Dave Grohl Convo Continued; A New “Am I the A$$hole Series;” and Katy Perry Works with Dr. Luke (Pt. 2)

Mark joins me for part two of my podcast, where we discuss whether Dave Grohl's affair leads to larger questions about his character. We also discuss how I'm cleaning out my friendship closet, which leads to a very important question — am I the A$$hole, or is my friendship picker broken?

Lastly, why did Katy Perry decide to work with Dr. Luke, and should she have given a better explanation on the CALL HER DADDY podcast?

Give me feedback on IG @THEDISHMASTER

Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):

All right. Welcome, mark.

Speaker 2 (00:02):

Hello,

Speaker 1 (00:03):

Mark. I'm so happy to have you back, obviously, because I like you, but also because I've been flying solo and it's been difficult.

Speaker 2 (00:11):

Well, it's good to be back. Sorry. It was a long absence. We had a baby.

Speaker 1 (00:16):

Yes. Well, you were on paternity leave. Hold on one second. My mom is knocking. I mean, I can't get any mom. I'm doing the podcast. All right, so tell the audience about what it is like to have two children and be a stay-at-Home. Dad,

Speaker 2 (00:34):

I think you told me something before you were like, yeah, I've heard that one kid equals one, but two kids equals five. And I was like, wow. Why didn't you tell me that before?

Speaker 3 (00:47):

It's true though, right?

Speaker 2 (00:49):

Yeah. I mean, when you have one, you can play zone defense and sort of trade off on things, but when you have two and a dog, and I know it sounds like whining and I love my kids and I'm

Speaker 1 (01:04):

Happy. I don't need to hear that. Yeah, I don't need to hear that.

Speaker 2 (01:07):

Well, maybe someone listening might be like, this guy's an asshole.

Speaker 1 (01:10):

No, nobody thinks that. Yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 2 (01:13):

But you can't play it the same way anymore. We've fallen into as a man, so I have the older kid, 3-year-old, and my wife is on the two month old now, and then she's going back to work and I'm staying home and the baby has a nanny, so that's fine. And the three year olds at school, so we're reaching an equilibrium. That's why I'm able to do this now.

Speaker 1 (01:38):

Right. So once a three year old's at school, you'll have private personal time.

Speaker 2 (01:44):

Yes.

Speaker 1 (01:44):

Like baby takes a nap, you can do your thing, and you have a nanny helping you and all that.

Speaker 2 (01:49):

Yeah, yeah. We're very lucky to be able to have a nanny.

Speaker 1 (01:53):

I have a friend that has three children. I always get worried talking about my friends, afraid they're listening and they're like, don't talk about my personal business. But I have a friend that has three children and then met a new man and has one child with him and able to have a night nurse and a nanny, and whatever makes your life easier and happier. I'm all for. But the new husband didn't raise children before, and she did, which is an interesting dynamic because he's experiencing everything for the first time, and this is an old hat to her. And then on top of that, she did it without the nanny the first round because the financial situation didn't allow for it. So in the second round with the nanny, she wants to be like, yo, dude, you got it good, you have a nanny. I already know what I'm doing. This is easy. But with many men, as you know, we talk about gender a lot when we're together. You can't lecture them. You can't say that outright. You have to kind of let them find their way. You can't say, can't say,

Speaker 2 (02:59):

Well, speaking for the male contingent here, that is true. It's hard to tell a man how things are going to go, but I think men want guidance. Some caring guidance would be helpful. A man, when a baby comes into the picture for the first time, for the man, there is a lot of feelings. And no one talks about that. The man feels very anxious because there's this thing to protect, and he doesn't think that it's only him that needs to protect the baby. He knows it's a shared obligation, but he has a lot of anxiety about not knowing what to do.

Speaker 1 (03:34):

But do you think that there's also the element that, and I'm being very gender normative here, but that there's a maternal instinct that the woman has that sort of satiates her, that the man doesn't, and that grows more? So

Speaker 2 (03:49):

I think it's possible that that is hormonal and programmed into our species and different genders, brains. I have no scientists, but I think it's possible that there's a lot of automation going on there. But for the man, I think there's less automation going on, and there's a lot of Where do I fit here? What do I need to do? There's not this feeling of automatic attachment and intuitive knowing exactly what to do at all times.

Speaker 1 (04:15):

One thing I've noticed in my many relationships is men have a very high tolerance for everything except an angry tone from a woman. They could handle depression, anxiety, freaking out, catastrophizing, overprotective. They can handle all that, but they can't handle you being snippety with them. If your tone is in any way that of contempt, that is the one thing they don't like. And I think when you yourself are under a pressure filled situation and you get frustrated and you snap a little bit at the man, everything begins to go downhill because he can't have that type of tone. Right.

Speaker 2 (05:03):

Well, I think it depends. What has his tone been? Has he been trying to be helpful and he is getting this shit? Maybe that's just not fair to him.

Speaker 1 (05:13):

Right. Because I think sometimes with myself, I could resort to a negative tone, and I've gotten so much better with this, and maybe that's why my relationships have gotten better, but sometimes I want to be like, yeah, I'm in a bad mood. Can we just let it go? Can I just have a day where I'm shitty?

Speaker 2 (05:35):

And that particular communication would be very helpful in that situation because a man knows what to do with that information. Oh, got it.

Speaker 1 (05:41):

That true. You're

Speaker 2 (05:43):

In a bad mood. I understand. I'm going to handle this differently now, and thank you for communicating that because now we have a baseline.

Speaker 1 (05:50):

Yeah, because I'm in a relationship now where the opposite happens with my boyfriend, where he's quiet. If he is upset, he just gets very quiet. And my response to that is, what's wrong? What's wrong? What's wrong? Talk to me. What's going on? And you're right. If you communicate and say, I need some time to be in my thoughts, it's not even about you. I'm thinking of work. That is very helpful because then you can just go, okay, we'll revisit it then. I don't have to just sit here in purgatory waiting for the other shoe to drop that I'm an asshole and you're unhappy and you're leaving me. Because that is what happens in my brain when somebody is not communicating. But all that stuff, you also learn as you go.

Speaker 2 (06:36):

You do. And my experience has been that with a toddler, it really draws into relief these moods that people get When you're an adult, you don't really think about moods as being these temporary things. Like you said, you catastrophize it as to being an indicator of something chronically wrong, which it might be, but it doesn't always have to be. But my toddler is just being a jerk and there's just nothing that I can do to

Speaker 4 (07:08):

Help.

Speaker 2 (07:09):

Sometimes I just have to wait it out in five minutes. It's fine. And I think that grownups are not that dissimilar.

Speaker 1 (07:16):

Well, that's an interesting point because it wasn't until my nephews were born and I hang out with them. My five-year-old six-year-old nephew. Now he is a toddler and he does have moods. And it reminds me of myself. It made me realize we are all just six year olds that have learned to control our tantrums. If he's watching something and you want to take it away from him, no.

Speaker 2 (07:42):

And we still have to do the processing that he has to do to get happy again.

Speaker 1 (07:46):

Yes, exactly. And that's the way we all are. You get to see human behavior on the rawest level with toddlers, and it's enlightening. It makes me feel really normal actually. I'm just really a five-year-old. This is all human nature, but I'm just trying hard to circumvent my impulses,

Speaker 2 (08:05):

And it's really refreshing to know that my bad mood's going to end.

Speaker 1 (08:08):

Yeah, it's really interesting. And you're also in my dream situation because if I ever had children, I have always dreamed of having a stay at home husband, and I'm the rich one. Unfortunately, I'm not rich, so I can't really model that situation, but Well,

Speaker 2 (08:23):

You're on your way.

Speaker 1 (08:24):

Thank you. I appreciate you. All right, mark. I recorded a podcast that I'm about to publish. I haven't even published it yet, and it was all by myself. And I asked a question at the end in a cliffhanger, and I said, you know what? I'm going to save this for my conversation with Mark, and we'll start there. And then I have a whole slew of am I the asshole questions in my personal life? Yeah, it's going to be great. So let's start with this question. So one of the things that I brought up was the Dave Grohl affair and what we know about Dave Grohl and what I personally know from more than one story. I at one point was really immersed in the music industry, so I knew a lot of people who were friends with Dave Grohl, so I never met him, but I had heard firsthand stories and every single person said, greatest guy, nicest guy, kindest guy. And yet this is the same man that had an affair, cheated on his wife, impregnated the mistress, and is now trying to rebuild the trust with his wife.

(09:31):

And I'm struggling to reconcile this idea of, now do we put you in the category of you're not a good guy, or do we just say you're flawed and people are flawed? Maybe who you are in a relationship is not necessarily who you are in life. And then third is cheating really that bad a thing. Americans tend to villainize cheaters in a way that they don't do in other countries. But then what I said at the end of the podcast, I'm throwing a lot at you, but what I said at the end of the podcast was like him raw dogging the mistress is where I go. You are evil in the sense that you're jeopardizing my health. I can't get past that, but I maybe could get past the infidelity, but not the health aspects,

Speaker 2 (10:23):

The unprotect, the unprotected.

Speaker 1 (10:25):

So just go, what do you think? So let's start with this character question.

Speaker 2 (10:31):

Yeah, that's a great question. I love it. I believe that there is programming for men to be attracted to multiple people until they die.

Speaker 1 (10:42):

Yes. But then also we're all programmed to be toddlers as we just said, but then we will learn to control the toddler like impulses. Okay? Okay.

Speaker 2 (10:51):

Civil society is a construct that enables peaceful living, so you have to take the trade off as someone who is programmed to do these things. If I want peace in my life, in my marriage, I cannot follow these programmed impulses and have sex with anyone who is willing to have sex with me. I think the origin of cheating is those impulses that are natural and the breakdown of the ability to control them in a society that we all agreed to the rules.

Speaker 1 (11:31):

Okay, so let me interrupt you and ask this question now. So I like that you're saying that because if cheating is the breakdown of those impulses, then that's not really a character question. I was in a relationship with someone who cheated me, and when I met him, I knew he had cheated in previous relationships. When I found out that he cheated on me, I not for a millisecond blame the relationship, blamed our connection, thought he doesn't really love me, he's a jerk. I thought he's flawed. I knew he had gone to therapy about it. I knew he was trying to work on it. I knew this was a flaw. I chose to take the risk. And one of the things that I said to him when I found out he cheated on me was, I'm so disappointed in you. And I said, all that fucking work that you did, and here we are in the exact same position, and I know you love me and I know you destroyed this, and I'm sad for you and I'm disappointed in you. That's what I said, not You are an asshole. You are a shithead. That didn't even enter my mind. I just thought, shame on you. So you sad, man, that can't figure out how to control this.

Speaker 2 (13:01):

That's an evolved response and you're really considerate about what's actually happening. This reminds me of something. At one point I was trying to lose weight, and I joined this Loom app. I had this Loom

Speaker 3 (13:13):

App. I remember Loom

Speaker 2 (13:15):

Right? And it mentioned this concept. I took this concept forward because I love it. It was called mental distortions. So whenever you were hungry for the cookie, your brain says something to you. It's like the devil on your shoulder. It's like, oh, well you did five sit-ups today. So you can have that cookie and maybe you can have two and maybe you can have three. And it's a mental distortion, and you have to learn how to identify when your brain is giving you one of those things so that you can then consciously break down that distortion and say, this is an illusion. I'm not going to have the cookie. Right?

Speaker 3 (13:49):

Right.

Speaker 2 (13:50):

I think similar things happen when cheating is going on, where it's like something in your brain says, oh, my relationship isn't fulfilling me in this or that area. And it's like opening a switch to say, oh, therefore I should have this sex right now. I can't have the cookie right now. And you're not able to identify the mirage that is that mental distortion and cut it off.

Speaker 1 (14:15):

Yeah, I think that's true. And I also think when you live a rockstar lifestyle and you're traveling, if we're going to impulse and things like that, you're not really creating an environment for yourself to succeed and be faithful. There's certain professions that yield higher degrees of cheating such as baseball because they're on the road so much. I guess I just don't think this is sort of a gotcha moment about girls' character. Well, actually he sucks. He spent his whole life treating people with respect, but he fucked around on his wife and he's a bad guy.

Speaker 2 (14:48):

Invalidate good things that people do if they cheated. This is how we treat politicians too. It's like, well, he can't be a good president or whatever if he cheats on his wife. I don't know about that. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (15:01):

I don't either.

Speaker 2 (15:02):

There's a trust issue that comes into play because of what the rules are that you're breaking. When you're cheating, you are defacto lying. You are a liar because you've made this commitment and you're breaking it. But that's the rules that we set up.

Speaker 1 (15:18):

I read this article on the Daily Mail that I just thought was so hilarious about a woman who her husband died, and then upon doing research, she figured out that he had called all these hookers up and he was having sex with all of them, and he had a mistress and all this stuff, and she ate his ashes in retaliation. She

Speaker 2 (15:38):

Ate his ashes,

Speaker 1 (15:39):

She ate, made cookies with his ashes and just ate him. That wasn't even the part that I just thought was so ridiculous. It was like the article is written almost like a movie. And then I found out he fucked a hooker, and then I found out he this, and I just thought to myself, once you find the first thing out, isn't it over? Okay, he's a cheater. Oh, no, no, no. But it's even worse because she was a hooker. Oh, no. It's worse. Of the fifth person, the

Speaker 3 (16:06):

Sixth, who gives a shit to break it down. There's this style of therapy where you literally confess to every indiscretion, why the cheater's a cheater? What does it

Speaker 1 (16:17):

Matter how many times? So anyway, yeah, I think there's a certain kind of person that is susceptible to this, and I guess girls unfortunately on the list, but I thought his statement was funny. I'm working to rebuild the trust. It's never going to happen, dude.

Speaker 2 (16:36):

I don't think you can ever rebuild the trust.

Speaker 1 (16:37):

Okay, let's move on to the am I the asshole segment, because I think trust is a good segue into my first story. So I'm going to try to redact certain pieces of this story so that I don't reveal any identifying characteristics of some of these people, but I've got this friend that I've been friends with since my early twenties. This last coffee conversation. I say to him, you are the type of person who gives me bold declarations and then contradicts yourself constantly. So then he is like, what? And I go, I love my job. It's best job in the world. And then you quit your job two weeks later and tell me that they were abusive. It's just that with everything. So then I give the list of things like the job as an example, and then there's other things that I don't want to go into detail about because I don't want to expose anything. But there's other things that he has said adamantly where I'm like, how could you say that to me? And then go back on it. There's just contradictions everywhere and maybe holding them up back to back was too much. He's not speaking to me. And I wrote him afterwards and I said, I hope I didn't offend you. And he's not even responding.

Speaker 2 (18:00):

Well, hopefully he's just processing this and he'll come back and be like, I've gone past it and moved on.

Speaker 1 (18:09):

I really value consistency. So it bothers me when I'm talking to somebody and they adamantly say one thing and then go back on it, and I'm not supposed to acknowledge it. Am I the asshole here? My dad said to me, it is none of your business how somebody chooses to live their life. Why are you policing their consistency? You just go for coffee and just hear what is going on in somebody's life and now what are your thoughts?

Speaker 2 (18:38):

So first of all, I don't have a friend who flip flops like that, and so I don't know how I would react to that. I would probably just stop being friends eventually. Because

Speaker 1 (18:50):

It would bother you too.

Speaker 2 (18:52):

Yeah, because I would be like, I'm over the hill, man. I got to focus on time management and I don't

Speaker 1 (18:58):

Need waste

Speaker 2 (18:58):

Time with somebody who's a little bit, if you're going to put the gauntlet out and just say, this is your personality, dude, and here's what I think is fucked up about your personality, you're risking losing that friend,

Speaker 1 (19:12):

But

Speaker 2 (19:12):

That might be the best outcome for you.

Speaker 1 (19:16):

Yeah, that's a good point because I really am on the friend trimming train right now. Why I'm doing this, am I the asshole segment? Because you're right. If it bothers me that much in someone's character when they're that flip floopy and inconsistent, then that's not the friend for me. There's too much about that that irritates the shit out of me.

Speaker 2 (19:38):

Something in you is asking to upgrade your circle.

Speaker 1 (19:42):

That's correct. Yeah. Okay, so not the asshole, maybe a little bit of an asshole in that situation, but what you're saying is that dynamic doesn't work for me.

Speaker 2 (19:53):

That's what it sounds like to me. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (19:55):

Okay, next friend. Next am I the asshole. Round two. Round two. So my boyfriend's daughter adopted these cats, rescued them. She rescues the cats and finds out she's deathly allergic to cats.

Speaker 2 (20:10):

How many cats?

Speaker 1 (20:12):

Two cats. And they're babies. And she's deathly allergic. And when I say deathly allergic, I mean hospitalized multiple times. So she can't have them and they can't be at my boyfriend's house because of her allergic response. So my boyfriend is like, I'm going to just drop them off at a no kill shelter.

Me being me, I like the cats at this point because I had spent time with them. So I say just bring them to my house. I don't want them at a shelter. I'll take them and then I'll with a shelter to find them a home.

(20:49):

So that has not happened. I have not been able to find them a home. They're still at my place. I'm doing everything that I can, but right now, they're at my place. My boyfriend lives far from me, so he can't live at my house, take care of the cats. So my neighbors very kindly volunteered to go feed my cats and take care of them while I'm gone. Here's the point though, mark. I am texting everyone I know. Do you want a cat? So I text this one friend and she says, I already have a cat, but you're doing the right thing and I'm so happy that you're not bringing them to a shelter. Do you want me to help you take care of them when you're away in Miami? So I say, yeah, I'm going to be away for two weeks. And she says, well, let me know if you don't find a home for them by the time you leave. So I follow up with her a week and a half later, and I say, letting you know I didn't find a home for them taking you up on your offer to help with the cats while I'm gone. She writes me back and says, I'm sorry, but two weeks is too long. I can't help you with the cats. That's a lot to ask.

(21:59):

So I

Speaker 2 (22:00):

Write back, had she known it was going to be two weeks before she offered?

Speaker 1 (22:03):

Yes, yes. So I write back and say, what can you do? Because any amount of days would be helpful.

Speaker 2 (22:12):

Yeah, I would imagine you would've said that. Yeah. Good.

Speaker 1 (22:16):

She doesn't respond for a while. So then I say, why did you change your mind from your original offer?

Speaker 4 (22:25):

Because

Speaker 1 (22:26):

My therapist told me, by the way, this advice from my therapist that I'm about to tell you, even though I agree with it, it has not yielded any positive result. The advice is ask first, attack second. Because one of the things she was saying to me was, you're jumping too quickly to the conclusion that the other person is an asshole. So give it a second, ask for information, and then when you learn that information, then attack each and every occasion when I ask, I learn that they are an asshole even with the question, but okay,

Speaker 2 (23:04):

The guilty person sees the question as the attack.

Speaker 1 (23:08):

Correct. Great point. So I say to her, why did you offer if you were unable to do it? Just out of curiosity, she writes back and says, because you are being pushy. Whoa. I write

Speaker 2 (23:22):

Back. She has some work to do.

Speaker 1 (23:24):

I write back with a screenshot of the original conversation and say, show me the part where I was being pushy because according to this screenshot you offered without me even asking you to help,

Speaker 4 (23:39):

All

Speaker 1 (23:39):

I asked her about was do you want the cats period? Do you want to adopt them? Right? She's the one who offer, I mean, it's as if I don't have a text message in front of me with evidence of the fact that she's an asshole. So I screenshot the message and then I remind her, which this should have been the end of the friendship originally, but when I told her I was thinking of freezing my eggs, she kindly offered to go with me to my first appointment because it's such a emotionally difficult thing to do and can be scary. When I took her up on that, she was busy and couldn't go, I let it go because I thought, you know what? It is kind of an awkward thing to do. Maybe she didn't think about it and then does it again, and here we are. So I blew the friendship up and I said, this is fucked, and maybe the next time you offer to do something kind for somebody, you should follow through or don't offer it all. You should know yourself a little bit better. And so, yeah, I deleted her from my phone and long time coming, there are more stories about this friendship. But let's get to the final question here. Mark, am I the asshole? Go ahead.

Speaker 2 (24:50):

No, this person has some work to do. They need to stop being a people pleaser and be truthful about what they need,

Speaker 1 (24:57):

But being a people pleaser isn't even correct, because that would mean I asked for her help and she just said yes because she felt bad. She volunteered her help.

Speaker 2 (25:09):

Yeah. I don't know what that's called.

Speaker 1 (25:12):

Sanity, but being insanity. Yeah, it's, it's just outrageous.

Speaker 2 (25:16):

It's a fake offer. I don't know what you call that when people do a fake offer of help and they flake on you. It's not truthful though, and she needs to do some work. And again, you're doing some Marie Koning of your friends list, so I think you're going to be better off.

Speaker 1 (25:31):

Okay, next. Am I the asshole?

(25:37):

So as I've said to you before, my father often says to me, you don't have to tell everybody what you think. No, no. When I tell him a story, I feel, and maybe this is my imagination, that he draws this conclusion. You fight with everyone, and my feeling is as a social assassin to quote, curb your enthusiasm, I feel I'm doing God's work, mark. It's not that I fight with everybody, it's that if you are going to behave badly, I am going to call you out. Unlike everyone else who will either put up with it or just drift away from your life and not give you a reason why, which I think is

Speaker 2 (26:18):

It's the Lord's work, as you

Speaker 1 (26:20):

Said, is far worse to do something like that. So I'm going to actually read these text messages because I want you to understand exactly what

Speaker 2 (26:29):

Happened. Social assassin is perfect. I love that.

Speaker 1 (26:31):

Thank you, Larry. David said that, so this friend of mine, I'm going to redact a little bit of this information and I'll tell you more about it personally because it's a crazy story, but this friend of mine is having issues with her under the same roof and as a mode of support. She asked me to come over until they move apart, until they figure out what to do with the house and all this stuff. So she invites me over to have dinner at the house because it's so uncomfortable in the house right now, which I don't want to go, but I will go if that's what you need as a friend, you're asking me to do something uncomfortable for you. By the way, the same friend who told me she'd never pick me up from the airport, and it was rude to ask to put somebody out, but okay, why are you laughing?

Speaker 2 (27:23):

Because I will never pick someone up from the airport.

Speaker 1 (27:26):

All right, well, great,

Speaker 2 (27:29):

Great.

Speaker 1 (27:29):

You've done a lot of favors for me though, so even though you've never picked me up from the airport, I feel like you're net positive on favors.

Speaker 2 (27:41):

Okay? That's

Speaker 1 (27:43):

Fair. Okay, so by the way, the whole podcast is a favor. It's not like I'm paying you anyway. Here's the point, mark. Okay, so this is the message that I got and I'm going to just read it, and I don't think that's a violation because I'm not revealing anything else private about the situation because it's way more detailed than what I said. By the way, when you come over in case the sky is there, right? Please don't be obnoxious. I want to be adults. Let him be this stupid ridiculous baby.

Speaker 2 (28:16):

Oh God, don't be obnoxious.

Speaker 1 (28:20):

I wrote back Will do. It took years of therapy to be able to respond that way because Vanessa 1.0 would have gone nuclear on text number one.

Speaker 2 (28:35):

Yeah,

Speaker 1 (28:36):

Okay.

Speaker 2 (28:37):

I don't see how someone sends that text without editing that. That's like version one. Then you edit that and then you say, let's be the bigger people. I don't know how you would say it, but

Speaker 1 (28:51):

I know. And now for the second text, we don't need to stoop to his level. I really honestly don't care. It's bad enough that I have to live there. I write back, I understand.

Speaker 4 (29:08):

I

Speaker 1 (29:08):

Will do whatever you want.

Speaker 4 (29:11):

Good

Speaker 2 (29:11):

For you. She's really talking. She's talking to herself.

Speaker 1 (29:17):

Thank you. But I don't think so because here's the third text. I just know you can be loud and make comments. I

Speaker 2 (29:29):

Love

Speaker 3 (29:30):

Your

Speaker 1 (29:30):

Reaction. I'm not

Speaker 3 (29:31):

Even done. I love your reaction.

Speaker 2 (29:34):

It's a perfectly structured joke. It's three beats,

Speaker 3 (29:40):

But please, that's just my thoughts.

Speaker 1 (29:44):

You're coming to visit me not to ridicule him. At the end of the day, you get to leave.

Speaker 2 (29:54):

Had you indicated that you were going to give him some shit?

Speaker 1 (29:57):

No, but I had previously said something and was on speaker but wasn't told.

(30:03):

So I then said, well, okay, I didn't know that, but fine. And that was the end of it. So now, fine. If you want to say to me, just be careful about what you say when you come over, that's a different conversation than what these first three texts are, which is just to remind the audience, please don't be obnoxious was text number one. Text number two was we don't need to stoop to his level or make fun of stuff. That's an indicator of what I had said when I was on speaker and now text number three, which I haven't even gotten through. I just know you can be loud and make comments, but please don't. That's just my thought. Oh, I did get through this. You came to visit me, not to ridicule him. At the end of the day, you get to leave a lot of you's in this text, by the way, no sort of ability to think. She's not speaking directly to me

Speaker 2 (31:00):

Because

Speaker 1 (31:00):

She wrote you. Okay. Then

Speaker 2 (31:03):

Who's she really breaking up with

Speaker 1 (31:04):

Now? I just want to remind the audience. Mark, your comments are so good. Who's she really breaking up with? That's so good. Okay, I want to remind the audience. My first text was Will do. My second response was, I understand I'll do whatever you want.

Speaker 4 (31:21):

And

Speaker 1 (31:21):

My third text now after saying you can be loud, is, here we go. Why do you keep repeating the same shit? Telling me I'm loud. I said, fine five times. Now I'm pissed,

Speaker 2 (31:38):

Right? Yeah,

Speaker 1 (31:40):

Justifiably. And then her response is, because you are

Speaker 2 (31:47):

Then bitch, don't invite me over.

Speaker 1 (31:50):

Correct. Then I write, dude, whenever I write, dude, whenever I write, dude, run for the hills. Okay. I write, dude, it's enough. And borderline insulting. Borderline was generous by the way.

Speaker 2 (32:07):

Agreed.

Speaker 1 (32:08):

You don't need to send the same text five times about how I'm loud. Then she wrote, I'll send it 10 times. Now she's matching my energy, which created, this is, by the way, your standard way relationship fights escalate, and you're like, what? I do? It's like you created this monster, and now that I'm getting fucking pissed, you're going to say to me, whoa, whoa, whoa. Bitch, don't come at me. You came at me three times and I was completely reasonable. So then I wrote, are you ready, mark, for my final text?

Speaker 4 (32:47):

Wait,

Speaker 1 (32:48):

Two words, mark, fuck off.

Speaker 2 (32:52):

That's

Speaker 1 (32:52):

What I wrote.

Speaker 2 (32:53):

Good,

Speaker 1 (32:54):

And that's the end of the friendship.

Speaker 2 (32:55):

Good. I think you've made some gains in your life. This is tremendously encouraging to me that you're leveling up your crowd. That's good.

Speaker 1 (33:03):

Well, I think that I have a tendency to obsess about losing friendships in a way that is more just about my obsessive personality. I got an infection in my finger and I look at it over and over and over again. I hope it's not getting worse. I think that these toxic friendships are like my finger infection. I just keep looking at them because I'm an obsessive person, but not because there's actually anything worth doing about it. It's just an observation over and over and over again,

Speaker 2 (33:37):

And I just think of what you could be spending your time and energy on that's positive

Speaker 1 (33:41):

And great friends like you. My friend Kim, my friend Devin, they're all fantastic friends. So why am I filling my life with this toxicity? I think part of it is that this particular friend that sent me these awful texts has had it. I've cut her off before and she's asked to come back, and I've allowed it. And so that's my weakness too, is forgiving too easily. You get cajoled into returning. I was saying to this friend of mine, we share a mutual friend that cut me off with no explanation, and he said, why do you keep seeking an explanation? Why do you want somebody in your life that would behave that way to you? And I said, I don't want him in my life.

Speaker 3 (34:28):

I just want to know why you left it. I'm obsessed like the finger infection. I just want to know what happened, like a mystery novel.

Speaker 2 (34:37):

I just think that's a waste of your time and energy, the version of you that is your full potential, whatever that is really for you. What does that person need to come out? You need to get rid of these people.

Speaker 1 (34:49):

Yeah, I think that's fair. Right? Okay. Alright, so I get that. So in the first story, it's debatable, but not a good dynamic with that friend of mine that contradicts himself all the time. The second story, cat lady, is just a nightmare in bucket. And then the third story is who sends a text like that? It's bizarre. Okay. Okay.

Speaker 2 (35:20):

After asking you for help, no.

Speaker 1 (35:22):

Right, right. All right.

Speaker 2 (35:24):

Three strikes. They're all outs.

Speaker 1 (35:27):

Okay, let's talk about one more pop culture.

(35:31):

You have time for one more? Yeah. Okay. So Katy Perry released a horrible new album. I mean, it's just absolutely deplorable. It's just terrible. It's just terrible. And that's fine because Teenage Dream was a long time ago and her day in the sun might be over. Anyway, that's not the point though. I just really wanted to get that off my chest because I'm so bothered by this record being so bad. She released this song called Women's World, and it's like women laying brick in a bikini to talk about women's empowerment. And she's like, but it's a gag. And I'm like, it's just gross. It's so provocative, and I really don't understand the messaging. Like women can do anything a man can do. We will go lay brick then and tell me how you like it, because it's actually very difficult. I don't get it. I know it's not a literal thing, but here's the point, mark. Let me get to the point. The point is that on her song Woman's World, which is supposed to be about women's empowerment, she worked with Dr. Luke. Dr. Luke, you might remember is the person that Kesha sued for sexual assault and battery sexual harassment. He was never convicted of a crime, and I believe they settled this out of court, but that was the accusation. And Katy Perry got a lot of heat because she's working with a guy accused of sexual assault on a woman's empowerment song.

Speaker 2 (37:05):

I could see the issue there. What did he get his PhD in?

Speaker 1 (37:10):

That's funny, but

Speaker 2 (37:13):

Ass grabbing.

Speaker 1 (37:14):

Katy Perry was on Call Her Daddy, which is as you know, the worst interview podcast, and she was asked directly about working with Dr. Luke, and here is her very ridiculous roundabout answer.

Speaker 5 (37:27):

I understand that. It started a lot of conversations and he was one of many collaborators that I collaborated with, but the reality is it comes from me. The truth is, I wrote these songs from my experience of my whole life going through metamorphosis, and he was one of the people to help facilitate all that. One of the writers, one of the producers, and I am speaking from my own experience when I speak about woman's world, I speak about feeling so empowered now as a mother, as a woman, giving birth, creating life, creating another set of organs, a brain, a heart. I created a whole ass heart and I did it, and I'm still doing it, and I'm still a matriarch and feeling really grounded in that. That's where I'm speaking from, and so I created all of this with several different collaborators from the past, from teenage. Okay.

Speaker 1 (38:26):

Mark, what are your thoughts?

Speaker 2 (38:31):

Sometimes when people are accused and called on their shit, I, they list word cloud words. That doesn't answer the question. It's a dodge,

Speaker 1 (38:43):

So I have my own take on this, which is I think that Katy Perry doesn't believe Kesha's accusations of Dr. Luke, and I will say that that's fine because people are entitled to their own opinion. I don't believe in this whole, you must believe the victim just because they said it covered the Johnny Depp case where Amber heard accused him of horrible things, and I come down on the side of Johnny Depp in that. The reason I come down on his side though is because we got to see all the evidence as a juror and review the trial,

Speaker 4 (39:17):

And

Speaker 1 (39:17):

So I could then make a very informed decision. That's not the case with Kesha and Dr. Luke, so I don't have an opinion of, I believe, I don't believe I'm neutral on it, but Katy Perry knows Dr. Luke personally and knows Kesha personally by her own admission, and I would guess that when you choose to work with Dr. Luke, you don't think you're working with a rapist, otherwise you wouldn't do it. She doesn't believe he did it.

Speaker 2 (39:43):

That makes sense. So you have just one accuser or multiple accusers?

Speaker 1 (39:46):

He has one. From what I understand, he has one accuser, but many people who have worked with him have come forward to say he's just a shit person that's on the record numerous times. He's not kind. He's a shit person. He says terrible things. If I'm wrong about that, please feel free to correct me, but I guess where I'm going with this is if you're going to work with somebody who's accused of sexual assault, just say that with your whole chest that you believe him, go bold, say Dr. Luke is your friend, and that you chose to work with him because you believe in his innocence. Many people did that for Johnny Depp,

Speaker 2 (40:23):

It's an interesting point, but if she were to say that that's all anything would be about, it wouldn't be about her album, it would be

Speaker 1 (40:31):

Right, so maybe she did make the right strategic move by talking in a circle.

Speaker 2 (40:36):

Well, and one could rewind the tape and say, well, the right decision would've been not to work with him so that you didn't have to put yourself in this position to get these questions, but then if you really believe he didn't do it, why would you not work with him? Culturally, are people in the majority on Kesha's side of this debate?

Speaker 1 (40:57):

No, I don't think that there is a side on this one. I think it's a little bit muddy. No, I don't think so. Khaw also testified under oath that Dr. Luke did not sexually assault her before later testifying that he did, which always muddies the waters. If you want people to believe you when you flip flop, people just don't believe anything that you say. It was similar to Wade Robson accused Michael Jackson of sexual assault, which would be believable in the sense that Michael Jackson had little boys in room, so you would think, yeah, that makes complete sense. But he testified that Michael Jackson did not sexually assault him, and then later went back on it and released this HBO documentary saying that he was assaulted and then sued the estate posthumously after the time ran out to sue the estate. He had a certain amount of allotted time, let that lapse, and then said that his sexual trauma prevented him from filing within the appropriate amount of time. I'm not saying it didn't happen, but I am saying that the public is not going to be on your side if you're flip-flopping, especially under oath. So I think that that's a big part of why Kesha was not believed later.

Speaker 2 (42:18):

Do you feel like if it were a better album, this wouldn't be as much of a headline?

Speaker 1 (42:23):

No. That is a great question because I think when the music is good, you're correct. It does sort of surpass the criticism. I think she was an easy target because the songs were so bad.

Speaker 2 (42:40):

Then there's always another album.

Speaker 1 (42:41):

I guess what your conclusion is here is she probably made the right decision by talking about this in a ridiculous, vague way because had she not and just come out with her whole chest and said, I don't believe Kesha, that would be this massive headline that would overshadow the album.

Speaker 2 (43:00):

Yeah, it would be like she didn't even put out an album.

Speaker 1 (43:03):

Okay. All right. Fair enough. That's all I got, mark. We've been talking for an hour. We did it. We did the podcast,

Speaker 2 (43:14):

The whole ass podcast. As Katy Perry would say, well,

Speaker 1 (43:17):

People have told me that they feel that my solo podcast don't have enough of my personal life, but it's not fun when you're not on it to do the personal life. So I think I'm going to, when you're not available, focus on the pop culture topics and then when you are available, I'm going to just rack up the personal life stories and we're just going to play back and forth to figure out am I the asshole? Am I not the asshole? I think what we've learned here is I am not the asshole.

Speaker 2 (43:47):

You're not the asshole. You've done a lot of therapy, a lot of work, and it's working, and I think your life is improving by taking out the garbage.

Speaker 1 (43:56):

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (43:58):

Are you doing interviews? Are you doing any interviews on your podcast?

Speaker 1 (44:03):

No, I need to do that. I actually have a friend who's a trademark attorney and I want to interview him about trademark law. I know that sounds so boring, but I actually think it's really interesting. Daniel Tosh is doing a podcast where he's just interviewing normal people in his life, and I think it's so fun when he does it. It's like his hairstylist and his personal trainer, and this guy he surfs with. Mark, your kid is so cute. I saw this photo you sent me. Where did you get this?

Speaker 2 (44:33):

The nanny just now.

Speaker 1 (44:35):

Does your kid have blue eyes?

Speaker 2 (44:37):

Yeah, they both do.

Speaker 1 (44:39):

Do you have blue eyes?

Speaker 2 (44:40):

No, they're more like Hazel, but Robin has blue eyes,

Speaker 1 (44:43):

But what about your parents?

Speaker 2 (44:45):

My mom has blue eyes.

Speaker 1 (44:47):

Ah, see, you're a recessive carrier. Brilliant. I have blue eyes and my dad has brown, but his mom had blue eyes.

Speaker 2 (44:57):

Oh, got it. He's like me. Recessive carrier.

Speaker 1 (44:59):

Exactly. Alright, I will talk to you later.

Speaker 2 (45:04):

Okay. Take care. Bye.

Speaker 1 (45:05):

All right, bye.