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So go ahead, try something new, try something different. Good difference. Try something that feels like you. You know, the real you. And then definitely brag about it later.
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Whether it's Jingle Bells, Silent Night, Santa Claus is Coming to Town, or any other familiar holiday tune, it's hard to go anywhere this time of year without hearing classic Christmas songs.
so many of them are timeless. But why? How did they become that way? This morning David Poe reveals the secrets behind the sounds of Christmas. Writing a truly great Christmas song is really hard.
Mistletoe, no, that's been used so many times. Reindeer, no. What do you use that hasn't been used a million times? But this man has studied what makes the great ones great. The two most popular themes in Christmas music are being happy and in love and being lonely and out of love at Christmas.
Ahead on Sunday morning. What makes great Christmas songs great? Hollywood superstars Kate Hudson and Hugh Jackman had never worked together before collaborating on the new movie Song Sung Blue. It's a tribute of sorts to a real-life tribute band. as they'll discuss with Tracy Smith.
I will For their new movie, Kate Hudson and Hugh Jackman play two people who are singers, survivors, and soulmates.
So how well do you know each other now? Oh.
Well, very well. Very well. Except consummating. Beyond that, pretty much everything. Later on Sunday morning, Kate and Hugh in Harmony.
We got things we gotta catch up on. Lee Cowan this morning shares a story of giving and friendship. featuring award-winning actor and comedian Jason Sadeikis. Then beat up. Why would Jason Sudeikis fly all the way to Kansas City from London, where he's shooting the next season of Ted Lasso?
just for a weekend. for his friend. That's why. It's a bunch of friends and fans putting together a show for each other that we think fans and friends will also enjoy. This shines a really big light on.
This thing that a lot of people don't know about and people don't want to think about. just what that is and why it's so important coming up on Sunday morning. Seth Doan explores the remarkable staying power of Jane Austen and her novels 250 years after her birth. Elaine Quijano examines the holiday season reality for the more than a million American workers laid off this past year. Plus Luke Burbank with a special holiday gift guide featuring products made in America.
And fasten your seat belt. Faith Saley has thoughts on the push for more in-flight decorum. All that and more on this Sunday morning for the fourteenth of december, twenty twenty five. We'll be back after this. Uh Tis the season for Christmas songs.
Of course, some holiday tunes are more enduring than others. But why? Our David Pogue uncovers secrets behind the sounds of Christmas. Yeah. Chestnuts roasting on the fire.
Every year, some of the greatest songs in the world pop up in our playlists. Although it's been sad Many times, many ways. Mary The smile Most of them are decades old. Or even centuries. If anyone knows what makes a Christmas song immortal, it's Berkeley School of Music forensic musicologist Joe Bennett.
He's analyzed the holiday pop charts to learn exactly what makes popular Christmas songs popular. They're basically academic studies of large numbers of Christmas songs to try and figure out what are the musical characteristics that listeners keep coming back to. again and again over the years.
Okay, well thematically, what are the characteristics? Home for the Holidays. Home for the Holidays is actually the most common one. You have weather themed songs, you know, Let It Snow, and you have a lot around the myth of Santa Claus. In fact, Bennett found that most Christmas hits are about one of only six things.
The other biggies are parties, being in love, and being out of love. Which brings us to the number one Christmas hit of recent years.
Well, baby, all I want for Christmas is you're Mariah Carey's hit from 1994. All I Want for Christmas Is You is a remarkable lyric because it hits most of the Christmas theme tropes.
So we get Christmas presents and the tree and Santa Claus and the snow. That lyric is so well loved as a holiday celebration song because it's literally got it all. Hey, I have a number one hit every year, but it's same song every year. A few years back, We visited Walter Afanasiev, who wrote that song with Mariah. We just kind of like go bouncing off of each other like at a jam session.
All that work.
Now we could have gone Christmas. Is you But we went all right. I will rest. Christmas and she goes that's awesome Yeah. Is Uh Back to our old rock and roll.
Yeah. No one in a million years would have thought, yeah, we're gonna release this and it's gonna be a big hit. And what does Mariah's hit have in common with most other Christmas hits? Sleigh bells. We found that more than 65% of the songs in the corpus had sleigh bells playing eight to the bar.
In the mid-1800s, the horses would actually wear sleigh bells to warn people that they were coming.
So you can imagine the sort of leather across the horse's mane there. It's going to make a heck of a noise as it's. You're not going to miss that that deadly sleigh is coming up behind you. You can imagine a horse trotting to that and its eighth notes. Da, da, da, da.
Oh, the horse is unwittingly, unwittingly pre-composing Christmas music from 100 years afterwards. Then there are the technical aspects of a piece of music.
So something like 98% of the data set that we looked at was in a major key. Because major is associated with happy.
Well, generally, yes, I guess major key. On a surface level, Christmas music tends to be cheerful. The other characteristic that Christmas music has is you want every generation to be able to sing it.
So that's why kids' songs are often very simple and go over smaller intervals. Like jingle bells? Wow, so the whole thing is five notes. Five notes. And that's why kids find it easy to sing.
And sure enough. almost every popular Christmas song on earth. has an easily singable range of eight or nine notes.
So let's say we're playing a simple descending major scale of C. A surprising number of famous Christmas melodies go right up or down the scale. Da da da da. Uh The scale is also the basis of let it snow. And the Christmas song and Winter Wonderland.
And why do we think? That so many Christmas songs wound up with these characteristics. It's not like the composer sat down and said, 4-4, major key, swing. No, it's the selection effect. That is, we only know the Christmas songs that we know and love.
We ignore the experimental ones that just died in the marketplace. My whole family is obsessed with Christmas. We had our decorations up way before Thanksgiving. Carrie Butler is a veteran of 12 Broadway shows, including Hairspray, Mean Girls, and Betelgeuse. She knows her way around a song.
Is there something to you that a Christmas song does emotionally that a pop song doesn't? Yeah, I think it's the nostalgia. It brings back all of these memories when we were little, singing them with our parents, and now we're older and we're singing them with our kids. We have a special surprise for our viewers, as you know. Based on the data I have studied on what makes a great Christmas song, I've written one and you have gracefully agreed to sing it for us.
Yes, I'm very excited.
Now, Walter Afanasyev and Joe Bennett both say that just including all the traditional musical ingredients doesn't automatically make a song great. It's not like a formula or an algorithm or a- Obviously if it were easy. A lot more people would be doing it. But I had to give it a shot. Here it is, the world premiere of The Sound of Christmas.
It's got sleigh bells. In a major key, with a singable range, and a melody going down the scale. Happy holidays! Backling firing. Corching snow.
and ho-ho-ho. Listen, oh, I love the song.
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Jane Austen's writing remains as sharp, vibrant, and relevant as ever. even though her novels are now more than two centuries old. Seth Doan tells us about an author for the ages.
Okay. It might look like a scene from yet another Jane Austen production, and there have been a few. My mother is determined to see me distinguished. Uh? Anything?
I hope you're not the only man to have noticed. You have said quite enough, madam. I perfectly comprehend your feelings. But this was no set. It was a celebration of the author 250 years after her birth.
Mm. The English town of Bath was channeling the early 1800s when Austin's novels were published. pride and prejudice, sense and sensibility. and Emma were among those Ann Pern grew up reading. The issues that she speaks of, the economy, class, Family, sisters still resonate with us today.
15,000 tickets were sold for this year's 10-day Jane Austen Festival. A level of enthusiasm that surprised even its organiser, Georgia Delve. Two of her novels are based here, so you can walk in her footsteps down the streets. You've got character names on streets, you've got places she visited, so it's just the feeling of being in that world that she inhabited that makes it so special. She has written books that are endlessly rereadable.
Rereadable. Rereadable. It's not enough to read it once?
Well, I don't think so. There's something new to find every time. Devonie Lozier's ties to the author are not just professional. My husband is also a Jane Austen scholar. We met and had a fight over Jane Austen the day we met.
What a love story. That's what he'd say, too. In her book, Wild for Austin, she argues the author is hardly plain, prim, and proper. And so they are in her writings, this idea of women being positively wild, unconventional, more free, more artless, and willing to combine feeling and thoughtfulness with intellectual ability. That this is the kind of thing she set out to celebrate in her heroines at a time where women were supposed to be ideally passive and not very thinking.
Austin died at 41 after suffering a range of ailments. She wrote just six novels, two published after her death. You can read her on the level of the word, the sentence, chapter, plot, character, and appreciate what she's done in terms of craft. And on top of that, they're funny. And their incredible works of social criticism.
We met Lozier at the University of Southampton in England. And what are you presenting on? where this past summer, scholars and enthusiasts met to discuss all things Austin. reflecting on why Austin's work has such enduring legacy. In the university's collection, among seven million manuscripts and printed books, This is Emma.
Yes. Head of Archives and Special Collections Karen Robson gave us a sampling from this first edition. Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition. seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence, and lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her. Lucky Emma.
Indeed. You get so much in just this first sentence. Absolutely. She's a wonderful wordsmith. He publishes the first one, Sense and Sensibility in 1811, as By a Lady, and then after that as By the Author of Sense and Sensibility.
But she didn't put her name on the book. She didn't. Why? It's because novels in this period were not seen as high art. they were still seen as a kind of trashier genre.
So you didn't want to be associated with it? She died before we know if she ever would have decided to put her name on something. Lozer likens Austin to Shakespeare, with the kind of staying power that takes form in those many adaptations. Then you'll prove of it. Very much.
I think there are few who would not approve. But your good opinion is rarely bestowed and therefore more worth the earning. These are not trivial recommendations, mister Knightley. Till men do fall in love with well-informed minds instead of handsome faces, a girl with such loveliness as Harriet has a certainty of being admired and sought after wherever she goes. And there is the Austin Inspired, like 1995's Clueless based on Emma.
You don't want to start off on the wrong foot now, do you? I've got an idea. Let's do a makeover. No. How are your spectacles?
Very well. We were on the set of another spin-off of Pride and Prejudice, the other Bennett sister. Perhaps I may be permitted to help you find what you're looking for. I was looking for uh my sisters. I think she feels like a very modern heroine.
It's not a classic boy meets girl kind of story. Jane Tranter is the executive producer of this Britbox series, which puts the often overlooked middle sister Mary Bennett at the center. Why do we see so many adaptations of Jane Austen's work? Jane Austen is the absolute master of a love story, of a kind of slow, simmering. Everything very proper but kind of like boiling away beneath the lines of society and we love that and I think we love the period detail.
That was clear in Bath. where the past is very much alive and celebrated thanks to this author. on her 250th birthday. Why does her writing endure? Because it's brilliant.
Right? I mean, I think that's the glib, easy answer, because it's brilliant. Are we nuts for doing this? Yeah, this is nuts. Hey, but taking on a challenge is a lot like riding a horse, isn't it?
If you're comfortable while you're doing it, probably doing it wrong. Actor Jason Sudeikis is perhaps best known for his Emmy and Golden Globe winning role as Ted Lasso. but as Lee Cowan tells us, back home in Kansas City he's known for good works of another kind. It was a day before his performance at the historic Uptown Theater in downtown Kansas City. And Billy Brimblecombe Jr.
was already on fire. Drumming is his life's reason and rhythm. It's been that way ever since he first heard Wipeout. That nineteen sixty-three classic by the Safaris. On his dad's car radio.
The drum solo, very famous, comes on, and I start doing that on the dash very poorly. He's like, Oh, you wanna play the drums? All right. And so at that moment, it was like, Yes, I do.
Okay. But 20 years ago, The doctor gave him news that he feared might have him walking to a different beat altogether.
Okay, there's A mass that's the size of a large apple in your ankle. The last thing he said was: if it is a sarcoma, we have to remove the sarcoma and everything that it is touching.
So I said, so, and he said, so the only reason you would lose your leg would be to save your life. It was a sarcoma. He went through thirteen rounds of chemotherapy. The thing I feared the most was losing my leg. Because, wow, it's, you know, risking life or limb.
Is a turn of phrase. What does that imply? Second to death. The worst thing that you could think of is losing a Lynn. When the inevitable came.
The amputation, as you can see, is like right above the knee here. His bandmates and friends rallied around him. including one of his oldest friends from Kansas City.
Someone. You just might know. See, I believe in hope. I believe in belief. Hey, hold my beard.
Jason Sedeika, most recently known as Apple TV's Ted Lasso. You know, I think that If you care about someone. And you got a little love in your heart. Very nothing. You can't get through together, you know what I'm saying?
That kind of understanding was just what Brimblecombe needed from his friend. Even if Sadekis wasn't exactly sure what to say. Such hard news for you to give, and I imagine this is hard for you to hear. Absolutely, yeah. You don't necessarily know.
How to It's like they offer support, solutions, you're sort of like...
Alright, mortality. You know, okay.
Okay. The two met at a comedy improv workshop in Kansas City. Brimblecombe went on to be a professional musician in Nashville and Seekers. Jason Sudeikis. Landed on Saturday Night Live in New York.
That's a donkey, babe. Yeah. It's a small donkey costume. What do you got kids in there? In 2006, when Sudakis learned insurance, Would only cover about half of Brimblecombe's $60,000 prosthetic leg.
He did. What friends do? I remember you said it was like, well, just Kansas City the crap out of it. And we knew what that meant. He helped organize a good old fashioned Kansas City barbecue.
It raised more than enough money to get Brimblecombe's new leg, but that was actually the least of it. Here we go. Hello! Hello! A fundraiser for a friend is now an annual friendly jam session.
called Thundergong. I don't care what you say. Anymore, this is I am Go ahead with your own life. Leave me alone. He's brought plenty of others along for the ride.
Including fellow cast members like Hannah Waddingham from Ted Lasso. Will Forte from SNM. HALLA! They showed up to help simply because he asked. Uh who I That must feel great for you.
Oh, it's the best. Last year, Flavor Flave like jumped in with two feet and a clock. Yeah, boy, first, how long can you go? To date. Thundergong has helped pay for prosthetic limbs for more than 2,000 amputees all over the country.
Through a nonprofit called Steps of Faith. We get prosthetic limbs for amputees that have no health insurance or no prosthetic coverage with their health insurance. The thing That was preventing me from just walking around on a prosthetic leg versus using crutches or being in a wheelchair. is insurance and money. You know, that shouldn't be a barrier.
Brimblecombe became CEO of Steps of Faith. After, he tried to cheer up someone else who had lost their own life. And he realized something. I went in and I talked to the guy for five minutes. I don't even remember what I said.
But I remember how I felt. And how he was looking at me. I could just see the excitement and the hope in his eyes, and it was real positive. I said, gosh, I wish that could be my job. It's not an easy job.
About five hundred people. lose a limb every day in the US. Every day. The price of a prosthesis can be anywhere from a few thousand to over $100,000. This is not I can drive a Honda, but choose a Ferrari.
Right. None of that applies when it comes to your limbs. Imagine you're a contractor like Josh Connor. I figure if I landed on my feet I'd be alright, but... That wasn't the case.
Oh my god. In 2015, he fell two stories off a scaffolding, shattering his heel. An infection did the rest. and he lost his leg. This is the first prosthetic that they gave me that you know, just did not give me very much mobility at all.
That's all his workers' comp. would pay for. You could walk with it, but not work in it. He was looking at a life on disability until Billy Brimblecombe and Steps of Fate. Step in.
Billy just said that we gotcha. And what was going through your mind? Hmm. Total disbelief. Yeah.
It's a very emotional thing. Josh is back to work now, on stilts no less, with a new prosthetic limb. tailored specifically to him. Steps of faith has given me my confidence back and you know everything.
So It's like a new life almost. Stories like that have not only kept Sudeikis coming back, but countless other actors and musicians. Hey man, this group is insane! Many have become regulars like Brendan Hunt. who sang a David Bowie song dressed as he did in Ted Lasso.
as Piggy Stardust. Oh the only man. And I'm for the tickets. The main thing is, I mean this is an organization that does a really legit, you know, unimpeachably good thing. Yeah, but I would have to fight really hard to find a reason not to do it.
It gets bigger every year. And this time around, Thundergong raised, drum roll please. More than $1 million for steps of faith. I need help from my friends. Friendship is infectious.
All the things friends do for each other. There now. Doing for strangers. It's about hope, confidence, surviving, and thriving. To do something that you love with people you love.
to help people you may never meet. I wish it on everyone. What do I More than a million Americans will spend this holiday season grappling with the loss of a job. a number that seems to be growing. Elenekihano looks at a painful reality.
For the last few weeks, Heidi Roberts' full-time job has been trying to find one. I literally apply at jobs from 8 a.m. to 5 o'clock every day. And I think I've done about 56 to 60 jobs already. And I've only had Seven callbacks?
So it's just been really disheartening. She has been at it every day since October. Wishing you all the best in your future endeavors. Yeah. when she was laid off from a financial company here in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Did you have any idea anything that was happening? I had no idea. None at all. Didn't even. See it come in.
I never thought it would be me. It's just Hard getting up in the morning sometimes because you really gotta pump yourself up to do it. And I keep thinking, okay. This next interview, hopefully it's going to go well. Heidi Roberts' Christmas wish is not unusual this year.
In 2025, more than 1.1 million Americans have been laid off, the most since the 2020 COVID pandemic. The layoffs have hit numerous industries and companies of all sizes, including our own parent company, Paramount Skydance. The largest cuts came from the federal government, with technology, warehousing and retail following with tens of thousands each. Those are numbers that we haven't seen outside of recessionary periods like COVID or the Great Recession in 2008. It is a concerning stat and everybody in the world is really paying close attention to it.
Andrew Challenger is a senior vice president at the research firm Challenger Gray and Christmas, which tracks the job market. What is causing all these companies almost simultaneously to cut down on the number of workers they have? I'd say there's a couple stories that are going on simultaneously. One is that companies really over-hired. in 2022 and 2023.
We're seeing some economic headwinds, increased prices. And then the third piece. We've really started to see companies discuss artificial intelligence as a reason why they're conducting job cuts at their companies.
So in the past, companies have laid off workers during periods of struggle. Is that what's happening right now? Corporate profits are very, very high. And if you look actually at businesses at how much the CEOs are making, it's just an enormous, enormous share. And I think that it reflects this divergence between the 1% and the 99%.
Annie Lowry is a staff writer with The Atlantic. She says most layoffs aren't happening because companies are in the red, but because the future of the economy looks a bit gray. Business leaders often like to blame uncertainty stemming from Washington. In this case, I think that they might actually really have a case. That might be the tariffs and the trade war.
That might be the high cost of borrowing, even if interest rates are coming down. Again, none of these in and of itself is enough to tip the massive and still quite vibrant American economy into a recession. But it's really leading to a pause that I think has now led to a freeze on hiring and is now leading to more companies choosing to lay workers off. And then there's the question about the impact of artificial intelligence. According to a recent study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, AI already has the ability to replace nearly twelve percent of the labor market.
The reality is the tech is there, implementing and the practical application of that technology is still a ways away. Jason Leverant is president of the National Staffing Company at Work. He says when it comes to AI, at this point, it's about keeping shareholders happy. If I'm a publicly traded firm or otherwise, and I want to be perceived as forward-thinking, I'm adopting cutting-edge technology. Hey, we're leveraging AI, we're cutting expenses, we're cutting our overhead.
Unfortunately, that has to deal with layoffs. It sells really well. It's really, unfortunately, perceived positively by the markets. But while AI gets a lot of attention, the fact is it ranks sixth on reasons for layoffs behind things like the overall economy and restructuring. When companies say these layoffs are necessary, what is your response to that?
First of all, I'd say in general it's a failure of leadership. If your business model fails, your market changes, the challenges change, and you don't adapt to it or anticipate it, you're going to hurt people, okay?
So it's a failure of your business model. For more than 50 years, Bob Chapman has been at the helm of Barry Waymiller, a global supplier of manufacturing technology. Founded in 1885, the company now makes nearly $4 billion in annual revenue. How many employees do you have at the company? 12,000.
12,000. Chapman says layoffs should only be a last resort. We dehumanize this by calling it layoffs, right-sizing, downsizing. We're actually destroying people's lives. But why should you as a CEO concern yourself with what happens beyond the walls of this plant?
Because I care about people, okay? How can you run a company and not care about the people that are put in your span of care? And when you treat them as functions, you're saying they don't matter. It's just an economic transaction, and it's not just an economic transaction. And last week, more news.
With the Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell lowering interest rates by a quarter percentage point, motivated by a vulnerable job market. Gradual cooling in the labor market has. Continued, unemployment is now up three-tenths. Instead of adding jobs, Powell says we could be losing as many as 20,000 each month. This all has many Americans feeling less than jolly this holiday season.
with layoffs expected to continue into the new year. But back in Knoxville, some good news. I start January the 5th. January 5th. Congratulations!
Yes!
So, new year, new me.
So, I'm excited. A few days ago, shortly after our visit, Heidi Roberts received the number one item on her Christmas list, a new job. It meant a pay cut, but she says these days any job feels like a gift. There are still a lot of Americans looking for work. What would you say to those folks now?
I would say Keep on moving. Keep on pushing. Do not give up. And just believe. you will find the company.
There we go. Just keep on believing in pray. I'm very blessed. The holiday travel season is upon us. And before you head to the airport, consider these thoughts from our Faith Saley.
Hey, I just have one little thing for you to add to your holiday to-do list. Dress up for your next flight. Yep, dressing with respect for air travel is on the wish list of Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy. He understands dressing up because he's worn so many hats. Star of the reality show The Real World, a congressman, a Fox Business co-host, and a champion, Lumberjack.
So he knows a thing or two about Transportation. Anyway, Secretary Duffy recently announced we want to push people as we come into a really busy travel season. Dress up! Bring civility back to travel. Specifically, he's requesting we don't wear pajamas to fly.
Well, my fellow frequent flyers and I have a specific request of our own. Please reverse last month's Department of Transportation decision that airlines no longer have to reimburse air travelers for major delays. See, if we're going to have to be stranded for 12 hours because of a canceled flight and our airline is not going to give us a hotel room or even a meal, we might want to be extra comfy in our PJs. Americans don't want fashion police. They want flights that take off and land on time, safely.
And maybe a free check bag? Secretary Duffy notes that there's been a 400% increase in in-flight kerfuffles since 2019. I get that he wants us to demonstrate respect, but I also want to offer all my respect to this dude for his toe dexterity. The DOT even put out a video called The Golden Age of Travel Starts With You, with Frank Sinatra singing, Come Fly With Me. But you can't watch it anymore.
The video has been taken down because of the golden age of music copyright laws. Let me land this plane. I just don't buy that dressing better means behaving better. I'll make a deal with you, Secretary Duffy. If you can get the man who uses the restroom before me to put the seat down and the kid behind me to stop kicking my seat, I'll wear my wedding gown the next time I fly.
And I'll bring a boutonnier for your tux. P.S. I remember the golden age of travel. It smelled like smoke. Yeah.
You know you know what I say. Excuse me. Much too late for anyone to be singing that loud. Kate Hudson and Hugh Jackman are no strangers to musical films, but it's a safe bet they've never played musicians quite like these. They're talking with Tracy Smith.
Yeah. Last week at a New York bar called Old Mates. Australian icon Hugh Jackman sang a few songs by an American icon, Eel Diamond. Oh yeah. Seems he's been doing a lot of this lately.
I can begin to know where In the new film, Song Sung Blue, you know who you'd be perfect for? Neil Diamond. Jackman is Mike, a celebrity impersonator. Teams up with another, Claire. Uh-oh, Patsy Klein.
and together they form an act that just seems to work. It's based on the real-life story of Mike and Claire Sardina, a Neil Diamond tribute act from Milwaukee that went by the name Lightning and Thunder. Hugh was cast early on as Mike and director Craig Brewer was still looking for someone to play Claire when he got an idea from watching TV. Hugh, you were attached to the project first. And as I understand it, you were watching some TV show and Kate was on it.
It's his little non-show, CBS Sunday Morning. It's a little show. You and I. In April 2024, Sunday Morning aired a profile of Katie. And her blossoming music career.
I got a phone call from Michelle, who works with me, we've been friends forever, and she texts me: she said, Are you watching CBS Sunday morning? I said, I'm not. Normally am. By the way. And that sounded sucky, but that's true.
I normally am. And I wasn't. I turned on and there was Kay promoting Her debut solo album. It's your time, me and you and we're talking to love. I texted Craig Brewer, the writer director, and I said, Kate Hudson is Claire.
Claire is Kate. And He has said, oh my god, perfect. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And perfect might be the right word. Hudson's turn as Claire Sardina has already earned her a Golden Globe nomination.
Um We got things we gotta catch up on. Tracy, as much as I could see it and feel it. Nothing prepared me from Day one of rehearsal through till the end until I saw the movie. What do you mean? Because I could Feel it.
You know, you just know, I'm like, oh, this is, she's gonna be perfect, and she's amazing, and I love her, and I love her as an actress, but. Then when there's somehow an alchemy of a part to an actress at the time, When that all comes together, Magic. Reaching out. The performances are magical. But what happened to the Sardinas offstage was anything but between gigs, they endured poverty, addiction, and some incredibly bad luck.
It's just they've been they've go through so much. And if it wasn't a true story, it would almost be on, you wouldn't believe it, you know. I can't thank Neil, 'cause every thank you I got belongs to you, doll. Still, the film is, at its heart, a love story. You're my August night, you're my September morn, you're my heartlight, and you're my crackling rosie, you got me?
And you could say that two lead actors have chemistry to burn. Clearly you were familiar with each other before this, but how well did you know each other before this project? Not very well. We actually, it's become a bit of a joke because I remember when we first met, but she has no recollection. I don't remember meeting him.
That's the impression. It's so weird because it was in my mom's house.
So how well do you know each other now? Oh.
Well, very well. Very well. Yeah. Yeah. Except consummating.
Yeah. No. Beyond that, pretty pretty much everything. Upwards only We should call ourselves lightning and thunder. That is not very professional of me, but I've been wanting to do it for like a whole...
You talked a bit about the reactions that you've seen. I know you screened it for Goldie and Kurt. Yeah, everyone loved the movie and. You know, my big thing was thinking I was watching my mom watch it, I was like, God, because I'm so, I guess, not the glamorous version of myself, or even honestly, the my version, you know, I, you know, was about a bit heavier and Didn't see my skin person for a while. You know, I was like, God, it must be so interesting for my mom to see her middle-aged daughter on the screen.
She mustn't be like, oh my God, she's middle-aged. Still, it seems middle age has been good to Kate Hudson. And this was just shocking. I mean, that was our Ralphs. It's all gone.
Even in a year that would put the gray in anyone's hair. Homes are still going up in flames on both sides of the street. In January, a wind-driven firestorm incinerated the Pacific Palisades section of Los Angeles, where Hudson's lived for most of her life. Her home is one of the few still standing, but her neighborhood is full of vacant lots where her friends' houses used to be, and some of the places she treasured the most went up in smoke. Every time I drive by here taking the kids from like baseball or soccer, you know, I drive by and I go, oh, that's where mommy had her first kiss, you know?
And now you're like, oh, well. Oh not there. And that's where what I mean by like. Nothing lasts. But in the end, home is where you feel loved.
For Hudson, it's still her community in Los Angeles. Uh And for Hugh Jackman, it's his pub in Manhattan. The people are coming here. I get a lot of. Hey Yui, come over here and have a beer, mate.
I said, oh, I gotta go. Oh, come on, mate, don't be a d. Let's go, let's have a beer. Buy me a beer, you can afford it. There's a lot of that.
A lot of that. Oh, yeah. I was going to ask, can you show up someplace and kind of be a regular dude? Oh, yeah. You can show up here and be a regular dude?
Yeah, Aussie's except I just have to be prepared for them to make fun of me. Fair enough. Yes, Amanda. Hugh was prepping for a little Neil Diamond tribute at Old Mates later that night. Yeah.
Oh lens half my shoulder. And just like in the movie, Hugh and Kate did what Neil Diamond himself would have done, raise the roof. Really? Beware alive. One final note, Mr.
Diamond himself is not in the film, but Hugh says he loved it and gave him the ultimate stamp of approval. He also gave you a kiss? He did. On my forehead. He put his arm around me like that, and I sort of leant, and he just kissed me on the forehead.
And he said, You did good, kid. My name is Percy Jackson. Getting in trouble is like breathing for me. The hit series returns to Disney Plus and Hulu. The danger the camp is under is greater than you can possibly imagine.
For the key to our survival, three of you must quest... to the sea of monsters. Let's go do the impossible. I'm not gonna let some stupid monsters stand in my way. Percy Jackson and the Olympians.
New season now on Disney Plus and Hulu. Learn more at DisneyPlus.com/slash what's on. This is a real good story about Bronx and his dad, Ryan, real United Airlines customers. We were returning home, and one of the flight attendants asked Bronx if he wanted to see the flight deck and meet Captain Andrew. I got to sit in the driver's seat.
I grew up in an aviation family, and seeing Bronx kind of reminded me of myself when I was that age. That's Andrew, a real United pilot. These small interactions can shape a kid's future. It felt like I was the captain. Allowing my son to see the flight deck will stick with us forever.
That's how good leads the way. By one estimate, Americans will spend more than a trillion dollars this Christmas. Luke Burbank knows how you can make certain some of that cash stays close to home. Um Yeah.
Okay. Tis the season for holiday gift guides. You know, 31 fish gifts for your fish obsessed friends. They're everywhere this time of year, though nowhere may be quite as surprising as this seemingly run-of-the-mill office in Washington, D.C. I will candidly admit that when we started this a dozen years ago, I thought it was a fun thing to do.
Okay. And it's just a break of talking about tariffs and policy and regulation. Scott Paul is the president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, a trade advocacy and lobbying group that works to strengthen manufacturing in the U.S. And so the gift guide was kind of like a whimsical thing. It's grown into something much larger than that.
Unlike other holiday gift guides, theirs features only products made in America. From cowboy hat racks made in Wyoming to giant stuffed animals from South Carolina. The list includes more than 150 companies from all 50 states. This must be a pretty big deal for these companies. It can be very uplifting to some of these companies because some are like, how did you find us?
Santa Claus has famously outsourced to the North Pole, but Shelby Blondell's workshop is in the backyard of this quiet Baltimore suburb. She's in the gift guide representing Maryland. You see, Blondell dreamed of a better way to dig into the state's official, unofficial cuisine. The result? The Scheller.
Now when you've got the sheller, all you gotta do is take this here, give it a crack like that. Her small business is a labor of love that's keeping manufacturing close to home. all along I even had a lot of people when I was you know, creating it of saying like, you should just be making this overseas, you'll make so much more money. And money's great, we need money to live. But, you know, the cost of what that would have been didn't seem to outweigh kind of that value in my mind of wanting to Have this be made here.
Value like partnering with a local fabricator that uses American steel. which means the sheller has avoided the sting of recent tariffs. If I would have been hit with tariffs of making this overseas somewhere right now. I don't know that I could still be in business. What?
This gift guide knows that your pets, of course, deserve a stocking stuffer as well. And it suggests cycle dog in Portland, Oregon. Oftentimes I come into this store and I- For 16 years, founder Lynette Fidrich and her team have been recycling bicycle tire inner tubes. They actually use an entire inner tube. To make leashes and collars.
And yes, this collar. Does have a bottle opener. Portland's known for biking, beer, sustainability, and dogs. All of our production happens here from toy production. A former Nike employee, Fidrich, now employs about 30 workers at her Portland factory.
Made in America means higher labor cost and sometimes higher price tags. But to her it also means higher quality. You know, we make a product and we put it in the dog run and have 100 dogs play with it. And so when we sell this toy, we're like, yeah, it's going to last. Most people assume that plus trades are made in China.
Even my retailers. And I'm like, no, we haven't made these here in the US. There's a flag on the tag. This shirt, Todd Shelton makes them in New Jersey. Gone on an Orvis belt made out of American leather.
Meanwhile, back in DC, Scott Paul is actually pretty easy to shop for. These are Black Swan shoes. These were made in Meridian, Mississippi. For those of us still scrambling for a last minute gift, He says, look close to home and start with the guide that brings not just holiday cheer, but maybe a little American pride. No one needs to say, everything I have to own or buy has to be made in the United States.
That doesn't do anybody any favors, and it's really hard to pull off. If you can't find one thing that looks really cool and is also affordable. on our gift guide, I would be shocked. try it once, the odds are you're going to come back and want more. Thank you for listening.
Please join us when our trumpet sounds again next Sunday morning.
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