I'm going to throw some like words or phrases at you, tell me the first thing that comes to your mind.

Word association.

Okay.

Okay.

Pilot season.

Uh, hell.

Hell.

Uh, phone call.

Anxiety.

Uh, nervousness, um, craziness.

Network, no.

Anxiety.

Death by a thousand cuts.

Abominable.

Uh, necessary.

Really?

So you appreciate them?

Necessary.

Okay.

No.

It's like exercise.

Yes.

Necessary.

It's like you force yourself to go to the gym, kind of thing.

Right.

A high fiber diet.

Necessary.

Agents.

Consiglieres.

It's an uh it's an Italian word from the Godfather.

Full of crap.

Some of my best friends.

Ratings.

Ratings.

Ratings are good.

You want ratings.

Distracting.

Overrated.

Irrelevant.

Really?

Becoming irrelevant.

Interesting.

Still, still, we still live and die by them in network television, but they are we're about to see a time when they're when the the Neilsen ratings are becoming less and less relevant.

And last but not least, Nikki Finke.

Truth slayer.

I mean, she's on it.

And I feel like during the strike, she really blew up.

We were all like, "Nowhere else to go but Nikki Finke."

Obsessed.

In terms of me towards her.

I mean, I Well, I've uh it's it's not an obsession with her as much as it is with her writing and what she does and her site.

I started uh checking Deadline during the Writers' Strike, sort of obsessively.

And the and it's never stopped.

So, it's like it's the first it's it's number number one bookmarked page, you know, um I just I love their reporting.

It's very simple, very basic, no nonsense.

You can always trust it.

It's never erroneous.

And I really think that it changed uh media and and um Hollywood for the better.

Empowerful.

Powerful.

Yeah.

Incredible to see how quickly that has changed Hollywood in uh in terms of like where you get your information, how you get your information, how quickly you get your information.

You always know that that um that there's a source where if you need something fast and immediate that it seems to be there.

I think it's actually been great.

It's it's sort of made that rumor mill um a lot more like you know now that there's a source where you can go and find out if things are actually really happening or not.

Yeah.

I like Nikki.

I like people who say what's on their mind.

Uh and she certainly does.

And so far she's been kind of ridiculously nice to me and I don't know exactly why.

But I will take it.

Don't jinx it.

I'm not going to jinx it.

She's been very sweet.

Thank you, Nikki.

Thank you, Nikki.

And uh so we're all good.

So wait, the last time before I let you go, the last time we spoke, you were ill and everybody else, you were releasing Blackbox TV.

We were going to do a movie scream.

What am I doing to the camera?

I'm not sick anymore.

I'm deaf.

Can't hear anything else you're about to say so we're wrapping.

Say thank you.

So crazy.

Thank you so much.

Sorry, thank you.

Bye-bye.

Great to see you again.

Yeah, Hollywood.