to kind of wallow and kind of mourn this idea that
things could have, could be different. But at the same time, like it's not healthy to let yourself
(01:03:44):
go completely down there. So it's very difficult. And I think that's why I just focus on all of the
things that are good in my life, all of the, you know, that's why I pour my attention into something
(01:04:04):
like big brother or listening to weird out is because, you know, there's a lot of great stuff
in this world and you never want to lose sight of that. And I think being able to focus on
all of the good that you have in your life definitely can help kind of pull you out of those
(01:04:26):
places, those moments where maybe you're not feeling is great about yourself as you'd like to.
How many days out of 10 would you say are bad days where you just kind of feel shitty like,
man, I wish, I wish stuff was different. I don't know, you know, it's not like, it's not like I,
(01:04:49):
I'm just down into dumps every day, you know, it's just moments here and there. And some weeks,
those moments are, you know, greater. And other weeks, you know, I'm totally fine. And my energy is
put into places that are, you know, more positive for me to be putting my energy into.
(01:05:20):
So really it just depends. Yeah, I really hate to hear kind of what you said earlier about
kind of how people can view you and the disability community because I'll just be honest,
whenever I see someone who's disabled and in almost any type of way, almost any type of way,
(01:05:40):
like fast-seeing you in Walmart or whatever, you, you and all the entire community serve as an
inspiration to me because first of all, I see you and I'm like, holy fuck, like because I'm over here
tripping on my bullshit, right? Like, oh, you know, I stubbed my toe or something like that. But this
person has to overcome so much more than me every single fucking day, you can't escape it. There's
(01:06:06):
nothing you can do about it every single day just to live. And so it really kind of reminds me,
a to check my bullshit at the door. And probably the second feeling I have is one of curiosity. I'm like,
I'd really like to talk to this person, but I don't want to make them, I don't want to make you feel
odd or something like that. And I don't want to talk to you, be like, hey, yo, what's it like? I just
(01:06:29):
want to be like, what's your name? Hello, like, you want to like hang out or something like that?
Because I just think that you live such a different life and that really intrigues me. But to hear
that anybody would say, oh, look at these people wallowing or something like that, I think that's a sick
fucker. Yeah. So, so I'm gonna push back a little bit because I think it's good, good to educate
(01:07:02):
people. So there's, there's this idea that there's this thing in the disability community called
inspiration one. And the name is deceiving. It is not not as dirty as it sounds. But basically,
(01:07:24):
it's this idea that able-bodied people have kind of a tendency to objectify disabled people
for their own gain. So, for example, like, if you've ever been to a doctor's office and you've seen
a poster of a disabled person like doing some incredible physical feat and there's a caption
(01:07:50):
at the bottom that says something like, what's your excuse? Or the only disability is a bad attitude.
That is meant, like you said, to inspire able-bodied people to kind of check themselves and kind of
kind of consider that their problems are small beings, right? But the thing is,
(01:08:18):
that is a very like reductive view to me of what it means to be a human. So like, yeah, maybe you've
got your own bullshit that you're dealing with and maybe you see someone that, you know, has
obvious physical limitations and you're thinking to yourself, oh, they have it so much worse than me,
(01:08:43):
like, I need to check myself. I need to let go of whatever bullshit I'm hanging on to.
You know, I kind of reject that because everybody has something, you know, they have their things
that they're going through and they don't need to, they don't need to, you know, play the
(01:09:06):
oppression Olympics, right? They don't need to be comparing their struggles to somebody else's.
Because, you know, just people's lives are way too complicated to say that one person doesn't have
(01:09:27):
the right to, you know, cry because they broke up with a significant other or, you know, they lost
their house or whatever. Like, it's just, it's not worth it to compare yourself to other people.
And I find also that, you know, people are very quick to, but disabled people on a path,
(01:09:54):
had a store when we're doing something that they don't expect us to be able to do. But like,
if I was going around wallowing about my situation, people would be very quick to also look at me
and tell me to tough enough or to tell me that I'm not trying hard enough because then they would
(01:10:17):
be comparing me to other disabled people that, you know, have achieved these great things.
So, yeah, like going back to what I said, just humans are too complex for us to be playing the comparison
game. It doesn't do anyone any good. So are you saying that like by me kind of, are you saying that
(01:10:44):
maybe I would be using you as an object to make me feel better by comparison? Is that what you're
saying? And that's kind of not cool? Yeah, essentially. You know, you're, because you're only seeing,
you're seeing this grandiose version of this person, you know, you're not seeing them on their
(01:11:10):
bad days. So, you're only seeing the positive, you're only saying, oh, they've overcome something,
you know, when the reality is, they're still overcoming it every day and some days are harder than
others. You know, I'm, like I said, I am not always happy about myself. I'm, I'm some days, you know,
(01:11:38):
kind of down in the dumps. And that when I am down in the dumps, that would not be a very
inspiring display to see. But people only have, have these very narrow views. That again, yeah, they're,
(01:12:00):
they're using, like, motivate themselves. They're, they're using it for their own benefit. Yeah.
Yeah, that's a good point. I kind of do that with almost anybody that I see that maybe
I may be better off at a certain thing. For example, if like I see someone with like really crappy
(01:12:25):
shoes on, I'm like, shit, I'm so glad to have good shoes. If I see like, you know, I see the homeless
people and my heart fucking breaks, this type of shit. So what, like what type of way do you think
disabled people should be perceived by folks like me? Honestly, it's just as human beings. It like,
(01:12:48):
people want to complicate it so much when they see us, that it's just like, we are human beings,
just, just like you are. And so it's like, talk to us like we're human beings. Don't talk to us,
like we're some angelic figure. Talk to us like we are this three-dimensional
(01:13:14):
human being that is just trying to get through life just like you are.
You know, it's not something that you have to
lose sleep over trying to figure out how to approach a disabled person. Just do it like you would
anyone else. I would caution like, don't go up to someone and ask them what happened to them.
(01:13:42):
Don't do that because like in this type of scenario, that's okay. This is, you know, a podcast,
this is an interview, it's a conversation that is tailored to asking those types of questions,
but like, because like me, I was born this way, but there's tons of us in the disability community
(01:14:11):
that weren't born this way. And, you know, probably had a very traumatic experience in the process
of becoming disabled. That if you're going up to them saying, hey, what happened to you?
It's very likely that they're still dealing with that trauma and so you don't want to be bringing
(01:14:35):
bad things up for them. And also like, you wouldn't, you would be offended if someone
went up to you and started asking you about your medical history. It's just not something that
we do in polite society. That's a great point. I think a lot of people are intimidated by disabled people.
(01:14:56):
myself included. It's like you don't know how to approach it. Like you said, do you just treat them
like a normal person? Do you like kind of put on the kids gloves and, you know, kind of tip to
around stuff? I think there are certain groups of people that because they come off as intimidating
for some reason or another, they become misunderstood. And I think that for me personally, I think
(01:15:22):
disabled people are one of those groups for me. I think another one is like trans people. People
terrified of trans people. Don't want to talk to them. And so that's why I guess I'm just, I'm just
thankful that you would take the time to talk to me and let me ask all my silly questions.
Yeah, you know, people are, people are scared by what they don't understand. And I think that
(01:15:50):
the pursuit of knowledge is is something that we can all kind of stand to be in pursuit of, you know,
because that's the way you connect with people is, you know, not being afraid to go up to someone
(01:16:12):
and start talking to them. It's something I could be better about. I definitely could be better
about, yeah. Yeah, dude, you're, you're inspiring me to just go kind of break down these walls and
just go talk to these, these people. If you had like, like, if you were able body for a day, you can
(01:16:34):
walk and run and all of this stuff. What do you think you would do? Oh boy, you know, I don't know.
Like what would be the first thing? Like what's the most important thing that you'd be most excited to do?
You know, I don't, okay, this, this is going to be random. But I would go to Philadelphia and run
(01:17:03):
up the rocky steps there. I have never thought about it before, but that, that seems like
something that would be cool to do. And so giving you another unconventional answer there.
That's awesome. No, that's, that's probably the best answer. Have you ever had like,
(01:17:25):
rude encounters in public where people were assholes to you?
Rude encounters. I mean, yeah, you know, mostly growing up, it was like, you know, little kids,
because they're unfiltered, you know? Yeah, yeah. So a lot of times they'll be the ones asking me,
(01:17:51):
like, what happened to you? You know, I've had, I've had these two old women,
pray for me in the middle of the department store. And so that, that was really weird. Luckily,
nothing too untoward has happened in a while. So I'm very lucky. And my luck will probably run out.
(01:18:20):
Now that I've said that. No, no, do not listen. Well, you should carry around like a pepper spray and just,
just blast their ass, man. You don't think you would do that?
No, I'm not very much of a confrontational person. So I just try to get out of any kind of situation
(01:18:41):
like that as, as soon as I can. Yeah, that, that probably wouldn't end well, man. That probably
wouldn't end well, but people shouldn't be assholes. No, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you so
much for talking to me. Take it the time. I think this was more of like an educational podcast,
because I learned so much about Big Brother. I got to peak behind your mind. You should be the producer
(01:19:01):
of a game show. I think that you're calling. And I got to ask some, some questions that I've been
dying to ask, you know, a disabled person for probably over 20 years. So I genuinely appreciate
your time. I think I'll walk away better because of this podcast. You want to let people know
where they could find you? Yeah, so you can find me at, Noah Mussay on Twitter, that is
(01:19:25):
M-U-S-S-A-Y. And then I do have a YouTube channel called the Entertainment Zone,
spills exactly as you would think it is spelt. And I typically talk about Big Brother on there. I
(01:19:45):
started it up at the end of last season. So I have some videos talking about last season of Big Brother
and then I love Doctor Who. So I have some videos up about the 60th anniversary specials. I'm looking
at uploading some reviews of the classic Doctor Who series, but I haven't got around to doing that
(01:20:13):
yet. So hopefully by the time this is out, I have done that. If not, give those other videos some views.
Sounds good. I'll put all that in the show notes. Once again, know what you're all so. Thank you for watching.
Thank you.
(upbeat music)
(01:20:35):
(upbeat music)
[MUSIC]
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