028 Famous & Gravy Origin Story (Transcript)

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Amit: So we are not playing the game that you think that we're playing today. Instead we're playing a different game called dead or alive. So we are gonna read you the name of a celebrity and you merely have to tell us whether you think that person is dead or alive.

Friend: So can I go to Google? No, you cannot.

Michael: The whole point of the game is that we pretend there's no internet.

Tennis player, Billy Jean King,

Friend: not alive.

Michael: She is still with us as of this recording. Isn't that great? Like a

couple years ago? No Chomsky. Oh, no, no.

Friend: Um, he's old. He's still alive.

Michael: As of this recording. He is 93 years old and still going

Amit: judge waner.

Friend: Oh, he's gotta be dead. I'm gonna say dead.

Amit: Correct. Judge Waner died in 2017.

Friend: Yeah, he died when I was like 12, I think. Right.

Amit: You were not 12 in 2017. Terence Trent Darby.

Friend: Oh, no, no wish. Well, wish to now still kick.

Amit: Correct. Just turned 60 years old.

Michael: Pete rose.

Friend: Oh, Pete rose is alive. I mean, he's probably dead to many people, but alive in terms of the clinical sense

Michael: in the clinical sense, he is 81 years.

Amit: Sam Donaldson

Friend: alive. Oh God. I wanna take that back. Um, can I hit this too late? I'm not doing too good on this

Michael: bill Russell.

Friend: I need a hint.

Michael: he was a basketball player in the 1960s.

Friend: Oh, that didn't help at all.

Michael: Leslie nielson. You remember who that is?

Friend: Oh yeah. Hell yeah. Uh,

Amit: the rapper too short,

Friend: too short, alive.

Amit: That is correct too short. He is 56 years old.

Friend: Wait too short.

Michael: Neil diamond.

Friend: Oh God, that's hard. I'm gonna, I know he is been in poor health. I'm gonna stay dead.

Michael: I am happy to report. Neil diamond is still with us at 81 years old.

Friend: He's one of those that like, you feel like should be right if he's not. Yeah.

Amit: Farrah Fawcett.

Friend: Oh, fair of faucet's alive. I mean, come on now.

Michael: I'm afraid we lost her.

Friend: Wait, wait, wait. No.

Amit: Eddie van Haen

Friend: Eddie van Haen he's yeah, he's here. Right?

Amit: Unfortunately, Eddie van Haen died in 2020.

Friend: Oh goodness. It was, there was a I'm sorry. I was .

Michael: So you, would you like to say something to the van Haen family while we're on the line?

Friend: I know, I guess I'll have to send a card.

Amit: welcome to famous and gravy. My name is Amit Kapoor,

Michael: and my name is Michael Osborne.

Amit: And holy shit. Why am I speaking first?

Michael: because we're doing something different on the show today.

Amit: We are. Should I just come out and say it? I think so. Okay. We are announcing the launch of our app called dead or alive that you can play at deadoraliveapp.com.

Michael: We'll be repeating that URL throughout the conversation.

Amit: Correct? In fact, if you look under your sock right now, we've actually tattooed it on your ankle, the QR coder, the way. Yes. So you don't even have to worry about memorizing it. So why is this an episode? Yeah. Uh, as opposed to just an announcement, are you asking me?

No, I'm asking it rhetorically, but would you like to answer to the question since you are so used to dominating the microphone on our ? I I'll tell you why we're

doing this, because this is not just a game. This is actually a game that you started telling me about like 10 years ago. And it was the inspiration for the

famous and gravy podcast.

That's exactly right. So the app that we're announcing today, Is actually the origin story of this podcast. And in some other way is actually the origin story of Michael and OTT. Yeah. I was working in San Francisco. That was probably the year I met you, Michael. Yeah. The game came from, uh, oh God, probably about 2011.

Yeah. Ask about the time. Maybe it was the year after. Yeah, we were, we were close to celebrating our one year anniversary. Best friends. Yeah. I don't remember getting, you got me a cake. I did I, yes. Oh yeah, no, I actually was there for your birthday that year. So I was working for Wikipedia at the time. Yeah.

What were you doing there? I worked in global development. So trying to expand access to Wikipedia in underdeveloped countries. But the strangest thing I observed was one of the most popular edits on Wikipedia was there is a race to be the first person to edit the entry, to show that someone has died.

interesting. Okay. So there's this army of volunteer. What are they called? Editors? Yeah, there's a Cannonball run to get to the editing page. And there's a badge of honor that people wear of being the first person to change the Wikipedia entry to say that this person has died. So it's like seconds. Like it's like as soon as it's publicly announced, like everybody's running into their computer to try and get it.

Yeah. Depending on the fame of the person, it can be second. So 2011 was Steve jobs, for example, and that was. Milliseconds. Yeah, it may have, I don't even think you can be that fast, but yeah, certainly less than 10, I would imagine as fast as the fingers can type on the keyboard. Okay. So, so my observation about that was there is now data.

There is now instant data. That we know who is dead or alive.

Yeah. Well, okay. So, but that doesn't exactly answer the

question. Where did the list come from? I mean, it kind of does, but there's more to the list in the game than that. Yeah. The list came from a secondary phenom that was also happening on the internet, which was mostly on Facebook and it was this outpouring of rest and peace.

Every time somebody died, my entire Facebook feed would be filled with people saying rest in peace, Betty, for. Hmm.

Michael: Yeah. Or Steve jobs or anybody else in

Amit: 2011, correct. Right. And okay. It seems so a synchronous to me, the level of outpouring versus how much they may actually care that this person died well, is this because it would disappear from your newsfeed, it would disappear from your conscious yeah.

You may not know in six months, whether this person actually died or not, Steve jobs would be an exception. Right. But Betty Ford. Neil Armstrong. No, I ne . Do you really know in six months, do you even remember that they died? Walter

Michael: Mondale, John Madden, Henry Kissinger, you name it? So it was these two things you are at

Amit: Wikipedia seeing what the internet

Michael: was evolving into and ephemeral outpouring.

Is that the other way to put this? I mean,

Amit: sort of like excessive but disingenuous. Interesting. And so I started to think, well, I'm gonna start to ask people. do you even remember this person die? And so I started asking you, this is true. Yeah. I

Michael: remember back in the day, one of the early names you, uh, gave me was like Shirley temple.

I remember you like saying that and kind of lifting your chin in a kind of proud way. What do you think, Michael Shirley temple. And, uh, this was 2011 and I said, Shirley, she's dead. and. she

Amit: was not dead. We had two more years to go. We had two more years of Shirley to go and 11 years until dimple ambassador came out.

Indeed. So yeah, we should

Michael: talk about

Amit: how, what this has to do with famous and gravy. Yeah. So I think the third technology that we're leaving out was text messaging. Yeah. Text messaging, all of a sudden became ubiquitous and free. Yeah. And so you and I, I started telling you about this like idea for essentially a quiz game.

Yeah. Of, do you even remember whether this person died or not? Yeah. And you and I just started texting back and forth when we came up with a

Michael: name and it's funny, the way the names would just sort of strike you. You I'd be walking down the street and all of a sudden think to myself, is Geraldine Ferraro still with

Amit: us?

Correct. And I'd be on the other end and be like, God fucking damnit did Geraldine. Feraro die.

Michael: and did I miss this? Yes. We should say the name of the URL again, that is dead or alive. app.com that's app with two

Amit: P dead or alive, a ppp.com

Michael: D a D. Or a L I V E a

Amit: p.com go to it on your mobile device. best

Michael: experience, best experience on a mobile device.

We should say also that we did manage to get a lot of our friends excited about this game. Like, I mean, even when you and I were talking about it, back in 2013, you would tell, I was not the only person you were telling about this idea for an app. There were other people like our friend, Sarah,

Amit: I wanted on record that I played this before this became an app. I used to get like text and calls from new people. .

Michael: If I'm not mistaken, I'm gonna look at our text history. I feel like you've done. Like you've sent some my way too. Is that right? Yeah. I was like

Amit: Angela Landsbury and you guys were like, get away from me and amateurs

Michael: I don't believe that don't believe that's how I responded, but, uh, it possible it was.

Amit: It was the

Michael: vibe anyway. Oh, you know, I'm looking at it in our text chain, you know it it's got, uh, what it's you

Amit: saying? Dead or alive? Angela Landsbury and then shortly after that, gene, Cisco, Roger Ebert question, mark.

Question mark in

Michael: 2017.

Amit: Okay. So we still have an answer to the question of how this becomes famous and gravy. Yeah, cause I don't think we're there yet. Yeah. But I always had it in my head that this was adaptable to a podcast because you were a podcast guy. So

Michael: I had started a podcast in the fourth year of my PhD and I fell in love immediately.

You know? I mean, one of the things that's so much fun about having a podcast is, you know, I'm always sudden able to talk to people that I would otherwise not be talking to. And, and I don't know, I felt this kind of, um, unlocking of creative. That podcast name is generation anthrop scene. If I could go back 10 years, um, I'm not sure that I would name a podcast after a new geologic name, because every time I describe this podcast to somebody, I have to go through the geologic timetable again.

But anyway, that's how it started. That's what I was

Amit: up to. And while you were committing that name to memory also commit the URL of the most fun game you've ever played, which is debtor live app dot. So we are playing debtor live back and forth on text messaging. You have gotten into podcasting via the sciences, right?

I am still at Wikipedia. And what was the confluence here? Well,

Michael: I remember you were living in the city and I was down at my house in east Palo Alto. That is correct. I was in the mission. You were in the mission and every now and then I would. Come up to the city and we'd go out and get hammered.

Amit: If you must put it that way,

Michael: we'd go have a good time.

Right. And, but, but we were always like, whenever I'd come up to the city, I always had to plan whatever we were up to within a Stone's throw of the cow train so that I could stumble back onto the train and make it home. Right. At some point. Yeah. So

Amit: I'm remembering very specific night. Yeah. And are you getting this picture of this specific night?

I am. I

Michael: know the exact night you're talking about, but yeah, it was keep on you tell

Amit: the story. It was. Summer of 2013. Yes. And it was one of those nights that you have to catch the last Caltrain back. Right. So you're like, let's meet at a bar in Soma, near, um, near the Caltrain, near the ballpark. Yeah. And when he landed up at a place, I think it was called Pete's Tavern at the time.

I am very certain it's not there anymore. Yeah. And you asked me a very specific question because you were in the podcasting and you said, Hey, if dead or alive were a podcast, what would it be? What did you,

Michael: what was your answer?

Amit: Do you remember? I think we followed it back and forth. Yeah. But I do remember very, very clearly we arrived at an answer of, was this a good life?

Michael: Yeah. I remember this too, actually. Like where, where, but that's it. I mean, that's kind of where we landed, right? That's where we left it. I mean, I think we might have even had some conversation. What does good life mean? But I'm not sure

Amit: the conversation went were, I don't think it went anywhere. I think it got drowned in, uh, alcohol by volume.

Yeah. And then I think if I remember correctly, the entire city of San Francisco turned into pixie dust. Yeah. and I left it yeah. Within a year. And it was a long time before we saw each other.

Michael: Again, it was about seven years before we hung

Amit: out. Again, it. Possible that I did not physically see you for those seven years in between.

Yeah.

Michael: I mean, we were still in touch over those years. We would still play dead or alive occasionally on via text, but that was kind of it. A

Amit: couple of things happened. You would inform me when your children were born. yeah. Yeah. And we would text each other dead or live questions.

Michael: Thank you for allowing push notifications on that, by the way.

Yes

Amit: and uh, I would inform you of occasional life happenings. Yeah,

Michael: no, we kept in touch, but it wasn't a whole lot of time hanging out together. We kind of. Our lives diverged for a number of years,

Amit: and there was more debtor lives back and forth than there was sharing of personal information and lives.

Well, and after you and I parted

Michael: ways in 2013, you know, I'd

Amit: seemed you a text every time a celebrity died April, 2013, there was genuine emotion today upon word that Roger Ebert had. February, 2014, Shirley temple has died. She was one of the most popular and famous child stars ever. In fact, in the mid 1930s, she was the most popular actor of any age, February, 2015.

Is there a more famous TV gesture than the Vulcan salute Leonard Nemoy who popularized the gesture in his role as Mr. Spock on the sixties TV series, star Trek, both lived long and prosper. Before dying at the age of 83, December, 2016, we're gonna begin here with the mysterious final months in the life of George Michael fans have really been flocking for the singers home in London, leaving flowers and paying their respects May, 2017 before he was bond, sir, Roger Moore was just plain old.

Roger, the only child of a police. And homemaker mother growing up in south London, June, 2018, world renowned chef bestselling author award-winning host of parts unknown, and our friend Anthony Bourdain has died July, 2019. Self-made billionaire philanthropists, former presidential candidate. Ross per has died April, 2020 singer and songwriter John Prine, lost to the virus.

But honored tonight, September, 2020 justice. Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died at the age of 87 from complications from metastatic pancreatic cancer.

Michael: I dug up this text from October 14th, 2020 1:33 PM. I send a text to you that reads, this is verbatim. I would like to seriously, seriously revisit the idea of the da podcast,

Amit: da meaning dead or alive.

Correct.

Michael: Two hours later at 3:27 PM. I'll send an email with more thought.

Amit: That is what you said. I didn't even respond to the first one. You didn't even respond

Michael: an hour later. My time is precious an hour later at 4 28. You respond. Okay, great. I'll look for that period. Very interested. And as it turns out, I was able to dig up that proposal.

I'd like to read you just a little bit of this as well. And I just wanna point to a couple things. There is this dead guest criteria. I say, first they need to have died.

Amit: This was an underestimation of my intelligence.

Michael: hang on, let me finish reading. Uh, I did say, I do think that there should be an obituary available for whoever died as I wanna start off the show with the host reading some selected excerpts from the obituary.

So we actually did make good on that in the final famous and gravy. Vision. And then finally I say the show is not about us. The show is about those who have gone before us and have now left us. I think we've made good on the original vision for this podcast. I mean, there's a whole lot of iteration and a whole lot of development that happened.

I mean, that was in October of 2020. We didn't release the first episode until December of 2021. So there was a year of working on famous and gravy. The fact that this podcast came about after COVID hit and we're all in quarantine wondering, you know, am I gonna die from this pandemic? And what am I doing with my life?

I mean, I think that that also, you know, informed what the podcast

Amit: has become, which is the same question. It should be. Yes. It's, we're all gonna die. You're gonna die. What does it all mean? And then Godammit we drew the two together. Yes. That we're talking about dead people. And dead celebrities whose entire histories and autobiographies have been chronicled.

And we are also looking to answer the big questions. How do we know that we are doing the things that we want to do? And that is a really, really hard question to just do on your own. Yeah. I mean, maybe you have a good therapist. Yes, but you also have a relationship with these dead celebrities cuz you know who they are,

Michael: which leads us all back to dead

Amit: or alive death here in this game is trivialized.

But in the podcast it's looking back and saying, oh, we need to put significance to this death. And more importantly, what can we actually learn from a life that is fully complete? Cause we're in these places all the time that people are saying, Hey, what do you want outta. I don't fucking know. Yeah. I know.

I need a blueprint and I need some

Michael: constraints and I need shoes that I can step into and walk around and, and picture

Amit: it a little bit. Yeah. To see how it feels. And here we are trying to develop a game that is giving us hundreds of blueprints of lives that were once perceived as very meaningful. Yeah.

That were perceived as very immutable. Hmm. So let's take some lessons from that. Let's see how each thing that they did. Let's see how it resonates with us.

Michael: Amit one more time. Where can people find this fantastic

Amit: game? You open up your mobile device. You go to debtor, live app.com. First you add it to your home screen so you can play it over and over and over again.

It's very simple. Yes.

Michael: And I should mention

Amit: free. And at that point it just works like a free app. And I would

Michael: say I encourage people to play this aloud with friends. This is it's fun to play on your own. It's way more fun to play at a dinner party in the airport at a bar. There's something about, uh, sort of skipping a stone across recent pop culture history.

Is this person dead or

Amit: not? Correct? Like if I were to ask you about Vegas legend, Burt, Bock, dead or alive. Dead incorrect. Burt B rock is alive

Michael: as of this recording as of this recording, what else should we do? I think we should tell people to tell their friends about this. Like, if you enjoy this game, same way you enjoy the podcast, please share it

Amit: with your friends.

Well, I mean, with pastors, by yes. As much as your friends. Exactly. Because they will become your friends. Once you tell them about this fabulous game. So play. Listeners. This is a fantastic game. This is a good time. This is a bonding experience. Have fun.

Michael: It feels really good. To close the loop on this, like that this all became with this silly game.

Like it's live man, and it's out there. We fucking did it. Yes. So congratulations to you for a brilliant idea and have fun playing. We'll see you on the next episode of famous and gravy have fun

Amit: Gobi Cho. Uh, Gobi top is dead alive soccer. Great Pele.

uh, the rules are simple.

Michael: Pale dead are

Amit: alive. I'll go dead. He's alive, Yoko, Ono, um, dead, alive, alive, alive, alive. She is alive.

Michael: pat marina of karate kid thing. Uh, I think he died recently. He died in 2005. Tina

Amit: Turner. Dad, are you gonna tell me she dead? She's alive. okay. Oh God. I got so worry for a

Michael: second. Test your knowledge dead or alive app.com.

Amit: This

Michael: episode was produced by Jacob Weiss, original theme music by Kevin strand. Thank you for listening and we'll see you next time.