#258 – From the gritty drug world of Griselda to the humor of Loudermilk and innovations of Artificial Intelligence
Welcome back to Spun Today, the podcast that's rooted in the art of writing, yet boundless in its journey. I'm your guide, Tony Ortiz, and this is episode 258.
As we settle into our narrative voyage today, we're diving into the gritty Netflix original series "Griselda," exploring the life of the infamous drug baroness Griselda Blanco.
We'll also share laughs and insights with "Loudermilk," a comedy-drama that brings us face to face with the raw struggles and hilarity of recovery.
Plus, I'll sprinkle in some musings on the astounding potential of AI and its applications that recently caught my attention. From the medical marvels of diagnostic artificial intelligence to how AI might redefine the very nature of coding, we're venturing into a future where creativity meets innovation. Get ready—it's time to get spun!
The Spun Today Podcast is a Podcast that is anchored in Writing, but unlimited in scope. Give it a whirl.
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Links referenced in this episode:
Griselda: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15837600/?ref_=ttfc_fc_tt
Loudermilk: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5957766/?ref_=ttfc_fc_tt
A.I. detecting cancer: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/08/well/live/ai-mammograms-breast-cancer.html
https://www.rsna.org/news/2024/march/deep-learning-for-predicting-breast-cancer
A boy saw 17 doctors over 3 years for chronic pain. ChatGPT found the diagnosis https://www.today.com/health/mom-chatgpt-diagnosis-pain-rcna101843
Sam Altman: OpenAI, GPT-5, Sora, Board Saga, Elon Musk, Ilya, Power & AGI | Lex Fridman Podcast #419
https://youtu.be/jvqFAi7vkBc?si=Lsc4fjWyDtigQV6e
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] What up, what up, folks? What's going on? Welcome to the Spun Today podcast, the only podcast that is anchored in writing, but unlimited in scope. I'm your host, Tony Ortiz, and I appreciate you listening. This is episode 258 of the Spun Today podcast. And in this episode, I speak about watching the Netflix series Griselda.
I also speak about watching another series on Netflix, which wasn't a Netflix original, if I'm not mistaken, I think it was like on FX
or some other network original. But I did watch it on Netflix where it's streaming now, which is Louder Milk.
And I also speak about some interesting applications of AI that I've come across recently that I want to share with you fine folks.
However, before we start the episode, I wanted to tell you all about a quick way that you can help support this podcast if you so choose. Your support means an absolute ton.
It's motivating and inspires me to continue to put out the content that I love to create, which is this podcast and my writing. [00:01:00] So here's one quick way that you can help support the show, and then we will jump right into the episode.
Griselda is a Netflix original series whose first season debuted in 2024. It is from the creative minds of Narcos and Narcos Mexico, starring Sofia Vergara.
And for those who may not know, Griselda is depicting the life of Griselda Blanco, a. k. a. Griselda. The black widow, AKA, the mother of cocaine, which was a deadly and violent drug trafficker in the Miami drug scene
during the 1970s and 1980s. Pablo Escobar, which was the notoriously ruthless Colombian drug Lord, and head of the Medellin cartel, was quoted in the show's opening to say, quote, the only man I was ever afraid of. was a woman named Griselda Blanco. End quote.
Here's the official synopsis for the show, and [00:02:00] then we'll shout out the writers as we always do. Griselda is inspired by real events. This fictional dramatization shows Griselda Blanco's journey from the Medellin,
or from Medellin, rather, to becoming the godmother of Miami's drug empire.
And as we like to do here on the Spun Today podcast, let's shout out each and every one of the writers that Put this series together,
starting with Carlo Bernard.
And now let's shout out the writers, as we like to do here on the Spun Today podcast, starting with Carlo Bernard, Ingrid Escajeda, Doug Miro, Eric Newman, Brenna Kouf, Turi Meyer, Gina Lucita Monreal, Cassie Pappas. Giovanna Sarquis and Alfredo Septién. Shout out to each and every one of the writers that put the Griselda series together.
So the series essentially opens up [00:03:00] with Griselda in Medellin, Colombia where she's from and she's the husband for this low level drug dealer guy
who has a brother that's in the drug game as well. Her husband is more of a hothead.
Who's always making bad decisions and gets in over his head.
The brother is more of the ruthless businessman type and Griselda's husband
fucks up and winds up owing his brother a shit ton of money. And the brother says that he would forgive his debt if he lets him bang his wife.
And Griselda's husband being the
cuck fuck up that he was allows it. And. Convinces Griselda to do it for the family, forces her into it. Basically,
she winds up doing it,
aka doing the brother and
gets in a, a blow up fight with her husband. After the fact,
the husband kind of dogs her, treats her like [00:04:00] shit. And she's like, wait a second. I just did what I did for the quote unquote, for the family, instead of you just standing up to your brother.
And on top of that, you're treating me like shit. And she winds up shooting her husband and killing him.
She then winds up grabbing her three kids, which she had at the time and fleeing Columbia and going to Miami to stay with a friend who was also
Within the drug game, somehow she was married to a drug dealer but she got away from the life, went clean and has a travel agency in Miami. Okay. She's the only person that she knew. She called her, asked her for help, and she took her in on a temporary basis. Her name
was Carmen played by Vanessa Fidelito, which is a dope actress. And by the way, circling back to Griselda Blanco being played by Sofia Vergara, one of the biggest knocks on the series, at least that I heard when the series was [00:05:00] announced initially, was Was that Sofia Vergara was going to play Griselda because Sofia Vergara is a very attractive woman and Griselda is anything but the real Griselda.
So everybody was like, how the fuck are they gonna, is she going to pull that off? It's going to be a little weird. So they kind of uglified Sofia Vergara a little bit. But she still, even with that
still comes off as very attractive. And. They definitely used that sexuality within the series to her advantage and, you know, being able to, to get things done with certain men and so on and so forth. So
just wanted to mention that as a quick aside,
but long story short, she, her initial plan, at least what she tells Carmen she's there for is to go clean. You know, she's running, running away from her husband who beat her quote unquote, we don't actually kill them,
but she said that she was, you know, running away from an abusive relationship. Which was technically true, but also left out the fact that [00:06:00] she killed the guy and
she left Columbia with one kilo and she was going to just use that to sell it so she could buy a house for her and the kids and then, you know, start a business and live clean, similar to Carmen situation. Carmen even wanted to giving her a job until she got on her feet
in her travel agency and she actually hid the fact that she was going to try to sell the kilo on the side.
to make some money. And
she very quickly winds up getting taken advantage of by different men that she, you know, she tries to either sell it to, they take it from her or they try to cut her out of deals.
And the series depicts this constant struggle of her vying for her rightful place as this, you know, drug dealer, businesswoman in this
very male dominated world of drug dealing.
And a smart thing that she does in the beginning is realizing that, you know, she can't just show up places by herself. She, she, she needs to have a bodyguard. She needs to look more than what she is.
So when she [00:07:00] finally gets a meeting with someone to sell her kilo to with the promise that she can get more, she recruits a, Dishwasher working at a diner that she was eating at because he was Colombian and spoke Spanish and he was a taller guy and she was like, listen, it's just for a day. I'll, I'll give you, I forget how much it was, 200 bucks, 500 bucks or something like that.
More than he was making obviously washing dishes and all you have to do is go with me, open the door for me of the car and you know, I'll give you a gun, but you're not going to have to use it just so you can watch my back and just look tough or something. He winds up agreeing,
and of course shit goes left, there's a shootout, and the dishwasher guy actually winds up saving her life right before she almost gets shot. And then she, he winds up staying as her bodyguard throughout most of the series.
Then the brother of her ex husband that she killed is [00:08:00] looking for her to avenge. He pieces together what happened, you know, from some Eyewitness testimony and the fact that she disappeared along with, with her kids and his brother turned, turned up dead.
He's searching for her, finds out that she's Miami and winds up going with his number one hit man,
his Sicario, and tracks her down
and is literally strangling her to death in a motel room. And his bodyguard winds up pulling out a gun and shooting him in the head and saving her life.
And he was a notorious hitman for this guy.
His character name is Dario played by Alberto Guerra.
He winds up being
Griselda's new number one head of security
and kind of teaches Chucho, the dishwasher, the ropes.
And he also winds up becoming the love interest of Griselda Blanco and [00:09:00] they wind up having a kid together.
And now with him by her side, she winds up definitely getting respect and climbing the ranks.
Still has a lot of enemies, you know, that don't want her to take over, obviously how that world is. There's a lot of infighting and she winds up recruiting Cuban Marielitos
and builds herself this small army. Because all the Colombians don't want to fuck with her because they're, you know, part of other, you know, drug crews that are already there and established. But the Cuban Marielitos,
which was the term given to the Cubans that emigrated to the U. S. So it comes from the Mariel Boat Lift, which was a mass emigration of Cubans who traveled from Cuba's Mariel Harbor to the United States between April 15th and October 31st in 1980. And the term Marielito was used to refer to those refugees in both Spanish and English.
And her ruthlessness, plus [00:10:00] having this small army by her side, she wanted to take over shit.
All the while, you know, psyching herself out and saying she's just doing it and for, for her kids and to give them a better life. And, you know, they're growing up, obviously with. drug dealers and, and killings and illegal shit all around them.
Pretty much getting groomed into that same life.
And then we go through the phase in the series where the typical, you know, getting high
on your own supply happens. And that's both literally on the drugs itself, but also just buying into your own shit, you're this all powerful being and your own hype and all shit. And all of that winds up doing her in. She winds up getting super paranoid, turning her back on friends like Carmen that were, you know, there for her.
She even started looking at Chucho sideways once
investigations were ramping up against her and the FBI and joint police task forces in the area began knowing who she was and [00:11:00] locking people up and investigating her. She got super paranoid, thought that Chucho was a rat. Wound up trying to get him killed. And which was actually a true story that you guys can look up the actual articles of from the, Miami papers, in that time.
But she sent a hitman to kill Chucho who was just driving down the street and had his two or three year old son in the backseat. And the guy that was shooting at him couldn't see the kid because, you know, a little kid just sees the backseat looking empty. Shoots Chucho, doesn't get him, but kills his son.
And then I think Chucho flees and winds up working with the with the cops to ultimately
bring Griselda down and get her arrested.
I think two of her kids in the series, if not three, wind up dying as well.
Just stupid shit, like fights in clubs. And one was drug related, if I'm not mistaken. Daddy Yoshi turned her back on as well. Who wound up fleeing the country with their [00:12:00] kid and going to stay with his mother. Griselda eventually tracked them down as well. Wound up killing him and taking the son back.
It was a dope character. In the series that wound up kind of putting a wedge between her and Dario because he was the head hit man for the other top top drug dealer that Griselda essentially took over for and then also went to work for Griselda. His name was Rivi, the character name played by Martin Rodriguez.
He was just a dope character. I like how he played that role.
And overall, it was just a dope series. It was an interesting watch it, especially if you , if you were a fan of Narcos, Narcos Mexico, although all those Narcos series, this is definitely within that same vein
and there's some overlaps, not much, but some overlaps with a Fabio Ochoa is in this
and in real life, she winds up dying. After going back to Columbia and she winds up getting gunned down by a killer on a motorcycle in the middle of the [00:13:00] street,
but yeah, it was definitely a dope series. That is my little recap and review of a grid Zelda. Check it now or check it out now rather available and streaming on Netflix.
Louder milk is a comedy drama TV series
that is currently available for streaming on Netflix.
It was created by Peter Fairley and Bobby Mort, Peter Fairley of
movies such as Dumb and Dumber. There's something about Mary, Green Book, and the comedy level of this series is definitely up to par with those classics.
Here is the official synopsis. Sam Loudermilk is a recovering alcoholic and substance abuse counselor with a bad attitude. Although he has his drinking under control, Loudermilk discovers that when your life is a mess, getting clean is [00:14:00] the easy part.
And as we like to do here on the sponsor day podcast, let's shout out the writers that put this series together. Starting with Peter Farrelly, Bobby Mort, Dave
Connaughton. I'm pretty sure I butchered that. Apologies, Dave. John Trozak, Ricky Blitt, Danny Smith, Dave Sheridan, Jimmy Dunn, Jackie Flynn, Kate Schriver,
Laura Streicher, Shira Hoffman, James Lee Freeman, Brian Jarvis, John Eliot Jordan, Thomas Jordan, and Yassir Lester. Shout out to each and every one of the writers that put this hilarious series together.
Now this series has actually been around for a while.
It debuted in 2017. And has several seasons, three seasons, if I'm not mistaken, through 2020, I'm [00:15:00] assuming it stopped or was canceled around COVID. Maybe it will be coming back. I'm not sure, but this was one of those fortunate finds that wifey actually found stumbled upon it on Netflix. Just press play.
And from the first episode, she started watching it. I started listening in. It was funny as hell. She liked it. I got into it as well. And we wound up binge watching all, you know, all three or four seasons, whatever it is.
And it starts or stars rather Ron Livingston, who plays Sam Loudermilk. And I know him from the office space movie. He was like, one of the main characters there
and the show itself. It's very reminiscent to me of curb, curb, your enthusiasm. Because Loudermilk speaks his mind with no filter. Very similar to how Larry David does in Curb.
So it definitely has that type of vibe. With [00:16:00] the top notch comedic writing
of a Peter Farrelly. And just amazing acting by hilarious comedic actors. And actual comics Will Sasso, who plays a big role. He plays Ben Burns, which is Loudermilk's roommate. Loudermilk. Brian Regan is in this, he plays Mugsy Benigan and
there's so many of the secondary characters and quote unquote secondary because they're in every single episode, at least most of them are,
that are fucking hilarious because it's a group of, Loudermilk runs this AA meeting counseling group and you just see all these degenerate gamblers or alcoholics and drug addicts
You know, sharing stories and talking and we get glimpses into each of their lives
and they create such laugh out loud moments, like literal laugh out loud moments that totally makes the show worthwhile. And in a weird way, it also kind of humanized that, , I don't know much [00:17:00] about that, AA culture, but watching this reminded me of the Netflix series, Mo with Mo Amir. Which I, I did a deep dive about one and after series one, I'm still waiting for fucking series two, which I know got greenlit, but then COVID happened.
So I guess everything is just delayed, but really looking forward to that coming back on. But similar to what I said with watching that series of how I knew little about Muslim or folks
about them culturally.
And a show like Mo helped me see and realize like, Oh shit, they just go to a different church. You know, I have a couple of different customs, but
the immigrant experiences, the immigrant experience for a Palestinian, a Dominican, a Colombian, an Asian,
which I know is a much wider umbrella,
but similar to that, I had that type of feel with this, AA group.
Where naively I just kind of thought of it as, yeah, I know some people, you know, struggle with disease, you know, [00:18:00] addictions, it's a disease for them, but didn't really, that's a very surface level type of
deconstructing of what those folks go through. And seeing this in a much more intimate, more detail setting, albeit a comedy slash drama, but just gave me additional insights. And made me think and consider different, different
aspects of their lives that I would have never considered otherwise.
They're people too, alright? They're fuckin people too. Let me stop.
And aside from the writing being very poignant and funny, Itself actually pulled some writing advice from it. In Sam Loudermilk, which, he was, was a writer. Huh? He was a music writer for Rolling Stone and a bunch of different magazines and stuff like that. Back in the day,
I believe he was giving someone writing advice for a song or writing music or something in general and said this line that definitely resonated, which was [00:19:00] just get it out of your head and quit being so precious about it.
I definitely took that out as a takeaway for myself
to give myself a little kick in the ass for working on Fractal 2. But I digress. But yeah, man, definitely a worthwhile show. It's one of those after you watch it and you enjoy it, you could rewatch episodes, any episode, you know, randomly if you want, put it on in the background,
you know, like a Seinfeld, like a friends
to me has that type of vibe, but definitely more R rated funnier R rated. I created, I don't know what the actual designation would be, but.
Definitely more adult humor. And that is my little recap and review of the show. Louder milk available now on Netflix.
I wanted to tell you guys about a couple of interesting applications of AI, AKA artificial intelligence that I've come across.
I want to preface this by saying I am
in no way, shape or [00:20:00] form an expert. I just find this stuff interesting. I follow a lot of AI pages. I listen to podcasts. About AI.
I've used some AI tools for different things
like chat, GBT, Claude AI as well.
And it definitely , it currently feels like the beginnings of the internet. If you were back in, in, you know,
the nineties was a 95, 98, 99, the, the AOL CDs and getting on the aim and fucking Yahoo messenger and shit like that. And using those different tools for the first time, it definitely, it definitely feels that way in terms of AI being in its like nascent stages,
but in a way, in a way that you can see it becoming and evolving into something so much more ubiquitous than what it currently is.
And I just want to share a couple of stories with you guys of
what I [00:21:00] think are glimpses into.
that future.
And the first two are related to the medical field. There was a story that came out of a child that was having issues and the mom couldn't figure out what it was. She went to a bunch of different doctors. They couldn't diagnose what was wrong with the child. And the mom took to, I believe, chat GBT, but it could have been a different one.
And she uploaded the kids, CAT scans and. MRIs, if I'm not mistaken,
and typed out a bunch of the symptoms that the child was having. And the AI model was able to
accurately diagnose what was wrong with the kid,
what medications could help. And ultimately I believe was reconfirmed and backed by actual medical professionals,
which is amazing.
And this next story is about a routine mammogram that a woman had.
that showed everything being fine.
The technician, the doctor [00:22:00] reviewed the results of the mammogram, gave her a clean bill of health. And
then those same scans were put into an AI model,
and it was able to identify two cancerous cells within the images, or potentially cancerous cells within the images that were
unseen to the naked human eye, which is how it got past the technician and the doctor. but highlighted them and recommended getting an MRI, which is deeper imaging
and picks up things that a normal scan during a mammogram does not. And the MRI was able to confirm those cancer cells and
ultimately potentially saved the life of that person. And I think those two examples are
for all the scary scenarios and ways that You know, AI or AI related tools can be misused that are, I think, true fears of folks that are, you know, [00:23:00] much, much more in the know than I am. I think just generally speaking, every tool can be used for good and can be used for evil, right? But those two examples, which of course are anecdotal, but are to me, very encouraging, very hopeful
Ways that a I can be implemented for the better.
Another qualification that I wanted to tell you guys about is
a eyes coding ability,
which I can't code worth a damn. And by worth a damn, I don't mean I'm bad at coding. I mean, I literally can't code anything. The only thing I've ever coded was back in the MySpace days when you would have to go on obscure websites and copy and paste the code into the back end of your MySpace page to.
Give yourself a scrolling toolbar or some shit like that.
But I've leveraged both chat GPT and Claude AI to try to develop my own app for clipping podcasts and identifying [00:24:00] moments within a podcast similar to how headliner does, which I currently use as a tool cast magic, Descript and others and use. And I use them to, you know, once I create a podcast episode, I create clips of that episode to put on social media YouTube, my website, etc.
But I wanted to see if I can develop my own software to do that.
So I started using ChatGBT and I definitely have not gotten it to a place where it works, but I did get it to a place where it could transcribe a podcast episode or a clip of a podcast episode.
locally in my own computer, which isn't much because you could do that for free on websites. And also again, those aforementioned sites like cast magic do that automatically for my podcast episodes, but just trying to, you know, create my own literal proof of concept of [00:25:00] is what I'm doing working.
And you know, the code that chat GPT is creating based on the prompts that I give it is And I'm copying into terminal in my Mac and creating my own little application and then trying it. Does that actually work? And it does.
When and if I'll get it to the point of doing what I want it to do. Which from my perspective is a way for me to have a place to, you know, do what I need without having to leverage all these other websites that are already do different versions of what I want, but having and creating my own, all in one place to do this stuff.
Will I get it to that point is yet to be seen, but it's just dope again from seeing this from what it is now, which is the beginning stages of AI.
To what it will, in my opinion, very clearly become, which is as ubiquitous as the internet [00:26:00] itself. And listening to Sam Altman on Lexus podcast in a recent episode, which I'll link to in the episode notes for anybody who's interested in this kind of stuff. Sam Altman is the CEO of open AI, which is the company that created chat, GBT and Sora and Dolly, for example.
He said something very interesting when Lex asked him if, you know, these types of applications are just going to get rid of coders. Sam Altman thinks not, or at least not directly, but he said, what it's going to do is make it so that people will eventually code in normal human language,
which I thought was very, very fucking interesting.
And with the extremely limited experience that I have in that, you know, trying to create my own little app thing that I just mentioned to you guys, I see what he means because I have no idea what these hundreds of lines of code that
[00:27:00] chat GPT generated for me based on the prompts that I gave it, like what they actually mean or do, you know, it describes it for you, tells you like what you're grabbing and what the purpose of X, Y, and Z is for.
But generally, you know, not every single intricate line of code. I have no idea what that stuff means, but what I do know is the prompts that I'm giving it and what I'm expecting in return. And when I take that and it doesn't work, and then I can go back to it and say, this is what you gave me. I wanted it to do this, but this is the response that I'm getting in my max terminal.
Why is that? And then it tells me, Oh, that's because X, Y, and Z, we actually have to download this from there and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm speaking to it in obviously normal human language, because that's all I know. I don't know, code language. So him saying that eventually humans will just code in normal human language, I think it's going to create like this beautiful, for lack of a better word,
coding slash poetic space
of [00:28:00] creativity.
Or AI will just get embedded into robots and we'll all be slaves before something like this is actually. Realized one of the two, but hopefully, hopefully it's the former,
but definitely hit me up and let me know what you guys think. If you guys have played around with AI or any of these tools, definitely be interested to hear what you have to say.
And that folks was episode at 258 of the spun today podcast,
the only podcast that is anchored in writing, but unlimited in scope,
and I appreciate each and every one of you for taking the time to listen. I'm going to leave you with a couple of quick ways. You can help support this show if you so choose, which I really, really, really appreciate. And then I'll check you guys out next time. Peace.