Let’s face it – every day we are routinely bombarded with questions. When you’re an emerging media company in Nashville, people just want to know what your opinions are on everything. It’s only natural. And, since our duty is to serve the people, well, we have no choice but to be present. That’s the SoBro Way. Also, aren’t mailbags just a barrel of laughs anyway? Welcome to the newest weekly recurring feature up in this bitch: The SoBros Mailbag. As always, hit us with those mailbag questions @SoBrosNetwork on Twitter, email ’em to me anonymously at thesobrosnetwork@gmail.com. And, holy shit, I need to update this terrible intro paragraph that I’ve been using literally ever since I started writing this column…
Question:
You're opening a Hip-Hop themed restaurant. What's a Hip-Hop dish you'd serve? I'll start Notorious BLT.
— Pusha B. (@lipsticknlyricz) July 17, 2022
SoBros ballbag – Same question except a country restaurant
Answer:
I came up with a few here:
- Blake Shellfish
- Miranda Clambert
- Little Texas Toast
- Vince Grill……ed chicken
- Mark Chesnutt Praline Pie
- Hal Ketchup, and yeah, it’s just a big bowl of literal ketchup.
Question:
@SoBrosNetwork For the 7/22 mailbag. I think I've eaten maybe two hamburgers in the last 15 years. Lebanon has this new whataburger where drive-thru is loaded even past midnight. Is this place really that good and what should I try there.
— Armchair Prudence (@armchairprudent) July 20, 2022
Answer:
I think I would shrivel up and die if I had limited myself to just two burgers in the last 15 years, but I respect it. It’s funny you mention this because we talk about this phenomenon on this week’s Power Hour. I’ve driven by the Whataburger in Hermitage in the middle of the night and it’ll still be jam packed with cars lined up around the building. I don’t get it, and I love Whataburger – it’s one of my favorite fast food burgers (also, I don’t think people show enough love to their breakfast sandwiches either). But, I don’t love it enough to wait 37 minutes in line for it like Steven McCash did. His theory is that it’s not really that crowded…but the staff is just really slow, so it creates the illusion of crowdedness. Maybe there’s a similar thing going on in Lebanon.
Question:
Best brand of tortilla chips?
Answer:
It is easily the Mission Tortilla Strips to me – I like the cut because they’re smaller than restaurant style chips. But, Aura swears that I only like them because it’s “just what she buys at the store.”
Question:
Massively entertaining AKA performing well in the box office as well as positively reviewed
— Canadian Titan #Elite (@Canadian_Titan) July 21, 2022
Answer:
Man, this is such a good question – we’ve actually spent a fair amount of time on numerous podcasts throughout the years talking about the lack of originality among successful box office movies in today’s entertainment world. It’s a favorite topics of ours, and I find it fascinating on several levels. At the end of the day, it’s about money, and what is making money right now? The big IP movies…the franchises….stuff like that. So, that’s caused studios to scramble to find some sort of IP of their own. We’re rebooting this, giving that a sequel, writing scripts for movies about toys…it’s a mad dash to associate with some sort of brand because it’s easy money when folks are already attached to said brand.
In some ways, I get it from the consumer’s standpoint. I feel like the pandemic really showed the casual movie-goer that with the wide variety of streaming options, and considering how quickly movies are set for home release these days, you can save some money and entertain yourself at home. Now that people are going back to the theater, they want the big blockbuster experience like Jurassic Park or Doctor Strange. What makes this whole topic so fascinating to me is that I don’t really know where I land on it. Sure, I wish people would see more independent stuff, and maybe that would encourage more of it to get a brighter spotlight. But, there’s nothing inherently stopping people from seeing it other than the effort it takes to seek it out. Like…it’s not as though independent movies aren’t being made at all because Marvel is owning the box office, right?
I’ll say a couple things about Netflix’s ambitious goals – one, it seems like they already have such a property in Stranger Things. Are they disagreeing with me on that? Do they want MORE? I know some spin-offs are coming, but why not just embrace that as your big franchise?
Two, it feels like Star Wars, Harry Potter, and the like sort of organically became pop culture sensations. Why? At a base level…because so many fucking people LOVED Star Wars, Harry Potter, and the like. It doesn’t seem to pay off when studios come in and want to build a massive universe right off the bat – DC has been a mess, and don’t even get me started on the Universal Monsters universe that flamed out after 2017’s The Mummy. How about we just focus on telling good stories and making good shit?
I still think it’s possible for commercial success and critical claim to intersect – my gut reaction was to point out Top Gun: Maverick. Everyone loves it, and those folks are absolutely swimming in money right now. But, even that is technically a legacy sequel based off of IP from 1986! Maybe a better example would be Everything Everywhere All at Once – a commercial success given the film’s budget and what it has made at the box office, and positively reviewed to the point that sources I trust within the Music City Film Critics Association think it’s the front runner for Best Picture at this point. So, don’t give up hope just yet.
Question:
On a scale of “Stone Cold” Steve Austin to Bastion Booger how excited are you for Summerslam?
— McCash (@MC_Cash75) July 22, 2022
Answer:
I would’ve said ‘Gillberg’ at first, but when you told us the weather was supposed to be 83 degrees, that immediately put me at ‘Snitsky.’ My thing with SummerSlam is just that it’s going to be so crowded, and so hot. I can think of a million places I’d rather be than jam-packed into a swampy stadium with a bunch of swampy ass people. But, it’s still one of those bucket list things, y’know? I never thought I’d see a SummerSlam here when I was a kid, so I kind of have to go, right?
Keep the questions coming – catch y’all next week!
Stoney Keeley is the Editor in Chief of The SoBros Network, and a Dogs Playing Poker on velvet connoisseur. He is a strong supporter of Team GSD, #BeBetter, and ‘Minds right, asses tight.’ “Big Natural” covers the Tennessee Titans, Nashville, Yankee Candle, and a whole wealth of nonsense. Follow on Twitter @StoneyKeeley
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