Top Shelf Stories
In a world that often shuns the uncomfortable, we embrace it with open arms—and open laughs. Our candid narratives around our stories assure you that awkwardness is a shared human experience. Tune in, enjoy the ride, and maybe learn a thing or two.
Top Shelf Stories
Hairlines, Fights, And Bad Decisions
We trade jokes about hairlines and pride, then dig into size, intimidation, and what counts as a real fight. A raw story about an alley jump from a graffiti rivalry reframes how fast conflict escalates and why most fights end in seconds.
• shaving vows, hair as identity, confidence tests
• size and presence shaping social outcomes
• redefining what a real fight looks like
• the backpack jump and tagging crew codes
• adrenaline, time distortion, and quick endings
• graffiti as craft, attention, and risk
• meme bets, art validation, and friendship choices
Top Shelf Stories with Jay, Chris, and Tony Tony, sometimes is this thing on?
SPEAKER_04:Yep. I want to put my fingers in your hair and say Good luck, don't get stuck.
unknown:Damn.
SPEAKER_04:How did you do that?
SPEAKER_02:With gel and a comb.
SPEAKER_04:But seriously, though, how did you do that?
SPEAKER_02:Uh perfect genetics. Sometimes people can't do a great barber with gel and a comb. No. Show too much forehead. I have a giant forehead and it's despicable. And it gets bigger every year.
SPEAKER_04:I have okay. Let me ask you this question. I have a forehead with hairs that grow right in the middle.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, where your hairline used to be. No, no, no.
SPEAKER_04:That's called remnants. But literally, I do have weird hairs that grow like in the middle of my forehead.
SPEAKER_02:Do you have those? No.
SPEAKER_04:You're just fucking perfect, don't you?
SPEAKER_02:I mean, no. Kind of. Kind of. I'm getting a little thin in the back. I'm getting a little the little yarmaka. That's called fucking shaving your head.
SPEAKER_04:You shaved your head. Your head, your hair. You got a great head of hair, bitch. Yep. Bitch.
SPEAKER_02:And when it starts going south, I'm going bald.
SPEAKER_04:Every time you say that, I'm just mole on the side of my head and all. Wanna punch you. I wanna punch you every time you say that. Why? Because you're not gonna do it. You're not gonna fucking shave your head when you have immediately lose 16 hairs in the front of your head. You don't know me very good. No, I don't.
SPEAKER_05:But you absolutely would take medicine to keep your hair growing. No, I'm not gonna. Yeah, Chris! I wouldn't even consider it. So you're gonna lose nine hairs and shave it?
SPEAKER_02:Maybe. You're full of shit, man.
SPEAKER_04:You are so full of shit.
SPEAKER_02:The first time I look at it and say this doesn't look right, it's fucking gone. Are you trying to say that I don't have an emotional attachment to my hair? I happen to have decently good hair. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Wait!
SPEAKER_05:It is red though.
SPEAKER_02:Let's just feel it.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, some of it. So wait. You being bald, like I feel like that would make you feel inferior. Have you ever shaved your head? Not at all. Yeah. Okay. No, you feel like, hey, I'm losing a little bit of hair. Let's just shave it because now people won't fuck with me because I'm six foot one and a half. And people are afraid of bald.
SPEAKER_02:You are a big fucking dude. I'm told I'm a big dude all the time, but I don't. It doesn't compute in my head.
SPEAKER_05:You're not that much bigger than me. You are, but not that much.
SPEAKER_02:I don't, it doesn't compute in my head that dogs are way bigger than you.
SPEAKER_04:Dog is way bigger than you.
SPEAKER_02:Like when me and you are together, I feel like we're equal in size until we walk by him. For real.
SPEAKER_01:What do you got?
SPEAKER_02:You know, I had I had a really good friend.
SPEAKER_05:You can rest your arm on his fucking head standing next to him.
SPEAKER_02:I had a really good friend uh about 20 years ago that I used to work with that was much smaller than Jay. It was Jay when he was younger. He was no. His name was Jason, ironically. We just called him Jason W. Stop it! Stop it! But no, I I had a really good friend who was much smaller than Jay, and I never, I never felt like I was a fucking inch bigger or a pound heavier than him. And then one day we were walking, well, we were in a strip club, and we're walking by the big wall of mirrors, and I looked at us and I'm like, we are ridiculous together. Like we should not be in fucking public together. I'm like, I look like your father, and you're six months older than me.
SPEAKER_05:Why don't you have that? That's wild.
SPEAKER_04:I look I look like I just gave birth to you out of my birth control. Like I'm literally carrying you as a baby, but you're walking is fucking weirdly yeah.
SPEAKER_02:No, um, I like when you look at other people, do you look at other people like wow, they're so much bigger than me? Yeah. For real? Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Of course he does. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Especially when I get really close.
SPEAKER_05:He's kind of laid down on the back of his neck for looking up at everyone all day long.
SPEAKER_02:It's kind of funny. Your your brother actually mentioned that today. Uh, what did he say? Uh, we were talking about fighting. And uh I was talking about the fact that shorter than you. Yeah, yeah. I I was talking about the fact that I've never been in a real fight. Yeah, I've been in scuffles. I I broke a cousin, a couple of my cousins' ribs one time. I I also that same cousin choked them on consciousness. Yeah, like there was no threat of being stabbed. No, it's just one-sided. Like, I don't know, maybe it was a fight. I don't know. Looking back at it, you just beat the fucking guys up. I've definitely been in two fights.
SPEAKER_05:You just beat people up. Let's do the example of a fight. A fight in a fight because you won because you're bigger than them.
SPEAKER_04:A fight is someone finishes and the other one is down on the ground gurgling because they're no, so like my picking them up.
SPEAKER_05:You better get out of here. The cats are gummy.
SPEAKER_02:No, my my right shoulder did not touch the other person's right shoulder, and then we walked in a circle. I think that's how fights start. I don't know about that. Back in the day, yeah. You it's like a called a push fight.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I you keep pushing each other until someone stops. That happened. Like, you stop pushing me. You stopped pushing me.
SPEAKER_02:Something happened and I defended it, and that was it. But it wasn't a f like we didn't start throwing punches at each other. The it was the same dude twice. I want to once I just choked him unconscious and the other I pushed him against the wall. I want to hear while my hands were still on him and my hand went through three of his ribs. I want to hear what you were talking about with my brother. Um well, I said something about I'd never really been in a fight. And he said, Well, it's probably because you're so big that that that normal size people would be afraid to start shit with you.
SPEAKER_05:Don't you notice it when you get on a boat that it fucking moves and then when your kid gets on it fucking doesn't? No.
SPEAKER_04:I like how that Chris brings something into the conversation that has nothing to do with the conversation. Well, the size. He gets on. No, I'm just saying your aspect of of uh reference was amazing.
SPEAKER_02:No, I mean, I I don't find myself having to do things that I think like when I see somebody that's really big and they gotta like duck to get through a door. Like, I don't have to do any of that shit. That's true.
SPEAKER_05:That's I feel like you're not enormous.
SPEAKER_02:I'm six foot two, I'm about 235, 237, depending on where I eat for lunch that day.
SPEAKER_04:Okay, what my brother was telling you is that the fact that you're bigger, people are not afraid. Okay, um intimidated. They're not interested. Nine calculation. Nine of it out of ten people cannot fight or never been in a fight. And that's that's like a proven fact. Not that I know. Maybe seven out of ten. Maybe seven out of ten.
SPEAKER_02:I don't fucking know. But the fact that I believe that more people have not been in a fight than in an actual fight. And maybe maybe when I picture a fight in my head, I'm picturing like the movie version of a like seven minutes.
SPEAKER_05:I was in one of those, and I remember what it was like when I woke up the next day, and my face would look like I was fucking allergic to the world.
SPEAKER_02:I'm I'm picturing when I think of a fight, I picture the front lawn on the movie Step Brothers.
SPEAKER_05:Like no, that you're looking like a gang fight, like nine people fighting nine different people. No, the movie Step Brothers will ferrelling.
SPEAKER_04:Is that what you're talking about? Kinda. And then the good wait, wait, or the one you're talking about where they're fighting in the front when they both hit each other in the head, and the mom's screaming back.
SPEAKER_02:And uh, you know, Will Farrell screaming, he's trying to rape me.
SPEAKER_04:Like he's like, I'm so number raper.
SPEAKER_02:You know, I I just I have a picture in my head, like like I feel like a fight, like you're at a bar, and some dude's like, Did you just fucking look at my girl? And I'm like, fuck you, bitch. Yeah. And then he pushes me, and then I jump, I jump over two bar stools and three women to like punch him in his face, and then somebody breaks a bottle on the edge of the bar and they're fucking stabbing it at me, and I take a pool stick and I hit him right in the dick. Wow, like this is a fight to me.
SPEAKER_05:If you want to get in this type of altercase, but I don't want to.
SPEAKER_04:No, I think that your your your thoughts and your like what you're thinking about is like not practical. Like, not practical at all.
SPEAKER_02:You're telling me all these years I'm being saying I've never been in a fight. I've been in two legitimate fights, just not the fights I imagined in my head.
SPEAKER_04:I'll tell you what about I'll tell you a fight in whatever it is, a fight in a bar, a fight on the street, whatever it is, it's 10 seconds or less, but feels like a minute or five, and then it's like someone gets hurt and then another person runs away. Basically, that's that's a fucking fight. If it's like the cops come. Not at bars, that or that or someone just gives up. Someone gives up. Someone gives up and runs away because they just like, oh, I don't want to get hurt no more. They run away.
SPEAKER_00:Or a wife interveres and is like, Dad, damn it, Johnny, get it in the fucking shit, just leave it alone.
SPEAKER_04:Fights are so brief, like unbelievably brief, that you can't even comprehend it.
SPEAKER_05:Like if you're a boxing match, it's probably a three-minute round, two-minute round, five rounds at two minutes. Like it's a 10-minute fight with breaks, dude. Like, you can't fight for that long in real life.
SPEAKER_04:You try to describe a fight, and it feels like you're describing a whole marathon of like Spartans killing each other. But literally, it's like two seconds of you punching someone and like, oh, I don't like that, and then another guy running away.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. Pretty much. That's a fight.
SPEAKER_04:That's a fight.
SPEAKER_05:Or some girl gets in the middle of it and is like, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, yeah, or a girl gets in the middle of it. Or someone really gets really hurt, and then every the fucking guy that hurt really hurt you.
SPEAKER_02:It feels bad. All right, man, time out. Timeout. All right, time out. Sorry, man. Regain. No, uh okay. I think it would be more fair to say that I've been in fights, but I've never been punched.
SPEAKER_04:Okay, so people wait a minute.
SPEAKER_02:That's not true either. I got jumped one time in an alley. And I got punched a lot of times. Well, did they punch you over the body? Or was it the head? Yeah, because the head makes us I got hit in the head. I got I'm pretty sure I got hit in the foot. Okay, so I think these three dudes just laid out everything they had on me. They each took a section and just went to town for like two seconds.
SPEAKER_04:There's different parts of your body that makes a huge difference in how much pain or a debility. Dility?
SPEAKER_02:Well, there you have there was padding. Uh they put a backpack over my head while they beat the shit out of me. Wild.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:I'm talking about like kidney shots.
SPEAKER_02:No, I knew who they were. They walked up to me. They put a fucking backpack over my head. What do they want from you? Nothing.
SPEAKER_04:So they like this guy looks a little too suspicious. I don't like him. No. Let's beat the fucking I knew them. Fuck out of him. Wait, what? I knew them.
SPEAKER_02:Now start over, because this story's getting too compelling. Alright. So early in high school, like freshman year-ish, I I was involved in normal street graffiti. Just like everybody.
SPEAKER_05:Fucking graffiti.
SPEAKER_02:You hey Tony, you are a good artist. And I was I was a part of a crew. You are a great artist. I've seen your work. And a rivaling crew. Who just a year before when we weren't in these crews, we were friends, but now we're sworn enemies. So when they see my crews tags, they put an X through it and they write their crew's name next to it. Makes sense. And one of them fucking 80s. One of them wasn't actually in that crew, but he hung out with them. But he also hung out with us. That's trouble. And I seen him and he said what's up to me. I said what's up back. And then they started walking up to me, and I I knew right away this is trouble. And it was right behind my garage. So I was almost on my property. I could have jet for the door, but instead I just stood there by myself, and they put a backpack over my head and beat the shit out of me.
SPEAKER_04:I'm sorry, I'm not laughing.
SPEAKER_02:For a brief amount of time, it was fine. Pretty ridiculous. So sorry. So the and there was there was no like real gang behind this, but we were all just tagging crews. And my best friend, whose house I was walking from home, um, he he was my best friend, and he was a DJ. And the rest of my tagging crew, my friend who's a DJ, and then all his I I I don't know what you want to call them, but kind of gangbanger friends were hanging out in his as some would say, beat laboratory. That he had a big studio in his attic where we all sat around in high school and got drunk and smoked cigarettes and uh, you know, tried to bring girls over. That never worked, at least for me. I mean, I'm sure somebody got laid up there, but I was the fat kid. Like I wasn't getting any pussy. But uh I ran instead of running back home and putting ice on my fucking face, I run back to my buddy's house, and then they fucking just cockroached the whole neighborhood. They just fucking spread out to go find these guys. And uh I don't know whatever happened. I don't know if they got caught. I didn't go back over to my friend's house to find out the end results of the fucking fight deal, but uh those guys never fucked with me anymore. You just got hopped once and did all yeah, I don't know that was that. I don't know if they were if the if this was like an experimental jumping to see if they like jumping people and I was an easy target because I was a slow fat kid. Did you have anything of value with you that they took? No.
SPEAKER_04:Did they grab your titties when they're beating your ass? They I did get a couple titty twisters. Maybe they kind of like had sexual deviant problems that they wanted to declare.
SPEAKER_02:I don't know. Maybe that's why they put the bag over my head. Maybe I was a double bagger. Oh, maybe maybe you just open my eyes to the fact that I might have been they might have been trying to rape me. You almost been raped. Fuck. That's okay. Now, if I ever see Matt Breed in the street, I'm gonna ask him, Did you try raping me that day? Is that what that was?
SPEAKER_05:No, they probably had to because you like tagged over their shit, and they're like, let's go get that fucker, and that one guy who you thought was your friend wasn't.
SPEAKER_02:Well, there's a very good possibility I might have tagged over his shit. Yeah, that'll do it. And sometimes they don't like that.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Fucking gang gang violence. So now now looking back on and what I was involved in, it sounds, I mean, kind of like I had it coming.
SPEAKER_04:Yep. So basically, you were wearing something tight, your titties are showing, and he has something coming.
SPEAKER_02:Bro, this is 1994. 94. I'm listening to exclusively Wu-Tang clan TLC wearing Jenkos. Solid. Because you can fit spray cans in your socks.
SPEAKER_04:And then we're in your good spot, your favorite college uh football teams jacket.
SPEAKER_02:No, no, I'm wearing a black hoodie because I love Wolverine that has my tagging crew's name on across the back. That doesn't seem like a very good idea. In white old English letters.
SPEAKER_04:All right, so you're you're you're fat, you can't run. You wear it.
SPEAKER_05:White old English letters, so no one can do it.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, I was I wasn't wearing gang signs. What the fuck? I wasn't that fat. I was exactly the same white I am now. You what do you think's gonna happen to you?
SPEAKER_04:You can't run fast.
SPEAKER_02:You wearing fucking gang signs on your jacket. And Matt Breed was tall and thin. That guy could run like the wind. So explain to me what your thought was. I'm about to get fucked up.
SPEAKER_05:So let me ask you, when you got jumped, did you fight back? No. No.
SPEAKER_02:I had a bag over my head, bro. You kind of lose, you kind of lose your sense of where you are. Wait, is this? I might I might have threw some air swings. I don't know. Wait, is this a pick and save bag or is this a Walmart bag? I can't get out of it. And and the funny thing is, is I I can remember the smell of the backpack. To this day? Yeah. Was it a jazz sport? More than likely.
SPEAKER_05:Probably smelled like I grew up in a pretty poor neighborhood.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it smelled like shitty weed and spray paint. Well, I can do that for you right now in the bag and then make you feel that traumatizing event again. I'm about to be 44 and I still fucking love spray painting. Wow, you're old. Yeah, you you're good at it.
SPEAKER_04:I love it, too. Oh, yeah, Tony. Hey, any artist I've ever met in my life, you are the best one. Stop it. Seriously, though. I bet a couple uh another one, he is Oriental. Very amazing. Been to jail.
SPEAKER_05:I can if you can find a wall and you can and I'll show you this pork stuff and you paint pork thing, I can get 15,000 eyes on your shit. What's the pork? I asked to see the pork thing. It's the pink Pepe.
SPEAKER_04:Why can't you do 15,000 eyes on our podcast?
SPEAKER_05:Because it's not pork.
SPEAKER_04:Well, let's make it pork.
SPEAKER_05:That's the fucking crypto.
SPEAKER_04:How about this? You bring your friend in that is from a different country that wants me to eat a fucking head that's a pork, and I'll do it because I lost. You do have to still do that. Yeah, then maybe tell him to bring it in.
SPEAKER_05:He's gotta do Tony's hair first before he does it.
SPEAKER_02:Well, he's gotta do my furnace. Yeah. Alright, fine. Furnace, then pork head. Don't you fucking dare say a bad word about douche call. I don't know who he is.
SPEAKER_05:That's the pork. I don't know who he is. He's a Pepe pink with a fork.
SPEAKER_02:Tony will not describe it, Tony. It looks like it looks like what I imagine every pussy in a retirement home looks like. It's pretty rough. Is it smiling at you? This is hold on a minute here. Nearly all of my net worth is in that meme.
SPEAKER_01:Hold on.
SPEAKER_02:You invested real money. Nearly all my net worth is in that meme. And there's something with this graphic. Let me see it again.
SPEAKER_04:Oh my god, I can't get up.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, Jay's over here laying on the couch. Like he's he forgot that Tony told us that he has sex on that couch all the time.
SPEAKER_04:That looks like a weird vagina.
SPEAKER_05:Got him.
SPEAKER_02:Dude, this is so fucked.
SPEAKER_05:No, but for real, you're you're your painting, your art in general, your graffiti styling. It's good stuff. I do like it. I'll tell you what though.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, I do Tony. So I have about 30 cans of graffiti spray paint in back, and I have a sheet of plywood that I painted black for specific graffiti reasons. We can go back and drop that bomb right now.
SPEAKER_04:Listen to me though. I think I have Tony. Listen to me right now. What is that gonna prove?
SPEAKER_02:Well, it's gonna make me happy. Why is it gonna make you happy? And since I didn't get to go to the casino tonight, I might as well might as well do something. You could have went two hours ago. I am an adult. I can make my own decisions. Yeah, but why did you not? Jay wanted it. I chose you.
SPEAKER_04:Didn't that make you feel good? It sounds like a movie. I know. Didn't that make you feel good though? Yeah. Sometimes like I like you, and sometimes I hate you. You're like but now I kind of like you. He fucking chose me. Yeah. Right right now I like you, but like 67 almost immediately. Don't like you. I don't want to hurt you.
SPEAKER_02:But you're bigger than me. See, the thing is, is I wouldn't even fight back. So you might as well you might as well go get an empty backpack, toss that bitch over my eyes, and go to work.
SPEAKER_04:Tony's got like carpet scalore here. So I have to do it.
SPEAKER_02:I'm laying out the path to victory and you're laughing. All I have to do could be winning right now.
SPEAKER_04:All I have to do is find a carpet, put it over his head, start punching him in the kidney.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Give me a good old-fashioned blanket party.
SPEAKER_04:So here's the thing. What the fuck did what was that what what what this episode? What was it about? I don't know.
SPEAKER_02:You started it. Did I? Talking about uh I don't know. Where did it start? Tony got jumped. Tony got jumped.
SPEAKER_04:I don't think that that wasn't the way I started it though. Probably not. But do you ever hear those politics stories that about uh Ka Kahama, Kalama? What's her name? Kalama. Um, and then there's a Trump presidential debate where hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on.
SPEAKER_02:Edit out before that sentence. Okay, I'll do it. And just end this one. Okay, I'll end it. All right.
SPEAKER_04:Once led a camel to water. That camel would not drink. It might have been the water. It might have been the camel. No one knows. And no one cares.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, motherfucker. Yeah, motherfucker.
