00:00:08 Speaker 1: But I invited you here, thought I made myself perfectly clear. When you're a guest in my home, you gotta come to me empty. And I said, no gifts. Your presences presents enough. I already had too much stuff, So how do you dare to surbey me? 00:00:47 Speaker 2: Welcome to I said, no gifts. I'm Bridger Wine girl. We're back in the backyard as kind of as usual at this point, which is so nice to say. Ah, little surprise recording thing is Stephen Ray Morris, the former producer of the podcast, is here recording today. We've put our feud aside. We're no longer well at least for today we're speaking. So I'm very happy to have him here. And so if there's like an extra level of danger to the podcast today, that's what you're feeling. And then of course we have the guest, which I'm so excited about, Rich Summer Rich. Welcome to I said, Nogif, thank you for having me. It's so nice to have you here. In the I think it's probably ninety degrees. 00:01:32 Speaker 3: It's very hot. 00:01:33 Speaker 4: It's hot to the point that when I was driving here, I was using my iPhone for GPS guidance and just as I came up a hill that's not too far from here, but several turns from here, my phone said it is too hot to operate. And I'm close to phobic of being late. I just I hate it, and I had to pull over in the shade and quickly I sort of blew on my phone. 00:02:00 Speaker 3: I held it in front of the air conditioning. 00:02:02 Speaker 4: I waited for it to cool down enough that it could and I quickly memorized the address just in case I got to how to get and it's then I turned right and then but I got here, so I made it just on time. 00:02:13 Speaker 2: I didn't know that was an option for the phone. 00:02:16 Speaker 4: I think it is a last resort for the phone. 00:02:19 Speaker 3: But it's quite warm today. 00:02:21 Speaker 2: Wow, So did you have the phone screen on the entire time? 00:02:25 Speaker 3: Is that what's going I didn't. 00:02:26 Speaker 4: I had it off, and in fact sort of under a sort of minute. Maybe I need to have a little more airflow. Maybe that's part of it. You've had the heat on. I did have the heat on. I like to run hot, ridger. This is nothing. 00:02:38 Speaker 2: Well, let's be honest. You showed up sweating that's drenched. 00:02:41 Speaker 3: Yes, yes, do you mind if I take off my shirt. 00:02:43 Speaker 2: Please, thank you. I can go get you a gown or something to put on. No, I've had an interesting driving day as well. I went to lunch and then on the way back truly nearly gotten a head on collision with a PT Cruiser. Oh, which was I was headed down the road. There was some light construction blocking my lane. So look, I'm not a good driver, but I am a responsible driver. So I looked every angle and did the left into the oncoming lane to you know, kind of curve around the construction. And this is a thirty mile an hour road. There is suddenly a fifty mile an hour PT cruiser headed hot. Oh no, this is just a few minutes ago, And so I think I deserve some credit for keeping it together. 00:03:24 Speaker 3: Yeah, I know you're doing great. 00:03:25 Speaker 2: I hope they're having an incredible day. 00:03:27 Speaker 3: I hope so too. 00:03:28 Speaker 4: But I will say about them, I don't have Like, I'm not a car person. I don't have a lot of opinions about cars. Except if I did have opinions, one of the three opinions would be that I dislike PT cruisers a lot, and so maybe one less, maybe they'll wreck it to a treat, not hurt anyone, but get rid of that car. 00:03:49 Speaker 2: Right, Maybe they go off a jump and then leap out of the car, or the last moment. Maybe we need more PT Cruisers doing kind of exciting maneuvers, right, that would change the brand. 00:04:01 Speaker 3: Yeah, they are a safe car. 00:04:03 Speaker 4: They feel safe, except this person obviously bucking a trend, which I appreciate. 00:04:07 Speaker 2: It may have been stolen. Maybe it's not the drive. The original have. 00:04:10 Speaker 4: Been stolen, right, no one would steal that car. I hope they're not a sponsor. I don't. 00:04:16 Speaker 2: I hate to inform you I am receiving money handover fist from PT Cruiser. Chrysler has reached out. I have several in the garage. I have some of my vacation home that we're paid that was obviously paid for by the PT Cruise people. So it hurts to hear this. I'm sorry, that's no. I'm not a huge car person myself. I kind of think everyone should have to drive the same car. 00:04:41 Speaker 4: Yeah, it's like wearing uniforms at a school, which I used to be adamantly against, and now that my daughter is in a school where she's required to wear a uniform. It takes so much heat off of decisions in the morning and status in the clo. I agree everyone should drive the same car. It should function, it should have a robust air can for your phone, and it should just That's all you need. 00:05:03 Speaker 2: Right, Just a nice, working, workable car. That's nothing fancy. Do you get to pick your color? Hard to say, yeah, I don't know. I mean maybe it's either, you know, black or white. That's about it. Though I know this is how, this is why I should probably not be allowed to control a country, because I would absolutely suck everyone's joy out everything, but it would maybe it would work. 00:05:27 Speaker 3: I'm anti freedom. 00:05:29 Speaker 2: You're famously anti freedom. 00:05:30 Speaker 3: That's something I've said for Yes, no. 00:05:33 Speaker 2: One should have any choice in anything, and I appreciate that. 00:05:36 Speaker 3: About love assignment, I'd like to be assigned things. 00:05:40 Speaker 2: I will say this about car colors and cars in general. I recently realized that and I'm already I'm already going to back this up a little bit. But if someone has an orange car, I think they're happy. 00:05:51 Speaker 3: Oh fair. 00:05:52 Speaker 2: I saw an orange super room and I thought that person probably lives a perfect life. 00:05:57 Speaker 4: You have to have a touch of whimsy to go orange, right, My mom had growing up. The first car I can remember she had a Volkswagen Beetle from the I don't know when that was late sixties, early seventies, but it was orange so and then it lit on fire, I believe. So that's that's my final memory that. 00:06:14 Speaker 2: Was there, her phone the fire. 00:06:16 Speaker 4: She was very ahead of the CRVE on the phones in the cars early adopt. 00:06:20 Speaker 2: That's right, Oh, that's very interesting. Yeah, I think an orange car, I don't, but then i think about like an orange Lamborghini, and I'm immediately like that person's. 00:06:27 Speaker 3: Yeah, but that's Lamborghini. Trump's the color choice. 00:06:32 Speaker 2: Right, that's true. You can't have any tasteful color for a Lambert. That's Oh, it's all so complicated and difficult for me to talk about. But that's what else has been going on. 00:06:43 Speaker 4: Well, what how comfortable are you with me discussing just which side of the city you live on? 00:06:48 Speaker 2: Well, as long as we don't say the address, and that'll probably eventually I'll probably accidentally say that, and then my killer will come okay, which. 00:06:54 Speaker 3: Is fine, Okay, good. I was just going to say that on my way here. 00:06:57 Speaker 4: I don't ordinarily come to this exact area, except lately I've been coming. I second question for you. Are you a pinball fan? You like pinball? 00:07:07 Speaker 2: I love the idea of pinball. Yeah, I love pinball? What am I talking about? I just haven't played it in years? 00:07:12 Speaker 4: Yeah, that's okay, fair. There are two places that have pinball that I passed by it. I've been coming to this area a little bit more right, and they have a good, solid collection of pinball machines at two spots not too far from from here, or at least I passed them coming here. 00:07:28 Speaker 2: Can I try to guess them? 00:07:29 Speaker 3: Sure? Waltz yep. 00:07:31 Speaker 2: And then the place that kind of doesn't have a name. 00:07:33 Speaker 4: It has a name, but it's one of those names where someone should have been advised against. Perhaps it's called Revenge of Oh. 00:07:42 Speaker 2: I've heard of this song. I'm thinking of another one. Oh there's another I think so, but it may be more archide. 00:07:46 Speaker 3: Okay. 00:07:47 Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't really care about arcade games, but I have been of late really enjoying pinball. 00:07:52 Speaker 2: Okay, And is this a new thing for. 00:07:54 Speaker 3: You, ish? 00:07:55 Speaker 4: I mean I've always enjoyed it, and then I had a little in a little resurgence of enjoyment about five years ago, four or five years ago, I was a I also like board games. Bridger and I was a guest at a board game slash pinball convention in Atlantic Southern Fried Gaming Convention, and my whole family and I we had never been to Atlanta, so we thought, well, let's make a vacation of it. So we went, and we ended up playing just a whole mess of pinball. And then maybe in the last you know, it gets sort of waxed and waned a bit. And then in the last six months or so, my son, in particular, my son and I have been avidly playing as much pinball. 00:08:35 Speaker 3: As we can. 00:08:36 Speaker 2: Do you own a pinball machine. 00:08:38 Speaker 4: I own a virtual pinball machine. Okay, so this is a machine that can Oh what do we have to do this? I apologize, I'm here begging. I suppose I was just hoping. I mean, I was happy to talk about pinball. But this part, it just gets into a deeper Yes, it's the size and shape of a pinball machine, okay, But then it's it's all monitors, and so you can emulate a pinball machine. But it makes lots of buzzes and whirrs and bonks and dings, and it feels a lot like playing pinball. 00:09:13 Speaker 2: So what is the benefit. I mean, if it were smaller than a regular pinball machine, I'd be like, oh, that's great for a home, But this thing is occupying the same amount of space it is. What's the best is it changes themes that kind of thing. 00:09:25 Speaker 4: It's just that you can play pretty much any pinball machine that's ever been made. 00:09:31 Speaker 3: You can play it on there. 00:09:32 Speaker 4: You can download it some you know, there's a whole community of programmers. And I'm not adept in this at all. I just download them and say thank you and install them on the table and my son and I play them. But you have access to almost any pinball table that's ever been created in time. 00:09:47 Speaker 2: That is incredible. So are they photographing the machines and then uploading them. 00:09:52 Speaker 4: They scan the playfields and then they build elements in there. I mean they take months to a year or more to just make one table, and they get paid nothing because they can't be paid any right. 00:10:02 Speaker 3: Copyright illegal? Yes? 00:10:04 Speaker 2: Wow? So is there some level of piracy involved? 00:10:06 Speaker 4: One hundred percent, A full level of piracy, abject piracy. 00:10:12 Speaker 2: I love to hear it. I love there. So you don't beyond paying for the virtual pinball And I hate to paint you as a criminal. 00:10:17 Speaker 3: No, it's fine. I've admitted as well. 00:10:20 Speaker 2: You did just kind of give me all this information. So you buy the machine and then the pinball stuff is all free. 00:10:26 Speaker 3: Yes. 00:10:26 Speaker 4: Yeah, you just go to their websites, you download the software, and then you fire it up. 00:10:31 Speaker 2: Yeah. I'm fairly familiar with this as far as arcade games and video games in the emulator realm, so this sounds kind of for me. 00:10:37 Speaker 4: It is that, but then it's you know, people will build arcade cabinets, you know that have all the buttons and lights and everything. This is like that, But then there are also additional elements. Again, gear, a gear motor that sort of buzzes when a thing on the playfield would make a warm sound. There are physical elements to it that are making sounds, not just audio coming from a speaker. 00:10:59 Speaker 2: Now, do you have the interest in buying a real physical pinball map someday? 00:11:03 Speaker 3: Maybe? 00:11:03 Speaker 4: I mean when I was at that pinball convention and I know everyone is thrilled that this is where this converstation's gone. You've been waiting and waiting for bridges dignastic scoop. I am aware of that, and that's why this is happening. But when I was at that convention in Atlanta, I was admiring a machine that was owned by a gentleman standing x men. I said to him, I think, I mean, do I want to own a pinball machine? I was sort of, you know, buzzing with excitement. He said, well, do you love fixing pinball machines? And I said no, And he said, then you do not want to own a pinball machine. So one another advantage of the machine that I have is that it is extremely low maintenance. Right, It's a computer, so sometimes connections get loose and you have to tighten them and. 00:11:44 Speaker 3: Things like that. 00:11:45 Speaker 4: But generally it does not have the upkeep that a mechanical machine. 00:11:49 Speaker 1: Right. 00:11:50 Speaker 2: That's like buying an old car or something. And so it looks great, but then it's just stressing you out. You're in the garage every weekend. 00:11:56 Speaker 4: And there are people for whom that's pleasurable or my nightmare that I want a thing to work, right, because I'm a profoundly lazy person. 00:12:06 Speaker 2: Do you have a favorite pinball machine? I'm going to keep asking pinball questions because I am interested in the listener doesn't matter. 00:12:12 Speaker 4: That's been very clear we've shunned them long ago. I don't know that I have a favorite. I mean, the favorite that my family and I chose from the pinball convention lo those years ago is one called Champion Pub. 00:12:25 Speaker 3: Oh. 00:12:25 Speaker 4: It has a big dude in the middle of the of the playfield that's sort of facing upstage. 00:12:31 Speaker 3: And then if you hit him enough times, he turns around and you. 00:12:33 Speaker 4: Have a fistfight where what your ball is the punching and you try and go up a ramp to hit him in the jaw. 00:12:40 Speaker 3: It's very animated. It's it's really fun. 00:12:42 Speaker 2: I didn't realize pinball machines had gotten to this level of adventure. 00:12:45 Speaker 4: Oh, they have such toys in them now, Bridger, I'm going to ask you one of these days to go to one of the very close pinball locations. 00:12:54 Speaker 3: Near you and just to even just take a glance. 00:12:58 Speaker 4: Maybe, I don't know. If you're a hot dog person, Walts has great hot dog. You get a hot dog, maybe a pretzel. They have flaky salt on the pretzels, and you just admire the machines. 00:13:06 Speaker 2: It's it's Are they covered in greasy fingerprints? 00:13:09 Speaker 4: Absolutely, yes, it is. I do a lot of hand washing of course. 00:13:13 Speaker 2: Yes, who sings pinball Wizard? 00:13:16 Speaker 3: That would be the who. I believe that's the who. 00:13:18 Speaker 2: That makes sense, That makes sense. Okay, well, I don't know why I bring that up, but I'm not I just needed to get that information for myself. Maybe on the drive over I put that on. Sure, get in the mood, get in the zone, and then immediately fail the pinball machine put up? Yes, how much do they charge at this point for a pinball machine like to play the game? 00:13:36 Speaker 4: It depends on the place, but wallts For example, most places about fifty cents a game. 00:13:40 Speaker 2: That's so old fashion it is. 00:13:42 Speaker 4: It is some place some machine like the newest Machines. Revenge of has all the newest machines. Those will sometimes be seventy five cents or a dollar, and other locations I've been, you know, they'll sometimes have the audacity to charge two dollars a game. But that is I mean, with the speed at which I lose a pinball right game, that's two dollars too quickly. 00:14:03 Speaker 2: Just throwing two dollars away. Yes, well, that's very I'm proud of the pinball industry. I mean, growing up in the nineties, going to arcades, you felt the creep of prices going up to a point where I feel like you were paying five dollars to play an arcade. 00:14:16 Speaker 3: Again. 00:14:16 Speaker 4: Yeah, those, especially those virtual anything that kind of augments your reality, really bumped up the price. 00:14:23 Speaker 2: But then the industry collapsed and maybe they learned their lesson. 00:14:26 Speaker 3: Hope, so they got what they had coming. 00:14:28 Speaker 2: Have you ever been to family arcade? 00:14:29 Speaker 3: I have not. 00:14:30 Speaker 2: Oh that well, but you're not crazy about arcades, so. 00:14:33 Speaker 3: I don't mind them. They're fine. 00:14:34 Speaker 4: My son really likes arcades, so I'll take him there to places like that once in a while. 00:14:38 Speaker 2: But I just is this going to cause a wedge between you and your son his love of arcades and your love of pinballs? 00:14:44 Speaker 4: I think so we're too close as it is. I think it would be fine to. 00:14:48 Speaker 2: Have you could use some healthy space. 00:14:49 Speaker 3: That's right, That's right. 00:14:50 Speaker 2: I mean, I do think about your two children. I don't know them, but the like, twenty years from now, them saying remember when dad dragged us on the vacation to the pinball expo. 00:15:00 Speaker 3: Would say that now. 00:15:01 Speaker 4: My son, however, remembers it as a formative experience. 00:15:06 Speaker 2: Well, I'm happy for you that you found this thing. Thank you and I've got to go to Waltz. Maybe I start hanging around Waltz, become kind of a dangerous regular. 00:15:13 Speaker 3: Maybe a barfly. 00:15:16 Speaker 2: I have a very natural barfly energy I could exude. Well, that's very interesting. And if the listener has a problem with that, I always say, too bad, not my problem. You're not asking the questions. You're not the guest. You're here to listen and learn something new. And you've learned about virtual pinball machines, piracy, all of this. So, but we do have something else we need to get into. Look, I invited you on this podcast at some point in the past. God knows, when my memory is failing. You agreed to be on it. The podcast is called I said no gifts, and so I was very excited for you to be on the show. Obviously, I thought Riches so far, we've loved him for years o com he seems like a perfectly nice person. Besides Stephen being here recording, there will be no trouble. So when you showed up to my home on the same side of town as Waltz, let's just say it. Uh, you were sweating, you were drenched. Yes, I wasn't gonna let that distract me from the fact that you were holding a bag, which I'm just gonna ask, is this a gift for me? Okay, I'm looking at it. It's on the ground. Do you want me to open it here on the podcast? 00:16:34 Speaker 5: I mean I would sure, sure, Well, let's let me pick it up. 00:16:56 Speaker 3: Is it currently just discarded under the table? 00:16:59 Speaker 2: I'm not okay, I'm gonna stand up for myself here. 00:17:02 Speaker 3: Okay. 00:17:02 Speaker 2: I set the bag on the ground and an immediately fellow of. 00:17:05 Speaker 3: It's off balance. 00:17:06 Speaker 2: It's definitely off It's a trick bag, It's true. So I'm not going to be I'm not going to be painted as the host who throws the bag on the ground, That's right. But I mean, I'm going to take a picture of its current state. The listener might want to be curious to see, just for evidence in court. That's how it looks. I'll take that. We'll post that at some point, but I'm going to open it here on the podcast. It's in a brown bag that says the Magic Apple, Yes, which I'm familiar with? Are you I am familiar with? I don't know if the thing inside is from the Magic Apple. 00:17:35 Speaker 4: It isn't, Okay, it was just the bag that fit the inside. 00:17:39 Speaker 2: Right, I've been to the magic Apple. I think when I was working as a production assistant for someone needed a trick deck of cards, or if they have a lot of cape there or something something a magician would use. 00:17:49 Speaker 3: I tend to. 00:17:52 Speaker 4: Go through what a I call hobbies. My wife is called obsessions. This is true. Spoke with a shrink ones who called them fixations. I fixate on things, and one of the current fixation is pinball. 00:18:07 Speaker 2: Right. 00:18:07 Speaker 4: Board games have been sort of a long term fixation. But for about three years, I would say I was fixated on magic. 00:18:14 Speaker 2: And was it like a brand new to your life where you're just learning magic? 00:18:18 Speaker 3: No, I had some experience. 00:18:20 Speaker 4: I did perform at a birthday party when I believe I was sixteen or seventeen, and it was a true nightmare. The only time I've ever performed magic in front of anyone that wasn't like a single drunk friend. 00:18:33 Speaker 2: Right. 00:18:33 Speaker 3: But otherwise, yeah, it doesn't always go well. 00:18:36 Speaker 2: So what sort of magic were you learning I was learning. 00:18:39 Speaker 4: I've gone through phases with magic. I learned it when I was younger, and then in graduate school I was flat broke, so I just turned back to magic books to try and sort of keep myself busy. And then in this last round, these last few years here, I just will learn anything that seems interesting, and generally it's about saving a cure curiosity rather than spending any time practicing, because as I've mentioned, I'm profoundly lazy. I just like to go, oh, that's all, he did it, okay, and then I sort of move on from it. So I have a lot of magic books. And you know, you had a former guest on this show, Eugene Corderogen. And Eugene was my first New York friend when I first moved to New York in two thousand and three. This summer between my second and third year of graduate school, I was taking classes at the Upright Citizens Brigade, and Eugene and I were in levels one, two, and three together, and Eugene managed a bar on the Upper West Side, and he still loves to remind me of the time that I showed up, maybe a little tipsy around midnight, and while he was managing the bar, demanded that he watched me do some card tricks, all of which failed, absolute failure. 00:19:52 Speaker 3: And he you know, if. 00:19:54 Speaker 4: You've seen Eugene or if you know Eugene, he has a real, real calm demeanor about him. He would sort of actually go, huh so anymore of those? And it was an absolute tragedy, one of the most embarrassing moments in my life, which I don't know why I brought it up, and he continues to bring it. 00:20:14 Speaker 3: Up every time I see him relentless. Yes, he's an awful person. 00:20:17 Speaker 2: I mean the pinball, the pinball, the magic tricks. This is now it feels like you're training to be the villain in every Goosebumps book. I feel, yes, yes, what will be next? What will be the. 00:20:32 Speaker 4: Something that obviously is solitary and a high level of sort of nerdery and that no one really wants. 00:20:41 Speaker 2: To do with me, right, a level of dark whimsy. That's right, that's the hero of the Goosebumps book gets wrapped up in And well that's very interesting. Well, we've got to we have to stop to laying. I haven't even opened the gift yet, because magic gets in the way. Magic always gets always. Okay, I'm going to reach in here. There seems to be an should I look at this first? Sure, I got to get in here. It's just just b W very casual. I will say, sorry, Oh you've got some nice station Era thank you, says Rs rich Summer. Dear Bridger, Please forgive my insolence, but I've chosen my desire to bring you a gift over your insistence not to Rich Summer. So there's just an insult just right off the top of the bat. 00:21:23 Speaker 3: Well. 00:21:24 Speaker 4: I've made clear that I am aware of the fact that I'm disobeying. 00:21:28 Speaker 2: You were going to be difficult, and you just wanted to clear the air right ahead. I appreciate that. Okay, let's get some tissue. I feel like we're not getting enough tissue on this podcast recently. 00:21:39 Speaker 3: And there's a theme. 00:21:40 Speaker 4: There are two items in this bat Okay, there's a theme that very loosely connects them. 00:21:46 Speaker 2: That's okay, I'm very excited about. Okay, we're pulling out the first thing. Should I bring them out both at once, one at a time. Okay, We've got I'm going to destroy some car speakers. 00:22:01 Speaker 3: Reaching through your head. 00:22:01 Speaker 2: Screaming, Oh, this looks very collectible to me. This is a Cracked magazine from November of nineteen ninety. That's right, that's right, and it has Bart Simpson and an exclusive Simpson's interview, and Bart is kind of shooting a slingshot at the Ninja Turtles, Raphael at least RoboCop, Dick Tracy, Arnold Schwarzenegger from something he's in. 00:22:26 Speaker 3: Plaid maybe oh yes, yeah, maybe Last Action Hero. 00:22:29 Speaker 2: And then Marty and Doc. That's right, Well, I should win a prize for naming all. But actually there's there are two guys on there that I don't recognize. Who are these two? 00:22:37 Speaker 4: Oh it's another forty eight hours. I think it's Nick Nltien. Oh Eddie Murphy. 00:22:41 Speaker 2: Apologies to both of those men. Okay, what's going on here? 00:22:45 Speaker 4: So the theme I'll just tell you is magazines that I purchased on eBay. 00:22:49 Speaker 2: Oh I love this field because I've often been tempted. 00:22:53 Speaker 4: Oh good, okay, well this this one in particular. They both have some significance to my life, this one more so than the other one. But I'll tell you in this if I'm may please, I just want to flip to a particular page. And the reason I felt comfortable bringing this here is I accidentally purchased two copies of it, so I have done for myself. 00:23:14 Speaker 2: I love to be an accident benefit of an accident bridge your line. 00:23:19 Speaker 3: Benefit of an accident? 00:23:22 Speaker 4: Okay, it won't belong now, sure, rich Is it's just quietly reading. 00:23:27 Speaker 2: It looks like he's just going to consume the whole magazine. 00:23:29 Speaker 4: It's really great stuff. And now looking at the table of contract to see if I can Oh, there it is, page seventeen. Why didn't I look that up first? 00:23:35 Speaker 2: He didn't know this magazine as well as he thought. 00:23:37 Speaker 4: That's right, So I will draw the letters page and this letter. 00:23:45 Speaker 2: Oh my god. Yeah, so he's opened the letters page and there is Maybe I'll read the letter first, Dear Brand. Besides Brand X, I love Warren Beattie meets the real Dick Tracy. I liked the way the Cracked interviewer came on the scene. And Nanny Dickering never heard this name book. 00:24:02 Speaker 3: No, she's a character. 00:24:04 Speaker 2: Is Nanny Dickering? I mean? And gave the secret password. Hi, it's me any face. And that's that was written by none other than Rich Summer in Stillwater, Minnesota. That's right, that's incredible. Were you did you frequently write into the magazine? 00:24:20 Speaker 4: I this was not the only letter that I wrote to Cracked, Nor is that the full body of the letter that I wrote to Cracked that time, when I would write to Crack, it would be a page or a page and a half handwritten in twelve year old scrawl. And this cutting. I just remember my excitement at seeing my name in the magazine fame, and then the instant disappointment at the cutting of the letter that I've written, because it is only. 00:24:50 Speaker 3: Me kissing their. 00:24:51 Speaker 2: Ass basically, And the rest of the letter was a manifesto, that's rights. 00:24:55 Speaker 3: I had so much more I wanted to get out there. 00:24:59 Speaker 4: Most of the letters I wrote to Cracked where ninety percent manifesto and then some little blurb that they would always print. I'm clearly so first off brand besides brand X. They referred to Mad Magazine as brand as. 00:25:10 Speaker 2: Oh interesting or number one competitor. 00:25:12 Speaker 4: And by number one competitor, I mean Mad Magazine stomped the guts of Cracked magazine Forever. Every friend I had loved Mad magazine. I was the only Cracked fan. 00:25:22 Speaker 2: Knowing very little about either, I leaned towards Cracked. 00:25:26 Speaker 3: Really, yes, oh that makes me I feel like. 00:25:28 Speaker 2: It's a more tasteful magazine. 00:25:30 Speaker 4: Well, I don't know that you'll find that to be true. If you flick through this, I. 00:25:33 Speaker 2: Think it's a more interesting magazine. 00:25:36 Speaker 3: I did too. I thought it was funnier. 00:25:39 Speaker 4: But all of my friends read MAD because it's the one that you get, So that's the brand besides brand X. This way I wrote this, and then I'm just clearly talking about. First off, Dick Tracy, the movie Dick Tracy. I saw it the drive in when I when it first came out. When I would go to the drive in, you know, you got them the sound from the speakers on your radio right right, and I would take with me my grandmother had given me a mint green miniature boombox, and I would put a cassette in or several cassettes and record the audio began. Correct, that's right. That's why the path was lame. And I would just listen to these movies over and over because it was fun. You know, I didn't have tvds. We had a BCR, but didn't have HBO or anything, so it was just a fun way for me to keep the movie going. So Dick Tracy was one of those movies. And when it was in Cracked, I mean, for me, it was the marriage of my moment. 00:26:31 Speaker 2: An early collab that's right. That's it. Do you remember what the rest of this letter had to say? Do you have any recollection? 00:26:38 Speaker 3: None? 00:26:39 Speaker 4: Again, one of several letters that that I wrote to Cracked magazine. 00:26:43 Speaker 2: That is incredible, And so these tapes you would just do feel like you have Dick Tracy memorized on some level. 00:26:49 Speaker 4: No, but there I'll still hear a quote from the movie that I have familiarity with that's deeper than having seen a trailer over and over or anything like that. There's they're still in there somewhere. Wow. But I couldn't access it. I couldn't even give you one one line from it. 00:27:04 Speaker 2: What was exactly the hook of Dick Tracy. Obviously he's a detective, but what else is going on there? He had a cool watch, that kind of a high tech watch. I had like a radio watch. So he was kind some level sci fi. 00:27:17 Speaker 3: Yeah, well I think he was. 00:27:19 Speaker 4: He just had access to that one gadget. He wasn't like James Bond, right, He didn't have a lot of sort of technical know how. He just kicked down doors and you know, had test true heart on his arm. And I well, part of my love of Dick Tracy, I mentioned shrinks. 00:27:38 Speaker 3: They've been a part of my life forever. 00:27:39 Speaker 4: And when I was in fifth grade, I had to go to one and he had in his waiting room a big omnibus of Dick Tracy comics. 00:27:47 Speaker 3: Oh my god. 00:27:47 Speaker 4: So I would read these comics whenever I went I would find where I had left off and reading. And I was so excited when the movie came out because you'd see some of the characters that you had read about in His Soul coming, and those kind when I was reading them in the late eighties were already fifty years old, right forty years old, so they when the movie Dick Tracy came out, I was one of the few people at my school who had sort of a leg up on knowing who the hell was and what the point. 00:28:15 Speaker 2: Was and does Dick Tracy are the villains in it? I feel like every one of them has a horrifying face. 00:28:20 Speaker 4: Yeah, they're all very strange. I mean, it's sort of like if a nine year old drew bad Guys. There was little face, which was a person with a sort of a slightly larger than average head, and then just a tiny face in the middle. 00:28:33 Speaker 2: Oh, this is horrible. 00:28:35 Speaker 3: Yeah, that those kinds of things. 00:28:37 Speaker 2: So it's kind of bumbling his way through this world of mutants, that's right, solving crimes with this this more sci fi than I've allowed. Yeah, this is I need to revisit. I have a very very dim memory of seeing the movie. Remember the watch and just kind of garbage pale esque faces on every villain. 00:28:53 Speaker 4: That's exactly well, particularly of that. You know, the garbage pale Kid's movie had come out just a couple of years before. 00:28:58 Speaker 2: I didn't know if it was a movie. 00:28:59 Speaker 3: Oh, it is a well known travesty. 00:29:04 Speaker 4: Oh oh ridgard I beg of you to go if not watch it, and I wouldn't. I wouldn't dream of forcing you to watch it, but I would ask you to just read up a little bit on the reception that movie received. It wasn't great. It was thick with controversy and a very you know, parents were upset by garbage pil kids. Anyway, I had a good, a good sized collection, and when I was eight years old and we moved from Ohio to Minnesota, my dad said everything in the room could come except for those garbage pail kids. So they were they were you know, parents really hated them. And then they had the gall to make a movie about them, and it was it was not met. 00:29:46 Speaker 2: Well is the movie live action? 00:29:47 Speaker 3: It is? 00:29:48 Speaker 2: Oh, I have to see this. 00:29:49 Speaker 4: Those things, like you said, those garbage pil kids like faces from Dick Tracy, I mean, true monstrosities. 00:29:56 Speaker 3: It is horrifying. 00:29:58 Speaker 2: Is there a like an act human being in the movie or something? 00:30:02 Speaker 3: Yes, and it's not. 00:30:03 Speaker 4: I don't think it's Leah Thompson because I think I'm complating with Howard the Duck, But it's someone like that, it is. It's in that family though, of the Dick Tracy, Howard the Duck, garbage pail Kids, teenage mutant ninja turtles, live action, They're all sort of things that you just can't believe someone thought were good ideas. 00:30:22 Speaker 2: Well, the power of animatronics was really going full blast in the eighties. I think we got out of control. 00:30:28 Speaker 4: But these are even beyond These are foam things that humans are wearing. 00:30:33 Speaker 2: I mean it's are adults playing the babies. 00:30:37 Speaker 3: Yes, it's awful. It's so terrible. 00:30:42 Speaker 2: Do the garbage pail Kids have an origin story? 00:30:45 Speaker 3: I think so. I don't know they they. 00:30:51 Speaker 4: Yes, I'm sure that movie tried to ascertain what the origin was, and people were so distracted by what their eyes couldn't hand. 00:30:58 Speaker 2: Yeah, you don't. You can't get an explanation for a why a bunch of kids ended up in garbage cans without it feeling bad forever? Yes, yes, wow, I had no idea. Obviously familiar with Howard the Duck, but this does feel exactly in that territory. So I've got to look that up. That sounds disgusting, it's awful. Well, let me get back into the back here. Let's see what this other magazine is. I hope it's just a national geographic from this month. Let's see. We're pulling it out, pulling Oh wow, this is another this so this is a Time magazine from what year is this? 00:31:33 Speaker 3: Sixty four? 00:31:34 Speaker 2: Sixty four? And who? I don't even know who Pierre Salinger is. 00:31:38 Speaker 4: Pierre Salinger was Kennedy's secretary, Okay, I should know this. The reason I have that is I purchased it for research. I wanted to give that to you because I want it did out of my home as well. Again, I was. I bought this magazine because I was cast as Pierre Salinger in a movie and it was one of the most thrilling notions in my career. A very small role in a movie called LBJ, directed by Rob Reiner, starring Woody Harrelson as Lyndon Baines Johnson. And I was so excited for this movie everything about it. Five weeks in New Orleans. I had never been to New Orleans. It was just perfect. The movie is great. It's not about the movie. It's my performance in the movie. It is one of my I don't want my kids to see it. Really, I'm just and look, if you watch it, you probably would be like, it's not it's not that right. It's not great, but it's not that bad. 00:32:41 Speaker 3: For me. 00:32:42 Speaker 4: It's such a swing and a miss. I had such goals. I had never played a historical figure before, so I wanted to dig in. I watched so many, you know, reels of Pierre Salinger delivering speeches and tried to kind of learn his manners of For my combined eleven lines in this movie, I gained weight. 00:33:03 Speaker 3: To try and look up. I really went over the top. 00:33:06 Speaker 4: And I watched that movie the first time that I saw it, and I just sank into my chair and thought, oh, that's not what it felt like coming out of my face. Oh but that's what it looks like. Uh, it didn't. It's not my proudest work. I enjoyed the movie I'm talking about. 00:33:28 Speaker 2: So curious about did Pierre have like a unique voice? 00:33:31 Speaker 3: Well? 00:33:32 Speaker 2: I decided he did despite all evidence. 00:33:35 Speaker 3: Correct. 00:33:36 Speaker 4: I think if you watch him speaking, it's one of those. Again, if I could go back in time, I would. I would say to myself, sitting on the couch, no, no, no, no, no, it's just an old timey movie. The sound is different. 00:33:49 Speaker 2: I mean it is speaking of Dictor. 00:33:53 Speaker 3: Such shame, Bridger, such shame. 00:33:55 Speaker 4: And I remember sitting on the set and it's one of those where again I retro actively interpret the way people looked at me. You know, someone would throw me a glance on set, and now I go, oh, they were wondering what the fuck I was doing. They weren't. 00:34:12 Speaker 3: No one told me. 00:34:13 Speaker 4: They would just sort of look at me, and I would go, oh, oh, that's what that meant. I wondered why, you know Rob Reiner looked at me that way. He didn't say anything to me. 00:34:25 Speaker 2: I cannot imagine. It's that you're an excellent action. 00:34:29 Speaker 4: Look, I appreciate you, you're a good act but This is what I will say, is uh. I describe it as this when I have done a play and night after night you're trying to sort of for me, at least, I'm I'm seeking some perfect performance. I know that's unattainable, but that's sort of My goal is to make it better every time. And those nights where it's off to me, they feel profoundly off. To anyone else on stage or in the audience, it might be half a degree off from where it was yesterday. And I will leave at nights like I don't know. I'm not going out to get drinks. I'm just going home and like looking at my lines again, and everyone else would say, why, what's wrong? It's just a feeling a rhythm was off, something wasn't on. That's how I feel about this. I'm again sure that if you looked at it, you would not be bowled over. And if this was the only bit of my work that you ever saw, you might not be chomping at the bit and see me again. But I don't think you'd feel the horror that I feel in watching that the two times that I've seen it and ever will see it. 00:35:36 Speaker 2: How why do you think you get casting a lot of period pieces. Do you feel like you have an old passioned energy or do you think it's mad Men has given people the idea that you are from the sixties. 00:35:45 Speaker 4: I think mad Men it was part of it. I think that's definitely part of it. I also think it's partially that and this is less of a thing now, I feel. But there was a time there where my body type was more unique sure in that I was not. You know, in graduate school, I had an acting teacher who was adamant with me. He said, you either need to lose weight and become leading man, or you need to gain weight and become like Chris Farley, right. And I said, well, I guess I'm never going to work because I'm not willing to do either of those things. 00:36:23 Speaker 3: This will be a recurring theme. I'm lazy. I just didn't think that was necessary. 00:36:28 Speaker 4: So I believe that part of it is that I have always been and I've certainly been even softer, but I've always been a softer. 00:36:37 Speaker 2: You're like a normal man. 00:36:38 Speaker 4: I'm like a normal human being. But that is that's easy to put into something in the in period stuff. It's less common in contemporary I don't know why. But if you look at things out there, I feel as though that's the case. 00:36:51 Speaker 2: Yeah, that kind of makes sense. I mean, and now that reminds me. I wanted to ask you about the weight gaining for the pier ro. What did you do to gain weight? I'm always curious about this. Well, did you have fun? 00:37:03 Speaker 3: No? 00:37:03 Speaker 4: I mean, yeah, you know it was fun. It was fun in the way that it was. I didn't exercise. I just was unhealthy. I just drank a lot of alcohol. And I mean I love to drink alcohol and eat bad food anyway. I just sometimes will also take a walk. I just stopped walking. I became sedentary. 00:37:23 Speaker 2: And did you drag your family into this? 00:37:26 Speaker 3: I try not to. I try not to make them have to deal with me. 00:37:31 Speaker 2: Did you get to eat a lot of extra treats? 00:37:34 Speaker 4: I mean, I'm a big treat eater anyway, And so it just was sort of no Holtz Barre. I will say that when I was cast in the role, I was in a I've never done this. I've done this one time, I one time, never since and never before. I had a sort of a friend and I felt that we had sort of gotten out of shape, and we thought, let's do a competition to try and lose. Whoever lose this is the higher percentage of their body fat by such and such a date gets one hundred bucks. Okay, And we were in the midst of this. But we're both actors. So at the beginning of the bet, we had said, if a role comes along that requires us to not be doing this, then then it gets called off. 00:38:16 Speaker 3: So I did. I had been being healthy and I called it off. 00:38:21 Speaker 2: Wow. So you went out of your way to get this role to get out of the bed. 00:38:24 Speaker 3: That's correct, that's correct. 00:38:25 Speaker 4: Interesting knowing it was entirely wrong for me, and going so far as to make it myself even less right for it by putting on a voice, and God. 00:38:36 Speaker 2: When you decided that Pierre sang every one of his words. Is there anything interesting we should know about Pierre? I don't, or should history forget Pierre. 00:38:45 Speaker 3: I think he was fine. 00:38:47 Speaker 2: I mean, he got his own magazine cover. He must have done something exciting. He's very proud of himself here. 00:38:51 Speaker 4: He's very pro Yes, I mean he went on to have a thriving career in I think he did some commentary, political commentary. He did by the end of his life, have some mega chops. I mean, he grews that were just abhorrent. 00:39:07 Speaker 2: I mean, I will say, on the cover of this magazine he's looking to the sky and then there's a baby grand piano being played by mysterious hands, and then a scary man dancing on top of it. 00:39:17 Speaker 3: Man dancing. 00:39:17 Speaker 2: No one knows who this kind of specter is haunting. Pierre. I feel like you had chops in Madmen. 00:39:25 Speaker 4: I did, no, No, they were applied every day. The hair, all of my hair was real, okay, just the chops were applied every right. 00:39:33 Speaker 2: Harry Crane, do we think he's a good guy or a bad guy? 00:39:35 Speaker 4: Well, I don't think he's a great guy. 00:39:39 Speaker 3: I think he's. 00:39:41 Speaker 4: My My thing with Harry Crane is I I've never understood that actor rule that people have of well, you can't you can't think your character is a bad guy. 00:39:50 Speaker 3: You have to think your character is the hero of the story. 00:39:52 Speaker 2: Everyone. 00:39:53 Speaker 4: People would get frustrated when anytime I will ask someone something like that, well you got your characters sort of an asshole? They get sometimes defensive, right, sort of No, no, no, no, he's the hero of my story. Harry Crane was not the hero of my story. 00:40:07 Speaker 2: It made some clearly bad choice. 00:40:09 Speaker 4: I think he was a jerk. I think he was wicked smart. I think he was he had a sort of foresight that was not paralleled in the office. But I do think he was a lineball and I was not. I was rooting for him insofar as I wanted to keep working. I didn't want him to make an error that was it worked, It worked. I got to stay until the end. But I also have never never questioned anybody's The only thing that I question is when people say things like Harry changed in a way that doesn't make sense. They would say something like I never I never liked what the writers did with Harry. What And that one always frustrates me because I feel as though I remember in an acting class they said, you know it's and it's an age old phrase is just adopted for adapted right for the actor, which is that you know, characters don't change, but their situations do, right, so they may respond to their new situation in a different it seems a different way that seems uncharacteristic to their earlier That's how I feel about Harry. He was given power, he was given a wide runway and money, and he let his freak flag fly. 00:41:19 Speaker 2: I guess it always made perfect sense to me. Oh good, I do feel like Harry Crane gave Joan some nice job. That was they had kind of a well. 00:41:28 Speaker 4: He he gave her an opportunity, and then once she proved that the opportunity made sense, he then gave that job to a man. That's right. It was the first time I was already yelled at on the street. Really was after that episode aired, as someone saw me and yelled. 00:41:45 Speaker 3: At me, you should have given Jon. 00:41:48 Speaker 4: And they were just as flummbings in saying it as I was. Just now, they were so upset at seeing me. 00:41:56 Speaker 2: I mean justified. We we love when a television watch yells to the employee of television show. 00:42:03 Speaker 4: Yes, I like it when they take the writing of the show with which I had nothing to do personally. 00:42:09 Speaker 2: It all makes perfect sense. Well, do we have anything else we need to talk about with Pierre Salinger or Crack Magazine? 00:42:16 Speaker 3: No, I think we've covered the ground. 00:42:17 Speaker 2: Well, this is wonderful. I have two collectible magazines. Now, maybe I'll get them framed or leave them on a counter. 00:42:23 Speaker 3: I think that's fine. I think a counter would work. 00:42:26 Speaker 2: I think it's time to play a game. Oh good We're gonna play a game called Gift or a Curse. I need a number between one and ten from you two. Okay, I have to do some light calculating. So in the meantime, you can recommend, you can promote, you can do whatever you want with the microphone. I'll be right back. 00:42:40 Speaker 3: Oh goodness. 00:42:41 Speaker 4: Okay, Well, I'm going to just speak a little more about the Magic Apple. It's the Magic Store on the second floor in Studio City, California. They do mail order at the Magic Apple dot com. Brent, who runs the shop has become a friend of mine, and good news because I am sort of an evangelist hobbies. Whatever hobby I'm in, I want to suck as many people in as I can. Brent got rebritten by the Pinball Bug as well, and currently has a Stranger Things pinball machine in the Magic Apple. So if you are looking for either of my most recent fixations, you can find them both at the Magic Apple. 00:43:18 Speaker 2: The middle of the Rich Summer Vendagress Correct is in Studio City, Right, that's amazing. Yes, you're an influencer. You're a magician influencer. 00:43:28 Speaker 3: That's right. That's right. That is not a claim to fix. 00:43:31 Speaker 2: That's kind of what you've been seeking your entire life and you finally got the crown. 00:43:35 Speaker 3: That's right. 00:43:36 Speaker 2: This is how gifter or a curse works. I'm going to name three things. You're gonna tell me if there are a gift or a curse and why? 00:43:42 Speaker 3: Okay? 00:43:43 Speaker 2: And I'm gonna tell you if you're a correct or not there are correct answers, and you can lose this game. 00:43:47 Speaker 3: I believe that to be true. 00:43:48 Speaker 2: Okay. This first suggestion is from a listener who declined to give their name. Maybe they were embarrassed to be on my podcast, which hurts. Gift or a curse? Being served a fork and knife with a brito. 00:44:01 Speaker 3: A gift, I suppose, yeah, because why not? 00:44:05 Speaker 4: I mean, sometimes more often than not, I think a burrito hasn't been formed in the way that it's going to stay together, and so very often, if I'm eating a burrito, the bottom will finally fall out at some point, and having that fork there to go for it is helpful. By that point, my hands have been sullied entirely by the burrito. I don't wish to then pick up a wet piece of chicken or something and just pop it in my mouth. 00:44:35 Speaker 3: So I would accept those offerings as a gift. 00:44:38 Speaker 2: Rich wrong, Oh damn it. Of course this is a curse. The structure of a burrito is so important, and if you're handed a fork and a knife, it means the restaurant knows ahead of time. They didn't the architecture of the brito is wrong. So basically, they're giving you a thing they know is going to fail, okay, and you're going to be eaten. It's not gonna taste as good because the place doesn't know how to make burrito. 00:45:00 Speaker 3: Is it. 00:45:01 Speaker 4: I mean, there's no user error possibility even in a well made bri So a well made burrito, let me just get this straight. A well constructed burrito should be able to defy even the most hamhanded of eaters. 00:45:16 Speaker 2: Absolutely. I'm going to walk you through what a burrito needs to be. A burrito should be able to stand on its own until the final two inches, and then I should be the most disgusting looking thing in the world. The rest of the people in the restaurant should have to look away because I'm trying to get it into my mouth. Those two inches can't of course, at that point things have fallen apart. But until then you should be able to set the burrito down on the table and it's standing there because every ingredient has been placed. 00:45:41 Speaker 4: Just so, I would love to know where you get Britas, because I have never encountered a burrito that could withstand being set down. Once you go in on burritos, you're locked in. You might, as I say, you might take your dominant hand and perhaps find a napkin you can sort of just squeeze a few times to get some of the juice off so you can. 00:46:05 Speaker 3: Take a sip of your drink. 00:46:07 Speaker 4: But otherwise that non dominant hand is busy keeping the burrito together for the until it's gone. 00:46:12 Speaker 2: Are you starting the burrito from the middle? Are you just taking a big bite out like an apple? 00:46:17 Speaker 4: No, but it's gonna leak. There's a little bit of juice involved. There's always some sort of moisture that goes down your hand. You're gonna set it down, You're gonna wipe your hands and start over. No, no, no, Once you're in, you're committed on the non dominant hand. 00:46:29 Speaker 2: At least look a bean and cheese burrito. I'm with you. That's got too much soft stuff going on. Okay, But if we have a you know, a what I believe is called a mission style burrito from you know, the San Francisco area, it should have enough of every item that it should be able to and it should be grilled on the outside. 00:46:46 Speaker 4: Let's be very well, and that that is maybe the part that's missing in some of these burritos, because once it's grilled, there is some. 00:46:52 Speaker 2: Adhesion, right, that helps, Right, And places that aren't grilling their burritos are that's absolutely free to them, and it improves the burrito. So those places they should stop paying for the forks and knives and invest in the grill for the burrito. 00:47:06 Speaker 3: All right, fine, you know what you've convinced me I'm wrong. 00:47:09 Speaker 2: Okay, thank you, thank you. It only took dissertations, my godlie. Okay, second up, so you're failing, just to be clear, all right? Oh, for one, you can always reverse your fate. This is a listener named Nolan has written in and gift her a curse. Car lashes. Are you familiar the things that are on headlights? 00:47:30 Speaker 4: Yeah? 00:47:30 Speaker 2: Kind of the eyelashes on the headlights. I assume that's what it is a car in a way, Yes, curse and why I. 00:47:39 Speaker 4: Don't feel as though I need to say anymore. There's I defy anyone to tell me what the benefit is. 00:47:46 Speaker 3: They're only a distraction. 00:47:48 Speaker 4: I mean, I guess I can keep going they I'll tell you what, if you put lashes on a PT Cruiser, I will fight the person that's driving it. I will have I don't and I'm not a fighter, ridger. I don't engage in it. I was always I got beat up a little bit in in junior high and high school, and I would always keep talking, but I never really swung back. I would maybe try and protect myself, but I just wouldn't shut up. That's always been my problem. So if I saw a driver of a PT Cruiser with car lashes, and we're both presuming that this is what this means, I. 00:48:21 Speaker 2: Can't imagine whipping a car or hope not. 00:48:25 Speaker 4: I Yeah, I think I might throw my first punch wouldn't be a good one. 00:48:29 Speaker 3: I don't know how to do it, but I'd go for it. 00:48:32 Speaker 2: You would meet this person in the Cools parking lot and fistfight them. 00:48:35 Speaker 3: That's right? 00:48:36 Speaker 2: Okay, So you're saying curse, yes, it's very hard for me to say this is a gift. You're right, you're absolutely I cannot. I can't. I can't sit here and record myself saying, you know, future generations can't hear me say that a car lash was ever a good idea. 00:48:55 Speaker 3: Absolutely not. 00:48:56 Speaker 2: Well. I think even the person who purchases the car lashes like, what am I doing? 00:49:00 Speaker 3: Yeah? Oh no, no no. 00:49:02 Speaker 4: And the people who are selling them are thrilled that someone is taking this out of their inventory. They're tired of putting a check by it on the inventory list once a month. 00:49:10 Speaker 2: It's all a whole a trick. I mean, the people are selling them are definitely predators. They're looking for these poor customers and like kind of they see they probably see this person coming from a mile away. They're like, that's a car lash purchaser because they're one, and you know there it's a type. I have to imagine. 00:49:28 Speaker 4: There's a bonus certainly built in for selling these Carla. Also, I know it's your first day, but we've had these goddamn car lashes on the day. If you can sell one of these extra hundred bucks this month, no troubet. 00:49:39 Speaker 2: Where do you buy a car lash. 00:49:41 Speaker 3: I don't know Claire Claire's. 00:49:46 Speaker 2: You're I mean, I can't imagine you're going down to AutoZone. 00:49:49 Speaker 4: I have to imagine that's the only place right. I can't Or Spencer Gifts. Maybe that's that's maybe it's Spencer. 00:49:56 Speaker 3: Gifts, or or there was another one. 00:49:58 Speaker 2: Zoop zoop, Oh there is a z something that closes. 00:50:04 Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe there. 00:50:06 Speaker 2: I feel like now I've actually just come up with this theory. I think one there was one set of car lashes made. The person purchased them. Halfway down the road, they thought, God, what am I doing? Rip them off and threw them off and they've just kind of been somebody saw them pick them up. I'll try that on my car they get halfway down the road. That's just been passed around for the last twelve years. 00:50:25 Speaker 4: I hope that you're right, because otherwise there's more than. 00:50:29 Speaker 2: One right, And I just don't cannot imagine a place of business that I would go to buy my car lashes. It goes the same with the uh, I don't even know what they're called, truck balls or whatever the hell. Yes, I mean, they're all terear. I mean, it's just it's real categories of people that are just the worst people in the world. 00:50:46 Speaker 4: You're going to have to convince me that a bumper sticker is necessary to then augment with truck balls or headlight lashes. It's not except again, either black or white. It drives where it's going. 00:51:03 Speaker 3: That's it. You've lost. You've lost the right to fancify your cause. 00:51:09 Speaker 2: Yeah, we were given too much power, that's right, and we've got to scale back. Okay, you got one out of You've gotten one correct so far, which is impressive. Final this is from another listener named Hannah, and Hannah wrote in Gift or a Curse the little pantyhose socks that shoe stores provide for shoe try on. 00:51:29 Speaker 4: I'm gonna say gift again. As a as a frequent handwasher, I think that there's I appreciate knowing that an effort was made. I know that if I go to try on shoes, it's very likely someone skipped the little booties when they tried them on before me, and so I have to wear them because, you know, in hopes of avoiding whatever they've left behind. 00:51:52 Speaker 3: But I'm gonna say, I'm going to say again. 00:51:55 Speaker 2: You've got it. Yes, of course I love those things. I mean, first, how often you to go in a store and they just give you something that's right, a free thing, free suck. I mean, of course it disintegrates on your foot. 00:52:06 Speaker 3: Yeah, it's not a useful thing, but I mean. 00:52:09 Speaker 2: It actually is useful if you're robbing a bank. 00:52:11 Speaker 3: Uh, you over several before? How many, sir, are you trying on shoes to get Yeah? 00:52:17 Speaker 4: Yeah, I just I forgot the things them together. 00:52:21 Speaker 3: Yes, exactly. 00:52:23 Speaker 2: I love a nylon over the head. I guess those don't quite work as a criminal tool. You would have to really go for But if you're in a pinch, you're like at the rack, how then you think, oh, there's a bank next store. I forgot my regular nylons, right, and. 00:52:37 Speaker 3: I was going to buy shoes today. 00:52:38 Speaker 4: So what I'll do is I'll borrow these, I'll take the booties, I'll run across and rob the bank, and then I'll be back and I'll buy the shoes. 00:52:46 Speaker 2: Right. Yeah. So I love those things. I love the feel I love And now I have a new idea. You know, you go to the store and they say you can't try on the swimsuit, of course because for obvious reasons, why not get these nylons in underwear form, they hand those out of the dressing room. M this feels like a perfect solution to everyone's problem. 00:53:05 Speaker 3: I don't know. 00:53:06 Speaker 4: I'm not sure at that point, I might wanna up the ply a little bit. 00:53:11 Speaker 3: I might go for a double. 00:53:13 Speaker 2: Fly, a double ply nylon. I mean, I'm just throwing these ideas out there. The purpose of this podcast is to improve the world. And so if some big box retailer is looking for a solution for people to try on swimsuits at their store, now they've got the perfect idea. 00:53:31 Speaker 3: Two or three or several ply nylon underwear. 00:53:35 Speaker 2: Trying not to picture that on a human body because that seems horrifying, but I did want to give that little image to the view of listener, the viewer. Maybe we launch into a television show. You heard it, you got it, you got two out of three. I'll take it a solid And what is this is a D plus? 00:53:52 Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's roughly how I rolled. 00:53:56 Speaker 2: We love a D plus. I mean, it's not a fail, and I feel like we really came together at the end. They're so excellently played Richard. 00:54:03 Speaker 3: I'm going to tell you what my GPA was in tenth grade. 00:54:05 Speaker 2: Oh, I'm very curious to hear this. Now I guess. 00:54:09 Speaker 4: Oh you may guess if you'd like, but I'll just give you this before you guess. So it's an educated guess. It was a fraught year. Okay, it's the first year of high school, right right tenth where I went to me taking schools through six, then seventy nine, then ten eleven twelve, So first year of high school. My parents had just gotten a divorce the year before. I also wanted to learn guitar so that I could work at a Bible camp. So all of these things put together. Knowing that I was very focused on learning guitar, knowing that I was in a bit of a rebellious state, I thought I would offer you the opportunity to guess what my GPA was in tenth grade. 00:54:45 Speaker 2: So you were you had Christian rock stardom in your sites of Okay, tenth grade. I mean, and I will say, because you do seem like like if I had had to guess prior to this, I would have been like three A. I would say three seven to three low three nine. But now we've got this information, I'm gonna say. 00:55:09 Speaker 3: I'm going to say it's a memorable for me. 00:55:11 Speaker 2: Obviously, a very memorable. I'm going to say a two to one. 00:55:15 Speaker 3: That's wrong. 00:55:17 Speaker 4: Now, obviously there's so many numbers, but it's really not even close. My GPA in tenth grade was MM point nine two four. You failed every I failed four of. 00:55:28 Speaker 3: My seven courses. 00:55:29 Speaker 2: Wow, that is remarkable. 00:55:31 Speaker 4: The four courses I failed were English, Social Studies, Spanish, and drama. 00:55:36 Speaker 2: The big one, Yes and drama. What did what did you pass? 00:55:40 Speaker 3: Oh? 00:55:40 Speaker 4: God, I don't remember. That's not that part didn't stick. Really, it was it was the four. It was failing Drama and Spanish. I mean I knew Spanish. I failed. In a real blaze of glory. I I went to the UH. It was about two weeks before they were going to give the final, and our teacher was was telling us what was required on the final, and I again, at this point, I knew the writing was on the wall. And I raised my hand and she said, can you please? She already was over me. Please can you just ask questions after I'm done? I said, it's a quick one. I promise if I got an A plus, I mean I got every question right on this final. Moade your lawn would I pass this class? And she said I don't. I don't have the numbers in front. I said, take a take a swing, knowing what you know about how I've done so far this year, if I aced this test, would I pass? 00:56:33 Speaker 3: She said probably not? Okay, and I. 00:56:36 Speaker 4: Stood up and I walked over and I set my book on her desk. I said thank you, and I walked out the door and never came back. 00:56:43 Speaker 2: Wow, that's a terrible teacher. 00:56:45 Speaker 4: Well, I don't know what about her is terrible. I was not putting her in an easy situation. 00:56:50 Speaker 2: But look, if you passed the I mean, if you've just absolutely whiffeded the entire semester and then suddenly you're getting an A. She's like, yeah, he was keeping it. He was a little shy about being go Spanish. 00:57:00 Speaker 4: Oh, I think she knew I was shy of nothing. It was really about for me looking at the points, the aggregate points through the year and realizing I had sort of done the math on my own, and I knew what the final was worth and realized it was simply not a thing. 00:57:17 Speaker 2: Did you turn it around the next year? 00:57:19 Speaker 4: No, I mean I did better. My next year was closer to your first focus, so you were back in health. I mean, look, I went on to college. I didn't have to fight to get into college. I only applied to one college and had to apply thrice. I turned down twice, and then drove up there with a friend and sort of made my case wow and was able to get in. And then it was on academic probation most of college. And then I went to graduate school. But it was graduate school was a conservatory, so they didn't really care about that. 00:57:48 Speaker 2: Sure. Sure, and your guitar playing. 00:57:50 Speaker 4: It's a rhythm guitar at best. I could play a good handful of chords, but I learned them all in my tenth grade year. I've learned no more guitar. 00:58:00 Speaker 2: That's all you need though, Yeah, I mean, you're not going to be whipping out a solo. 00:58:04 Speaker 4: No, but again, I could play a campfire song at a Bible camp and no problem. 00:58:08 Speaker 2: Again. Goosebump's character we found the that's your Goosebump's trilogy. Well that's incredible. This is the final segment of the podcast. It's called I Said No emails. People write into I Said no gifts at gmail dot com desperate for answers. My listeners are kind of just crawling, seeking, begging, and so I try to do my best to answer some of the questions. Will you help me? 00:58:31 Speaker 3: Absolutely? 00:58:32 Speaker 2: Okay, let me read this, It says deer Bridger, an exemplary guest, So a nice little compliment. 00:58:37 Speaker 3: Thank you. 00:58:38 Speaker 2: I am writing here today two days before well, okay, two days before do you know how a podcast works? Two days before the birthday party for a new friend. The new friend is my wife's coworker. We all hang out every once in a while, like going to concerts and such. She doesn't like animals, so I honestly think she's a serial killer. Interesting detail. She's from NYC, whatever that means. This is the turns. The turns of this email are very abrupt from what I've gathered. She likes to read. We don't really know what to get her. Any help is appreciated. Oh, by the way, she's like the only friend we've made since moving to Massachusetts from California, so it's kind of a big deal. Thank you. And that's from a f. 00:59:22 Speaker 4: Okay, so let me make sure I got all the pieces of this in the right order. This is obviously for a moment that's passed. There's no way we can actually help this p. 00:59:33 Speaker 2: We're basically hoping for next year's birthday. This person still exists. 00:59:36 Speaker 4: Okay, good the recipient potential recipient loves New York. 00:59:42 Speaker 2: From New York, we don't even know, I don't know the opinion. And then it's followed by whatever that means. 00:59:48 Speaker 4: Okay, so from New York doesn't like animals? Right, this person has interpreted as possibly meaning they. 00:59:55 Speaker 2: Are serial killer, some sort of sociopathic behavior. I think as well, they're reading into Okay. 01:00:02 Speaker 4: This friend that they've made, this one friend that they've made since moving to Massachusetts from California, is someone that they're reading. I have to presume there's more to that assumption, that serial killer assumption, than simply that this person doesn't like animals. If an animal goes by and this person says something. 01:00:21 Speaker 3: Like, oh god, frogs, I hate frog. 01:00:24 Speaker 4: If that was what happened, I would advise this person to and I know they're excited about this, but maybe make a different new friend and don't worry about buying this one again. If it's if they have an upsetting response to animals, then that enough. 01:00:38 Speaker 2: To that's a morning bell for certainly a red flag. I mean they okay, so let's let's let's look at the scene. They've recently moved from sunny California to Massachusetts. They're probably in the woods. Suddenly there's this coworker the wife knows, and they're kind of hanging around, and they're from New York, whatever that means. And they don't like animals and are obviously very vocal about reading. That's kind of the only thing we know about this person. But she's hanging around, she's not giving a lot of information, and it's her birthday, probably six months ago. So there are I mean, there are some details here where it's like, honey, I made a new friend at work and she wants to hang around, and so that seems dangerous, and she wants us to come to her birthday. And she's the only friend we know in town. So there is some level of danger here. I will say what I mean, what is the question? What do we get her? A book? 01:01:29 Speaker 3: Yeah? 01:01:30 Speaker 4: Any book, any book that isn't about animals. Maybe it has something to do with New York. 01:01:35 Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess they go to concerts, concert tickets, but you want to go in a big group. You don't want to just go out, you know, you're out late at night with this person. She's in the back seat. God knows what she's planning. But maybe maybe a book about Actually, I'm going to a book about animals. You've heard the Red Walls series about the talking I've never read them. I remember wanting to read them. I desperately wanted to read those books as a child. But they're about talking. It's like a fantasy series about animals doing things I don't. 01:02:05 Speaker 3: I think you're on the wrong track. 01:02:08 Speaker 2: This person needs to they need to know the power of a rat, power of a mouse. Sure, doing whatever they do in that book series, and then I think that might kind of maybe that'll click something whatever is not working in their brain that's leading them to murder some that they empathize with animals. Then they see, oh, maybe human beings shouldn't be destroyed. Then they're they're kind of the kind of coworker that you might want to go to their birthday. 01:02:32 Speaker 4: You know, I hadn't played out the full scenario that you were suggesting, But now that you've walked me through what could happen, I guess I'm on board. Yeah, a children's book about animals that will make this person less inclined to kill a human. 01:02:50 Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, I'm in. 01:02:51 Speaker 2: Whatever it takes. A that's right, whatever it takes. I think we answered that perfectly. I think you you answered it perfectly. 01:02:58 Speaker 4: I still am a bit aghast at the entire situation, but you are by my. 01:03:02 Speaker 2: Side every step of the way, whether you know it or not. And af really gave us so little to work with. But they're in the middle of a stressful cross country move, they're meeting murderers. 01:03:14 Speaker 4: They've just been to a birthday party obviously at this point, so they're they're. 01:03:17 Speaker 2: Fine, obviously without a gift. And now she's furious. This coworker feels like they really short at her. And now she's like, what do I do. My best friend at work is ignoring me and it's probably your husband or wife's fault. Well, we did it. 01:03:36 Speaker 3: We did it. 01:03:37 Speaker 2: I've got two new magazines that I can page through and learn more about Pierre Salinger and then laughs. 01:03:44 Speaker 3: Find out who this gentleman dance piano. 01:03:47 Speaker 2: Is absolutely scary. Man in a gray suit dancing on a piano is rich. I've had such a wonderful time with you. 01:03:53 Speaker 4: Otherwise, thank you again, And I will say this Bridger. I had made This is maybe a little silly thing, but I'd sort of made a promise to myself that I was not going to be on any podcasts in twenty twenty two. Can I a mutual friend of ours, had turned me onto your podcast earlier this year, and I just first off, the theme song is one of. 01:04:16 Speaker 2: The band we need to just scream Amy Man all the time. 01:04:19 Speaker 4: She's just an absolute genius and I adore her and I so I was immediately turned on by the podcast, and I really enjoyed each episode that I've listened to. And when I was invited to join you, I simply couldn't imagine saying no, So I will. 01:04:35 Speaker 3: Sorry. 01:04:35 Speaker 4: My heart is probably going back into podcasts retirement after this one, but I have thoroughly enjoyed my visits. 01:04:41 Speaker 2: Oh my heart is absolutely in my feet. I don't know what that means either, but it melted and then just ran all the way to my feet. The idea of anyone listening to your podcast is always and for it to be rich is just wonderful. Listener, My god, what a wonderful time you've had. I'm speaking for you. You have had the best time today and of course that means the rest of the day is downhill, but next week you'll come back for this little hit and then your life. Well, of course it's a cycle, but at least I'm here for you, and thank you for listening. We'll talk again soon. I love you, goodbye, I said, No Gifts is an exactly right production. It's produced by our dear friend Analise Nelson, and it's beautifully mixed by John Bradley, and we couldn't do it without our guest booker, Patrick Kottner. The theme song, of course, could only come from miracle worker Amy Mann. You must follow the show on Instagram. At I said no gifts, I don't want to hear any excuses. That's where you get to see pictures of all these gorgeous gifts I'm getting. And don't you want to see pictures of the gifts? 01:05:52 Speaker 1: Line? 01:05:52 Speaker 3: Why did you hear? 01:05:56 Speaker 1: Funa man myself perfectly clear. When you're a guess to my home, you gotta come to me empty, And I said, no guests, your own presences presents enough. I already had too much stuff, So how do you dare to surbey me?