10:00

strange thing. And it

10:02

was immediately apparent in hindsight,

10:05

is immediately apparent like, he

10:07

never should have let me come out there. He had no

10:09

place for me to be, had no money, had no job.

10:11

He was in debt to people

10:13

who were foolish enough to loan him

10:16

money. Eventually, we left there, went into

10:18

this Geronimo court thing. And

10:20

he had no job. And he was...

10:22

And we

10:28

left, we had been there for a

10:30

couple months, and he got this drive

10:32

away car. And it was very much

10:34

like, he didn't say

10:36

this exact thing, but I understood what

10:38

was happening, which was we were leaving

10:41

while they were away. And we

10:43

were very quickly packing up the car

10:46

with whatever we had. And

10:48

it was a station wagon. I remember

10:50

it was a station wagon with a

10:52

corrugated metal back that he had put

10:54

some cardboard down. And

10:58

just whatever, my suitcase, and

11:01

I had a guitar at that point that I had,

11:04

and some other stuff that I had

11:06

gotten from my Bar Mitzvah. And

11:09

then we loaded it up, we made sure

11:11

to get out there and not

11:13

let anybody see what we were doing. Because he

11:15

was clearly owed a lot

11:17

of rent. I think he was fucking this

11:20

really kind of sad.

11:22

It was very much like the,

11:25

what's her name? Jennifer Coolidge

11:28

character in White Lotus. Very

11:31

much like that, but more alcoholic

11:33

and more like ruddy

11:35

faced and the effects

11:37

of drinking nonstop. Broken

11:40

blood vessels. Yep. And

11:42

just bad skin. And she

11:45

was overweight,

11:48

wore moo moo's. I have

11:50

a character name that

11:53

I put in a lot of things

11:55

that I do in the TV

11:58

shows and movie. And it's called, her

12:00

name is Ms. Santiso and it's

12:02

based on her. And they just have the

12:04

name Ms. Santiso and it's basically her. And

12:07

was her... So her husband was

12:09

the landlord? Yes. Who

12:12

he owed money to? Yes. And he

12:14

was... They were having sex? I'm pretty sure.

12:16

And then in the middle of the night, like...

12:19

No, it wasn't in the middle of the night.

12:21

It was... I remember it was daytime because... But

12:24

yes, we... The whole thing was like,

12:26

do it, be quiet, don't... They're gone. Let's get

12:29

out of here. And then we... So

12:32

he'd gotten the car, we loaded it up. We

12:34

didn't... There were no possessions really, except stuff that

12:37

I brought out there. We... On

12:39

the way out of town

12:41

in Phoenix, we stopped by

12:43

a pawn shop and he took my

12:45

guitar. No. Come on now. Yes. He

12:48

took my guitar. He took... I

12:50

had gotten also a Jade

12:52

Star of David for

12:54

my bar mitzvah. Looked that

12:57

and hocked it for

12:59

gas money. Did

13:01

he tell you that he was doing that? Yeah.

13:03

And it was part of... And I was... I

13:07

still had dad worship. I mean, it hadn't

13:09

worn off yet. I still had like, my,

13:11

this is gonna be fun and awesome. And

13:14

then the

13:17

reason I brought this

13:19

whole thing up is on the drive back

13:21

to Georgia, he... I would... He

13:25

was from England and

13:28

so he had an English accent, but it

13:30

wasn't really strong. It was like,

13:32

you knew that he was English, but it

13:34

wasn't like thick Cockney

13:36

and he was from Leeds. So it

13:39

was that northern kind of sing song

13:42

cadence, but he really...

13:44

It wasn't... He moved to the States when he

13:46

was like 15. So it was... It was

13:49

there for sure, but I would watch him

13:51

when we'd go to a diner or something

13:53

and I would watch him flirt

13:55

with the waitresses and

13:58

the English accent always went up. And

34:00

they preserved the cold milk source that you

34:02

could go to that didn't have the warmth.

34:05

So this mother monkey would attack

34:07

these baby monkeys with these blunt spikes. The

34:09

baby monkeys would retreat for the duration of

34:11

the abuse and then endlessly try to repair

34:14

the relationship with it. They would hug it

34:16

and they would pull out their hair and

34:18

they would try anything they could to repair

34:20

this relationship with this primary attachment, not

34:23

knowing that it was just these fucking

34:25

psychopath scientists with their like random algorithm.

34:27

How are they supposed to know they're

34:29

stupid monkeys? I'm empathizing

34:32

with the monkeys. I think they're, but the

34:34

thought that like, well, if I just get

34:36

it right, then this will stop when it's

34:38

like, no, it's doctor, whoever is the one.

34:40

And then they would never go to the

34:42

milk source, the safe milk source that they

34:44

didn't have the attachment to. And when you're

34:47

talking about dad worship and that kind of

34:49

thing of like endlessly coming back, it's Lucy

34:51

and the football again and again and again,

34:53

but you just have to repair it. It's

34:56

so important. Until you realize. I

34:58

was the first kid to go. Cut bait. Yeah,

35:01

fuck this guy. Good for you. And then,

35:03

and my sister, I have two sisters. The

35:05

youngest one never really had any relationship with

35:07

her. I mean, he, she, he

35:09

was gone when she was five and I

35:12

mean, he never reached out. He never called.

35:14

He never, you

35:16

know, he never, he

35:19

was a deadbeat dad too. Never

35:21

a, what's it called when

35:23

you give money to provide. Yeah. Mandated.

35:27

Oh, oh, oh, child support, child support. Yeah. Never,

35:30

never any alimony. Never sending money. And,

35:35

and another story that I'm not going to get into, but

35:37

I, when I was at Phoenix with him

35:40

and he had no job and he had

35:42

to do something with me, I couldn't just

35:44

leave me wherever we were at the time.

35:47

I, so I went into the

35:49

city and I went into like city hall

35:51

or wherever it was to a court thing

35:54

where he went in

35:57

front of the judge and there's a

35:59

lot. straight

46:00

with her. I can be, I don't really

46:02

lie about

46:05

anything. I'm pretty, you know, and I treat her as an

46:07

adult and she

46:10

should be coming up from work now. She's

46:12

working? Yeah, in a coal mine. Oh, like

46:14

a plant? Oh, a mine. Yeah, mine. I

46:17

know, those are pretty antiquated. They don't even,

46:19

you probably have to look, really? Yeah,

46:22

there's big seams in West Virginia. You

46:24

have her working in West Virginia. When you say come home,

46:26

you mean she's like, like across the country?

46:30

Well, no, I don't live in LA. I live

46:32

in New York. So there's no time difference. So

46:34

it's, you know. Is

46:37

it like a factory whistle and then she has to go, how

46:39

old is she? Seven. She's

46:41

seven. Yeah. What's

46:43

the black lung situation? I think they

46:46

go out on tour. No,

46:48

no, no, I'm not talking about the band Black Lung. I'm talking

46:50

about with your daughters inhaling a lot of coke

46:54

and smoke and, you know. You

46:57

love the band Black Lung and your daughter works in a

46:59

coal mine? I know, isn't that cool how

47:01

that worked out? I don't like it at all.

47:03

I think it's kind of neat. I don't think

47:06

it's cool. I hate it. Just to be clear,

47:08

she's not, she

47:10

doesn't have a pickaxe. She's actually, she's

47:12

literally like the canary in the coal

47:14

mine. She's in a

47:16

cage. They dangle her. They cage your daughter

47:18

to see if there's enough oxygen for the

47:20

miners. Yeah, if there's any not just

47:22

gases and all that stuff. And then, I mean,

47:25

it's not like a cage cage. It's, you

47:27

know. What's it look like? Just describe

47:29

the structure of it so I can, because when

47:31

you say it's not a cage cage, it's hard

47:33

for me to understand what a cage, what a

47:35

nine cage cage would be. Okay, it's cage shaped.

47:38

It's all I needed to know. When you

47:40

see it, you're going to go, oh, that's a cage. Yeah, that's a

47:42

cage. It's got like

47:45

a micro fleece. It's

47:48

plush on the bottom? Yeah, they got some micro

47:50

fleece in there. There's a couple books, Bluey Books.

47:52

Bluey Books? Yeah, she loves Bluey. Did she have to

47:54

buy them with her own money that she made from

47:56

the coal mine? From the company store, yes.

56:00

When you know the thing you should

56:02

say and you say something else, the

56:06

thing you should say echoes in your head for

56:08

the rest of your life. I feel like it's

56:10

so painful. Well, give me an example. There

56:14

was, I'll keep it a little bit vague. When

56:16

I was in elementary school, I

56:19

went to see Dumbo, Operation

56:21

Dumbo Drop at the Dollar Theater

56:24

where they showed like third run movies

56:26

and this floor was like

56:28

fly paper. It was so sticky

56:30

with Sprite in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

56:34

And I was the guest, the invited guest of

56:36

the little brother of the birthday girl. The birthday

56:38

girl was older and she was going with her

56:40

friends, but he was allowed to bring one friend

56:42

and I went with them. And

56:45

then afterwards, we were at this ice cream parlor. I

56:47

just thought of one by the way. You did? What

56:50

is it? No, no. Continue and

56:52

I'll... So we're at this ice cream parlor and

56:54

all these older teenage girls are, well, they're not

56:56

teenagers, they're probably like 11 or 12 and I

56:59

was maybe eight or

57:01

nine or something. And I'd sprayed a

57:03

little bit of green spray, like Halloween green

57:05

hairspray in my hair because I thought that

57:07

would endear me to these older kids because

57:10

that's cool to have a little bit of

57:12

green hair. And then they

57:15

started talking about somebody, someone

57:19

they knew that I was very close to. And

57:22

they started saying really

57:24

cruel stuff about this person and they

57:27

went on and on and on, just

57:29

kind of like ridiculing them. And then they

57:32

looked to me knowing that I had... And

57:34

then they went, you don't care, right? You

57:37

don't mind we're talking... Like someone was like, you don't care.

57:39

And I was like, no, no. And

57:41

then I remember going home and going to

57:44

my mom and being like, I

57:46

didn't... I didn't do... I

57:48

just let it... I co-signed it. I

57:52

rubber stamped their hatred. I can't imagine I

57:54

used the phrase rubber stamped their hatred, but

57:57

whatever the sad little good version

57:59

of that is. And to this day,

58:01

even just telling it now, I

58:03

feel the kind of clench of like, like,

58:07

it's, you know, I don't know,

58:09

what about you? There,

58:11

I would have been

58:13

in fourth grade, I believe, maybe

58:16

fifth grade. And

58:19

it was in Georgia. And

58:23

there was a guy, you know, redneck, tough

58:25

kid, redneck, tough kid,

58:27

smoked, one of those guys, who

58:30

was the boyfriend, quote unquote,

58:32

of this girl that

58:36

I somehow insulted

58:40

by accident. I

58:42

don't remember what the thing was or said,

58:45

I liked her to somebody, whatever the thing

58:47

was, when you're in fifth grade. Whatever thin

58:49

pretext for fighting, yeah. So this,

58:53

no, I'm serious, phony. I'm

58:58

being serious here. So he was,

59:00

just like that classic elementary school

59:03

thing, he's

59:06

gonna beat me up after school at the bus stop.

59:09

And it's why I had all day

59:11

to be like, oh my God, what am I gonna do? And

59:15

this is

59:18

so awful. And

59:20

I know that I'm gonna get, you know, beat

59:22

up. And there

59:25

was an, you

59:28

know, I was, there weren't a lot

59:30

of kids that looked like me, you know, and it

59:32

was very white, the Baptist,

59:34

kind of, that

59:36

kind of crew and not

59:38

very diverse school, almost, you know,

59:40

it was almost all white. And,

59:43

you know, I had a Jew throw and broken

59:45

glasses with tape on them and, you know, but

59:48

it just didn't look like

59:50

the other kids, so. Thank God your

59:52

dad had hawked your, your, your,

59:54

your. And so I was, so we got, Hmm.

1:06:01

You don't like the South then?

1:06:03

I love the South. Well, that's

1:06:06

just the... I'm a huge... I

1:06:10

actually haven't spent that much time

1:06:12

in the South. And

1:06:16

I went to... I used

1:06:19

to do these touring improv shows

1:06:22

with the... Oh, with the cup and then you

1:06:24

pretend the cup is in a cabinet.

1:06:26

That's it. And then you pretend that you

1:06:28

have to put some pretend stuff in it. People would go ballistic

1:06:30

for it. They flipped out and

1:06:32

they loved it. You're a good pretender.

1:06:35

Thank you. We

1:06:39

did one show this was... Pretend

1:06:42

you have a suit on. Oh, thank

1:06:44

you. That

1:06:47

requires very little fanboy. Well, you're a

1:06:49

good pretender. Thank you. Pretend

1:06:52

you have a little less hair than you do

1:06:54

now. Just a little. Spot

1:06:58

on. Do

1:07:02

you think... I want to ask a question from before. If

1:07:06

your father had had fans like you had, people

1:07:09

coming up to him on the street being like,

1:07:11

hey, love your stuff and had

1:07:13

periodically been able to have the

1:07:15

novelty of going to strange cities and having

1:07:17

people cheer for him, do you think it

1:07:19

would have topped him off enough self-esteem wise

1:07:22

that he then would have been able to

1:07:24

return to a kind of... Oh, it's just

1:07:26

such a strange hypothetical. It's just a completely

1:07:28

different... If you would come up

1:07:31

to him and been like, love your stuff. What

1:07:33

stuff did they love? Bathing suits. Look.

1:07:36

Yeah. Was

1:07:41

he funny? He was. He

1:07:45

was very... and completely

1:07:48

the opposite of my mom. My mom is

1:07:50

very book smart, not

1:07:52

very street savvy. My dad was

1:07:54

street savvy, not very book

1:07:57

smart, didn't read. My mom

1:07:59

read voracious. He

1:08:02

was very jovial, very goofy,

1:08:05

fun, life

1:08:07

of the party type guy. He got me

1:08:10

into Abbot & Costello

1:08:12

and different comedy

1:08:14

stuff. He was very social. Did

1:08:23

he know you were funny? Did

1:08:25

I know? No, did he know you were funny? Not

1:08:29

that I am aware. He knew

1:08:32

that I liked that stuff and I

1:08:34

had stand-up albums when I was a

1:08:36

kid. I

1:08:41

don't know how funny I

1:08:44

was until later, I don't

1:08:47

know. I don't know how funny it was when

1:08:49

I was 9 or 10. Really? Yeah.

1:08:54

When you were talking about him and then

1:08:56

Trump and the validation thing, I saw this

1:08:58

one thing. It was

1:09:01

like back when, I guess it was in the 2020

1:09:05

election and Trump

1:09:08

had just had COVID and wasn't vaccinated or

1:09:10

something and he wouldn't, Biden wouldn't demand

1:09:12

him because he was like, I don't want to get sick. I don't

1:09:15

remember all the details, but Trump had a

1:09:17

town hall. There

1:09:19

was the weirdest moment that happened where

1:09:22

this woman got up in the town hall and went,

1:09:25

Donald, Mr. President Trump, whatever.

1:09:29

I just wish you would smile more. She goes, you

1:09:32

look so handsome when you

1:09:34

smile. The weirdest

1:09:36

thing happened where he got this smile. I've

1:09:38

never seen it before since. He

1:09:41

looked kind of pleased and embarrassed and

1:09:43

he looked like a little kid all

1:09:45

of a sudden, like a kind of

1:09:47

happy, vulnerable little kid. It fucked me

1:09:50

up real good because I was like, I

1:09:53

just think of him as being kind of this

1:09:55

character or whatever, but seeing

1:09:57

a moment where it was like. Oh,

1:10:01

he's shy. He's having a moment

1:10:03

of shy delight. It was so

1:10:05

weird. Well, now we got a vote for

1:10:07

it. That's it. That's all it took? That's all it took? The

1:10:10

humanity. But did you ever see it? Would you

1:10:13

see stuff like that? You might not

1:10:15

want to talk about your pops anymore, but last question. Did

1:10:17

you ever see moments where it was something penetrated

1:10:19

his kind of razzamatazz, his

1:10:22

manipulation of people? Did

1:10:24

you ever see a moment where he was like

1:10:26

the little boy version? No, I don't think so.

1:10:29

I don't think so. Got it. Okay. I'll stop

1:10:31

asking about this, but I was just curious about that last thing. Yeah.

1:10:34

Okay. Sorry. No, it's all right. Okay.

1:10:37

No, Zach, I... What? What do you

1:10:39

want? I

1:10:42

end every show with

1:10:44

a question to

1:10:47

my guest from my daughter, my

1:10:49

seven-year-old daughter. From

1:10:52

her cage. From her own

1:10:55

cage. And so... Yeah,

1:10:58

I will say this. The other day, she

1:11:01

tried to convince me that pumpkin pie is

1:11:03

good for your voice. I

1:11:06

can say intuitively that makes sense. It's like it

1:11:08

coats the... It's like throw a coat. Pumpkin

1:11:11

pie? Yeah, Louis

1:11:13

Armstrong went before he had pumpkin pie

1:11:16

sounded just like a boring, you know, just

1:11:18

like, ugh, like a lounge singer, but then

1:11:20

he'd get that bump. So,

1:11:24

maybe that's what you meant. Yeah, that's the... Yeah, she had... I

1:11:26

guess, yeah, the context is everything. Louis Prima,

1:11:28

all those guys, the big pumpkin heads. Okay.

1:11:36

Do I have snot coming out of my nose? Nope.

1:11:39

Good. So, here's a

1:11:41

question from my daughter. Okay. Yeah, it's a question. No,

1:11:43

no, no. Just a bit about the snot, because I

1:11:45

feel like there's snot coming out of my nose. Is

1:11:48

there a little bit? No, I don't see any.

1:11:51

Don't look at me. No? No.

1:11:54

Okay, CGI. Okay,

1:11:57

Zach, how does

1:11:59

Santa come to... some kids' houses if

1:12:01

they don't have chimneys. I'm

1:12:05

glad she asked that. He

1:12:08

has to come through whatever ventilation system

1:12:10

that they have, but it's incredibly painful

1:12:12

for him because he either has to

1:12:14

kind of wedge himself in through the

1:12:17

vent or departiculate in this way that's...

1:12:20

Departiculate, goodness. Yeah, like he can

1:12:22

become broken up into little portions, but

1:12:25

he screams. It's

1:12:27

so painful. It's

1:12:30

so awful and he'll wedge himself through and

1:12:32

he's screaming and screaming and he's crying, but

1:12:35

he's committed. He has to get those gifts in. And

1:12:38

one of the things that the real important

1:12:41

takeaway is there is it is very important

1:12:43

that your parents have wealth because if they

1:12:45

don't, you're torturing Santa. Like

1:12:48

they need it. If you're wealthy enough to have a

1:12:50

fireplace, then you're doing right by Chris. So

1:12:53

if he's going to the projects... God

1:12:56

help him. ...the Robert Taylor home. Sure. Lord,

1:13:00

that's excruciating. It's terrible. Sometimes I'll have

1:13:02

to go through window units, like people

1:13:04

who have a

1:13:06

season, he'll go through the window unit

1:13:08

and it just by the end, he's covered.

1:13:10

If you ever see the real Santa,

1:13:12

he's covered in scar tissue, just all

1:13:16

over. It's like... Wow. So

1:13:18

that's how he does it. Okay,

1:13:21

I'll let her know. It's a... Yeah,

1:13:23

this is if you want to know, if you have a house that

1:13:25

doesn't have a fireplace, look at your

1:13:27

events on December 25th and if

1:13:29

there's just trace amounts of blood

1:13:32

at flesh, you'll know, hey, you

1:13:34

were a good kid this year. He

1:13:37

hopes that you're a bad kid if you don't have a fireplace. Yeah,

1:13:39

I guess so. So

1:13:43

I would... Then

1:13:45

it stands to reason that he thinks,

1:13:48

hopes, wishes that wealthy

1:13:50

kids are good kids and

1:13:52

poor kids are shitty kids. Yeah, there's

1:13:54

a kind of unconscious bias that's been

1:13:56

sort of braided into his... Yeah.

1:14:00

But also, I don't

1:14:04

know, yeah, I don't know how much he's aware of

1:14:06

that as a bias, but he probably feels that way.

1:14:08

I know I do. Yeah. I

1:14:11

know I do. Yeah, well, it's been proven.

1:14:13

Show me a rich kid, I'll show you a good kid. All

1:14:17

right, Jack, thank you so much for

1:14:19

coming down. Thank

1:14:22

you for having me. It was a

1:14:24

treat. Sense is Working Over Time is

1:14:27

a Headgum podcast created and hosted by

1:14:29

me, David Cross. The show is edited

1:14:31

by Katie Skelton and engineered by Nicole

1:14:33

Lyons with supervising producer Emma Foley. Thanks

1:14:36

to Demi Druchen for our show art

1:14:38

and Mark Rivers for our theme song.

1:14:40

For more podcasts by Headgum, visit headgum.com

1:14:43

or wherever you listen to your favorite

1:14:45

shows. Leave us a review on Apple

1:14:47

Podcasts and maybe we'll read it on a future

1:14:49

episode. I'm not going to do that. Thanks

1:14:52

for listening. That was

1:14:54

a Headgum podcast.