Special Dad Guest: Courtney

Summary

In this episode, the hosts and guest engage in a lighthearted conversation about superhero movies, casting choices, and the challenges of comedy. They discuss their opinions on the upcoming Superman and Batman movies, as well as their thoughts on previous casting decisions. The conversation also touches on the topic of authenticity and realism in podcasting, with the hosts emphasizing their unfiltered approach to their show. The guest shares her experiences in the performing arts and the challenges of stand-up comedy. Overall, the episode provides an entertaining and humorous discussion on various topics related to entertainment. In this part of the conversation, the topics discussed include navigating offensive jokes and audience reactions, the difference between being funny and performing funny, receiving feedback and dealing with drunk audience members, the importance of practice and persistence in comedy, using comedy to address serious topics, the challenges of finding services for children with diabetes, the rising cost of insulin and its impact on families, creating a safe and trusting environment for children, normalizing conversations about bodies and sexuality, and appreciation for the podcast and the importance of sharing. In this part of the conversation, Courtney P. shares his parenting advice and emphasizes the importance of learning from your children. He also recalls memorable and humorous parenting moments, highlighting the joy and challenges of raising kids. The discussion then shifts to balancing work, family, and personal time, with Courtney P. emphasizing the need for self-care and learning from his own health issues. He also discusses the challenges of discipline and setting boundaries while maintaining a strong connection with his kids. The conversation concludes with insights on navigating challenging parenting situations and actively engaging with his kids' interests and hobbies. Additionally, the topic of handling online negativity and trolling is addressed. In this conversation, the topics discussed include population growth and birth rates, seasonal depression and online arguments, emotional management and therapy, favorite family traditions, a new family tradition called Hobo Feast, inside jokes and traditions, the speed of childhood, the importance of caring about parenting, and a discussion on Star Wars.

Takeaways

• Superhero movies and casting choices are popular topics of discussion among fans.
• Authenticity and realism are important aspects of podcasting.
• Performing comedy can be challenging and requires a unique set of skills.
• Personal experiences and stories can add humor and entertainment value to conversations. Learn from your children and be open to the lessons they teach you.
• Find joy in the memorable and humorous moments of parenting.
• Balance work, family, and personal time to maintain a healthy lifestyle.
• Approach discipline with fairness and strive to be both a parent and a friend to your children.
• Navigate challenging parenting situations by focusing on what you can control and prioritizing your children's well-being.
• Actively engage with your kids' interests and hobbies to strengthen your bond.
• Handle online negativity and trolling by setting boundaries and prioritizing your mental health. Population growth and bir

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Transcript

Pete (00:00.79)
Welcome back, my unfiltered friends. We're at like episode 31. Holy shit. I didn't know I could count that high.

Chris O'Neil (00:05.817)
Time flies. Episodes fly when you're doing shit.

Pete (00:08.95)
That's right. So Dad's Unfiltered, episode 31, we are back and live. With me as always is Chris, way out there in fucking California. How's it out there with the weather, dude?

Chris O'Neil (00:19.109)
It's actually been kinda rainy recently. I know it's cold as shit out where you guys are, but. So yeah, if.

Pete (00:22.638)
Yeah.

Cold and shit and rainy. Rainy too.

Chris O'Neil (00:28.053)
already do it but it was so in the last couple days uh... we had a speed california chris out here in the palm tree desert pretendin like i have problems because you guys are fucked

Courtney P. (00:32.805)
Nope.

Pete (00:47.138)
So this week we have a special guest. We're gonna step away from some of the serious sides of what we've been talking about and just have a good time with a friend. With us is Courtney and Courtney's from, well, where are you from Courtney? So, we're gonna talk about Courtney.

Courtney P. (01:02.732)
I grew up in Salem, Mass, and I'm just kind of all over Massachusetts. But thanks for having me.

Pete (01:04.118)
Salem.

Chris O'Neil (01:08.741)
Keep in mind, we have international listeners, Courtney. So the two people in Peru and maybe the one in Spain. So we just have to remember, no, an Australian guy, that's right. So we just have to remember, we gotta throw out the state, potentially country of any geographic location we talk about.

Pete (01:21.255)
Oh, we have an Australian guy, too.

Courtney P. (01:37.027)
Alright, well that's good for you guys because I'm attractive everywhere.

Pete (01:43.01)
Chris is going to work on his improv.

Courtney P. (01:45.019)
You gotta put me on the TikTok, because...

Pete (01:47.778)
So before we get into the meat and potatoes of it all, Chris and I are both Superman and comic fans. Courtney is as well. I don't know how excited you guys are to hear that they're gonna start filming the new Superman movie. And they are close to picking out a new Supergirl. It's got two people. So that girl that played him in the Flash was one and done.

Chris O'Neil (02:05.997)
Oh, I did not know that. Yeah, I-I-

Courtney P. (02:09.112)
you

Chris O'Neil (02:13.129)
uh... that's a bummer i thought she was good melissa bonoit right i believe so that what does she had her own series of supergirl series

Pete (02:18.505)
I have no idea.

Pete (02:24.978)
No, that wasn't, no, not the Flash show, the Flash movie. You know, the one that sucked out loud that people still are bitching about? Do you believe that shit? Ugh.

Courtney P. (02:26.011)
Different actress.

Chris O'Neil (02:29.157)
Oh, the Flash movie. Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. I had.

Courtney P. (02:32.177)
Haha

Courtney P. (02:35.661)
My heart broke.

Chris O'Neil (02:35.849)
I know. Well, you know, and again, you know, like per our conversation before we started recording, it's just like people gotta, they gotta pick something to hang on to. And unfortunately, bad superhero movies is something a lot of people hang on to.

Courtney P. (02:38.919)
It's really sad.

Pete (02:56.958)
Well this one though, well the comments now are Christopher Reeves family, like we didn't, we haven't seen it and uh, they were saying something like, his favorite movie wasn't even Superman, his pre-Wizproud work was like Remains of the Day, or some fucking like period piece that he did with like Anthony Hopkins. I had, I had no idea that even was like his like, yeah. Oh I know he did like classical shit.

Chris O'Neil (03:11.322)
Well, yeah.

Courtney P. (03:14.52)
I'm gonna go.

Chris O'Neil (03:15.201)
Yeah, Christopher Reeve.

He was a serious, dramatic actor that, yeah.

Pete (03:21.846)
But I didn't know that his favorite thing that he did was this one movie that no one fucking watched.

Chris O'Neil (03:27.053)
Mm-mm. Yeah, because he was all about the art. Yeah.

Courtney P. (03:28.376)
I heard that he was like a nobody.

Pete (03:32.318)
Well, he was in Nobody when he started at Superman.

Courtney P. (03:34.167)
And he thought he was like really confused when he was cast as Superman. Like he was like legit like, why are you giving me this role? That's what I heard. I don't know that, you know?

Pete (03:43.834)
I'd rather have it be somebody that isn't established. Like honestly, I had trouble grasping on to Ben Affleck as Batman because it's just fucking Ben Affleck, you know?

Courtney P. (03:55.371)
Every Batman's jarring at first, I feel like. We have a high bar with our Gen X status, like, you know? That's why Flash is so heartbreaking.

Chris O'Neil (03:55.436)
Yeah.

Pete (04:03.158)
I'm rooting for Reacher to get it. I want Reacher to be the next Batman. The guy that's playing Reacher, Alan Richen?

Courtney P. (04:07.911)
Who?

Chris O'Neil (04:10.017)
Uh, Alan Richson. Yeah. Every you want to say Richeson, but it's rich sin.

Courtney P. (04:13.383)
Oh, uh... Is that John Cena from Wish?

Pete (04:20.07)
no he was uh... he was ackerman on uh... on smallville if you watch that you gotta watch

Chris O'Neil (04:23.109)
Smallville.

Courtney P. (04:26.007)
Yeah, I stay away from CW unless it's Supernatural. I'll kick it with Supernatural.

Chris O'Neil (04:27.094)
Yeah. All right.

Pete (04:32.002)
Dude no you got to watch smallville man. That was some good shit Yeah, he was he was Aquaman back then but um He is a fantastic Reacher and this guy is hulking. He is fucking huge In season 2 the bad guy is who the fuck is that guy? It's not Jason Patrick T2

Courtney P. (04:35.375)
That was back in the day- oh okay, I remember that. I uh, I still didn't watch.

Chris O'Neil (04:45.077)
yeah, he's insane- yeah

Chris O'Neil (04:57.585)
Oh yeah, uh, Robert Patrick, yeah. Yeah, there's, there's Alan Richardson. Look at that dude. He's insane.

Courtney P. (04:57.763)
Robert Pacher.

Pete (04:58.022)
What the hell? Robert Patrick. He said that Richson is bigger than fucking Switsenegger was. It's a little blurry. But

Courtney P. (05:06.875)
Oh, he's ripped. I heard good things about that show, like it's got a sense of humor.

Pete (05:13.062)
Oh dude, it's fucking awesome. He is out of control good. But I could see him as the next Batman. You should really watch and take a look. I think he'd play an excellent fucking Batman. He's right at the right age. He's like mid-forties about our age, but he looks like he's in his thirties. Yeah.

Chris O'Neil (05:13.422)
Yeah?

Courtney P. (05:29.519)
You mean the gun universe Batman? I mean, if he can be fun, because that's what I want out of the next, I want Silver Age style heroes. I want, you know, like the Batman before 1989 Batman, like the, when I was a kid, what I looked at the character like, that's what it sounds like this new universe is supposed to be like.

Pete (05:41.43)
Well, that's the...

Pete (05:51.998)
James Gunn is trying to go back to what he remembers being like it was as a kid like his casting For Supergirl is he's actually Using the comic book in comparison and he's like found the two that are most Similar to the comic version that he remembers as a kid and he's like a lot of people are probably gonna be pissed But he doesn't care Because he wants his version

Chris O'Neil (06:14.258)
Hmm. Well, see, and that's the interesting, the interesting thing, too, because when Kevin Smith saw Zack Snyder's, you know, bet with Affleck, like, and he was super psyched about it because it was a version we hadn't seen before. I think it's same with Toby McGuire getting cast as Spider-Man. He fledged getting cast as the Joker. Like all of these people that ended up doing a good job.

Courtney P. (06:14.384)
What?

Chris O'Neil (06:40.361)
Everyone hated them well Michael Keaton as Batman. Mr. Mom is Batman everyone was pissed and that was before the internet You know, so it's like It you really can't please everybody nor should you try and I Don't even have a dog in the fight it with regard to what I think it should be at this point in my life I'm just like I'm curious about what it's going to be But I'll either like it or I won't but I'm not gonna bitch about it

Courtney P. (06:44.943)
Yeah.

Pete (07:12.038)
I'm gonna bitch about it.

Chris O'Neil (07:13.199)
Yeah, I know.

Courtney P. (07:14.819)
You know, I trust this guy, but he says too much stuff. He talks to the fans, he fights back to people. He goes on Twitter and he fights back and he says, you know, there's other podcasters and content creators where he's like, go back to your mom's basement, you don't know what you're talking about. Or what I really don't like is he shuts down rumors.

Chris O'Neil (07:23.329)
How so? What do you mean?

Chris O'Neil (07:35.812)
Wow.

Courtney P. (07:40.943)
Like, no, let us do it. That's the fun of it. We want to figure it out. That's the whole spoiler lifestyle or figuring it out, the mystery of it.

Chris O'Neil (07:49.945)
is a little too engaged, like micromanaging the fandom a little too much. Is that what we mean?

Courtney P. (07:57.079)
Well yeah, we're like, oh we think it's gonna be like this, and then he's like, no it's not. And it's like, okay. Like, right. Now we have to think up something else.

Chris O'Neil (08:04.21)
What do you say after that, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That sucks. Thanks.

Courtney P. (08:14.039)
I feel like they're all doing that, like Kevin Feige too, he's just trying to subvert. I literally think they film shit and then people predict it and then they go back and reshoot because everybody called it. I definitely think they do that a lot.

Chris O'Neil (08:32.685)
That would be interesting. That would be tough, though, because that's a hell of a lot of money, time, and studio investment to go back and reshoot that stuff without some major reasons for it, other than fans being pissed. Granted, look what happened with Sonic. They reshot that whole thing.

Pete (08:33.723)
Eh, makes sense.

Courtney P. (08:51.727)
I mean, there's a lot. Yep. Erhan Soler.

Chris O'Neil (08:58.494)
What about Hansel?

Pete (08:58.606)
True.

Courtney P. (08:59.655)
That movie got junked. They took the whole movie and they just like... Yeah, and they re-filmed the whole entire thing. Literally. They're doing that now with the Daredevil show. Star Wars is really doing that a lot. They announced shit. Like official announcements at like Star Wars celebration. And then they never come. They're gone.

Chris O'Neil (09:02.707)
Oh, the solo movie. Yeah.

Well, yeah, they had to because they fired the directors.

Pete (09:14.411)
Very true.

Pete (09:26.571)
Nope.

Courtney P. (09:27.899)
The directors get fired, everyone's gone, the titles get changed, the actors are cancelled. It's crazy. I'm a Snyder defender. I loved what he was doing. I see the flaws that everyone has. I don't know how you guys stand with the Snyder shit. I'm a Snyder sucker, man. I like that slow-mo lighting. I get all sucked in. My wife hates. She graduated from film school. So she's like...

Chris O'Neil (09:28.928)
Hmm.

Chris O'Neil (09:34.945)
Yeah, and I guess I.

Chris O'Neil (09:56.835)
Yeah.

Courtney P. (09:58.88)
Hates Snyder. Hates it.

Chris O'Neil (09:59.561)
a stickler for some? Well, that's the thing is I appreciate Snyder for Snyder like he's he has a very unique style. It I'm not going to compare him to Tarantino. But I will compare their unique like, you know, if you're watching a Tarantino movie, you know, if you're watching a Snyder movie, it's just a signature that you can tell right away. Right. So the big thing for me is that I don't All right. Cool.

Pete (10:23.67)
I have to hit the bathroom. I'll be right back.

Chris O'Neil (10:28.469)
Our first bathroom break in two plus seasons. Yeah, that never happened. So that's interesting. We used to, but honestly it was, well, it was a hassle, quite honestly. The other big thing was the name of the podcast, Dad's Unfiltered. It was kind of something we had a desire to do.

Courtney P. (10:29.975)
Hey, have fun. See you later. It's never happened.

Courtney P. (10:38.776)
You guys don't edit?

Courtney P. (10:50.567)
Mm.

Chris O'Neil (10:58.529)
Because, you know, there's something to be said about sharpening things up, or, you know, cutting dead air or things like that. But also it was a reflection of what parenting is. Right? You have all these plans, and then most of it goes to shit when you know, the kids have their say and you try to manage things. So we just thought unless it's like, ridiculously

non beneficial or you know, it's like huge amounts of dead air that we don't want to subject the listeners to, then we'll just leave it. You know, my daughter has interrupted us many times and I just, it is what it is. Like she's just knocking on the door. I'm like, dad's recording, leave me alone. You know, because that's dad life, you know? And we really wanted to just maintain the unfiltered version of that for the realism and, and try not to polish it too much because that happens so much.

Courtney P. (11:43.814)
Yeah.

Chris O'Neil (11:54.309)
And you know, we don't want that veneer of social media, you know, my life is better than yours, even though it's not, it just looks like it is, you know. So it in our estimation, it

Courtney P. (12:05.12)
We'll go with the flow. We make mistakes, authenticity, we make mistakes, and we go with it. Definitely see the correlation with parenting, for sure. And that's good. I didn't think of the title like that.

Chris O'Neil (12:10.403)
Yeah.

Chris O'Neil (12:15.044)
and hoping that...

Chris O'Neil (12:19.273)
Yeah, well, so it's conversation as well as whether or not we edit and, you know, topics and, you know, we're not claiming to know everything or assume we have the best take on everything, but it's just it's real conversations with real people. And we decided to go with that philosophy all the way through. So that's we.

Other than, you know, obviously we connect the theme song and you know, we're probably gonna have a little more music as we move through. And so we edit in the sense that we add clips and things like that, but we don't, the main bulk of the conversation is just organic.

Courtney P. (13:00.707)
Right, so this part will still be there until Pete gets back. Interesting, I'm podcasting, hi. I wanna podcast right now. I have never done this before. It's good, I mean, I'm a performer, I grew up performing, I know you play. So I'm not like nervous, but it's a format or, you know, I make TikToks with my daughter and.

Chris O'Neil (13:05.425)
Yeah, just an empty frame.

Chris O'Neil (13:13.141)
How does it feel?

Chris O'Neil (13:20.299)
Oh yeah.

Courtney P. (13:28.099)
You know, we have little movies every Halloween. We go all out with our costumes, but we literally make like movies of it. So that's the memory. So yeah, I'm not nervous, but it's just this format, I guess, different.

Chris O'Neil (13:34.725)
nice.

Chris O'Neil (13:40.662)
Yeah, and I-

Chris O'Neil (13:47.201)
And I forget because I come from not only a music performing background, but an acting performing background. So I've been on stages for a huge chunk of my life. I've been in front of the camera. I've been behind the camera. I've been on sets. You know, I've done commercials, I've done film. It's, it's not to say that I don't get nervous.

Courtney P. (14:04.227)
Nice. Is that what brought you out to California?

Chris O'Neil (14:08.329)
Yeah, yeah, performance in general. And it's interesting because looking at the way the industry is now, I don't know that I'd want to be a part of it. Not to say that I wouldn't still like the work, but it really has changed drastically over the last 20 years. But that aside, yeah, I majored in theater in college, moved out to Los Angeles to pursue an entertainment career.

Um, and you know, had minor, uh, I would call it success. You know, I, as I said, did a couple of commercials, did, uh, one of them ended up being a national, which was pretty cool. Um, did some history channel documentaries, stuff like that. Um, but yeah, it just, I realized that I lost, uh, a car.

Courtney P. (15:00.103)
It's cool.

Chris O'Neil (15:08.389)
probably in about 2012 maybe. And it basically got towed and I couldn't afford to get it out and then the price kept going up and up and up and up and I just had to let the car go because I couldn't afford it. So then I had to go to auditions on the bus. And I remember, I will never forget this, it was an audition for a game show host. And it took me eight hours. The audition itself.

was a half an hour of wait time and about five minutes of actually auditioning. And the rest of the time was going to and from the audition on a bus. So it took me eight hours and I was like, I called my agent. I was like, I can't do this anymore. The way my situation is, and I basically put myself on the. You know, on a hiatus and I just never went back, really. I started writing.

got into a bunch of different stuff. And obviously, I was still a massage therapist. So I was doing that for work. Then I met my wife, started a family, and now doing the emotion coaching stuff. And I still love to perform. And this is something that's always been fun for me. But I forget that past definitely makes it easier for me to just jump into stuff like this, because it's kind of old hat. You know?

Courtney P. (16:28.036)
Mm-hmm.

Courtney P. (16:38.699)
Mm-hmm, yeah, same. Feels the same. So I did a lot of theater. I did an off-Broadway show a few years ago, a couple times. And I'm about to meet with those people again in February, which I don't know why they want to meet, so it might be something. But on that note, and back to DC, back to DC, when I was a teenager, there was a movie coming out.

Chris O'Neil (16:47.438)
Nice.

Chris O'Neil (16:56.281)
That's cool.

Courtney P. (17:07.379)
after Batman returns and there was a casting call in Boston at the Boston YMCA and I went to audition for the role of Robin for Batman forever yes I was good dude yes I was in that line yeah you know I like Batman

Chris O'Neil (17:18.833)
Really? No way!

Chris O'Neil (17:24.225)
that's fantastic i have to say uh... i might probably my favorite memory slash story of something ridiculous people in the moment would never have understood and that was kind of funny part i a i sent uh... headshot and resume uh... audition for desperate housewives

at the time and I was, you know, I was in my mid 20s. So yeah, I'll do the pool boy audition. Right. And I'm going, I'm going, I think I'm in the post office so I can mail it. And because back then that's what you did, right? There was no digital anything. And I'm standing in line and I hand my you know, Manila envelope with the name and the address and everything. Hollywood, California, blah, blah. And I hand it off and the guy next to me notices the name on the envelope.

Courtney P. (17:55.16)
Oh.

Chris O'Neil (18:23.033)
Desperate Housewives, because it wasn't a show. Right? No one knew what that was. He just thought I was sending a letter to Desperate Housewives. Like it was a service or something that I was picking up a Desperate Housewife. And I heard him snicker and just look at me like, all right, pal, good luck with that one, you fuck.

Courtney P. (18:36.155)
That's so awesome. Hmm.

Courtney P. (18:43.033)
He didn't say anything too, that he missed the opportunity to say something.

Chris O'Neil (18:44.629)
No, I just, I could hear him react. You know, it was like he was snickering and laughing and you know, and I genuinely wondered if, you know, years, because it was a couple of years before the show came out. And like when it came out, I was like, oh, that's what that guy was doing. So yeah, I just had a laugh about that.

Courtney P. (18:49.275)
Hehehehe

Courtney P. (18:52.631)
It's the best.

Courtney P. (19:01.415)
if you remembered it.

Courtney P. (19:06.08)
Dude, that's hilarious.

Yeah.

Pete (19:09.866)
I had to put my arm around you and said, our time's tough, buddy, huh?

Courtney P. (19:13.431)
Yeah. Or like, I hear ya. I hear ya. Did- Pfft. Ha ha ha.

Chris O'Neil (19:13.441)
Yeah. Hey, everyone has a hustle. Yeah. Hey. Yeah. I might as well have been, you know, trying to get a young Russian wife, you know, like the mail away bride thing, you know, it's probably what he thought it was.

Pete (19:18.666)
Have you tried the grocery store, son?

Courtney P. (19:39.759)
It's real.

Pete (19:42.786)
So I don't know what I missed. I had Taco Bell for lunch and I apologize for that. So.

Courtney P. (19:48.775)
I think we were just... I can see... That's good. I just had a feeling too. I did. I had a diarrhea feeling when you went away. Because he said it doesn't happen often. You know, we were talking about unfiltered and... a squirt.

Chris O'Neil (19:49.365)
See, there's the unfiltered part right there, Courtney.

Pete (20:04.458)
It wasn't so much a diarrhea, it was just a, hey buddy, it's time to evacuate. Yeah.

Chris O'Neil (20:07.473)
It's like you need to go do this right now. Yeah. No, I was saying to Courtney how that has never happened. Yeah, we've never had a bathroom break mid recording. So that was the first.

Courtney P. (20:11.863)
Or it was unsafe, you weren't sure.

Pete (20:16.766)
It is a Friday, I did eat Taco Bell, and today is the day that I do my ozempic shot, so it was a trifecta of like, I was just playing with fire. Because sometimes with the... Thank you, I appreciate that.

Chris O'Neil (20:24.159)
Mm.

Courtney P. (20:26.925)
Oh yeah. Dude, you're looking good, man. You're losing a lot of weight. Quickly.

Chris O'Neil (20:30.029)
Yeah, definitely. You always see it in the face first, for sure.

Courtney P. (20:34.125)
Mm.

Pete (20:34.706)
Yeah. One day though, I'll be able to see my dick and that'll be the accomplishment.

Courtney P. (20:38.871)
Me too. See your dick.

Chris O'Neil (20:41.005)
See, and I always, I-

Pete (20:41.926)
I can't wait to be able to go over to my doctor and be like, I can see the tip cresting like a fucking rising sun over the horizon.

Chris O'Neil (20:47.017)
HAHAHAHA

Chris O'Neil (20:51.489)
I always remember that, uh, the remake of the nutty professor with Eddie Murphy, when he is, when he first takes the potion and gets thin and comes out of the shower, he's like, I can see my dick. Like he's so excited. So every time you say that, that's what I think of.

Pete (20:51.946)
That's my goal.

Courtney P. (20:52.176)
It's beautiful.

Pete (20:58.766)
Mm.

Courtney P. (21:06.064)
Hahaha

Pete (21:07.294)
Yeah, oh yeah.

Pete (21:11.754)
It's a real thing.

Courtney P. (21:11.995)
My son found his testicles this week and he's obsessed. So he sits in the tub. He's two. And you ever see Waiting, the movie Waiting? You know the bat? He's like, he gave him the bat. He gave me the bat. Like he's in the tub and he's like balls, balls. It's the funniest thing, dude. Like.

Chris O'Neil (21:15.977)
There you go. How old is he? Again?

Chris O'Neil (21:21.63)
Okay.

Oh yeah. The Batwing? Yeah!

Pete (21:24.798)
Yeah, oh yeah. The Batwing, yeah.

Chris O'Neil (21:32.743)
Oh yeah, that's fantastic.

Pete (21:40.382)
I actually worked with a kid at Holland America that used to do that... batwing shit. Come around the corner at fuckin' work and there he would be, stretching his nutsack out like, what the fuck, buddy?

Chris O'Neil (21:40.742)
Oh my god.

Chris O'Neil (21:46.263)
Yeah.

Courtney P. (21:52.003)
I think some of the funniest moments of my life were people with the genitals out at some form or another. There was a guy I played in a band with who we were playing at a wedding and he was a real fucker. This guy, he always, like I couldn't sing around him. I couldn't look at him. But at some point I looked at him, he was playing bass and he was like this and he turned towards me so he was back towards the audience and he lifted up his bass and he was out.

And then he covered it back up and turned around and he plays playing like that, waiting for the moment I looked at him just to do that. He's like, who puts the plan together like that?

Pete (22:26.54)
What a bastard

Chris O'Neil (22:27.889)
Yeah, like the level of commitment for just a single like, ha ha, I got you moment, right? Yeah, I know guys like that too.

Courtney P. (22:38.063)
Yeah, I'll never ever forget it. I'll never forget that. It was one of the funniest. Or like in South Africa, this guy like he was just on a urinal next to me and he just looked over and down and he was like, nice piece. That's the best! I stole that. I've done that a million times since then. So fun.

Chris O'Neil (22:59.213)
Well, see, and there you go, there's.

Pete (22:59.394)
I uh, one of my favorite bits on Graham Norton was that he would wire cameras and microphones into the toilet and there'd be speakers so it sounded like people were talking to him. Oh, he would say things about people's junk and they would get freaked out because there's nobody else in the bathroom. It was, he used to do some great shit when he was younger, man. Oh.

Chris O'Neil (23:02.787)
Yeah.

Chris O'Neil (23:19.89)
Oh God.

Courtney P. (23:21.083)
Good.

Oh my god, is there footage in that? Do you have?

Pete (23:26.758)
Yeah, oh yeah, it was um, it's probably on YouTube. It was when he came over to America Yeah, he had a he did like a short stint in america There was another one that he did where he ran people through a metal detector And then he had the guest guests where they were pierced and he went through with a metal detector And scanned the people

Chris O'Neil (23:28.793)
Graham Norton, really?

Oh wow.

Okay.

Courtney P. (23:47.536)
I'm sorry.

Pete (23:48.01)
with the handheld ones and they had him guess and like there would be nipples. One girl was her clit and he made her go photocopy it. He gave copies to everybody in the fucking theater. He was raunchy, but man, yeah.

Chris O'Neil (23:49.12)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Courtney P. (24:00.55)
I mean, that's how you get famous.

Chris O'Neil (24:02.625)
Holy shit, man. I didn't know that about him at all.

But it is true Courtney, like you said, it's... Well, yeah, but...

Pete (24:07.55)
Dude, he's English and gay. So you can get away with a lot. Well, he's actually Irish, but.

Chris O'Neil (24:13.473)
he Irish Yeah, it is true what you said Courtney in this in especially in this, you know, modern world of, of everyone's offended by everything. And don't get me wrong, I think there are plenty of things that people got away with just because it was the norm that like, but again, it's a subjective thing. Like I look at, you know, one person's horrible, traumatizing experience is someone else's

Courtney P. (24:14.151)
I don't know.

Chris O'Neil (24:42.209)
just a good Friday night, you know what I mean? So it's, I still think the universal aspect of, oh, well, no one should say that because some people might find it offensive is different than just blatantly being a dick to everybody. Like, I think everything has its place and having yet but having being able to joke like that in a situation that

Courtney P. (24:45.104)
Mm.

Courtney P. (25:02.499)
It's a fine line.

Courtney P. (25:09.467)
I chalk it up to you have to be funny. If you're gonna do it and you're gonna do it like in a fun way, you have to be funny. You have to make people laugh because if it's not funny or you have a dry delivery it's not gonna fly. It's just not. I think people...

Chris O'Neil (25:20.398)
Well, yeah.

Then it's just creepy. Oh yeah.

Pete (25:26.335)
Yeah.

Chris O'Neil (25:28.905)
and i think that that's the thing about comedy right like you said it's a fine line

Courtney P. (25:34.615)
Yeah, you're either hitting or not. And I think I've heard every single comedian I'm a fan of say that they've had way more bombs than they have good nights. Chris D'Elia talks about it on his podcast every single week.

Chris O'Neil (25:44.483)
Yeah.

Chris O'Neil (25:50.529)
Well, that's true of anything if you think about it. It very much it will stand up specifically. And Pete knows this very well because he's actually done it. But but the idea that. Yeah.

Courtney P. (25:51.429)
Comedy is different man.

Courtney P. (26:02.459)
Oh yeah, dude.

Pete (26:06.446)
until I was told I was kind of racist in my thing and I was like, well, I'm done. Because I described somebody that was sitting next to me as twitchy the Asian because the guy was Chinese and he was fucking twitching all over the place while he was sleeping, kept hitting me. It was a descriptor, I know, but as soon as somebody said that to me, I was like, okay, I'm done, I'm done.

Chris O'Neil (26:10.686)
Oh, is that why?

Courtney P. (26:11.04)
No. Really?

Chris O'Neil (26:20.621)
That's... that's not... that's not racist. That's racial.

Chris O'Neil (26:28.493)
Huh? Well, and that is it is true of anything, obviously, you're gonna have, like, I always go back to the Hall of Fame, right? You get a hit one a third of the time, and you're in the Hall of Fame. Like the fact, the fact that it's just built into what we do, you're gonna fail more often than you're not. And and the what?

Courtney P. (26:29.731)
I mean, it's so complicated.

Pete (26:50.042)
Actually, Chris, the baseball hall of fame is a lot more complicated than that. There's a lot of fellatio going on to the baseball writers association. Those guys are so fucking full of themselves, it's not even fair.

Courtney P. (26:58.707)
Yeah. Yep. See? And that's what I was just gonna say. You can't quit comedy because that's a bit in its own right there. You already just wrote one right there. You shouldn't stop, man. You shouldn't. Don't let that shit stop you. I say stupid shit every day and people roll their eyes and I just keep saying it. I bet it was funny.

Pete (27:11.638)
Eh, it's been a while.

Chris O'Neil (27:14.629)
Yeah, it... It...

Chris O'Neil (27:20.353)
That is the thing. Yeah. And it's because I had this experience. I've written stand up bits that I have wanted to perform it. I haven't done it yet. I've, I've done a ton of comedy. Like on stage, like I've done theater comedies. I've done commercial comedy. Like I I'm comfortable with comedy. But I haven't yet taken the stage as a stand up. And that's a whole different ballgame. Just

Courtney P. (27:48.996)
Mm-hmm.

Chris O'Neil (27:49.293)
the fact you're basically doing a one man show every night. You know, and if you're going to do any sort of audience work, you're then improving on top of that. So that's, that's heavy duty. And it I better than most because I've had the performance experience. I've been in Los Angeles for as long as I have. And I've had enough of experience in the industry.

to see people go through some of that stuff that other people are like, Oh, I could do that. It's like, No, you fucking couldn't you have no idea what this person does ongoing in order to get an inkling of, you know, how great they are now. So this is a hell of a lot to it.

Courtney P. (28:33.407)
I think comedy is the hardest thing to perform because like you said, that's the isolation on stage. I don't care who you are. Butterflies, nervous, power, whatever you call it, you get it before you perform, especially in front of people. And that can really suck your soul out in two seconds. For me, performing a song, I don't have to... I can be in a good mood or a bad mood.

Chris O'Neil (28:50.574)
Oh yeah.

Courtney P. (29:01.623)
and the song's gonna still, I'm gonna tap into the emotion of the song. It's easy. And maybe a coping mechanism between songs for me would be say stupid, funny shit because I don't know what else to say. And then go into the song. You can hide in the song. Dude, comedians, they got nowhere to go. If you hit a, if you hit a, if you hit one bad note, you're in a bad mood and your delivery's off. There's so many things that could just trickle down and go so, so wrong.

Pete (29:14.894)
All right.

Chris O'Neil (29:14.966)
Yeah.

Chris O'Neil (29:18.273)
That's a valid point.

Pete (29:31.591)
Yeah.

Courtney P. (29:31.651)
And there's no way back up. And once you lose the crowd, the time, you know what? Get three minutes song to win them over. You get two sentences to engage the audience. And if you lose them right then, gone. It's hard.

Chris O'Neil (29:31.874)
Yeah.

Pete (29:45.442)
So I had this bit where I had a joke about cum. And this lady had seen me do it before. Yeah, yeah. And this lady got really, like in my face at a fuckin' open mic night. And she kept like shadowing me. And it kept eatin' away at me, cause she.

Chris O'Neil (29:52.126)
shampoo bottle, right?

Yeah, I remember this one.

Pete (30:07.842)
She was drinking and she kept saying how she didn't like this one joke, she didn't like this one joke, she wouldn't fucking tell me what it was. So I got annoyed, so I just started drinking. And I was the last one to go on. No, I hadn't been on yet.

Chris O'Neil (30:17.985)
Were you already on stage? Oh, she was shadowing you in the audio. Yeah, yeah, that's right. I remember this now.

Pete (30:24.134)
Yeah, because she had seen me a couple of weeks before. I didn't like that joke. Like, what joke? And I'm like trying to remember all the things that I did. And then finally, I'm like, was it the joke about cum? And she was like, that's the one. So after drinking, I'd let it fester and fester. And she stood in front.

at the open mic man and I got right in her face and I ended up like, I closed my set with that joke and I reached down and I went into her face with the fucking microphone and yelled the word come in her face and I dropped the mic and walked off the stage. I was like that aggravated with her because I'm like, it's not even a gross joke. I used to say that I, it was um.

I liked how my girlfriend's shampoo made my hair feel nice and full and fluffy. Or something like that, and I'd go, but I never told her that I'd use it, so I would just replace it with a jack off into the bottle. And I'd say, oh wow, your hair is just so nice and shiny, or something shit like that, I don't even remember.

Courtney P. (31:21.429)
Hahaha

Courtney P. (31:25.531)
Hahaha

Chris O'Neil (31:26.798)
Yeah.

Pete (31:27.262)
But yeah, this lady was like completely offended by it. But a lot of people got a good laugh out of it. And she, there was another time I was in Roxbury and I did a fucking open mic night and I made a joke about Jesus and some lady spent the rest of my set in the bathroom. I watched her walk across the fucking room and go into the bathroom until I was done. It was like that scene in Carlito's Way where he notices the guy hiding in the bathroom and he does that pool shot.

Chris O'Neil (31:46.005)
Mm.

Courtney P. (31:54.003)
Yeah, dude, comedy. It's, I thought about it a couple times. I mean, I consider myself to have a good sense of humor. People have told me to do it, but it's different. Like I can do a really good accent, like any accent. Like my wife and I have this couple that we pretend to be called Rod and Tanya and we're from Revere. And we act like, and we're such fucking idiots. And I'm just like, well, Tanya, what's up?

Chris O'Neil (32:05.369)
Hmm.

Courtney P. (32:23.119)
See, I can't even do it right now, because you put me on call to make one of those voices, and it's gone. It's gone. So comedy, if you can't tap that vibe.

Chris O'Neil (32:30.637)
Well, and there it is. There's the difference.

And that is, that's precisely it. That's the difference between someone who's funny and someone who can perform funny. Right. So there are plenty of people who are just naturally funny. But you put them on stage with a microphone and they're scared shitless, they lose it. They can't do it anymore. And that's, that's that thing. Of course, and you have to practice.

Courtney P. (32:51.971)
No, I wouldn't dare. Not without practice. Not without doing it like years and years and years. Right, I mean, if you wanna do it, you're probably gonna suck for a wicked long time until you get a knack for it or you learn how to face an audience. I've opened for bands much bigger and much better than what I've been doing at some points and like, you just fucking go. You get through it. They're not listening anyway, so.

Chris O'Neil (33:08.472)
Yeah.

Chris O'Neil (33:19.125)
Yeah. Hahaha.

Courtney P. (33:21.824)
Um.

But you know, at some point after 20 years of doing that, I had my moments, you know, where like that work paid off. And it was satisfying, but like, dude, comedy, it's just a different beast, man. It's different. You gotta be funny.

Chris O'Neil (33:30.489)
Yeah.

Absolutely.

Chris O'Neil (33:39.074)
It is.

Pete (33:41.234)
I got to do a stand up in front of the guy from Movie Loft. What the fuck was his name? Gene something or other. Yeah. He judged a fucking comedy show that I did.

Chris O'Neil (33:47.237)
Oh. Yeah. He had a... Uh... uh...

Courtney P. (33:48.211)
I have not thought of movie loft.

Courtney P. (33:53.243)
It's in.

Chris O'Neil (33:55.073)
He had a feminine name too, because we were talking about.

Courtney P. (33:55.931)
How'd you do?

Pete (33:58.574)
It was Gene. Gene something or other. I can't remember his... I think so. Yeah, now I guess I'll Google it.

Courtney P. (34:00.199)
Gene!

Chris O'Neil (34:00.333)
It was cheap? Was it?

Courtney P. (34:03.975)
The movie lost, holy shit dude.

Chris O'Neil (34:06.685)
I still remember the song. Da da na na, da na. Oh yeah. I thought it, Dana, Dana. Yep, Dana Hershey, yeah, yeah.

Courtney P. (34:08.559)
That was like three o'clock in the afternoon too, right? Like it was like...

Courtney P. (34:15.915)
Yeah, wow. Blast from the past, man.

Pete (34:18.306)
Dana Hershey. It was Dana Hershey. That's who it was. Yeah, he judged the comedy show that I did. I did pretty well. I went up against other comics that had never... that had actually been seasoned, and I fared fairly well against them. I did an open Mike Knight of Giggles, too, with Tony Vee and shit like that, and I did alright.

Lenny Clark's brother Mike was like, you're pretty good at this kid. If you keep working at it, you might actually get somewhere. And true to form. I actually, yeah, I'm friends with Lenny. I see him, every time I see him, he's like, hey! Yeah.

Courtney P. (34:46.)
You know, Lenny Clark is a really fucking nice guy.

Chris O'Neil (34:46.297)
There you go, man.

Chris O'Neil (34:51.01)
Yeah, he's met him.

Courtney P. (34:54.755)
Yeah, he remembers everybody. He remembers me, he knows my name. I met him three times and he remembers you. He's a cool, cool guy. I didn't mean to interrupt you. I didn't wanna forget.

Pete (34:59.721)
Mm-hmm.

Yep.

Chris O'Neil (35:03.333)
That's pretty cool.

Pete (35:06.45)
No, no, that's cool. But yeah, no, it's just one of those things. Comedy, it sucks. And I can do both. I can be funny and I can perform funny, but it's just, it's nerve wracking and it sucks.

And then especially after would when they come at you after wouldn't they're like I really like this or I didn't like this And the other ones are the drunks that are like hey You're that comedian guy right? I got I got a fucking joke for you Tell me please

Courtney P. (35:28.987)
Hehehehehehe

Chris O'Neil (35:29.92)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Courtney P. (35:32.727)
Hahaha

Chris O'Neil (35:35.041)
Well, that's the other part of it for sure. That's the other part of it is being able to manage the and this is this is ironically enough. Why so many comics are not assholes, but they're just they'll dismiss anyone who has an issue because it's not worth trying to even have a conversation about it. Because it's either a drunk asshole or you know,

Courtney P. (35:36.207)
Those are the real funny motherfuckers.

Chris O'Neil (36:03.069)
someone who's offended or something like that. And it's like, okay, you realize this is, this is entertainment. This is escapism. This is not, you know, my manifesto on how things should be in the world, you know, although it's also my favorite place to put stuff like that. And because if someone does have a problem with it, you could say, well, I was just joking. So it's, it's a place where you can actually dig into real, yeah, real world issues.

Courtney P. (36:28.367)
That's the whole point.

Chris O'Neil (36:32.421)
in a serious way. Yeah.

Courtney P. (36:32.551)
treat these people like they're politicians. Like, they're just joking, it's comedy, like laughing. If it's not funny to you, okay, but it's not designed to offend you. You know, it's just not designed to offend you. You get, like, who's the Kramer dude? Stanley Sparadoski, what was his deal?

Chris O'Neil (36:41.197)
Don't laugh.

Pete (36:44.568)
Mm.

Pete (36:52.863)
Oh, um, Michael Richards.

Courtney P. (36:55.247)
That's different. You know, did you?

Chris O'Neil (36:56.601)
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, yeah. And there you go. Yeah, because he didn't know how to manage his own emotional state. When he was he basically did he did a much heavier version of what you did Pete with the joke in the lady's face. He just he took it exceptionally far. So that that's the other factor there is like

Pete (36:57.514)
when he went nuts and had all those racial slurs.

Courtney P. (37:00.719)
But he was serious, even in this footage.

Chris O'Neil (37:26.357)
As soon as you start to get into where you're just emotionally triggered and then you take it out on somebody, that's different.

Pete (37:36.322)
Hmm.

Chris O'Neil (37:37.617)
And interestingly enough that.

Courtney P. (37:38.038)
Well, you're not built for comedy if you can react like that.

Pete (37:42.066)
Yeah. Yeah, I mean with me when that.

Chris O'Neil (37:42.529)
Well, and you know, everyone has their line, but yeah.

Pete (37:46.366)
When that person said that about me being racist or some shit, I was just like, eh, it's not worth it at that point, you know? I don't want to be mislabeled or have to defend myself because of something that I said or didn't say, you know? It's exhausting. And at that point, you know, I mean, I had very little to no childcare help and shit like that. So it was like kind of like cutting a loss that was an easy decision to make, you know? I miss it. I'd love to do it again, but whatever.

Courtney P. (38:00.887)
smart.

Chris O'Neil (38:06.498)
Yeah.

Courtney P. (38:16.631)
I mean, this is sort of a venue for you to be funny. And that's my interpretation of the show that I've listened to. I've kind of jumped across season one and two. And you guys are amazing at bringing the seriousness of being a parent and telling some really personal and like, I don't know, not humiliating, what's the word I'm looking for? Just kind of like revealing things.

Chris O'Neil (38:17.094)
stuck in my hair this whole time.

Courtney P. (38:44.423)
that you wouldn't normally share with the whole world or normal people don't share with the world, but you fucking make it fun. And there are these snippets of moments where it's hilarious and then there's other snippets of moments where I'm totally engaged and listening as a father or a fan or whatever you guys are on about. Right now, the series of, that's pretty serious, series about living, yeah.

Chris O'Neil (38:51.269)
Thanks, man.

Pete (39:09.122)
living in America. Good God, y'all. Living in America.

Courtney P. (39:12.643)
HYAH! Got to kiss myself!

Chris O'Neil (39:13.109)
Yeah, and I realized we've already had a couple episodes. We're going to have more. So I was actually going to talk to you about this today. And what the hell, might as well say it on air. I was just going to call it our American parenting series because we're probably going to have about four episodes total on the topic and kind of move through. And this, honestly, is a small part of it.

you know we obviously wanted to have a good conversation and have some banter but we are gonna ask you some parenting questions and yeah cuz it's it

Courtney P. (39:42.743)
Yeah, I was hoping you'd bring it there, to be honest with you.

Pete (39:46.618)
Actually, if you want to use this as a segue, Courtney lives in Massachusetts and your daughter, your oldest, is diabetic. How is it finding services for stuff like that? Do you find it easy? Is it hard?

Chris O'Neil (39:51.041)
Yeah, I was planning to.

Courtney P. (40:02.147)
I mean, it's been brutal. I mean, you could probably imagine all the loops, I mean, between the emotional things that we go through to navigating healthcare, changing jobs, the state of the worlds, you know. My imagination's a little crazy. So, you know, bombs start falling or power goes out, all her devices are gone. Now, how am I gonna get insulin?

So I gotta go to CVS and strangle someone to get insulin? No, that's outlandish thinking. But mass health has been okay because they cover kids under the age of 18. So you get pretty good coverage until right after COVID and they changed the rules. And now I have to pay a premium to mass health for insulin. Other than that, kids are covered. So type one diabetes.

Pete (40:38.301)
Right.

Chris O'Neil (40:45.768)
Okay.

Courtney P. (41:01.339)
isn't considered covered. It's not covered. Insulin is not covered by mass health. It's my 12 year old's life.

Pete (41:06.55)
That's fucking bonkers.

Chris O'Neil (41:07.713)
Yeah, and honestly, I was gonna ask you.

Yeah, and I was gonna ask you price wise, because I have heard multiple times. And then it's been a cyclical thing. It just keeps going up and up and up. Insulin is like a foundational issue. And obviously, it always has been to anyone who has diabetes, because that's what you need. But the fact that it's marked up like 1500% or some bullshit like that, because it's relatively cheap to make. And it just keeps going up and up and up.

And now it's getting more exclusive. And it's like, Oh, unless you have these things, you can't even get it. Never mind. Get a lot of it. And it is one of the most evil, greedy fucking things that the healthcare slash pharmaceutical industry is perpetuating this idea that it's, it's so hard to get and it's expensive because of these reasons. And, you know, it's Yeah, it's just

It's utter bullshit. And you're fucking with people's lives.

Courtney P. (42:13.495)
One snafu at CVS and you get a day without insulin and you know we got to count every carb. We count every carb anyways but now we're like balancing carbs and like okay now you got to run. I mean we've never been in that situation but I'm just saying there's been snafus. We wait for her devices longer than we have to sometimes and on the devices thing there's two major...

Pete (42:19.614)
Uh-huh.

Chris O'Neil (42:26.777)
Yeah.

Courtney P. (42:42.215)
things these people wear. There's one that you inject and it's probably 10 days, tells you your blood sugar. You can use your phone, you have another device if you want. That's one thing on your body. A separate thing on your body has the insulin in it. So we give her like 120 milliliters of insulin in a device that lasts for three days and because of how precious insulin is, we try to make use of it.

So if that pod is about to expire, I'm like, carb up. Let's get a frat. Let's use the insulin, at least. I don't want you to waste it. She agrees. She's like, I'll eat whatever. But the point I was going to make is we got one company, Dexcom, doing the blood sugar. And then we got Omnipod doing the insulin.

Chris O'Neil (43:19.546)
Hmm.

Pete (43:28.842)
Free pass!

Chris O'Neil (43:40.534)
Yeah.

Courtney P. (43:40.859)
Both of these things are sticking in her body. Why aren't those two things one thing? Because of patents and trademarks, and you're gonna tell me my fucking 12-year-old girl is on the line because you guys can't share? It's fucking unbelievable, dude. I have to, you know, I know, it's cool that you're an emotional coach, is that what you, because I've been working really hard to not.

Pete (43:46.125)
Right?

Chris O'Neil (43:55.171)
Yeah.

Pete (43:56.054)
Yeah, they just don't care.

Chris O'Neil (44:05.409)
Yeah, emotion coach.

Courtney P. (44:11.151)
You ever hear of stoicism? It's really cool. It's like... You just... I can't control things.

Pete (44:11.318)
Lose your shit.

Chris O'Neil (44:15.915)
Sorry, I'm well versed in stoicism. So yeah, it's, I just had to laugh because yes, I've heard of it in depth. Yes, actual stoicism, not the modern version of what so many guys think it is.

Courtney P. (44:27.419)
So, yeah, right. So I'm in it right now. I'm in it, like really hardcore, like, and what's helping me so much is I can't control that shit. I can't control it. So it can't bother me. I can control what I do. I can control how I make my daughter feel about it. I also have to mentally prepare her for the evil world she's about to face with her disease,

Chris O'Neil (44:33.559)
Nice.

Courtney P. (44:57.275)
you know, cared for her, we do a good job making her feel safe, she's learned to take care of her own diabetes, she functions more, she lives better than most people. The only time she ever complained, really, like really cried a little bit and complained was when she was, you know, mad about wearing certain outfits because it shows. And that's body issues that any teenage pre-teen girl is going to feel. But

Chris O'Neil (45:20.292)
Oh yeah.

Chris O'Neil (45:25.35)
Oh yeah.

Courtney P. (45:26.267)
To have that be the thing that upset her, this speaks for the character of this kid. She's a tough, tough kid. I'm really proud of her. But we want to make her feel safe, but I also want her to know there's a world of disappointment out there. You have to fight. And you can't change it, but you can control you. You can navigate it.

Chris O'Neil (45:46.209)
Yes. Well, and that something I want to add there, too. And yeah, you're right on. The big thing that I hear, especially from people where we grew up, obviously, I'm not living there anymore. But you guys are just that. And it's not only there. It's just where I experienced it. So, you know, you can't coddle, you gotta, you gotta treat your kids. You basically got to build up

their calluses, right? You got to treat them harshly. You got to love them, but you got to treat them harshly so that they can then experience the harshness of the real world, quote unquote, and not be traumatized by it. Right? And there's definitive scientific studies that have been done that prove that is bullshit. Because if you're subjected to harshness in order to protect yourself from harshness, that's like fighting fire with fire.

Courtney P. (46:47.028)
Mm.

Chris O'Neil (46:47.113)
it's not gonna do what you think it's gonna do. The opposition to that would be, as you're saying, Courtney, creating a place of love and safety and comfort where someone can go experience those things, but then come back to. So they have a respite, they have a base, they have a safety net that, because if there's no safety net at all, then you're just stuck.

in coping, right? You're not actually developing skills to manage and deal with the bullshit. So yeah, you got to dabble in the reality of things. But that's the whole process of parenting, right? It's so many people are those like, why aren't you doing what I'm telling you? Why didn't you get it? I already told you, right? It's a marathon. It's not a sprint.

Courtney P. (47:26.458)
Mm-hmm.

Courtney P. (47:35.175)
Mm-hmm.

Chris O'Neil (47:44.065)
Right? You're going to have to repeat yourself incessantly. That's why patience is so important. And as you're talking about the tenets of so Stoicism. So the idea that you just got to kick their ass so that when their ass is kicked in the real world, they'll be that much better off is a very skewed, incorrect idea.

Courtney P. (47:45.883)
Hehehe

Courtney P. (48:06.135)
Well, and I think that what helps with that, and for me, this is just something that came natural to me, is I've pretty much spoken to my daughter in a pretty mature way right from the time she was able to process what I was saying. And I'm just not afraid to share anything with her at all. If she hears a swear at school, although somebody said this word, I'll be like, in the

Chris O'Neil (48:21.902)
Yeah.

Courtney P. (48:35.427)
what's the word? And she'll say it in the car. And I'll be like, all right, every time you hear a word and you know it's a bad word, when you get in the car and you ask me what that word is, I'll tell you what it is and that's why it's a bad word. And then from now on, we can say it in the car when we're alone. So if you wanna do that, that's cool. I try to be as real as possible to the point where...

Chris O'Neil (48:38.936)
Yeah.

Chris O'Neil (48:53.356)
Hahaha!

Chris O'Neil (48:58.021)
I think that's great, man.

Courtney P. (49:04.695)
You know, this is the reality of my parenting, is that I know very much about what it's like to not be perfect. I'm very rarely humiliated, because I'm just aware that I will not do everything perfectly, and that if I want to do something, I continue to do it until I do it, but I'm not afraid to fuck up. And when I fuck up as a parent,

I can go to her when I realize it or like shortly, usually pretty shortly afterwards, I can go to her and say, this is one of those instances where I was really wrong. I'm sorry. Like this, I'm like, you're going to be wrong a lot in your life too. And I just want you to know that's okay. Because I'm not really embarrassed by it. Your dad cannot be this perfect hero. I fuck up and it's okay.

Chris O'Neil (49:44.633)
Yeah.

Courtney P. (50:00.663)
it's alright to fuck up. So when she does something, she was involved with something at school, which kind of unfolded with a little detective work on my end. I caught a vibe, I asked a few questions, I'd be down a rabbit hole, I got some clues, and I was like, hey Blue, do you want to find a clue? And she came clean on the thing.

Chris O'Neil (50:00.751)
Mm-hmm.

Chris O'Neil (50:12.708)
Mm.

Chris O'Neil (50:20.6)
Hahaha!

Chris O'Neil (50:27.683)
Yeah.

Courtney P. (50:30.127)
I was like, proud of her. And I was like, look, I'm not mad at you because your real feelings were revealed and when the weight came off of your shoulders and not carrying this shit around with you. And now we can get to the meat of it. What does it mean? How do you process that? And what is the answer? How do you bring that answer to peace within yourself? And she went and did the right thing. And without getting too

much into it, but it was a bullying situation. And I basically explained to her, both ends of the spectrum, I've been on both ends of the spectrum, but this is how you create a villain. So you need to tell, cause it's not just you, it's the whole school doing it to this kid. You wanna make a villain, that's how you do it. So she made her own choice to go and privately speak to the school and.

Chris O'Neil (51:03.264)
Mm.

Chris O'Neil (51:17.057)
Yeah.

Courtney P. (51:28.527)
you know, make them aware that this was happening to this kid. Nothing happened, nothing changed. But for her, it was like a really brave and like doing the right thing moment. Mr. Robinson, Mr. Robinson, what a horrible mess. Do you remember that Church of Latter-day Saints commercial? Ha ha, boom, dude, what? I just remembered that. But it was, I was really proud of her. And...

Chris O'Neil (51:38.009)
Yeah.

Pete (51:45.01)
Oh yeah, fuck yeah.

Chris O'Neil (51:47.807)
Oh my god.

Chris O'Neil (51:53.509)
Church of Latter-day Saints also.

Pete (51:57.25)
When you tell two lies, it leads to another. Then you tell three lies. Ha ha.

Chris O'Neil (51:57.537)
Yeah. I do. Yeah, I don't vividly remember that one. But I remember those commercials big time. Yeah, no, dude. And this is so this is actually going to lead us into these questions that we wanted to ask you to. But I think this is so important where one of my biggest pet peeves is that situation where you know, your kid has done something and you're like, you can be honest with me, you're not going to get in trouble. And then they're honest. And then you punish them for it.

Courtney P. (51:57.583)
Do you remember those commercials? Oh my god.

Courtney P. (52:05.163)
Oh my god, I-

Chris O'Neil (52:28.525)
That's talk about losing somebody's trust, right? You're setting them up for failure and then fucking them over. Like, it's exactly what you said. Why are you doing that? What is the point of punishing someone? What is the point of consequences? It's so they can learn the best way to go about something. It's not so you get satisfaction to be right as a parent. And if that's what you're doing, then you're doing it wrong, right? So, and granted, we all have those moments. I've had those moments.

Like, it's not like this doesn't happen. But if that's your sole goal with what you're doing, that's a different story. You know, we all get stuck in our head and our emotions and our, you know, our own inner child. Like I have had to catch myself parenting my own inner child instead of my daughter. I've had to catch myself doing that. So, but that's such an important thing to be able to say, okay, your behavior is not okay.

Courtney P. (53:05.979)
Hmm.

Chris O'Neil (53:25.281)
But let's focus on where that behavior is coming from and what we can do about that because that's the underlying issue, right? That is the foundational cause of your behavior. So yeah, the behavior is not okay, but let's dig into why that's happening. Because if we address why it's happening, then the behavior stops anyway, and then it's two birds with one stone, you know? So that's a big issue with me and the coaching that I do is really a lot of...

self-reflection through that emotional lens when you're not in an emotional state. Because so many, especially fathers, but men in general, and it's not like women don't do this too, but I work with men, so I mostly talk about that, but the vast majority of people that are in these situations never deal with the emotions that have come up in situations like that, unless they're in a situation like that. And you can't do it then, right?

Because you're literally in your emotional center. You're not thinking logically. So that's the biggest hill right there to get over. The biggest speed bump in the beginning is just how to understand how to actually go about it. And then you can get into the work. But if you're doing it at the wrong time, you never talk about all the bullshit unless you're yelling at each other. That's never gonna change. So.

And then you teach your kids to do that and they perpetuate it.

Courtney P. (54:55.287)
Yeah.

Courtney P. (55:02.155)
I think that finding the right hills to die on is important, I think especially with girls, because I want that trust when I need it, when she needs it. If there's shit later, she's going to need to tell someone, and I want to be able to be the person that she can tell that, and have that be safe. Because if... Yeah, I figured you'd relate to that one, because there are bad people.

Chris O'Neil (55:10.957)
Hmm. Yeah.

Chris O'Neil (55:21.367)
100%. And I have two girls, so I'm with you on that.

Chris O'Neil (55:28.793)
Yeah, absolutely.

Courtney P. (55:30.519)
and girls got it rough. And I'm always waiting for that. So you know, I'm always waiting for something fucked up to happen. And fucked up shit happens to all of us, clearly. But I want her to be able to tell me before that, like you were saying, turns into a title lock in her mind where like you only deal with it when you're facing it as opposed to sitting.

Pete (55:45.58)
Yep.

Courtney P. (55:59.651)
and talking, hey, I like this boy, he's mean to me, he is this, that, and the other thing, and I still like him, and I just wanna ring the kid's neck, but in the reality of the situation, I'm sitting there and I'm like, this is a 12-year-old boy. I'm gonna wait for the 17-year-olds. I'm gonna wait for the shit to really hit the fan. This is play stuff. I feel it already, but.

Chris O'Neil (56:12.105)
Yeah.

Courtney P. (56:29.011)
I need that trust until I'm afraid there'll be a time where I have to step in. You know what I mean? I'm just afraid of that. But I want that trust to earn that trust to know if I'm needed in that.

Chris O'Neil (56:37.589)
Yeah, I get that. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but that yeah, and as you said,

Pete (56:47.37)
that should come to you. Yeah, I get that.

Chris O'Neil (56:47.665)
And, and, yeah, and, and there may be a time we have to step in. But obviously, the goal is to give her as much information, knowledge, education, awareness, and all of those skills to be able to Yeah, yeah.

Courtney P. (56:58.971)
And space, like grow, make your own choices, grow up, have your own thoughts, process them with me. I have no advice to give a prepubescent teen who's worried if any day now something's going to change drastically about her body. We talk about it, we talk about it and it's funny because like diabetes, her whole life's been surrounded with blood, so here we go, some more blood. And you know, we joke around the house about it and it's...

Chris O'Neil (57:15.342)
Yeah, that's tough.

Chris O'Neil (57:23.877)
Hmm.

Courtney P. (57:27.587)
It's normalized. It's just that kind of conversation has been very normalized around here. And I like that. I don't get embarrassed about that either. I do have a problem with like, things like TV where she can watch some ultra violent things on TV and not have it phase her, but then she'll see a pair of tits and it looks like she's gonna crawl out of her skin. And I'm like, dude, like.

Chris O'Neil (57:29.219)
Yeah.

Chris O'Neil (57:37.529)
Yeah, I think, yeah.

Courtney P. (57:56.927)
naked bodies are normal. Like, chopping someone's head off, not normal. Not okay. You know, why are you weirded out by this?

Chris O'Neil (57:57.098)
Yeah.

Yeah, the...

Chris O'Neil (58:03.085)
Yeah, yeah, Villa vilifying. It's one thing I am in total agreement and it is age appropriate, certainly as kids are growing, but like, healthy, healthy anatomy, you know, it's not even sexuality. But that's the thing is, so many people can't detach

the body from sexuality, like if I'm seeing it, it's sexual. No, no, you're making it that way. Right, so it's the same thing, oh, don't do that, that's wrong, well, why is that wrong? It's wrong because you think it's wrong and you're putting that on your children because you were told that it was wrong. But for them, they have no fricking clue, they're just exploring. And if all of a sudden you come down on them like they're horrible people for doing it, then they internalize that and that becomes an issue later on.

Courtney P. (58:35.153)
Mm-hmm.

Courtney P. (58:44.895)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Courtney P. (58:55.59)
Yeah.

Chris O'Neil (58:57.021)
So yeah, I'm with you on that. It's being able to matter of factly acknowledge these things in an age appropriate way that allows them to, yeah, allows them to feel comfortable talking about it. And that goes back to your original point, to be able to feel trusting and to come to you.

Courtney P. (58:58.331)
Hmm.

Courtney P. (59:04.431)
Just normal. Make it as normal as possible.

Courtney P. (59:11.061)
Mm.

Courtney P. (59:15.811)
Yeah. Yeah, there was one dude that called me out once. She was like four years old and didn't have her shirt on at the beach. And he was like, put a shirt on that kid. And I'm like, why did that get in your mind?

Chris O'Neil (59:25.902)
Yeah.

Courtney P. (59:27.195)
That's not her, that's you. You brought that to the table. So you thought about something that I don't like and like, why did you say it? You know, like you just kind of outed your own thoughts.

Chris O'Neil (59:28.609)
Yeah, that's you. Yep. Yeah.

Pete (59:29.876)
Ahem.

Pete (59:39.102)
Yeah. We're gonna go further down the beach away from you.

Chris O'Neil (59:45.014)
Yeah.

Courtney P. (59:45.379)
We don't talk to that boy anymore. We don't talk to him.

Chris O'Neil (59:48.769)
Well, yeah, and that connects back to everything we've been saying, honestly. So it's the it's that's your problem. You need to go away and deal with that. I'm not going to curb what I'm doing so you're more comfortable. You know, just because you don't know how to deal with your own shit. But yeah, Pete, God.

Pete (59:49.608)
Oh shit. So...

Courtney P. (01:00:03.15)
Mm.

Pete (01:00:04.298)
Alright, I'm gonna reel you in, motherfucker. You long-winded son of a bitch. We're crouching, we're at an hour now. I'm gonna start asking the 10 questions because I don't think there's anybody on God's green fucking Earth that's gonna sit through a two-hour long podcast. And I can already feel the death stare. I can already feel the death stare from my significant other that, well.

Chris O'Neil (01:00:19.033)
Well, no, we've had we've had 90 minute. We've had 90 minute podcasts with guests before. That's not abnormal.

Courtney P. (01:00:19.875)
If I'm on it, I will. Ha ha ha!

Courtney P. (01:00:26.331)
I'll listen to myself for like five hours, I don't care.

Pete (01:00:30.13)
I can't listen to myself. I record shit and then I delete it. I can't do it. It's like, even editing this, it's the worst. I can't even listen to fucking my own, like, leaving a voicemail. Do you want to listen to that and like, re-record it? No! No I don't!

Chris O'Neil (01:00:30.692)
Yeah.

Chris O'Neil (01:00:33.976)
I see

Courtney P. (01:00:37.359)
Yeah.

Courtney P. (01:00:40.58)
It sucks.

Chris O'Neil (01:00:40.819)
Oh well.

Well, guess that's your problem.

Courtney P. (01:00:44.247)
No, it's funny though, because I like listening to your cadences, so it's like the best... You know, it's definitely like a duo, you guys. Like, you both have a different thing to bring, but you have that New England fuck and dood. Like... Hahaha! It's really important that that's in a show like this, that has such weight. You know what I mean? Like...

Chris O'Neil (01:00:49.381)
Ha ha ha!

Chris O'Neil (01:00:59.573)
Yeah, yeah, he totally does. Totally does.

Pete (01:01:07.79)
Well, it's gotta be two different coasts, man, weighing in. Let me get this fucking California weirdo.

Courtney P. (01:01:11.223)
Yes, exactly. It's very balanced.

Chris O'Neil (01:01:11.477)
yeah did and before we before we asked that these questions according i do i do just want to say we really appreciate all the great stuff you said about the show about us and that you were happy to come on in and even like you did a face book post not too long ago that was just saying how awesome the show was in promoting it everything and we're really grateful for that work lab that

we're glad that it's hitting this way because we weren't sure until people started saying yeah we like it and we like it this because of this and all that and i will say that you i think have had the most detailed acknowledgement of what it is and why you like it certainly hits home in it and we appreciate it very much

Pete (01:02:03.23)
What Chris is trying to say is the check is in the mail, but don't cash it for like two weeks.

Courtney P. (01:02:03.591)
I-I-I- NNNN

Courtney P. (01:02:07.539)
I'm a shill now, I didn't know this. But seriously, I would like to see more people engage. I have friends that I've kind of been hammering at to get on it, it's a great show, guys. It should be shared with people.

Chris O'Neil (01:02:07.846)
Hahaha!

Pete (01:02:24.27)
Thanks.

Chris O'Neil (01:02:26.67)
Thanks, Ben.

Pete (01:02:27.822)
That's what we're trying to do. There'll be a live episode in California where I kick Chris's ass.

Chris O'Neil (01:02:29.597)
Okay, questions? Yeah, group.

Courtney P. (01:02:34.8)
Hahaha

Chris O'Neil (01:02:35.061)
Hahaha

Chris O'Neil (01:02:39.172)
Okay.

Pete (01:02:39.466)
We find out it wasn't a vasectomy, Asia just took his balls. Ah. Ha ha ha.

Courtney P. (01:02:44.935)
Boss.

both.

Chris O'Neil (01:02:50.148)
I'm gonna be saying that now. That's so good. That's, yeah.

Courtney P. (01:02:53.08)
Boss.

Pete (01:02:56.278)
All right, so the first question we got for you Courtney is what is the most valuable piece of parenting advice you've received or would give to another dad?

Courtney P. (01:02:56.976)
Boss.

Courtney P. (01:03:07.632)
that I've received or would give to another dad.

Well to be honest with you, I didn't get a lot of feedback going into this. I didn't have much of a palette, what do you call it, a paint thing. I didn't have the right, I wasn't equipped with the tools. So a lot of the lessons I've learned are just kind of winging it and going by it a little bit, rough around the edges and then learning and learning and learning. And that's probably the thing I would say is that like...

Chris O'Neil (01:03:25.441)
Yeah, you had it right.

Chris O'Neil (01:03:38.254)
Yeah.

Courtney P. (01:03:43.395)
You need to be learning too. So sometimes, you know, little baby Finn, like I wear him in a backpack and we're walking in the woods and he's looking up and there's like the sound of leaves, wind or something. And like for a second, I'm like, that is kind of fucked up. Like that's happening. Like wind happens. Like you learn.

Chris O'Neil (01:04:10.029)
Yeah.

Courtney P. (01:04:12.335)
You can learn more from your children and tap into things within yourself. You didn't know you had, they offer, you might have the best friend of your life right next to you. You might be learning just as much from them and they're changing you, forming your personality just as much as you are them. So I would say that don't forget your learning too. Like as a parent, you should be learning from them.

Chris O'Neil (01:04:39.417)
That's great. Yeah, absolutely.

Pete (01:04:42.99)
Totally true, two-way street.

Chris O'Neil (01:04:46.049)
Yeah, it's a great answer too.

Pete (01:04:48.086)
Do you want to alternate, Chris, or should I just read them all?

Chris O'Neil (01:04:49.449)
Number two. Yeah. I'll off. I'll offset. Well, Oh, do you want, you want me to answer? Is that what you're saying? Or you want me to ask the question? The next question.

Pete (01:04:56.594)
No, I don't want to hear what you got to talk about. Where? Aw, he'll be talking for days, Courtney. Ha ha ha.

Chris O'Neil (01:04:59.161)
Hahaha!

Courtney P. (01:04:59.435)
I want to hear it. Where did you... I'll listen to next week's.

Chris O'Neil (01:05:04.341)
He's yeah, he's Pete hates it when I talk so much No my that's fantastic I will just say learn and practice emotional regulation that would be my advice

Chris O'Neil (01:05:20.686)
And I have tools. So hit me up. And actually, I Pete, I was going to talk to you about like, I want to, I want to dig into more of those, like have a little bonus, like emotional regulation tip at the end of every episode, but we'll talk about it. Number two.

Courtney P. (01:05:27.164)
I might.

Pete (01:05:40.014)
Yeah, let's talk about what we're going to do during the episode.

Chris O'Neil (01:05:43.669)
Yeah, fucking a desert filtered. Um, can you can you share a memorable and humorous parenting moment that still makes you laugh?

Pete (01:05:48.369)
We're writing it as we do it.

Courtney P. (01:05:48.731)
Give it to me.

Courtney P. (01:06:01.663)
There's a lot.

Chris O'Neil (01:06:02.861)
There it is. Ha ha ha.

Pete (01:06:03.044)
Hahaha.

Courtney P. (01:06:04.699)
Um, that's really hard. That's really hard. Um, oh man, there's so many. I think I.

Chris O'Neil (01:06:10.829)
though you know we share more, but just pick one.

Courtney P. (01:06:14.987)
Alright, this is forever entertaining. When Annabelle was pretty young and she was about a year and maybe even less into her diabetes, we were just getting used to insulin and counting carbs. You go to a restaurant, they don't have a back of the box. So you kind of, you look at rice and you're like, how much, excuse me waitress, how many carbs are in the rice? No.

Chris O'Neil (01:06:34.041)
Hmm.

Chris O'Neil (01:06:42.265)
Yeah, jeez, yeah.

Courtney P. (01:06:44.239)
We can just look at a plate now and tell you what's in it, point blank. I mean, we're never off too much. But one time we were at a restaurant and I made the mis- she had these two kinds of insulin back then because we weren't doing pumps. So it was, one was a 24 hour acting and the other one was a fast acting. I mixed them up. So I gave her too much of the fast acting and we had just finished dinner. So she's-

Chris O'Neil (01:06:47.819)
Mm.

Chris O'Neil (01:07:07.235)
Okay.

Courtney P. (01:07:13.391)
You know how your kids, when they're full, what happens? You know, they're not gonna eat nothing. Now I got a kid who's full who might die if she doesn't eat something. So I was like, you know, I'm exaggerating, but the panic was, you know, like shit. And you know, the guilt and the, you know, again, parents fuck up, right? So, and this was really new to me and I was terrified. So I...

Chris O'Neil (01:07:15.523)
Yeah.

Pete (01:07:19.775)
No.

Chris O'Neil (01:07:24.92)
Oh shit.

Pete (01:07:31.298)
Oh yeah.

Chris O'Neil (01:07:36.169)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Courtney P. (01:07:42.231)
I managed to convince her to get a really carby beverage, drinks are the best thing to get in there and pop you back up. And she didn't want it. And so, you know, this is a little kid, this is like a five-year-old. And she just looked right in my eyes and she was like, dad, look under the table. And when I looked under the table, she was like, cause she knew she couldn't do it, above the table.

Because it goes back to the car, you know, like something I do. This is what the bird is. So she knew that we were a restaurant. So she threw it under the table. But fast forward to, you know, now you're in Marshalls with your 12-year-old. And she's like, Dad, I want to get this shirt. And I'm like, no, you can't get that one right now. And she's like, look under the table and just walks away. Like doesn't have to do anything except. But you know what it means. Like, like, yeah, there you go.

Chris O'Neil (01:08:12.085)
Yeah.

Chris O'Neil (01:08:21.598)
Uhhh...

Chris O'Neil (01:08:31.761)
That's like...

Yeah. Right. Yeah. Oh, that's fantastic. That's a great one.

Courtney P. (01:08:38.167)
And you can't yell at her because it's too funny. It's like, I don't know. It seems like a classic. It's probably one of my favorites.

Chris O'Neil (01:08:49.337)
Do you have rapid fire? Do you have one Pete?

Courtney P. (01:08:49.594)
Yeah

Pete (01:08:54.526)
I think my go-to favorite one is learning not to sleep in with Zachary That morning that I woke up and he was on the kitchen table covered in peanut butter had to toe Like Zulanda in the coal mine surprise He was just all covered in fucking peanut butter like there wasn't an inch of him and then he got it on my MacBook at the time and every time it the CPU would heat up it would smell like peanut butter and it fucked up the

Chris O'Neil (01:09:04.414)
Oh yeah. Yeah.

Courtney P. (01:09:05.156)
Yeah

Chris O'Neil (01:09:10.381)
Head to toe covered in peanut butter. Oh, Jesus.

Chris O'Neil (01:09:21.302)
Yeah, yeah.

Pete (01:09:22.89)
the letter I key, and I kept trying to call Apple to have it fixed, and I kept saying the I key on my keyboard, and they're like, we don't have a product called an I key. I'm like, you fucking morons, the letter I, the keyboard key! Like, I literally had to bring it in and fucking point to them and be like, it's the letter I. Yeah, it's like, ugh. But yeah, that was, I think, my...

Chris O'Neil (01:09:39.257)
Yeah, this one. Oh, shit. The Ikea. Yeah, that was great.

Courtney P. (01:09:41.413)
Isn't this the I key?

Pete (01:09:47.758)
My lesson was not to sleep in with that fucker, cause when he's quiet, that's when the most trouble is happening.

Courtney P. (01:09:52.59)
Mm-hmm.

Chris O'Neil (01:09:52.641)
Well, that wasn't, that wasn't funny in the moment. It was funny after the fact. Right.

Pete (01:09:57.674)
No, it was funny in the fucking moment because you turn the corner from your bedroom and he's sitting on the kitchen table while kneeling on the kitchen table covered in fucking peanut butter. Hi, daddy. Like, oh, like, no.

Chris O'Neil (01:09:59.306)
Oh, was it?

Courtney P. (01:10:08.001)
He was kneeling.

Chris O'Neil (01:10:11.097)
Alright, yeah, that's so good. My go-to one was my daughter, my older daughter when she was maybe two. It just started really talking in sentences and wake up in the morning, she comes into the bed and she's talking with my wife. I end up rolling over and falling back asleep. And then I got woken up to her leaning over me.

Courtney P. (01:10:14.768)
That's a riot.

Chris O'Neil (01:10:41.093)
because I had my back to her and she's leaning over me in my face going DADDA! YOU'RE SLEEPING TOO LOUD!

Courtney P. (01:10:48.347)
Hahaha. Dude, you must have died. I'm... Mm-hmm.

Chris O'Neil (01:10:49.849)
that one killed me. Because I obviously started snoring. So yeah, so good.

Courtney P. (01:10:58.715)
She sounded legitimately angry too. Like they do. Snoring sucks. Yeah. Yep. Yeah, I get yelled at by the kids a lot.

Chris O'Neil (01:11:01.245)
Oh, yeah, hey, knock that shit off, man. We're trying to talk over here. Yeah.

Pete (01:11:15.33)
So how do you balance work, family, and personal time and maintain a healthy lifestyle? Do you have a healthy lifestyle, Courtney? Ha ha ha.

Chris O'Neil (01:11:25.504)
Yeah. That's a whole lot of questions in there. That's not one question.

Courtney P. (01:11:25.604)
It's hot and cold.

Pete (01:11:30.103)
That was.

Courtney P. (01:11:30.243)
I mean, I can really open about this, and I don't feel really ashamed of it, is that, yeah, I have demons that are health issues, you know, things that are, things you have to work on really, really hard to control. And that playing into, having a life with children, you know, my wife and I are constantly trying to work out, like, separate.

Pete (01:11:38.722)
Don't we all?

Chris O'Neil (01:11:43.81)
Yeah.

Courtney P. (01:11:59.483)
togetherness. Like she allows me the time to go play music once a week with a friend and put together a project slow and steady. Or if I want to take something like a class or go to whatever kind of function outside of the family. And I'm encouraging her to do the same thing. But the problem with me...

Pete (01:12:26.573)
Yeah.

Courtney P. (01:12:28.331)
is I like too much shit. So I want to fucking do it all. Like I'll go out once a week and do anything. And I think it's hard for her to pick something and like, you know, commit to it. I just, I think that everyone needs to have that step away. Work. You know, you guys have been talking about this. It's brutal. I have to do 12 hour shifts. I don't put the kids to bed a lot of the nights.

Pete (01:12:30.454)
Ha ha ha!

Chris O'Neil (01:12:33.601)
Yeah, yeah.

Courtney P. (01:12:58.263)
I hardly see them. Annabelle's at her mom's two days a week, two and a half days a week. You know, that's like a one fourth of her what, her whole life childhood that I don't witness. So then I'm at work when she's home. And then, you know, I have a very, it's very active job. I do a lot of squatting and lifting and moving.

Chris O'Neil (01:12:58.591)
stuff.

Chris O'Neil (01:13:11.365)
Hmm.

Courtney P. (01:13:26.903)
12 hours in the ER on a bad day can be pretty soul-sucking, you know? And then you get home and I want to watch True Detective, I want to read my book, I want to play Zelda, I want to do something fun, but you can't. I missed out on my kids tonight, never mind something for me. But you know, any way you can to find that little thing to either...

Chris O'Neil (01:13:32.426)
Yeah.

Chris O'Neil (01:13:41.541)
Mm-hmm.

Pete (01:13:46.933)
Right.

Chris O'Neil (01:13:47.67)
Yeah, that's tough.

Courtney P. (01:13:55.923)
stop your brain from worrying about bills and kids and all that work and shit and fucking whatever and just like the freedom to allow yourself a little bit of time is the healthiest shit I ever learned how to do and also I've been doing very well with my own mental health and my own demons as I was talking about so that is probably how I got into the stoicism thing and like um

Chris O'Neil (01:14:19.906)
Yeah, that's great.

Pete (01:14:21.39)
Oh

Courtney P. (01:14:25.575)
I'm learning a lot. I'm very open right now. This book by, uh, oh, it's right here. Rick Rubin's book. Read this book. Holy shit. It's so awesome. Uh, it's called The Creative Act, A Way of Being. I wanted to read about him recording Run DMC. I didn't know I was going on a life journey. Like, I... Yeah, dude, it's like... It's really cool. Yeah, it's a whole episode. It's really awesome.

Chris O'Neil (01:14:33.669)
What's it called?

Chris O'Neil (01:14:45.092)
Hahaha

Pete (01:14:45.282)
I saw the whole thing.

Chris O'Neil (01:14:55.578)
Nice.

Courtney P. (01:14:56.411)
That's it. I think that I covered it right. That like you just got to manage that time no matter what you do. There's always a little window for yourself. And that goes for your partner too, which means you got to cover whatever they need covered so they can go do that. That is the only way any of us stay sane.

Pete (01:14:59.263)
Yeah.

Chris O'Neil (01:15:06.989)
That is huge.

Pete (01:15:17.196)
Oh yeah.

Chris O'Neil (01:15:17.229)
absolutely my wife is doing that literally right now while i record this so there you go

Next question. Number four. Yeah. What's what's one thing you wish you knew before becoming a dad?

Pete (01:15:24.574)
What's staying sane?

Courtney P. (01:15:26.587)
Cut!

Chris O'Neil (01:15:34.753)
And I'm sure there's a bunch because it's much for me too. But just yeah, just pick one.

Courtney P. (01:15:38.711)
Yeah, but you want to pick a good one.

Pete (01:15:39.358)
Oh!

Courtney P. (01:15:43.931)
Say it, ask me again what's it like. Can you ask me that question again?

Chris O'Neil (01:15:46.413)
What's one thing you wish you knew before becoming a dad?

Courtney P. (01:15:53.468)
Ummm

Courtney P. (01:15:57.479)
Um, I wish I knew before I became a dad. I wish I knew. I, it's so weird because I became so much better after becoming a dad. Like that like, what did I wish I knew? I guess I wish I knew, um.

I wish I knew...

It's so hard man, I can't... I wish I... you know, I still wish I knew. I wish I knew how to like plan ahead for college and get like the money for the future in order. I wish I knew how to do taxes by myself and really get the maximum benefits of all that shit. So I mean, I wish I knew... I wish I had sharpened my own life up a little bit better before I dove into parenting because that... you know, you were talking about this...

in the last episode, like, you spend so much time teaching your kids, oh, college, and you gotta do this, and you gotta do that, that like, you forget to just like stop and live, you know, or like, you know, do what you wanna do, go to the Vogue, do whatever you wanna do, or don't go to college, whatever, like, you wanna be a fucking reporter, chase Superman, do it. Like, like, I don't know, but I, it's a really hard question because I feel like...

Chris O'Neil (01:17:07.693)
Yeah.

Pete (01:17:07.906)
Yeah.

Chris O'Neil (01:17:19.493)
I'm going to go to bed.

Courtney P. (01:17:26.091)
I didn't know what it, I was afraid I was gonna be like my dad. And I was terrified that I was gonna be a terrible father. And then 12 years into the girl and two years into the boy, I've learned that like, I'm not, nothing like that guy. I've paved a new road, I've learned from my children how to be a good father. And I didn't know I had it in me if I could go back and tell myself before having children that you were gonna be fine.

That's maybe something I would have liked to know, is that you're gonna be fine.

Chris O'Neil (01:17:58.925)
That's something. Yeah, a little peace of mind.

Pete (01:18:00.298)
Now the fear of falling into that trap probably drove you to being all the much better.

Courtney P. (01:18:02.96)
Yeah.

Courtney P. (01:18:08.439)
Yeah, I just knew it's just instinct for me to, you love, I love my kids, dude, I love my kids. So you just, everything good comes out of you when you love someone, you know, and everything, because that's all there is. There's no, like when you love someone, it just, it's not hard to just, your moral character, your moral compass or whatever, like the.

Chris O'Neil (01:18:23.425)
That's a great statement right there.

Courtney P. (01:18:36.623)
reaching for the best of someone else. And having it come out of you, which gives you a sense of self-love. I didn't know I had that. I love a lot of things. I love 1989 Batman, but I didn't know I was gonna love these kids like way more than that. I love Pearl Jam, dude. But like, I'll skip a Pearl Jam show to hang out with my kids.

Chris O'Neil (01:18:57.502)
Yeah.

Chris O'Neil (01:19:04.685)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah.

Courtney P. (01:19:05.775)
But you get what I'm saying, right?

Chris O'Neil (01:19:11.117)
All right, number five.

Pete (01:19:11.926)
Or sure. How did you handle, well how do you handle discipline and setting boundaries while trying to keep that strong connection with your kids?

Courtney P. (01:19:25.331)
I mean there's a number of tropes I think we all fall into. And I always try to practice not like when people, when parents say I'm not your friend, I'm your father. I fucking hate that.

Chris O'Neil (01:19:38.049)
Yeah. I'm not your friend. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so do I.

Courtney P. (01:19:43.239)
So I've reformatted that into you earn the friendship and you don't want to get stuck with just dad because it's not going to be fun. Friends you earn. Friends are a two-way street. You treat me good, I treat you good. We are friends. That's what makes friendship is that we are good to each other. We enjoy each other. So we're good to each other. You end up laughing. You end up like...

Chris O'Neil (01:19:54.765)
Oh, that's interesting.

Courtney P. (01:20:13.431)
screwing around and you all, as long as you both, you know, friends fight, you know, brothers fight, friends fight, it's like, if you're not fighting, it's weird, you know? So I've always said, listen, like, you know, there's a little bit of freshness or something or like disrespect. I might be like, I might do, I may initially start with, what the fuck did you just say to me? But then, late.

Pete (01:20:19.167)
Yep.

Chris O'Neil (01:20:40.558)
Yeah.

Courtney P. (01:20:42.755)
later, you know, because I snap. Like, biting remarks or like the tone gets a little scarier. But I've always laid down on the fact that like, you know, I'm your friend and your dad, but like you kind of have to work for the friendship part. And the rest of it is just my obligation to love you. But I want to like you too, you know? Like, so you got to...

Chris O'Neil (01:20:51.926)
Yeah, oh yeah.

Chris O'Neil (01:21:09.75)
Yeah.

Pete (01:21:09.858)
Right. It'll make this shit a lot easier.

Courtney P. (01:21:13.591)
Yeah, we can be friends and you know, I'm looking for a friend, but I also have the obligation to help you get someplace good. And so it's, you know, not always going to win that one, I guess, but I didn't do good at all.

Chris O'Neil (01:21:27.929)
at? No, but that's a great way to turn that. It's a great way to turn that statement on its ear. You know, I'm not your friend. I'm your father. Well, you're saying the same thing in a much kinder way. And when that's not dismissive, it's inclusive, not dismissive, you know.

Courtney P. (01:21:42.279)
You know, we're friends.

Courtney P. (01:21:48.109)
Be good, you know, be nice.

Chris O'Neil (01:21:48.387)
All right.

Chris O'Neil (01:21:51.693)
Can you discuss a challenging parenting situation that you faced and how you navigated through it?

Courtney P. (01:21:58.907)
divorce. Without a doubt, that's the hardest thing I've had to face as a parent. Because we split and the parents went two different directions. God, some of the stuff you said in talking about your situation is fucking... Dude, I know. We can joke about it all day, but I know. I went through...

Chris O'Neil (01:22:00.601)
There you go.

Pete (01:22:19.328)
I'm going to go.

Courtney P. (01:22:28.495)
Annabelle and I went through some hard shit, like, together. And that's why the connection between us is very, very tight, because it was so hard to like navigate an unwinnable situation. It was hard for me to not let my anger and get the best of me. I did often let it get the best of me. I didn't play fair because my throat got slit.

And so getting myself healthier mentally to get back on track with what was more important and again back to the thing we were talking about, I can't control someone else. And that might affect me emotionally, it might make me all kinds of the feelings that I'm allowed to have. I'm allowed to have those feelings. But I can only control.

Chris O'Neil (01:23:13.931)
Hmm.

Chris O'Neil (01:23:23.085)
Yeah.

Courtney P. (01:23:27.403)
what I am doing and I try very hard to be fair. And you know, nothing disarms someone who's trying to slit your throat more than you being sound and fair. They don't know what to do with that. Yeah, like someone says something, you know, my ex is a therapist and you know, a therapist who...

Chris O'Neil (01:23:41.805)
Yeah, it catches them off guard. Yeah, absolutely.

Pete (01:23:42.295)
Oh yeah.

Courtney P. (01:23:55.291)
who was with you for 15 years knows where your weak spots are. So I've been on guard, or I was on guard for a long time, but I learned that...

Chris O'Neil (01:24:01.859)
Yeah.

Courtney P. (01:24:15.939)
I want, I don't want to fight. I want this person to be well. And I want, you know, and I want my daughter to feel...

love in that way and from that direction and that I never want to see that not happening. So that's really helped me to like heal from that a little bit more. But it was really hard. I don't know if you guys do this but I can give great advice. I would say to someone in my situation, you got to get your head together, your daughter is the number one thing, don't get angry, say less, less is more, don't react.

Chris O'Neil (01:24:34.627)
Mm-hmm.

Courtney P. (01:24:58.766)
I didn't do any of that. I fucked up soon.

Chris O'Neil (01:24:58.781)
Yo, dude, always easier to give it than to do it yourself, of course. Yes, I'd like the poster boy for that for sure.

Courtney P. (01:25:03.747)
Seriously, and that, but it-

I wince at the things I did because looking back, and especially having... I think I've matured a lot since then where, you know, this person didn't give me the wound that they thought they gave me. The wound was already there. It was just a little scratch, you know? And I needed to like... I needed to realize I don't need to throw all this old stuff onto this person. And we are obligated...

Chris O'Neil (01:25:11.238)
Yeah.

Chris O'Neil (01:25:23.809)
It threw some salt on it, right? Yeah, yeah.

Courtney P. (01:25:36.635)
to take care of something else together. So there's no use in, I gotta let some of that other stuff go because it's just silly. And frankly, I ended up right where I belong. So I'm very happy that was a hard time. I wanna go back to myself then and be like, don't worry, you wait. Like you wait and see. Lil' Finn, Renee, I ended up in the greatest situation. Family, I earned a family, just like I earned that friendship with Annabelle. I earned it.

Chris O'Neil (01:25:54.713)
Yeah.

Chris O'Neil (01:26:07.223)
That's badass, man.

Courtney P. (01:26:08.249)
You're gonna make me cry.

Courtney P. (01:26:12.305)
I don't know if I answered the question, did I?

Pete (01:26:12.386)
So, yeah, no, more or less you did. Yeah.

Chris O'Neil (01:26:14.817)
Yeah. Can you discuss the challenging? He said discuss it's discuss a challenging parenting situation you faced and how you navigated through it. Yeah, you answered it.

Courtney P. (01:26:17.879)
I forget what the question was.

Courtney P. (01:26:22.323)
Okay yeah, divorce. Yeah.

Eh, that's it, okay. Good.

Pete (01:26:29.75)
So what ways do you actively engage with your kids? Are there interests and hobbies? I know you guys do a lot of music together. I actually have a suggestion for you and Annabelle. A white stripes cover band. Right? She could totally be Meg White and you could totally... yeah? Doorbell. I want to hear my doorbell first. That's the first cover I want. I sing it in the car like a fool.

Courtney P. (01:26:41.027)
Oh my God, I got electric drum set.

I'm on it. That would be sick. Even ju-

I love that song. Dude, I have an inside joke with something. One of my friends, he's always like, I want to think about the double man. He'll just say it so fast and we always know. It's like an inside joke. It's not as funny right now, but when we do it, it's fucking... We do it in vogue too.

Pete (01:27:02.958)
I'm thinking about my doorbell. Would you go to ring it? Would you go to ring it? Yeah.

Pete (01:27:14.34)
I like to sing it in Barry Gibb falsetto.

Chris O'Neil (01:27:17.474)
Yeah, there you go.

Courtney P. (01:27:17.88)
We do the mm-bops from in vogue, but we but you have to have it fade in perfectly like BOP! Like, read those here! Dude, it's... Where are we now? What was the question?

Chris O'Neil (01:27:31.449)
Hahaha!

Pete (01:27:31.946)
was how do you actively engage with your kids' interests and hobbies?

Courtney P. (01:27:36.067)
Alright, so yeah, the nightly routine is I just basically rehearse with Annabelle and Finn and they engage. But we have little dance parties. We go to a lot of places together and for everyone's different reasons. So it's kind of, you know, I like that Annabelle's come to me and

and ask for help with homework. I like that at night, we all have kind of similar interests to watch the same shows together. Annabelle asked me to go to a middle school basketball game to see her friend play. Dude, like I'm going to a middle school basketball game and I'm not even seeing my kid. That's like.

Chris O'Neil (01:28:32.321)
Yeah.

Courtney P. (01:28:34.571)
And you know what? I was like, cool. And it was awesome. We had a blast. It was fucking awesome. And she does musical theater like I did. So there's a lot of like shaping and direction and working through, you know, it's not just about hitting those notes. It's, uh-oh, here they come. Dude, I think Annabelle's been listening in the doorway. Belly! I heard her. She was like.

Chris O'Neil (01:28:39.689)
That's great.

Chris O'Neil (01:28:49.797)
Come in.

Chris O'Neil (01:28:55.092)
Yep.

Pete (01:28:58.338)
Probably.

Chris O'Neil (01:29:02.895)
Wawii.

Pete (01:29:04.046)
Cameron used to. Fucking talking about me on your goddamn podcast dad, meh. Ha ha ha.

Chris O'Neil (01:29:05.433)
Can you open?

Chris O'Neil (01:29:09.445)
Hahaha!

Courtney P. (01:29:10.177)
What did you say about...

Pete (01:29:14.638)
This isn't going to be another thing you're going to talk about on your fucking podcast, is it? Like, yeah, maybe.

Courtney P. (01:29:14.711)
Yeah, I know why I heard it. I know. Dude, this is the forum. Yeah, right when it right.

Chris O'Neil (01:29:21.505)
Well, hey, we're not going to go because I don't put my kids on the internet. That's a big thing for my wife and I. So you can say hi, kiddo, but we're not going to get on camera. Okay. Right. Hey, as she gets right on camera. So say hi. I'm almost done. My girl. Okay. Can you shut the door, please? I'll see.

Pete (01:29:35.334)
as she gets right on camera. Way to go.

Courtney P. (01:29:37.002)
Hehehe

Hello? Hi hi.

Pete (01:29:46.634)
He's lying, your father talks way too fucking much.

Chris O'Neil (01:29:50.468)
What?

Courtney P. (01:29:51.443)
Dude, it's earlier there! I forgot. What's it like?

Pete (01:29:53.018)
Yeah. And he's like so ass-minded about that shit, he doesn't even care.

Chris O'Neil (01:29:54.661)
Cool! I'll come down and join you. Okay?

Courtney P. (01:29:58.57)
What time is it there? It's like 6 7 8 7

Pete (01:30:01.616)
uh... three hours difference of the seven

Chris O'Neil (01:30:01.914)
It's almost seven o'clock. Yeah. So six 59.

Chris O'Neil (01:30:07.649)
Um, but yeah, so we just include that too. And honestly, the only reason I would edit that is if she got too much on camera. Cause it's just, dude, the insanity of what fuckers do with adults, nevermind kids. So yeah, I want my kids to choose to put themselves on social media and on the internet. I don't wanna do it for them and then say, hey, by the way, your whole life is online, you know?

Courtney P. (01:30:22.279)
I respect that completely.

Courtney P. (01:30:28.525)
Mm.

Pete (01:30:29.034)
Well, you saw it.

Courtney P. (01:30:31.131)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Pete (01:30:37.254)
You saw that what that guy fucking did to me the other day, Chris, right? I sent you that message where I, this guy commented on an EV post about thoughts and prayers that a company would go under. And I said, yeah, cause thoughts and prayers do so fucking much. And, uh, he, he goes, okay, down syndrome boy. He tapped my, my profile picture is my kid.

Chris O'Neil (01:30:40.769)
Yeah.

Chris O'Neil (01:30:44.61)
Wait.

Oh, that. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Pete (01:31:00.094)
and he fuckin' attacked. I was blocked for 24 hours from any group activity because I went fucking nuts. I was like, where are you? Like, I will fucking come to you right now. Like, I was so bullshit. Oh, his cover page was the QAnon little mission statement. And then his profile picture was Andrew Jackson.

Courtney P. (01:31:00.547)
Are you fucking kidding me?

Courtney P. (01:31:06.536)
Oh my god, dude.

Chris O'Neil (01:31:06.884)
Yeah.

Courtney P. (01:31:09.735)
Who the hell does that?

What did his profile picture look like?

Chris O'Neil (01:31:14.212)
Yeah.

Courtney P. (01:31:20.781)
Ah, there we go.

Chris O'Neil (01:31:22.797)
Yep.

Pete (01:31:25.182)
Right, which has like some sort of like racist thing about it because they were talking about replacing him on the 20 with Harriet Tubman, so there's like some big thing. But this is the kicker, right? So this guy is like a bigot and a fucking idiot. And his wife is Asian and his baby is mixed. All these things that he bitches about on social media, he is a walking fucking contradiction.

Chris O'Neil (01:31:40.229)
Mm.

Courtney P. (01:31:49.287)
Mm-hmm.

Chris O'Neil (01:31:50.125)
Well, there it is.

Pete (01:31:50.162)
And I just ended up blocking him. I ended up blocking another person about that sort of shit too. It's just like... It's nuts. I can't... I can't fucking take it.

Courtney P. (01:31:56.069)
Yeah.

Chris O'Neil (01:31:57.237)
That takes us back to all the bullshit we were talking about earlier, where it's like, this is how people communicate now, because they can, and everyone's brave when you have a screen between, you know, look at people driving, man. Road rage only exists because people aren't standing next to each other, they have cars between them, right? So it's the same shit with the it, it's just worse. A keyboard and a screen, you can say whatever the fuck you want.

Pete (01:32:05.604)
Yeah.

Courtney P. (01:32:05.753)
Mm.

Courtney P. (01:32:15.9)
Mm-hmm.

Pete (01:32:17.238)
Well, did you see that one? I was yes. Yesterday, the lady bitching about 300 extra cars in our town because they're building some new complex. So she's like 300 extra cars. I'm like, what are you what are you talking about? There's 120 units. Not everybody has three fucking cars. Like it's maybe 150 cars tops.

Chris O'Neil (01:32:27.989)
Oh no.

Chris O'Neil (01:32:37.624)
Yeah.

Pete (01:32:37.862)
And she's kept comparing Danvers in 1970. So I'm like, you realize that the population of the world has grown and then she like tries to blame it on China. And I'm like, all right, I'll narrow it down. The population of North America, right? Just America. Like, there you go. The United fucking States. I go, and the population has grown and the size of the country has not.

Chris O'Neil (01:32:50.883)
Yeah.

Pete (01:32:59.95)
They go, so where do you think these people are going to live? We got to build bigger fucking apartments in places. It's like either you allow abortions and people to do what they want with their bodies, or you just stop fucking. And then we don't have to worry about more people living in your area. But she kept saying, she's like, the birth rates are down. I'm like, yeah, their birth rates might be down this year, but if you're fucking in years past and procreating, that's still going to add to the amount of people in the country. She wasn't getting it. It was like.

Courtney P. (01:33:29.705)
Mm.

Pete (01:33:29.904)
I was like talking to a brick fucking wall. But I just, yeah, this is my seasonal depression is I get like angry on the internet in the winter. Instead of sad, I get mad on Facebook. And then I pick fights with Ricky Schroeder.

Courtney P. (01:33:33.531)
They're limited.

Courtney P. (01:33:41.175)
Yeah. You know what I got, and I think that you'll really like this, is I have a PDF, always saved right in my favorites on my phone for any conversation that comes up that I need to just make it very clear what's happening. It is an application to Clown College for

Chris O'Neil (01:33:55.493)
Mmm.

have a, yeah.

Pete (01:34:05.16)
Hahaha!

Courtney P. (01:34:08.343)
It ends every fucking time. It ends every time. Every time. There's just no comeback. And I get a good laugh out of it, because then they fly out of control, and then everyone else starts fighting, and I just like drift off into the darkness to watch everyone fight. It's the best! It works, man. I'm telling you.

Pete (01:34:08.823)
go there.

Pete (01:34:14.29)
Yeah.

Chris O'Neil (01:34:16.3)
Nice.

Pete (01:34:23.779)
Yeah.

Pete (01:34:28.867)
Yeah.

Chris O'Neil (01:34:30.617)
Oh, yeah. People wonder why I'm doing what I'm doing with the emotion stuff.

Courtney P. (01:34:37.999)
I think that's great man, I love that you do that. And I've been in talk therapy for 18 years straight consistently. For various different, I've been through three therapists for three specific different work, you know, like whatever you call it. And God, like the level of emotion that I've got to now an understanding.

reading a lot about like emotional management. It's just, it's, I'm, I never thought I'd say that, you know, 47 years old, almost 50 years old, I like how I mentally feel. Like I like it. Because I'm learning. Because I'm learning how to manage my emotions. It's really hard to learn that.

Chris O'Neil (01:35:10.027)
Yeah.

Chris O'Neil (01:35:21.794)
Yeah, that's great.

Chris O'Neil (01:35:28.269)
Well, dude, the reason I'll say it till I'm blue in the face, man, is the reason why I'm an emotion coach is because I need emotion coaching, you know, and the more I help other people do it, the more I am able to do it for myself. So it's, yeah, I want to help people, but I also want to get better at this shit myself, you know? So it's a, it's a

Courtney P. (01:35:39.173)
Oh yeah.

Courtney P. (01:35:44.635)
Mm-hmm.

Courtney P. (01:35:51.74)
It's like sponsors for addicts they... Spon...

Pete (01:35:51.878)
I just smoke weed and listen to fish, man.

Chris O'Neil (01:35:55.009)
Yeah, just smoke weed and listen to fish. That'll- that'll settle everything. Dude, I- yeah.

Courtney P. (01:35:59.715)
Dude, fish.

Courtney P. (01:36:04.9)
What was I going to say? AA! A lot of sponsors say, don't call me when you're down. Only. Don't just pray to God when you're down. Don't just call me when you're down. Call me when you're okay, because I might need that call. Maybe I'm the one that needs you more than you need me. So yeah, I think therapy, most people...

Chris O'Neil (01:36:20.457)
Yeah, there you go.

Chris O'Neil (01:36:27.797)
Yeah, it's getting out of that. No news is good news mentality. Absolutely. Yeah. And it's, that's the thing. Everyone, every it doesn't matter how great your life was, how good your childhood was, how loving your parents were, every single person has some sort of trauma that they're dealing with. It's like they used to think PTSD was only for soldiers. And that's one of my one of my go to books.

Courtney P. (01:36:30.319)
that our therapists come out of some kind of trauma.

Courtney P. (01:36:49.412)
Yep.

Courtney P. (01:36:56.015)
Everyone should be in therapy. Everyone. Not one person.

Chris O'Neil (01:36:57.577)
Absolutely, absolutely. One of my go-to books is The Body Keeps the Score. Have you heard of that one?

Courtney P. (01:37:04.419)
Oh, what's that? No, I'll write it down.

Chris O'Neil (01:37:05.581)
called the bot the body keeps the score. It's, it's the 30 years worth of research from a psychologist who basically literally wrote the book on his understanding of emotions and how they how they manifest in the body through traumatic experiences. And that's, and then how they come back into your experience later in life when you have certain

reactions to things. And your body says, Oh, we're, we're having this experience again, even though you're not. It assumes you are and then you have the same reaction you did then. It's fascinating book. I do have to say I think

Courtney P. (01:37:46.255)
the tape goes. That sounds awesome. I've written it down.

Chris O'Neil (01:37:52.321)
Okay, I think we should end on this question. Even though we already did eight and we have 10, because number nine is less of a deep dive and number 10 is very much the same as number one. It's just slightly different.

Pete (01:38:11.17)
I like number nine. Dude number nine is the last one. That's a good one.

Chris O'Neil (01:38:14.157)
All right, that works.

Number nine, share a favorite family. What, you wanna do it? Go ahead.

Pete (01:38:19.214)
So I'll read it? I don't know, you will, okay. No, do it. Go ahead.

Chris O'Neil (01:38:25.241)
Share a favorite family tradition or activity that you enjoy doing together.

Courtney P. (01:38:34.019)
We're weird, dude. Uh, we got somebody.

Pete (01:38:35.368)
Hahaha!

Chris O'Neil (01:38:37.4)
Oh, I can't wait for this. This is going to be great.

Courtney P. (01:38:42.08)
This is a new one that we just started. We have so many. Alright, there's a lot, but this is new and so we've only done it once, but it's going to be a tradition. We do have a lot of traditions, but this is my favorite one, I guess, that's new. Is that every June, we're going to celebrate a holiday.

and have a hobo feast, because it's when all the bums come back to New England from the winter and like, we're gonna have like beans and hot dogs and like leave a bottle of whiskey out for uh, jobo bumbo, like um, it's new, it's in process, we're gonna make like a Santa Claus character and like, ah, but uh, serious traditions, I mean, I draw my daughter

Chris O'Neil (01:39:14.856)
Oh my god.

Courtney P. (01:39:35.643)
picture every birthday as horrible as it looks I continued to do it. My wife we first started dating I thought it was the first Christmas I bought her what I thought was a beautiful scarf and she likes Diet Mountain Dew and you have to fill the stocking so I just stuffed her stocking full of Diet Mountain Dew and then gave her the scarf and she

Chris O'Neil (01:39:42.795)
Hmm.

Pete (01:39:48.43)
Thanks for watching!

Courtney P. (01:40:04.455)
clearly didn't like it. So every Christmas, every Christmas I buy her the shittiest scarf I could possibly find and something Diet Mountain Dew but this year I fucking killed it. I got her a Diet Mountain Dew scarf.

Chris O'Neil (01:40:15.007)
Good luck.

Pete (01:40:23.868)
Oh fuck, you combined it all into one.

Chris O'Neil (01:40:24.981)
I was gonna say... How- Yeah.

That's that's the way to go, man. And on that note, we see the music.

Pete (01:40:29.554)
And there is no coming back from that.

Courtney P. (01:40:33.499)
But other than that, like, you mean like holidays and stuff? Holidays are like, you see, holidays are like, you know, it's kind of random for us. We just have a lot of like reoccurring inside joke things that don't stop. Like I could tell a million of them. We have shit hanging on the walls that no one would get only us. Like, very tight.

Chris O'Neil (01:40:38.209)
No, any tradition, it doesn't matter.

Chris O'Neil (01:40:55.545)
But that's what makes it fun. That's great. And that's the point. It doesn't necessarily have to be a holiday tradition. It could be any tradition. So yeah, that's great.

Courtney P. (01:40:59.288)
Yeah, yeah definitely.

Courtney P. (01:41:05.259)
Yeah, it's all little Easter eggs all around. Nothing ever ends. Like, if it started... Annabelle made nicknames for us, like, years ago. And she only...she calls me Quandan when she's mad. She's like, okay, Quandan. Like, it doesn't make any sense. But we call Renee Hambone. We don't know where the origin was, but I don't know. I'm meandering, and yeah.

Chris O'Neil (01:41:23.297)
Okay.

Courtney P. (01:41:33.943)
I think we have a bunch of stupid ones, but I love that bum thing. It's gonna be so f-

Chris O'Neil (01:41:37.689)
Dude, see, and there it is. There's the, and this is the reason why we wanted to ask those questions because there's no wrong answer. There's no bad answer. It's just, this is what you do. And this is what makes your family unique to you. And it isn't at the point, right? We all have those things and that's what makes it fun. That's what, that's, that creates that camaraderie and the, you know, this is just ours, you know? That's such a, it's such an enjoyable part of, of.

Courtney P. (01:41:52.455)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Courtney P. (01:42:02.951)
It's yours, you own it. You own it together.

Chris O'Neil (01:42:06.229)
certainly family in general, but being but being a dad, for me, having those things. I love that. Yeah.

Pete (01:42:18.866)
Yeah, that was fun. Until they turned into teenagers.

Chris O'Neil (01:42:24.698)
Yeah, Pete keeps warning me. I gotta, I gotta, I gotta while.

Courtney P. (01:42:26.208)
Um...

Pete (01:42:28.894)
It's like, well, Zach is 15 and Cameron's 18. Yeah, I had to relocate Cameron.

Courtney P. (01:42:29.211)
How old is Zach? How old is he? He's 18.

Courtney P. (01:42:35.387)
Cameron's 18. Yeah, um, 12, dude. But it goes by so fast. Like, Finn can't say a sentence, but he can sing songs in the shape of the words. Like, it's really wild to see that. But two days ago, he was, he looked like Winston Churchill, you know, like this big, like, it's crazy, dude.

Chris O'Neil (01:42:43.62)
Yeah.

Pete (01:42:43.818)
Yeah, it does.

Chris O'Neil (01:42:49.189)
Oh yeah. That's awesome.

Chris O'Neil (01:43:02.546)
Yeah, yeah, yeah balls

Courtney P. (01:43:05.007)
It's so fast.

Courtney P. (01:43:12.141)
I wish I could show the video he's like

Chris O'Neil (01:43:17.406)
Dude, it is so good.

Courtney P. (01:43:19.835)
Just watch, you know the thing I said about the wind? Same thing, same thing. I'm like, oh wow, at one point we all found that. At one point we were like, and this, it's the greatest and the worst part of your life, and you just find it for the first time, like what is this? You're my enemy, you'll ruin.

Chris O'Neil (01:43:23.199)
Yeah.

Chris O'Neil (01:43:26.68)
Yep.

Chris O'Neil (01:43:31.414)
Yeah. Yeah!

Pete (01:43:32.192)
Oh yeah.

Chris O'Neil (01:43:40.793)
What is this thing? Yeah. Ha ha ha.

Pete (01:43:42.274)
So you're my arch enemy. Ha ha ha. Dammit.

Courtney P. (01:43:48.715)
Everything in it's so good.

Chris O'Neil (01:43:50.985)
Uh, yeah. The best type of ruination.

Courtney P. (01:43:55.407)
Yep.

Pete (01:43:55.582)
Well, an hour and 45 minutes in, I think we gotta wrap this shit up, cuz I gotta go to bed.

Chris O'Neil (01:43:56.159)
Alright.

Chris O'Neil (01:43:59.521)
I think we should wrap it up. But right away, I will most definitely say we certainly have to have you on again, Courtney, because we have way more to talk about, and clearly we can continue on, but we won't. So we'll definitely have you back.

Courtney P. (01:44:00.056)
Okie dokie.

Courtney P. (01:44:19.163)
That's wonderful. I was happy to just be invited in the first place. I found that very flattering. Just to be trusted.

Pete (01:44:25.77)
No dude, you're a good all around dude. I love looking at your posts of your family. You guys really have fucking fun.

Chris O'Neil (01:44:29.293)
you really are meant at and it's uh... where we're not only glad to have you on

Courtney P. (01:44:34.811)
Thank you. I'll show you the bad shit too. I mean, it's...

Chris O'Neil (01:44:40.638)
You show you what?

Pete (01:44:42.298)
Oh, you don't have to show the bad. You'll show the bad shit too.

Courtney P. (01:44:44.507)
I got some bad stuff. No, I Got demons. I got bad stuff bad. I just think it was really flattering, you know, like It's hard to think of yourself as a good dad when you're in it And I'm sure you guys relate to that like the daily struggles and like how we shit am I doing that? right the electric warrior that you get but

Chris O'Neil (01:44:47.094)
Oh, yeah.

Chris O'Neil (01:44:53.401)
Let's just not talk about that stuff.

Chris O'Neil (01:45:08.837)
dude.

Courtney P. (01:45:09.655)
something as small as being asked by two guys who are focused on helping other dads to ask you to participate. It says a lot about what the perception of my parenting is and I really appreciated that. Thank you. Thank you.

Chris O'Neil (01:45:21.741)
fucking a dude and yeah i will i will i will my last thing on this episode i will say is this acknowledge the uh... that idea that if you if you question your own sanity then you're not insane i think the same is true if you're constantly questioning your own parenting as a father you're doing your best your good debt if you weren't questioning it then you don't care

Pete (01:45:23.057)
Definitely.

Courtney P. (01:45:46.183)
Mm-hmm.

Chris O'Neil (01:45:52.045)
It's the fact that you care so much about being a good dad that makes you question whether or not you are. So I try to hold myself to that, too.

Courtney P. (01:45:55.572)
Mm.

Courtney P. (01:46:00.627)
Yeah, I mean it's effortless work even though it's super hard, but there's no choice in my mind. This is the greatest mission of my life is to get these kids to a good place.

Pete (01:46:18.098)
Awesome. It's your fucking Death Star, Courtney. It's your Death Star. He he he.

Courtney P. (01:46:23.727)
Dude. Dude, it's my Tatooine. It's my fucking red suns. My double suns!

Pete (01:46:31.694)
But that would lead him back home. Ha ha ha. Hmm.

Chris O'Neil (01:46:33.849)
Home.

Courtney P. (01:46:34.823)
Oh Jesus Christ. I thought we were going to talk about daddy issues and Star Wars is a good place for that. Maybe like later on we can get into... EHHHHH!

Chris O'Neil (01:46:41.581)
Well, shit, we can do that next time.

Pete (01:46:41.775)
Oh yeah.

Pete (01:46:45.46)
We tried that with Obi-Wan and nobody listened to that fucking episode.

Chris O'Neil (01:46:48.155)
Dude, it is still to this day the lowest downloaded... See I liked it. I liked it. It was slow, but I liked the Vader Obi-Wan engagement. Anyway, it is still to this day the least amount of downloads of any episode we've ever had. It's just amazing.

Courtney P. (01:46:50.48)
Cause that show sucked.

Courtney P. (01:46:58.34)
I get it.

Courtney P. (01:47:09.433)
It's another conversation. My heart's still hurting.

Pete (01:47:14.156)
Did you watch the cut though, Courtney the movie?

Courtney P. (01:47:17.327)
The two hour one that guy did, absolutely amazing.

Pete (01:47:19.11)
Yeah. Yeah, I like that better than the series.

Courtney P. (01:47:23.687)
All I wanted, I don't know why, I know you guys gotta go, but all I really wanted was six episodes of a man isolated working through his PTSD with some maybe like visions and Memories. You could have had Hayden Christian in the memories Like Clone Wars shit and all that and just had it. What happens after war? What happens to a broken man? You didn't have to break canon

Pete (01:47:39.443)
Yeah.

Pete (01:47:51.114)
Yeah.

Chris O'Neil (01:47:51.189)
Mm.

Courtney P. (01:47:52.559)
You didn't have to introduce Reva or all this other crap. What happens to a broken man? And how does he become the guy you know he's gonna become? It's so easy.

Pete (01:48:03.11)
Yeah. And they gotta explain away how Leia doesn't know fucking who Obi-Wan Kenobi is. I- Oh, yeah.

Courtney P. (01:48:11.736)
Another time guys.

Chris O'Neil (01:48:11.745)
Yes, another time for sure. Well, Courtney, thank you so much for coming on. We were very grateful to have you had a great time talking to you and we'll certainly have you back. Absolutely.

Pete (01:48:13.246)
Yeah, for sure.

Pete (01:48:17.975)
Alright.

Courtney P. (01:48:21.251)
I appreciate you guys, thank you so much. It's good to see you.

Pete (01:48:26.734)
For sure.

Courtney P. (01:48:26.751)
Yeah, I'll be listening. I'll be listening. Alright, men. Men's. See ya. How do I get out of this thing? Or do-

Pete (01:48:29.582)
Thanks.

Pete (01:48:34.894)
But you gotta wait.

Chris O'Neil (01:48:34.937)
Well, Pete's