00:00:08 Speaker 1: And 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, guests, your own presences presents enough. I already had too much stuff, So how do you dare to survey? Mean? 00:00:47 Speaker 2: Welcome to? I said, no gifts. I'm Bridger Wineker. What a strange feeling I'm having right now. I'm in a recording studio, recording I said no gifts for the first time in two years. So you know, there's a whole new energy. We're not in the backyard, We're not on zoom. Where are we? That's a good question. We're at Crooked Media in order to record this episode. And why are we doing that? Because of today's guest, who I'm so thrilled to have. It's John love It John. 00:01:18 Speaker 3: Welcome to. I said, no gifts, Thanks for having me, thanks for coming to our studio. 00:01:22 Speaker 2: I'm I'm I mean, I don't even know how to behave in a studio at this point. It's a very strange feeling. It's fine to me right now. It feels like I've hijacked a car. I've taken over the studio. I feel free, but also a little restricted. I feel like I could get in trouble at any any moment, so I just want need to be aware of that. Okay, but sure, how are you doing? I'm doing okay. 00:01:46 Speaker 3: I'm excited to see top Gun, tops coming up, plans to see top Gun. 00:01:51 Speaker 2: Okay, Now that's something, that is something, and I'm very excited about top Gun and actually reminds me of something I was thinking of on the way over here. Not Top Gun, but buzz Lightyear. Do we find him good looking? I saw a billboard and now I'm talking about I should clarify, I'm talking about buzz light Year of the upcoming light Year movie, which is human buzz light You're not toy buzzlight You're who I will say, toy buzz Lightyear. I don't find good looking light Year light Year? First, you go? 00:02:24 Speaker 3: You go? Well, So I'm realizing now that I have only skittered along the surface of this very important story, which is the fact that we're finally getting the origin story we've been all waiting for, basically for decades, ever since we saw his toy story nineteen ninety five. Yes, we basically ever since. I think this is what happened everybody. You went to the movies with your mother accidentally walked in on heat. Watch ten movies of Heat, then realize this is not a preview. This is the film Heat. 00:02:55 Speaker 2: A thrilling intro to a movie, by the way. 00:02:58 Speaker 3: And then you watch Toy Absolutely and then you want me it's excellent. But then you watch Toy Story. We all thought, sure, a buzz light Year played by of course Tim Allen. Sure, unequivocally, love. 00:03:10 Speaker 2: Not a not a thing wrong with me. 00:03:14 Speaker 3: Without hesitation, the only way you should love fully with our whole hearts. Tim Allen. 00:03:20 Speaker 2: He's grunting, he's killing Santa Claus. 00:03:22 Speaker 3: He's the last man standing, you know in this economy, I think still, and they're telling lots of great stories, you know about women shopping and so forth and anyway, Uh, we thought to ourselves, Yeah, but sure, where did but where did this toy come from? 00:03:38 Speaker 2: Right? 00:03:39 Speaker 3: Is it based on a real astronaut? Is that going to be played by Chris Evans? But as I say all of this, I actually sitting here could not tell you if the buzz light your origin film is animated? 00:03:53 Speaker 2: Is it okay that this? I do know this. It's an animated film about real buzz light You're who who inspired toy buzz light Year? This is as far as I know. I don't know. I'm I can't imagine how the movie begins to answer a lot of these questions. 00:04:10 Speaker 3: But is Chris Evans? Are we gonna see Chris Evans or is he digitized? 00:04:15 Speaker 2: You're simply going to hear Chris Evan. You're gonna hear him unless there's a turn at the end of the movie when you know, then you know they could go back and suddenly the light Year were singing. That movie is based on the Chris Evans light Year. And all this is to say, you've avoided the question. Do you think buzz light Year is good looking? 00:04:31 Speaker 3: Well? I don't. I'm What I'm trying to explain is all I know is that Chris Evans will be playing Buzz light Year. I have not seen it because I didn't even know if it was animated or not. But I will tell you bill boards are all over town. Look, I keep my eyes on the road, all right, I'm eyes in the sky. I am looking the other driver. You know. It's like, oh, and have the ways on that side, Jared let us on that side. I'm driving here. It's Los Angeles. But I will say this, I assume that if Chris Evans is the character they're not making, they're not making him a dog. You know, he's gonna be hot as well. He's gonna be hot as hell. And it does also speak to I think, which is a real problem in this town called Hollywood, which is Look, I love hot people, right right, some friends are hot, you know, I love hot people. Do they really need to do the animated roles? Like there are people voice actors who've trained their lives who are asymmetrical and extraordinarily gifted. Let the asymmetrical voice actors have a shot at these big movies. This is just a new development. Like there was a when in our childhoods they didn't make leading actors also do the animated movies. They let other people have those jobs. Wonderful because that's what they were, that's what they did best. Now we got Bradley Cooper's always got to be the raccoon. Not saying didn't do a great job. He did a fantastic. 00:05:47 Speaker 2: Jobs, but he can do a fantastic job showing us his face in a live action film. 00:05:51 Speaker 3: I think as a baseline rule, you should if anyone who is anywhere close to the symmetry of someone who could be in the Avenger, they don't get anywhere near these voice rolls. 00:06:03 Speaker 2: Come on fully on board with you, fully on board. 00:06:05 Speaker 3: Come on. 00:06:06 Speaker 2: What I'm hearing is you find Woody more attractive than Buzz Lightyear. Sure, yeah, chase me on a horse Woody, you know what I mean. But okay, and this is all for me to say, make a home on the range. There's a snake in my boots, et cetera, et cetera. Buzz Lightyear. I mean I saw the billboard, I saw the face. I thought, I don't think I think he. I think they've kind of they've something's happened where the all the elements are there for him to be good looking not good looking. 00:06:37 Speaker 3: You know that'll happen from time to time. That'll happen. I won't be able to put your finger on it because nothing it's not coming together. 00:06:42 Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't think if I were approached by light Year, the real light Year, as you know we've talked about, I don't know that I could say that's a romantic interest for me. I mean, look, we look anything could happen, anything could happen, truly, as light Year has demonstrated to. 00:07:00 Speaker 3: Some Vodkan tang. Maybe soon, what happens, Oh my. 00:07:03 Speaker 2: God, terrible tang it out space beverage, space beverage, speaking of speaking of space astronauts. 00:07:09 Speaker 3: Absolutely, When was the last time you had tang? I assume as a child, I assume as some sort of school trip. 00:07:17 Speaker 2: I feel like tang was not a big part of my childhood. I think I had it once and it was at someone's someone named Babba's house. 00:07:23 Speaker 3: Sure well, I think my only recollection of tang, which I do remember having is this needed to be cold. 00:07:30 Speaker 2: Oh my god, a lukewarm tang. No, no, thank you, absolutely not. And I assume that's how astronauts are drinking it. 00:07:36 Speaker 3: I don't know what their frigeration is. It is cold up there. I don't know what the I don't know what the water situation is. I don't know how cold it is. 00:07:42 Speaker 2: That's a good question. I've never thought about the temperature of astronaut liquid. 00:07:47 Speaker 3: I never thought about it either. You know, there must be hot. 00:07:51 Speaker 2: Water, right, so they're taking showers. 00:07:53 Speaker 3: They're doing something. I don't know they're doing showers they're having water shower seem hard because well, the is a bath. 00:08:03 Speaker 2: Sponge bath bath. 00:08:04 Speaker 3: Is probably quite dangerous. 00:08:06 Speaker 2: Just slashing around in the spaceship there trying to fill a bath on a spaceship. 00:08:10 Speaker 3: That seems like more like what's that called the like the French shower or something where you just take a wash cloth hit the spot. 00:08:18 Speaker 2: Right, it's basically you know, you're just wet something a cloth or something, and you're washing basically your armpits. I assume anything that gets too stinky. Absolutely not washing. The hair, not conditioning. 00:08:28 Speaker 3: We're not conditioning, so I don't condition in space. 00:08:31 Speaker 2: Interesting, I feel like a conditioned hair would do well in space. 00:08:34 Speaker 3: Can I tell you something? Yeah, sitting here right now with you at the studio at this time, in this economy, I'm I'm serious right now, this isn't a bit okay. I don't know what conditioners were. I'm a nearly forty year old gay person. I don't know what. I don't know what it's for. I use it, I don't I don't know what it's for. 00:08:52 Speaker 2: Conditioner. Do you know? I wish I had an answer for you. 00:08:56 Speaker 3: You don't know. 00:08:57 Speaker 2: I will tell you. I've just recently learned of. I wish I could remember the term. There's a new kind of trendy thing with people are no longer shampooing but only conditioning, And there's like a term they've kind of combined conditioning with another term, which is like every two weeks you condition your hair and don't use shampoo at all. Any hair expert, I believe, and I'm gonna speak for the whole community at this point, hairdressers and homosexuals and the vendic diagram of all of that shampooing, I don't believe you should do it anymore. 00:09:26 Speaker 3: Okay. 00:09:27 Speaker 2: It damages, it dries, and unless you're like your hair's got a bunch of mud or something, paint lice, I don't believe shampoos that necessary. 00:09:40 Speaker 3: Okay. 00:09:40 Speaker 2: So that's this new thing called con poohing or sham conning or something. 00:09:46 Speaker 3: It's something like, yeah, shamdition, shamditioning. 00:09:49 Speaker 2: But shamdish do you so you do condition though. 00:09:54 Speaker 3: From time to time I do in hotels because it's always there. 00:09:57 Speaker 2: I don't like to hear this at all. Your trust hotel. Any product in a hotel is going to damage. 00:10:04 Speaker 3: I use whatever is there. I use whatever is there this is. 00:10:10 Speaker 2: The day you're rejected from the gay community. 00:10:13 Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess so. And you know what, I'm fine with it. This is how I live my life, all right. 00:10:16 Speaker 2: You can't go into a hotel. I don't care how nice the hotel is. I don't care what country the hotels and they are giving you a bad The hygiene products are always essentially just rubbing alcohol. 00:10:29 Speaker 3: We are a wisp away from June and I'm saying this is how I do Pride, And I want to know what is worse. Who is more disallowed from San Francisco Pride. Someone who doesn't know what conditioner is and just uses whatever shampoo they find, or people in police uniforms. What's the debate? 00:10:48 Speaker 2: Well, so in person when London Breed marched with me, we're talking about the same person. Forget. I can't believe this. I mean, if nothing else, you came to this podcast today to learn how long are you in the hotel for? That's like somebody going through a divorce. You're in a hotel for probably two to three nights. You do not need to wash or condition your hair. 00:11:08 Speaker 3: I'm gonna tell you something else. I heard what you said about people not shampooing. I've been hearing about this. A shampoo every shower. Oh, that's all right. 00:11:16 Speaker 2: I hope you're showering once a month. 00:11:17 Speaker 3: M h every shower. And and and I'll tell you another thing. I think. I think even if I'm in a hotel, I like when I'm going from hotel to hotel, In every single hotel, I try a new shampoo, I try new conditioner. And sometimes I have a little theory. I have a theory that I've had for some time. I have a theory, all right, and this is just I'm gonna throw this out there. I can't prove it. It is anecdotal, okay, but it is this. I think there's never so great a shampoo experience as the first time you use a new shampoo. No matter what the brand, no matter what it is, it rules you can go. You can be using a super fancy shampoo for weeks. Then the next day you try pro you try what's everever they got at the Kimpten, whatever is in that lemony jar at the Kimpton and you will say, this is the best I've ever looked. 00:12:03 Speaker 2: Well, it's because you're playing with chemicals. Of course, it's a whole new just reaction. Your hair is going through it now exactly. Look you're You're not saying you're you look better than ever, you look newer than ever. 00:12:13 Speaker 3: It's just okay, you can tell me how I feel. I guess that's fine. You're just you have no information. I'm looking at myself in a mirror describing how I felt at a hotel at some point in my own past, and you're revising it. Which is you're free to do. 00:12:26 Speaker 2: You're the host. I suppose I am the host. I am in I am in charge of the studio as of right now. For the next hour or so, you will listen to what I have to say about your experience. You've got to stop it. You have to cut it out. I'm actually now, I'll tell you something. Let's get into it territory, and I'm worried. 00:12:46 Speaker 3: I'm going to say one more thing, and I do think it's important that we move on because I'm getting upset. 00:12:52 Speaker 2: I'll tell you something else. 00:12:54 Speaker 3: I'll tell you something else. There are times where I just shampoo ed to dopeau because I'm I've given up. I've given up on soap, and I'm like, oh, I don't have any liquid soap left. Screw it. 00:13:05 Speaker 2: Well, let me ask you. Do you ever shampoo tode a head, meaning using the gel in your hair? 00:13:11 Speaker 3: No? People know? Well, look I'm you know, first of all, that's been insulting. 00:13:16 Speaker 2: Frankly based on the evidence I've been had. 00:13:19 Speaker 3: That's why it's insulting, because that's what you think I'm capable of. Your Phil's just taking an ivory bar soap rubbing it on my hand. 00:13:27 Speaker 2: Oh. The dermatology community's freaking out. I mean, this is a controversial episode. This is I mean, look, if you were eighteen, I'd be like, he just hasn't hasn't figured it. 00:13:37 Speaker 3: I am eighteen. He insulted me yet again. I was born in two thousand and four. 00:13:44 Speaker 2: Oh my god, to hear those words from another adult, I can't do. 00:13:48 Speaker 3: My parents conceived me during the nomination of John Kerry. They were so turned on by his speech about building firehouses in Pittsburgh, not Baghdad. That turned them on so thoroughly they head intercourse who and there came three months later. 00:14:08 Speaker 2: You think about John, you think about Teresa, and everybody's doing it, and they're conceiving children who go on you know, and you know you're eighteen, You've got a podcast. We're all so excited for you. We're all, you know, rooting for this kid. Yeah, eighteen under eighteen list, it's very exciting. 00:14:26 Speaker 3: That's right. 00:14:27 Speaker 2: Look, there's something else and this is not that. I have something else I need to talk to you about on the way over that I noticed and I feel like you were literally the only person that may be able to do this for me. I was driving over from Highland Park to this building and I drove past, and I've spoken about this on this podcast before, long time ago, the abandoned seers on Santa Monica Boulevard. Are you familiar? 00:14:50 Speaker 3: I am familiar. 00:14:51 Speaker 2: It's a fortress, sealed off lifelong dream go inside the Santa Monica sealed off sears. And I thought I was driving over and I thought, there's anyone that could pull some strings City Hall, it's John Love. What we need to do to get me inside that building? 00:15:09 Speaker 3: So let's think this through. So my first thought would immediately be, let's get in contact. Are we technically I know we're in I know we're on the west side. Are we technically in the city of Santa Monica, or we technically in Los Angeles. Now the issue is if we're in the city of Los Angeles. This city currently does not legally speaking have a mayor. Oh that person, well, the mail is being made forward. Good for me. So I think that means anyone can be mayor at any moment, because the position is vacant. If it's the mayor of Santa Monica, we me have to reach out to them directly. I don't think anyone can stop you from getting inside of that Seers building if you really really want it. I also would say never meet your heroes. I don't think you're gonna I think that the idea obviously, the idea of going inside and abandoned Seers on the West side of Los Angeles. I see why that's exciting. I see why that's thrilling. I see why your mind goes into a mifferent there. Maybe there's a lot more remain Maybe there's some floral uh dresses. 00:16:08 Speaker 2: There's probably a lot of cute tops. 00:16:10 Speaker 3: Maybe there's cute tops. Maybe there's old undershirts that could be there's a weed whacker. Anything is possible. 00:16:19 Speaker 2: You're only going to tools here, and you're forgetting the softer side of Seers. There's had so much to offer. 00:16:25 Speaker 3: But this is the problem. This is the problem. You look. Sears was I don't know if Sears was ahead of its time. Probably not. 00:16:33 Speaker 2: I think it was just here's one percent it's time. 00:16:36 Speaker 3: Well here's my thinking on why it was ahead of its time, all right, because Sears said, long before Amazon, hey do you need a car, battery, underwear, a dress, and a couch, a pillow and maybe depending on the Sears food. 00:16:54 Speaker 2: And I'll say the Sears that I grew up near. Apparently there was for some reason a dentist. 00:16:59 Speaker 3: There could also be medical service. 00:17:01 Speaker 2: Why was there a dentist? 00:17:03 Speaker 3: So it was it was an Amazon. It had the idea, It had the idea, right, So that's just that's you know, that's what I'm thinking about. Okay, But unfortunately, uh, you know, times change and then they change back in other ways famously. So as I'm always saying, as you're I. 00:17:20 Speaker 2: Mean, you're so famous for saying times are changing. So I drive all the way over here, don't get an don't get a clear answer on buzz light yours attractiveness. I don't get a clear you're not starting up the car to drive me to Sears. 00:17:34 Speaker 3: That is that what you want. That's not what you ask, that's not what if you want, that's what you tell me. You tell me you want to say. Hey, let's cut this short. Let's get in, Let's get in one of our cars. Drive to the west Side. It's it's gonna take an hour, okay, so let's just think about traffic for a second. 00:17:50 Speaker 2: You're gonna take a full hour. I have to correct you. This is not a series on the West Side. This is a series deep in Hollywood, Santa Monica, right. 00:17:58 Speaker 3: Right, right, Sorry. 00:17:59 Speaker 2: I was thinking, okay, it's okay, it's okay. There are a lot of series, and I know the series you're talking about, which is right off the free Why do I know about all? I've never been in a series in Los Angeles, and for some reason, I know where every one of these. 00:18:11 Speaker 3: Of course, because you're coming from Highland Park. This is great content for people outside of Los Angeles. I'm here's the thing, here's a mistake I made. I clocked that he was coming from Highland Park. I heard Santa Monica. I went to the west Side. But of course this is actually my fault. Hollywood. 00:18:23 Speaker 2: Is this good content? You think this is excellent? Non American listeners. They're thrilled. There, Guden Dog. 00:18:30 Speaker 3: The thing is Highland Park is on the east side. It's just it's just past. It's in the Glendale area. 00:18:36 Speaker 2: Right and we are in right in between Santa Monica, the city and Highland Park, the neighborhood, exactly the series was talking. I know this is getting this is really turning this down or you just this is actually just goes out this. But the person listening to this right now is trying to get through Los Angeles, and so we're kind of directing them. 00:18:53 Speaker 3: This is amazing. 00:18:54 Speaker 2: It's it's stay on Santa Monica Boulevard. You're not going to Santa Monica. You're going you're between Highland Park in Santa Monica. You're going to see the seers. I mean, you could see this thing from fifty miles away. You could see this from the space station. You'll know it when you see it. That's the series we're talking about. That's the series we're talking about, and we don't know what's happening inside it because John refuses dancing around everything I bring up. 00:19:15 Speaker 3: I didn't refuse. I don't know, you keep throwing this accusation of me. I'm trying to be collaborative. I'm saying, I just that you interrupted me, which was rude, but it was there. He does it again. I'm still talking. I'm trying to say something and I'm going to say it now where you like did it again. I'm going to say it right now, and it is this. What I was saying before you interrupted to give me directions to a different Seers is let's get in one of our cars and go to Sears. Let's do it. We'll get a Well, the problem is, you know what, we're hoisted by our own batard here because you know what we need. We need wirecutters where we normally get those seerus. 00:19:54 Speaker 2: That's so true, and I can only that's the only hardware story I'm aware of in Los Angeles. And they're all closes. 00:20:00 Speaker 3: They're all closed. 00:20:01 Speaker 2: Oh they don't have You don't have a pair of wirecutters lying around here at Crooked. 00:20:04 Speaker 3: We can look, we can check around. I mean it doesn't you don't really need them to record podcasts that often. 00:20:09 Speaker 2: You're surprised. My podcast is largely wire clippers getting into places, getting into places, boxes, what have us. Well, this is a disappointing, but I you know, I'm going to set up a meeting. I'm going to pitch a full podcast to you. Bridger goes to Seers and then you know, maybe that's it. Look, lesser podcasts have been made, Fewer answers have been found on these investigative things. 00:20:33 Speaker 3: Yeah, you don't need an answer. 00:20:34 Speaker 2: Yeah, we don't need an answer. It's about the journey of getting into the seers. And then I get in there, I'm like, oh, they just kind of emptied it out. 00:20:40 Speaker 3: And I do think the kid on Cereal did it. 00:20:43 Speaker 2: Oh of course, come my own. Look, look, add non, I think that's right. But we were kind of swept up in a frenzy, and you know, it's easy to fall in love with him. God only knows. I'm watching the staircase, and that guy certainly did it. 00:21:01 Speaker 3: Partial to the owl theory, I would love for the owl. Look, look, I agree that it is unlikely. You know, I think I think if more than one of your spouses dies by falling down the stairs, you use it. Proved me wrong, is what I say. I say to you. I say, look, I prove me wrong. But I am partial to the idea that it was a random act of aggression. From a bird. That does excite me. I mean, it's exactly, it's a real story. It's sad to be so to be so glib about it. 00:21:28 Speaker 2: But nonetheless, I mean, if it was an owl, I mean, wow, what a world do we live in? What a place? What a time? An owl swoops down from the attic, takes care of somebody, and then decades of documentaries and HBO original series excellent performances by the way, but yeah, I want to believe it's the owl too. 00:21:50 Speaker 3: Is there an owl in the series. I've only listened to it. I've only seen the documentary. 00:21:56 Speaker 2: There are hints of the owl. You see an owl claw, you see bats, which I had never heard about bats about. She goes up into the attic and there are bats there in the Belfrey, what is the title? I feel like it's an attic with kind of a sloped ceiling. I always picture kind of like there's a hole where light streams in across, like the scary guy who lives there. There might be a bell, but I'm not just saying that because it's a bell. Free Interesting am I getting at here? 00:22:26 Speaker 3: What are you getting at here? 00:22:28 Speaker 2: What I'm getting at is I bet there's one in the Sears. I feel like that's the atmosphere that we're thinking about bats bats or bell freeze. There's probably a big bell tower at the top of that series that nobody's even aware of at this point, kind of ring it when the deals were happening or whatever. Not a bad idea for retail. Somebody look into that. A big church bell that gets wrung at like the Macy's anytimes something goes on sale. This is this is a podcast about ideas. It's about retail. Take what you need, Macy's or Dillard's. 00:22:58 Speaker 3: Those those two the two big ones famously. 00:23:02 Speaker 2: Okay, well I've gotten the two biggest, most important things out of the way. Maybe not in a way I would have liked. I didn't get the answers I wanted to keep saying that I'm not on my way to Sears. 00:23:13 Speaker 3: That's your choice. 00:23:14 Speaker 2: That I have a podcast record people. 00:23:17 Speaker 3: We are recording this conversation that people listening are aware of what I said before. You just said something that is not true. If you want to go to Sears, I'll say it again. If you want to go to Sears, let's. 00:23:27 Speaker 2: Go listener, repind the tape, and you make you you know, this is the court of public opinion. You bet, and we'll all come to our own conclusions. This is my staircase. This is absolutely my staircase. But we have to talk about something else. John, What the listener's dying? I'm dying. Look, I did you a big favor. Okay, I agreed to come over here. You know, I said, Look, as much as I love doing a podcast over zoom and I love staring at a computer screen, I said, look, I'll go over to John's let's call it your house, Crooked Media Studios, and I'll record my podcast. I said no gifts with him, thought we'll have a great time. John has He's only eighteen, but he knows the world of podcasts. He gets it. Emails were exchanged. You're aware this podcast is called I said no gifts, So I was a little surprised. I kind of settled in here with my producer on a lease in your studio, kind of made myself a home. And you come waltzing in holding a what is clearly I can't even dance around this the way you're able to dance around truly anything a gift bag? Is this a gift for me? 00:24:38 Speaker 3: It? 00:24:39 Speaker 2: Is it? 00:24:39 Speaker 3: Is a gift for you. I did. I know, I know that. 00:24:41 Speaker 2: It's called no gifts, but called I said no gifts. 00:24:46 Speaker 3: I know, I know that no gifts is in the title. Is the key point. I was making no if offense intended, but I was. I just couldn't. I didn't feel comfortable. I wouldn't feel comfortable walking into this studio to a host without bringing a gift. So I did, I did, I did. I did bring a little trinket, A nothing. Really, it's a nothing. An it on nothing as long as it's enough. It's it's a little something. I mean, it is nothing. It's a little something. 00:25:12 Speaker 2: Okay, Okay, well again, just can't quite nail down an answer with you. It's always riding the fence. Well, do you want me to open it here on the podcast? 00:25:21 Speaker 3: I would? I think, Well, look, I think here's the thing. I think let's open it now and then you can decide. Okay, if you want to bring it to Sears. But I think we're here, we're together, sure, why not? You can check it out. 00:25:52 Speaker 2: I'm gonna open this up. It's a very cute bag. It's a bag with some little colorful balloons on it. It's well wrapped. It's got some tissue paper. Sometimes you get a gift on the show, not that well wrapped. Apologies to pass gas, but some have looked like garbage. But I'm going to open it up here. We've got the tissue. We've got to get some crink. Oh wow, the of that tissue paper. 00:26:12 Speaker 3: That's great. 00:26:12 Speaker 2: If I could do that all day. Let's do this. I'm throwing it on your floor. I will clean it up later. I'm not that rude. And we're going to dive in here. And now what is this? What are we looking at? It's a T shirt? 00:26:33 Speaker 3: It is it's a little something, little t shirt. Nothing you get this. 00:26:38 Speaker 2: It's a T shirt that says I don't do cardio because these colors don't run well. 00:26:44 Speaker 3: You have to. You have to. It's a party. You have to describe that. There's American flag. 00:26:48 Speaker 2: Am distracted by the fifteen fonts that these The text is done in so many fonts. Yeah, there's kind of an American flag. But I mean, let's assume the person who's going to be wearing this is the sort of person who deeply patriotic, and I feel like this American flag is very I would say desecrated by a because. 00:27:09 Speaker 3: There is a there's a because for annything. Here's what I love about this shirt. It's so funny. It's it's for a patriot. It's obviously for a patriot, but it's also for a patriot with a terrific sense of humor. Because you get it. I don't know if you get it. But so the idea is, like, you don't do cardio. You don't do cardio. You don't run around like on a machine or something, because these colors don't run the American flag. Because he's wearing she or he is wearing anybody. It's a big shirt. 00:27:37 Speaker 2: It's I mean, the shirt is perfect for me to kind of lounge around and on the couch, you know, sit in the backyard just feast, you know, with a big chicken leg or something. This will probably go mid thigh. 00:27:51 Speaker 3: Sure. 00:27:51 Speaker 2: The real problem with this shirt, the tragedy is this looks like it would be very comfortable to exercise him. It's it's light. Yeah, it's a complete paradox. Where did you get this thing? 00:28:03 Speaker 3: It was at a local thrift store. 00:28:05 Speaker 2: Is it a thrift store? 00:28:06 Speaker 3: It was? 00:28:07 Speaker 2: Who would give this thing up? 00:28:09 Speaker 3: I think somebody who basically was down to just say like that was it. It was their most prized possession. But they had to leave the country that day and they needed the cash to buy the ticket, and so they sold it. And their loss was at first mine and now eternally your gain. 00:28:27 Speaker 2: This shirt was sold for five thousand dollars to finance a trip to Italy or something. And it makes perfect sense. I mean, it's a beautiful top. It's it's got a funny phrase, and it speaks to It speaks to me. I don't do cardio? Really do you do cardio? 00:28:42 Speaker 3: I do cardio from time. I don't believe you that you don't do cardios. 00:28:44 Speaker 2: I simply don't. I think I was actually thinking about this recently. Running it's kind of, would you say, is kind of the exercise that everybody It's kind of the stereotypical exercise. It's the thing you're like a classic need to work out easily, the worst exercise, the most painful exercise I can imagine doing. 00:29:01 Speaker 3: I like running. You like to run, I do, but you probably had to get used to it. Yeah, you could take some time, you know. 00:29:06 Speaker 2: And initially not a comfortable thing to do. 00:29:09 Speaker 3: When I first started running, I would jog point nine miles from my apartment to a Chipotle and then buy a burrito, no bag, no, no bag necessary because I would literally walk and eat the burrito walking the point nine miles home. So it was like whatever it took to get to you know, ten to twelve minutes, depending on my velocity at the time, which was slow, and then I would take me to take twenty minutes to walk home the point nine miles while eating the burrito. 00:29:38 Speaker 2: That's an incredible plan. 00:29:39 Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a well, it's a it's a jog that destroys itself, you know what I mean. It's a plant that e races itself. 00:29:45 Speaker 2: What's the term net zero? 00:29:47 Speaker 3: Yeah, it's net zero. Yeah, net zero. 00:29:49 Speaker 2: Maybe actually not very hard to say it. 00:29:52 Speaker 3: No, we know we know that it was not it was negative. We know that when I got home, I'd done more damage than I better to have never left at all. We know that is obvious that you could have just had to work off a Chipotle burrito on a point nine mile while home. That thing could power a buick for like fifty miles. So it's a it's a brick. 00:30:11 Speaker 2: And my question is cardio for me at least, I would be so nauseous by the end of that point nine, I wouldn't be able to think about eating for an hour. Well, it's a different be so you don't get nauseous doing cardio. 00:30:21 Speaker 3: No ever, Ever, I've never gotten what kind of questions? Again? 00:30:26 Speaker 2: Here I go. Yeah again, there's no universe you could become naice. 00:30:30 Speaker 3: I'm sure I have. Yes, my answer. Sorry, I know that I've been equivocating this whole time. I can't give you a straight answer. The answer to your question, have I ever gotten nauseous while doing cardio? Is yes? 00:30:39 Speaker 2: Okay, yes, See for me, I would I would get to the Chipotle be so nauseous, I would barely be able to drink a glass of water. You seem like a fifth person, though, I'm I think. I mean, I'm probably in decent shape for the first time in my life. 00:30:52 Speaker 3: Wow. 00:30:53 Speaker 2: I had not exercised in an earnest until maybe twenty nineteen, and then decided, well, I guess at some point I should probably try it, and so I do that, but I don't, I think, And I think part of it was because I would do a lot of try doing cardio, and I think this is the worst thing in the world. I feel bad. I feel bad after I'm nauseous. What's the point? 00:31:14 Speaker 3: So I think that a similar problem happens in gym class when you're a kid, which is I can't think of anything designed to make kids hate exercise more than like once a year. They're like, run a mile right now, in all together, all together, and finish in exactly the order order the cool kids expect. Good job, go out there, have a great time. 00:31:39 Speaker 2: The worst thing in the world, and a mile to a kid. 00:31:42 Speaker 3: It's it is. It was inconceivable. You remember, of course, I remember that feeling, That feeling, us both having that feeling is why we are in this room. That feeling, that feeling is a life, is a whole life ahead of you. 00:31:56 Speaker 2: I'm gonna die before this is over. 00:31:58 Speaker 3: And that feeling, Yes, I remember. I remember standing outside and the gym teacher, Missus Friedlander, saying, it's whatever number of times it was like, it wasn't three times, it was like eight times around the soccer field, whatever that number was. And I remember you do the first one. You're like, no, no, I don't have seven more of these to go. I'm a tiny unathletic. 00:32:23 Speaker 2: My legs are like six inches long. 00:32:25 Speaker 3: Nary a day ago, I was at the children's clothing store and I heard the person working there whisper to my mother, he's gonna need the husky. I needed the husky. I can't roll for his age. He's small, but husky. That's why we're gonna get him a blue silk shirt. He doesn't tuck in, so he looks like a fucking peep. 00:32:50 Speaker 2: Oh, this is a very cute image, little John trotting around the it. I mean, it is that whoever devised that thing is out of their mind. I mean, it's just remember probably yeah, So, I mean it was the for us, it was the presidential fitness. 00:33:04 Speaker 3: It was that thing. 00:33:05 Speaker 2: Wasn't that the president wasn't aware of that? 00:33:08 Speaker 3: Why Bill clinton't make me do this? 00:33:10 Speaker 2: He loves to run, Yeah, he loves running shorts. Yeah, there's a lot, there's a lesson certainly that we can take a lot from that. But that feeling was always just year after year. I think we did it from first to sixth grade. 00:33:25 Speaker 3: Every year, every year, and sometimes we had to do it inside and then it was like thirty laps and it was like this is not this is not. 00:33:31 Speaker 2: Kosher, and there was no training. 00:33:33 Speaker 3: There's no training. It was just once a year. 00:33:35 Speaker 2: Right, it's May, it's ninety five degrees. Everybody, get run. 00:33:38 Speaker 3: Get running. We did not practice, We did not lead up to this at all. Yesterday we did something involving a parachute. Now you're you're running. 00:33:48 Speaker 2: The parachute was such a thing of relief for me was hold hold an object. 00:33:54 Speaker 3: Nothing was more thrilling than the than knowing when in gym class there was no basketball, there's no kicking, there's nothing. There's just a parachute that you gonna jiggle and then you're gonna get under. You're gonna make air. You can get under a big rainbow parachute. And you got another reason. 00:34:10 Speaker 2: Look at all the paty colors. 00:34:11 Speaker 3: Look at all the pitty colors. 00:34:15 Speaker 2: Although to me now thinking about it, is there suffocation likely with that device? 00:34:22 Speaker 3: I think it's just sort of a practical question. We should We can look into the records. I think that I would assume that that is pretty safe. 00:34:28 Speaker 2: I can imagine little Bridger getting lost under there. Yeah, some teacher that was over it, just being like I got twenty eight of the twenty nine kids. I'll just leave him, let him suffocate. But I did love the parachute. It was the maybe the only gym thing I like to do. 00:34:43 Speaker 3: I will say this, I was a glutton for punishment because even though I was terrible, even though I could barely heave the ball in any kind of direction, I loved dodgeball. Dodge I loved dodgeball, even though even though I was a victim of it. Never I never, There was no I could not throw a ball hard enough that those kids couldn't catch it. Caught it every time. I'm out. Loved it. I love the thrill of it. 00:35:11 Speaker 2: You love to be abused, and you love the potential to abuse. 00:35:15 Speaker 3: Just the option was there, right? Yeah for me? 00:35:18 Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't like to be hit by a ball that my older brother was throwing enough things at me, and of course I'm not hitting anyone. 00:35:26 Speaker 3: Do you remember that twang that those kinds of dodgeball balls, all that kind of buying what's made out of I have no idea. You don't see them, and you don't see them, dodgeballs, quicksand uh, these things stay in childhood. You don't think about them or see them or worry about them. 00:35:44 Speaker 2: Oh I think about quicksand all the time. Okay, I'd love to get in some quicksand well. 00:35:49 Speaker 3: That then you have not been. Then you not thought it, Then you didn't learn enough. The whole point is, that's exactly wrong. It's so tengerous. You don't want to be in quicksand because because it's tricky. It's triggy. It's triggy. You squirm, You squirm. That doesn't help going you get out. You don't know. Someone's gotta get a rope. Someone's going to get a rope and a board. 00:36:08 Speaker 2: You don't see on the other side, just quicksand world. 00:36:13 Speaker 3: Okay, well, great, that's a good thing to think. 00:36:16 Speaker 2: Think about the undiscovered, the you know, these lost frontiers. 00:36:20 Speaker 3: No one's ever been to the bottom of a quicksand that's a thing. 00:36:23 Speaker 2: They've never reported back, because it's probably incredible. You get there and you're like, why didn't I get sucked down here earlier? 00:36:30 Speaker 3: This is fantastic. 00:36:31 Speaker 2: I'm just saying, we've never heard of any reports back from the other side of quicksand I think about, you know, like in Mario, you kind of get sucked down, what's happening at the bottom of the quicksand, Yeah, what is happening? And no one will ever know, and I might be the first. I'm willing to report back. I mean, this is again, sears, I love to go into these things. What's what is it about my personality that needs to get into these things that are abandoned or dangerous? 00:36:56 Speaker 3: I don't know. This is our first conversation, John, So I can't really can't really tell you. I don't want to think about it. 00:37:02 Speaker 2: I want you to go home tonight and just, you know, write down some thoughts free form, just start the pen, you know almost What is it with the psychics that are writing? It's right, psychics. What do they do with the writing? Automatic? Writing? 00:37:18 Speaker 3: Automatic? 00:37:19 Speaker 2: Are you familiar with automatic writing? 00:37:20 Speaker 3: No? 00:37:20 Speaker 2: No, it's fascinating, is it. 00:37:22 Speaker 3: I mean it's a scam, right, That's where I start. What is it? It's when someone claims that that something else is writing through their hands their. 00:37:29 Speaker 2: Hand right, start scribbling and it frequently just looks like scribbles. So I don't know what the what the endgame is there? 00:37:36 Speaker 3: Yeah, but I'll tell you. I'll tell you what it is, almighty dollar. You know what I mean? 00:37:41 Speaker 2: It certainly is these psychics will do anything for a book. I've been saying it for agents. 00:37:45 Speaker 3: Well, so they'll do one thing for a book psychics. No, that's what they do for money. 00:37:50 Speaker 2: The psychic tool set. There's all kinds of things within the psychic tool set. We've got tarot, We've got palm reading, palmstree, if you're in the biz, automatic writing. We've got holding hands around a table and the table lifts off the ground. I don't know what you would call that. 00:38:08 Speaker 3: I would call it amazing, is what I would call it. 00:38:12 Speaker 2: Well, I love magic. You like magic, I mean you go to the magic Castle. 00:38:16 Speaker 3: I've been. I like, there's a day where you don't have to wear a suit, and I try to go. 00:38:19 Speaker 2: Then, oh, well, I wish I had gone on that day because they made me put on a I dressed up snappy, and they made me put on a forty two waist pant and I had to just hold it around my waist all night, and I swore I would never go back. I think there were a lot of allegations, and I was happy that it kind of got taken down and now they're reforming it. But at the time, they made me wear the worst suit of all time. 00:38:42 Speaker 3: You just what pants were you wearing when you got there? 00:38:45 Speaker 2: Like a kind of a snappy I'll describe the outfit too, because you ask a snappy khaki with an orange blazer. Wow, you know, a dress shirt and tie. And it was a snappy look. 00:39:00 Speaker 3: But it wasn't close enough to a suit, right they need it's supposed to. It can't be. It's not supposed to be slacks and it's supposed to be a suit. 00:39:05 Speaker 2: The pant and jacket must match. 00:39:07 Speaker 3: Wow, I didn't know that. I didn't know that. 00:39:09 Speaker 2: It feels a little. I don't know who's behind that thinking, because the putting a man of my size in a pant size that's, you know, quite a bit larger just made me look like I was out of my mind, wandering around like some slob who had just stumbled. And that doesn't help the atmosphere if only, if anything, it detracts. 00:39:29 Speaker 3: Right of course, But but but it sends a message and teaches a lesson, and teaches a lesson, right and that and that helps people going forward. It upholds a more progress, It up holds a more agg Wait, so you but you're a norm, a norm? If you will, thank you. 00:39:47 Speaker 2: You're aware of a night? Did they allow you to go in without a suit? 00:39:50 Speaker 3: I believe it's Friday. I believe there's a lunch. You're allowed to go for a certain buffet lunch. To get specific again to anyone outside of Los Angeles. Again, we're getting very specific. But you can go. I believe if you know a member, and that means you know a magician, which not everybody does but I do, you can go. I think on Fridays might be Tuesdays, but I believe this is a day where you just need a button down collar. Oh and then you can have buffet lunch. And I love buffet lunch, all right, I love it. The food is fine, good enough tea cruise ship. It is cruise ships below it is sub cruise ship. It is it is, Yes, it is it is. 00:40:29 Speaker 2: I mean it is prison cafeteria food. Look, I'm willing to say or at the time. Okay, let me back that up. This was in twenty fifteen, so things may have changed at the Magic Castle. I think things have changed with the Magic Castle. There's been a major rupture at the Magic Castle. And maybe they've got better food. 00:40:47 Speaker 3: Maybe they better food. But I agree the time that I went wouldn't befit a monarch of. 00:40:54 Speaker 2: The season, you know, what I mean. You cruise a lot. You cruising. 00:41:00 Speaker 3: I used to go with my family. My family would go on cruises pretty regularly, okay, but I haven't as an adult one to one cruise for a friend's bachelor party, okay. And we decided to do like a three day cruise, and I don't think it was the best choice, but I do think we did. But we did get absolutely blackout drunk at one of the fancy dinners, and I do believe we just took off our shirts in the dining room and just sort of lived out loud. 00:41:31 Speaker 2: Colors don't run, indeed. 00:41:32 Speaker 3: They don't. 00:41:33 Speaker 2: They don't fast exactly right. Well, I feel like it's time to play a game. Okay, We're gonna play a game called Gift or a Curse. I need a number between one and ten from you. 00:41:42 Speaker 3: Six. 00:41:42 Speaker 1: Okay. 00:41:43 Speaker 2: I have to do some light calculating. I have to get our game pieces. I need you to be patient, but I also want you to promote something, recommend something, do whatever you want. You have the microphone, do whatever you want. I'll be right back. 00:41:53 Speaker 3: Hey, everybody, we're here at the headquarters of Crooked Media. Crooked Media. We have a program called Vote Save America with vote Save America is it is a way for people to find out the most effective ways for them to donate their time and donate their money as we head into the midterms. Right now, if you go to vote Saveamerica dot com, you can do one of several things, but two of them are this one. We have a fuck Bands action plan where you can donate to on the ground organizations that are providing reproductive care and abortion access for people all across America, especially in places where if Roe is overturned, they may lose access and need help. And these organizations know exactly what they can do to help, so that's going to make a difference on the ground right now. You can also sign up to be part of Midterm Madness. We have four regions, East, West, South, and Midwest. Pick a region. It can be where you are, it could be where your ancestral home is, and if you pick that region, you will get the best ways you could help up and down the ballot in your region, the most effective places to donate, the places that need the money the most, where you can volunteer. We have to do everything we can to make sure we fight for a pro choice, pro gun control majority in this country. Excuses everybody sign up votes Save America dot Com beautifully us. How about that. 00:43:05 Speaker 2: I hate to say it, but I'm a Trump voter. I should have told you up top. 00:43:10 Speaker 3: Yeah, you should have told me up top. 00:43:14 Speaker 2: No. 00:43:14 Speaker 3: No, no, I wouldn't have said yesterday. 00:43:16 Speaker 2: Even when I say things like that, I'm like, I have to go back and say absolutely, because you never know, you know. Sometimes I truly no longer believe anyone knows anything, and no one did not vote for Donald Trump. I have to be I just have to be very clear about that sort of But truly everyone takes take that advice. Let's what a nightmare of the world is. Let's let's do something nice, try to make it habitable in some way. Let's play the game. Let's play the game gift or a curse. I'm gonna name three things. You're gonna tell me if there're a gift or a curse and why, and then I'm gonnaell if you're a correct or not. There are correct answers, and you can lose, and look, we don't want you to lose. Okay, maybe we do. Number one These are all listeners suggestions. We love the listener. Someone named Kathleen has written in Gift or a curse, puzzles with some pieces already put together out of the box, curse. 00:44:08 Speaker 3: Why what are we doing here? The point is not to finish the puzzle. The point is to have a good time doing a puzzle. What wow, you know will make this even more fun? What if more pieces were done? That'll save us a lot of time. The point is not to save time. The point is to take time. In fact, if I ever do a puzzle, and I have, and I will and I do. When you open the box and a couple of pieces stuck together, like you know, not not yet separated, I remove, I undo them immediately and mix them up. Of course, purist is even. It doesn't even. It's not. That's not fair to pureists that it fundamentally, it's not about being pureist. It's about understanding what you are doing when you do a puzzle. If you if you are glad to see that two pieces are already together when you have started, you don't like puzzles, You should be upset and want it fixed. Because if you are glad that you don't have to do as much on this puzzle, just don't do it at all. 00:45:06 Speaker 2: John mm hmm, correct, thank you, absolutely a curse. I'm not getting my money's worth. I want a discount. If I open that thing and part of the puzzle is solved, I'm going back to the manufacturer and demanding the percentage of the puzzle that was already finished. I paid full price for this thing to do the game. I didn't want a picture. I wanted a puzzle. Eventually I'll be rewarded with the picture and then, but I not yet. I will say, now that we're thinking about it, maybe you set that small little corner that was put together for you aside, and as you start doing the puzzle, if maybe exhaustion sets in, if you're pinched for time, you can save that for later. But if you get to the you get a lot of the puzzle done, you can break it up and then you get a little satisfaction now at all. 00:45:48 Speaker 3: No, No, that is first of all, that was conciliatory in a way that was profoundly stupid. What do you mean set it aside? If it's set aside, you can't come back the whole. Do not understand, how puz do you understand that if you set it aside and then take it apart later, There's only so many places it can go. If you've done the puzzle and have that piece aside, you can't undo it once you've decided not to take those apart at the jump. Every piece you put together while those are sitting there already connected is making the puzzle easier, and the and the value of splitting these up. 00:46:21 Speaker 2: Okay, how dare I'm just saying. I'm trying to I'm trying to speak to the listener that thinks, you know, that's my little treat. I bought this chore for myself, and I get a little treat the manufacturer set upside again. I disagree. I think it's a rip off. I think that you've been absolutely robbed if part of the puzzle's already done. But look, we're correct, I mean we're both correct. Yeah, we agree, you get the point. 00:46:45 Speaker 3: I just didn't appreciate you, look getting all wishy washy on this. 00:46:49 Speaker 2: I know, I actually I appreciate you calling me out on keeping me honest, because if we don't have that, then what do we have. 00:46:55 Speaker 3: If we don't have that, what do we have? 00:46:57 Speaker 2: Indeed, we have a partially completed puzzle. No one wants that Okay. Number two, someone named Rancan or Rankin has written in gift or a curse urinal in a person's house. 00:47:09 Speaker 3: Wow, that is interesting. I'll tell you, I'm I know that I've been accused of equivocating and assembling throughout the recording of this podcast, which has been a charm. But I'll tell you I I'm gonna I'm gonna walk. I'm gonna give you a hard, firm answer, but I do want to walk you through my thought from that's okay, okay, because I'll tell you my mind is saying gift, my heart is saying curse. And let me tell you why my mind says that's that's cool, that's cool as how sure, okay, that's awesome. That rules how fancy a urinal terrific? It's practical for a lot of people who go to the bathroom, you know, some percentage and uh, you'd be sort of at first you'd be surprised and delighted to come across one. But then but then in my heart, I this isn't personal, This doesn't belong here, this doesn't belong in a home. And then also there's a kind of uncanny valley aspect, and tell me if I'm taking too long with these answers. There's a very specific Uncanny Valley aspect because I vividly remember when I was but a small child, I went to a house of a friend of a friend and it was the biggest, fanciest, richest house. I'd never been to a house like this my whole life. And he showed me his bedroom. We got a little tour and had a drum set in the bedroom, big enough to have a drum set in it. And then he had a bathroom with a urinal. And it's always seared into my memory because I had never seen a urinal in home toilet color or styling before. I'd only seen urinals at you know, urinal locate public bathrooms, truck stops. But think about it. Think about it in your mind you picture a urinal, You're not picturing a beige round urinal that matches a beige home. This wasn't a public urinal. This was a home urinal. And for that reason, it was wrong and drafted. It just was smaller it was. It wasn't for commercial use. It didn't have a big cool, it didn't have a big, you know, the big kind of urinal lever had the kind of cute home level, and I said to myself, no, thank you, And so I say, in conclusion. 00:49:21 Speaker 2: Curse playground for disease. Ah, okay, wrong, what how often? 00:49:29 Speaker 3: Look? 00:49:30 Speaker 2: You have a whole story about this urinal? Did you get to carry? You'll be thinking about it on your deathbed. You'll be thinking about that. Strange to come across a urinal in someone's home. It's one of the most jarring, surreal things that you could possibly do. You're suddenly in every public space you've ever been, but you're in their living room. Well it's off their living room, I mean. And again, this listener didn't specify, so maybe they were talking about a urinal in the front the foyer or something. But the urinal is a very and I don't want to say the word treat because we don't want to talk about urinal in the realm of treats. But it is a such a special occasion, a little miracle. Am I using it? 00:50:08 Speaker 3: No? 00:50:08 Speaker 2: But I'm looking at it and I'm thinking. 00:50:09 Speaker 3: Why are you using it? 00:50:11 Speaker 2: Because it's too strange? So okay, and I don't want to pee on my pants. 00:50:16 Speaker 3: Wow. Well, okay, A couple of things unpacked. We don't need it. We keep moving. But I'll just say one other thing, one other point I want to make on behalf of the fact that it's a curse, and it is this. You can't have a bathroom without a toilet. You can have them without a urinal. What that means is we're doubling the number of basically toilets, even in a small even this, you have to have a toilet, and which which means there's a kind of you know when you when you're in a bathroom and there's another you're sitting on it now, So it's not gonna be a stall, right, it's not a stall at home. But you're sitting on a toilet or at a toilet, and you look to your right, and what do you see another place to go to the bathroom. That's discomfiting. That's not not good. 00:50:58 Speaker 2: It's a bounty, a fee. 00:51:00 Speaker 3: I don't like it. 00:51:01 Speaker 2: I mean, picture of this. Here are someone's house, you ask for the bathroom. As you walk into the bathroom, there's only a urinal, the most haunting image I can possibly imagine. 00:51:10 Speaker 3: And the door locks behind you from the outside. 00:51:12 Speaker 2: Good luck. Wow, Well you didn't get the point there, but that's fine. You know the rich You know you've really reached a rich level when you're getting creative with the toilets. Finally, Okay, so you've gotten one out of tude. Wow, let's see if you can get a sixty six. 00:51:27 Speaker 3: I think you were even pretty ambivalent about whether or not. I'm just saying, okay, you know what, this is your show. 00:51:34 Speaker 2: I'm sorry, gift her a curse, and this is from Dabney. Dabney wants to know. Gift her a curse. Songs that fade out at the end. 00:51:43 Speaker 3: I'm so glad you asked that. 00:51:45 Speaker 2: I'm I'm glad Dabney's gotten the conversation going for us. 00:51:49 Speaker 3: Curse Why because it doesn't work at concerts? 00:51:57 Speaker 2: Oh my god. 00:51:58 Speaker 3: Because here's the thing. There's no song that fades out that couldn't have a proper ending. And it can fade out in the sense that there can be a final strum of the guitar, pressing of a piano key, banging of a snare drum. Okay, it's possible, it's possible. But if you're ever at a live show where someone does a song that only is known for fading out and they try the fade out. It's brutal. It's brutal. 00:52:28 Speaker 2: What does that even look like? 00:52:29 Speaker 3: It just doesn't work. It just doesn't work. They have to find some other way out, and I don't like it. I also it means the song never it's you know when the song is over, and you know when the song is still fully playing, But as it fades out, you know how long you're gonna be here, especially if you you ever listen to a song that fades out on Spotify and then you look down on your phone and you're like, did it pause? No, we're just in an interminable fade out. 00:52:54 Speaker 2: Fuck that curse, curse you get point? 00:52:59 Speaker 3: Yes, it's yes. 00:53:00 Speaker 2: I mean, first of all, laziness, finish the job, finish the song. You started the song. Let's get a you know, let's put a roof on this. No song fades in, that's actually probably I would disagree. I think some songs do fade in. Okay, wow, great, I feel like there's got to be a song out there that fades in. 00:53:19 Speaker 3: You know, you could have come with me for two seconds. 00:53:21 Speaker 2: Well, you have not come with me several times here. You didn't come with me to see there it is. But You're right, absolutely, and that truly what an excellent point. I've never thought about that, the live experience of a song fading out. Just you know, you started with one chord, you use that chord, you end the song with it, or you do the a fun little drum thing, or. 00:53:42 Speaker 3: It can different instruments can stop playing, and it could it could slowly come to a very softly then. 00:53:49 Speaker 2: The train stops moving. 00:53:50 Speaker 3: In situation, let's end this thing, right, let's make a decision. 00:53:54 Speaker 2: What do you think of a false ending? Like a song seems like it ends, You get like one to two seconds in the song, here we go again. 00:54:02 Speaker 3: I'm okay with it. 00:54:03 Speaker 2: I love it. 00:54:04 Speaker 3: There is a poignant performance by Florence in the Machine in a hospital for a person obviously who was very ill, and they were singing one of their big songs, and that song has a false ending or as a moment gets quiet, and then it comes back in and everybody started ap plodding, and I saw, I assume Florence. I guess Florence is Florence, right, I've been in Florence's The machineist whoever. The Machine is kind of. 00:54:27 Speaker 2: A faceless group of men, but so more women I actually don't want to speak for the whole band. 00:54:32 Speaker 3: Florence delicately and definitely trying to signal to the people are plotting in this room, we're not done coming back. So that's a challenge with a false ending. 00:54:41 Speaker 2: Specific yeah, right right, yeah, the false ending. 00:54:44 Speaker 3: You've got to be careful. 00:54:45 Speaker 2: You have to be careful with a false ending. But I love it. I love to It's You're born again leads. 00:54:50 Speaker 3: A lot of this. People can't see what I'm doing, but I'm I'm, I don't know whatever. 00:54:54 Speaker 2: A class about to clap at a concert now he feels like a dork because he feels like everyone's looking at him and he's like, oh, no, I know when the real end of the song is. I was just doing I was warming up to clap because for when the actual end of the song is coming, Like. 00:55:06 Speaker 3: When people at a Loso concert start doing the TikTok dance too early because she's not at that part of the song yet. 00:55:12 Speaker 2: Well, that would be truly bad. She should have those people kicked out to get out. Lizzo, listen to a tip. You've got have the security remove those people from the audience. Those are not your true fans. And they're ruining it for everyone. They're doing the TikTok dance too soon, too soon. You have the power, Lizzo. People would love if you were kicking people out of the concert. That would make headlines everywhere. Lizzo removes fans. Okay, you got two out of three. 00:55:36 Speaker 3: I'm okay with it. 00:55:37 Speaker 2: Not horrible, not horrible. Okay. 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. Every single one of them is hanging by a thread socially. They needed some answer about a gift or what have you. Would you answer one with me? 00:55:52 Speaker 3: I would love to. 00:55:53 Speaker 2: Okay, let me read this. It says, Now, this person didn't even say I mean, maybe this is my fault. But there's no intro to this email. It just says, here's my question. There's no dear Bridger, dear Bridger, and guess there's truly nothing. It just says, here's my question. My landlord is about to turn ninety. When I started renting from him about ten years ago, I remember thinking, I don't know if I should rent from you or make a documentary. Well, we apparently we know what happened here. He moved into the place. But let's see this guy. 00:56:22 Speaker 3: Okay. 00:56:22 Speaker 2: He worked for Frank Lloyd Wright in the fifties. He owns a home that survived the Chicago fire and has Clarence Darrow's early law library in the attic. 00:56:31 Speaker 3: Is this person? 00:56:32 Speaker 2: His family home is nestled between is nestled between the Oscar Mayer estate and Walt Disney's first Chicago home. During the first lockdown, he found out he needed to undergo a heart valve replacement surgery, and as he has no spouse slash children, slash needy friends, he legally put myself, the writer of this email, and a few of my long term neighbors onto the trust in case the worst happened. I am very grateful. He doesn't play golf like my dad or eat sweets like my grandpa used to. I guess my question is what do you gift a weird, slash generally mean and lonely old man who who has everything and doesn't care xo XO Joshua. 00:57:10 Speaker 3: Fascinating? First of all, I mean. 00:57:12 Speaker 2: This he's basically describing a Forest Gump type character who has passed through all sorts of historical things to become a landlord. 00:57:22 Speaker 3: But also what was interesting is we didn't until the final moments of the note learned some negative qualities. 00:57:29 Speaker 2: Right, he seems just like herson, seems. 00:57:32 Speaker 3: Fine, and then all of a sudden the end, he doesn't need things, doesn't want things. It seems mean. He's mean. He doesn't eat sweets and play golf, which was which he said, which this email writer said earlier than warranted, because it wasn't until later we learned that this was about a gift. 00:57:49 Speaker 2: Right, Basically, he was just bragging about this guy's kind of just being at different places in history by owning homes. And then I will also say this Joshua apparently knows two things about men over sixty, and that's play golf or eat sweets. Right, doesn't come with a lot of information and has somehow wormed his way into this guy's heart to be part of his will. 00:58:11 Speaker 3: This seems dangerous to me. So maybe one gift could be, you know, oiling the stairs or something. You know, get this thing moving along inherd this place to make it your own. 00:58:22 Speaker 2: Become kind of the landlord himself. Take the wheel that doesn't take a crown, take the crown. That's not a bad idea. I mean, this person's I mean mean and lonely makes me think this person needs a son. And who I mean, we've got We've got an air Joshua. He's already got the will and all these things. Why doesn't he do the paperwork. I'm sure he could. He could adopt it as an adult backwards, adopt himself into this man's life. Here's my thought. 00:58:51 Speaker 3: He says he's mean, he says he's lonely, Yes, all right, what does that tell me? Until he's hurting physically, emotional, emotionally, doesn't know how to reach out. He's not from a generation that learned how to communicate. This person's not a therapy absolutely absolutely not, would never have gone to therapy. 00:59:05 Speaker 2: So this is a person never too late. 00:59:07 Speaker 3: So this is a person and it's and that's the other thing about this, it's never too late. This person crying out for community. He's put strangers basically on his trust. 00:59:19 Speaker 2: Giving away his kingdom. 00:59:21 Speaker 3: He can't he do to toxic masculine and he doesn't have the capacity to reach out and say I. 00:59:29 Speaker 2: Need, I need, I need, I need, I need. 00:59:32 Speaker 3: I've hurt, I am alone. Help me, can't do it. So here's my pitch, really funny. Welcome Matt. That's it. That's what I got. 00:59:44 Speaker 2: Urinal in the apartment. Sure, sure, ninety, Are you using a urinal? It's hard to say it's I think it's catching. 00:59:50 Speaker 3: I don't think so. 00:59:51 Speaker 2: I don't think I'm gonna be using a urinal at ninety. I'm gonna be sitting on that toilet. I'm just very honest. I'm sorry to give everyone the image of me at ninety sitting on a toilet, but that's why you're here. 01:00:00 Speaker 3: And then you know you're at It's four point thirty. You're at the cheesecake factory with your progeny, and you sit down at the table and you say, you know, I don't pee at the ear anymore. I sit down because I earned it. 01:00:11 Speaker 2: I didn't live to ninety to stand at a urinal. 01:00:14 Speaker 3: Where are my tex mechs egg rolls all day? 01:00:19 Speaker 2: I'm ninety, Joshua. This is the perfect gift for this person. And I mean you've time. I mean the clock is ticking. So the fact that you wrote into this podcast tells me you kind of don't care to get him at gifted all you're just trying to save your bucks because you know it's just going to be a drop in the bucket once his estate comes to you. Look, I'm saying, get the funny doormat that John recommended. Force adopt your way into this guy's life, and maybe force those other people off the wheel. 01:00:51 Speaker 3: You get. That's the thing here, That's what worries me most about this note. These other people on the will, right, who are they? Alienate this man from those people? 01:01:00 Speaker 2: What makes him so deserve it? 01:01:01 Speaker 3: Dislike them, make him feel unsafe with them? Make you make yourself the only person he can talk to, the only person he can trust, the only person he wants in that will. 01:01:11 Speaker 2: This is succession. We're looking at succession, and the lonely old man is about to have a son and a friend in Joshua. You show up with the doormat and get into that apartment and start start chatting. That's all I have to say. 01:01:27 Speaker 3: Make yourself at home. 01:01:29 Speaker 2: It's about to be John. I have this beautiful T shirt. Yeah, we've answered this email perfectly. A mean, mean, lonely old man is about to get everything he ever asked for. What a perfect episode of this podcast. Wow, I've just had a lovely time. I've had a lovely time. Thank you for having me. This was a delight. I mean, obviously Sears is still in the air. The listener's freaking out. The listener probably knew immediately about lighting Buzz light Year. But that's fine. We'll let Sears just play out. We'll see what happens the natural course of time, etc. You'll get in touch with City Hall, as I hinted at earlier. And thank you for being here. Thank you and listener. This is the end of the podcast. I'm so glad you were here. I hope you have a terrific day. I don't know what you're gonna do, but it's gonna be. It's gonna be another normal day for you. Let's be honest, it's probably gonna be a very average day, especially now that the best part of it is over. But have a nice little lunch or something, do something for yourself. Look up Sears on Google Maps and you'll see what I'm talking about. 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. The theme song, of Course, could only come from miracle worker Amy Mayn. 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. Don't you want to see pictures of the gifts? 01:03:05 Speaker 1: But I invited you here. I thought I made myself perfectly clear. But you're a guess to my home. You gotta come to me empty, And I said, no guests. You're on presences, presents enough that I already had too much stuff. So how do you dare to surbey me