0:00

Hey everyone, hi,

0:02

hello.

0:22

Welcome to another

0:24

exciting episode of Alice in Rosen is your

0:27

new best friend. I am delighted to welcome

0:29

to the show in person a man who is

0:31

the host of the very popular podcast

0:34

Beautiful Anonymous. He is a comedian.

0:36

He is a writer. Two books,

0:38

the most recent being The Lonely Dad Conversations.

0:42

Please put your hands together for Chris Gethard.

0:44

Thanks everybody.

0:44

Thank you so much. That's

0:47

so kind of you. You didn't know that we kept a tiny

0:50

but devoted audience

0:53

in studio, did you? That's my sweet spot.

0:56

My comfort zone, a tiny but very devoted

0:58

audience. That's right,

1:00

right what I'm used to. Thank you for making me feel at

1:02

home. You're welcome. So this is

1:04

your first time meeting Tony Thackston

1:07

in person. Now you were last on my show via

1:09

Zoom. It was it aired July

1:11

18th, 2021. So it was around

1:13

then. And you

1:15

guys kept it from me until a little

1:17

bit into the podcast that like

1:20

you had been working on a bromance. Yeah.

1:24

We had interacted online a little bit. I had

1:26

dropped the ball. You had messaged me and I just missed

1:29

it. And then years later, I went to message you about

1:31

something. I was like, oh, he's already DM'd me. That

1:33

was the backstory. And we had our Zoom

1:35

thing. And then now we're

1:37

here in the studio and you sat me down and

1:39

then stepped out for a little

1:40

while. It's almost like I'm

1:42

like a producer on The Bachelor or something.

1:45

And I wanted to give you guys a one on one. A little

1:47

bit. And I think I dropped the ball and I'm feeling

1:49

bad. Because once I'm on a

1:51

mic, I can speak much more honestly than

1:53

real life. And I think I was very socially uncomfortable.

1:56

And I do apologize. No, I didn't take it that way. First

1:58

of all, you're talking to the king.

1:59

of socially uncomfortable. So, I

2:02

could verify. Yeah, sure. Thank

2:04

you. Great. You're welcome. No, earlier,

2:06

because you've met both of my children now.

2:09

Sweet kids. Thank you very much. I felt like we clicked

2:11

pretty quickly. I mean, Elliot

2:13

told you about his loose tooth and showed

2:16

you his bird whistle. Oh, and showed you

2:18

his pig puzzle. Apparently, he's given the puzzle

2:20

a name, Milo. Yeah. Yeah.

2:23

I feel like they took to you right away. It's like they know that you're

2:25

a dad.

2:26

I think I do have tired dad energy.

2:29

So, I think they sensed it right away. Right. This is an

2:31

exhausted and beaten down man, and we

2:33

recognize that.

2:34

We can work with that. Yeah. We are

2:36

familiar with that. But anyway,

2:38

Owen

2:39

now demands studio time.

2:42

So, he was in here, before you got here, he was in here

2:44

while Tony set up.

2:45

And then I came in and I said, Owen,

2:47

are you feeling kind of shy? And he said, yes,

2:50

a little. And then Tony said,

2:52

I feel that way a lot. Yeah. So, I'm

2:54

just saying,

2:55

it's him, it's not you.

2:56

That's kind of a theme of this afternoon. It seems

2:59

like it is. But I mean, just from where I

3:01

sit, or where I sat for a moment before

3:03

I left to give you guys

3:05

some time, and

3:07

also to get something in the house, I didn't think you

3:09

were

3:10

failing or flailing socially. You know what it

3:12

was? We gave each other a hug and I said, I really like

3:14

your varsity jacket, which is true, but

3:16

it's a weird first thing to say in person.

3:19

That's all right. It's, you know, but I'm a big jacket

3:21

guy. I'm a big jacket guy. That's a great

3:23

jacket. And it's kind of new. So, you know, I'll

3:25

take it. There you go. What's the t-shirt?

3:28

Ring of Honor. Oh, love that. Yeah.

3:30

That's right. I know you're a wrestling guy too. I've

3:33

got some stories for you.

3:34

I'm now a wrestling guy. Did you know? Yeah.

3:36

I had, I've had just a spate

3:39

of wrestlers on the show and I've been to two

3:41

wrestling events. I sound like a five

3:43

year old trying to keep up with like, Oh, I had a birthday

3:45

once. Yeah, but I had Colt Cabana on the

3:47

show and he mentioned you.

3:49

Well, Colt Cabana is a very good friend of

3:51

mine. Oh, we met through my old TV show.

3:53

We wound up living together at the Edinburgh festival in

3:55

Scotland for a month.

3:56

He's all about Edinburgh. Yeah.

3:58

I've gone and crashed at his place

3:59

Chicago when I play there, we try to meet up

4:02

as often as we can with our both of our lifestyles.

4:04

That's rare. But there's another

4:06

development lately, which is years ago,

4:08

when I

4:09

had my old TV show, we did an

4:12

episode at Comic Con, and it was a disaster.

4:15

And the guest bookings fell through. And I knew

4:17

there were a bunch of wrestlers in town. I texted a cult, I said,

4:19

Hey, anybody, anybody around he

4:21

think would be a good fit for our show. And he was like, there's

4:23

this guy, he just he's a indie guy,

4:25

he just started using the name

4:28

Sammy Zane, he's an XT guy. And this was 2014. So Sammy came and

4:30

did our

4:33

show. And he was lovely. And, and

4:35

right afterwards was like, I think I'm gonna go rent a bike.

4:38

Thanks for having me. But we kept in touch.

4:40

And then

4:41

I would go to Montreal where he was based

4:43

and we'd hang out. And

4:46

then we saw it when they'd come through

4:48

New York, I'd see him. And now

4:50

he's become like the biggest thing in wrestling.

4:52

And

4:53

it's very strange to watch that happen to my friend.

4:55

And I just went and saw a house show at Madison Square Garden

4:58

where halfway through he texted me was like, you want to come

5:00

backstage and say hi, I got to go backstage

5:02

at the WWE. And it was

5:04

very cool. Because I was like, taught me and my wife are

5:06

just talking with Sammy. Like we

5:09

both also have kids now. So we're talking a lot about

5:11

that. And then I'm like, there goes Charlotte Flair, there's

5:13

there's Cody Rhodes, there's the oh, I just met

5:16

Oh, there's Seth Rollins. Like I just met all these people

5:18

from the TV set. It was very cool.

5:19

That's very cool. So Sammy Zane

5:21

is WWE. I've heard that name. Yeah. Are you an AW?

5:24

You got I'm an AEW person. What can

5:26

I say? We're Yeah, that's that we are.

5:28

Yeah. We who got you.

5:31

Wait, yeah, actually, I had Alexa Bliss on

5:33

first. So that's WWE.

5:35

Yeah. And then there was a gap. And it

5:37

seemed like a one off thing. Sure. And

5:39

then via Tony, I got sucked into

5:42

the AEW

5:43

averse. AEW is not only great

5:45

in its own right. But I feel like it made

5:47

the WWE get their shit together. And they

5:49

haven't in a few years. Because of the competition.

5:52

I think they felt some real competition and felt

5:54

some real motivation and they felt and they started

5:57

handing the ball to people like Sammy Zane for the first

5:59

time in a real

5:59

and

6:00

it got very exciting to watch

6:03

and I like it and I like that we're

6:05

talking about wrestling and I like that we're talking about Colt

6:07

Cabana because he's one of the most truly unique

6:10

kind individuals there is. He's

6:11

the best he's been on a few times. Never

6:14

in person though he's not made the Chris Gethard

6:16

leap yet. You got you got to get this guy. Yeah

6:18

you got to get this guy. Can I? But if he offers

6:21

to crack your neck say no. Oh

6:23

yeah I wouldn't I don't I

6:26

would automatic I would automatic I mean

6:28

thank you for the advice but I can't even imagine a universe

6:30

where I would say yes did he do this to you? When

6:31

we lived together in Scotland I

6:34

lived with him and

6:35

these two Australian comedians and we were sharing

6:37

it was a literal dorm that we had rented

6:39

was like a college dorm and I came home

6:41

one day and the one Australian guy's like

6:43

I can't really do accents but he's like

6:45

you got to let Colt crack your neck make

6:48

that's pretty best the best feeling

6:50

will loosen you up.

6:52

I'd known Colt for a bunch of years at that point I

6:54

was like okay

6:56

and this dude cracked my neck

6:58

in a way where if I had known what was coming

7:00

I would have fled in terror because it

7:02

happened so hard and so fast and the crack

7:04

was so loud that I was like it felt great

7:07

but if that went wrong it could have gone really wrong. Yeah

7:09

also just remember too he and I joined a gym together

7:11

and if the I look

7:14

back the saddest the

7:16

most unintentionally funny sad situation

7:18

of my life was me trying to work out with Colt Cabana.

7:21

There was one time where he legitimately we were

7:23

at a bench press and he had to come

7:26

rescue me like to get the bar off were

7:28

you pinned? I was pinned and there was it

7:30

was just the bar there wasn't even any weight

7:32

on the bar it's like 40 pounds

7:34

or something and I just crapped out and he

7:36

like lifted it with two fingers it

7:39

was very pathetic. That is hilarious. But

7:41

I love that man. I owe my life it turns out

7:43

I guess I owe my life he saved me. From

7:45

the bar? Yeah. But

7:46

then he almost killed you with the neck cracking. It

7:48

is true he likes to play those mental games I

7:50

guess. I have two questions

7:53

instantly and one is about wrestling and it's not

7:55

about us but I say let's just start there.

7:57

Great. Because it's on my mind. Okay so I

7:59

have

7:59

been to an AEW event and

8:02

I went to a Ring of Honor pay-per-view. I've

8:04

never been to a WWE event. I'm

8:07

not familiar enough with the – though

8:09

I do now host the number one wrestling podcast – I'm

8:11

not familiar enough with the world to

8:13

really understand, but like I have an idea in

8:15

my mind of what it would feel

8:17

like to be at a WWE event versus

8:20

AEW. And I'm wondering how accurate

8:22

that is. And I know I haven't shared what it is,

8:24

but could someone just weigh in on like what is

8:26

the feeling of being at a WWE event

8:28

versus AEW?

8:31

Well, to be fair, I haven't been to one since I was like 10.

8:33

Oh, it's probably the same. But – because

8:35

I don't really – I've been kind of

8:38

watching it a little bit here and there more lately

8:40

because I agree with what you said.

8:42

I feel like it has improved a little bit. But

8:44

Flo,

8:47

my girlfriend, has been to

8:49

some more recently and she – she has

8:52

kind of said there is a little – a bit more

8:54

of a meathead crowd.

8:57

Not totally, but there's more of that I think than

8:59

there is in the AEW crowd. Would you agree with that?

9:02

Yeah. I mean, I did once go to a summer

9:04

slam at the Meadowlands where a guy tried to beat up

9:06

my brother for holding up a sign. My brother held

9:08

up a sign that said, wrestling is fake.

9:11

And a guy descended from – to

9:13

be fair, he was holding up a sign that said, Ken

9:15

Shamrock loves glam rock. But on

9:17

the back was wrestling is fake. So he was unintentionally

9:21

flashing that backwards. And a guy ran down and was

9:23

like, this dude was

9:24

in a stone cold voice was like, you

9:27

sorry son of a bitch. You think wrestling is fake. I'll

9:29

go ahead and stone you right now and show you. And it was like, dude,

9:31

you're just another dude who bought a ticket.

9:34

This is nuts. So there's

9:36

a little bit of that. I think I

9:38

would say too though, WWE is a little bit

9:40

more like

9:42

in ways that are both good and bad. Like a little

9:44

bit more like the Disney version of things.

9:46

Not – you know, it is still simulated violence.

9:49

But where there's going to be a lot more kids in the crowd, a

9:51

lot more like foam fingers and the wrestlers

9:53

getting high fives. Whereas AEW I think is known

9:55

a little bit more for like if you are

9:57

a wrestling fan who keeps up with what's going on.

9:59

on in Japan and the independent scene, an

10:02

AEW show is going to be like your heaven because

10:04

it's the cream of the crop of that world, but

10:07

a little bit less focused towards the

10:09

kiddos, right? Yeah, I would agree with that. Whereas

10:12

WWE is a little bit more like fireworks and loud

10:14

music and high fives.

10:15

Oh, I do like visually

10:18

exciting stuff. I don't like fireworks though.

10:21

But even with that though, I do kind of

10:23

feel like AEW

10:26

leans into the fun comedy

10:29

stuff better than, it's true because they get,

10:31

they got orange Cassidy in particular. Yeah.

10:34

Yeah. That's what I was

10:36

going to say from my uninformed impression

10:40

is that AEW is like

10:43

smart, clever, maybe

10:47

subversive in a way. Whereas WWE

10:50

feels more like very, like broad

10:52

mainstream. Yeah, I think that's

10:54

totally true. Are you familiar with the phrase smart in

10:56

the wrestling world? Like a smart? Yeah.

10:59

I think smarts and marks and smarts. Yes. Let's

11:01

explain it though for the people who don't know and

11:04

you go. Well smarts, AEW,

11:06

I would feel like 99% of the crowd

11:08

is going to be smarts, which is IE

11:10

people who totally understand what's happening,

11:13

understand that it's all scripted, fake

11:15

if you will.

11:18

And they get it. And they probably also know

11:20

enough about it from following Twitter feeds

11:22

and the internet message boards that

11:24

they're going, oh, this... They're savvy. Yeah.

11:27

They're like, this person, oh, they won. That

11:29

must mean that their contract renegotiations

11:31

work well. Like getting enjoyment out of

11:34

like

11:35

back end. Right. Like

11:37

they read the trades, the version of that for wrestling. Yes.

11:40

Whereas the WWE, all those people at this point in history

11:43

know that it's fake, so

11:45

to speak, but

11:47

probably a handful more, a

11:50

higher percentage of the crowd that's like, I just want to see

11:52

who wins the fight. There's a little bit more of that

11:54

that still exists there. Got it. They're

11:57

like dumbies,

11:57

but people who are very willing to suspend...

12:00

their disbelief and be like, this is fighting.

12:02

There's a little bit more of, not

12:05

necessarily people believing that, but I think the

12:07

legacy of that affecting the fan base. And

12:09

that's where you get the meathead side of it. That

12:12

was gonna say, do you think there's people who actually

12:14

think that it's real? It

12:16

can't be, no one at this point in history. Yeah, I

12:19

wouldn't think so.

12:20

It's kind of amazing to me that that

12:22

was everything. Yeah, even within

12:24

my lifetime, they weren't admitting it yet. But I remember

12:26

my dad hated wrestling and he'd be like, my brother

12:29

and I would watch it obsessively. He'd be like, you guys know this is

12:31

fake, right? And I was like, literally

12:33

seven or eight years old, going like, yeah,

12:35

yeah,

12:38

of course. Like I'm eight and I know

12:40

that's not what fights look like. I've seen fights at

12:42

school. Like that's not what a fight looks like. I get

12:44

it.

12:45

Also, like, I don't think that

12:47

man is real. I don't think the undertaker is actually

12:50

dead. I don't think he's an actual reanimated

12:52

corpse that's wrestling a dude who

12:55

really refers to himself as the ultimate

12:57

warrior. Although he did change

12:59

his name legally to warrior. But

13:01

like, yeah, I think most people understand at

13:04

this

13:04

point. What did you like about it as a kid? That's

13:07

a really good question. I mean, the easy

13:10

answer is my older brother liked it and most

13:12

of my tastes to this day in music

13:15

and TV and everything is defined

13:17

by what my older brother liked. But I think

13:19

at the end of the day, you know, I was a real

13:22

comic book kid too. And I think they

13:24

tie right together in terms of, you

13:27

know, larger than life characters who are defined

13:29

by two or three very easy to discern things

13:32

and you can root for them or against them based on

13:34

that. Right, the good versus evil. Yeah, that

13:36

fit my personality.

13:38

I was a

13:41

Star Wars Marvel wrestling

13:43

kid, which back in the 80s and 90s, what

13:47

meant you were like a loser, you know? Like

13:50

the idea that Marvel is the biggest thing

13:52

in pop culture for like multiple generations

13:54

of kids right now, it's kind of shocking because

13:57

I have a very sad picture of myself at a punk show

13:59

in New Jersey wearing.

13:59

X-Men t-shirt and I look at it and I'm

14:02

like, ooh, why did I

14:04

wear an X-Men to a punk show? I was

14:06

probably being made fun of by most of the other people. You should just

14:08

cross out the men part and then you just wear an X-shirt. I

14:10

know, something legitimately had Beast

14:12

on it, not even one of the cool X-Men, it had Beast on

14:14

it. So yeah, I think

14:18

that whole idea of just these morality

14:20

plays that showed up in a lot of the

14:22

stuff I liked as a kid.

14:24

And also wrestling's funny. Wrestling's

14:26

really funny and I figured that out young. I

14:29

knew when I was really young that Ric Flair

14:31

was an insane person. I knew

14:33

that, young. I understood that. My

14:36

favorite guys were like Mr. Perfect,

14:38

the million dollar man. Those are funny. There

14:41

was a clip of the million dollar man where he tells a kid if

14:43

he can dribble a basketball five

14:45

times in a row, give him $100. And

14:48

then on the fourth one, he just punts

14:50

it into the stands. And I'm telling you, if you

14:52

watch this clip, I can't say

14:54

for certain, but you look at this kid's face and you're

14:56

like, oh, they did not let him in. They did not

14:59

tell him. Like they probably slipped

15:01

him 100 when the camera pointed in the other direction and paid

15:03

him off anyway. But in the moment you get to

15:05

see this man in a ridiculous tuxedo

15:08

make a child cry. And that's

15:10

pretty funny. When I was watching it as a

15:12

kid, I was like, this is like Rowdy, Rowdy Piper,

15:14

inappropriate human being.

15:16

Funny, funny, insane

15:18

person, but funny. So I think the humor

15:20

of it also was showing up for me as a kid too.

15:22

You mentioned that your show at Comic

15:24

Con was a disaster. What happened? Oh,

15:27

well, we were on this network and they came

15:29

to us and it was, I mean, when I say low

15:31

budget, I mean ultra low budget, we were on

15:33

television and they somehow had, this

15:36

is like total inside baseball, but it

15:38

was like done as a SAG new media

15:40

deal. Oh, so really

15:42

low. And that's not, I think that's

15:45

actually skirting the rules. Like it was a TV

15:47

show. You know, media is not supposed to be for

15:49

TV shows for web videos and stuff like

15:51

that. So I mean, they were, it was tiny,

15:53

tiny, tiny, and

15:55

they were really, we

15:57

came off public access. It was this tiny network

15:59

called fusion.

15:59

them a lot. I'm not trying to speak ill to them. But

16:02

they,

16:04

they were like, we want you to do a show at San Diego Comic

16:06

Con. And we were like, that sounds amazing.

16:08

But we've already got 10 episodes that you bought

16:11

and we're kind of drowning in work. They were like, we'll produce

16:13

the whole thing.

16:14

We'll get it all together. You do the creative. We'll

16:16

get you guys out there. You're like,

16:18

okay. And the first

16:20

thing they did was it was a they

16:23

found us a venue, there were going to be 400 room for 400

16:27

people.

16:28

They put the tickets up for free. And

16:30

they sold out. I was like, that's

16:32

amazing.

16:33

Quickly learn the lesson that at Comic Con you got

16:35

to charge something it turns out. Because

16:37

if people see a free ticket, they'll go I'll just grab

16:40

this just to happen. And then

16:42

if the Star Wars announces a panel,

16:44

who cares it was free. And

16:46

we showed up and there were like 30 people

16:48

in this 400 seat room. Meanwhile, I'm getting

16:50

tweets from people the whole day

16:53

that are like, Hey, man, this is a bummer. I didn't know you

16:55

guys were going to be here. I didn't get my ticket in time. Sorry. And I'm

16:57

like, no, get here right now and bring like 70

17:00

people like so much

17:02

room. And the

17:04

guest booking fell through who was it supposed

17:06

to be? I forget I legitimately forget

17:09

at this point. It was almost 10 years ago. But

17:11

Sammy stepped up. That was nice. And there was a band

17:14

from San Pedro,

17:16

who I managed to convince play they saved the thing.

17:18

It was a band called Underground Railroad to Candy

17:21

Land, where if you follow punk

17:23

music, you'd know they're very associated

17:25

share members with toys that kill the whole

17:27

recess record scene. The sardine

17:30

is Todd's venue in San Pedro, great, great

17:32

click. And they showed

17:34

up

17:35

and very quickly just sense that it was a

17:37

disaster.

17:39

And started we had this whole thing with a

17:41

bunch of VHS tapes that you could throw into one

17:43

of those like basketball Papa shot machines. And

17:46

the basis from the punk band, which is kind of like

17:48

sensing the awkwardness and just started taking VHS

17:51

tapes and flinging them across the room. And

17:53

if we were all just like fuck this, let's just

17:55

make just actual mayhem and destroying

17:58

the set. And like the

17:59

And it worked out it worked out okay,

18:02

but I mean it was also such a tight turnaround that

18:06

To edit our editor had to get from San

18:08

Diego to LA.

18:10

He was editing on an Amtrak train

18:13

He had stayed up for like 36 hours

18:15

or something at that point 48 hours He was just a friend

18:17

of ours from the old public access days the world's greatest

18:19

dancer Rob Malone like he was a guy Who's on the show

18:21

sometimes? He's

18:23

editing Pushing himself

18:25

pushing himself pushing himself. They get to the facility

18:27

in LA where

18:29

they have to upload the whole thing

18:32

so it can be beamed via a satellite

18:34

to Miami where the network was based to get

18:36

it on the air in time They get

18:38

there. They're like

18:40

Hope do you guys work off of PCs

18:42

and they're like, yeah And they're like we edited everything

18:44

on a Mac We don't have the equipment

18:47

to convert it Oh no The editor wound

18:49

up having between the lack of sleep

18:51

and the anxiety he went to the fucking hospital

18:54

Like it was a show where the guest

18:56

fell through the band trashed the set

18:58

and then the editor went to the hospital Like

19:01

it was a real disaster. But also

19:03

I looked back and it's one of my fondest memories

19:05

That's what I was gonna ask when things

19:08

started to go awry or when

19:10

things start to go awry. What's your attitude? Usually?

19:12

It's kind of when I feel

19:14

most How

19:17

would I phrase it? I don't want to sound arrogant, but I

19:19

would almost say like I'm not

19:23

I'm not the funniest comedian and I came

19:25

up in a scene at UCB in New York where that

19:27

was always the case like that My contemporaries

19:29

were brilliant

19:31

people who from the start I was like,

19:33

oh man These people are great and like

19:35

a lot of them went to go on be on TV And

19:38

then I was the guy was also on stage with them who could

19:40

keep up But I realized

19:42

two things which was one I

19:45

Was very willing to be honest in a way

19:47

that a lot of my peers weren't from that scene like

19:50

Mike Berbiglia pointed out to Me one point he's like

19:52

all the UCB people are known for being like

19:54

the characters they play or the writing jobs They

19:56

get he's like you're kind of the only person

19:59

from that whole

19:59

UCB explosion that's just known for

20:02

being you. People know you as

20:04

Gethard. The people, not that many

20:06

people know me, but he's like, the ones that do, they know

20:09

you for being you. So it was that honesty

20:11

that I had. I also just

20:13

realized very quickly that I was just super

20:15

comfortable in chaos. I just was much

20:18

more comfortable than a lot of the people

20:20

I was up there in chaos. Even

20:22

thinking back to those old days at UCB, if something

20:25

went wrong, man, it was

20:27

my time to just be out there with a grin on

20:29

my face and other people maybe felt

20:31

a sense of panic. I always just had a

20:33

grin. So TV show when

20:35

we did it switched it over, when we became a public

20:37

access show, I quickly realized like, oh, this studio

20:40

is so cracked out. So this is the

20:42

Chris, I'm just thinking if someone's like, what are you guys talking about?

20:45

I used to host

20:45

a show called the Chris Gethard show and it was a public

20:47

access show and then it was on fusion

20:50

and then true TV. So it walked this way.

20:52

How many, three seasons? Three

20:54

seasons on cable and

20:57

we were on public access for

21:01

five or six years. Wow. And

21:03

it actually started as a live show. Started at UCB

21:05

for like a year and a half, two years. Very popular underground.

21:08

And I think you first found me through the public access

21:10

show. I think that was what you reached out about. It

21:12

was the, I think it was when I was on fusion. On

21:15

fusion. Yeah. But through

21:17

that, that old show did have a good crossover with the punk rock cause

21:19

we booked some killer musical guests too. But

21:22

when I was on public access TV, we

21:24

realized right away, like, oh, we try to plan

21:26

this show,

21:27

but invariably equipment will be broken.

21:30

Equipment will be missing.

21:31

Someone will know show. Some

21:34

I mean, we had an episode where literally the lights wouldn't

21:36

turn out. We had to do the episode in the dark. The lights

21:38

were kind of amazing. It's one time where we showed up at the studio

21:41

and the guy who helped us run. It's like, all right, we got

21:43

a situation tonight. Like, what's that

21:45

mean? Because like

21:47

for him to say there's a situation by his standards

21:49

was insane. He goes, so

21:52

we know the mics are here because

21:55

someone left them on. So

21:57

like, when we go on the sound board, we can hear

21:59

them.

21:59

They're here. No one knows where they

22:02

are. And it's like we got 20 minutes

22:04

to set up. The whole set is stored in the trunk

22:06

of my car. On its best day, it's a shit show.

22:09

And then now it's like,

22:11

now we have to run around looking for the microphones?

22:14

What is this? So we just learned like...

22:16

Did you find them? We did find them that night.

22:19

The night with the lights, they just kept going off

22:21

during the show. But it was funny. And

22:24

like, kind of just realized like,

22:26

we can't plan this show 100% because it never

22:28

goes Well,

22:31

let's plan it 70% and find

22:33

the other 30% on our feet, either in sticking

22:36

the landing

22:37

or embracing whatever nonsense happens that

22:39

we're not expecting. And that kind of,

22:41

I think, became the aesthetic of the whole show in a

22:43

way. It

22:44

became part of what people liked about it. It was like,

22:46

oh, they legitimately don't know how it's going to end

22:48

on any given night. This is cool.

22:50

Are there things that will make you...

22:53

Like in a performance setting

22:55

that will make you nervous or make your heartbeat or

22:57

butterflies or anything like that? That's

23:00

a really good question. So

23:03

for anybody listening who doesn't know, I've been performing for 23

23:05

years, starting out

23:08

as an improviser and then hosted the show and I've done

23:10

a lot of acting and stand up. Like I've kind of been all over. I

23:12

don't get nervous

23:14

necessarily. Like I realized I was over

23:17

traditional nervousness. There was one night where

23:19

I was walking home from the subway

23:21

station when I lived in Queens and my agent

23:23

called me on a cell phone. I picked

23:25

up. I was like, what's going on? He was like

23:28

in a panic. He's like, you live in Queens, right? I'm trying to think

23:30

of people who live in Queens. I'm like,

23:32

yeah. He's like, how close do you live to

23:34

the Forest Hills tennis stadium? I'm

23:36

like, it's one stop on the subway for

23:38

me. Why? And it was a massive comedian.

23:41

I won't say this

23:42

was before everything came out. It was Louis

23:44

at like the height of his powers. He's like,

23:47

Louis is playing the stadium and he forgot to book openers

23:49

and the show starts in half an hour. Can you

23:51

get there? I was like, yeah. So I like, my wife was

23:53

cooking dinner. We were going to have some neighbors over. I run in there

23:55

all there. I'm like, you guys, I

23:58

was like, I don't have to do the show.

23:59

I know you cooked, but if

24:02

we guys want to just go see Louis, we could go right now and

24:04

be backstage. Less than a half

24:06

hour after the call, I was doing stand-up in front of 12,000 people

24:09

on stage by myself. I messed up

24:11

one of my jokes and realized halfway through and fixed

24:13

it on its feet. I was like, okay, I don't get nervous

24:15

anymore. I think if there's things

24:17

that make me nervous now, it's more thinking

24:19

long-term, if I'm being honest. It's

24:22

more thinking,

24:23

what am I going to be doing in a year, in two years,

24:25

in three years? I always enjoyed the idea

24:27

of being, especially as a New York artist,

24:30

of like, I

24:30

know you just jump on the subway. If you want to

24:33

do five shows in a night, you bounce around, you can do five

24:35

stand-ups. You could do an improv show at seven and

24:37

then go do four stand-up sets after that and maybe

24:39

end at some late night talk show and then go get food

24:42

with a bunch of other comedians you met along the way tonight.

24:45

That lifestyle fit me really well. I'm

24:48

not blaming him in any way, but

24:51

all of the charm of that wore off when my son

24:53

was born. Things like

24:55

reliable health insurance became

24:57

a reality. My

24:59

nerves don't generally relate to anything that would

25:02

happen in a show. I can handle a bad show, I

25:04

can handle a bomb, I can make good stuff

25:06

out of chaos. My nerves come

25:08

from more of like, man, I'm turning 43

25:11

this year and he's only four. I

25:13

got to get him health insurance for 22 more years.

25:16

That's not how. That's

25:19

not the lifestyle I've been leading and that makes

25:21

my heart beat fast. That's

25:24

a very real, unfunny answer. No,

25:26

but you're

25:27

known for your honesty, Mike Porbiglia said it, you're

25:29

known for being yourself. There you go. Porbiglia's

25:31

very smart. Thriving

25:35

in

25:35

chaos, is that something that

25:38

you, I'm just wondering, are

25:40

there situations that you had been in early

25:43

in your life that were chaotic

25:45

or traumatic or anything like that where links

25:47

that can be made? I don't want to overreach if there's

25:49

not. No, I think for sure. And it's funny,

25:52

because a lot of it comes back to wrestling too. A lot

25:54

of it comes back to watching. There are people

25:56

who,

25:57

one of the things I'm most proud of from my old TV show,

25:59

and I can't,

25:59

I hate, you know, I do have done, the

26:02

show got canceled in 2018 and we're

26:04

on a track of talking about it. Like I'm not, I don't dwell

26:06

on it too hard on a day to day. I'm asking you questions

26:09

that are making you. One of the things I'm most proud

26:11

of is there's a lot of kids who watched that show who

26:13

didn't watch wrestling and then they watched

26:15

my show

26:16

and we had a bunch of wrestlers on and talked about wrestling

26:19

and now they all watch wrestling. And

26:21

I realized like, oh, a lot of our writing was

26:23

just wrestling. It was just like

26:25

the most, a lot of people's favorite character

26:27

was this very dumb character called Vacation Jason, and

26:30

he used to walk out and interrupt me and take, and I'm like, if you just put

26:33

Stone Cold's music over his entrance, it's just that.

26:36

It's just, I'm Mr. McMahon, he's Stone

26:38

Cold. He interrupts me, I act like I'm

26:40

mad. He makes me look stupid. The crowd cheers.

26:42

Like

26:43

that was why Colt loved the show. Colt

26:45

Cabana reached out to me. We had met years

26:47

prior and then he reached out

26:49

to me and he had been watching the show. He's like, you're just

26:51

doing wrestling style writing in a comedy

26:53

show, dude. And I was like, yeah. So

26:56

I loved wrestling when I was a kid. My

26:58

older brother loved Spanish

27:01

language game shows legitimately. We were

27:03

not watching them ironically. We knew it was funny,

27:05

but we were like, these are nuts, what are these? Even

27:08

wrestling, we liked ECW. That hit hard

27:10

when I was in high school and we were in the Northeast. I used to

27:12

go see it live. So chaos has always been

27:15

a factor. I think part of why our personalities

27:17

were built that way

27:19

is if I'm being totally

27:21

honest, we grew up in a neighborhood

27:24

that I looked back on and I'm like, man, it was just

27:27

weirdly tough. And my

27:30

parents grew up in the same neighborhood and

27:32

it was like this working class, mostly

27:35

Irish Catholic neighborhood. Is that

27:37

what you are? Yeah,

27:39

we went to public school. A lot of the kids around

27:41

us went to the Catholic schools and I

27:43

will tell you in all honesty, like

27:45

my older brother got his ass beat for

27:48

a big portion of his childhood. And

27:50

I took it a little bit too, but

27:52

I became a kid who was

27:54

very motivated and pissed. And

27:56

I look back, now I'm old enough to realize, oh, I

27:58

was like ultra motivated.

27:59

I was motivated to accomplish

28:02

things and try to prove things about myself because

28:05

I knew that would be a way out

28:07

of that chaos. But I mean, like it was-

28:10

And what was your brother's response to it? My

28:12

brother,

28:13

he was like, my

28:16

brother's response. I said before, this is

28:19

cutting deeper than I thought, but like all of my brother's

28:21

taste informed, whatever my brother thought was going

28:23

to school, my brother was this kid who like,

28:27

he always knew,

28:29

he would like, we'd

28:31

be like 10 years old and he'd

28:33

be like, hey man, here's this, like you ever, I

28:35

found this like,

28:37

I got my hands on a VHS tape of some like

28:40

British sketch comedy show that no one's ever

28:42

heard of and it's the best thing ever. Like he knew about all

28:44

the coolest stuff. He kind of just retreated

28:47

into this inner world.

28:49

Like I remember him listening to the

28:51

Ramones when he was in like fifth grade,

28:54

like earlier than other people. And we

28:56

grew up in North Jersey. There's a very famous radio

28:59

station out there called WFMU, which is like

29:01

a legendarily weird free form

29:03

listener fund. He was just, he'd sit in his

29:05

room in the attic and just listen to that all day.

29:07

Like he just became a very eclectic

29:11

guy with these strange tastes. And I think,

29:13

I

29:14

think especially looking back on, I think

29:16

a lot of my early output

29:19

in an effort to be a comedian was just like,

29:21

man, my favorite memories of my life

29:24

are like my brother. In that era

29:27

before the DVR,

29:28

I'd be like upstairs working on my homework or

29:31

something. I just have so many memories. My brother

29:33

running up the basement steps, like get down here right

29:35

now, right now. And he'd found like some

29:37

bizarre thing. I remember

29:40

so vivid. He was obsessed with this game show

29:42

called El Gran Huego de la Oca. The

29:45

grand game of the goose. If you look up

29:47

clips, it's still nuts today. But I remember

29:49

like late at night and being like,

29:51

get out of bed, come here, you gotta watch this. And it would just be

29:53

like the most insane, crazy things.

29:56

And yeah,

29:58

I mean from...

29:59

From my Andy Kaufman obsession

30:02

is from him. My obsession with

30:05

underground music is from him. He started taking

30:07

me to punk shows when I was way too young, 13 years

30:10

old and like a late bloomer 13. I

30:13

would not hit puberty for a solid three or four

30:15

years. Just being this little

30:17

kid in the back of the room as he's like, okay,

30:20

we're telling mom and dad that we're going to Mike's

30:22

house. But I'm actually driving you to this

30:24

VFW Hall, six towns

30:26

away because there's this band from New York

30:28

and they haven't played

30:29

in Jersey in three years. He

30:33

responded to getting

30:36

beaten up by just being like, well,

30:38

I'll just retreat into a world of fringe

30:40

nonsense. I think that really

30:43

informed my taste looking back. Then

30:45

it also sadly gave

30:48

me that gift of like, I have to learn

30:50

how to fight for myself and stand up for

30:52

myself, so that doesn't happen to me

30:54

too.

30:55

I sometimes think about how much that sucks because

30:57

my brother is a really brilliant and funny and talented

31:00

guy and he does comedy as well. But

31:03

I was just left with this

31:05

real fire to go

31:07

out and prove myself in

31:10

a way that wasn't always healthy. But

31:13

I think a lot of it was from that chaotic childhood

31:15

of, I can say that without

31:17

exaggeration, without trying to be melodramatic,

31:21

when

31:24

my brother was in probably third grade

31:26

until probably sophomore year high school,

31:30

especially him, but also if

31:32

we left the house,

31:34

it was a 50-50 on if we were going to get

31:37

back without somebody fucking with one of

31:39

us. Jeez. I have

31:42

vivid memories of

31:44

walking through my neighborhood and just a kid coming

31:46

out of nowhere and punching me in the face, just for no

31:48

reason. That type

31:51

of chaos was something that I was dealing with young

31:54

and it was very

31:57

not healthy and probably

31:59

pretty.

31:59

directly led to

32:01

my personal taste and a lot of my career.

32:04

So I was just motivated from a young age to be like,

32:07

go out and show that

32:09

you can do something with

32:11

yourself, you know, and then people will stay out

32:14

of your way. Are you still motivated by that?

32:17

To a degree, it's calmed down a lot.

32:20

I had a very, I had this moment that I've

32:22

wondered if other people have had this where, you

32:25

know, we had our kid, we were living in New York,

32:28

quickly realized we were like, we'll raise our kid

32:30

in New York until he's like four. We had a one bedroom,

32:32

little one bedroom co-op in Queens. As soon

32:34

as he started crawling, like seven, eight months

32:36

old, we were like, do we need space? Let's

32:39

get out of here. So we moved back to Jersey and a bunch

32:41

of my friends who I grew up with, I invited them all

32:43

over. And these are guys who,

32:45

you know, I really dove in, I dove into the

32:48

artist career. And these are people who

32:50

I held very close to my heart, but I didn't see them

32:53

all that often. And they would see each other a lot

32:55

still, you know, and I invited them all over.

32:58

And in my mind, I'd been like out

33:01

proving this thing for all of us. And like,

33:04

I knew they were supportive of me

33:06

and they were happy for me. But in my

33:08

mind, I'm like, I'm doing this for all of us. Like,

33:10

I'm thinking of who we were in high school. I'm thinking of who we were

33:13

in college.

33:14

And I'm out here like fighting to and like, we

33:17

all got together in my

33:19

yard. And it was

33:21

I'd seen, you know, them here and there. But

33:23

it was the first time like I'd gotten everybody together.

33:27

And I just so quickly realized like, no,

33:29

they all have their own kids. Like, they've all

33:31

had their own jobs for years now. They have their own

33:33

stresses. And they're all they

33:36

all get a kick out of what I do. But

33:39

it hasn't been this hero's journey. You

33:42

know, like it had in my mind, it was this thing

33:44

of like, keep fighting to get your TV show

33:46

on real cable and off of public access to

33:48

prove for all of us

33:51

that kids like us can do that. And

33:54

it's like, no, because they're not kids like that anymore. I'm

33:56

the only one with this stunt development.

33:58

But when you say kids like us. Do you mean

34:01

kids who were picked on? I

34:03

think like those of us who felt like-

34:06

Outcast? Yeah, like I think

34:08

a lot of my friend group, looking

34:10

back on it, my older brother, he was

34:13

three grades ahead of me. So our friend groups, there

34:15

was this Venn diagram that cross

34:17

over.

34:18

And I think both of us had friend groups and

34:20

especially all the people that got to know each other despite

34:22

the age gap. It was like, these are the people

34:25

who kind of feel like they need to team up.

34:27

Like there's strength in numbers. Like underdogs. We

34:30

don't necessarily have a common defining,

34:33

like we're not a football team.

34:37

We don't all do a shared activity.

34:39

What we all have is that we're the ones

34:41

that if we don't team up, we're all

34:44

in it alone. So let's team up. That's what really,

34:46

I look back on it still to this

34:48

day, like have very close friends

34:50

who, they lived on the other side of town

34:53

and they were the weird kids. And my brother had

34:55

this guy, George, my brother's friend, George, and

34:59

him kept each other alive through middle school. And

35:01

then they got to high school and there were like five

35:03

or six kids from the other side of town.

35:05

And when they teamed up with those kids,

35:07

it was enough people that they stopped getting fucked with. That's

35:10

why I said like through about sophomore year of high school.

35:13

Cause at that point it was like, oh, we found

35:15

another, now that all the whole town's together,

35:18

there's like 10 of these kids. And

35:20

when you have 10,

35:22

that's harder to mess with than two. You

35:24

know, like it was just a numbers thing. So

35:27

I did kind of always view my friend group as

35:29

like, we all kind

35:31

of came together cause we needed each other.

35:34

And then I think like a lot of people, music

35:36

became that uniting thing. Music

35:38

became the way to try to feel cool, right? But

35:41

if I really looked deep down, I go a lot of the times we

35:43

were all hanging out in my basement or my friend Carson's

35:45

basement or going to shows,

35:48

it was just an excuse to be together. And

35:50

music was a semi-cool thing that we could

35:52

claim as our own. But

35:54

a lot of it I think was just a survival

35:57

mechanism of like, we could

35:59

either be.

35:59

eight outcasts or we could be a crew

36:02

of eight sitting at the same lunch table. That

36:04

seems safer, let's do that.

36:06

I

36:08

feel myself emotionally fighting against

36:10

the idea that it wasn't a hero's

36:12

journey for the other people. And also

36:14

Tony, yet again,

36:16

I have forgotten to turn on the timer, where

36:18

are we? 36 minutes.

36:21

Jeez. Is that good or bad? Oh

36:24

no, that's good. No, I'm saying jeez that I, this

36:27

is now the third time in a row that I've forgotten to do this, which is

36:29

like. I'm also gonna tell

36:31

you,

36:31

I'm feeling very comfortable sharing this with you face

36:33

to face. I'm nervous to say this all in front

36:35

of Tony, because I know we got the Romans. Because he's

36:38

such a judgmental. No, not judgy, but where

36:40

I'm like, there's, I won't lie, there's a part

36:42

of me that's like, he's a real musician and every time

36:44

I bring up music, I'm like, oh, I'm gonna come off like a poser,

36:46

but it's 2023 and that doesn't mean anything.

36:49

And I know that doesn't mean anything, but

36:51

these are the nervous anxiety thoughts I still

36:53

have in my head all the time to this day. I

36:56

feel like that, if I may, and that is a leftover

36:58

thought from childhood where there were

37:00

music, where you were judged on your music.

37:03

I've never seen Tony

37:05

say anything to suggest he even

37:07

thinks about authenticity versus poser,

37:10

dumb in terms of people's music taste. Cause

37:12

I don't think anyone particularly

37:14

cares anymore. Like what you like, who

37:16

cares?

37:17

Tony, they might be Giants show.

37:19

They might be Giants is great. They played the Chris Gethard

37:21

show. That's awesome. One of my favorite things

37:23

is we got some music on there

37:25

that I'm like, did you ever listen to Adam in

37:27

his package growing up? I've heard of them. I

37:30

never really got super, I'm very aware of

37:32

them. That was like, he was from Philly.

37:34

He played a lot of local shows in Jersey. It's a good

37:37

example of the type of thing I clung to. He was a guy

37:40

who

37:40

had programmed a sequencer.

37:43

Now a lot of nerd core rap, I think,

37:45

will give Adam in his package credit. Cause he

37:48

programmed it. It was so weird and the

37:50

lyrics were so dumb and funny and I loved

37:52

him.

37:53

Cause I knew, I mean,

37:55

it was catchy and cool,

37:58

but not only was I...

37:59

Like no, none of the kids who

38:02

I hate are ever gonna like this. And

38:04

on top of it, his shit was so weird

38:06

that famously maximum rock and roll refused

38:09

to

38:09

review him because it wasn't punk enough. And I was like,

38:12

there, that's what I want. The thing

38:14

that is not even the thing that's too weird for

38:16

the punk fanzines. That's what I want. That's

38:19

who I was growing up. Now,

38:20

are you invested at all in seeing

38:23

the bullies or the tormentors

38:25

fail? Great

38:27

question. There's a part of me that

38:29

wants to be like, no, I've grown up. And

38:32

but but like, I just recorded

38:34

a special where

38:36

I had to I went around the country saying

38:38

this guy's full first and last name telling

38:41

a story about this error in my life. And then my

38:44

special was bought by audible. They were like, you can't

38:46

and I was like, okay, I'll use the first name because

38:48

it's common and I'll say what street he grew up on. I think

38:51

I was able to say his name was Mike, not

38:53

the Mike from Maple Street. If you grew up in my

38:55

neighborhood, like I've came as close to doxing

38:57

this ass as I could. I

39:00

remember once getting

39:01

so pissed off. This

39:03

was years ago, like for

39:06

comedians of my generation,

39:08

especially those of us from UCB. The for

39:12

a lot of us the first work we would get was when

39:14

Conan O'Brien still had the 1230 slot.

39:18

If you remember his show, before he started

39:20

getting it ready for the Tonight Show and switching over,

39:23

that show was legendary because it would be like, here's a

39:25

staring contest with like 30 actors

39:27

in it. We're like, here's a thing where it just cuts to six

39:30

people dressed as carrots dancing. It's weird.

39:32

And those were my earliest bits

39:34

was like dress up as a robot dress up as

39:36

a little Dutch boy, like I was still caught.

39:39

I was still in college. And I'd be like cutting

39:41

classes to take the train into New York City. It was like,

39:43

I look back, it's the most mind blowing thing.

39:46

It's I look back, I'm like, I,

39:48

I knew it was cool then. And now I'm like, how

39:50

did I even wind up there? But

39:52

I remember once

39:54

dude I grew up with called me and he said he was

39:56

at a bar in Jersey,

39:58

Tierney Stavron and Montclair

39:59

Great bar, great, great bar. You should go

40:02

if you're in Montclair, New Jersey. It's great. Let's

40:04

make a trip. Great burgers, great Irish bar. But

40:06

he was there one night and I guess they had the TVs

40:09

on and they must've been playing a game on NBC

40:11

and just left them on and Conan came on.

40:13

People were like glancing and all of a sudden it cuts to

40:15

a picture of me.

40:17

And I guess this one dude at the bar started like, pound,

40:19

he's like, everybody shut up, turn the volume up. He's

40:21

like, that kid's from my neighborhood. That's

40:23

a kid from my neighborhood, show some respect. And he like

40:25

quieted down the whole bar.

40:27

My buddy told me who it was. And

40:29

I was like, that's insane because

40:32

I have had the fantasy that

40:34

if that dude was crossing the street in front of my car,

40:37

I'd hit the gas and have to break. I want

40:39

that person to die. And it's like

40:41

still a thing I think about.

40:43

You think about wanting him to die or you think about the

40:45

turn. This was years ago. This was years

40:47

ago that he had that, but at that point in my life,

40:50

when I was an artist who was starting to book

40:52

the earliest stages of my work,

40:54

I still wanted my beliefs

40:56

to die. And I can say that

40:59

it's not something I sit around and think about now, but

41:04

I can say that like, as a dad,

41:06

I've realized it's not

41:09

totally put to bed yet. Cause my son

41:11

who just turned four yesterday. Happy birthday.

41:14

Yeah. Big time stuff. The real big boy now,

41:17

but he, about six months ago, he came up

41:19

to me and asked me if another kid in our neighborhood was

41:21

a bully. He knows that word already.

41:23

Yeah. He learned that word. And the kid he named,

41:26

I've seen in action that he kind of

41:28

is. And I had to really, I had

41:30

to realize like,

41:32

it instantly brought up these feelings

41:34

where I was like, I have to explain this to

41:36

him in a way

41:39

that helps him sort it out. Gotta

41:42

be a good dad. I also was aware. I'm like,

41:44

he's coming to me on this. Most things

41:46

that he has questions about, he's still little enough. He goes

41:48

to mom first for most things. Like he's coming to me

41:51

for a reason. And I could feel that that

41:53

was like his instinct and I had to respect it. But

41:55

I also realized like,

41:56

I can't let him see how crazy

41:59

it makes me feel. when I think about bullies

42:01

to this day. And I think

42:03

his mom would have killed me, but I was like, who's

42:06

this older kid? And he's a fundamentally

42:09

okay kid. He's a good kid in our neighborhood, but I've

42:11

seen it. Like if trouble's happening, he can

42:14

instigate. He likes when trouble happened, he'll

42:16

poke it in that direction. And I've

42:18

seen it. And I asked my son, what he told me, and

42:20

he told me a story about the kid picking on

42:22

a kid younger than him. I said, are you nervous

42:25

he's gonna do that to you? And he said, yeah. And

42:27

I was like, if he ever does that to you,

42:30

first of all, you can always tell me. And then I was like,

42:32

look, I was like,

42:34

this might not make sense now, but if

42:37

he ever touches you and you need to

42:39

hit him, I was like, you'll have to

42:41

get in trouble, but I won't be mad at you. And

42:43

I was like, I don't know if that makes sense.

42:46

But just so you know, even if you get in trouble for

42:48

standing up for yourself,

42:50

you'll have to get in trouble sometimes, but

42:52

I'm never gonna be mad at you about it. And

42:54

he was like, okay. And I don't know if it

42:57

fully sunk in, but I could feel

42:59

this feeling of like these motherfuckers.

43:02

If you have the feeling of you. Yeah,

43:04

just how much time I've had to waste

43:07

thinking about these idiots and how I'm in my 40s and

43:11

have had so many phases of letting it go

43:13

and then having it come back, you know? And now

43:16

having a kid and realizing,

43:18

oh, now I'm gonna be worried about this with him.

43:20

Yeah, I know. For his

43:22

whole childhood until I see where it

43:24

lands. He also is a kid too

43:27

who like, he

43:29

went and played with our neighbors one day and they're two little girls.

43:32

And he came home and they had painted his fingernails. And

43:34

he was so psyched. He was so proud

43:36

of it.

43:37

And he asked his mom

43:39

for his birthday, can we go get our nails done? And

43:42

she was like, okay, yeah, I'll take you to a salon. And

43:45

I have to be honest, like the large

43:48

part of me is like, that's cool, man. Go

43:50

live your life, get your nails painted. He's four.

43:53

I don't think he has a full awareness of what's

43:55

traditional and what's not,

43:57

I think, but I did sit there and

43:59

worry. and go, if he gets his nails

44:01

done, are the other kids gonna pick on him?

44:03

And does that come to drive me nuts? You know, like there was

44:06

once a party at

44:08

a house in our neighborhood where his mom was putting on her

44:10

makeup. And he was like, Mommy, you look really beautiful. Can

44:12

I wear makeup too? And she put, she was like, of course.

44:15

And she put, like eye, like blush.

44:19

I'm not eyeliner, right? That's the pencil. Eye

44:22

shadow?

44:23

And we went to the party and I was totally

44:25

all for it. And I'm like, it's cool. And he's bonding

44:27

with his mom. And there's also a part

44:29

of me that's like, are these little motherfuckers gonna seize

44:32

on this? And I had to realize,

44:34

like if I

44:36

wanna talk a good game about being an accepting

44:39

person in general, like who's that, that has

44:41

to start first and foremost with my son.

44:43

And I sit here, even hearing myself going right

44:45

now, like, oh, I assume he doesn't understand traditional

44:47

gender, like who cares? That's not what

44:49

it's about. But all of this is

44:51

coming from me in a way where I'm like, I don't care if

44:54

my kid

44:55

wears eyeshadow and wants his nails done.

44:57

The only thing that I can think about as

44:59

a negative that's making me go to my wife, like are we sure?

45:02

We don't wanna wipe it off before the party. And I realize

45:04

how shitty that is.

45:06

But I don't care at all about how

45:08

he wants to express himself now at the age of four,

45:11

or when he's 15 or 25 or 50.

45:14

I don't care about that. But the idea

45:16

that other people might seize upon it is

45:19

just to me, it brings up these things

45:21

where I'm like, ooh,

45:24

like,

45:26

there's also a part of me that though, that's like,

45:29

I hope you do wear makeup and you're

45:31

open to me teaching you how to stand up for yourself.

45:34

And then you walk around town like the fucking New York

45:36

Dolls, you know, where it's like all the legendary

45:38

stories about them of like, they're dressed

45:40

in fishnets and thigh

45:42

highs and makeup, and if anybody said a word

45:44

to them, they'd go out and like curb stomp the people. I'm

45:46

like, I hope you're open to both

45:48

conversations. Not that you need to be violent, but

45:51

I don't know. You can see how mixed up I am on

45:53

all of it. No, this stuff is

45:55

really hard. I mean, it's just

45:57

really hard.

45:59

What I have been doing is

46:02

like, Elliot, my six-year-old,

46:04

has come up to me a couple times where he'll say like kids

46:06

laughed at him and it didn't feel good. And

46:10

one instance was like

46:12

something where I also was like, I'm also

46:15

missing what's funny about this. But I guess

46:17

he got, this is him talking, he got two buckets

46:19

of fruit from the cafeteria. And I get this must

46:21

be fruit cups or something. He got two buckets of

46:23

fruit. And the kids were

46:25

laughing at him because he got two buckets of fruit.

46:29

And I said,

46:30

and neither of us understood it was, he said, it didn't

46:33

make him feel good. And I said, well,

46:35

what do you think about it? And

46:38

he's like, I think it's pretty normal. I'm like, I do too. And

46:40

but I could tell like making sort of, I always try to bring

46:42

it back to just like, well, it's not what

46:44

they think about it. What do you think about it? Do you like

46:47

it? Do you think it's good? And

46:50

it did seem in that moment, like a weight kind

46:52

of lifted off his shoulders when he felt like, oh yeah, I

46:54

feel good about getting two buckets

46:56

of fruit or whatever. And then another

46:58

time

47:00

they can do like show and tell at school.

47:02

And he brought a toy that's

47:04

a mermaid and

47:06

the kids wanted to know like, why do you like to play

47:08

with girl toys? And that

47:10

was way tougher for

47:12

me than him because I was

47:15

like, oh my God, I can't believe it's starting this

47:17

young. They're like

47:19

big, I mean, they're not, they're five. He

47:21

was five of them, but still.

47:24

And so that was just like,

47:28

I mean, it just, it brought up so

47:30

much for me, like what is going on

47:33

and that the thing you're talking about, about like, I want

47:37

him to be exactly who he is, but

47:40

are we not protecting him by

47:42

da da da? And then,

47:44

and like also what kind of conversations are going

47:46

on in these other kids homes.

47:49

But

47:50

we just kind of,

47:52

you know, I just

47:54

said to him like, look, toys are toys and

47:57

you can play with, and apparently he, when they said

47:59

to him like, why? Why do you play with girl toys? He's like,

48:02

because I like them. What I think is a really good answer.

48:04

Perfect answer. But yeah,

48:07

what we've been saying is like,

48:09

toys are toys and anyone can play with whatever they like.

48:13

But yeah, that was. I

48:17

find it to be such a strange time because I

48:19

sit here and I go like, there are

48:21

all these conversations about all these things

48:23

that are shifting and they should be shifting.

48:26

And ultimately it will

48:27

give kids more freedom to be who they

48:30

are, which will have to be healthier. But

48:33

I would argue like, the

48:36

parents who are figuring out how

48:38

to navigate these new parameters or even really

48:41

define these new parameters,

48:43

they have kids in school right now

48:45

and it's happening every day. Like my kids just in preschool,

48:48

but it's really only the past

48:50

handful of years that there's any parents trying to

48:52

take, right? Like these conversations become

48:54

so much more open and honest in the past 10, five

48:56

years.

48:58

You go, okay,

49:00

I wanna do the right thing by society.

49:02

I think ultimately my kid will be healthiest

49:05

and happiest to feel total freedom, but how

49:07

do I turn off the instinct of like, don't

49:10

give anybody a weapon against you? Because

49:12

my whole childhood was, don't give anybody

49:15

a way to get at you. That was my old childhood.

49:17

When I would get on the bus in the morning, it was like, put your

49:19

game face on.

49:21

And until I got home,

49:24

it was don't give anybody a way

49:26

to fuck with you. So how do you turn off all?

49:29

An entire childhood that was that, when your kid

49:31

wants to wear eyeshadow, when you know fundamentally,

49:34

he looks good

49:34

in the eyeshadow, it's really fucking

49:37

cute. It's funny, my four year old also

49:39

wanted to buy nail polish and paint his nails and stuff. Yeah,

49:43

it's tough. I mean, I know that

49:46

the messages I got from my parents

49:48

telling me to conform in order to not

49:50

be a target, I'm

49:53

not appreciative of those, I'm resentful of those. I

49:55

wish that instead they had taught

49:58

me to have a belief in myself. and

50:00

to not care

50:01

about what other people think. So that's what I'm

50:03

trying to pass on. But it is hard, it is hard. And

50:06

especially like

50:08

if shit gets real and there is actual

50:10

like bullying or like it's affecting it. You know, right now

50:12

we're just talking about like it's like parable, a tip

50:15

and bullying or something. And

50:17

we're just imagining these scenarios. But like,

50:19

if, you know, his high

50:22

school life becomes very difficult because

50:24

of, I don't, I don't even know. Yeah, it's

50:26

hard. Yeah, it's hard to even finish

50:28

the sentence. It's like, I don't even want to presuppose.

50:32

I want it to just be easy. Yeah.

50:34

But. I know, but it's like all you can

50:36

do sounds so pat, but it's just like, love

50:40

them and try to parent them as well as you can

50:42

and raise them right. And you can't control

50:45

their external environment. Yeah.

50:48

Which sucks. I just had this image pop into

50:50

my, like, it's so funny because I was

50:52

talking about my brother before and he was such a

50:54

great example. Like he, I remember

50:56

he, we had a neighbor who

51:00

was cleaning out his garage and my brother walked

51:02

by and was like, are those garbage bags

51:04

full of clothes? Guy was like, yeah. My brother's

51:06

like, you're just getting rid of them. He's like, yeah. He's

51:09

like, let me take them. I'm gonna take what I want.

51:11

And then I'll just, I'll get rid of the rest. I was like,

51:13

all right, yeah, that helps me out. You know, saves me a trip.

51:16

Save me having to pack it up.

51:17

My brother, there's all these guys clothes

51:20

from the 70s. I remember my brother

51:22

showed up in school one day wearing an orange

51:25

corduroy jumpsuit. And

51:27

this is like 1996. But

51:29

that was my brother of like, oh, you wanna, you

51:31

wanna make fun of me for being like geeky or

51:33

smaller or having a last name that spells

51:36

get hard? Like whatever you, no, make

51:38

fun of me for this mother. Like, you know, almost

51:40

like, I love that. Almost like how an animal

51:43

will go like, I'm bright orange and

51:45

that means I'm poisonous. Leave me alone. Like that was

51:47

almost my brother, you know? Like

51:49

putting on a, of like, oh, if you're gonna beat

51:52

my ass, let me at least make it for something outlandish

51:55

and something worthwhile and cool. And

51:57

that made him

51:59

cooler. And I think. he had found his confidence

52:02

by the end of high school because he'd just take these

52:04

big swings but they were born out of

52:07

antagonism.

52:08

That was his way. He

52:11

wasn't a fighter.

52:13

So the way he'd fight back would be like, I'll

52:15

show up in something where everyone turns around

52:17

when I walk in and they go, what's

52:19

going on? That was his way

52:22

to antagonize them back was like,

52:25

the more you push me around,

52:27

the weirder I'm going to get and I won't apologize.

52:30

So punk. It really was.

52:32

It really was. And it makes me sad

52:34

as I say

52:35

this all out loud to realize like, my

52:37

brother was the biggest influence on me in so

52:39

many ways. And

52:42

then I see how I get so hesitant with my son

52:44

with some of this, some of the stuff that he's trying to express

52:47

himself with early ago, probably one of the biggest

52:49

lessons my brother gave me didn't fully sink in

52:51

because I was a little less weird. I was a little

52:53

bit more guard up. I was a little less prone to,

52:56

you

52:57

know, let me look outlandish.

52:59

Let me antagonize you with my

53:03

external appearance. I was a little bit more like

53:06

dress plane. Nobody will notice

53:09

right under the radar, you know, stay under the radar

53:11

and then go out and do cool shit,

53:14

you know, so that people

53:16

have to respect you. It's like, oh,

53:18

probably one of the biggest lessons my brother gave me. I

53:20

still, I probably should have worn that

53:23

orange quarter. I jumpsuit a couple of times.

53:25

It was a good lesson to learn. And I missed

53:27

that one. When I was on the Adam Carolla

53:29

show a few

53:31

times, incredibly

53:34

popular kids from my high school who were not

53:36

kind to me, like

53:38

sent me a Facebook request.

53:40

And in my mind, it's

53:42

like

53:44

they're still thinking about our

53:46

social stature in high school. And they're like, oh yeah,

53:48

well, I thought she was a loser then, but look at her now. I

53:50

mean, it's like a whole, talk about hero's

53:52

journey. It's like so built up in my mind. And

53:54

I'm like, I'm going to accept

53:56

their request because I've grown as a person.

53:58

But it's like to this person. And it's probably

54:00

just like, oh, I know her, click. You

54:02

know, it's not what

54:04

it was to me. They're not thinking of it that way

54:07

at all. They're like genuinely probably texting

54:09

their friends like, oh, did

54:11

you hear this? Yeah. Remember her?

54:14

Yeah. I went to high school with her. That's

54:16

cool, right? Totally. I had a very

54:18

funny one. This was someone who I wound up being friends

54:20

with, but so my senior year of high school,

54:23

the science class broke down

54:25

where, you know, you had the tables of two

54:28

and I had two friends in the class who already

54:30

happened to be sitting with each other when we picked lab partners.

54:33

So I was like, oh, I'm the third one out. It's like

54:35

me, this guy, Jamie, this guy, Dan, those were my two

54:37

friends in the class. They're sitting with each other. Who

54:39

am I going to wind up with? And I wound up sitting with

54:42

the head cheerleader who had the very head

54:44

cheerleader name, Allison Gunn,

54:46

which is the coolest. That's a cool

54:48

name. It is. And just on behalf of Allison's,

54:51

can I say we skew two ways. It

54:53

bifurcates. Either cheerleader

54:55

popular or like full on nerd.

54:58

I'm thinking like studious nerd,

55:00

like sure thing. Her name was Allison, you

55:02

know, there's really no middle ground

55:04

for media representations

55:05

of Allison's. It's true. They

55:07

tend to go all in. So we became,

55:10

we were like, would joke around and we became friends

55:12

by the end of high school. We were like legitimately friends.

55:15

And then college

55:18

didn't really see each other anymore. And

55:20

then every few years I'd hear from her and that was nice. She

55:22

was not one of those people that I was like, you, how

55:24

do like, I was like, oh, that's cool. She's

55:27

keeping tabs on me. That's

55:29

cool. That's cool. And then I had this very funny

55:31

thing happen where my

55:33

wife signed my son up for a music class during

55:36

the pandemic. So it was outdoors in a park and

55:39

one day my wife could not go. And I said,

55:41

oh, you know, you shouldn't be the only one taking

55:43

him anyway. Let me take him. It's a good

55:45

thing to do. And I get there and I realized

55:48

one of the other parents is Allison

55:50

Gunn. She had a kid right at the same time as us.

55:53

I'm

55:53

sitting there like Allison. She's like, get there. What's

55:55

up? And then

55:57

the class ended with us.

55:59

The teacher had all the kids doing square

56:02

dancing, but they were like two, like still in diapers.

56:04

They cannot follow instructions. So

56:06

it was just all the parents and they had us doing these

56:09

line dances where we paired off.

56:11

And I'm like, how, like, this

56:13

is very weird in life to be like a kid who

56:15

feels nerdy and

56:18

bullied and scared a lot of the time. And now

56:20

somehow at the

56:23

age of 40, I'm line dancing

56:25

in a public park in Chatham, New Jersey

56:27

with the head cheerleader of my high school. Like, it's

56:30

the weirdest fucking feeling. And again,

56:32

that thing of,

56:35

like I've been walking this path that to

56:37

me felt like this and now I did this and now I

56:39

did this and now I did this. And it's like, no, you all, you

56:41

just wind up line dancing in a park together.

56:43

So anyway, just wind up with

56:45

that nonsense happening anyway.

56:47

I had an experience, which I think

56:49

I've probably shared on the show, but a long time

56:51

ago, I briefly

56:54

went to,

56:55

there was a 12 step group

56:57

for people who tend to be codependent.

57:00

And I went to some meetings for that and I was at one

57:03

and this woman walked in and she was very

57:05

pretty, like very striking, or I just

57:07

instantly noticed her and

57:10

then didn't think of it beyond that.

57:13

And then at the end, she

57:17

came up to me and she said, did you go to

57:19

name of my elementary school? And I said, I

57:21

did. And then I, all

57:23

of a sudden I realized, this

57:26

was like one of my main tormentors

57:28

in fourth grade. No, seventh grade, not in

57:30

seventh grade. I went

57:33

to a private kindergarten through eighth grade. There

57:37

was like the popular faster

57:39

kids and then the more unpopular

57:41

studious kids and

57:43

both big groups. And I had

57:45

like firm social standing in the

57:48

more studious slower kid,

57:49

less popular group, but we weren't outcast

57:52

or there wasn't like friction between

57:55

the groups or anything. And then in

57:57

seventh grade, always

58:00

fine. I had friends in seventh grade, this new

58:02

girl came to school. Um, and

58:04

then all

58:06

of a sudden I was the outcast and

58:09

it was incredibly like damaging

58:11

emotionally to me. Um, my

58:13

memory is it was like the whole year. It really was like two

58:16

months, but it just left these intense

58:18

scars on me for like,

58:20

I don't know. I mean, I remember in college

58:23

being worried that like, what if all my friends decide

58:26

overnight, they don't, that I'm not cool and they don't like me

58:28

anymore. Like for the longest time I was worried

58:30

that I could all of a sudden lose all my friends. Um,

58:32

but anyway, so she was the new girl who had

58:35

come in

58:36

and, uh, she said

58:38

to me, I said, you know, and then she introduced

58:41

herself. I already knew who it was at that point

58:43

though. Um, but she's like,

58:45

I always felt bad about everything

58:47

that happened. And I was like, Oh that

58:50

as if I didn't even know what she was talking

58:52

about. Like

58:53

you had thought of it 10 times already. Yeah.

58:56

I mean, this is like how many years later was

58:58

it? I cannot do the math, but I mean, we're talking a long

59:01

time later and she came up to me and I

59:03

still

59:04

couldn't, I couldn't be real with her because I

59:06

was so instantly like, Oh my God,

59:09

I can't. I mean, it was like, and

59:11

I've, and I've thought of the way I behaved

59:13

in that, I mean, I was friendly, but I acted

59:16

like this hadn't been a huge

59:18

deal at all to me cause I didn't trust her. I

59:20

was like, I do not trust this person, even

59:22

though we're in a group where she, it seems like she's like

59:24

done the work, you know,

59:28

um, I follow her on Instagram now, but yeah,

59:32

we've had no communication since then, but I

59:36

have

59:36

thought a lot about how weird

59:39

that was because it wasn't even my

59:41

part of LA. It was like way over on the west side,

59:44

just very random and weird. Yeah.

59:46

But it's, but I still instantly got into

59:48

a defensive

59:49

pose. I had, um,

59:51

this is less bullying

59:53

related and more of my weird mental tieups

59:56

with all that stuff.

59:57

So I mentioned, I grew up in a neighbor.

59:59

that was mostly Irish Catholic.

1:00:02

And to this day, they have a huge St. Patrick's

1:00:04

Day parade in my hometown.

1:00:06

And I went back for it this year.

1:00:08

I brought my son. We were free. It was just me and him

1:00:11

drove down to my old neighborhood. I parked on my old

1:00:13

block. I grew up on a block where I was able

1:00:15

to stay, like here's the house where I grew up and then right across

1:00:17

the street. That's where your Pa grew up. My dad,

1:00:19

he bought the house on the same block

1:00:22

and walking around this neighborhood that meant so much

1:00:24

to me. But

1:00:25

as I got my son out of the car and

1:00:28

I won't lie.

1:00:30

I'm going to this parade.

1:00:31

I want to enjoy the parade.

1:00:34

I'm telling my son like, oh, I'm going to buy a pretzel. There's

1:00:36

going to be guys coming around selling big pretzels at

1:00:38

a shopping carts. I'll buy you one. Maybe we'll

1:00:40

get you a balloon. You're going to see bands.

1:00:42

Oh, you'll see police motorcycles. Like

1:00:45

promising most of them. All the greatest hits for a four year old. So

1:00:47

he's hyped up and I am excited to go back

1:00:49

to the old neighborhood. I'm excited to see the parade. It

1:00:51

was always a big day in my neighborhood. There's

1:00:54

also a part of me

1:00:56

that does feel like there is some meaning

1:00:58

to me in a way that feels healthier than some of the

1:01:00

other stuff I've described today. But like there is a part of

1:01:02

me that's like, I can go back there,

1:01:05

walk around down these streets where I used to feel scared

1:01:08

and I can walk around now and not be scared

1:01:10

and hold my head up high and run into people

1:01:13

who knew me back then and say hello. And

1:01:16

then there's also

1:01:18

a part of me that I will say that it's small and

1:01:20

that knows that this is ego and not necessarily

1:01:22

the healthiest. Also a part of me that's

1:01:24

like, and there's maybe going

1:01:26

to be some people who are like, hey, dude, we've seen

1:01:28

you do some stuff and it's going to give me that,

1:01:30

like I always said, that, that feeling of like, go

1:01:33

out and accomplish stuff to prove people wrong

1:01:36

or prove that you got it or whatever. Like maybe

1:01:38

I'll get a little of that too.

1:01:40

It's a lesser priority. Now I'm in a much healthier place.

1:01:43

But anyway, I go to pick

1:01:45

up my son and I had put his water

1:01:47

bottle in the back pocket of my pants, my

1:01:49

pants. I was not wearing jeans that day. I

1:01:51

wasn't even wearing khakis. They were like, I

1:01:54

guess you'd call them slacks, but they were built for

1:01:56

more of like a warm day. They were a light material.

1:01:59

Summer pants. summer pants and

1:02:01

I had this water bottle in my back pocket

1:02:03

and I squatted down to pick up my son

1:02:05

and

1:02:06

I won't lie, I have more of a dad

1:02:09

bod now and as I picked up my son

1:02:11

and my pants gripped around this

1:02:13

water bottle, I just felt them pop. Just

1:02:15

felt ripped and

1:02:17

from my asshole to the back of my knee

1:02:20

was just torn off and shred. And

1:02:23

now I'm standing on my old block and I'm like, what

1:02:25

do I do? You're mooning that. Because

1:02:27

I'm like, well, it almost sort of felt

1:02:29

like this weird karma of like, because

1:02:32

there's also this thing when you grow up Irish Catholic

1:02:34

of like you're never

1:02:36

anything you do that feels fancy.

1:02:38

People are gonna be like, oh, you fancy now? Oh,

1:02:40

you better than us? There's always that too. So

1:02:43

immediately I was like, this is what I get for secretly

1:02:45

craving the validation because this is

1:02:48

God being like, well, now you

1:02:50

get no, you know, your asshole. But

1:02:52

I feel like as a parent, you'll understand this too. I'm sitting here.

1:02:55

I'm like,

1:02:55

all I want to do is jump in the car. I'm back home,

1:02:57

but it was a 35 minute drive and I promised

1:02:59

this kid a fucking hot pretzel and he's

1:03:01

asked me about it 10 times.

1:03:03

And if I don't get him this pretzel, I'm

1:03:06

gonna, he's gonna cry and

1:03:08

I'm gonna hear about it all day. So

1:03:10

I was like, all right, fuck it. And I had a hoodie in

1:03:12

the car that was pretty big. I put it on, tried

1:03:15

to put my hand in the pocket and lower it down as much as

1:03:17

I could. I was like, we're going, let's go. We're going to the fucking

1:03:19

parade, dude. We went to the parade

1:03:21

and we stood and we watched it and I had,

1:03:24

I mean, visible legs showing.

1:03:27

It was wild. And about halfway

1:03:29

through the parade, the woman sitting next to me, she's like,

1:03:31

Hey,

1:03:33

I didn't want to blow up your spot, but I graduated

1:03:35

with your brother. She's like, you're a gether,

1:03:37

right? I'm like, yeah. She's like, I graduated with Greg.

1:03:40

She's like, you're the famous one, right? I'm like, yeah, he's the infamous

1:03:42

one. We're like chuckling about it. And then

1:03:44

another guy at one point walks by from across

1:03:47

the street. He's like little gether, man. You make

1:03:49

us proud. And I'm like, all I want

1:03:51

it. In my head, I was like, I don't know

1:03:53

if they're just being nice or if no

1:03:56

one has noticed that I have. I

1:03:58

can show you a picture. I have a picture.

1:03:59

I'd love to see it. Like a severe, I'm

1:04:02

not talking like a whole, I'm talking

1:04:04

like one side of the pants barely

1:04:07

existed anymore. Here,

1:04:10

when I went home and took them off,

1:04:14

these were the pants I wore to my hometown.

1:04:16

Oh my God, they're so tattered. Wow, show

1:04:19

the camera. Yeah,

1:04:23

it looks like a fabric, like

1:04:25

a bolt of fabric or something that's

1:04:27

ripped. It looks like someone

1:04:30

was intentionally destroying them. And

1:04:32

I wore those to my hometown, saw

1:04:35

people who have known my family for generations,

1:04:38

saw people I went to high school with, people who recognized me. Was the

1:04:40

rip just in the back or was it also? It

1:04:42

was like the entire

1:04:45

left leg, pretty much from the knee. Your

1:04:48

pants exploded. They exploded. Pretty

1:04:50

much there was a small strip on the front

1:04:53

that still existed and everything from my

1:04:55

left knee

1:04:56

up my entire thigh to my buttock

1:04:58

didn't exist. And I

1:05:00

just went and, but I felt like that was maybe on some

1:05:03

level, a good lesson to learn of like, yeah, my

1:05:05

life, my life isn't about the validation

1:05:07

or needing these people to think up something anymore. My

1:05:09

life now is like, the

1:05:11

kid wants a hot pretzel. Let's go get him

1:05:13

a pretzel. And that's a much bigger priority

1:05:15

than me being like, I can't, I can't let these people see

1:05:17

me like this. That's sweet. Can't let these

1:05:19

people see this because it was really,

1:05:22

it

1:05:22

was really humiliating. And no

1:05:24

one said a word and they must have seen. You

1:05:27

can't not notice that, right? I mean,

1:05:30

unless it wasn't really crowded and they

1:05:32

were just like not looking down. It was fairly

1:05:34

crowded, but there were also people like the woman who recognized

1:05:36

me from brother's class, she was sitting in a beach chair

1:05:39

next to me. She was eye level

1:05:41

with my ass. I feel like she probably noticed. So

1:05:43

maybe they thought it was in your fashion. Where

1:05:46

does your wife come down on

1:05:49

the urge to be protective,

1:05:54

like, you know, not be

1:05:56

noticed? Well,

1:05:58

my wife.

1:06:01

That's a really great question. It's a really great question.

1:06:03

I think she and I would both say that I have a lot more

1:06:05

hangups about this stuff in terms of our kid.

1:06:07

I mean, my wife is like a super bad

1:06:10

ass person. She was the lead singer in

1:06:12

a punk rock, a few punk rock bands and she's

1:06:14

toured all over and she was in some very notable,

1:06:18

you know, she was in the national touring company of Rent

1:06:20

and she was in the shows De La Guarda and Fuerza

1:06:22

Bruto, which if you know about them in New York,

1:06:24

they were these like

1:06:26

ultra hip, very influential aerial

1:06:28

dance theater shows. Like she

1:06:31

is a person who has accomplished a lot.

1:06:33

And I think part of

1:06:35

why she and I clicked so hard is I think

1:06:37

she and I both have felt that drive.

1:06:40

I think she's

1:06:42

a lot more, I don't

1:06:45

want to use the word normal because that's,

1:06:47

you know, that's a dangerous word to apply to anything. But

1:06:49

like, she's certainly a lot more chill about

1:06:52

the idea that if a kid is mean to my

1:06:55

now four year old,

1:06:56

that this isn't something that has like

1:07:00

ultra deep implications that

1:07:04

are

1:07:05

like a pebble was dropped in the

1:07:07

pond in the 1980s with the stuff I saw

1:07:09

and that somehow those waves are still washing up for my

1:07:11

son today. She's I think a

1:07:14

lot more able to see the realistic

1:07:16

view on these things for sure. But

1:07:19

you know, she was also, she also helped

1:07:21

out at this Valentine's Day party at preschool this

1:07:23

year, my son was being a know it all to another kid

1:07:25

and the kid just kind of mushed him in the face and

1:07:27

my kid just walked away and I was like, did

1:07:29

he, did he bite back? She's like, no,

1:07:31

there's three it happens. Like I

1:07:34

said something to the teacher

1:07:35

and the teacher had seen it and they're on

1:07:37

it. It's okay. We'll keep our eye on it.

1:07:39

And I'm like, okay, do I have to teach this kid

1:07:41

how to survive in a kumite? Do you

1:07:45

need to know how to fight on the streets?

1:07:47

Yeah, yeah, that's something my husband

1:07:49

is very much like the world

1:07:52

is like very he's very, he has

1:07:54

a very grim outlook of where

1:07:56

where society and the environment

1:07:58

and everything is headed. And it's like And

1:08:01

also we're older parents, so he's the same.

1:08:03

We gotta like get them into martial arts or self-defense

1:08:06

or my what my what I will say

1:08:08

My wife is better about the day-to-day stuff. She

1:08:10

is similar She's an environmentalist and she's

1:08:12

very convinced that my son is gonna exist

1:08:14

in like a Mad Max Hellscape

1:08:17

future when we're dead

1:08:18

where she's like was this fair? We're

1:08:20

killing the earth and he's gonna live in like a desert

1:08:23

where people are murdering each other for drops of water

1:08:26

And I'm like, I hope not. Oh, we gotta

1:08:28

get to work on that

1:08:28

That

1:08:31

one that's right you mentioned last time didn't don't

1:08:34

you live in a paper towel-less home

1:08:36

or

1:08:37

Yeah, I'm amazed you remember that

1:08:40

yeah

1:08:40

We large you have like reusable paper towels

1:08:42

or something. There was a stretch where we had reusable

1:08:45

paper towels Oh not even down from those Which

1:08:47

I'm glad about because I never said this to my wife

1:08:49

because she is a good-hearted person who's

1:08:51

trying to save the earth the idea of

1:08:54

washing and reusing a paper towel It

1:08:57

didn't make me feel Unsick

1:09:00

to my stomach. You know, it's like oh no

1:09:02

the whole point of a paper towel Disposable

1:09:04

use this for the grossest stuff and then it's out of your

1:09:07

life But yeah now we have we

1:09:09

I think we have a role

1:09:10

of recycled material. Okay,

1:09:13

I think that's the middle how the mighty have fallen

1:09:16

Oh, you know, she she crushes it. She she

1:09:19

works hard for the environment for real. So

1:09:21

you volunteer to drive

1:09:24

Yeah, yeah, I'm tease. Yeah,

1:09:27

I'm not an EMT

1:09:27

right that takes a lot of work, but I drive the

1:09:29

ambulance It's kind of the best thing going in my life

1:09:31

now It's kind of the thing I'm most excited about I

1:09:34

drive an ambulance around a small town in New Jersey Do

1:09:37

you turn on the siren? I just

1:09:39

did on a when was it?

1:09:42

Sunday no Saturday Saturday

1:09:44

night There was a call and

1:09:47

on weekend days in my town. It's like I'm

1:09:49

on the Tuesday night shift But Saturday and Sunday

1:09:52

from until 7 p.m It's like

1:09:54

a scramble and there's an app and it's like if

1:09:56

you if the thing goes off

1:09:58

and you see that nobody else is

1:09:59

answer and you go and you do it. So my parents

1:10:02

were in town for my son's birthday. And

1:10:04

I said, no, they don't have a driver.

1:10:06

Two AMTs have answered, no driver. They were

1:10:09

like, all right, go, we'll watch the baby. And I went and drove

1:10:11

on Saturday. I drove

1:10:13

on a call where I went on the highway and turned on the horns

1:10:15

and the lights and blasted the big overhead

1:10:17

horns to tell people to stop. And

1:10:20

it's very nerdy. And I hang out with a bunch

1:10:22

of senior citizens mostly as I do it.

1:10:25

But I really like it. I really like

1:10:27

it. It's strange

1:10:30

to be like, I'm in my 40s. And

1:10:32

the thing I get the most joy out of right now, outside

1:10:35

of family, it's no longer art.

1:10:37

It's no longer comedy, music, all these

1:10:39

things like, oh, I drive an ambulance.

1:10:41

That's cool.

1:10:45

Were you someone who had ever

1:10:48

wished to drive an ambulance or a fire truck or

1:10:50

anything like that when you were younger? I spent most of my life

1:10:52

thinking primarily about myself. I'm an artist,

1:10:55

comedian. I like a microphone and a spotlight.

1:10:59

But yeah, I mean, I think I mean, I

1:11:01

do think that I walked

1:11:04

a very lucky path where

1:11:05

between my TV show, a beautiful

1:11:07

anonymous, a few other things, career suicide,

1:11:09

my HBO special, I do think they all

1:11:11

had an element of trying

1:11:12

to trying to provide

1:11:15

some sense of comfort for other people in

1:11:17

different ways. And as I've

1:11:20

kind of aged as an artist and realized like

1:11:22

you don't get to stay cool forever, relevance

1:11:25

comes and goes, you don't know when it's going to come

1:11:27

back. Things get canceled,

1:11:29

things blow up, things cool down. I'm

1:11:32

like, well,

1:11:33

even if it doesn't come through art,

1:11:36

the compassion side of it is something I

1:11:38

can find.

1:11:39

Because there's so many ways to volunteer your

1:11:41

time that just help other people for the sake

1:11:43

of it.

1:11:44

And that is something I'm pretty proud that I've kind

1:11:46

of matured into.

1:11:48

Because you'd be shocked, you'd be shocked

1:11:50

how close to you there are, there

1:11:53

are definitely volunteer organizations

1:11:55

close to you,

1:11:56

wherever you're listening, I guarantee it that could

1:11:59

use your help right now.

1:11:59

And also in a way that's

1:12:02

actually scary, just

1:12:04

from driving this dumb ambulance.

1:12:07

I'm like, oh, a lot of the fabric

1:12:09

of society is held together

1:12:12

by volunteers,

1:12:14

not getting anything as they

1:12:16

work through organizations that are

1:12:18

so underfunded that it's scary.

1:12:21

You know, and it's like, even

1:12:24

in my situation, I'm like, man, most of

1:12:26

the volunteers are retired people.

1:12:29

Other EMT squads in towns

1:12:31

near us have shut down recently because young

1:12:33

people just aren't volunteering anymore. And

1:12:36

it's like, ah, kind of for some reason, the

1:12:38

same part of me that felt cool about being on public

1:12:40

access TV or knowing about punk rock

1:12:42

in high school,

1:12:44

driving the ambulance with the retirees

1:12:46

in town. I'm like that for that is me

1:12:49

in my 40s, the closest to that punk

1:12:51

feeling I feel.

1:12:51

The retirees being the other volunteers

1:12:54

or the people you're driving or both.

1:12:58

Most of the volunteers, and I think this is true for a

1:13:00

lot of first aid squads,

1:13:02

are people who are retired. You know, you're out of the

1:13:04

house, you have more time, your kids aren't around, maybe you're

1:13:06

bored, you have the time to dedicate it to it. But when

1:13:09

you think of it, it's also like those people

1:13:11

can't do that forever. Your body

1:13:13

can't lift another human body when you're

1:13:16

getting into your 70s, your late 60s. I

1:13:21

wish that I could find a way to convince

1:13:24

young people that volunteering is cool

1:13:26

because I think

1:13:28

it's legitimately one of the coolest things

1:13:30

I've ever done. And

1:13:33

it's like most of what we do is help elderly

1:13:36

people in town. And you're always going to feel good

1:13:38

about that, right? Somebody

1:13:40

in their 80s or 90s falls, and then you

1:13:42

drive an ambulance and you help them get to the hospital

1:13:44

to get checked out. You just feel good about that. And

1:13:47

the times where this has been insane, it's

1:13:51

so insane. And

1:13:53

it's so funny

1:13:56

that I'm like, man, everybody should see this side

1:13:58

of life. Like what? Like,

1:14:01

I have to be very careful not to violate actual HIPAA

1:14:04

laws right now,

1:14:05

but like I can tell you, like, so first of all, like, I signed

1:14:08

up for this thing, I

1:14:12

didn't know what I was gonna do, I had to go train in

1:14:14

CPR one day class and then they gave me a

1:14:16

bunch of driving lessons, just one of the other ambulance

1:14:18

drivers in town,

1:14:19

and then I shadowed a guy.

1:14:21

And after three or four weeks of shadowing this guy on

1:14:24

Tuesday nights, the captain of the squad gets in touch with

1:14:26

me, he's like, so we're bumping you up,

1:14:28

you're our Tuesday night guy now.

1:14:30

And I was like, I've only shadowed this other

1:14:32

guy like three or four times, like I don't think I'm

1:14:35

even close to ready, he goes, well,

1:14:37

that guy bought a house in a different town, so

1:14:40

you're the Tuesday night guy. I was like, that's

1:14:42

how much of a threat this is on. I

1:14:44

got thrown into it.

1:14:46

And the first night that I ever drove by myself,

1:14:49

I had two calls,

1:14:50

and this tells you kind of the scope of it, right, one

1:14:52

was an older guy who had a pre-existing heart

1:14:55

condition, his

1:14:57

heart rate was weird. I

1:15:00

was very scared that my first ever call was gonna

1:15:02

be heart related, because those can be very intense as

1:15:04

you can imagine. We get there,

1:15:06

the guy's joking around with us, he's like, my

1:15:09

doctor told me I need to go to the hospital, my wife

1:15:11

and I are both elderly, she can't drive at night, I need

1:15:13

a ride, that's what this is about. He climbs on the ambulance

1:15:15

by himself, we're not scooping him up in a stretcher,

1:15:17

right, that's about as low key as it can get,

1:15:20

right.

1:15:21

2.30 in the morning, the pager explodes

1:15:24

again. I have my second call, this is the,

1:15:26

again, first time I've ever gotten a call, now

1:15:28

it's five, six hours later, I get my

1:15:30

second call.

1:15:31

And this app

1:15:33

gives you sort of a one sentence description

1:15:35

of what's going on, and then the 911 operator

1:15:38

can punch in and follow as they know it. So

1:15:40

that one sentence description comes up, and

1:15:42

usually it'll say

1:15:44

fall, or diabetic

1:15:46

issue, or asthma attack, you know, these

1:15:49

things that you're used to, broken bone, it

1:15:51

just says man in ditch. It's 2.30

1:15:54

in the morning, and I will

1:15:56

tell you, the town

1:15:58

I live in in New Jersey. is

1:16:01

very, very small.

1:16:02

And it's this weird mix where like, I

1:16:04

live in a neighborhood that's suburban,

1:16:07

but when you get to the end of the block and make a left, it's

1:16:09

just woods, where the end of the suburbs

1:16:11

and then you get into the part of New Jersey, that's farms,

1:16:14

and horse people and stuff like that.

1:16:16

And it's it really is the end. So a

1:16:18

lot of the town is this sort of rural field. And

1:16:20

we get out there.

1:16:22

And it's this guy,

1:16:23

and I won't say anything identifying about him. But he

1:16:26

basically says he's like,

1:16:27

yeah, I was, I got rid of that. And I'm like,

1:16:30

I'm really drunk one town over. And

1:16:33

I didn't drive, I took the train, but I missed the last train

1:16:35

home. So I figured I'd just walk home. And

1:16:37

we're like, Where do you live? And

1:16:39

the guy's like, he says the name of the town. And

1:16:42

we're like, Well, that's like a 50 minute drive.

1:16:45

And you're gonna try to walk it at 230. It's like,

1:16:47

that's like a multi hour walk

1:16:50

in the middle of the night. And he's like, Yeah, what can I say?

1:16:52

I'm really drunk. But the thing is,

1:16:53

his tone of voice was like this, like, I haven't

1:16:56

been a drinker in many years.

1:16:57

But I was looking at this guy was like, you're not drunk.

1:17:00

Right. He's talking like I'm talking right now. There's

1:17:02

nothing about this guy. His ankles all busted

1:17:04

up. He's bleeding from his head because he fell into this ditch

1:17:07

in the dark because my town doesn't even have streetlights.

1:17:10

My crew chief is like, um,

1:17:12

why didn't you call a friend to come pick you up? He's

1:17:15

like, I guess I just don't have any friends who would

1:17:17

step up like that. And she's like, Oh, that's a bummer. Why

1:17:19

didn't you call an Uber?

1:17:21

He's like, I don't have it on my phone.

1:17:23

She's like, Well, why didn't you download it? He goes, I

1:17:26

wasn't getting any reception. She's like, but you

1:17:28

called us. So you definitely have no reception.

1:17:30

And they just stared at each other. And

1:17:33

I was just looking at him and I'm like, What

1:17:35

is this fucking guy lying about?

1:17:37

We could all tell,

1:17:39

like, what was he lying about?

1:17:42

And eventually he was like, I don't want

1:17:44

to go to the hospital. The cop is like,

1:17:46

I can't let you wander around town limping and I'm

1:17:48

gonna get 10 more calls about you get in the ambulance. We

1:17:50

take them to the hospital. Like you

1:17:52

go in, tell them you don't want to go. They'll deal with

1:17:55

it. And I mean, that was about a year

1:17:57

ago. And we still sometimes will be like, what do

1:17:59

you

1:17:59

was really going on because he wasn't drunk

1:18:03

and it was weird. Some other people were like, I

1:18:05

think he was on drugs. I'm like, I think it was a bed hookup.

1:18:07

I think he was like hooking up with somebody in their car

1:18:10

or their house and they were like, you're being weird. Get out

1:18:12

of here. And then he fell in the ditch.

1:18:15

It was so weird. And I think about

1:18:17

it forever. But

1:18:19

why do you think he didn't call Uber? I

1:18:22

have no idea. I have no idea why you

1:18:24

would try to walk. Right.

1:18:26

Hours in the dead of night

1:18:28

in the pitch black rather

1:18:30

than just get a call. Yeah. Like that's what I mean. I think

1:18:32

like somebody was like, dude, I'm

1:18:35

not into butt stuff or foot stuff. I've

1:18:37

told you four times, just get out of my house. And

1:18:40

he didn't even have time to call the Uber. You know, I think

1:18:42

he was like, I gotta just go right now. And I think he was walking

1:18:44

just to get away from a situation

1:18:47

like that. Right? Like, I think he was some guy

1:18:49

who tried to pitch a golden shower. And the

1:18:51

person he was with was like, not my thing.

1:18:54

And I think this is over. And he was like, I

1:18:56

should just

1:18:56

go right now. I think

1:18:58

it was something like that. Yeah. Who

1:19:00

knows? Well, if he's listening, I hope

1:19:02

he lets us know what's going on. And I hope he's okay.

1:19:04

And I don't think I've revealed enough to violate any

1:19:07

laws. No. I don't think any identifying details

1:19:09

in there. But if he is listening, I should let

1:19:11

you know, sir. I've wondered about you

1:19:13

since the day that happened.

1:19:16

You get a nice mix of things. I've only had a couple

1:19:18

of ones where I was like, this is the fear

1:19:20

is that you're going to see like messed up stuff where people

1:19:23

are under duress. I've had that happen twice

1:19:25

in 13 months of doing this. Most of them are

1:19:27

just like helping somebody in need

1:19:29

or something very weird. And

1:19:32

the weird ones are kind of funny and intriguing.

1:19:34

It's pretty good.

1:19:36

Pretty good stuff.

1:19:37

Yeah, I was wondering, to me,

1:19:39

the idea of driving an ambulance sounds

1:19:42

very stressful. So I'm glad to know that you

1:19:44

got

1:19:44

some training. It can be stressful.

1:19:46

But like the other night that's called on Saturday,

1:19:49

I was on route 287, which for anybody

1:19:52

listening, if you know Jersey,

1:19:54

that's a major highway. That's like

1:19:56

a multi lane highway and that becomes

1:19:58

a big trucking road at night. There was an

1:19:59

accident out there, everybody was fine or

1:20:02

else I wouldn't even be bringing it up.

1:20:03

But I got to drive the ambulance on a completely

1:20:06

shut down highway. That's

1:20:08

fucking cool. It feels cool to

1:20:10

be out there like blasting the horn and everybody gets out

1:20:12

of the way and I'm like, now it's just an empty

1:20:15

route 287. Lived in Jersey

1:20:17

my whole life. I've never seen this road this empty.

1:20:19

This is cool. That is pretty cool.

1:20:22

Yeah.

1:20:22

So we have some questions that listeners sent

1:20:24

in on Patreon, patreon.com slash Alison

1:20:26

Rosen. And

1:20:29

we have a song. When we ask,

1:20:30

they send them in. They're wondering how you have been. So thanks

1:20:32

so much for answering

1:20:35

these questions from our

1:20:38

fans.

1:20:45

All right. My phone is being a little squirrely

1:20:47

so we're going to have to cut this part out while I pull

1:20:49

up the questions. I think let's leave it in. Let's

1:20:52

let the people see the scars. Okay. We

1:20:54

can do that too. Let people see how the sausage gets made. All

1:20:57

right.

1:20:57

If we're letting people see how the sausage gets made,

1:21:00

how are we doing on time? Because I know you have another interview

1:21:02

after this. It's three 12 now. Oh, I think

1:21:04

I'm good. Okay. Yeah. Oh, 430

1:21:07

in Beverly Hills. Yeah.

1:21:08

I mean, it could work. You're good.

1:21:10

I think he's got it up. It's like

1:21:13

a 20 to 30 minute drive, but it'll probably be worse than that.

1:21:15

Anyway, I know that can change. Especially as you're

1:21:17

getting later. Okay. Yeah. So

1:21:20

we'll, I'll be less rambly in my hands. No,

1:21:21

no, I think we're, I think you've got, you've

1:21:23

got 15 minutes. If I'm

1:21:25

late, I'm late. That's right. Things

1:21:28

happen. Yeah. Who is it? I

1:21:31

forget. Legitimately. Okay. Because

1:21:33

I have three tomorrow. Oh my God. And

1:21:36

a couple more Thursday. It's a lot. All

1:21:38

right. Tom

1:21:39

Bossong says, what is the scariest

1:21:41

call or creepiest call you ever received

1:21:44

on beautiful stories from anonymous people?

1:21:47

There's a few that come to mind.

1:21:51

There's only been a handful of calls in seven

1:21:54

years that we haven't aired.

1:21:56

The large majority of those are. because

1:22:01

either like I'm having an off day as a host

1:22:04

or there's technical difficulties or it just is kind

1:22:07

of a little boring in a way nobody anticipated and

1:22:09

we're like yeah that's fine happens but

1:22:11

there have been two where the people

1:22:14

it was clear the two people were doing

1:22:17

the people were unwell to

1:22:19

the point where we

1:22:21

can't present this as entertainment

1:22:23

and one where we actually stopped the call where I was like listen

1:22:25

like I think you're this

1:22:27

is clearly a cry for help and I'm gonna

1:22:29

stop the call let you know I'm not putting it out but let's and

1:22:31

we talked actually for much longer than we would

1:22:34

have that I will say

1:22:36

we did air one I

1:22:39

forget the exact title of it but the listeners

1:22:42

of my show will know right away there's

1:22:44

someone who called up and was

1:22:47

basically explaining how their

1:22:51

boyfriend was very very manipulative

1:22:53

and controlling and

1:22:55

they were feeling like it might be abusive

1:22:59

and she

1:23:02

mentioned early in the call that

1:23:05

her boyfriend also listens to Beautiful Anonymous

1:23:08

and that when

1:23:10

she was on hold he texted her and she said

1:23:13

I got through to Beautiful Anonymous I think I'm about to record

1:23:15

a call with Chris so she's tough

1:23:17

and she was like he knows that I'm doing this

1:23:20

right now and then halfway

1:23:22

through the call I heard a door open

1:23:25

and she just stopped talking and it

1:23:27

went silent and I realized

1:23:29

he came home to like

1:23:34

gut check her during

1:23:36

the course of this call right like I think his mind

1:23:38

was going what is she saying about me right now I'm

1:23:41

gonna go there and show my face

1:23:43

and it was so sad to

1:23:45

hear someone say like I feel like

1:23:47

I'm in this situation that's you

1:23:50

know scaring me

1:23:52

effectively and then to hear her get scared

1:23:54

when the person and I flipped out and

1:23:57

was like I heard what

1:23:59

just happened and it's completely fucked up and unforgivable.

1:24:01

And dude, I know you're gonna listen to this someday, because

1:24:04

you listen to the show and clearly you're also a narcissist.

1:24:07

And I want you to know what you just did. It was really

1:24:09

obvious and really fucked up. And

1:24:12

we debated if we should even release that one, but

1:24:14

we felt like it would maybe,

1:24:16

it was one of those ones that feels like it could

1:24:18

help a lot of people if it's out there.

1:24:21

Not even because of what we did, but because the caller

1:24:23

was so strong and so clear about it. That

1:24:26

one was very scary, very scary, yeah. Now,

1:24:30

what was the argument for not releasing it? You

1:24:33

know, it's the thing that happens. I'm very, very conscious

1:24:35

with podcasting of like,

1:24:37

it's my job and

1:24:40

it's this cool thing and it's great to offer

1:24:42

people a platform. But at the end

1:24:44

of the day, it's entertainment. Like I

1:24:46

started the show as a comedian and we still have

1:24:49

like the call we released earlier today. Dude just

1:24:51

talked to me about yo-yos for an hour. We still have some

1:24:53

that are just like light and silly and fun. We

1:24:56

have some that are very funny, but every now and then we

1:24:58

get one that's really intense like that.

1:25:01

I'm not a social worker. I'm not a therapist.

1:25:03

I'm very, very aware of that.

1:25:05

So I do do a lot of soul searching

1:25:08

about,

1:25:10

it's entertainment and as someone

1:25:12

else's duress,

1:25:14

entertain. Right.

1:25:16

So it was one of those debates. But at the end of the day,

1:25:18

I think she had so much to say,

1:25:23

honest and

1:25:25

brave and useful stuff for

1:25:27

other people in the same situation to say

1:25:29

that it was like, I think this is worth putting out

1:25:31

there and this is worth giving a platform to. But

1:25:34

to hear her say like, there's someone

1:25:36

in my life who I view as an abuser who

1:25:39

knows I'm doing this right now. And to hear that person

1:25:41

come in halfway through, I was like, this

1:25:44

is really,

1:25:45

really screwed up. Really screwed

1:25:47

up. Lucas Malone would like

1:25:49

to know, do you have any new favorite

1:25:52

craft sodas? Oh

1:25:54

yeah. I've been obsessed with sodas for many years.

1:25:56

I haven't been as big on sodas

1:25:59

as I used to. used to be because I once went to the dentist

1:26:02

and opened my mouth and she didn't even ask

1:26:04

me if I drank soda. She was like, stop drinking

1:26:06

so much soda. My mouth

1:26:08

wasn't even fully open and she was like, too much soda.

1:26:11

So I did have to slow down a little bit. As

1:26:14

far as things that have been really working for me

1:26:17

lately, I can

1:26:21

tell you that I did a big turnaround on San

1:26:23

Pellegrino, which is not as much a craft soda, but

1:26:25

I used to view... I'm not a Seltzer fan.

1:26:27

I think of Seltzer as

1:26:29

kind of bad soda. And

1:26:32

I recently came around on San Pellegrino and realized

1:26:34

that no, those are different and those are pretty special.

1:26:37

They have more flavor. Yeah, much more of a

1:26:39

burst of flavor and much

1:26:42

less of a like, you're drinking something

1:26:44

carbonated that tastes faintly like a

1:26:46

flavor that you want.

1:26:48

I just can't with Seltzer's.

1:26:50

I can't. And when LaCroix had its moment,

1:26:52

I was like, why are we all flipping out about this? It's

1:26:55

not good. It's not even good for Seltzer. It's

1:26:57

not even good for Seltzer. We got

1:26:59

Spindrift in this world. Why are we even talking

1:27:01

about LaCroix? But my favorites,

1:27:04

I still love Mr. Cucumber. I

1:27:06

still love Virgil's Special

1:27:08

Edition Bavarian Nutmeg. I still love everything

1:27:11

the Natron of bottling works. Oh, this

1:27:13

person, if this person is a soda person, I will tell you this.

1:27:16

I toured through Milwaukee and I

1:27:18

went on a tour of the Sprecker's bottling

1:27:20

plant and that is the nerdiest soda related

1:27:22

thing I've ever seen. I toured the bottling

1:27:25

plant where some of my favorite sodas are made. And

1:27:27

the dude giving the tour was visibly,

1:27:31

like visibly was giving me looks by the end

1:27:33

because I was asking great questions.

1:27:36

Like what? I'd be like, so you

1:27:38

know, like I know

1:27:40

Sprecker's uses honey as a sweetener instead

1:27:42

of cane sugar and that's probably like the twist.

1:27:44

But as far

1:27:47

as honey storage goes, I know it crystallizes.

1:27:49

So how do you make sure you're hot? And he was like, you're asking

1:27:51

me about the honey anti-crystallization. I'd

1:27:54

be like, if it does crystallize, does it mess with

1:27:56

the brewing equipment? Do you extra cleaning things?

1:27:58

He was like, why do you care?

1:27:59

I care so much

1:28:02

and I don't know why, but I care so

1:28:04

much. I had real questions

1:28:07

on that tour. You were prepared. Now

1:28:09

what did the dentist see

1:28:11

in your mouth do you think? Cause I have, and

1:28:14

this I've talked about too much on the show. I've got

1:28:16

a little enamel loss situation. I think

1:28:18

it was enamel. I was just gonna say it was enamel. I

1:28:20

think the enamel was just visibly burnt

1:28:22

off. When I open my mouth, they're always like. Citric

1:28:24

acids.

1:28:24

Yeah, but they don't instantly think soda.

1:28:27

They're just like, what happened? Yeah,

1:28:29

she called it right away. This dentist was like,

1:28:31

you drink a lot of soda. You gotta chill out with that.

1:28:33

I was like, how'd you know? And she's like, cause your teeth

1:28:36

are like

1:28:37

chalk, you know? Like me

1:28:39

to take care of these. Actually, I was

1:28:42

just thinking about this the other day. A hygienist was

1:28:44

like,

1:28:47

wanted to know if I struggle with bulimia.

1:28:50

She's like, this is a safe space. Wow.

1:28:52

And I had, like I told her more than once.

1:28:55

I think it was one of those, I said no. And

1:28:58

then I think she's like, are you sure? And

1:29:00

I'm like, this is a safe space.

1:29:04

Which actually like really annoyed me.

1:29:07

Even though I think maybe

1:29:10

there had, there could have, which I've never been bulimic.

1:29:13

I think there could, I've struggled with

1:29:15

all sorts of things but not that specifically.

1:29:19

I think there could have been a universe where I didn't

1:29:21

take offense to, but it was more

1:29:23

like because I could tell that she wasn't believing me. But

1:29:26

then when the dentist came in,

1:29:27

he's like, no, this is soda. He's like,

1:29:29

thank you. Yeah. But anyway,

1:29:31

yeah. Your teeth are rotting out of your head for, physical

1:29:34

sugar addiction, not because of. Well, so

1:29:36

actually it's the, like you said, it's a citric acid.

1:29:38

Because for years, all I drank, I

1:29:40

never drank anything with calories.

1:29:43

So it's always like zero calorie

1:29:45

flavored waters is what I was my,

1:29:48

that was my poison for years. But

1:29:50

like in the middle of the night too. Like I just don't like

1:29:52

water. So I would drink these wild cherry

1:29:55

flavor. They sell them at pavilions.

1:29:56

It's all I drank.

1:29:59

I can now switch to water, but I'm like, I've

1:30:02

introduced diet Sprite back into the mix a little

1:30:04

bit. I'm like, that's just so good. Yeah. But

1:30:07

yeah, I think it's a citric acid.

1:30:08

I need the caffeine too. I'm a dad now,

1:30:10

I need to wake up. I had a Mexican Coke

1:30:12

earlier today. I know it's become a hipster

1:30:15

thing, it's delicious.

1:30:16

Do you, is your preference, when

1:30:18

it comes to soda, is your preference can or bottle?

1:30:21

Oh, bottle. Okay. The derision

1:30:23

in your face. If you're drinking from a

1:30:25

bottle, no, but because here's the thing, and this was once explained

1:30:27

in a video

1:30:28

by John Neese, the proprietor of Galco's,

1:30:31

which is my favorite thing in Los Angeles, is the soda

1:30:33

supermarket, Galco's. He

1:30:35

once said,

1:30:36

whatever they put in a bottle, that's

1:30:39

what's coming back out. Yes.

1:30:41

In a glass bottle, like a plastic bottle can,

1:30:44

you're not getting the same thing. Right. But

1:30:46

whatever that was intended to be, when the bottleer put it

1:30:48

in that glass bottle, you're tasting it as

1:30:50

they meant it. It doesn't degrade at all.

1:30:51

There's a lot of people who are like very religious about

1:30:56

Diet Coke from a tap. Not I.

1:30:59

No. Also, those like

1:31:01

Coke, there's people who are obsessed with those

1:31:04

like Coke remix machines. Oh, yeah.

1:31:06

You can add your own flavor combos,

1:31:08

and that's all novelty. Yeah. Those

1:31:10

are fun, but it always tastes bad. It always tastes

1:31:12

bad. It's a tease. Why are

1:31:14

you like teasing me with the chance at a cherry

1:31:16

vanilla Mr. Pibb? Right. When

1:31:19

it's gonna be, you just have dirt,

1:31:21

these are just dirty nozzles spraying

1:31:24

half watered down syrup. It's not good. I

1:31:27

can affect the technology, and then I can get on board.

1:31:29

Here, here. Let's

1:31:32

also do Just Me or Everyone.

1:31:35

Sometimes I ponder

1:31:38

on something I

1:31:40

have thought or done. Is

1:31:43

it just me or

1:31:45

everyone? All

1:31:47

right, Chris, do you have a Just Me or Everyone?

1:31:50

I do. Does

1:31:52

everyone have fast,

1:31:57

fast food orders that

1:31:59

they never...

1:31:59

never deviate from for 20

1:32:01

years because

1:32:04

Taco Bell in particular for me. I

1:32:07

realized a few years ago, I have had the

1:32:10

same exact order at Taco Bell

1:32:14

every time I've been there without deviating

1:32:17

even once

1:32:18

since I was 16 years old. That

1:32:21

was almost 30 years ago. I'm about to turn 43. What

1:32:24

is the order? For 30 years,

1:32:26

I've ordered two bean burritos,

1:32:28

nachos with cheese,

1:32:30

and then another thing I do that I don't do

1:32:32

anywhere but Taco Bell

1:32:34

is I mix half Pepsi, half

1:32:36

Mountain Dew and my soda. Oh, wow. And

1:32:38

I realized that for me, I'm like, that's, this is

1:32:40

a tradition.

1:32:42

Fast food, you keep it basic, you

1:32:44

keep it simple, you find something you like and you go with that,

1:32:46

apparently

1:32:46

forever. And it's brought

1:32:49

to my attention that other people will actually try

1:32:51

to get different items from the menu.

1:32:54

I've never understood when they're like, oh, we can now we got

1:32:56

one that's a Dorito wrap. I'm like, why? Because

1:32:58

everybody's locked in on their shit already. I've

1:33:01

started to realize no other people might like variation.

1:33:04

I think, yeah. I am a creature

1:33:06

of habit. I don't have any specific

1:33:10

like, oh, it's always the same order. But

1:33:12

it was the same soda for years. But

1:33:14

was it? Yeah, I mean, it was that wild cherry stuff

1:33:16

that destroys enamel. But,

1:33:20

you know, I don't have that. There's got to be people though,

1:33:22

Tony. It

1:33:24

generally will stay the same. I mean, like 20, 30 years. That's

1:33:28

a long time. I've definitely strayed since

1:33:30

then. But yeah, if I do go to Taco Bell

1:33:32

these days, it's been the same thing for

1:33:34

several years now, but not anything too crazy.

1:33:37

What's your order? And

1:33:39

this actually literally because I think I just hadn't

1:33:41

really had Taco Bell in a while. And

1:33:44

then in listening to Doughboys, they

1:33:46

kept recommending they were talking about cheesy

1:33:48

Gordita Crunch and the Doritos

1:33:51

tacos. And now that's that's what I get.

1:33:53

Now, are you never curious? It

1:33:56

doesn't even occur to me. Oh, I don't

1:33:58

even read the rest of the menu. Like it's not an

1:34:00

option. I realized at some point,

1:34:03

and I realized this probably a good 10 to 15 years ago. You're

1:34:06

taking your time. For me, what Taco

1:34:08

Bell means is two bean burritos,

1:34:11

an order of nachos with cheese, and a mix

1:34:13

of Mountain Dew and pepsin. I didn't

1:34:15

even know they offer a mix of sodas. Well,

1:34:18

because you go, you do your own. Oh,

1:34:20

right, right, right. So this

1:34:22

is for an indoor order. I see. I don't ask

1:34:24

them on the drive-through. That is

1:34:27

a very, if I go to a drive-through, I am too

1:34:29

embarrassed to ask them to mix Mountain Dew and

1:34:31

Pepsi. So I'll just get one or the other based

1:34:33

on mood. But if I go inside,

1:34:35

I always mix the two. And there's a system

1:34:38

by which I do it.

1:34:40

And I realized like 10 or 15 years

1:34:42

ago, oh,

1:34:43

I've only ordered this since I was

1:34:45

like 16. Yeah. When I used to go to the

1:34:48

East Hanover, New Jersey Taco Bell with my friends

1:34:50

after school.

1:34:51

And I just never stopped. And I've never

1:34:54

tasted anything else from Taco Bell. The

1:34:57

cinnamon twists once in a while as a little

1:34:59

treat for myself. Do you think you'll

1:35:01

ever switch it up? I don't think I will.

1:35:03

Even as I recognize that this is strange behavior

1:35:06

and a little bit of a problem, I

1:35:08

don't think I'll ever eat anything else

1:35:10

from Taco Bell. I

1:35:12

kind of, I get it in a way

1:35:14

though, because I get like that, not even just with

1:35:16

fast food, but restaurants in general, where

1:35:19

like, if I know I'm going there,

1:35:21

I know that I love this one thing

1:35:23

and maybe I'm missing out on other

1:35:25

things. But what if I get that and what if that sucks?

1:35:27

Like I know I'm going to love this. That's the rub

1:35:30

of a big menu because I frequently

1:35:32

will be like,

1:35:35

this some, some item, some, some aspect

1:35:38

of this is intriguing me. So I'm going to order

1:35:40

that and then it's out. And then I instantly, I regret

1:35:42

it when my, when my order is taken

1:35:44

to the back and I'm like, Oh, I don't think I'm going to

1:35:46

like it.

1:35:47

Yep. Yeah. It's

1:35:49

hard to stray sometimes. Also, I

1:35:51

think touring a lot adds

1:35:54

to this because I've had a lot of

1:35:56

really terrible food. So there is like, I am.

1:36:00

often made fun of by people who come on the road with

1:36:02

me.

1:36:02

Because if we pass a cracker barrel,

1:36:04

I'm pretty much eating at that cracker barrel. It's

1:36:07

a guarantee. And do you have your set order

1:36:09

there too? I'm on the vegetarian and they have a sides plate.

1:36:12

Sides plate is very reliable.

1:36:14

You can choose from like seven or eight items and

1:36:16

you know what you're getting. But the other thing I

1:36:18

recently realized about cracker barrel is they're all

1:36:20

set up the same exact way. Yes, they are exactly

1:36:22

the same. You walk in, but I went to one in Pennsylvania

1:36:26

where the counter was in front of you as you walked

1:36:28

in instead of to the left.

1:36:30

Cause usually the counters to the left, then there's

1:36:32

the kiosk where there's an ice thing of sodas.

1:36:34

And then the host who will seat you

1:36:36

in the restaurant that's behind them to the right

1:36:39

of that is where they sell their novelty sodas

1:36:41

in front of which is a big rack full of old

1:36:43

school candy. And just to the right

1:36:45

of that, you'll find the entrances to the bathrooms.

1:36:48

That's every cracker barrel I've ever been in except

1:36:50

this one in Pennsylvania. And

1:36:52

I got Disoriented?

1:36:55

I'm not even disoriented like unsettled. Like

1:36:59

you stepped into another dimension of the multi-bar.

1:37:01

It felt like an episode of Stranger Things or something.