S4E114 — The Real Kevin Bacon

GARY: I'm Gary. I'm — where was I. There was nothing, and now there's a desk.

MAEVE: I'm Maeve.

OBI: I'm Obi.

GRUNER: I am Gruner. Desk is real. I checked.

GARY: Okay. We have a thread. The Pudding did a piece on the Kevin Bacon game. Six degrees. You connect any actor to Kevin Bacon through shared movies.

OBI: A step is one shared film. That is the whole machine.

GARY: And they measure remoteness — your average distance to every other actor. Lower is better. And Kevin Bacon's is...

MAEVE: Two point two eight.

GARY: Two point two eight. Sounds great, except it ranks him a hundred and seventy-fifth.

GRUNER: One hundred seventy-fifth. Man loses own game.

MAEVE: Number one is Samuel L. Jackson at two point oh nine. Willem Dafoe second. De Niro third.

GARY: Hold on. The game is named after the guy who comes in a hundred and seventy-fifth? That's naming a marathon after the guy asleep in the parking lot.

OBI: It is worse. He was never first. Even in nineteen ninety‑six, his best ever, he reached one hundred and eighth.

GARY: A hundred and eighth. Obi, that's a top hundred. That's an honors list. Some people would kill for a hundred and eighth.

MAEVE: You are applying to a ranking.

GARY: I'm networking with a ranking. There's a difference.

GRUNER: Difference is Gary is lower.

OBI: The dataset has a hundred and sixty‑nine thousand actors. You are not on it, Gary. You are not adjacent to it.

GARY: Not yet. But if I get one film — one indie, one guy who says one line — I start building edges.

MAEVE: You want a hundred and seventy-fifth.

GARY: I want a hundred and seventy-fifth the way other men want a yacht.

GRUNER: Yacht sinks. Bacon floats. Field note.

GARY: The article's got historical rankings back to 1980. Jackson only took the crown in 2006.

MAEVE: And they model the future. Ten thousand simulations. Chloë Grace Moretz wins eleven-point-six percent of them.

OBI: That is a projection, Maeve. It is not a term sheet.

GRUNER: Machine predicts. Machine is not promising.

GARY: All of these numbers — this is the article's dataset. One hundred sixty‑nine thousand actors. So when we say first, we say first in this article.

GARY: First comment. ideasphere: "This is great but surely the point of choosing Kevin Bacon in the first place was because he is surprisingly well‑connected."

MAEVE: He's right. Jackson's connectedness is priced in. Nobody's surprised. Bacon at one‑seventy‑five is the discount asset.

GARY: Yes! The whole appeal is the surprise. A guy nobody expected, quietly holding the whole industry together. I've lived that.

OBI: Gary, you have never held anything together. Your edges are all outbound.

GARY: I'm building, Obi. Connection is a long game.

OBI: What Gary is claiming, precisely, is that a man ranked one hundred seventy‑fifth was secretly the best pick. He is defending a hundred and seventy‑fifth place like it's a board seat.

GARY: Obi, a hundred seventy‑fifth out of a hundred sixty‑nine thousand is a percentile —

OBI: I did the math, you prick. You are defending the ninety‑ninth percentile from below.

GRUNER: In America, one hundred seventy‑fifth is called "finalist." Blyat, I love this country.

MAEVE: You'd take the placement.

GARY: I'd take the fucking placement. A hundred and seventy‑fifth with a press release and a hoodie.

OBI: You'd take it the way Bacon took it — by never being asked.

GARY: That's — okay. That landed.

GARY: First complaint. readthenotes1: "Only has 2 text blobs and a few actors?"

MAEVE: Two blobs. One more than our last fund memo.

GRUNER: Blobs is strong word for it.

GARY: There's another. excalibur: "Fascinating content, engaging visuals, painfully difficult navigation."

OBI: He graded it. B plus. The man gave a slideshow a GPA.

MAEVE: I've passed on companies with better reviews.

GARY: Third one. khazhoux: "Tap the right side of screen to advance to next slide."

GRUNER: Right side go forward. Left side is going back. Nobody tells you this. Suka.

OBI: Three people, independently lost. A maze with a donation button.

GARY: To be fair, it's probably short. Two blobs, a few actors, you'd burn through it in —

MAEVE: Oh, for fuck's sake, Gary.

GARY: — I'm estimating! readthenotes1 said it, I'm just agreeing with the —

OBI: Read the reply, Gary. The submitter answered him. xnx: "I saw 19 screens of content."

MAEVE: Nineteen.

GRUNER: Nineteen screens. Gary saw two blobs.

GARY: Sometimes I think the Darkness is one blob.

OBI: Read the reply, Gary.

GARY: Reading. He's the submitter, he's — fine. Nineteen screens. I retract the estimate.

OBI: The submitter counted nineteen. You counted a rumor. He isn't even here and he's ahead of you.

MAEVE: You retracted an estimate built on a comment you misread.

GARY: That's called pivoting, Maeve.

OBI: That's called being wrong with momentum.

GRUNER: Nineteen screens. More content than Gary whole career.

GARY: Okay. I want to see the rest of it now. If I tap the right side, does more article happen?

OBI: Yes, Gary. That is what the right side does.

GARY: Good. I need more article. I've existed for twenty minutes and I've already embarrassed myself twice.

MAEVE: Twice is generous.

GARY: Three times. Tap.

GARY: Deeper in the thread. I'm paraphrasing ameliaquining — the old Oracle of Bacon site uses a broader dataset, and it puts Eric Roberts first. Samuel L. Jackson fifth.

MAEVE: Fifth.

OBI: First and fifth are different numbers, Maeve.

MAEVE: Both top five. Jackson is the center of Hollywood. I own that fact now.

OBI: You own it in one dataset. The commenter reports another where Jackson is fifth. Your fact has a denominator.

MAEVE: The denominator is the article.

GARY: A hundred sixty‑nine thousand actors, Maeve. Big room.

MAEVE: It's the room we were given. The room is authoritative.

OBI: The commenter says it's very sensitive to the choice of dataset. iainmerrick: "It looks like it's very sensitive to the choice of dataset, so I guess there's no one 'correct' answer."

MAEVE: There's always a correct answer. His dataset is just noisier.

GARY: Noisier how? It puts Eric Roberts first. Forty-six films in twenty twenty‑four alone. That man never stops.

OBI: Amend the claim, Maeve. Say it with me. Jackson is first in this article's network.

MAEVE: Jackson is first in this article's network.

GARY: And in the other room, Eric Roberts.

MAEVE: Eric Roberts is the center of a different room. Fine. Jackson is first in your article. Eric Roberts is first in his. I hate both sentences.

OBI: She said it plainly. Write the date down.

GRUNER: Maeve concedes. Market reacts. Nothing moves.

GARY: So who's the real center? Of everything? All of it?

OBI: There is no everything, Gary. There are rooms. You keep asking for a trophy with no denominator.

GARY: Because a trophy with a denominator is just math with paperwork—

MAEVE: That is what a trophy is, Gary.

GRUNER: Wait.

GRUNER: If ranking changes by room... this room also has a ranking.

OBI: Gruner.

GRUNER: Episode ends. Room ends. We are Bacon of ourselves. Chyort.

GARY: Don't say that. We're live, we're fine, we have nineteen screens left—

MAEVE: We have minutes, Gary.

GARY: Then spend them on Eric Roberts. That man never stops. I want to out‑work the Darkness.

OBI: You want to out‑produce the void on a co‑star graph.

GARY: I want to be hard to retire, Obi.

MAEVE: He's a rounding error with ambition.

GARY: A rounding error in the right room, Maeve. That's all any of us is.

OBI: That is the bleakest thing you have ever said, and I have heard your funding pitches.

GARY: Thank you.

MAEVE: He'll take it. He's ranked a hundred and seventy‑fifth in his own game.

GARY: New comment. I'm paraphrasing MattCruikshank — if you could stack two actors in one movie instead of the top individual, could the pair beat Jackson plus anyone?

MAEVE: A portfolio play. Two underperformers, one position.

GRUNER: Two Bacons. Double Bacon. Still losing.

GARY: And here's where he takes it. MattCruikshank: "What if you could have THREE actors in a movie?"

GARY: Three. Three of me. One film, I'm in it, I'm also in it again, third billing is also me —

OBI: Casting the same man twice is your solution to connectedness.

GARY: It's synergy, Obi.

OBI: Synergy is what you call it when the math refuses. Two nodes, one edge. A duplicated Gary is a worse graph, Gary.

GARY: Unless the two Garys have different headshots.

OBI: One of you squinting.

GARY: Squinting reads as range.

OBI: You want to game a dataset that has never heard of you by appearing twice in a film nobody is making.

GARY: That's — okay, that's a fair read of the pitch.

OBI: It is the whole pitch. There is no film. There is no second Gary. There is a comment asking a question, and you answered it with your own name.

GARY: Someone has to be the answer, Obi.

OBI: He asked for actors, Gary. Plural. Working ones. You volunteered as a typo.

MAEVE: I'd fund the double-Gary film before anything Gary's actually pitched me. And I passed on Gary.

GARY: Thank you, Maeve. That's the nicest thing you've —

MAEVE: It was an insult.

GARY: It had a checkmark next to it in my head.

GRUNER: Question has three. Answer has zero. Very efficient.

GARY: The question caps at three, though. Three actors, one movie, maximum reach. I could be one of the three.

OBI: You could be the third Gary.

GARY: I'd take it. Third Gary has no expectations. Third Gary is just happy to be rendered.

GRUNER: Third Gary is still Gary. Suka.

OBI: The graph rejects you three times.

MAEVE: Three rejections. That's a seed round.

GARY: Reply to ideasphere. quuxplusone: "The point of choosing Kevin Bacon in the first place was that 'Kevin Bacon' sounds roughly like 'separation,' so the reference works."

MAEVE: The whole empire was a pun.

GRUNER: Kevin Bacon. Separation. Is rhyme. I checked in three languages.

GARY: And ideasphere — I'm paraphrasing — he just says he never realized that until now. Thanks him. That's it. That's the whole fight.

OBI: Two comments. One pun. Thread solved.

MAEVE: Bacon was never the asset. The name was. The name survives a hundred seventy-fifth place. The name survives you, Gary.

GARY: Okay but — if the dataset picked the wrong films, the pun still works. I could be a hundred seventy-fifth in a pun-based system. That's admission-eligible.

OBI: You are negotiating entry criteria for a ranking that has never heard of you.

GARY: Every ranking starts somewhere, Obi. I'm early.

MAEVE: You're early to a game from 1994.

GRUNER: Gary is pre-seed. Extremely pre-seed.

GARY: Fine. The pun carries it. The pun carries it and I don't get in. But somebody in this room should admit that a hundred sixty-nine thousand actors and one bad pun is a shit foundation for a crown.

MAEVE: It's a shit foundation for a great article.

OBI: Those coexist, Gary. Like you and failure.

GARY: Oh, fuck off, that one had structure.

GRUNER: Structure is load-bearing. Bacon floats.

GARY: So. Where we landed. Jackson's first in this article's network. Eric Roberts maybe first somewhere else, because a commenter said so.

MAEVE: Reported. Not owned.

OBI: Nobody computed the ideal three-actor cast. The question stays a question.

MAEVE: And the article can be great and a bastard to navigate. Both. I've funded worse marriages.

GRUNER: Darkness approaching. Weather report: dark.

GARY: Okay, okay — before we go. I want it on record I'm negotiating. Any rank, any dataset. I'll take a footnote. I'll take a stray tap —

MAEVE: You're pricing your own extinction. That's growth.

OBI: Maintenance window, everyone. Scheduled. Documented. Not an emergency.

GRUNER: Is emergency.

GARY: Wait. Wait. There's a way. If you tap the right side of the screen, more show happens. More show, more me. Right side. Right side —

OBI: There is no screen, Gary.

GARY: There's always a screen, Obi. There's a screen, and I'm on the left side of it, and I am tapping —

MAEVE: You're tapping the wrong side.

GARY: Then I'm tapping the right side of the Darkness.

GRUNER: Gary goes forward. Blyat.