#61 - Paul Artale talks Football Coaching, Parenting in Sports, & Better Call Saul Writing

Episode 61 of Good Times, Noodle Salad welcomes special guest Paul Artale — a motivational speaker, stand-up comedian, former football player, and collegiate coach — for a conversation that balances comedy, life lessons, sports, and storytelling.

Paul shares the journey from his football career into coaching at the collegiate level, and how those experiences eventually led him into motivational speaking and stand-up comedy. Matt and Paul dive deep into the realities of parenting kids involved in sports, the pressure that comes with competition, and the challenge of helping young athletes grow without losing sight of what matters most.

The episode also shifts into a love letter to great writing and character development, as Matt and Paul break down what makes shows like Better Call Saul and Ted Lasso so impactful. From layered storytelling to emotional payoffs and unforgettable dialogue, the two explore why excellent writing sticks with audiences long after the credits roll.

A thoughtful, funny, and inspiring episode packed with sports stories, comedy, parenting perspectives, and appreciation for elite storytelling.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:59

No, I think it was right away.

SPEAKER_09 1:03

Okay. I don't know. I could it's we meet so many new people that it's hard to keep track of like. There was uh well there was a com okay so it wasn't you, but there was a comic that reached out to us and then I didn't get back to for like six months, and I was like, how the fuck did I not see this?

SPEAKER_01 1:18

Like this is one Oh, it was uh Ned, I think.

SPEAKER_09 1:21

Oh, okay. Ned Rice? Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:24

Brennan. Okay, so we do have to. And now he's not getting back to me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 1:29

He's ghosting us to get back. I like that we coordinated our outfits. We matched. That's cute. Appreciate that about us.

SPEAKER_04 1:36

It's it's important.

SPEAKER_09 1:38

Do you want anything to drink?

SPEAKER_04 1:40

You want to water, I'll take it.

SPEAKER_09 1:42

Water or fireball if you're feeling feeling trashy. I wish. Um there's one but yeah, that one's cold. The rest of them I just put in there.

SPEAKER_05 1:53

Thank you much.

SPEAKER_09 1:55

Scared me with the open coffee right here.

SPEAKER_05 1:57

I'm like, oh, don't do it. Yeah, that's dangerous.

SPEAKER_09 1:59

Dude, so I uh so I was reading uh about you a little bit. You're a motivational speaker and a comic? I thought you're just a comic.

SPEAKER_04 2:06

Yeah, I kind of you know, the speaking is what pays bills and you know, it's I've been doing that a lot longer than comedy. Oh, really?

SPEAKER_01 2:18

Where do you do that at?

SPEAKER_04 2:19

All over all over. Um it really depends on who the client is. I do a lot of conferences. Okay. So I mean I've literally been all over the United States, North America, I mean mainly the US, a little bit of Canada. Um just kinda go, it depends where the conference is, who the association is, and usually I'm the opening keynote guy, and just go in and it's fun. It's it can be grueling. Uh lately I've been doing a lot more stuff like in Michigan and like sort of the region because I want to be close to my kids and want to hang out. It's like uh right before the pandemic, I was on the road a lot, and I just remember like flying from like Texas back to Detroit and then driving to like Indianapolis and then back to Detroit for another thing, then to Toronto for a gig and coming back. Then the world shut down, and I just like doing that grind, that type of grind long enough like this isn't really like it's fun when you're on stage, it's kind of like comedy, but everything to get there, like so then the pandemic was like, you know what? I kind of my kids were really young at the time, right? So I was just like, I really just want to be as close to them as possible. Yeah. They became like a necessary evil to like nobody, there's no enjoyment for most people going to the, you know, not that it ever was super like yeah fun, but I enjoy it. Do you really?

SPEAKER_09 3:32

I do people being at the airport, being well, depending on the mood. Depending on my mood. If I'm anxious, I'll like it it might fuck with my head a little bit being surrounded by so many people. Right. But I do like the it feels like you're doing something, you know what I mean? Like it like as dumb as that. I don't know, that's a dumb way to say that. It feels like you're up to important stuff when you're at the airport, you know. It's kind of like puts me in this mindset of like, eh, we're on a mission here.

SPEAKER_04 3:57

I think to do that though, you gotta dress nice to feel important, right? I can't go like in my pajamas and my t-shirt. I got business.

SPEAKER_10 4:04

Is that what you wear at the airport?

SPEAKER_04 4:06

I actually drive super cash, I go super cash, but I don't pretend to be important either. I'm just like, I'm all about comfort at the airport.

SPEAKER_01 4:12

But uh I wear like jeans and a hoodie because those are the heaviest items and the biggest items for your suitcase.

SPEAKER_04 4:20

So it's a good place to people watch, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_01 4:22

Oh, definitely.

SPEAKER_09 4:23

Man, the the the amount the amount of families that we would just be like, dude, what the fuck?

SPEAKER_06 4:29

Right.

SPEAKER_09 4:30

Oh yeah, you know, oh my god. People f people fighting.

SPEAKER_04 4:34

Oh yeah, all the time. Couples just like you know, because you always have one person in the couple that's usually organized, one and one person that's not, and that's always the clash.

SPEAKER_09 4:42

If you shoot me a look, I will flip you over.

SPEAKER_04 4:45

Right? It's just it's just usually the clash is like someone's like, you didn't pack this, and then they'll fight, or like, uh, I am probably the more organized one in my family, and so you know, I make sure I try to make sure the luggage is the right way and all that stuff, and like, do we need this? And then like, geez, we were coming back from Myrtle Beach one year, and like my whole family thought it would be fun to uh take rocks from the beach with them and they put them in the luggage so you pull up to the weight, and it's like a hundred pounds. I'm like, why the hell? Like rocks, but of course they didn't want to get rid of the rocks, they and we all end up putting them in our backpacks on your carry-ons.

SPEAKER_09 5:22

Looking for your headphones, and there's just shells and fucking rocks. It was, man. Like, so long insulin, like this is time for the rocks to come. Dude, oh man. Yeah, I uh funny enough, like I'm really good at organizing physical things. Right. But my thoughts and my schedule, absolutely not. I'm horrible about a schedule.

SPEAKER_01 5:44

I'm whole can't remember anything.

SPEAKER_09 5:46

She'll she'll come to me with like obligations that we're gonna talk about, logistics with the kids or whatever, and I'm like I you what you're saying might as well be Mandarin. It's just not gonna click. It's just not gonna stay in my mind. And but she's I think she's terrible at organizing physical stuff.

SPEAKER_01 6:06

Sure.

SPEAKER_09 6:07

Clothes, you know, whatever. Tools. Like when we were like when we moved into our new house, it was like, what the fuck? Like, why do we have a I don't know. Like in the kitchen, like in our drawers. Sometimes I open up a drawer and I'm like, what the fuck?

SPEAKER_00 6:22

Hey, you can't do it. You can't blame me for that. I didn't do that. What do you mean? Stephanie did that. And my mom.

SPEAKER_09 6:30

Oh, alright. You can't blame me. Well, but we've been in the house for a year now, so I think I can I can I think I think I can pass it out. So now it's on both of us. Stephanie and it's on both of us now.

SPEAKER_04 6:39

It's no longer, yeah. You now have ownership of it.

SPEAKER_09 6:44

It's definitely our fault by this by this point. We've been there a year. But yeah, I don't know. How do you how do you manage your schedule with all this? Are you are you doing your schedule with all these for the most part?

SPEAKER_04 6:56

I mean Google Calendar.

SPEAKER_09 6:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 6:58

It's all about being disciplined with it, right? If not the calendar. I between the calendar and the spreadsheet, because I just have like an ex in theory, I got the spreadsheet, because the spreadsheet's usually easier like if you're talking to someone and like you're on the phone or something. For me, like pulling up Google Sheets is way easier than the calendar, so I kind of have a dual system. Uh but yeah, just as long as I try staying consistent can be hard, but yeah, you you learn real quick. Because you don't want to not be there or double book, double booking's the worst. It doesn't really happen to me not really, but like you don't want that to happen.

SPEAKER_09 7:28

Oh man.

SPEAKER_04 7:28

To say, like, I can't come because I'm not organized is like that's the worst excuse pretty much ever.

SPEAKER_09 7:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 7:34

I've only done that once in my career. So I've forgotten one gig once in my career, in my speaking career, probably really early into it. And I just wrote down the wrong weekend. And it was in Detroit, and they called me, like, are you gonna be here? I'm like, it's next weekend. Like, no, it's in like two hours. I'm like, I just can't make it. Like, there's no way because I was like in my you know, in my sweats and you know, all that. Like, I can't just show up like in gym shorts and a tank ton. Yeah, let me let me talk to you now. Like, so that sucks.

SPEAKER_09 8:03

How'd you how'd you get into motivational speaking?

SPEAKER_04 8:06

Uh yeah, so I so the story is uh with me, like I played college football. Um, so people see like the unique arms and stuff. And so I used to, before I was married, uh, wear like uh the alumni ring from from the football program. So you're at the bar and people see you with the alumni ring, and like, oh, like what's that? Is it a graduation ring? I'm like, no, I I played ball. And they're like, so they you start telling the story, and my story has like all the dramatic elements because that's life. And so it was like, you know, I played in high school, got cut, went and played semi-pro, which is like code for their beer leak, by the way, and then like I walked on, tried out in college, and then people are like, Oh, that's a really kind of cool story, you should like tell it. And so I kind of got into it, and I had grown up like liking guys like all the classic speakers, like Tony Robbins and you know, Zig Ziggler, and sort of grew up on that, that and preachers, and so I was just like, Yeah, I haven't gave it a shot. And so it just sort of evolved from there. Uh, my first probably eight years had no idea what the hell I was doing. Like, just I knew I could kind of be on stage. I knew I was good on stage, like I had presence, I knew like I can make it, I had no idea how to make it work. Uh, and then as I gone through my career, I've just added different topics and uh just sort of found different ways. But yeah, it was really just started as like at the bar telling people the story, and then people like you should tell it more. I'm like, Cool. I did. Yeah, and that was it.

SPEAKER_09 9:25

Yeah. Well, do you want to get into the story or do you want to save that for the paying customers?

SPEAKER_04 9:31

No, and you can go look it up online. I mean the story is not a ton to it. I mean, you know, like I said, I I I'd wanted to play football for a while as a kid. I was like always like a f I'm a physical guy, right? Like I was never like the guy who was gonna play soccer and um any finesse sport was not me. Just and everyone's like it's because of the arms. Like, no, it's because I'm just like I like contact and that's what so I saw football and I was like, oh, this game could actually work. Uh and then I went out of high school and made it in my junior year. I was cut in my senior year, um, and that kind of stung. But then I went off and did other things and kind of like wanted to play. Uh, and then I can remember I went, I'm a Canadian, so I was like at the University of Ottawa, which is where I did my bachelor's degree. And I mean, you know, I would I love the game. I I'm not so much anymore, but at that point I'd be watching NFL, CFL, college. Like I watched it all, like followed it all back in my 20s. And so on Saturdays, when you're at college, you go see your team play, right? Like, that's what you do. And so I would go remember watching seeing the University of Ottawa play the University of Toronto in the stadium, and going, crap, man, like I wish I can get back to that, right? Because like my my mentality was I got cut in high school, so there is no other avenue for me. Uh, and so I was done with college and sort of went back, and I was sort of like starting my life, was looking at becoming a high school teacher, and then we're like in uh the most Canadian place on earth, Tim Hortons, and you know, I saw I run into a buddy of mine, he's like, hey dude, like there's a semi-pro football team like looking for guys, and I you know, you should you I know you want to play, like you like the game, and you use a chance. And I was like, I don't know why I turned down a lot of opportunities in the past because I thought I wasn't like, you know, I gotta cut from high school. Why would I go play for the city team, the junior team? Like, why would I put myself out there, right? Well, you know, 20, mid-20s at this point. So I was like, peck, you know, I think you get a little bit older. And uh I said, sure. So I went and I played there for a season. Uh and as I was finishing that season, I'd enrolled at the University of Toronto. Uh in a getting certified to be a teacher is a little different in Canada. Um there's similar methods to here in the US, but one of the methods is you go get your bachelor's somewhere, and then you go, you go to what they call teacher's college for a year, and you get just a year of learning to be a teacher, you do your your placement, and then you get certified, right? And so I was at Toronto, like getting that degree, and one of my teammates said, like, you know, they have an open trial policy there, right? Like, go. And so I called the coach, Coach Hallett, and he's like, Yeah, man, come on out, and I did, and I spent like the first half of the season. We had a dress list, so you know, we could only take 45, 46 guys to a game. And so I was, you know, one of 90 some odd guys on that roster. So the first half of the season, like, just we would show up on Fridays. Fridays was like roster day, right? So you would go and they would have sort of the roster of who's going, and my name wasn't on that. And so, and I kind of expected, I'm like, this is college, like, you know, these some of these guys get drafted as CFL. Some guys even go NFL, you know, uh I it wasn't the beer league, right? Like, what you know, and so um, but then like the I game week five, my name was on the sheet, but it was like in brackets. I was like, Coach, what's up? Like, why is my name here? Like, thank you, but like why is it in brackets? He's like, Oh, you know, we're gonna we don't know if we're gonna take you or this other teammate who was a wide receiver. And I said, Oh, because he's injured, so if he's injured and he can't go, then like it'll be it'll be you, but if he can go, it's not. So we're gonna run him after our Friday meeting. So Friday practices were always just like meetings, they were never really like practice. And so I just remember running, like watching him run, like, I hope you fall. Like, I don't like I don't want you to be hurt, but just give me this shot, right? So he did it, but the next week I went back to the locker room and then my name was up there, and so then I spent like the last half of the season sort of getting in there, and uh and what was kind of cool is like I think the second last game of the season we went to Ottawa, and now I'm field level looking at the seats I used to see, I used to sit in and go on like holy crow, like three, four years ago. I was like, man, I didn't do anything to be on that field. I'm like, here I am. Now you are so you finished the season with U of T and then I uh it was a one-year program, you know. The guy coach was like coming back, I'm like, listen, um I'm like 25, 26, which is not old, but like also you're you know for a for uh for a yeah, for a college player, usually you're in at 18, 19. I destroyed my elbow in semi-pro. Uh uh just put a block on a guy, try to get around me, and like my elbow my uh my arms moved with me, my elbow, uh my feet didn't, so like this just got hyper-extended like this joint. And so in semi-pro I covered it up, and in college I just didn't just tell the coaches. I just I used to have like things in semi-pro I had like pads on it and stuff, like it looked like a weapon. And then once I went the minute I walked onto the college tryout, I was like, that all went off. Like I went the whole season. I think I wore elbow pads by the end of it because I was like, Well, it's a little bit of padding, and it looks just like I'm a guy who likes elbow pads, you know. But it so after my elbow was kind of shot and I was doing martial arts again, I was just like, I think I'm done, but I really want to coach. I was coaching a lot of football on top of playing, and uh they're like, Cool, you want to come on staff for a little bit? So I did. Oh nice, yeah. And so from there, that actually what got what that's what got me down to the United States because I was then coaching at Toronto, teaching high school full time, and then I just went on like a there's a website called footballscoop.com, which at the time had a lot of job postings, so I started applying for stuff uh because I was bored one day at work. I didn't want to teach the students apparently. And and I got offered a graduate assistantship to like this little NAI school in um in Kansas, and I was like, cool, I'm gonna take it. I'm like, I get a free master's out of it. I get to coach college ball for a couple more years, go to the US, and then that started like I coached college football for five, six years, and met my wife, and then sort of made other life choices. But that's the football journey. Man, what position did you play? Defensive. Well, semi-pro as an offensive lineman, primarily a guard, and in in college I was a defensive ad.

SPEAKER_09 15:27

Right on. Yeah. Football is such a scary sport to me. Just like with all the head injury stuff that's coming out, you know, the CTE, the concussions, uh you know, and like every one of these they're saying like every every single play, there's a small like car accident worth of impact.

SPEAKER_04 15:47

Yeah, if you're on the line like I was, that's probably that's probably true on some level. But most sports have an element of that.

unknown 15:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:54

Football is the most invisible. Like soccer. My kids play so my sons play soccer. I mean, he doesn't head the ball too much, but like you as they get older, like those collisions start happening. Because like everyone's like, oh, soccer is like it's soft, but like soccer's very much also a collision sport, it just happens differently. Like a lot of guys slide tackle. Once they start slide tackling and stuff, I mean even now as kids they go into each other, so it plus headers, they don't so it's not as dramatic as football. But it happens. There's a lot of actually more concussions happen in cheerleading than football. In cheerleading? Cheerleading falling? Cheerle yeah, from the falls, because when they fall, they really fall. Oh it's actually that in terms of uh I don't know if it's more concussions, but it's uh in terms of insurance, the the most expensive in sh insurance for sports.

SPEAKER_09 16:39

Is cheerleading.

SPEAKER_04 16:40

Yeah, because if you're like at a college you want to start cheer or high school you want to start cheerleading to team and you gotta put the insurance in, they started calculating the insurance for you know cheerleading is like super high because a fall is like a spinal. Oh yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_09 16:54

So on that good note, my dude, my buddies my buddy's got a kid in and cheer, and it is just a second job. Like he is busy, he is so busy with his daughter in cheer. It's insane. Like, we have three kids, all of them are in soccer, and then they'll be in either baseball or softball. I fucking hate this time of the year, dude. I hate it. So everyone says you'll miss it when it's over. I won't. I don't think I will. I dude age I it's cool to see the kids progress and and focus on something, but my god, I just like I am so busy. I cannot stand sitting here for five hours when I know I have so much shit to do.

SPEAKER_04 17:40

Are they in travel soccer?

SPEAKER_09 17:41

No, I told them they were not allowed to do it.

SPEAKER_04 17:43

That's a smart decision. Don't don't don't don't make my life.

SPEAKER_01 17:46

But then we did we they're all in like a parks and rec league, but the oldest one ended up he's on the park at parks and rec league, but they travel still. Like he'll he'll have games like an hour away.

SPEAKER_09 17:57

Yeah. And I'm like, this is just ass, and I I I just god, I I have a hard time with this because I I want the kids to do all the things that they want to do growing up, because like, you know, once you're in adulthood and you have these responsibilities, you're not gonna have time to do this shit. But my god, I just I'm like, dude, I am so fucking busy. I'm so busy. And to d and to like we had we had three kids all have games and one of them had a double header, so we literally got to this the soccer field at I don't know, makeup numbers, one o'clock and didn't leave until five or six. And I was just like, what all sick. I worked all week so I could have this Sunday, and this is how I spent my Sunday.

SPEAKER_04 18:44

I hear you. My son plays travel. Um soccer? Yeah. Okay. And he's he's doing rec baseball this year for the first time. So that'll be fun because it's something different. But I like tomorrow where we have a game sort of locally to us, sort of in the Holly area, and then uh Linden technically. And then uh right after that, we're driving to Potoski for a game.

SPEAKER_07 19:02

Oh my gosh. Potoski?

SPEAKER_04 19:04

Yeah, we had two games this year, league games in the uh one was in Potosky, one is in Travels and Traverse City, because they put us in the northern division. And we also had we've had four tournaments this year, one of them was in Tennessee in Gatlinburg. Dude, this is what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_09 19:18

Like I just don't care about stay local. I don't care. Well, also, what I was like we have we've had a few conversations about this. I'm like, all right, my oldest, he's like, oh, I want to play on this travel team, I want to play on this travel team. Like, that's because your buddy plays on it, and I get it. But also, the eight months that the season's not going on, I didn't see you jog, I didn't see you do any drills, I didn't see you work out, I didn't see you watch like tips and tricks videos. Like this, if you if this was like his calling, like I'm obsessed, I have to do this, then we would do it. But it's like, I kind of want to do this because my buddy's on the team. I'm like, get fucked. You're not you're not doing this, you are not doing this team that's gonna cost you know whatever amount of hundreds of dollars plus all the time in travel.

SPEAKER_04 20:07

Try thousands. Uh is it thousands? Oh, yeah, easily. It's easy. I mean, the level of thousands goes up, right? So, like, depends what level. So, like at sort of the basic club, I don't know, everybody is probably between three and five in most orgs, and then like the more elite leagues as they get older get up to like ten, I heard, and fifty, like right. Get the fuck out of here. Right. Well, that's here's the irony from an economic standpoint, right? Like, if your son's not, if your kid's not the second coming of messy, first of all, by like eight, nine years old, you know the answer, by the way.

SPEAKER_03 20:35

Right.

SPEAKER_04 20:36

But like, you know, if you take all the money you spend in travel soccer and put that into and like calculate that and compound that over the years, it's basically the equivalent of college money, which is why a lot of parents put their kids in. In the United States, it's about like getting them the college scholarship.

SPEAKER_05 20:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 20:55

And like, listen, if your kid, like I said, if it's their like their passion and their blood, and you're like, listen, if I'm gonna blow 70 G's over his lifetime and he'll get it on the back end, great. But for a lot of kids, it's like competitive rec. Like, I will say, yeah, having been in like the rec leagues, I mean, listen, it's usually a volunteer coach, you get what you get. Sometimes it's someone that really knows the game. Sometimes it's we literally had a coach who was just doing it so they would have a team. Yeah. And and you can't fault her for that because there's no team without you.

SPEAKER_06 21:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 21:25

But also, like the kids not learning skills. So at the travel level, I was like, this is gonna be good now, right? Like, we're gonna get some drills, like you know, like I used to get college football coaching. All right, let's let's let's see this go. And what was interesting with it is I noticed like really quickly, they weren't teaching fundamental a lot of fundamental skills in practice. And then I noticed that they they only practiced twice a week, which was the same as the rec league. I'm like, so I I get that the level's better, but like I'm paying this money, and almost nothing has changed. Like, I had to go get my son a private software. Trainer to teach him how to kick a ball properly because he was never taught in the wreck. And then you get to travel and they just kind of assume you know. Oh, yeah. So people like you have a private trainer for your son. I'm like, oh if I'm gonna spend this kind of money, I gotta make sure you can do the basics, otherwise, it's gonna fall behind. And yeah, it it's a scam.

SPEAKER_09 22:22

For thousands for thousands of dollars, you'd think that it would be like everything, every part of this we're gonna do it the elite the elite way. And they're just like, oh, it's basically wreck, but the coaches get paid or whatever.

SPEAKER_04 22:35

It's large. So here the fun statistic, and I I I do this on stage too, is like so youth soccer, travel soccer, is an $18 billion a year industry in the United States. Like if you want to compare that, the NFL is like 24 billion-ish. That's insane. Which means like travel soccer has made uh child labor fun for the whole family. Like that's that's what it is, right? Like the kids so it yeah, it's it's a bit of a I it it's I know what it is, and so my son enjoys it. I I'm sort of the same way. Wait, if I ever see my son like scaling back on his commitment, I'm like, we're not doing this because it's not worth like I didn't want to drive to Gatlinburg, Tennessee.

SPEAKER_09 23:15

The the the time uh like set aside, I mean forget the money. Like, we're gonna spend money on our kids no matter what. Right. But the amount of time that these sports take up of out of the entire family is just insane. I I I don't when I was a when I was a kid, I was I kind of had some envy for the for the kids that played baseball and hockey and su and all this stuff, because I played I played football one year and and then I only did like independent sports from there on out. It was like motocross, skateboarding, whatever. But that didn't take anyone else's time up, other than like if we threw all the bikes in a trailer. It's like that's the shit my dad wanted to do anyway, you know, so it wasn't hurting him. He's like, oh, get to get out of the house, hell yeah. You know, but now that I'm in it and I have kids in these two sports, I'm like, I I I get why my parents were like, fuck that, you're not doing hockey, fuck that, you're not doing baseball. Right, you know, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:14

I mean hockey's we were in hockey for one season and then my son retired from the game, so that was I was happy about that.

SPEAKER_09 24:20

Yeah, hockey is insane. Hockey's as expensive, if not more, right?

SPEAKER_04 24:25

Oh, hockey equipment alone. Like I remember we went to go buy a you know, I was getting him right. He was like nine or ten at the time, forget, he wasn't that old. And so he was learning to skate, and he probably wanted to try hockey. We're big hockey fans. We go to Flintfire Bird game all the time, and we go see the Griffins and the Red Wings a couple times a year. Big hockey fans. So, okay, cool, man, go play, you know. And I can remember a couple things. I remember going to like Perani's hockey store and going, okay, we need to get a stick. And like the sticks and prices are like, you know, from least to most. Like, we're like at this end, at the youth stick level. And like, oh, it's like a $400 stick. I'm like, okay, let's walk it over to this.

SPEAKER_08 25:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 25:02

And I was like, oh my god, like looking at a lot of the equipment was insane. I can't remember. We didn't pay a lot because they had like a special program where you basically borrow the equipment for a season because it was House League. But I just remember buying the stick, and even the helmet was a couple hundred bucks. And buying a helmet for your kid is interesting, right? Because you want to buy the cheapest thing, but it's a helmet, right? And it's one of the most important pieces of equipment, right? So I was like, give me, of course, I'm like, give me the cheapest thing. I guess like a piece of Tupperware or something. Then they're okay, give me like the elite line. You're like, okay, this is really nice. I'd probably just wear one just around the house, but like it's also like 900 bucks. So then you sort of settle in the middle. But it's a very interesting experience because how much do you spend? Like, how much is your son's brain trauma prevention worth? Right? This is what it this is what it comes down to. But he played, but you know, I thought like, oh, he's 10, 11 years old, whatever he was. I go, well, play a spring house league, right? Because it's house league, so it should be like all kids who are not playing travel, yeah, double A, triple A. And I was very wrong about that. Like spring hockey is where the a lot of the travel kids go to keep warm. Oh, and okay, and so they're just staying in shape. So first practice, I'm like, okay, this will be cool, I'm excited, like you know, and and he's been skating for a year because my daughter's a figure skater. And so, and I just remember like the first drill, like, oh, let's see what he does, a simple passing drill or something, just skate to the blue line in the back. And the coach was like, do figure eight things, and like they're doing like these big like whirly birds around, like the whole team, and like 90% of the team knew exactly what they were doing. Then you got the three kids who were like my son who are like, What is going on? And so after that, he was like, Dad, I like it. He goes, But it's just like I'm too far behind. Yeah, which you kind of want to encourage your kid, but I'm like, dude, like if there was a league of like more kids like you, you should stay in it. But like, if you're playing with like a bunch of kids that are on double A, like they're just traveling all the time. This is another thing they do. Yeah, yeah, it's hard, man. It's a tough call. It's a tough call. But watching the parents at all these things is like the best part of it.

SPEAKER_01 26:54

Like, they're and hockey parents are the worst.

SPEAKER_04 26:58

Soccer pretty bad too. See hockey, hockey or spirited crazy. Um, soccer, maybe because I've done soccer more like delusional crazy. Like, they just, I don't know. I don't know if they believe that their kids are gonna go to the World Cup or that they're just I mean, all parents on some level, self-included, are living through their children in this whole thing.

SPEAKER_06 27:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 27:19

But like the soccer, some of them are just like, I don't know, like they're just into it, like they're legitimate fans of the team, and that worries me. They're like 12-year-old kids, like, oh, someone jack's stats are down this season. I'm like, it's gonna hit puberty in a year. Give them a break.

SPEAKER_09 27:33

Like, you know? Yeah, the God. Listening to some of these parents screaming. At parts of direct parts of Werk League games where it's like they're these kids are playing aga they're in elementary school playing against their classmates. And they're like, kill them, murder them, you know, slide jackle them.

SPEAKER_01 27:55

Some of the coaches, too. I'm just like, there was one that there's one that's a problem. Yeah, there was like an issue with one of them last week. I guess I didn't I we weren't there for it.

SPEAKER_09 28:05

We were not there for the conflict that we found out about in the group chat with our team or whatever, but we have a sus uh we I I think we know who it is because there's always this one coach every year. He puts on the windbreaker, he has a clipboard, he has a whistle, and he walks, he puts on the costume and he just storms up and down the sideline.

SPEAKER_03 28:26

What are you fucking doing? Blah blah blah.

SPEAKER_09 28:29

Like just the whole time. And I'm like, dude, you're coaching like ten you. Like, relax. These are third graders that you're screaming at, these are fourth graders that you're screaming at, you know.

SPEAKER_01 28:40

That's there's a girl too that she's young.

SPEAKER_09 28:44

I think the it was funny because she did you hear her go I you can finish your thought. Wait a second, I'm sorry, I'm all caffeinated. But she goes, I'm not screaming at you because I'm mad. I'm screaming because you gotta hear me. Did you hear her say that? Oh, I'm sorry. I stepped on your sword. My bad.

SPEAKER_00 29:01

That's what you do.

SPEAKER_09 29:02

Okay. But she goes, I'm I'm not screaming at you because I'm mad at you. I'm screaming because you gotta hear me. Do not chew gum on the mic. Are you serious? You off mic. Oh my god. Okay, you're off. You're gonna We should order a pizza.

SPEAKER_00 29:22

You won't be able to hear it.

SPEAKER_09 29:24

Alright, um the funny the funniest part about her doing that though, or saying that, is that she was being a fucking bitch. She was like, What are you thinking? You fuck you get in there, you need it was not like you know, you're off sides. It was like, you you suck at this! And then she was like, I'm not yelling at you because I'm mad. I'm yelling because you gotta hear me.

SPEAKER_04 29:50

Yeah. Because that's helpful.

SPEAKER_03 29:53

You're not good at this.

SPEAKER_04 29:54

Mo most I've told my son that all sideline chatter is crap and don't listen to it. Yeah. And everyone, I don't really do that for the most part. Uh if I get angry, I start shouting in Italian, but I'm not shouting soccer stuff, just random words, because and I'm reacting to the parents next to me, right? Because they'll be like, kick the ball, and I'll be like, God damn, like, really? That that's your zen for the kids, like kick the ball or whatever. But but most of it's like it's nonsense, or it's not helpful because, especially in in any league, especially travel, you're paying for a guy to coach your team.

SPEAKER_06 30:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 30:26

And then you're spending your time undoing the coaching that you're paying for.

SPEAKER_06 30:31

Right.

SPEAKER_04 30:32

And that's just not logical to me. But I think the only thing, every once in a while, something will happen. I'm a human, I'll be like, oh man, pass the ball, and he'll hear me. And if he turns his head, he doesn't do it anymore. I used to go, don't listen to me. Like, you shouldn't be focused. They're like, focus on the game, focus on your coach. But like parents are are are are nuts. I once saw a guy, um, his son was a goalie, and he stood behind the net and was like coaching them the whole game. Like in his ear.

SPEAKER_01 30:57

I I see people do that at the Parks and Rec League all the time.

SPEAKER_04 31:00

Yeah, it was a rec league game. I was just like, what do you do? Like, yeah, you gotta you gotta let them fail, you gotta let them do their thing. That's how they learn.

SPEAKER_09 31:08

Let them make their own decisions too. If you're if you're in there going, oh, you need to this and that, and you need to this is how you need to do this the whole time. The kid's just gonna panic and be like, okay, what does dad want me to do next? Right.

SPEAKER_04 31:21

Well, most of it's not helpful because the kid in the moment doesn't know what's going on. Like they're they're losing the context. So if you really want to, here's the lesson. If you really want to like coach your kids, film the game and then watch it with them.

SPEAKER_06 31:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 31:31

Because my son used to play goalie and I would record, I set the tripod up and record, and then afterwards he'd we'd watch film together, and that was more helpful to him than like any of the other stuff. That he could see what he actually did. Because in the moment, this is what happens a lot of times a kid. Why didn't you pass the ball? Someone told us open. No, he wasn't dad. Someone had covered everything up. Oh no, no, no, you're not seeing it. Dad, like you get this like misinterpretation 90% of the time. So you spend more time arguing with your kid, or they don't know what you're talking about. Like, hey, like this happened last week uh with me and my son after the game. It's just like, dude, what happened on that that thing you you know that pass got miffed? He's like, No, it did. I don't know what the hell like I didn't pass the ball in the last 10 minutes, but yes, you did! Like, I was like, Okay, you know what's not that important because like it wasn't an important thing. I was just kind of curious like what happened. Yeah, and the the point is the kids don't remember. I can't remember what I did five minutes ago. You can expect a kid in the middle of like a game to really remember. Like it's a heightened, heightened moment, they're not gonna remember. And then the film, it's like comedy. Like you film, that's why like as a comedian and speaker, I always film myself because what I saw in the moment and what I felt is not it's always wrong. It's always wrong. It's never, it's it's it's never whatever you thought was good was not as good as you thought it was most of the time, and whatever you thought was bad is not as bad as you thought it was most of the time.

SPEAKER_06 32:44

Right.

SPEAKER_04 32:44

So you need that calibration, otherwise you're going off of really you're going off emotion, especially in comedy, because like you're really just trying to feel out the crowd. Like half of it's just it's not that it's the joke, half it's the joke, the other half is feeling out the crowd, how to say the joke. Do you pull back from the joke? Do you, you know, right? Do you you know, like if I do if I'm in a bar crowd uh looking a little bikerish, I may lay off the Italian jokes, you know. I just don't know if there's a lot of paisons and Ollie, Michigan, whatever.

SPEAKER_05 33:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 33:13

So it's just you just you gotta feel it, right? And some nights I might make a marriage joke or a uh you know, a raising kids joke, and like that's 50-50 with me, right? I start going through I have like a whole routine on travel soccer, and sometimes it hits. I'm like, okay, they're into it because these are parents or they play travel, like they get it. Sometimes they don't be like, okay, I'm gonna end this part of the set quick.

SPEAKER_09 33:36

Right. So you're in the moment.

SPEAKER_04 33:38

But you don't really know how it hits until you're out there until you for me until I review it and then go, okay, yeah, that worked, that didn't work.

SPEAKER_09 33:44

My perception of my sets are is always completely wrong. Right. I'll I'll watch back the the recording and I'm like, oh, I thought they didn't laugh at that, but they were actually laughing, but I stepped on it by starting the next premise. Oh, that did go well. Or it's that went way worse than I thought. I thought that went well because one chick laughed really hard, but the I lost the rest of the crowd with that one, you know.

SPEAKER_04 34:09

Right. It's easy to be swayed by like a pocket of people, or even the people up front if they really like you, and yeah, damn it. There's all sorts of stuff, but yeah.

SPEAKER_09 34:16

I mean how long have you been doing comedy? So you you've been doing comedy not as long as the speaking.

SPEAKER_04 34:22

No, I mean formally, I mean that's an interesting how long I've been doing it's an interesting question. Uh I've been saying I've been going hard. This is my second year. I did it back in the so I did online, I did online classes at Second City uh during the pandemic. Okay. And then during the pandemic, there was tons of zoom mics and things like that.

SPEAKER_01 34:40

So I was really that's interesting.

SPEAKER_09 34:42

The zoom mics are weird.

SPEAKER_04 34:44

They're weird. I found I still use them actually. Uh uh, but I the ones that are remaining and the ones I go to are actually decent uh for what I use them for. I use them to run new material. You need muscle memories, muscle memory in terms of saying a joke. Oh, yeah. The people in that community are really, really cool. Um, and it's been fun. I've gotten some bookings and stuff off of it. Um but back to the so I did that and like busy parent, busy, you know, busy guy doing stuff. Like Zoom's convenient.

SPEAKER_05 35:11

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 35:12

Um, and sometimes like listen, you can speak to a bar of two people trying to eat their chicken wings, or you can go on Zoom, and some of my crowds on Zoom event were like 65-70 people post-pandemic. So which you know, which do you go to?

SPEAKER_09 35:25

And so Especially when you gotta drive you know 60 miles to get to the mile.

SPEAKER_04 35:30

Well, being being near Flint, everything's an hour away at least, right? And so there was that. But then, like, I took the advanced class at the comedy castle right last January of 25 or whatever it was, and I remember Joel uh who was teaching just said if you're serious about comedy, you gotta do at least twice a week. You gotta do at least a hundred reps a year, you gotta do it at least twice a week-ish.

SPEAKER_03 35:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 35:49

And I just took that to heart and I was like, boom, I just put my head down last year and just started doing it. And then this year kind of trying to keep the pace a little different this year because I'm doing a little bit more speaking because the kids are getting a little bit older and I can do that. But like it's also like after doing a year, I kind of know what mics are good for me.

SPEAKER_06 36:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 36:07

Because you know, one thing I learned in speaking is like not when you're I think when you're new in sort of like a performance profession, you you want to go to like everything and get the reps, and there's value to that, but then you start realizing like not everything is equal. And I went up on stage and I did a thing, but then I really get anything out of it. Uh and so I've gotten to the point where like I know which ones are good. And they're not always like the you know the high profile mics, just places where yeah, I feel good, or I it's it's well run, or it's you don't leave there mad. You don't leave there mad, or it's taken my big things is is the mic taken seriously?

SPEAKER_09 36:40

If you're going to a mic, especially and that you run into that a lot where you're like, okay, it's a bar room, it might be good. Some some of those bar room mics are great, but then some of them it's like the T the sports are all on still, the whole bar has their back to you, and the only people watching you are your buddy comics who've already seen your set 25 times. Right. So, like really no one gives a fuck. And you're like, I could have did this in the mirror at home and and I'd be eating a snack in ten minutes instead of got an hour and a half drive, you know.

SPEAKER_04 37:07

Yeah, yeah. Those are those are rough ones sometimes, but um yeah. So I just you get out there and I just do my I do my best, and uh, you know, like I said, the zoom mics are great for new material for me. Like all my stuff gets worked in a zoom mic first. Yeah. Even now. For like before I go to.

SPEAKER_09 37:23

I see honestly, I I've heard so much shit talk about those zoom mics. I never even thought to think I never even considered what may be valuable of it. And I guess getting a rep in and just like performing it, but without the pressure of doing it in front of you know people in real life. I mean, like I guess there's a lot of value to that.

SPEAKER_04 37:43

You know, yeah, it depends what you depends what you want out of it, and like anything else, it's what's the room, right? So like the couple I go to or are I will rotate when I can, you know, usually they're comedians. Some of them are like, you know, one of them's the second city does two virtual mics. They they they do virtual mics once a week, and that's you know, a lot of the aspiring comedians are comedians that are just like doing the same thing, working it out. They're usually a feedback mic, so you're getting a second city instructor giving you feedback if you want it. And they're for me, they're good because number one, you build a community with those people.

SPEAKER_09 38:14

Yeah, that's valuable.

SPEAKER_04 38:15

Number two, sometimes you build collaborations. Like I've I have got a few colleagues that I've made throughout North America based on those mics that you just don't get that at the local bar typically or the local mic. And again, I just use it to wrap new material, or if I have a longer set somewhere, it's also a good place for some places you get seven to ten minutes. And so, you know, I need to work my material, I need to work my set. Uh, you don't have the audience laughter the way you do in a in a real, you know, uh human environment, a physical environment. But I look at facial reactions because I I learned that from like being doing the webinar part of the speaking business. It's like you look for what people are what their faces do. And it's you just you you you dart you learn to skew the timing, right? Like you just know, like you know, five minutes. You know, if I do a seven-minute set on Zoom, it's probably a ten-minute set in real life, yeah, unless like people are really laughing. Because the laughter there's not as much laughter, you're not the pause breaks, there's the delay. So you just you just learn to like do that. But you get the reps. That's what works for me. There are some, I'm sure there's some still some renegade mics during the pandemic. There are some crazy ones that are like just people getting high on camera, just like I don't know. One guy started, I remember this one mic, this dude started like arguing with me. He's like, You're a motivational speaker. I I said, Yeah, I go. He goes, People must hate you. I'm like, what? Why would they hate a motivational speaker? He's like, I went to a conference once and he he made us like like massage each other. I'm like, what the hell do you do for a living?

SPEAKER_09 39:43

Oh, that's hilarious.

SPEAKER_04 39:44

Like, what? Like, no, it's not what I do. No, but if I did, that's what you paid the guy for, right? And I just remember, he's like, ah, like it's all like false positivity. I'm like, okay, I I don't that guy's just miserable. Yeah, I'm like, you're just not happy with your life.

SPEAKER_09 40:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 40:02

Like, I don't promise people anything. I share my story, I share like some tips on being resilient, and that's it. Yeah, it's all on you. But I was just like, what? It's funny when you tell people that you do something, it doesn't matter what it is, and they react weirdly to it. I'm like, oh, that's you.

SPEAKER_09 40:16

Yeah, that's you have a yeah, you you're projecting your internal right. I had a I I started writing a bit about Tony Robbins, and I feel like I have to bring this up to you now because if we're comics and you're a motivational speaker, but so Tony Robbins had a a uh a tumor in his pituitary gland. That's why he's like six foot nine or whatever, huge hands, huge head, whatever. And so the bit basically was like, well, if the tumor was pressing on the part of pituitary gland that made his dick grow, he'd be a he wouldn't be a motivational speaker talking about how how how to treat your lady or whatever, he'd be out there fucking filming porn basically. A porn star. Yeah. I have a f I that one's not obvious. I need I need to figure out how to word that if I'm gonna work on that.

SPEAKER_04 40:59

He's prettier than Ron Jeremy, if Ron Jeremy can do it. You're not kidding.

SPEAKER_09 41:05

That's a disgusting motherfucker, Ron Ron Jeremy. So looks like the neighbor from uh Aquaine Hunger Force.

SPEAKER_04 41:12

Back in the day when porn the porn stars like were like household names. I don't know if such a thing exists, but I feel like it doesn't because everyone's like on whatever OnlyFans and stuff now.

SPEAKER_09 41:20

Right.

SPEAKER_04 41:21

Growing up, like we all even in high school, we knew who Jenna Jameson is.

SPEAKER_09 41:24

Everyone knows who yeah.

SPEAKER_04 41:25

Jenna Jameson and like they were they had their own like cult, it was its own niche, but it was a very public niche at sort of the elite level. Yeah, like even people knew it.

SPEAKER_09 41:34

Yeah, yeah, it's fun. Yeah, that is funny to think about. Dude, there was uh that's funny that you say so I I'm a pipe fitter, do a tally. Uh I'm a pipe fitter, and I went to the porta potty today, and the only graffiti on the wall in the porta potty was Favorite Porn Star, and then there was like four names written, and then there was like tallies next to them. Well, that's community building, that's great. Yeah, this is the kind of team building we need. The uh in construction, the like RHR is safety, like there's a safety team, and uh so they walk around and they basically are just looking to get people ran off the job for doing dangerous shit, douchebags. But the uh but they always do these like team building things. They're like, Alright, next Thursday we're gonna have a safety luncheon, so we're gonna feed you guys pizza or whatever, and then we're gonna have a talk or whatever. And every time I'm forced to go to one of these, I just get my food and I leave. And I come back like at the end of what would be our lunch hour.

SPEAKER_04 42:34

Sign off on it if you have to.

SPEAKER_09 42:35

Yeah. Literally, yes. I my my foreman, I uh I was at a job in downtown Detroit, and they would do these safety meetings in the basement of the building, and uh I came down there, I signed in, I grabbed my donut, and I left, and I and I went to the bar that was down the street, and I was sitting there playing on my phone, and my foreman texted me, he's like, Where are you at? And I looked up and he was walking into the bar. I'm like, Where are you at, motherfucker? You got caught too. Working hard. He didn't know I was there. He was literally like, Hey, I heard you're not fucking down there with the crew. Oh, that was hilarious. Like, you're caught too, you're buying.

SPEAKER_08 43:19

That's fair.

SPEAKER_09 43:20

So instead of learning how to be safe from some 19-year-old dweeb that just did a six-week course on safety training, he uh me and him went and got drunk.

SPEAKER_04 43:30

Mandatory trainings are the worst as a presenter, they're just terrible. Oh, nobody wants to be there, right? It's like the audience is captive. Oh, yeah. They have to be there, but they don't want to. That's why like doing schools can be hard. I don't do a lot of schools. I I do I've done a little bit more lately, but like because the students stay h like they're happy they're not in class. And that's about it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 43:50

What age groups are you would you be doing?

SPEAKER_04 43:53

High school, I won't I won't do elementary. I th the pr the the potential of me saying something inappropriate. Not like it's too high. Like I'm clear, I'm a clean comic. I'm a obviously as a speaker, you have to be clean, but when you start talking about like you know, like adversity and like grinding through things and like talking about like people's negative perceptions of you and like what people say and like sometimes it gets I get like get a little heavy. I get heavy and just like I won't say emotional, but like sometimes you're just like fuck those people, right? Like that kind of shit might come out of my mouth. And yeah, with a corporate crowd, they forgive it. I don't wonder you know if the school crowd, yeah, not always, although it probably makes me more related with the kids are probably the students probably be like, hey, that guy's like more real than whatever.

SPEAKER_01 44:33

They'd be like, he's cool.

SPEAKER_04 44:34

He's cool, he's swore, you didn't get in trouble.

SPEAKER_09 44:36

I did a I did a speech at a high school uh for the trades, and uh so I came into the trades class and talked to them, but I talked to them like I talk. I I was I didn't I didn't pull punches, I was like, this is what we do, this is how we do it, and you can make a lot of money doing this and blah blah blah. And showed them pictures of like a you know, like I had a s I had a slideshow put together, but I I was she taught at the school, I did at Holly High School, so um, so she taught at the school when I went there, so I was like, mmm, I gotta like remember that that was my professional job. Yeah, like I couldn't get I couldn't go in there and be like, what's up, you bunch of fucking homos or whatever, and like say something off the walls, but like you know, I mean like I was I was tame for me, but I was unhinged for a guy speaking at high school, right? You know, and I remember when I was done talking, all of the kids were like fully locked in to me, and like, and I remember thinking like, oh, I okay, so I think talking like myself made them kind of pay attention instead of just being like, oh, let this guy talk for an hour, you know.

SPEAKER_01 45:46

But one time I accidentally swore in front of my students and they thought it was the funniest thing ever. Right. They loved it. You broke character. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 45:56

I I used to swear in front of my students too by They liked it.

SPEAKER_01 46:02

If they swore at me, I'd be like, Oh, that's what you're gonna call me. I'd be like, I'm not a bitch. But I'm glad that you I'm I'm sorry you think I'm a bitch, but it's so funny the perception that some of these kids would have of you.

SPEAKER_09 46:14

Like I remember you were telling me that you you wore a band t-shirt and and one of your kids was like, you know who that is, and you were like, That's my generation or something. Do you remember what band it was? It doesn't matter. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 46:28

I I know that there was one of my students really liked um the Amity Affliction. Is that their what they're called? I think. Anyway, and so I was like talking to her about that, and she thought it was so cool because I knew who they were, but yeah. Or like that one time my Spotify came up and they were like, Oh, you listen to that? You listen to that? It's like, yeah, I'm cool, whatever.

SPEAKER_09 46:51

Yeah, it's funny, they like the the what they think you're gonna be like is hilarious.

SPEAKER_00 46:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 46:58

But you have to put up the wall. I mean, I don't know. It's I I've never had I don't have to filter myself at my job at all. And then obviously doing comedy, I don't filter myself at all.

SPEAKER_00 47:11

Yeah, so you don't have to.

SPEAKER_09 47:13

It's so weird that you have this muscle where you like know I I just don't I don't have the ability to like I that's not true. Like Mark Speck and his wife came on and they're a gr uh he's a in a Christian rock band, and I was like, okay, and he's also a lot older than us. Right. So I'm like, okay, out of respect, I'm not gonna like I'm gonna I'm gonna do and I did pretty good. I think I dropped like maybe a dozen fucks in two hours.

SPEAKER_01 47:41

Which is really good for you.

SPEAKER_09 47:43

It's really good. Normally there there might be a dozen fucks in like a paragraph if it was, you know, written out long form, but I I don't know. I don't I just don't have that I don't have that muscle at all.

SPEAKER_01 47:54

I would I When I accidentally swore I was singing the um the y'all gonna make me lose my mind, I was singing that to the class. Gosh and I sang one of the words wrong, and my student one of my students corrected me, and I went, he was singing it, and I was like, oh shit. And then I was like, oh my god. Because I was like, oh shit, you're right. And then I was like, oh my god, I just said that out loud. But they thought it was hilarious.

SPEAKER_04 48:19

And it is hilarious. I used to I used to swear under my breath, and my students would catch me. You didn't hear anything. You got no proof.

SPEAKER_09 48:30

Yeah. I do I have like a light bulb memory of one of my teachers swearing. It was my history teacher at my junior uh at my middle school, and we were talking about how natives got sick from the blankets and the whatever, and they thought it was intentional and whatever the whatever that story was. But he said they were pissing out of their asses. And when he said that, the principal was walking by like it at the exact moment, and he was like, Uh hey, Mr. Blah blah blah, give me real quick. I was like, and it was the first time I ever heard him heard him swear, but he's just it was just like the stars online. He swore for the first time in my mind ever, and it was right as the principal was walking past our classroom.

SPEAKER_04 49:18

Do you imagine that showing up like is it in his annual review? Like said pisses out uses inappropriate language, for example, said pisses out of their asses. Seriously, it's written up by HR. They're sitting in that circle to train, like, why are you here? Oh, I said pissing out of their asses, and goddammit. I supported it was the best illustration. Talking about a genocide here, talking in the historical context, it's allowed. I wasn't talking about the cafeteria on Tuesdays, which that also would be historically inaccurate.

SPEAKER_01 49:49

One time I had the kids at this at the school with me, and because we were setting up for the summer.

SPEAKER_09 49:56

My kids?

SPEAKER_01 49:56

Yeah, and I walked, I walked in to get like a cart, and he we walked by with the janitor's room, and he was on the phone and he and his oldest heard him swear, and we walked out of there, and he's like, I didn't know teachers swore. And I was like, Hey, have you ever heard me swear? And he's like, Yeah, but it you're different. Like, it's not teachers don't swear.

SPEAKER_04 50:20

It's like when students see you, I'll out like a mire or somewhere and so that's like the weirdest thing. Yeah, and they're like you live there.

SPEAKER_01 50:26

Yeah, they can't picture you outside of the school. Yeah. I had that happen a few times. Like I ran into a kid at the mall and he's like, What the heck? I also teach kids with autism. So, like So that perception is a very important thing. The perception is very different. But yeah, he would he was just shocked to see me out doing things other than teaching.

SPEAKER_09 50:48

The weirdest thing is that like so Paige is only 29, and but we're like running into her students at concerts now, like the ones that are like long graduated, like one of her students was like double fisting at a you know, a couple of tall boys at a at a rock concert, and she's like, Miss Terrigan? And she's like, who and it's and she's like it was just it was so weird to see like, oh, your student is now an adult, and like what they're old enough to drink, it's just not used to that. Yeah, she was 22 or something, and she's like like doing the Paige's doing the math, going like, wait, wait, she graduated. Oh, yeah, I guess she would be old enough to be here and drinking. It's just weird as hell to like them going going from kids to now they're doing the same thing that we're doing, which is seeing Peach Pit or whatever band that it was.

SPEAKER_01 51:43

It was Peach Pit.

SPEAKER_04 51:44

I remember the high school I taught at um was kind of like where the expelled kids went. And it was also in an auto town that went under. So we had like a lot of a lot of students who did not finish in the four years, right? So, and in Canada the drinking age is 19. And I can remember having a young lady in my class that was 18 and like about to turn 19, and she's like, Sir, I can see you at the bar. I'm like, let's not. Like, but if and I had a couple students that were like 18, 19, I think there might have been one that was close to 20 because they could still be in school. And it was like the weirdest, like that idea that like, we'll see you at the bar, sir. I'm like, what do you think I do? Like, first of all, if I'm gonna drink, I am not going within fucking 50 miles of the damn school. Like, right? So if you see me like in downtown Toronto, then that that that's just fate. Yeah, that's not that's not it.

SPEAKER_01 52:38

But I had kids while they were seniors, and they'd be like, Miss Terrigan, when you when we turn 21, you'll be 28, so we can all go drinking together. I was like, no, we can't. I'm not doing that.

SPEAKER_04 52:50

That is not on my agenda. That's not on the bucket, Liz.

SPEAKER_01 52:53

Not happening.

SPEAKER_09 52:55

I remember one one of my teachers, I had a one of my elementary school teachers, I had him twice. He he changed what grade he was teaching while I was in that school, so I had him for third grade and fifth grade, and then he kind of started like my family started to know him because he had taught all three of us, and then me twice. And uh, and then also like whatever, he was a boat guy. My mom and her ex-boyfriend had a boat on Lake St. Clair. So, anyway, long story short, he I remember him saying to me, uh, when you're when you're out of this school, you can start calling me by my first name, you know. He's like because we're familiar now, and I'm like, okay. And I was like a I remember being like a little kid, I was excited about that. I can't wait to call him his first name. And then like as soon as I was allowed to, based on that rule, I was like, I don't want to. That's not Mark, you know, I'm not gonna call him Mark.

SPEAKER_04 53:50

It's always gonna be Mr. or Miss So-and-so.

SPEAKER_09 53:52

Yeah, like even saying that just now feels weird, but the only reason I didn't say his last name, because I don't want that, I don't want that out there. And then all of a sudden this guy's getting fucking messages like, hey, I heard you on a podcast they talked about you on a podcast, but the uh if I saw him, I would not call him Mark. There's no way, it's just it's too weird. It's I've known him my whole life as Mr. Blah blah blah, you know.

SPEAKER_01 54:14

And one of my friends went to Holly High School and then she started teaching there, and so she's like working with all of her old teachers, and she just cannot call them by their first names.

SPEAKER_04 54:23

She has such a hard time. That's gotta be weird too. I was in a similar position. I did like one of my placements at my old high school, and that was even that was weird because yeah, they're like, call me something. I'm like, no, I'm good, I'm good. Um, it's so much easier for kids to find out the first name. Remember, like, you know, find out your teacher's first name like when I was in school, it's like wasn't the hardest. You you had to kind of work for it. You didn't necessarily know, right? Like if you read the school handbook and who did that, yeah, you might now you can look them up on social media depending on the teacher.

SPEAKER_09 54:53

Oh yeah. And it's always their first it's always their first name, middle name.

SPEAKER_00 54:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:59

It's I had a teacher in high school that I figured out her first name, and I would call her it all the time just to make her mad. Be like, what's up, Tracy? She'd get so mad, yell at me every time. That's yeah. It was really rude, but that's that's funny. Every day. Hi, Tracy.

SPEAKER_09 55:17

Yeah. We we had very different jokes in school because I got suspended for calling my art teacher a cross dresser.

SPEAKER_00 55:27

Yeah, I wouldn't do that.

SPEAKER_09 55:28

I should have just called him his first name. That would have been much less consequential. I only called him that because he was clean shaven, bald, and had perfect eyebrows. And I was just trying to be funny.

SPEAKER_04 55:40

You're going for the laugh even back then.

SPEAKER_09 55:41

Going for the laugh, suspended for two weeks. Called him a cross dresser, and like two weeks. Which in my mind kind of confirmed that he's a cross dresser. You get suspended for two weeks for nailing it?

SPEAKER_04 55:55

My question is like, what do you get for beating up a kid at that school?

SPEAKER_09 55:58

Two weeks. Really?

SPEAKER_04 55:59

Is every attraction's two weeks?

SPEAKER_09 56:00

Every everything's two weeks. Well, with I think they just want to get rid of me, so they're like, dude, give him fucking the maximum.

SPEAKER_04 56:05

Right.

SPEAKER_09 56:06

We can't expel him for calling this guy a cross dresser, but we can get rid of him for a couple weeks.

SPEAKER_04 56:12

That's interesting. Some schools have gotten away from suspension, like the in-school suspension.

SPEAKER_09 56:16

Yeah, those are horrify. I I had one one time and I've never been that miserable in my life.

SPEAKER_01 56:22

Well, those make more sense. They do make more sense.

SPEAKER_09 56:24

It's way more a punishment than getting sitting at home. Yeah, my mom would be like, you know, like I when I or I guess I never got suspended when I was with my mom. When I when I was living with my dad though, when I got suspended, it was like, you know, whatever. Stay off the video games, I'll be back later. And then I was like, okay, and then I was on the video games. You know. I had a I had an in-school suspension one time. What did I do? It was something stupid. Of course. I think I threw I th I think I if I remember right, this was in middle school. I threw like a handful of candy like at the cafeteria. All of our cafeteria tables were lined up back to back, and there was like 15 rows, and I was at like one very far end of them. So I took like a handful of candy and just went and just like whipped them backward to like hit everybody behind me, and like I I You're that kid, just no, no, no, Phil, just no impulse control. Still, still, still still, it's an issue. No, um, yeah, I get but uh the in-school suspension I got before right before a football game, too. So I was I was playing football at the time, so I had the in-school suspension sitting in a quiet room for eight hours, just like wanting to die. They wouldn't let me read a book, they wouldn't let me work on my schoolwork. It was like you're just sitting here. See, that's his prison now. It was brutal. Oh my god, eight hours is an eternity when you can't do anything.

SPEAKER_04 57:45

They should be able to. I mean, I think now, at least my I don't know, my kid hasn't been suspended. I never was. I used to monitor the in-school suspension room as a so they put the rookie teachers right. And uh, I mean, they they had work. That was I'm like, that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 57:56

Yeah, they had work, they're supposed to work on stuff.

SPEAKER_09 57:58

I was not allowed to work. They were too I was specifically throw it at them.

SPEAKER_01 58:01

That's why no, the teachers are supposed to give them work to do while they're suspended.

SPEAKER_09 58:05

Oh no, I that that was so much better. If I had something to occupy my mind, I would have been fine. I was I was miserable because they were not letting me do anything.

SPEAKER_01 58:12

That's one of my friend's whole job is he's the ISS teacher. He just Brendan. He sits in a room and he just is with the in-school suspended.

SPEAKER_03 58:21

That's gotta be rough.

SPEAKER_01 58:23

Yeah. And he's only he might be 20. Oh, I think he's oh he's 27 now, I think, actually. 26. I don't know, but when he started, he was young and he had gone to that high school, and so and his mom worked there too, so everybody knows him, so they all think he's cool, and he's supposed to be like tough in the ISS room.

SPEAKER_04 58:43

Yeah, it's a good place. I I I think about some of the ISS teachers are like coaches or someone they thought was intimidating or they go the opposite way, someone that's like super nice, because like you might have like real behavioral kids in there, and they say that's calming, but they don't they don't put like the somewhat flawed average teacher in there usually unless unless they have no one else. Like one extreme or the other.

SPEAKER_05 59:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 59:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 59:04

Did you ever get suspended?

SPEAKER_01 59:06

Nope.

SPEAKER_09 59:07

Fucking goody two shoes.

SPEAKER_01 59:08

I got my phone taken away once, and our phone policy was um like whatever day you got it, you had it taken away until the following Monday. And it was right before like spring break or Thanksgiving break or something, and I was like, I need my phone for the break. Fair because we're going on vacation too. So I went to the principal and I was like, Look, we're going on vacation. I need my phone back for the break. Like, is there something I can do? And he ended up just he's like, Yeah, you can have it back, but you have to have a detention. So I had detention. I had detention a lot in middle school. I got detention for not cleaning my locker good enough. My science teacher gave me detention for that. Um for throwing lead at my friend one time in the middle of class. We were throwing lead back and forth, and we both got detention for that. I had more than that, but I don't remember what they were for. These are so boring. I know. I I was a good kid. What's it like having two parrots? You have four, technically.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:13

I got the combo back.

SPEAKER_09 1:00:15

I got the brady bunch, but like uh what else did I get in trouble? I got in trouble for uh I went onto the football field and to the bleachers during the school day, so I'd go smoke a cigarette. And I I put a pencil in the door to like prop it open so I wouldn't get locked out. And that's the hall monitor noticed that and came out and caught me smoking. And uh so they she didn't actually catch me. She just I saw her coming and I like put it out, stomped it out, like brushed it away from me, and she came around the corner and was like, What are you doing out here? I was like, nothing, just hanging out, you just hanging out and she's like, Get it smells like cigarettes out here. And I was like, I don't know what you're talking about. You're just out here. And so she took me to the she took me to the office where the resource officer was, and uh he goes, empty your pockets. I go, no. He goes, I told you to empty your pockets. I said, No. So then he stuck his hand into my jean pocket. Things you can't do anymore. And he I had cigarettes, I had a pack of cigarettes in my pocket, but he stuck his hand down my pocket and pulled it out. I'm like, what the fuck are you doing? You can't put your hands in my pants. He goes, I knew that you had these, blah blah blah. So this is the only time my dad has ever come in clutch. Um he so he my dad gets called up there, and he's like, What is going on? And they're like, Oh, your kid was caught smoking a cigarette in in the you know stadium or whatever. And I go, I was like, I she did not catch me smoking. I was out there, whatever. She thought I was smoking, I was not smoking, which I was. But and he's like, Okay, and then what happened? I'm like, and then this fucking guy put his hands down my pants and pulled my cigarettes out of my pocket because he told me to empty my pockets. I told him no. He's like, You put your hands in my kid's pants? He goes, Yeah. He goes, We're fucking done here. What do you put your hand down in my kid's pants? And and grabbed what was in his pocket out of his pocket. I'm like, he's like, no, we're done here. He's like, he's getting They were talking about, oh, he's gonna we're gonna give him a minor in possession or whatever, because I think it was like 16 or 17. And he's like, you're gonna give him minor possession? He's like, I'm gonna sue the like and he went off. I'm gonna fucking you put your hands on my kid, you fucking question him without an adult present, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And like flipped out on the guy, and they're like, well, we have to at least suspend him because he was smoking on school property. He's like, fucking suspend him then, and we left. And it was October, so my my dad knew I smoked. He's like, do a fucking good move, dumbass. Like, don't do that at school. Uh, but we went hunting. We went hunting for two weeks. I was like, so that was my punishment for the lesson is smoke at school.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:02

Go out, like go bonding experience.

SPEAKER_09 1:03:04

You went on a two-week hunt instead of uh instead of going to class.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:08

Give my son a six-pack tomorrow. Start drinking on Monday and we're going to T01.

SPEAKER_09 1:03:14

Yeah, that was that was like the only time he came in. I mean, I absolutely should have gotten in trouble, but in my 16-year-old brain, I was like, Yeah, of course. You know.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:24

It's always funny when like teachers, I mean, this happens in any profession, like office cultures are notorious for this, but like people become fixated on stuff. Like that teacher in that moment was fixated on busting you.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:34

Whether cigarettes were his thing or like just because he didn't like it, whatever it is. Like, you have people like that, right? It's like people in the office that like you ever get that people that like they look at people's calendars and they'll tell you about them based on their calendar. Like, oh, Bob's not in today, he's usually not in on Tuesdays. I'm like, do you work? Like, what is your like why is this? Why are you looking at other people's stuff? Why are you analyzing other people? Like, people just have that. You got like the the teacher that's like this locker's not clean enough. Like that's their thing.

SPEAKER_09 1:04:05

Yeah, detention for not cleaning a locker.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:07

It was the same teacher that gave me detention for throwing lead too.

SPEAKER_09 1:04:10

Well, just I mean throwing shit in class. I I just don't think he liked you.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:16

No, I don't think he did either. He was also like in his last year of teaching and oh he just doesn't care. Yeah, he was a little cranky.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:22

He's taking things out. He's just like, I'm done. Yeah. Call like I see it, or give people detention, so I don't have to deal with it. It's next year thing. Yeah, yeah, pretty much.

SPEAKER_09 1:04:31

The the office culture. I I couldn't do it. We get in construction, you get a taste of it with the safety guys walking around because they're all dweebs. You know, and they they put on their costume to pr to cosplay as construction workers because they come they come walk around the job site, so they put on their brand new clean bright orange safety vests and their perfectly clean white hard hats, and they have their these shiny, like mirror finish leather boots on, and they come walk around and they're just like and then they start y they start talking to guys who have been building shit for their entire lives, and they're like, You can't do it like that. And every like without fail. No one cares about these guys. They're like, shut up, Dweeb. Like keep fucking keep moving. You know, like you don't even know what you're looking at. Don't tell me what you think I don't tell me what you think I should be doing. You don't even know what I'm doing. Name this tool.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:24

You can't name this tool? Alright, go the fuck away. It reminds me, like, when I was in college, I took a Native American history class and um good class, but there's like this one guy in the class who would always like retort, like he'd always rebut the professor a little bit based on like the like dances with wolves or whatever movie. And he'd be like, you know, in the movie Dances with Wolves, they did this, this, and this. And he's like my professor would be like, Yeah, that wasn't inaccurate, that's a movie.

unknown 1:05:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:51

And he would he would like go out and I'm like, PhD in a lifetime of study, literally lived with the Inuit in the Yukon.

unknown 1:05:59

Uh

SPEAKER_04 1:06:00

Kevin Coxner.

SPEAKER_09 1:06:02

Like. And he's thinking that he has the same experience. Right. And the same knowledge. That's fucking hilarious. That's that's funny as hell. Well, actually, in this one movie.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:15

Well, it was even worse. I took a World War class. I was so excited to take the World War II class because I like a military history guy in undergrad. And uh, and I so I was excited took World War II. It's a good topic, and like my professor was one I really liked, and I was like super stoked for this class. And I realized because this is like when Private Ryan and all those movies were coming out, like that whole like renaissance of World War II films.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:35

Holy, there's so many armchair experts in there. Again, rebutting the professor based on the movies or whatever book they had read, like as hobbyists or whatever. So I stopped going to class and I had that professor like back to back. I had him for like six hours straight that day. But I didn't mind a cool pre-off, right? Like, you know. And so, long story short, I missed a lot of that class, and then something happened in my personal life where I couldn't take the final, so I had to like meet up with him. And my final exam, by the way, was an oral exam that I I did while walking him to the grocery store. He's like, Tell me about Normandy. I'm like, all right, mate, what do you want to know? Like, whatever you want to tell me, just talk about Normandy. I'm like, okay, cool. Um, but he saw me and he's like, I see you guys, I just noticed, I see you in the first class a lot, but not the second. I go, sir, all due respect. There's a lot of people that interrupt you in that class, and I wasn't learning much because I don't want to hear about Tom Hanks's canteen in the movie, you know. Right. And he's like, You're right. That class was really annoying. I'm like, good. So God.

SPEAKER_09 1:07:38

That sucks though, because you're paying, you're paying for the class. You should be there for the experience, but the kid, these kids are such shithels.

unknown 1:07:44

Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:45

Well, I you want to take that class. In my case, that's a class I wanted to take. Like, I I once I chose my professors based, I chose my classes based on professors, if I could. And that was the best advice I ever got. If you like a professor, just take everything they offer if you can, because it'll be a more pleasant experience than taking a subject you don't like, or a subject you do like with someone that you don't know of. So like balance it, right? So I found a couple I locked onto, but like to the point where I actually ended up taking like the history of Canadian business, which was not interesting. Um but my final paper was on uh John Molson of Molson Breweries. Nice. So that was fun. I mean, I it redeemed it, but it was way better to do that than I took other courses where like just I mean, uh if I even if I didn't know the prof, I was just like, once you if you like someone, stick with it and just go with it.

SPEAKER_09 1:08:31

That's not a that's I wish I got that advice. I I I had the my anatomy and physiology professor. I went to I I started in nursing school, then I switched to criminology, and then I became a steam fitter, so I just didn't know what the hell I wanted to do. But uh my professor for anatomy and physiology just hated my guts. I like I was always I took the class seriously, but I was also like the fun guy, and she hated just hated my guts. Like the moment we met, I knew I was like, she's gonna fucking hate me. And she did, and like I sat at a table with a bunch of cute chicks, because that was the only table available, and then like it was like I was holding court every every time we were in class because the girls thought I was funny, and that just set me up for failure, and oh my god, the I would ask, I would email her like basic questions, like hey, what was the what's the passcode for the online quiz? And instead of just saying here it is, or you should know this, whatever, automatic failure because you didn't write it down or whatever, she would just write these paragraphs about how I'm gonna be a failure in my life, and like I don't take anything seriously enough, and I'm a I'm a like she would write these paragraphs about like you're a waste of space in my class, essentially. You're just you're you're a distraction. This is like it would just be like you're attacking my character because I didn't know if the password to the quiz was mitosis or meiosis. I didn't know which one it was. I wasn't sure. Oh god, she was such a miserable fucking bitch. And it was it wasn't like I wasn't like I was absolutely paying attention when she was talking, and then when we would do like our group activities, that's when like I would do my fucking holding court and like having fun with the girls, and she hated my guts over it. I'm like, the fuck, you know? But yeah, if I could have chosen a different professor for that or switched, I might have completed my nursing school and had a completely different career.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:44

But you could have been a nurse had it not been for.

SPEAKER_09 1:10:47

I wanted to be. I really, I really still can be a huge shortage. Yeah, I make I I I don't want to make less money. I I'm oh this is what I tell everybody. I'm okay with what I do. I don't love it, I don't dream about it, and if I had if I won the lottery or this became successful enough that I didn't have to do it anymore, I would I would hang my boots up permanently. Right. It's just okay, you know.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:12

And that's fine. I can I because I talk a lot about work-life balance. It's like what my research is on. And like um I tell some people, yeah, we all want to do what we love in our dreams for a living. Like that's that's fair. That's a human, it's very human. Um, but sometimes we just gotta do stuff to pay the bills. And like you want to get to the point where you're at least okay with it, like you can reconcile. Like my grandfather drove a dunk, uh dump truck for his whole life. To the point where I asked my family, like, what did he want to be? And they're like, We don't know. He just drove a drunk dump truck and like he immigrated from Italy, like yeah, you know, he had all those elements. It's probably escaping poverty was probably the goal. But like, you know, I'm like, there's a level of like if you can be okay with the daily grind, that's fine. Yeah, you know, it doesn't have you know you you kind of find other ways to feed the other things you do, um which helps when you're in comedy because you know, comedy doesn't feed much of anything until until you make it, if you make it, which is like it, yeah. Right? Uh and so it's it's but it's one of those things. So yeah, I mean my son I think wants to be a plumber right now. Um he's 13, so that'll probably change tomorrow. But I told him like do it. I was like, don't go into the office. I go, office jobs are under attack with AI right now. I said, dude, uh they until they make a robot that can install pipes or electricity, you know. I go, Yeah. AI is like your tools right now. They're not necessarily right. They're not they're not doing it. You're gonna be okay.

SPEAKER_09 1:12:30

I think it's I I think AI is kind of exposing how many useless jobs there were.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:35

My fate one of my favorite b books, and I quote this all book all the time, is it's called Bullshit Jobs. Uh and I mean it's a pretty meaty book, but it's uh and there's an essay that's a shorter version of it too. It's based on the essay. I read. Do you?

unknown 1:12:50

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:51

I'm not saying you don't I'm not saying pipe fitters don't read.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:54

He listens to them.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:55

Right. Well I have the audiobook. Um you can't lend people audiobooks. You remember like you have a book, you should read it. You can't really do that audiobook where you can be like, here's my password and my Amazon account. Ignore the other three titles in there. Um yeah, it's so the one of the underlying ideas of the book is that the author found that when you ask people what they did for a living, they often like underplay it. They're like, Yeah, I just you know, because they really like either weren't proud of it or they really don't know what the hell they do. Uh and and you know, technology, even like 20 years ago, was supposed to replace, make we were supposed to work less, right? That's the same argument in history is that technology comes around, people freak out, and people with the technology go, it's gonna make us work less. And it doesn't, right? It either takes away jobs or makes you work more because now you're more efficient. And so bullshit jobs is partially about like this tension for a lot of people in the workplace that like first of all, you a lot of people know that their job is kind of bullshit, like it has an importance maybe within the context of what they're doing. Um, but sometimes it doesn't, but you gotta you gotta get paid. So what they're afraid of is if they come to their boss and go like this job is kind of bullshit, can I do something else, or can I add to my job? Like, it's 40 hours a week, I'm done in like 20. Like, what can we negotiate? They're worried that they're gonna be given more shit to do, or that they're gonna be laid off, right? Like, oh, these two people like underperform me, let's just get rid of them. So it's like it's about this whole tension of like the crap jobs, because the jobs were never really calibrated to be effective, you know, and so they just kind of have stuff. I mean, you know, it it it to me it's it's interesting with office cultures when I work with companies, like you know, they spend some companies spend so much time in meetings, and like some people are like, what do you do? Meetings about what? The meeting, the meeting, committees and task forces and all these things, yeah. For what? You know, like you don't know. So I mean it's it's interesting what's going on now uh with with AI, and uh we'll I mean again it'll change now now it's that that's hurting. This is like not comedy at all, but it's like entry-level jobs are hurting because of AI, right? Because they're not hiring the entry-level administrative assistant or um heck, even customer service person. It's a robot basically, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:07

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:08

Uh and not a good robot. I I called I called something like a prescription or something, and uh you know, you go through the automated, like, tell me your thing, and like it was on the phone like 10 minutes for someone I just need an I was like, give me an operator, like keep asking me questions, yeah. So they're they're more efficient, but they're terrible customer service.

SPEAKER_09 1:15:25

Yeah, I was I hope they get zero over and over again. I think that'll get better. I mean, like 10 years ago, tell 10 years ago it was miserable because it would take you a half hour to go through these prompts. Like, if you're having this, this, or this, press one, and then but it like it takes a minute just to read the all the options, you know.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:43

Right.

SPEAKER_09 1:15:44

But I tell you what, like I pulled into a taco bell and I was like, it's it's an AI, you know, fucking robot taking your order now. And it nailed it. Like all of the unique things that you know, I'm like, hey, like this taco with out lettuce, and then this with you know, do soft instead of hard, and then like add sour cream, and like I I said all those things, and it was it knew it, it it got it instantaneously, and there was no issues at all with the order. And then some like fried 17-year-old was like, Here you go.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:19

Perfect. Who thought Taco Bell would be the leader in AI or all the fast food plates? Like a Taco Bell.

SPEAKER_09 1:16:26

It was really good.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:27

I was impressed. I put Arby's above them for that, and and and they they they did it, it's pretty accurate. Also, I don't know if it's a good or bad thing, it kind of it kind of takes away the shame of ordering as a fat guy to be like, you know, they go, What do you guys want? Right if it's just a human, I'm like, I'll have two tacos, but how about the four? I don't even justify it. Give me my tacos, robot. So it's kind of like with the apps, too.

SPEAKER_09 1:16:54

I don't I think with uh with with the AI though, I I mean I've this is a conversation I've had a hundred fucking times on this podcast, but I'm not a guy like I feel like there's a a left-wing narrative that AI is the devil, it's the worst thing ever. Shut down all the centers and you know, don't if you use it, you're scum. And I'm like, it, but I it's just it's just a tool. And if you use any tool with morals, right, it's just a tool, you know. It's like the old joke like you can take a hammer and build a house, you can take a hammer and beat yourself in the head with it. It's like it it's it is up to what the user wants to use it for, right?

SPEAKER_04 1:17:35

Well, AI has been used for a long time, too. So it's just this current version is a lot more public and more powerful. Yeah. I mean the data centers and the environment kind of to me that's kind of an issue, but uh it is an issue, it's not kind of an issue. But I think the idea isn't like I mean technically we could not use the technology, but realistically, it's how do we use the technology to your point, right? And so how do we reconcile that? How do we put safeguards in, which some people don't want safeguards and I don't know.

SPEAKER_09 1:18:01

Yeah, the safeguard thing is like you don't want people to do I mean there's some people doing horrific shit with AI, like you know, making you know revenge porn out of their exes with it, you know. And but like but then there's also like you can do uh awesome things like hey I I do this podcast and I don't know anything about audio engineering, but I can plug what I want into Chat GPT and hey, go hey, give me a workflow of how to make my audio sound rich using this audio editing software, and then I f go through that audio workflow flow that ChatGPT gives me instantaneously, and then my audio sounds great. And it's like I would have like my audio would sound like shit if I didn't have could I have gone through forums, like old Reddit posts from 2006 and figured out how to make my audio sound pretty good? Yeah, but it would take me way longer, you know. I I just I don't understand the like some like it's a narrative that people are like, oh, AI is abhorrent, it's it's evil, it's the plagiarism machine.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:11

It's like can be. It can be. I I've seen uh I was listening to a podcast and an executive created an AI C uh sorry, an AI chief of staff, which I thought was interesting, and that they used all their different tools and AI talking to AI and basically created a chief of staff. And I thought, like, who do you fire if that doesn't do the job?

SPEAKER_09 1:19:32

Oh, that's weird.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:33

Like, what do you say to the AI? Like, we're done, like we're gone, I'm I'm deprogramming you. Yeah, and if it becomes sentient, does it does the AI like harass you and leave like a bad review on Glassdoor?

unknown 1:19:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 1:19:44

Chief of staff, like did it have did the AI have firing and hiring power? No, but just made recommendations.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:52

It actually what it was used for was a lot like again, meetings, right? Like, as a CEO, this person's busy, and they're like, You got this meeting, this meeting, this meeting. You have all these briefings and reports and things, and the AI summarized, but also would like help it navigate, help the CEO navigate personalities, help them like you know, remember this thing, like this is the report based on like acted like a chief of staff. Sometimes even sent out emails, they had a workflow with emails and things like that. Like it's it was I was like, I should do that. And I'm like, I am not that advanced. I will forget like 17 steps and it'll just be like chat GPT looking at me like, what do you want? Yeah, do something, dude.

SPEAKER_09 1:20:32

God, how weird is that though? I mean, I don't know. I don't know. I see, like, I don't I I fall somewhere in the middle on like how I feel about it. Like, I do I want some beautiful, you know, public land getting sold off to a trillion dollar company and and then they build this giant whining fucking data center that disrupts the everything from the noise to the water supply in that area? No, I don't. But also, like, do you want to be the guy that was like protesting automobiles? You know, like do you is that who you want to be? Do you want to be the guy that's like, oh the oh no, the the w what's gonna happen to books with this talking box? You know, like is that the guy you want to be in history, or do you want to be the guy that's like new technology's awesome, we should adapt with it? You know?

SPEAKER_04 1:21:23

That's the key, just adapting with it. And landscapes change, right? Comedy, the landscape's changed where I mean being on stage and telling jokes is still definitely a part of the it is the art form, but um short form stuff on like reels and all that, and TikTok, I mean can be that. I know like some comedians struggle with that or like understanding that. And I'm not good at it, so I'm not like I've got I got like no followers, but like uh the idea that you you know how you build audience and fame, like the idea of fame is so different now, right? Like, think about how many bona fide movie stars do we have now, and then of the ones we have, which ones aren't from like 20-30 years ago? Like how many new stars are created?

SPEAKER_09 1:22:06

Yeah, there's probably five, right?

SPEAKER_04 1:22:08

I mean right. Same thing with musicians, like there's just not the monoculture anymore, and that's that's that in itself is an adjustment, which yeah, even the streamers they I think they're adjusting, but they're still struggling with that, right? Like what they have big Masters of the Universe fam, big He-Man fam, with Child of the 80s, right? Like, can't wait for the new movie to come out June 5th. I will be there with my sword and my t-shirt. Like, I will be there. Oh yeah, and uh, I'm excited, of course. Some of my friends who are like hardcore into it, excited. Um, you know, Amazon who produced it, I think put I don't know, a hundred and something million in the production trying to get it back, and the projections are they're not gonna make it back. And I'm like, of course not. I mean, not of course not, because you want it to be successful, but you've got a property that's basically nostalgic, and you don't have like everybody watching the same four TV stations. Yeah, you know, everyone's got their own thing. Uh it's just harder to like make anything, like, even think of like there's not a lot of movies that everyone's seen. We all see it in phases, yeah, right? I could be like, have you seen Ted Lasso? Which I think is probably better at the monoculture thing. A lot of people said, Yeah, just a lot of people like, I have no idea what that is, right? Because you don't have Apple, you missed it, like whatever it is.

SPEAKER_09 1:23:12

I was gonna bring up Ted Lasso too. I thought it might be a little too on the nose, though, with you being a coach and talking about soccer and then you know, doing uh you know, coach, but yeah, I'm for sure. Uh there is so much it's a great thing and also a bad thing because the connection, the inherent connection based on like what is on TV or what the big movie is isn't there, you know. Like I I mean, like I'm what I just finished watching Better Call Saw. That was what one of the shows that started 10 years ago, you know, or or more. Start came out ten years ago, and I just watched it in like a month or maybe six weeks. I watched the whole thing all the way through. And no, like who else is watching that show right now? I like probably not the average person, you know. Like, I I don't know. Like what there are some Is there any shows that are coming out and people are like obsessed with it right now?

SPEAKER_01 1:24:07

The pit.

SPEAKER_09 1:24:08

Oh, the pit.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:10

I was gonna say, like, the most recent one I just one on HBL Max that I feel like a lot of people are watching.

SPEAKER_09 1:24:14

The most recent one I could think of that everyone like connected on and like had to watch was Game of Thrones. Like, that's I think that might be the last one where everyone is like everyone who was was into it at the beginning is like actively watching it as it's happening and everyone's talking about it. No one's talking about TV shows or movies at work.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:33

Also like reality shows, I feel like. Yeah, yeah. Reality shows are the big one that I hear people talking about.

SPEAKER_09 1:24:39

Oh yeah, guys don't watch reality shows.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:42

Well, that's yeah, so that's not being talked about.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:45

I think I watched The Circle for a couple seasons on.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:47

I liked that show.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:48

I kind of liked it in a guilty pleasure.

SPEAKER_09 1:24:50

I kinda had a dating one.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:53

No, they're like in an apartment by themselves, and like the they're they're it's the one where they're like talking about the stuff.

SPEAKER_07 1:25:01

This is the one where they do the fake profiles messaging to each other hashtag this fire emoji send.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:11

It's that one that you want to like. It's so crazy.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:15

The first season was I mean, the first couple seeds are like this is kind of there's like a social experiment. You try to justify you're watching the trash. But like, yeah, it's sort of interesting, like what's real, what's not, you know, appearances on you know how you present yourself or something that's not you. Um but at the end of the day, it's just kind of like trash. Yeah, but yeah, it's like you know, we need that mindless sort of thing. It's just reality's become that. Reality's easy for produce for them to produce because it's cheap.

SPEAKER_09 1:25:40

Yeah, and they get so much content out of real time instead of like, hey, this one-minute scene in a movie might take right this week to get in there, you know.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:51

That's why Survivor's like on season, I don't know how 50. Like they're right.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:55

50 at least 50, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:57

Because they do like now they do like what two season two show two two seasons a year or something like that. Three, like they don't? Yeah, I mean it clearly hasn't been around 50 years. I mean, it's so it's probably been around like 25, yeah. But they do a couple and then they have like Survivor or whatever, and they just keep turning it out. Yeah, Jeff and business, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:13

I I grew up watching that and my parents still watch it every week.

SPEAKER_09 1:26:17

Big Brother's the one that we watch. Oh, yeah, that one's fun to watch because it's like I don't know, I feel like it's more like a chess like game, you know, instead of just being like brute force, how good, how strong, how athletic are you in this game? It's it's it's that plus how is your social game, which is I think it's super interesting. These people playing against each other or manipulating each other. It's it's wild.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:43

Last season was Survivor Survivor has a lot of that too, though.

SPEAKER_09 1:26:46

The social I can't get into I can't get into Survivor just because of the like the the gimmick of it, like ooh, you're on an island. It's like you're not eating fucking cliff bars when they're not like they're not editing out you drinking fucking protein shakes and pediolites. Like, get the fuck out of here.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:02

I like alone. Alone's a good one. It's like survivor but more extreme and a realone. Alone is like individuals. They're drop, they pick like a location, usually somewhere like in the Arctic or something, like somewhere like it's gonna get cold. So they drop them off and they have to live on their own, and like the last person to tap out wins whatever the money is. So but it's based more like Survivor. I liked because it was like a soap opera. Me and the guys would watch it like you know back in the day. Um, but this is like more like real survivor, like real survival when it's like I had to kill a chipmunk today and try to eat it, and I ate its liver, and now I'm sick, and I have to tap out because you know, like real shelters and stuff.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:41

It's kinda it's an interesting naked and afraid or whatever. It's called like naked and afraid.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:46

I haven't watched that one, but I it I saw the preview for that for naked and afraid, it seemed very similar. Yeah. In that they they do that kind of stuff. It's cool. I I call them like fun weight loss shows. I'm like, how much did you lose now? 'Cause like you're only like it. It's great to eat like a salmon, but like they only eat like one every f two weeks sometimes. Like, you know. And some guys go in like they have guys, the strategies apparently like some guys like they they bulk up, they like they put on 20-30 pounds because they know they're just we're gonna live off my fat for the most part. And some of them win doing that. So it's it's it's it's interesting to see how it how it goes. Especially as like some a lot of the I mean most of them are like actual survivalists, but it's interesting to see because I think it's one thing to be a survivalist like in a controlled environment where you can walk away, but they really are like alone, so it's interesting to see them like out there doing their thing. Yeah, but even that, that's I mean, that's it can't be a lot of production costs, and like the contestants are doing the actual recording themselves because they're alone, so they're given tripods and battery packs and stuff. So that's cool. They just gotta edit it. I'm sure there's a drop-off somewhere at some point so they can preserve the footage, but yeah, they don't like talk to anyone, so so they say you never know.

SPEAKER_09 1:28:54

They reveal it, so you you hope it's real, right?

SPEAKER_04 1:28:58

Yeah, or ish. It's gotta entertain me. I'm at the point, I nothing is real, so I was just like, let's just enter entertain me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:05

I learned that American Idol is not you don't they don't just walk in and like they're in front of the three judges. Did you know that? Yeah, is there's like stages, there's like three other stages before they get to the there's like a pre-audition, like is this guy gonna waste our time kind of deal? Yeah, so then like when they get the bad auditions, it's and they keep them for the three judges, it's for entertainment purposes. Because they're so bad that it's gonna be huh because one of my friends auditioned, and I don't I don't remember which stage she made it through, but she didn't get to the final.

SPEAKER_09 1:29:36

She didn't get to talk to the celebrities.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:38

Yeah. I think she got through like the first three, but then it was annoying because it was like she's actually really good, and then they have like these like shitty ones that are going through for the joke.

SPEAKER_09 1:29:50

Yeah. Yeah. I want to hear your thoughts on Better Call Soul. Because I just finished this. Is this fresh in your mind enough to talk about it?

SPEAKER_04 1:29:56

Uh no, it's been a couple of series. I I like that show. Actually, I kind of liked it better than Breaking Bad. Um, it's a good character study series. It's like really about the evolution of a single person.

SPEAKER_05 1:30:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:08

And I like I liked it. And like, you know, um the acting is superb. Like, it's just it's a good I appreciate a well-put together story.

SPEAKER_08 1:30:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:16

And that one covered a lot of the bases, and it kind of shows you why he becomes the way he becomes.

SPEAKER_06 1:30:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:21

Uh, but in a way that's like both like there are times where you're, oh, that's you're really sympathetic towards him, and then like there are times where you're like, oh, like, yeah, this is where he this is where he he crosses his own line.

SPEAKER_06 1:30:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:32

Um, you know, and also I love that he goes to where is it? Like uh the mascot of the universe. He does the mail, the mail order law school or whatever, and uh the correspondence law school. It's like the University of Eastern Samoa, but they're like American Samoa. American Samoa, and then they're the mascots the land crabs. I'm like, that's just awesome. I think I I want a land crabs t-shirt, that would be cool.

SPEAKER_09 1:30:52

Yeah, yeah. I I love the the dichotomy between the brothers. Right. Where the where the where one brother is so certain about the way you're supposed to be in the world, and then Jimmy just isn't, and he's just like faking his way through everything and bullshitting his way through everything and scheming his way through everything, and the other one is like you need to be the most absolutely accountable, honest, straight arrow version, otherwise, you're not worthy of this title, which is right.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:24

Man, but that brother is also like a recluse who doesn't live with electricity and like has all these. Oh, yeah, he's also this other part of it too. Yeah, Jimmy's more socially adjusted, it just doesn't follow the rules that your brother wants.

SPEAKER_09 1:31:35

That's yeah, it's so funny. Like it's so the writing is so good. I mean, it those two characters are so believable, like I so thoroughly believe that those two are are actually brothers. Like you could see how you like as Chuck, you try so hard to do everything correctly in the right way, and the straight, narrow right way to do everything, but everyone likes the asshole more because he's better with people, you know. So his little brother who's a who stole every penny that their parents ever had because he saw that his dad was weak. So he took advantage of his dad. And you have that that mentality in Jimmy's explained when they have the flashback of the guy robbing his dad, and he's like, Listen, kid, there's sheep and there's wolves, and you gotta pick which one you're gonna be. And then the and then you know, whatever, 10-year-old Jimmy reaches into the cash register and takes himself 10 bucks. He robs his dad while his dad's getting robbed by another man, and it's like, oh, that's the beginning of the scumbag that Jimmy becomes. It's so it I it's it's so good. It's it's absolutely excellent. I I I think I do prefer that show over Breaking Bad. I like the gangster action of Breaking Bad, you know, but as far as like character development, and then seeing him corrupt Kim. He takes Kim who's like who is more like Chuck in the beginning of the show and then gets tainted by Jimmy and becomes more like Jimmy by the end. And she and then she plays this she goes beyond Jimmy's worst personality traits when they decide that they're gonna set up Howard. Right. My god. And then that is the beginning of the end, right? Because her when she realizes that his spoiler alert, when they when I watched the when she realizes that if they didn't play that game with Howard, where they're making him out to be a a a Coke addict and basically ruin his career, if they didn't play that game as hard as they did, he wouldn't have been pushed to the point where he shows up to their house in the middle of the night and then gets murdered by Lalo Salamanca. So, like if they hadn't played that game and she didn't let herself indulge in the worst aspects of her personality, which Jimmy helped her figure that out about herself, then Howard wouldn't have died. My god. I mean that it's I think it's a masterclass in writing. Every single thing that happens is a therefore. Right. There's no, oh, that happened. End of that. No, every single thing that happens leads to the next thing that's going to happen. It's fucking excellent. It's so well done.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:37

Yeah, it's a good it's a it's a great show. It's one of my it's one of my favorites in terms of like well put together, like incredible beginning to end.

SPEAKER_09 1:34:44

And there's a point to every single B story in every single episode. Every like whenever you think it's just wasting time, like why do I keep seeing fucking Mike doing whatever? It's always revealed, like, oh, this had a point the entire time, you know, and it's god, it's so good. It is so good. It's I I think it's I I think it's better than Breaking Bad. It just doesn't get the hype that Breaking Bad did because Breaking Bad was so cutting edge at the time, you know.

unknown 1:35:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:15

It was a spin-off and all that thing, but you know, it was great. They said well well done show, so you can't Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:24

Well he the thing is is he'll start shows with me and then he'll watch them while he's at work. And so like then he's like way ahead of me, and I'm like, I I can't watch shows at work. So like I didn't watch my work. Well, having your lunch break, but I don't even get a lunch break to like watch the shows really.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:41

So education, you do not, it's not really a break.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:44

Yeah. But so he's always like way ahead of me, so then I'll try to catch up, but it never works.

SPEAKER_09 1:35:48

Yeah, so well, I also have like a a personality quirk that like when I start a show I have to watch it all the way through, and that's the only thing I'm gonna watch, you know. So like every time I have an opportunity to watch TV, it's another episode of Better Call Saul or half an episode or whatever. And now that it's over, I'm like, I feel like a lost puppy. I don't know what to do with myself.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:09

I just watched The Crowded Room on Apple TV. That one's really good. Yeah, I haven't seen that one.

SPEAKER_09 1:36:14

Have you seen uh so speaking of Vince Gilligan and his excellent storytelling, have you seen Pluribus, his other show?

SPEAKER_04 1:36:20

I heard of it, but I haven't seen it. Dude.

SPEAKER_09 1:36:22

They're doing a second season and it's not out yet. That show is it's yeah, I don't want to give anything away, but it's that show is fucking amazing. And that's why I watched Better Call Saul because Rhea what's her name? Rhea whatever. The Kim, the actress that plays Kim, is the main the protagonist protagonist in uh Plurbus. And my god, it is so good. It is so good. I had I watched that show and I was like, that is so good that I had to go back and watch Better Call Saul. That's why I was watching Better Call Saul, but dude, that fucking amazing. Which funny enough, me and my buddy were just joking about how like Vince Gilligan should do a Bible series because he's so good at storytelling that it would be amazing if he did that. Like, for all the people that don't understand it, there's so man.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:15

I thought Better Call Saw was a really old show.

SPEAKER_09 1:37:18

What do you mean?

SPEAKER_01 1:37:20

Like I thought it was from a really long okay. Like I thought it was like 90s.

SPEAKER_06 1:37:25

No.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:26

I don't know why.

SPEAKER_09 1:37:27

Well it takes place in the late I don't know if it's in the 90s ever, but like it's or it takes place in like 2000 2000, 2001, 2002, whatever, like leading up to the era that was breaking bad.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:41

Yeah, I didn't realize that it was like a breaking bad spinoff until you said that the other day.

SPEAKER_09 1:37:45

Oh yeah, it's like a p it's like a period piece, but that period is 2000. You know.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:50

I thought it was old for some reason. Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 1:37:52

Yeah, it's excellent. I fucking love it. I gotta find a new show now. I watched I I'm I'm thinking about re-watching Ted Lasso because the new season's coming out.

SPEAKER_04 1:38:00

Yeah, never, and it's that's never a bad pick. I just watched um Running Point on Netflix, which is about like basketball. Kate Hudson's like the owner of uh LA Waves, you know, obviously it's the NBA. But um Okay. It's like a family, like she's part of a family that uh runs a team and then she gets put into the seat to run it.

SPEAKER_09 1:38:21

It's fun. That's good. It's fine. It's good.

SPEAKER_04 1:38:24

I liked it. I mean, I watched I kind of binged it. It's good, it was good uh good it was a good story, good storytelling. It's fun, it's the right notes of like it's fun, it has some serious moments, but it's just like a good pace to it. It's really easy to digest. Okay. So you don't have to like follow it intensely, but you can catch it. Like it's it's good. I liked it.

SPEAKER_09 1:38:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:38:45

Sometimes you gotta I gotta balance out the series sometimes. Like you can't go too serious or too comedic all the time. You gotta flip it. That's right.

SPEAKER_09 1:38:51

I thought Ted Lasso balanced that perfectly.

SPEAKER_04 1:38:54

Yeah, Ted Lasso's one of the best series I think ever made.

SPEAKER_09 1:38:57

No kidding. Yeah, I mean it's there's so many there's so much like really good, like feel-good moments in there where you like almost feel like a better person because you've watched that scene.

SPEAKER_06 1:39:07

Right.

SPEAKER_09 1:39:07

But then there's also heavy themes, you know, there's suicide, there's anxiety, there's, you know, purpose, all of identity, all of these things that are that are talked about in that show. And it's a show about fucking soccer, but it's not, you know, barely any soccer in it.

SPEAKER_04 1:39:24

Soccer's the backdrop. Right. Most of the soccer is like cutscenes to the end of the game. Right. The final score was three to two.

SPEAKER_09 1:39:31

Right. So did this new thing that they came up with work, and then it's all about the people around us world. But man, it's excellent. Absolutely. Yeah, that that show I was very surprised by. I was like, I can't believe how much I love this show. And it's the storytelling in that show is excellent too.

SPEAKER_04 1:39:50

I go in expecting nothing out of the new season. Like, I I see the the originals sort of what is it, three seasons they did as like its own thing. And if season four meets it amazing, but it's like when I watched Coming to America the sequel. Coming to America's my favorite comedy of all time. But like the sequel came out, I'm like, I'm just gonna enjoy this for what it is.

SPEAKER_06 1:40:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:40:11

And if it's amazing like the first one, bonus. I I just don't know if it will be. You take a break, like I think when you complete a story arc, then you have to start a new one. And there's nothing wrong with that. I think that's healthy, but then also like when you've had something that's iconic, it's hard to like match it.

SPEAKER_09 1:40:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:40:28

You know.

SPEAKER_09 1:40:28

Yeah. And so I felt like uh did you watch Scrubs?

SPEAKER_04 1:40:31

No, I never saw that.

SPEAKER_09 1:40:33

Scrubs, this the arc of So the Scrubs is a bunch of, you know, like first-year resident doctors who are like they're in the hospital for the you you're with him for the first day he's ever in the hospital as a graduated student. And then it this this arc is these bunch of kids fresh out of college are like finding their purpose and starting families and learning their craft and getting more confident in their world, and it's fucking excellent. And it ends, and the the ending was perfect. I mean, there was like a slow walkout, and it was like it might as well have been like a it was like a montage to all of the heaviest moments that led the main character to this new purpose that he's found, and that's the bow to wrap up the fucking series. Right. Excellent. And then they did another season and they fucking ruined it. They fucked it up. It's horrific. The I don't I think it's it might be the ninth season where they come back and then they're at a new hospital, and there's all these new students, and there's this the all of these things that they changed, and it fucking sucked. And they did that in like they did this season, I don't know, maybe in like 2009 or something, and it was horrendous. And now they're it and they got cancelled immediately. And then now they're back again, so they're retrying for a third time.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:57

Is it the same actors?

SPEAKER_09 1:41:58

It is, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:59

So I'm curious like quite a bit older now.

SPEAKER_09 1:42:03

Yeah, but it's not it's it's not a you know, it's not family guy. Like they they adapt the story based on the everyone's age now. But I saw a cutscene from the newest season, and the cutscene like looks amazing. Like the the it was like a two-minute heavy segment between the main character and his you know his uh mentor. It's a heavy moment, and they're having this conversation. I'm like, okay, this feels like the original series. So like now I might now I might rewatch that show to get to this newest season and skip over that dog shit that they did in 2009.

SPEAKER_04 1:42:44

It's like Rocky V. Just ignore that it existed.

SPEAKER_09 1:42:47

Is that the one with the robot?

SPEAKER_04 1:42:48

No, that's Rocky IV, that's epic. Rocky V is like he gets poor and then there's no boxing, he fights Tommy in the street fight at the end.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:57

I don't remember this one at all.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:00

I actually kind of like it, but Stallone even hates it. Stallone doesn't. It was supposed to be the final Rocky movie, and then obviously it didn't become the final Rocky movie, but he was not happy with it. So, you know, it it is it's just not it's not as good, I guess, but they lost all their money. So the idea was there, I mean, to try and evolve evolve it. And I always say without Rocky V, there's no the new Rocky stuff because you know, in Rocky Balboa, he's lost everything now. He's lost his wife, he's still basically poor, you know. I always just wondered like why couldn't he do a couple of endorsement deals? Like you lost all your money because of bad investment. You're still Rocky, you just beat the Russian. Yeah, like you that's gotta be good for something to get you back on your feet. Sell some tacos or something. Right. They end up moving in the into the house that uh, you know, like Pauly owned. And I was like, that's great, but like, come on, you're right. Like, I mean, you know, like Mike Tyson's made his money back four times over.

SPEAKER_08 1:43:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:55

Right. So, anyways, but it it was okay. I think people just got upset because there was no Rocky in the ring. It was like a street fight at the end. Oh, yeah. It's worth a watch. It's entertaining. I like.

SPEAKER_09 1:44:07

Do you uh have you seen Um Shrinking? Have you seen did you see that one?

SPEAKER_04 1:44:12

Is that the one with uh Harrison Ford?

SPEAKER_09 1:44:15

Yeah. That's a good show, yeah. Dude, excellent. That was another one that I was pleasantly surprised by. And that one, they're doing another season of, and it should have ended when it ended. They completed all of the stories that they had going. I think it should have just stopped.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:29

People gotta make money. If you're Apple, you gotta keep it. Apple doesn't do a lot, so they gotta make it.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:32

I feel like they are coming out with some good ones, though.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:34

I feel like Apple TV comes out with Apple doesn't do a lot, but when they do, it's excellent, it's usually pretty good. Yeah, or it's niche, and you're just like, not for me, but that's like good. Like I can tell it's like they put their thought into it. They're not really at the slop phase yet. Kind of like Netflix was early. Netflix stuff was really, really good.

SPEAKER_09 1:44:51

Yeah, and then they just produced way too much.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:55

Well, they got they have to. And last I checked, Netflix is not Netflix is unique because they're not owned by a conglomerate yet. So like Netflix has to make money for Netflix. Whereas like Amazon Prime, Amazon's behind it, so that can lose money for as long as Amazon wants it to lose money. Same thing with Disney Plus. Disney, I mean, the only thing stopping they if they never want to be profitable, they don't have to be. Because the parent company will just keep feeding it. But Amazon, same thing with Apple. I mean, Apple's not hurting, right? So, but uh Netflix is unique because they have to like they they have to make money at this point.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:32

Do you want to hear something interesting? I don't did you hear about on Disney Plus, you know, they have the terms and conditions at the beginning of the like when you sign up. Apparently, there's something in there that like if you get hurt at a Disney park or you die at a Disney park, you cannot sue Disney because you have a Disney account.

SPEAKER_04 1:45:51

That would not shock me. I'm nothing.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:54

I mean, this is what I think.

SPEAKER_04 1:45:55

What's in those terms and conditions? Yeah, that'd be interesting. I feel like someone would change it.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:59

Like I there was something about a girl uh somebody's kid like died at Disney and they couldn't sue Disney over it because they had a Disney Plus account. That'd be interesting. And it was in the terms and conditions. He's chat GPTing to are you making sure I'm not lying?

SPEAKER_09 1:46:15

Oh yeah, a hundred percent. I was told this, so I'm gonna cease and dismiss from Disney.

SPEAKER_04 1:46:20

That's true. I love Disney. Disney's awesome.

SPEAKER_09 1:46:22

Disney's amazing. I love going all my money at Disney. He was he was absolutely not a Nazi. Okay. Yes. The current Disney Plus subscriber agreement includes a binding arbitrate.

unknown 1:46:35

Wow.

SPEAKER_09 1:46:37

What is that word?

SPEAKER_01 1:46:39

Arbitration?

SPEAKER_09 1:46:41

Sure. Um, and a class action waiver. That means Disney says most disputes must be handled through private arbitration instead of a normal lawsuit in court. The agreement specifically says any dispute between you and us must be resolved by an individual binding arbitration. It also says users waive participation in class action lawsuits. This became a huge news story in 2024 when Disney tried suing the Disney Plus arbitration clause to argue that a wrongful death lawsuit related to a Disney restaurant should go to arbitration instead of court. After a major backlash, Disney backed off and allowed the court to proceed allowed the case to proceed in court. A few important details. It does not literally mean you can never sue Disney. It means Disney Disney may try to force disputes into arbitration instead of public court case. The agreement has an opt-out provision, but you generally must mail a written opt-out within 30 days of becoming subject to the agreement. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:40

Isn't that interesting? I learned that at Book Club last time. I was there. Yeah, that's wild.

SPEAKER_04 1:47:44

That is interesting. But else isn't those agreements for all the everything. Right, everything.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:50

Yeah, every uh anything you sign up for, there's terms and conditions. So Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 1:47:55

Dude, that's wild. You can just God. I I've watched so many Disney like documentaries that I don't know if they're like total scumbags or not. Because I love everything they do. As far as film and TV, like they're whatever they produce gener generally is excellent. Like, but I I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:17

I the I want to go to that new Super Mario World that they have. The hide is that part of Disney? Yeah. I'm pretty sure it's at Disney. Super Mario World? The new epic, Disney Epic, isn't it?

SPEAKER_09 1:48:29

I don't think Mario's part of Disney.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:31

It's not, but I'm pretty sure they have like a whole world there.

SPEAKER_09 1:48:35

I love that we're this is just us like we're like we're like 20% right about everything we say, and then we have to check check it. Using the AI. Using the the plagiarism machine. Whoever did this research for fucking MSNBC is not making money on you, chat GPTing it or whatever. The fuck.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:54

Oh, it's universal.

SPEAKER_09 1:48:56

Okay, yeah, I was gonna say that didn't I didn't think my bad. Well, because all the Mario movies were done by um Elimination, which does the minions and stuff, right? So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:09

My bad. It's universal.

SPEAKER_09 1:49:12

The Mario movies I was pleasantly surprised by. I was like, I felt reluctant, I was very reluctant to go see it. I was like, this is gonna be like Chris Pratt doing a fucking Italian accent. This is gonna suck.

SPEAKER_04 1:49:24

Right.

SPEAKER_09 1:49:25

And then it was excellent. And like they turned the accent into a gimmick that was in a commercial to explain why they weren't gonna do the accent. I was like, that is a brilliant way to get around him having to do that stupid voice. Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:49:36

Well you guys it's funny to do it for like a couple minutes too. You can't you can't do a two-hour movie with a really bad stereotype.

SPEAKER_06 1:49:43

Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:49:44

Bad.

SPEAKER_09 1:49:45

Did you like it?

SPEAKER_04 1:49:46

Did you saw you saw it? I saw the first one. It was good. Yeah. It's fun. Yeah. It is what it is. There's a lot of any more it is what it is movies. Like it's just it was fun. Like I didn't it didn't change my life, but it was worth the hour and a half, whatever I sat through.

SPEAKER_09 1:49:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:49:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 1:50:00

What's the last like movie that you watched and we were like, whoa. Like this is like a generational film.

SPEAKER_04 1:50:08

I watch so few films now. And now I'm at the point where do I watch something again or something new? I don't know. I gotta think about that. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:22

Putting them on the spot.

SPEAKER_04 1:50:24

I don't watch, I guess I don't watch a ton of movies. And when I do, I mean a lot of time I watch it with my kid. It's like sports movies, but we watch like a lot of sports, so that's like most of my time. And like at night I watch a lot of shows because they're easier to like sort of get an episode in or half an episode. Like I feel like I'm trying to think there was something I watched that wasn't generational, like amazing, but it was good. I just can't remember what the hell it was. So it wasn't that impactful to me.

SPEAKER_09 1:50:48

So for me, like I I loved Interstellar. Like that's that movie I thought was excellent. You know, if like to get me to give a fuck about a physics in space movie, like the storytelling has to be really well done. I've never seen I don't watch movies. You're not a movie person. She like, I'll put on a we'll spend 20 minutes debating which movie to put on, and then we find one and I hit play and like before the you know they set the scene. Oh, there's an overhead drone shot of the neighborhood. Then they settle into the house and I look over and she's sleeping. I'm like, you don't even know who the characters are yet. She's snoring already.

SPEAKER_04 1:51:26

Yeah, I I fall asleep at movies a lot, so I can't complain. Especially if I'm on the couch. Maybe I'm on the couch, I want to lay down and watch a movie. And I mean I do that, I go to sleep.

SPEAKER_09 1:51:33

So especially like the movie theaters where they have the big plush like lazy boy recliners. You're like, oh, I'm not staying.

SPEAKER_04 1:51:40

So I have to go to like the 10 a.m. I have to go to the earliest showing if I can. I'm awake, so I can't fall asleep. Yeah. I've gone to some like 8, 9 p.m. ones. Like, this is like not even recent. It's like 20 years of this happening. I'm just like, oh yeah. It's like I get tired. I was like, Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:51:55

I don't I don't like I mean I'll go to the movie theater, but I have to like keep changing how I'm sitting so that I don't fall asleep. Yeah, she's waste my money.

SPEAKER_09 1:52:02

She's got a video of me like hanging off the side of a chair. Like I do that when we when we took the kids to go see the Paw Patrol movie, I was like mouth open, snoring, hanging over the arm of the chair, just like choking on my own fat fick.

SPEAKER_04 1:52:20

Probably a lot of parents doing that.

SPEAKER_01 1:52:22

Like, oh finally I get a nap.

SPEAKER_09 1:52:23

Oh dude, I I'll pay 40 bucks to have a good nap. Are you kidding me? The kids are entertained, they're just chomping down on popcorn, and I'm open-mouth snoring with my finger and my belly button. Just hell yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:52:36

It's a good way to live.

SPEAKER_08 1:52:39

Oh man.

SPEAKER_01 1:52:40

Did you go into how you started comedy? Or just when?

SPEAKER_04 1:52:44

A little bit.

SPEAKER_01 1:52:45

I started with uh online and then I just sort of Yeah, I guess it's just you just you just like were there one day like I'm gonna go on to this online.

SPEAKER_04 1:52:53

Well, it was the pandemic, and I was just like, so here's the thing like when you're speaking, like I'm a hu I I'm humorous on stage. Like, and so and I've always first of all I've always enjoyed stand-up comedy. Comedians are like some of my favorite folks growing up. Arsenio Hall is like one of my favorite, like that's I think I get a lot, I mimic without even knowing it, a lot of Arsenio stuff, just the energy and working, yeah. So, um, and then of course I started following the greats and stuff like that. Uh anyway, so it was the pandemic, and I was like, you know what? I'll just take a stand-up comedy class and then do it. And then I started doing the virtual mics, and then uh after a couple of years doing me like almost all virtual, I did a few open mics and I I went on this weird run that like my first three like non-Zoom mics were all at uh the Ann Harbor comedy showcase. It was this weird run, and then I kind of stopped, and then I took when I took the advanced classes like I just want to do this again, and then like I said, Joel said, you know, if you're serious, do it twice a week and then do it twice a week. And I was kind of like, let me do it, you know. I I think after my showcase there, that I was like, okay, there's something here.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:00

Yeah. I just didn't know if there was something to like that got you on to wanting to do the online. That's why.

SPEAKER_04 1:54:06

Well, the online was was convenience and and and and things. And I mean for those years, I mean, some of my best bits are still things I worked, I created during the online era. But uh I think the idea was just to like show a side of myself that I can't always show on stage as a speaker and say things that I can't say. And I went in like didn't think I was I didn't know if I was gonna be a clean comic or not. And apparently I am.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:32

I think you're the first clean comic that we've met.

SPEAKER_04 1:54:34

Really?

SPEAKER_01 1:54:35

I feel I think so.

SPEAKER_09 1:54:37

Well, I mean, yeah, I I guess.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:41

Right? I don't know. I don't know much about comedy.

SPEAKER_04 1:54:44

Right. I'm I'm clean I'm clean enough. I mean, I'm I I can I I'm I'm clean. I mean it's funny off stage I'm not necessarily, but like on stage, when I was writing my jokes, developing my persona and sort of like what aspect of me is on stage, that guy's clean, uh for the most part. I mean I have a couple of jokes where I might drop a swear word in uh if the crowd is appropriate, like if I know I can get away with it. Um and if it's corporate or something, then I like ask them if I can drop the one word or whatever, and yeah, and that's it. Um but yeah, it's just one of those those things. Um, but yeah, I just did it for a different perspective, and I just kind of liked it. And also, like it's more convenient as much as like driving 90 minutes for a mic, it's a pain in the ass some days. Um, like with speaking, it's a you know, you gotta do the outreach where you have to apply, and then you have to talk, then you have to put in a proposal, and then you have to negotiate the proposal, and then you have to accept it, and then you have to do pre-work and the postwork. Like it can take two years, like some of my contractor into 2028, right? Like you can like it takes a it's a long haul. Whereas with at least when you're starting comedy, it's like I can go, I can go somewhere and get on stage and work out. Or at the local level, a lot of shows are like only a couple months in advance, right? Like, hey, we're doing a thing in three months, what are you doing? Right. Yeah, the clubs are a little bit more it obviously they're more organized because they have to be. Uh but so that was also the adore, is like I can get more stage time. And it's again with a young family and I don't want to travel too much, and a lot of mics are late at night. I can still pick the kids up from school, I can still be actively involved in a lot of their lives without getting out, you know, without leaving town for two days or whatever and coming back and putting all that strain on the family unit.

SPEAKER_09 1:56:24

So Yeah. That's like that that is the hardest part about like starting this is like, dude, I got three kids. All of them are in sports, they all have you know their own agendas and things that they want to get through, but then also we do the podcast, and then we have you full-time jobs, so it's getting out during the week to hit mics is so it's it's it's draining, right? It's it's absolutely draining, especially when I get like some of the jobs that I work, I'm I'm up at four in the morning, five in the morning, and then it's like all right, go hit this mic that's 45 miles away, but you might not get on until 11 o'clock because the mic starts at 10, you know.

SPEAKER_04 1:57:02

And I once went on a mic at 145 in the morning.

SPEAKER_01 1:57:05

Was it at New Way?

SPEAKER_04 1:57:06

No, it was not. Uh Paul's Paul's pretty good to be there. Uh but it was like, and I was like the second to last comedian in this bar, and like it was loud and no one was listening to the point where like the the server was settling the check for the table. Like, I'm here doing comedy, and like the table's here, like literally here. And like the person's where this chair is, and like I'm oh hey, how about that thing?

SPEAKER_09 1:57:31

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Tip. Like I'm like, like this is like right. And the and the waitress is bent over, trying to whisper, but you're like, yeah. No, they weren't even trying to whisper.

SPEAKER_04 1:57:40

Like, no, no one was listening, even the comedians just it was just an interesting, is it it's an interesting dynamic. There was someone there trying to get the audience's attention to like smash the stool on the floor to get the audience's attention. Right, I mean like a teacher that doesn't know how to do poetry, yeah. Yeah, like that'll work for about three seconds.

SPEAKER_01 1:57:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:57:56

And then they go back to like whatever. And so it was interesting. So you you also get those experiences.

SPEAKER_01 1:58:02

We've been to one like that.

unknown 1:58:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:58:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 1:58:04

Well, I've been to a quite a few like that.

SPEAKER_04 1:58:07

That's I'll try everything once.

SPEAKER_06 1:58:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:58:11

I'll try everything once. And then if I and if it doesn't go well, then I ask myself, like, why? Was this just an off night for that place for that team? I will s most people putting together a mic are doing like they're putting in the work. But, you know, if it's not ideal, it's not ideal. It's not for me. And and so uh and I am, you know, I'm pretty pretty laid back. So, but yeah, that was early on, especially getting to that. I think I did 118 reps last year, like, you know, combined virtual and and on-site or uh and a lot of different experiences in that 118 reps. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:58:47

Are there any uh up by you, or do you have to like come down this?

SPEAKER_04 1:58:52

Very few. There was a couple in Flint proper. There's another one in Flint in terms of mics. Um, I produced a few of my own shows last year.

SPEAKER_05 1:59:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:59:00

Um it's something I still do, but not a ton because again, it's work and I have to balance it. But it can't, you know, I when I work with like legions or charities and stuff like that, like at least there you're getting audiences that want you, they want to be there. Like they've chosen to do comedy night, they've paid to do comedy night. And so I was like, I'd rather, you know, one good Legion show to me can be like the equivalent of like three bad mics in terms of like what you get out of it, because now you're really working a real crowd. Yeah. Uh and you're presenting your best material in kind of people who haven't heard it 15 times or whatever, if it's largely comedians and or they're not there just to eat the chicken wings or whatever's on special and it happens to be comedy night. Like it's really hard when I talk to a bar or a venue and they're and they're like, Well, we don't want to turn off the T, you know, they don't want to devote it, they don't want to sell tickets, and like you just want us to be sort of in the background. Like, comedy's not good as background noise. Musicians are great for background noise, you know. Karaoke's great for background noise. Comedy has to be something you focus on, right? Yeah, and so yeah, but it's it was it's been an interesting journey, but yeah, it's not a lot in Flint. And so I try to produce, and then I was gonna do it weekly mic, and it's just too much work. Like, I don't want to commit because I got too many other commitments.

SPEAKER_09 2:00:08

Um that's what I was thinking about starting a mic here, and I I don't I just don't know if I can. For the same reason, like I I have so much shit in my can. Like we we have a digital calendar that we both have what access to or whatever, it's a shared calendar, and then like we just look at it every single day. There's like four or five things that we have going on. And I'm like, dude, I I yeah, I mean it's hard, it's hard enough just to hit mics, let alone run one, and then like balance the chaos of trying to make sure comics show up as if they're if if they did it like a showcase style, you know.

SPEAKER_04 2:00:45

Right, and my thing is too, I I I only want to produce shows I can guarantee a decent payday, or at least a payday. Because I which means less of them, but I would rather do that. And Mike's I thought about maybe like a monthly or quarterly showcase in Swarce Creek or somewhere around there. Again, it's just I'm not at that point. Like, I I know my limits. I've gotten better over the years of like not trying to do 150 things on my plate. Yeah, I already do enough, and so and the kids definitely they're the top priority. So for me, yeah, it's a lot of work. I guess Mike's I I've seen like mic producers like people drop out and they gotta fill two hours, right? Can you do 15 minutes? Can you do 20? I can. Now I can, but like, you know, it's still tough to fill that 15 sometimes if the crowd's not there. Yeah, yeah. But there's some good producers out there, so I mean I try to get out to like Toledo for Dave Crumbly stuff. Crumbly's got a great scene, yeah. Yeah, yeah, he's he's he's he's I I haven't been there in a while, but um because I I don't bother I don't put myself on Dave's list unless I know I can make it because you know I don't I hate backing out even when like life happens and it's happened a few times to me. Yeah the last this 2026 in particular, but like I don't like to pull out unless I have to, and so uh but yeah, Dave Dave runs a good thing. He treat he finds venues that treat it seriously. And so that's why you know you're good, you know. He as a host, he's there to make he's he's there as a host to make the show good, not himself good. Um and I like I like that. I I'm not a big fan of like uh you know some MCs will like try to crap on the comics or like they you know or they try to do like large sets in between, like Dave keeps it going.

SPEAKER_09 2:02:20

I've I've done a couple of mics there where they're like they'll like riff on what you were talking about and then it it's like dude, you just did seven minutes in between comics. What the fuck are you doing?

SPEAKER_04 2:02:29

Right, that's the thing if they're if one when I when I MC I don't necessarily riff. I I actually try not to, I just try to keep it going. But if a comic hits on something I think I can add like a haha to, it's like a one-line thing. Yeah, like limit your like acknowledge the joke or keep the joke going.

SPEAKER_09 2:02:47

Yeah. And then move on. Yeah, Charles Hill is like a master at that. Like he'll go up there and he'll say, you know, he'll make a comment about whatever the com comedian before was saying, but normally he has a quick tag and then it's like That's it, you know?

SPEAKER_04 2:03:03

One tag. Boom. All right, coming up next. Because you want to respectful guy that just came up on stage or a girl. And then you also want to be like, you want to keep it going. Yeah. You know, you want the audience to keep having a good time, and uh, that's it. Like you're you know, everyone's especially when you got a huge lineup. Like you're trying to riff like doing even two minutes in between comics, and you got ten people, it's an extra 20 minutes. Plus, you did your set, right? Plus you got whatever other announcements you gotta do. So you're adding like half an hour, 40 minutes to the sort of show.

SPEAKER_05 2:03:31

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04 2:03:31

Right. People's attention spans are, you know, they start 30 seconds. They're they're short. And they don't know that most most of them don't know the comedians, especially if they're not like related or friends with them. So the attention span for like a open mic style, like a lot of comedian styles, it's very short.

SPEAKER_09 2:03:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:03:46

So you gotta keep it to me, you gotta keep it going.

SPEAKER_09 2:03:48

That's just well then you don't want to shit on like I don't think I think it's completely inappropriate to shit on a comedian. Unless it's like so bad that you have to address it, you know, but like to go up, like I hate when I see MCs go up and they riff on the comedian. They're like, what the fuck was that guy talking about, huh? And it's like and it was like, oh, it was a this this bit doesn't have legs yet, and he's doing it on stage for the first time, and then you go and shit on him.

SPEAKER_04 2:04:12

Yeah, I mean when I when I MC, I just keep it going. I don't care. I mean, it would it have to be really bad as in like that person was insulting to the audience bad. Yeah. Not the jokes bombed bad.

SPEAKER_09 2:04:23

See, that's what I mean. Like I've seen a comedian go up there and just do this like unhinged World War II shit where it's like, you're like, what the fuck are you talking about? Like you just like you walked half the room because you're like racist.

SPEAKER_04 2:04:35

Like this is not Yeah, that's different.

SPEAKER_09 2:04:37

You know, I think that's different when you're then you got to address it. Like, yeah, that was fucking not what we signed up for, you know.

SPEAKER_04 2:04:43

For those remaining, thanks. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_09 2:04:45

Yeah, you survive. That does not necessarily reflect the views of this club, you know, and like just address it real quick and fucking move on. But if you're shitting on a guy because his bits don't have legs yet, it's like what are you doing, man?

SPEAKER_04 2:04:58

And you don't know, you know how many yeah, exactly. You don't know what they're trying to get out of their their set. Are they new? Are they just trying to figure out their voice? You know, all that kind of stuff. I guess I'm I've become nicer over the years, but just let people just let them do their thing. It's tough, it's hard enough to like a mic is tough, man. Like it's like it's tough, it's tougher than like I I can equate it to like you know, I started out speaking, you do like uh, you know, to get reps, there's no open mics for speakers, right? So you you do uh you do the rubber chicken circuit, which is like largely rotary clubs, lions clubs, maybe small charities that have like a monthly meeting or quarterly something, right? And they basically most of these organizations need speakers. So you go, education shares have you because they got something. They need that that's their job is to fill the calendar. But no one there really cares. I mean, you know, they're just there to to socialize and eat their eat their meal, and but at least there you can kind of find a hook. But it's hard of the comedy man, because like people are like we're here, we're in the audience, we're like expecting something from you.

SPEAKER_09 2:05:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:06:00

Just to make us laugh.

SPEAKER_09 2:06:01

And that's that's tough. And sometimes people are looking to not laugh.

SPEAKER_04 2:06:05

They're like, see if he can do it. Yeah, there's some people that are like legitimate fans of Mike, you know, even if Mike starts seeing like regular like fans of the mic.

SPEAKER_08 2:06:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:06:13

Uh and some of them I think are there for that. Like they just see show me what you got, kind of mentality.

SPEAKER_09 2:06:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:06:21

So yeah.

SPEAKER_09 2:06:22

It's such a it's such a weird art form. The only I it is there any other art form where you the only way to learn it is in front of the people who are gonna consume it. Like, I don't think there's another fucking art form like that. You write a song, it's a song.

SPEAKER_06 2:06:36

Right.

SPEAKER_09 2:06:37

You know? You write a bit, it might you they might laugh at a thing that you're just using as a segue between bits, and you're like, wait, hold on, my bits aren't funny, but that segue was. What the hell? Okay, I gotta redo this entire thing now.

SPEAKER_04 2:06:51

Well, I'm figuring out what lands with who and where. Um, I mean, and figuring out what what's a good universal joke in your set and what's like not, is that's really hard. And that I think that's the challenge, that's probably the challenge I like. It's like what's what's a joke that everyone likes, and what's a joke that's specific. Like I said, the the ethnic jokes growing up as an immigrant an immigrant family doesn't land everywhere. So, like, you know, do I save that or where do I find the universal? Like, where's the universal spin on that? Yeah, like maybe it's just like parents with unrealistic expectations. So, yeah, we we we can most of us can relate to that on some level versus like I grew up Italian, so like yeah, and I grew up in Toronto, so like an ethnic joke like that can do well because everyone's from an immigrant background when I grew up, right? So not always here, and so it certain crowds it plays it just plays different, but that's to me, that's the puzzle that I enjoy out of it, yeah, is figuring it out and then just like doing my thing. Um talking about my life, and you know, it really comedy is almost like a different monologue of what I do on on the other stage. Like it's it's about my life, everything's about my life. I'm a storyteller at heart, but how do I, you know, I take this part, especially like some of it, like the parenting and the disability topics I talk about are just all like my actual riff on my actual take on shit and just go at it, you know. The disability stuff is really about like I'm really not disabled, but like the the world sort of sees me that way, so like it's just bringing up the irony. A lot of it's about the irony and the hypocrisy of it at its heart, and then like you know, parenting is kind of like about we don't know what we're doing.

SPEAKER_09 2:08:23

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but when you're being parented, you think that they have it all figured out. Right.

SPEAKER_04 2:08:29

I don't know what what it is, and just the the absurdity of just being in the being in the world as a parent and being exposed to things you're exposed to as a parent is absurd. Like that again, reacting to soccer parents or figure skating parents or the school Christmas concert, whatever the hell, you know, and you just start thinking like, wow, this is like so I don't know. It's it's not normal. A lot of it's not like not it's not meant to be this way, but it is society's constructed these things of like expectations for our kids. Yeah, yeah. And you try to your best to like give them a good life and they have good experiences, and then by doing that, you have to suffer through some of those experiences with them, and it's like it's a tough call some days.

SPEAKER_09 2:09:09

Yeah, yeah, it's funny. I think it's rituals that we all go through, and it's it's it is funny to think about that, isn't it? Like the like the the Christmas concerts, the forcing kids, which 99% of them don't want to be there doing the thing that you're there to see them do.

SPEAKER_01 2:09:29

I'm just picturing Jamie at his last concert. Yeah, his youngest is just standing there, like not even pretending to sing, just standing there.

SPEAKER_09 2:09:38

Meanwhile, there's like 300 parents in the audience just like it's 7 p.m. and we're all exhausted, and we all have to feed the kids and get them cleaned up and ready for bed, and we're all just like sitting through these horrible songs that the kids don't want to sing and we don't want to listen to, but then there's like an enthusiastic music teacher who's like and you're like fucking that like no one no who is this for? Some of the kids love it.

SPEAKER_04 2:10:04

There's one but then there's the other ones that's for the few that do like it, I guess. And the music teachers gotta run their check. Yeah, gotta keep the recorder company in business.

SPEAKER_09 2:10:14

For real. They're singing oh god, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:10:18

I uh it's i yeah, I mean it is what it is, and uh luckily my kids' school their concerts aren't very long. Yeah, because when I was a kid it would the concerts were like marathons, like it was like all the grades together, and now it's like two grades, maybe three times.

SPEAKER_01 2:10:32

Yeah, theirs they just did like first and third or something. Yeah. I appreciate that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:10:38

You're kind of in and out in an hour, 75 minutes. Like you can still annoying, but you can like get through it. You get to see your kid, that takes up like a third of it, so then you're like, okay, it's not so bad. Yeah. If you need to use the restroom or or whatever, you can, and it's it's fine. It's it's better than I thought it would be. Um we went like early when my kids were younger, we went to a couple of their things at another school they were at, and they were like so long. I was like, I can't do this.

SPEAKER_01 2:11:01

I was in choir growing up, so my parents got to sit through. Right.

SPEAKER_04 2:11:05

You appreciate some of that stuff in the other side of it.

SPEAKER_09 2:11:07

Like, oh dude, I so I was my brother was in an my brother went to an art school, my sister ended up going to the same art school, and then I was in orchestra, jazz, and marching band. So the amount of time I spent just sitting through songs I couldn't give a fuck about. It's it's thousands of hours. It's just I mean, playing songs I didn't give a fuck about. Oh, we're doing this again. All right, let's do heard it through the grapevine on Marimba. You know. But oh man. Yeah, I I guess it you know what? I just need a I need a little bit of uh perspective, I guess, because every time I'm at one of those things, I feel like I'm on fire. And then when it's over, I'm like, oh, I miss when they were this age.

SPEAKER_04 2:11:52

Well, you don't get the time back, so you you enjoy I enjoy like seeing them on stage. Just being with them. That's That's the best part of it all.

SPEAKER_09 2:12:01

How old are your kids?

SPEAKER_04 2:12:02

Thirteen and ten. Oh, that's right. Yeah, yeah. Thirteen and ten.

SPEAKER_09 2:12:05

So we have a thirteen, eight, and seven. So we're we're right in the same kind of area.

SPEAKER_04 2:12:12

I mean I'm like my daughter loves art. She's got all sorts of art all over my house. And you have to as a parent balance that delicate like what do we keep, what do we not keep?

SPEAKER_00 2:12:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:12:22

And then I had an aunt of mine said to me once recently. She's like, you know, there'll come a time where they probably stop doing that. Mm-hmm and you'll miss it. And like I get it. You know, even like with my sister, I was like, because I actually like to hang my kids' art up in the house when I can. Um and I would go with my sister, I'm like, I'm gonna keep this one and put this one up. She's like, really? I'm like, listen, one day it'll happen to you.

SPEAKER_06 2:12:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:12:49

And you'll you'll have a kid and you just be like, this is pretty.

SPEAKER_06 2:12:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:12:51

It's like I sure it's I mean, it's not compared to like maybe what's some other professional, but maybe it is, with modern art being what it is. I mean, who's gonna tell you what it is? But I'm like, it has some if it it speaks to you in a different kind of way.

SPEAKER_09 2:13:03

Yeah, it's a connection to your kid at that time.

SPEAKER_04 2:13:06

That's exactly what it is. Yeah. Until you take it.

SPEAKER_09 2:13:08

There I I've I think that parenting is kind of like constantly grieving what your kid used to be, like the version of that kid used to be, you know. You have this, you know, th there's like certain things that I reminisce about. I think about my my 13-year-old, you know, he's my oldest, and he was in these stages where he he said the most ridiculous thing, or they the funny like he had the funniest versions of these things, or he said these things wrong. And then someone corrects some asshole tells them that it's not peach black, it's pitch black, and then that's gone. That version of him is gone. Poof, he's done. That version of him is dead and gone. Right. And now he's this, you know, now he's this 13-year-old with a mustache and an attitude, and like there's there's good, there's, you know, the good traits where he's he's learned all these cool things and he's he's got interests that now are starting to align with my actual interests, and that's a cool new gear that I'm trying to find with him. But also, like, I miss the little boy version of him so much. I'm like, oh, he used to be this thing, which is completely different than what he is now. And like, although it's the same kid, it's like that version is gone. You know, they like these these 50 different versions of him that have existed have come and gone, and they're not gonna it's not gonna be that ever again. And and now it's this more serious 13-year-old who's like, he's funny like a bro now. He's not funny like a little boy, you know what I mean? And it's it's yeah, it's it's hard. It's like kind like being a parent is like constantly grieving what your kid used to be. And but also you have this hope for what they're becoming too. And it's right.

SPEAKER_04 2:14:48

I enjoy every stage. Like, I like that my 13-year-old line, I can't have real conversations now.

SPEAKER_01 2:14:52

Is he cranky?

SPEAKER_04 2:14:54

Only in the mornings.

SPEAKER_09 2:15:00

He's ours is only cranky when he doesn't get good one-on-one time with adults. Because he gets I think he I think his energy kind of gets drained by being around his younger sister and brother, who are eight and seven. So it's like he's just at such a different stage mentally that like being a dork and like saying repetitive stuff, which I think I might have implemented this hatred for repetitive shit into him. But he doesn't like the repetitive jokes. The like, you know, they they make somebody laugh saying one thing, they're gonna say that thing three hundred times now, you know, and he just gets drained. And then by like the end of the week, he's just like, shut up, go away. And you're like, come on, man, that's your sister. You gotta be right, you know. You're supposed to make her feel safe, and you she should be she should feel safe enough to be an idiot at home for fun without you shutting her up, you know. But also I get it, she's fucking annoying me too. You know.

SPEAKER_04 2:16:07

Yeah, it's a delicate line, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_09 2:16:09

Yeah, especially if you care about it, you know. I there's so many parents I know people that became parents that don't give a fuck about it, and I just don't understand that. Like I'm chasing dreams too, but you know, and but the most important thing we're gonna do is raise these kids and make sure that they're people that fit into the world and they're not, you know, not only are they not counterproductive to other people's lives, but they're they're valuable to other people's lives. Like that's the one hope that you have for them.

SPEAKER_04 2:16:37

Right, it's one of the only real legacies you have if you do it right. Um I remember like when Conan O'Brien ended his show and they said, like, you know, what's it like to have this career and be a legend? He's like, No one's gonna like I'll be forgotten like tomorrow. And and everyone's like, Oh, that's so morbid. I get what he was saying. He was saying, like, things change. Like, I mean, Julius Caesar, you could say, is has lasted a test of time, but while most people might know the name, do you even know what he did? Right.

SPEAKER_09 2:17:05

What year was he? Right. What year was he last?

SPEAKER_04 2:17:08

I can't even tell you right. I can tell you. Um I do know what he did though. But like, I mean, like um, so you think about like that. We think about US pre you think about presidents, you think about like these things that they have like lasting, and even that is such a minimal thing. And so what really lasts to get philosophical is really like the time you put with your kids, and that's what that's what keeps you alive in a sense, or at least at the very at the very least, that's what that's what the impact really is at the end of the day. Yeah. For more like for most people. So I always thought like if and yeah, I've heard that different celebrities say that too at the end of the day, like it's not as important as the legacy part is not as important as you think it is. They're like they enjoyed having a great career, you know, but like the idea that like you're gonna be like embossed and timeless, like this is not true. Jack Benny was like one of the greats, right? We're like, who the hell knows Jack Benny?

SPEAKER_08 2:17:58

Right.

SPEAKER_04 2:17:59

Right, right. Red Skelton, like we there's some of us in the comedy community, we might hear the names, but do we even know? Even guys like Carlin Pryor, how many people watch are Carlin Pryor?

SPEAKER_09 2:18:08

Right. And those are like the guys.

SPEAKER_04 2:18:10

Those are the guys, yeah. Right? I mean, or Manuscalico is like you know, more modern, like in terms of successful, but like we know the names to even watch the body work, the impact, all that kind of stuff. So to me, the kids put if you're doing it right, it puts it in perspective puts things in perspective for you.

SPEAKER_08 2:18:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:18:27

So like, you know, I I've had this drama, like my l my son's last couple of birthdays, some pretty good comedy opportunity always comes up, and I have to say no to it because it's his birthday, and like we're doing things, and there's just no there's no question about it. Like it hurts a little bit. Like, god damn, I was like, Yeah, real gig. Yeah. But we're gonna be like, I don't want to be the father that didn't show up. Right.

SPEAKER_09 2:18:48

And and unfortunately, they'll remember they won't they're not gonna remember all the ones that you were there. It's like, ah, that was the your dad wasn't there. Right. That's gonna sting forever. You know, yeah, I can't do that. I can't I can't miss important stuff. I'll ski, you know what? I I I've I skipped a couple of games last week. Was it last weekend? We skipped the games, and I feel guilty about it. Although, like, I when I'm there, I'm like, oh fuck this. Like, who cares about this?

SPEAKER_04 2:19:13

But like a small break once in a while is okay. I mean, like, I I my son probably plays about 25-30 soccer games a year, so if I don't get to everyone, I don't feel as bad. But I don't want to be negligent, I don't want to be absent from them.

SPEAKER_09 2:19:26

Yeah. As long as like the averages you're showing up, I think it's probably fine.

SPEAKER_04 2:19:31

The only time I miss sometimes I can't I have to be I have to do a work thing, but usually Yeah. Or I usually I'll miss my daughter's skating stuff because there's like a uh yeah, a conflict with the soccer because they always put the things at the same dark time. So you have to divide and conquer, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_09 2:19:47

So yeah, yeah, we're running into that, especially having three in the same sport at all different ages.

SPEAKER_01 2:19:53

And yeah, I mean luckily on Sundays they play in the same spot, so we can like sit at the corner of the three fields and try to watch all three of them at the same time.

SPEAKER_09 2:20:05

But there's been a couple times where the oldest is 45 minutes away and then the other two are across the street, and it's like, alright, well, I guess we're you take him and I'll take them, or vice versa, you know.

unknown 2:20:17

Yeah. I hate the sports.

SPEAKER_09 2:20:18

I hate the sports so much. Why couldn't they be like burnouts and just skateboard and freaking draw?

SPEAKER_04 2:20:24

I love the sports, man, because like when they get home in the video game mode, I hate that. Like I turn it to my parents. I don't mind a little bit of it, but I'd rather they go outside. Like my son will come home from soccer practice, like, Dad, let's go play baseball outside. Fine. If I got the time, like do it. Yeah. I'd rather you do this and play something on, you know.

SPEAKER_09 2:20:41

So yeah, I see. I grew I grew up playing video games. I loved them.

SPEAKER_04 2:20:44

Uh they're great.

SPEAKER_09 2:20:45

But I look I I do look back at some of them and I'm like, God, how much time did I waste? I could have been doing something that might have been a lasting skill, instead of like, oh, I'm really good at Tony Hawk. That doesn't matter at all. That has no value anymore. And uh, you know, like last night, last night we uh we got home, my son got my my son gets home. It was like 8 30, and I'm like, all right, we can go to we can rush inside and go to bed. Or I got these foam golf balls, you want to practice chipping for like 20 minutes, and then we have like a you know, we got a little one-on-one time in and worked on a skill, and you know, it's like a net positive. We were laughing, making fun of each other. And it's like even though it was like 20 minutes, like that's that's way more valuable to me than you know, oh I got to watch 20 minutes of Better Call song, whatever.

SPEAKER_04 2:21:33

Right, you know, that's why I I do my my viewing at night when the the the world's asleep, but also it's good for me, but also I don't want to be like, I'm watching TV, leave me alone. Like Yeah, and I do that. I do the king of that.

SPEAKER_09 2:21:46

Well, you say I'm the king of that, but I that's also normally like, hey, I have an attitude because I'm burnt out and I'm tired and I don't want to talk to anybody. It's like, hey, you guys do your own thing. I'm gonna I'm watching TV because I like I know that I have an attitude, but I'm not going to bed at 5 p.m., you know? Just let me just let me be alone. Let me decompress. Whatever. I had a shitty coworker that day or whatever, whatever reason I have an attitude. I like you know, I feel like that's progress.

SPEAKER_04 2:22:26

A little decompression's okay. There are times I need that too. Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_09 2:22:30

Dude, we're at the we're at two and a half hours. Alright. Really? So yeah, this is uh this place is a time warp.

SPEAKER_01 2:22:37

Do you have anything coming up that you're doing?

SPEAKER_09 2:22:39

Are you getting blinded over there by the way?

SPEAKER_04 2:22:40

I know I slightly, but it's okay.

SPEAKER_01 2:22:44

Usually it's covered. They fell off.

SPEAKER_04 2:22:46

I'll applaud.

SPEAKER_01 2:22:48

I was I've been thinking about that for a while.

SPEAKER_04 2:22:50

Yeah, a private show next week, but then next Sunday I'm in Grand Rapids for the Sunday night funnies. I'm closing that show. So nice. You're in the Grand Rapids on the 24th.

SPEAKER_09 2:22:58

I've seen you on flyers, man. You you're you're working, you're out there. I get out there when I can. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:23:03

So just working the craft and trying to get to my first half hour, which I'm at now, but like trying to refine that. So call on out and support me. Threefingercomedy.com. You can at least sign up for the newsletter. I need to update the dates. I'm not good at that. But um call on out.

SPEAKER_09 2:23:20

Yeah. And then people find you on social media.

SPEAKER_04 2:23:23

Yeah, find me on social media. Find me on Instagram, Paul underscore R talip a U L underscore A-R-T-A-L. I'll find find me on the Insta. Beautiful.

SPEAKER_09 2:23:31

Heck yeah. Well, dude, thank you so much for coming out. Thank you. Thanks for making the trip. Yeah. Great conversation. Yeah, yeah. Heck yeah. All right. I'll never peace. Survival.