Why The Shards?

What happens when the dark, seductive world of Bret Easton Ellis meets the glossy, meticulously crafted universe of Ryan Murphy?

In this episode of Why Are We Like This?, we dive into The Shards—a story of beautiful people, beautiful places, drugs, sex, violence and the loneliness hiding underneath the veneer. But our conversation quickly becomes about something much bigger: the loss of childhood, the consequences of growing up too soon, and what happens when young people are left to navigate the world without the guidance they need.

We explore why we're often drawn to the very things that make us uncomfortable, whether disturbing art can expand our empathy, and how our own experiences create the “keyhole” through which we see the world.

For Jarrod, Bret Easton Ellis's work also hits closer to home, opening a conversation about alienation, self-destructive choices, finding chosen family, and the difference between perpetuating our wounds and healing them.

Because maybe the reason artists keep revisiting uncomfortable places isn't because they're stuck there.

Maybe it's their process to process.

And maybe that's why we stay curious. 🎙️

Download this and future episodes of our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocketcasts, and anywhere else to find your favorite shows. You can search Why Are We Like This? and please be sure to subscribe, and/or write a review if possible to help build our show.  Have an idea for a future episode, or want to join us for a conversation? Send us a message with the link above!

Transcript

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Jarrod 0:15

Hi. Hi, honey.

Robert 0:17

How are you?

Jarrod 0:17

I'm good. How are you?

Robert 0:19

I'm good. We're talking about something very cool today that I know that you are a super fan.

Jarrod 0:25

Yeah.

Robert 0:26

And uh has kind of taken over our TV a bit. And what is that?

Jarrod 0:30

Uh we are talking about the shards and more specifically the culture and society of Brett East and Ellis and the intersection where he meets Ryan Murphy with the shards. So kind of a little bit of Brett East and Ellis, a little bit of Ryan Murphy, and a whole lot of fun.

Robert 0:49

I love it.

Jarrod 0:50

Yeah.

Robert 0:51

It's cool. I um I wasn't aware of Brett Easton Ellis.

Jarrod 0:55

Until we met.

Robert 0:56

Until we met. Yeah. No, honestly, because I hadn't seen any of the work.

Jarrod 1:02

Um I think you had, you just didn't know it was Brett Easton Ellis.

Robert 1:05

I think you're probably right.

Jarrod 1:07

And and more specifically, the laws of attraction.

Robert 1:11

Yeah.

Jarrod 1:12

Or the rules of attraction.

Robert 1:13

Yeah, I had no idea.

Jarrod 1:15

With James Vanderbeek.

Robert 1:16

I think I also saw um the uh American Psycho. American Psycho. Yeah, I did see that one too.

Jarrod 1:23

That is also Brett Easton Ellis. Yeah. So some of his um most well-known works are uh Less Than Zero, The Rules of Attraction, uh American Psycho, The Informers, which is a lesser known piece of work, but I think a really important piece of his body of work and one that I really enjoy. Yeah. Um, and then Glamorama with Lunar Park, which are not that well known.

Robert 1:54

No, I don't think I've heard of those.

Jarrod 1:55

The follow-up to less than zero, Imperial Bedrooms, which when we talk about is a very interesting sort of meta-concept as well. Um, and now the shards.

Robert 2:06

That's a lot. That's pretty prolific.

Jarrod 2:08

Yeah. And the and the ones that have been made into movies that I've seen are Less Than Zero, Rules of Attraction, American Psycho, Um, The Informers, and Now the Shards, which is uh TV show premiering on um, well, it has premiered, it's showing on FX or Hulu. Yeah, it's been pretty great. It's good, it's really good. Um, this Wednesday is the third night. So they did the first two episodes on the premiere two weeks ago, and then last week we got episodes three and four, and it continues this Wednesday.

SPEAKER_02 2:44

Yeah.

Jarrod 2:45

So that'll be that'll be tomorrow for those of you that are listening to this podcast.

SPEAKER_02 2:49

Yeah.

Jarrod 2:50

And it is really exciting. And so starting with the shards, um, it's basically my interpretation is that it is a fictional retelling of Brett Easton Ellis' time as a senior in high school.

Robert 3:05

Semi-autobiographical.

Jarrod 3:06

Semi-autobiographical. Um, but there are some very real elements to it. Uh, it's basically 1981. He and his friends are seniors in high school. There is a new kid, a mysterious new kid that shows up. And at the same time this guy shows up, a serial killer starts stalking the senior class.

Robert 3:30

How convenient.

Jarrod 3:31

And sort of like killing them in cultish ritualistic ways.

Robert 3:35

Right. Yeah. Which we know Ryan Murphy loves. Totally. Yeah. Right. It is kind of a match made in heaven. I I would say I am not necessarily a Brett Easton Ellis fan in the way that I find the work to just be really dark and difficult for me to watch and enjoy. But stylistically, uh I find it really intriguing and beautiful and uh uh seductive. Absolutely. In a way that while I'm uncomfortable and I really don't like watching it, I can't stop watching it.

Jarrod 4:13

Yes.

Robert 4:13

Um, and then when you add in the Ryan Murphy element, you you've just completely you sold it with the gloss and the music and the fashion and the beauty of the people that he's chosen to be in the show in the first place.

Jarrod 4:25

Yep.

Robert 4:25

Um, so it's it is kind of like a match made in heaven for the two minds for sure.

Jarrod 4:30

I agree. Both of them do beautiful veneer really, really well. Um, and I do want to point out that the trawler serial killer is a fictional character made up for this story. Oh, okay. It's not there was not a real trawler serial killer at the time. So again, it is a fictional pseudo-autobiographical retelling just simply because the lead character is Brett Easton Ellis. And in one episode, we saw him writing on the typewriter, and I saw the name Julian, and I think he was writing the less than zero book because that one was published in 1985, and this takes place in 1981.

Robert 5:09

It's a cool little Easter egg.

Jarrod 5:10

I think so.

Robert 5:11

Yeah, that's cool.

Jarrod 5:12

Um so Brett Easton Ellis uses his own life for the majority of the work that he writes. He was in high school in the late 70s, early 80s, and in Los Angeles, part of the Beverly Hills crew that had total absentee parents, total freedom, total access to their money, drugs, sex. And it was all very glamorous. But underneath all of that glamour is a loneliness, a feeling of alienation, um, sort of, I call it chasing the dragon. Like these people were just doing anything and everything at such a young age to feel like they mattered because the people that were supposed to make them feel like they mattered the most, their parents, were absent from their lives at this point in time.

Robert 6:01

I I think that's what I have a really hard time watching uh in this show specifically, because I I especially am not a fan of uh this the familiar high school tropes of TV shows and movies where it's like, oh no, this poor rich kid, oh my problems, I have everything. But but homecoming is the most important thing in the world. How am I gonna so when I'm watching this play out, I'm like, you guys, shut up. Like, I don't do the drugs, it'd be fine. You're you're great, you'll be okay. I can't connect with it because I don't care about them at all. Sure. But as this show plays off with many of Brett Easton Nellis' uh work, is that you you actually see, like you just described, the pain and the loss and the loneliness in these characters that that's what makes them interesting. It's not all the the bullshit that they're surrounded with. That's just like you said, the beautiful veneer.

Jarrod 6:52

Yes.

Robert 6:53

Where you're like, well, yeah, anyone could really do that. Whatever, who care, who cares? But then you see what these people are actually going through with that absentee parent situation. You're like, wow, these kids are really troubled.

Jarrod 7:04

They're broken.

Robert 7:05

Yeah.

Jarrod 7:05

They're broken. And they're they are 18-year-olds, 17 and 18-year-olds living like 25-year-olds.

Robert 7:11

Right.

Jarrod 7:12

And I think when you are that age, it's very fun and exciting to be able to have that level of autonomy and freedom so early on. But it it comes at a price because you are still at an age where you need guidance, you need support, you need your parents letting you know that you matter because without that sense of feeling like you are an important person who matters, you're going to make very self-destructive decisions. And that's what all of these characters through his entire body of work have in common. They all make incredibly self-destructive decisions. And it's not just the kids, it's also in the parents. We see this in The Informers with Kim Basinger and Billy Bob Thornton's character. Yeah, totally. Right. We see it in the shards with Debbie's parents, played by Wes Bentley and Rachel Evan Wood. I mean, just total, complete dysfunction.

SPEAKER_02 8:08

Yeah.

Jarrod 8:08

And it just gets handed down from generation to generation. I think with the baby boom generation and the very early Gen X generation, there was a very much of a sort of absentee latchkey kid kind of scenario going on. Yeah. And kids were really left to fend for themselves. And when you have to fend for yourself, you feel like you don't matter because your parents aren't there, then not only do you make self-destructive decisions, but you make those in survival mode. You are learning earlier than you should how to take on the responsibility of the world so that you can manage your survival. That is a lot for an 18-year-old. That's where the drugs and the alcohol and the sex and the really bad decisions come in, which the shards, like all of Brett Easton Ellis' work, is full of. I mean, cocaine, booze, sex.

Robert 9:02

It really doesn't hold back on any of it.

Jarrod 9:04

It does not hold back on any of it. And again, as we've talked about in previous episodes, this is art. Art is meant to be subversive in the way that it is designed to make you think, to make you be self-aware, to make you be mindful, to think about thinking and why are these people doing this?

Robert 9:22

I can see it being perceived as sensationalism or uh that that we're somehow uh promoting or highlighting um these acts. These uh types of human nature. And so I can see people watching it and just being turned off by that. Ask like, why do we have to show that? Why do we have to do that? And I I remind myself too as I'm watching it that this this is a TV show, it's not real, but this is the kind of life that some people live because of everything that you just described. Yeah. And I think at one point in the last episode or the one before that, um Brett's character, his name is Brett in the show, right? Yeah. His character even says we are living our lives as though we are adults in a world where we know we are not, or something, something along the lines where like we know we're living far above or we're doing the things that we shouldn't be doing that only adults do. And part of the reason that we do that is because there's no one here to tell us not to. Right. Because what else are we gonna do? Yeah. I and I think that not only are they missing the guidance from the parents, which may or may not be the case, but they're also finding kindred souls that are also lost in that way. So they really have no guiding light. We're like sometimes violating the blind. It totally. And you'll you'll find, especially in the queer community, you'll find people who find their chosen family. Yeah. And that's usually where you find your mother figures. Like someone who helps to guide you along that path that maybe you're missing in a traditional maternal, paternal situation. Um, but you can see that these kids don't have that and they're finding it in each other. And yeah, blind leading the blind, they're making mistakes, and the other ones are like, Yeah, do that, cocaine. That's a perfect. We're we're doing great.

Jarrod 11:17

And and the sad thing about that, which Brett in the shards also mentioned, is that too early on in his life, he realized that he was no longer a kid. And he didn't realize that he was no longer a kid until well after that last moment of being a kid had passed. And I've said to you many times before, you know, your childhood is so short. The world is intent on making it shorter, right? And you only have one go at being a child. And I think that the world, including parents, need to let children be children.

SPEAKER_02 11:58

Yeah.

Jarrod 11:58

Because once it's done, that's it. It's done. And you can't control when that moment is gonna happen. So let every moment while your kid is still in childhood count as a childhood moment.

Robert 12:11

Right. Without perpetuating infantalization.

Jarrod 12:14

There's a yeah, you don't infanalize the child, but you also don't leave them to their own devices before they are at a moment where they are ready to cross over and say goodbye to their childhood. And it should be a transition.

Robert 12:30

Yeah.

Jarrod 12:31

I think a lot of times there's a traumatic situation that happens in our lives that forces us to grow up very fast.

Robert 12:37

When you found out about Santa Claus.

Jarrod 12:39

Well, I mean like that kind of No, I I mean like traumatic situations because the world can be a predatory place in many different ways.

Robert 12:48

Like true traumatic situations.

Jarrod 12:50

There could be divorce, there could be abuse, there could be um something that, you know, the the death of a friend, you know, whatever it is that takes you and pulls you and plucks you out of childhood. Yeah. And we don't know when that moment, again, is going to happen. So the job is to make sure that until that moment happens, again, without infanalizing your child, give them their childhood.

Robert 13:16

Yeah, it's interesting you say that too, because I I can think of so much film when I was growing up almost was deliberately sending those messages, those traumatic messages when you have movies like My Girl and you're watching this girl's best friend die, or you're watching the never-ending story, and the kid is like trying to save his horse from drowning. Like, there are so many of those moments that are traumatic storytelling elements that now looking back, thinking, like, oh well shit, there goes that part of my innocence just floating away through that's crazy.

Jarrod 13:50

And they are all metaphors to the loss of innocence that are recreated in a tangible form of entertainment so that you can put those feelings onto something that represents that loss of innocence. When as a human being in the child stage of their life, they realize the world is not like my second grade classroom. The world is not like summer vacation, the world is not like Christmas break.

Robert 14:19

Yeah.

Jarrod 14:19

The world, you know, when you once you start becoming aware that the world doesn't really care about you, it's an eye-opening experience. And I think that the people who are better prepared to navigate that moment are the ones who, up until that moment, have been given the sense that they do matter, that they are important, that they are worthy, that they are valued.

SPEAKER_02 14:44

Yeah.

Jarrod 14:44

And I think more times than not, people make that leap into adulthood without that, which is why we see so many broken adults, so many narcissists, so many people in need of therapy. Yeah. So many people being mean and hurtful and vindictive to the world at large, the Karen's, the, the, the peace disruptors, because they're really just trying to be seen, like in our episode that we recorded about people being distracted. Yeah. And why do you matter? Because you really want to feel seen.

SPEAKER_02 15:14

Right.

Jarrod 15:15

And if you don't get that from very early on, then you don't know how to productively manage and navigate that in the arena of basically, you know, politics, which is navigating people to get what you want out of this world or what you need out of this world.

Robert 15:32

Quick observation. I I've noticed it's interesting how many of our episodes have kind of like intertwined in that way. Like as we're talking, realizing like, oh yeah, that kind of connects to what we were just talking about in the in a recent episode.

Jarrod 15:45

Well, I think when you do a podcast about human nature, you are inevitably going to come back to what your conclusion of the foundation of the human experience is.

Robert 15:54

Yeah, I think you're right.

Jarrod 15:55

And first and foremost, our job is to survive this experience. Now, what does that encompass all the things that we talk about on our podcast? And each episode has the same common denominator, the human experience.

SPEAKER_02 16:09

Yeah.

Jarrod 16:10

And there are many different types of human experiences. And going back to something that you said about, you know, the the glamour and the lascivious nature of work like this, people could tune into and be like, oh, why do I have to watch this? Well, I don't look at this as gratuitous because we're not seeing nudity, we're not seeing sex acts actually played out, right? The implication is there so that we understand what's happening. But gratuitous is, you know, in like the 80s slasher movies where we have to see boobs just for the sake of seeing boobs. Right. Right. Or the sex scene has to be explicit and graphic by nature because you have a storyteller who's really trying to grab the audience by the balls and force them to pay attention. Yeah. The problem is that the thing that you're doing to get their attention is where their attention stays. And so they might miss the rest of the story. In example for example, movies like Showgirls or Basic Instinct. Right. Right.

SPEAKER_02 17:10

Yeah.

Jarrod 17:10

So, which I personally love. I don't necessarily feel that I need to watch explicit sex scenes in order to get the idea or the understanding of what is happening to the relationship between these two people in that moment. You can start it off and then you can cut to I don't need to I don't need to see any at that point.

Robert 17:30

Yeah.

Jarrod 17:30

Yeah. But what what Ryan Murphy and Brett Easton Ellis are doing in the shards, to me, it's not gratuitous. And if it makes you uncomfortable because you don't like the idea of knowing that people live this way for whatever reason, that's maybe all the more reason to watch the show because you are the person that this message is for. You are the person that needs to expand your breadth of mindfulness and not even self-awareness, but awareness. Because I've mentioned many times before, we all view our life through this keyhole perception that's created by our personal experience. But our experience is exclusive to us. And if we're going to be empathetic people, we need to be able to understand that there are people out there who are living their life through a very different keyhole.

Robert 18:20

I would agree with that. I think for me growing up, I uh I was pretty naive about most of this kind of stuff. Um just generally speaking, I think part of it was uh how I was brought up, but also a lot of it was I think I chose that. I felt safe staying away from scary movies, I felt uncomfortable around movies that had sexual moments in it. And so I think for me, not forcing myself to watch it or to experience it, but being open to it and knowing that this isn't just gratuitous or shown for the sake of doing it. We've seen that, but being able to watch it in in in the understanding that this is someone else's life or someone else's story that may be so far off of my own, take a minute and take in what I can from it.

Jarrod 19:17

Yeah.

Robert 19:17

It's there for a reason. Maybe I'll learn something, or maybe I'll get a brand new uh perspective or empathy for this type of situation.

Jarrod 19:25

Well, and I think by nature humans are voyeuristic, but yet sometimes the thing that we are most intrigued by for whatever reason are the things that we associate the most shame around.

SPEAKER_02 19:38

Yeah.

Jarrod 19:39

And so there's this internal struggle, and I think you've you've gotta you gotta do away with it. Right. Like sometimes you just have to walk through the fire rather than around it. Yeah. And that's the point of life is experience. Um now doesn't mean you have to go down a rabbit hole with all the bad things that life represents. Right in the dark way. But, you know, it it's I referenced the 90210 episode when they were talking about condoms in school. And Donna Martin's comment was like, you know, you if you have a pool, you can put a fence around it. But if you know that the child is going to find some way to get into that pool, shouldn't they know how to swim?

Robert 20:17

Yeah.

Jarrod 20:18

And I think that, you know, in order to be able to properly navigate the world and all the different types of people in it, familiarize yourself with people who are different than yourself. Because you're going to that's where conflict comes from, is not knowing how to communicate, not knowing how to touch base with somebody that you inevitably are going to have to from time to time in this world.

Robert 20:40

Yeah, I agree with that.

Jarrod 20:41

So, and and it's interesting too, because I do think that, especially in the early stages of our relationship, you were very much um, you know, a rainbow and gumdrops kind of person, I called it. But in reality, it was a it was a deliberate intention on your part to stay away from the things that made you feel uncomfortable, I think, in the hopes that you could hold on to that innocence of your childhood as long as you possibly could before coming to terms with the idea that the world is not what we are sold when we are growing up as children.

Robert 21:15

I agree with that a hundred percent.

Jarrod 21:18

And then enter me, stage left. And you ruined everything. And I I I blew the lid wide open on the first night we met. I asked if you had ever watched Less Than Zero, and you said no.

Robert 21:29

No, no, it sounds fun. What is it?

Jarrod 21:30

What? I was like, you're coming over tomorrow night, we're gonna order a pizza and we're gonna watch Less Than Zero. Oh and we did. And we did. That was that was the the gateway into so much of what my world really was growing up. I mean, I was a very precocious child, I was very eager to be ahead. Um, I think a lot of that was that my my school days were spent being bullied and teased and feeling less then. So whenever I was out of school, uh whether it was evenings or weekends, I was doing very adult things, not just to numb the pain that I felt during the day, but to engage in something that made me feel. Feel like even if these kids aren't aware of what I'm doing, I know that I'm doing something that contradicts the negative message. But again, not knowing as a kid how to exhibit boundaries and how to make productive decisions, those led to a lot of counterproductive and self-destructive decisions. Like I've been totally open to people who know me that I did my first line of cocaine when I was 12 years old. And it was the 80s. It was the Brett Easton Ellis era. Yeah. And I was hanging out with older kids in the neighborhood. It was there, and I went along for the ride because when I was doing that with them, it was the complete opposite experience to what I was experiencing as the kid during the day in school in my collegiate uniform being teased and made fun of.

Robert 23:04

Do you I've I I've always wondered this, and it's not an assumption on my part, but just the connection that you have to Brett Easton Ellis and his stories and the types of film that we see. Do you feel that that connection to those characters or to those experiences yourself? Is that is that what draws you to it that you see like that that kindred experience in there? Or is it just something that you see strictly as entertainment that you're like, that's fun?

Jarrod 23:34

No, it's not strictly entertainment. I think there is a bit of a kindred spirit, but it I think it goes more to what you said earlier, where like the characters in the shards didn't have the guidance, and so they found what they needed in that chosen family.

SPEAKER_02 23:50

Right.

Jarrod 23:51

And that's what I did. Yeah. And so when I watch movies like Less Than Zero or The Informers, it's almost like, okay, the cheese doesn't stand alone.

Robert 24:02

Yeah, that's what I was thinking.

Jarrod 24:03

I'm thinking I'm not exclusive to this experience. There are other people that feel the way that I do. There are other people that feel broken. There are other people that do self-destructive things to try to fix what feels broken in them. And once you find that you are not alone, you don't work so hard on trying to hide the broken pieces of yourself from the world. And then all of that time and energy that you waste on that ends up going into actually building mindfulness and self-awareness and not fixing those broken parts, but healing from those broken parts. Because as we grow older, we all come into adulthood with some form of trauma. You can either choose to heal the hurt or to perpetuate the hurt. And for a big portion of my life, I perpetuated the hurt. I mean, I was just full of piss and vinegar. I wasn't a horrible person, but I, you know, when we first met, I was a very different person than I am now. I I lived life as if I had something to prove. And now I couldn't give a shit. And my life is so much different. It's a great place to be. Right?

Robert 25:08

It really is a great place to be denied.

Jarrod 25:10

I don't give a shit about people. Right. I don't give a shit about what people think of me. Yeah. Because I give them the true, honest, and authentic Jared. Yep. If you make something bad out of that, that's on you, not me.

Robert 25:23

Right.

Jarrod 25:24

And I think that's what a lot of these characters are missing.

Robert 25:27

Well, they haven't discovered it yet because so many of them are so young.

Jarrod 25:31

Exactly.

Robert 25:31

Yeah.

Jarrod 25:32

Um, and Ryan Murphy is to me a master of detail. So when you take something that is from the mind of Brett Easton Ellis, and you combine it with the uber attentive Ryan Murphy to detail when it comes to cars, clothing, music, so important. Yeah. All of the details and how people act in situations, it really is, as you mentioned, a match made in heaven. It is, I think it is pinnacle storytelling. And I'm just so pleased as someone who is a huge Brett Easton Ellis fan since Less Than Zero to see him uh in the Cultural Zeitgeist again.

SPEAKER_02 26:14

Yeah.

Jarrod 26:14

And of course I saw Less Than Zero when I shouldn't have. I was 12 when I saw that movie. You know, it was so it was the end of the 80s, and I was entering junior high, and I, you know, I was like, fuck all to my elementary school experience. And I was just gonna go balls to the wall. And I had a really good time. I'm not gonna lie, I had a good time. I definitely stunted my growth, but you know, now that I'm here, I don't care. Yeah. You know, it's like once you get your driver's license, every day you didn't have your license doesn't matter anymore. Right. Once you reach a certain stage in your life, every part of your life that you weren't in that stage doesn't really matter anymore because we are meant to move forward. Yeah. So I I I really do love the person that I am. I'm very happy with the person that I am, and I am only that person because of the experiences and the decisions that I've made along the way. And the older I get, the better I am at understanding how to make decisions that are productive to my goals rather than counterproductive to my goals. And understanding balance and boundaries when it comes to my naturally hedonistic tendencies.

Robert 27:32

I love the person that you am too.

Jarrod 27:34

Thank you. And less than zero was uh it was a very big moment of realization for me. It was the first time I actually saw a movie that did not sugarcoat the experience of being a lonely child, being an ostracized child, being a child who felt like you didn't matter, regardless of how much attention people may have paid on you. It's the wrong kind of attention at the wrong time. Yeah. And the book is extremely different than the movie.

Robert 28:04

Didn't you say there's vampires or something in it?

Jarrod 28:06

That's the informers.

Robert 28:07

Oh, okay.

Jarrod 28:07

Less than zero is a lot harsher than the movie. There are some things in the book that actually do make me uncomfortable because it shows how far these people have pushed their boundaries, their human boundaries, in the search to feel whole and in doing so damage anybody else that crosses their path. Um there's a um just a disregard for human life and it is bothering. And the movie is, even though I said it didn't sugarcoat things, it did tone things down because the book was written about the children of Hollywood. Yeah. And none of the producers and the studio execs are going to let a movie or a book about their children depicted so honestly become a movie for the world at large to see. So it's very different than the book. And I appreciate both, but the movie will always have a special place in my heart because I saw it first. I love Jamie Gertz. Uh, I love the way that the movie was able to still get the message across, even in a toned-down way. So, like a little bit of sugar helps the medicine go down. Yeah. But still very raw, very real, very um acute in its perception of the situation and the time in these kids that were just like out of control.

Robert 29:40

I think that's I think that's a great approach to it. In the same way that you mentioned not needing a full sexually explicit like moment in film to get the point across. It's the same kind of thing for me. Like it, yes, the book is going to be a little more in-depth, a little more detailed, and and and show or or reveal some things about these characters that maybe is a little too hot for TV, so to speak. Yeah. But I also think we don't need all of that to still get the point across. We still, it's still as impactful as it need be or could be with the story that it's telling. It's kind of like with uh it, when there are specific scenes taken from the book and not put into movie intentionally, we know that it's some of it would be depicted and could be controversial, but it also tells a great story without it. We don't need everything to be one for one.

Jarrod 30:31

I agree with that. And anytime you turn a book into a movie, you have to edit for just tiny steps. Absolutely. Yeah. So I think that there were some very smart decisions made. I as an artist and as a creator, putting myself in Brett Easton Ellis' shoes, I could see why he might not be a fan of the movie. Um, but as an audience member and as somebody that was living that life as close to somebody could without going down the full rabbit hole, I appreciate its message um and its sentiment. And um I I just I really enjoyed it, and I was very happy when the sequel came out. I mean, almost 12 years or 22 years later.

Robert 31:17

What was that called again?

Jarrod 31:18

Imperial Bedrooms. Okay. And that one was I think in Informers, the movie came out in 2007. So I think Imperial Bedrooms may have been like around 2012. I'm not 100% sure, but sounds about right. Anyway, the thing that was interesting about the um Imperial Bedrooms novel was that it was the same characters from Less Than Zero, and these characters were aware of the Less Than Zero movie that had been made about them. Oh, right. So that's kind of like the meta experience of Imperial Bedrooms is that we rejoin these people years later. Julian is still alive somehow. Well, yeah, I mean, that was a decision that I think they made to give the characters of Blair and Clay the catalyst to step away from that life. In the book and in real life, that doesn't always happen. Um, but he's I think he's a homeless prostitute at this point in time. And like I said, the characters are all acutely aware of how they were altered and depicted uh in the less than zero movie, which is a part of this universe.

SPEAKER_02 32:33

Right.

Jarrod 32:33

Uh and I I really liked it. I I would have liked to have seen it made into a movie, but it just Oh, they didn't. I they did they did not make Imperial Bedrooms into a movie. Now they did make the Informers into a movie, and the Informers, the book was actually like it's almost like different short stories that had the same common denominator strung together. Kind of like an anthology. Yeah, or or like uh that movie Crash, where all the different characters have one underlying thread that connects them all. And that one did dive into like vampires in Los Angeles and um other things that were just sort of like, how do you how do you turn this into a movie? So the movie again, it was altered to tell one continuous storyline. And this this is about the kids that came up a couple years before the kids in less than zero. And they were, I think they were out of high school. Um, so they were a little bit older. And I mean, but it's the same same thing, just broken people. Um, one of them is the informers, is a reference to the band that is playing throughout the movie, and the lead singer of the band is uh a heroin addict and an alcoholic and a pedophile, and then you've got the central characters um who kind of branch out into their friend and family group. And I don't want to give too much of the movie away. Amber Heard is in it, and I think she's great in it, and she is like the one thing that connects all of these characters. So at the end of the movie, you're like, fuck everybody.

Robert 34:18

Yeah. It's it's more of the same, but in a very unique and uh isolated storytelling sense. That's that's very cool. I I again, it's another one that's very difficult for me to watch, but as I watch it, I find it very intriguing and seductive.

Jarrod 34:34

Yeah. And then we have something that steps outside of the realm of teenage early adult angst, and we go to American Psycho, which is a phenomenal movie. It's a lot. It's it is, you know what, it is a lot. Uh I don't mind watching it though.

Robert 34:52

I I I have to be in the headspace to watch it.

Jarrod 34:55

Well, that's true. Like I can put on less than zero anytime and just be fine having it on even in the background.

Robert 35:01

Yeah.

Jarrod 35:01

Yes, American Psycho, I have to be in the headspace. I I guess I'll say I find myself in the headspace more often than I would think I would be to watch that movie. But it's, I mean, it's it's a great story, it's great acting. And I cannot confirm this, but I have been told that um what's his name? Christian Bale's character in American Psycho is the older brother to James Vanderbeek's character in the rules of attraction.

Robert 35:34

Oh, that's right. You did mention that. That's cool.

Jarrod 35:37

I I like little things like that.

Robert 35:38

Just extended lore moments.

Jarrod 35:40

I think all of his work I think it exists in the same universe.

Robert 35:45

That would make sense.

Jarrod 35:46

Yeah. Um, American Psycho was also kind of a little bit of a head trip for me, too, because you have this guy who's viciously murdering these people, and his his lust and zest for murder grows exponentially over the course of the movie. But then you have these people that are a part of his quote-unquote day life or work life that he doesn't even touch. Right. And it's like, how does a serial killer decide who is worthy of living and who is going to be on the chopping block? And that was really weird for me because you know, his girlfriend played by Reese Witherspoon, never in a million years would he kill her. His his mistress, the the douchebag guys that he hangs out with at the clubs. No, but some homeless guy and a dog in an alley, some woman that he just happened to be at a stopwalk, uh crosswalk with.

SPEAKER_02 36:41

Yeah.

Jarrod 36:41

Like, sure, no problem. So it's it was very weird because the decision making seemed so intentional yet indiscriminate at the same time.

Robert 36:53

And arbitrary.

Jarrod 36:54

Yeah. That's I mean, at least from my point of view.

Robert 36:57

That's well, for mine too. That's that's part of what makes it so dark and difficult for me. Yeah. Is that it could be anyone doing this, and it could be at any time, and it could be you.

Jarrod 37:08

Another reason why it's important to make yourself aware of the world around you, right?

Robert 37:14

Do you think do you think that Brett Easton Ellis writes these stories as a means to as a warning, or does he write them as a as as just like a storytelling, like, hey, my life was fucked up and here's what it was, or what I think would be a fun, entertaining version of it? Do you think he has a message where he's just trying to say, like, this world is really bad, you guys, and I want you to keep an eye out on yourselves.

Jarrod 37:42

It's possible. Maybe we should listen to his podcast.

Robert 37:45

Oh. Yeah.

Jarrod 37:47

Um I I think that there's gotta be a cathartic process.

Robert 37:51

Oh, cathartic.

Jarrod 37:52

Cathartic, or it's so cathartic, to his story writing and storytelling.

Robert 37:57

For him.

Jarrod 37:58

Yeah. I I think that there is something of that. I think that also when you create something regardless of the intentional motivation behind the creation, if it's something that takes off with the general population, you're gonna continue. You're gonna keep doing it. Yeah, you're gonna keep doing it. It's validating.

Robert 38:13

It's that's what Stephen King does. Right. He he releases this because they're dreams or nightmares of his. And part of that processing is releasing what he has experienced himself.

Jarrod 38:22

It's I mean, it's one of the reasons why I enjoyed doing this podcast so much because being able to have these conversations with you out loud and for other people to listen and comment on is a way for me to process what I see happening in the world around me that I don't understand because it's not from my keyhole perception of life. But I understand that there is a whole other world out there outside of my own little keyhole perception. And I I want to be made aware of that because the more I'm aware of it, the broader the scope of my keyhole perception becomes to the point where maybe someday it won't be keyhole.

Robert 39:03

It's kind of the premise of this podcast to stay curious.

Jarrod 39:07

To stay curious, absolutely.

Robert 39:08

We don't just say it because it's like, oh, how fun and catchy. We're saying it because that curia curiosity really helps to drive the human experience in a way that I think is very beneficial, enlightening, and ultimately just makes it a bit more bearable at times.

Jarrod 39:23

Well, maybe someday we'll we'll get Brett Eastonellis as a guest on one of our episodes. That would be cool. We can really dig into where it all comes from and why it keeps coming up and why he chooses to constantly revisit something. And you know, one of the other things that I think about too is there are people in my life that whether their perception is accurate or not, or even just slightly exaggerated, view points in my life or things that I do even now as being wrong, being out of control, whatever negative connotation you want to add to it. But to me, it's my experience and it's wonderful and it's fascinating and it's my journey. And so for me, it's not a bad thing. Um, especially if you weren't the one that got pulled down into it. Right. You know, like I did all the things very fast, very early on. And I guess my lust for life and my desire to want to do all things kept me from getting sucked into just one thing. But there are people in my life that have really gone sideways. And I mean, we started out partying together with Blow in high school and then cut to 10 years later, and one of them is a heroin and crystal meth addict and injecting it.

Robert 40:54

Right.

Jarrod 40:55

And bad, bad, bad story.

Robert 40:59

So what you're saying is just do everything.

Jarrod 41:01

For me, no. For me, what I'm saying is that I'm the eye of my own storm. When you're in the eye of the storm, it's calm.

SPEAKER_02 41:08

Yeah.

Jarrod 41:09

So for Brett, he might be putting all of this stuff out there that might seem extreme and and out of control for people, but when you've experienced the roller coaster, it's not as scary to you as it is to someone who's just standing on the ground watching the roller coaster go around, never having experienced it themselves.

Robert 41:29

That's pretty cool.

Jarrod 41:30

So if it's something that you like, if it's something that you enjoy, why not revisit it? As long as you're not repeating the same mistakes over again. And maybe that is another part of the process, too, is the more he writes about this, the more I talk about some of the things that felt out of control from my past, the more I'm able to realize how anchored I am now and how grateful I am that I am the person that I am that went through that storm, found the eye of it, and then got spit out the other end unscathed.

Robert 42:02

He probably feels the same way. If if this is as truly uh autobiographical as it claims to be, which I have no reason to think otherwise, he probably feels the same way. Yeah. There's probably it's his process to process.

Jarrod 42:18

Right. And I love that. That that really just resonated with me. It's his process to process. And we all have that right to process what we've experienced and to process the processing of it. It's very much like thinking about thinking.

SPEAKER_02 42:36

Yeah.

Jarrod 42:36

And that breeds mindfulness, if not the definition of self-awareness. Right. Taking yourself outside of yourself and getting a bigger picture of the world around you. Yeah. Rather than just sort of bulldozing your way through life with your blinders on, which is, I think, so much of what we see on social media, on Instagram and TikTok, the bad behavior that we see on the social media platform is, I think, definitive of what we're talking about when we talk about traumatic, broken people who are choosing not to heal themselves because it's too scary to walk through the fire.

SPEAKER_02 43:13

Yeah.

Jarrod 43:13

But yet here you have this example of however many other people you can find in your universe that have chosen to walk through the fire and are better for it.

SPEAKER_02 43:24

Right.

Jarrod 43:24

Like we have a friend who is very intimidated by therapy and the change that therapy induces because, well, then I won't be me anymore. No, you will be a better version of yourself. It's not like pod people time. Right. You will be more self-realized, more self-actualized, more in control, not just of your actions, but of your emotions and your perceptions and how you choose to respond and react to the world at large. And that puts you in the driver's seat of not giving you control because there's very little we have control over, but it puts you in the driver's seat of your own life because now you start to understand why instead of just witnessing what's happening around you. And it's that shift in thinking of things happen to me, right, to things happen for me.

SPEAKER_02 44:17

Yeah.

Jarrod 44:17

Everything becomes to your advantage rather than your disadvantage. And you remove yourself from being a victim of the experience of life.

Robert 44:26

That mindful processing, uh, whether it be through therapy or just through your ability, if you've if you've figured that out for whatever reason, that that is what allows you or introduces you to yourself. Yeah. It gives you the opportunity to really discover who you have the opportunity to be, who you could potentially be. It's going to be different, but we have to strive for that too.

Jarrod 44:52

Well, isn't it absolutely wonderful? It's pretty to look at yourself in the mirror and say you. Yeah. And I think a lot of people feel so little about themselves as the world intends to make us feel.

SPEAKER_02 45:05

Right.

Jarrod 45:06

That people look in the mirror and they think, I don't want to know who that person is.

Robert 45:10

Or they'll get messages from other people who say, I'm not interested in that other version of you.

Jarrod 45:15

And that's why you have to not give a fuck.

Robert 45:17

Right. It's really important.

Jarrod 45:19

Yeah.

Robert 45:20

It's really important.

Jarrod 45:21

I I completely agree with you. I I want to be my friend. I want to know myself. And that is a really good feeling because for a big part of my life, I ran from that. And I think it's the only reason. Only reason that I can speak to it.

SPEAKER_02 45:39

Right.

unknown 45:40

Yeah.

Jarrod 45:40

Because I experienced it. Yeah. I'm not coming from a place of inexperience and judgment. I'm coming from a place of experience and empathy. Not just for other people who are struggling with that fight, but for myself. And if you can treat yourself the way you treat the person that you like the most in this world, that is a wonderful place to be. Because charity starts in the home. So if you can fix yourself, if you can heal yourself, if you can love yourself, then everyone else around you is going to benefit from that as well.

SPEAKER_02 46:13

Right.

Jarrod 46:14

Yep. So I think that's probably maybe another reason why Brett Easton Ellis writes what he writes, why Ryan Murphy produces what he produces. Why there are certain people that choose to tell stories that make people uncomfortable because if it wasn't uncomfortable, then where would the growth come from? No pain, no gain.

SPEAKER_02 46:37

Right.

Jarrod 46:38

So I applaud their efforts. I applaud their art. And it definitely is something that I find entertaining, but I also find thought-provoking. And I quite like it. So uh thank you guys for listening. I think we're gonna end on that. Don't forget to tune into the Shards Wednesday nights at nine o'clock on FX or Hulu. And um we're gonna go have a Brett Easton Ellis evening. We will see you guys next Tuesday.