Starting Standup in Maine with David Walton

#42 Tickles ,Tennis, and TRT

• David Walton • Season 1 • Episode 42

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Speaker 1:

This is that final little sweet, melancholy stretch of a summer where you have full license to let the wheels completely come off of your life. Really, lean in to that person you're trying not to become, just become him or her. All those sort of id, those primal instincts. I'm not saying torture life, I'm not saying you know, go have an affair or anything like that. I'm just saying lean in to the debauchery that you know you want, that maybe, just maybe you need oh man, that's rubbish. That's rubbish.

Speaker 1:

If you're listening to this for the first time, don't worry, you haven't missed anything. There's nothing you need to go back for. There's nothing you need to catch up on. What you're about to hear is a man searching for material for stand-up sets, and the way he searches is by revealing things about his life that he finds he's compelled to talk about. And then, over throughout that process, that process becomes apparent what might be funny, what might have a lot of potential for good material. And so what you've stumbled on and what I hope you'll stick around for, is just me having a nice little chatty mcgillicuddy with you, scotty McGillicuddy with you, where we almost together figure out, you know, areas to bring to the greater world as many laughs as possible. It's been a tough day, it's been a little depressing, you know. I think what I really want to talk about is that for the middle-aged people out there, there comes a time in your life where you basically just want to be a 10-year-old, and so, at least for me, what I loved to do when I was 10 was play tennis, feel a rush of adrenaline, hang out with my friends and feel like I was right on the edge of breaking the rules. You know, right on the edge of mischief that there were stakes, there was danger in the air. And if you actually study, like Joseph Campbell, who wrote A Hero with a Thousand Faces, profoundly, a profound book, his level of insight into psychology, the human condition, myth, archetypes, is without parallel. The movie Star Wars wouldn't have been written without Joseph Campbell.

Speaker 1:

What I'm trying to say if you've ever heard the expression follow your bliss, that is a Joseph Campbell, basically one big idea, and it's exactly a through line from last week's episode, which is like what do you enjoy? How do I, as a father, as a householder responsible for food and shelter, muster the energy to do anything other than the most enjoyable hobbies Tennis, golf, backgammon, hanging with friends, a new skill. You know it's funny as I say this out loud, and this is why this is so valuable. I realize that there's something very missing in this. A hobbied life is nice, but maybe there's just no huge dream there. There's not enough of a quest, there's not enough of a hero's journey in the kind of pleasure zones we need to be tested more. The problem is, when I play tennis, for example, I feel extremely tested. When I play backgammon, I feel like my whole life is hanging in the balance. If I don't roll a five and a one right now, I'm gonna lose $5. And it doesn't even matter about the money. It's just somehow that $5 feels so big that I'm getting the sweats. That's crazy, that's nuts, if you really think about it. And me and my friend group call these the tickles. We're chasing tickles, which sounds super molesty. I think that is the theme that's going on right now in life. We're just chasing tickles, and they're super easy tickles. You know, you could log on to DraftKings right now and bet a super uncomfortable amount of money on some game that you've never watched and all of a sudden you're going to be tickled to death for the next two hours. That's not what I'm talking about. Not at all, anyway. Food for thought. So, without further ado, today we're going to be talking about the things that happened this week that are, well, pretty unprecedented in my life. I mean, I'm going to be honest with you. I've done enough hallucinogenics where I think a doctor, I was already an impressionable person, meaning I was always suggestible from a young age.

Speaker 1:

I do tell a story. At one point my sister convinced me she was at she had braces. At the time she was 15 years old. She convinced me that she was. She had dentures because I had found some denture cleaning tablets underneath her sink. And I said why do you have denture cleaning tablets? And she said because I have dentures, and without I was 12 years old, said without, without skipping a beat, I go, can you take them out, like? I fully believed her. And she was like I can't. They clean them every three months, but because of the braces on my dentures, like I had. No, there was nothing suspicious about some a 15 year old girl with dentures, with braces on them. I just believed her, I just believed people and I have always believed people and I've had to fight it for so long.

Speaker 1:

It's sort of a sense of why would people lie? Why would you lie? Why would you lie to me about having dentures? And the answer is because my older sister is evil. Now she's a wonderful, beautiful, beautiful, loving person, but she too has a little bit of mischief. So, anyway, I've always been somewhat suggestible, and now I have to stop the tape to go back to why I started talking about this. This is where we're at in our life so suggestibility.

Speaker 1:

So, one of my best friends, I made a mistake last week. I said a full name. I got permission to keep the full name, but we're not going to do that anymore. It's none of anyone's business who I'm talking about, but I will say that I have been circling TRT. Trt stands for testosterone replacement therapy. Now I'm 46. In my circles, in the acting circles, in Hollywood circles, trt is such old news. I mean, the amount of testosterone that actors are on is so beyond.

Speaker 1:

You know there's a great story about like these physiques that you see on the big screen that you enjoy these characters they're playing, maybe they're, you know, a night security guard, and then they take their shirt off and they're super yoked. It's like their life. In order to be that, shredded and yoked is like three hours in the gym eating fucking chicken and broccoli out of tupperware every night, like people say they're method actors. It's like, come on, man, dude, you're you. You can't be that yoked and not just have the most boring fucking life on earth. Just so disciplined, no joy at the dining table, no, fuck it energy when, when feasting, you're just a little fucking bitch getting all shredded so you can look good on the screen as you, as you starting to.

Speaker 1:

I'm trying to bring back, kind of bring back a little bit more of a soft vibe to hollywood. I'm not saying that, like I'm not saying that paul newman and robert redford weren't beautiful men who were nice and cut back in the 60s and 70s. But it's gotten insane. You know these men's pecs, these titties that are just kind of like you know, an inch out like bubble butting, full bubble butt, titty shredded. I mean, are we really into this? There's that whole theory about like trickle down. You know, like when the muscle mags, like arnold. If you go back to pumping iron, which is crazy I love early arnold, I mean what a beautiful looking man, I mean really, really handsome. But if you watch pumping iron or his early stuff, conan the barbarian, even hercules um, he is. He. By today's standards, he's almost just like ho-hum. Like this is Arnold Schwarzenegger and he's ho-hum by today's standards.

Speaker 1:

Like people are fucking losing their shit. Like I'm in the gym, I'm going. Who finds this shit attractive? You know like what? It's cuckoo's nest out there. And then if you really ask people, microphone, like hand on the Bible, like what do you find attractive in a man? It's gonna be like a, like a lean six foot one. You know, midfielder for chelsea in the premier league. You know, just like shredded, strong, fit, nimble, great haircut. You know, like this, this whole, like yokeville. Like who are these people that? Like this? It's got to be social media and something like just like.

Speaker 1:

Like even my son and I'm really fighting the urge to not spend this entire episode talking about my son, but this is a huge moment in a man's life my daughter, like there's a simplicity there. I'm like, yep, she's becoming a woman. You know my job is to just like treat her, just love on her so much, you know, make sure she feels so good about everything, and then yell at her occasionally about being a lazy good for nothing human. You know what I mean, but most of the time, be really, really supportive. But my son, you know, I'm becoming my dad, like this summer, everyone's.

Speaker 1:

I've got these injuries, okay, and I'm hobbling around. I've got plantar fasciitis. I now have tennis elbow. All I care about is is these sort of meaningless tournaments in August and I can't plan them and I'm just fighting off the demons of depression because I can't. You know, I feel like an Olympic athlete that you know is missing the games because you know he just just didn't take care of his body. You know, but obviously these aren't the Olympics.

Speaker 1:

This is, this is a nothing burger, but but what's so fun is making it, making it not a nothing burger, making it just as big as Wimbledon, and I think about it all the time. I want it. I want it so bad. And now I have to sit this thing out, and I'm not a spring chicken, I mean, next year I'm going to be 47. I'm running out of time, running out of time, and so again I have to go back to what I was just talking about to get my train of thought. Excuse me, that's right, I'm becoming my dad, and not only this is going to gross you out, but sometimes you'll lay a fart and you'll be like that's how my dad smelled and you're like my GI system is morphing into my father.

Speaker 1:

It's's a really, really, really dark moment in your life and I know you've been there and anyway. So I'm looking at my son and I'm going. He's going to become an absolute degenerate in about three years. He's 11. But I'm seeing it Like right now he's like Dad, I need to watch Ted. Somehow. I let him watch Ted 1., then the next night I let him watch Ted 1., then the next night I let him watch Ted 2. He's currently watching Ted, the television series.

Speaker 1:

The amount of and if you haven't seen it, I mean you know it's extremely funny, but it's also just so dirty and so expletive-laden and so much drug reference and I'm just like, why am I letting an 11-year-old watch? A bear like rip, bong hits, you know, and there's just a creep coming in in my life of giving less and less fucks. It's approaching nihilism, that's just a word, but there's a sense of okay, like, do I think forbidding my son to watch Ted, the tv series or the movies is going to have a substantive impact on his journey through life? Is it going to mean anything? Perhaps it will mean everything because you don't know. You think you're doing the right thing as a parent. But I've listened to enough podcasts and I've read enough biographies to know when lightning strikes for people who find their bliss to bring it back.

Speaker 1:

And who am I to say that louis isn't gonna watch ted and be like I am gonna make it my life mission to bring a teddy bear back to life kidding, I'm gonna make it my life mission to write comedy, uh, to make movies, to start stalking mark walberg. You never know, it could be bad, it could be good, but you don't know. And there's one guy I follow, incredibly smart, like probably one of the smartest human beings on the planet, and he is a firm believer in letting your kids do everything they want, always. And he has, like, if you listen, he has this pretty powerful argument which I may have to devote some episode time to at a future date. But I mean, can you fucking imagine just no rules, like maybe they bleed out on their addiction to video games? It's a balls move. There's some parents doing it Like conscientious parents who are just going that route.

Speaker 1:

Anyway, the becoming your father is a good subject that I do think we can milk for material Becoming your mother. I mean the amount of times I want to say, man, you know, as people approach me like, yeah, dave, you're, you're walking just like your dad. You're really reminding me of your dad this summer. My dad's 85 and is in a wheelchair and I also found out that that I think that genuinely my wife is, is is not psyched at how hobbled I am, meaning she's a very compassionate person and if I'm ever injured or I'm ever in a vulnerable position, I definitely get some like Florence Nightingale vibes, almost to the point where I want to fake it.

Speaker 1:

But this time because I'm hobbling so much and I'm wearing a very baggy pleated khaki. That's so comfortable, and I read that pleats are back and baggies back, so I'm really leaning into it. I look like a prepubescent prep school kid, you know, who just can't fill out a khaki, but it's so comfortable, I'm going to stick with it all summer. But my point is it was the first time my wife was like all summer. But my point is it was the first time my wife was like, do you do you know how pissed you would be if I was like hobbling around like an old woman this summer? And then she was right, you know what I mean. Men want their wives looking good. So, yeah, I'm just gonna get cortisone shots, um, I'm getting injected with the wolverine stack and some testosterone replacement therapy All by, I guess, the next episode, so the announcement today, and I think there's going to be a nice beautiful evolution here.

Speaker 1:

You're going to you've been listening either this is your first episode or many but you've been listening to a guy with reasonably mid to low testosterone numbers. Within a few weeks, you're going to be listening to a podcast with a guy with 90th percentile T, high T. Now, does that mean I'm just going to be like beating off the entire time I'm recording? I certainly hope not, and I do promise you that if that ever happens, I will tell you. But I think some change is afoot. I am just going to medically experiment with myself to bring it back, because I just want to play in the last tournament of the season, which is in 10 days. So I'm currently, for all my injuries, I'm doing acupuncture, pt, human growth hormone and testosterone and I'm doing everything I can to get back on the court.

Speaker 1:

And the last teaser I'll give you is that I'm a huge Howard Stern fan. He's probably the one celebrity that when he dies or retires, but really when he dies. I anticipate when Howard Stern dies, that I will fall, I will cry and I will fall into a profound depression that that light is no longer in the world to share his brain. And if you're not a Howard fan, I totally get it. But for my money nobody touches the guy. Nobody touches him, and it's part of the reason why I never listened to any other podcast is because you know there's 12 hours of Howard a week that I got to cover. So who's got the time?

Speaker 1:

But Robin Quivers has been his sidekick. She's an absolutely beautifully fun, welcoming black woman who's been with him since the very earliest days, started as a newswoman. He started vibing with her and we're going to do I'm going to do a little experiment, because there's someone that I've known my whole life that maybe I don't think, realistically speaking, every episode we could have it happen, but as someone who, just you know, will splice up the droning of my voice over and over and over, I won't reveal who it is, but I'm just teasing it and, yeah, I'm excited. So that's what we got for this week. Once again, I'm just wishing you a little bit different this I wish you peace and I wish you love and I wish you connection. But I definitely wish you a little bit more debauchery, a little more wildness. Whatever that part of you, that wolf, that bad wolf, that mischievous wolf, this is the couple weeks to throw it a little piece of meat in the cage. See you next week.