00:00:08 Speaker 1: Well, I invited you here. I 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, you're our presences presents enough. I already had too much stuff. 00:00:35 Speaker 2: So how do you dare to surbey me? 00:00:47 Speaker 3: Welcome to? I said, no gifts. I'm Bridger Wineger. What's going on. I've got my phone on do not disturb. I've got I have the computer on do not just I don't have well, I've got them both on do not disturb. So I guess if you want to disturb me, you're going to have to find me. I'm in a very nice place. I've had one and a half cups of coffee, I've got water, I have every liquid I could possibly need, and I've got a guest that I'm thrilled to talk to. It's Jesse Tyler Ferguson. Jesse, welcome to. I said, no gifts. 00:01:23 Speaker 4: Thank you for having me. 00:01:24 Speaker 3: It's so nice to see you. And you're currently in a shared work space from what I know. 00:01:30 Speaker 4: Yes, yes, I shared that with you that information. 00:01:34 Speaker 3: Where is this space? 00:01:35 Speaker 4: It's in New York City. It's a it's not a we work, But it's something similar to. 00:01:40 Speaker 3: That, right, it doesn't have a like a we work aesthetic. You almost have kind of a Victorian curtain behind you. It's kind of haunted looking. Yes, it does, which I feel like would be a decent idea. I feel like all of the shared spaces were very clean and very you know, minimalist for a while. I feel like maybe it's time to give them more of a haunted vibe, just. 00:02:04 Speaker 4: Like a Victorian townhouse. 00:02:06 Speaker 3: R Yes, that, I feel like that's the next step for these shared spaces, to give a little bit more of a theme rather than just kind of like an empty apple store. 00:02:18 Speaker 4: I'm into it. 00:02:18 Speaker 3: Yeah, what's been going on. You're in New York? 00:02:22 Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm in New York. I'm doing a play on Broadway right now called Take Me Out, and that's wrapping up in about a week. And yeah, so I'm coming to the end of that. It's been a great run. We were meant to do this back in twenty twenty and then had to shut down and Broadway shut down, and yes, it's been great to finally get it up on its feet. And yeah, it's a very emotional thing to be closing a play that I've been working on for so long, You're all right starting to have separation anxiety. 00:02:53 Speaker 3: So you were all ready to go in twenty twenty and then obviously didn't do it. But over the course of the two years, did you think about the play? Was their work done on the play or did you just kind of put it on hold and start over again once we were able to. 00:03:07 Speaker 4: Yeah, I had a hard time looking at the play and it was just too heartbreaking to sort of revisit because I didn't know if we would be able to come back to it. I didn't know, you know, how, if Bobby was going to survive this, if I didn't know if I was still going to be available, when when, and if it did survive. But that being said, I think it sort of lived within me and I marinated in the idea of this character for a year and a half, whether I wanted to or not. So when I did finally come back to it, it did work out with schedules and everything that I was a completely different person first off than I was, you know, a year and a half earlier. But we did start over. We didn't, you know, we had been in rehearsal for I think almost three weeks before we had to shut down the first time, and I think we scrapped everything mostly because we couldn't remember any We did it either, and we started over, which I think it's a kind of lovely way to come back to it is just to sort of start with a clean slate. And you know, it's done very well. Got four tony nominations, so it's been very validating, not bad at all. So yeah, it's been it's been great. I'm really thrilled that it's it's been such a great run and people are enjoying it, and I feel very accomplished. 00:04:24 Speaker 3: I mean, the play is kind of a it has to do with baseball. But I'm curious, as a gay man, what your experience is with playing baseball because mine has never been positive. I don't think I've ever successfully connected a bat with a ball. 00:04:40 Speaker 4: Oh gosh, I don't know if I have either, to be perfectly honest, Yeah, I was definitely an indoor kid growing up and did not participate in team sports, and you know, it was very intimidated by the jocks in my school. And I went to a high school, and I went to a Catholic high school where sports were very important. Ohou, and that's you know, so that was I was like, what about me? What do I'm what am I supposed to do? But you know, I did love seeing games my dad. I sort of I liked. I liked the pomp and circumstance of baseball, the national anthem at the beginning and the first pitch and like you know that, the people selling cracker jacks and peanuts and you know, getting a hot dog. But then you know you're stuck watching the long It was mostly the heat. It was the heat for me, that's really what bothered me. I did not like to be hot, and it was you know, you're in no shade and you're just hot. I grew up in Albuquerque, in Mexico, and it was hot, right. 00:05:38 Speaker 3: I mean, I could listen to like an electric organ playing songs all day, but put me in a stadium with that and it's not not as appealing, right right, right, right, So I feel like you're probably not a summer person. Are you a summer person? 00:05:53 Speaker 4: I enjoy being in the air conditioning in the summer or in a pool as long as the shade around need the shade. You know, I'm a redhead, so you know, it's like not today in Melanoma. 00:06:06 Speaker 3: How was your skincare journey, ben As As a fellow fair skinned, redheaded person, I feel like we probably both grew up in a time when the world was not as kind to fair skinned people, you know. I feel like redheads had through the eighties and nineties, it was not a fun experience to be a child with red hair. 00:06:25 Speaker 4: No, I feel like we really, you know, now it's a cool thing to have red hair. It's also like certain pockets of this country, it's just like cool to be queer. 00:06:37 Speaker 3: You know. 00:06:38 Speaker 4: It's like I love like, you know, it's in now and not so much. When I was a kid, I suffered a lot of really bad burns. Also, I think, you know, sunscreen and my parents knew that it was important, but doesn't necessarily they weren't, you know, diligent about it. And now I'm a dad now, so I'm like always slopping sunscreen on my kid, and I'm not going to put you through any burns like my parents, because you know not, I'm paying the prices. 00:07:02 Speaker 3: Of course. I mean, that would be my time machine moment to go back and just say please put on some more sunscreen. Yes, absolutely, that's the most important piece of advice. I guess there was that terrible song about sunscreen in the nineties. It was just the man talking about sunscreen, but I didn't heed any of those warnings. Now, are you putting sunscreen on every morning? 00:07:25 Speaker 1: Now? 00:07:26 Speaker 4: I try to? 00:07:27 Speaker 3: Yeah, but what does that mean? You try to? 00:07:30 Speaker 4: I'm gonna say seventy five percent of the time, I'm good about it. 00:07:34 Speaker 3: That's pretty impressive. 00:07:35 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:07:35 Speaker 4: Yeah, it's just you know, it's at least on my face. 00:07:37 Speaker 3: At least rice, right, I feel like I'm still I'm still struggling. Maybe twenty years great, Well, you. 00:07:46 Speaker 4: Know you're doing better than I. Unless you always stay in that carpeted room, you're just ever going outside. 00:07:52 Speaker 3: I don't know. I feel like there were probably twenty years of my life that were just a real hit or miss with sunscreen. Yeah, but you know, the nineties was very tan oriented, and no matter what you told me, I didn't believe that. I always thought maybe eventually I'll be able to get a tan. Just simply not happening. 00:08:14 Speaker 4: Now there's red or white, red or. 00:08:17 Speaker 3: White too, just bizarre skin colors. Here's my question, here's an intes Well, it's not an interesting question, but do you remember a shift in the United States from people describing people with red hair going to saying ginger, Because I feel like until maybe like the mid thousands, it was red hair, you had red hair, and then it became gingers. 00:08:38 Speaker 4: The first time I heard ginger was in the UK, right like that, and then it sort of made its way across the bond. 00:08:44 Speaker 3: Right, and it seemed very charming for a long time, and then it just became normalized. And now it's just a thing that we say. But I grew up, the vocabulary for me was red hair. Yeah, I don't know. 00:08:57 Speaker 4: There was a ginger. I think ginger is sweet. 00:09:00 Speaker 3: Yeah, it is a nicer you know, it's like a It just seems more positive. And I think it was probably part of the pro redhead movement that we're now benefiting from. 00:09:09 Speaker 4: It's like as if as if a hair color had a nickname, you. 00:09:12 Speaker 3: Know, like a fun little nickname. I mean ginger spice. I guess ginger Spice was kind of the UK UK. She stormed the American shores and kind of laid laid the path for the rest of us. But I do want to I just want to take every redheaded child aside now and say it wasn't always this easy. 00:09:32 Speaker 4: Exactly. You stand on our shoulders for. 00:09:35 Speaker 3: Sure, on my sunburnt shoulder exactly. Okay, So the play is ending in a week, and then what's happening coming back to Los Angeles? What's the deal? 00:09:46 Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm coming back to LA. I never imagined not living on the East Coast when I was I did Peter, you know, right out of score. I was right fifteen years before moving to LA and I still to the state. Feel like I'm just visiting LA. You might. I've been there now longer than I ever lived in New York. But it just feels like home to meet here on these coasts. But that being said, now that I'm a father and having a kid with me, I mean, New York's a hard place to raise a kid, and I'm doing it in the summer, where there's like things to do outside. I can only imagine what it'd be like in the dead of winter. So I'm happy to go back to LA or have a little bit more space and you know, a yard and a pool. 00:10:25 Speaker 3: And right in a car seat in the back of the car exactly, right. Yeah, New York's a hard place to be just as a single person. I can't imagine with the child and yeah, that's that's a tough situation. Wait, so how long have you lived in La Gosh? 00:10:41 Speaker 4: I mean it's got to be a mount of family around for eleven years and I was there for like maybe three years before that. And Monern film has been off for two years, almost sixteen years, I think seventeen years. 00:10:51 Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I've been here for maybe twelve and I still yeah, I feel similarly where I'm just like, I will always be a tourist here. I will never know how to get around. I have a very vague idea of how to get from east to west. But basically if I were to if someone asked me to draw a map of Los Angeles, it would be an absolute blur, simply no idea how the city is shaped or where anything is. 00:11:18 Speaker 4: Right. 00:11:19 Speaker 3: Yeah, but I assume, well, maybe it's because I moved here as an adult and my brain was basically, you know, solidified, so it's harder to you know, learn things and would. 00:11:31 Speaker 4: Be expected to learn new things at this age. 00:11:33 Speaker 3: Now I can't be expected to do anything at this stage. I've done. I'm absolutely done, and to learn of you know, a giant metropolis map system. No, thank you. I can get to a coffee shop and maybe get halfway across town before I'm delving into Google Maps or whatever, right, right, right, although I do just think Google Maps has ruined all of our brains as far as directions. 00:11:58 Speaker 4: For sure. When I first with LA, I had the Thomas Guide, which is, you know, a paper map with a grid, and like, you know, I I That's how I got around. I had a little Mini Cooper and I got my Thomas Guide, and I'd have to pull over and figure out where the streets were and look on the grid. It's because f F one. So I find the ex square and the one square and bring my fingers together and like, okay, it's somewhere in this grid, and I'd have to find the street and then, you know, but I made it work, and I was a lot sharper back then. 00:12:28 Speaker 3: Of course, of course, I'm sure your brain appreciated that. I mean, just you describing that to me is just anxiety bells going off in my head. There's no I would have died. I would have died within three days. There's no change, are you kidding me? I mean, my spatial skills are weak enough as is. I can't. So it was just it wasn't really a map. It was a grid. 00:12:50 Speaker 4: Well it's it was it's like a it's like a book. It was like an atlets and you'd have to find the neighborhood you're in and be on a certain page. And so you know, I was mostly in the same area, so like you know, Silver like Los Angele lost feelas in West Hollywood. So those pages were basically had been used so much they came out of the Thomas Guide like they weren't even they fell out of the book because I was just always covered in food exactly. 00:13:14 Speaker 3: So and at this point, do you feel like you can get around pretty easily? 00:13:18 Speaker 4: Yeah? I mean I also, you know, we have our GPS and tell us where to go, And even if I know where I'm going, I still put the GPS in because, like you know, it tells you if there's traffic, it's you know, there's everything for you. 00:13:29 Speaker 3: Right. 00:13:29 Speaker 4: Although I'm hungry. 00:13:33 Speaker 3: I'm mildly suspicious of the traffic thing. I'm always just like, well, there's just going to be traffic every route in Los Angeles, so who cares? The red line doesn't mean anything to me, it'll be a red line no matter where I go. Yeah, yeah, you Los Angeles, Where are you spending your time? Where are you going out to eat? 00:13:51 Speaker 4: Oh? Gosh, there's a restaurant called Horses that I really enjoy in West Hollywood. Have you been? 00:13:57 Speaker 3: I haven't been. I'm so intimidated, but I just know that I'm gonna like, I'll try to make a reservation. The idea of getting there and it being it feels impossible to get into it scares me, but I want to go. 00:14:11 Speaker 4: It's really good food, of course. 00:14:13 Speaker 3: I mean, it's the hottest place in town, is it. Well? That and there's a restaurant called mother Wolf that people yes Wolf too, Yes, Okay, well, now you're just I know, it's insane. I can't even imagine. 00:14:30 Speaker 4: A huge A mother Wolf is very big. You can definitely get it. 00:14:34 Speaker 3: It's big. 00:14:34 Speaker 4: Okay, it's a very large space. 00:14:36 Speaker 3: Yes, I mean, I get on the reservation page and it's like, would you like to eat there six months from now at four forty five for dinner? And it's just like, I'm not doing I'm not rearranging my life in that way. 00:14:48 Speaker 4: No, I totally understand. I didn't realize it was. It was that complicated. 00:14:52 Speaker 3: My god, it's very tricky. And then a lot of these restaurants they'll only do reservations a week out, which I know I can't. It's like Black Friday or something like you have to camp out. It's at some point it's not worth the battle for me. I'm too lazy. 00:15:10 Speaker 4: I understand some of the easier places, like I've you been to All Day Baby, and. 00:15:14 Speaker 3: I love All Day Baby. I can get into All Day Baby exactly. 00:15:18 Speaker 4: That's delicious food and uh kismet, Oh. 00:15:22 Speaker 3: Of course we love. I've I had Have you ever had their rabbit feast? 00:15:26 Speaker 4: I've seen people haven't. I've always been intimidated to get it. Is it delicious? 00:15:30 Speaker 3: It, Let's let's be completely honest. It's fine. I would rather get everything else on their menu. A friend really wanted to try it, so I tried it. I don't think I had had rabbit before. 00:15:42 Speaker 2: Uh. 00:15:42 Speaker 3: Probably not going to have another rabbit feast. Let's be honest. 00:15:45 Speaker 4: I understand. I get it. It's a it's a it's a bit. It's a bold swing. 00:15:49 Speaker 3: It's a huge, huge swing, a variety of rabbit preparations. It felt bonkers. I felt yeah, I just felt like a psychopath eating it. But the rest of Kismet. 00:15:59 Speaker 4: Of course, Yeah, it's pretty great. 00:16:01 Speaker 3: Okay, Kismet all day Baby. Those are both excellent restaurants. Do you like Mexican food? 00:16:06 Speaker 4: I do. 00:16:07 Speaker 3: I mean, you grew up in New Mexico, so I feel like you've probably you've got big opinions in Mexican food. 00:16:12 Speaker 4: Yeah, and New Mexican food is very different than Mexican food. It's a lot of green chili, hatch green chili, and it's just prepared differently. And I loved I loved it growing up. It's my favorite cuisine and I just haven't been able to find anything like it here. I would love to. I would love to open up a new Mexican restaurant in Los Angeles. 00:16:35 Speaker 3: What's stopping you? I want to answer my business manager, Well, we've got to get rid of this manager. They don't have LA's interests in mind. The city would absolutely welcome a new Mexican restaurant. It would be a huge novelty, I think. So, I mean, okay, I've got to talk to your business manager. This is ridiculous, ridiculous they're stopping you from making a lot of money and kind of tamping down all of our happiness. That's a drag. Well, Jesse, we need to talk about something else. As much as I would like to kind of bully you into opening a new Mexican restaurant in Los Angeles, I need to talk to you about an item I received. 00:17:19 Speaker 2: Now. 00:17:20 Speaker 3: This podcast is called I said no gifts. You're an entertainment professional. I'm an entertainment professional. The title of this podcast is right there. When you agreed to be on this podcast, I was very excited. I thought, Jesse, you will play by the rules. We'll have a nice conversation. But then I was a little upset recently when I opened the door and there was something waiting for me, and it was addressed to me, and it's in kind of a bag. Now that says it's a gift bag, and it says it's got two gals, and it says I get wine with a little help from my friends. So it's kind of a I have to assume this is some sort of gift for me. Is that true? 00:18:03 Speaker 4: Might be a gift for you? Yeah? 00:18:05 Speaker 3: Okay, uh, well I'm happy to open it here on the podcast if that's your game. 00:18:12 Speaker 5: Yeah, I'd love to Okay, let's dive in here. 00:18:31 Speaker 3: Let's bring out the tissue. We've got some light tissue. We're diving in. Now it's in a box. Uh, kind of just simply addressed to. Oh, it's kind of unwieldy. I'm kind of trying to get away from me. Here it's addressed to simply Bridger, which is a little ominous. I'll say, Uh, let's rip it open. Let's let's see if my raw strength can get Oh, we're getting in, We're getting in, We're opening, We're opening. Okay, Jesse, let's see what's happening here. Well, well, well, if it is not a flex i, what I've just opened is food between friends from Jesse time. So what I'm looking at is what I assume is a cookbook, right, you and Julie Tannis, And so what's happening here? What's this disgusting bit of self promotion that I am beating. 00:19:33 Speaker 4: I love that I forced you to talk about my cookbook. Now, I wrote a cookbook. 00:19:37 Speaker 3: This is incredible. I had no idea. 00:19:40 Speaker 4: It's been out for over a year and it's really it's great, speaking up new Mexican food. There's a lot of I developed half the recipes in the book, and my friend Juliet the other half. And she's from Alabama. I'm from New Mexico. So it's a lot of the food we grew up eating, and Southern food and New Mexican food actually goes really well together. There's a lot of recipes in that that are sort of a hybrid of both of our histories. And it's beautifully photographed. I think that. I think that's also very funny. It's a very funny cookbook. So yeah, I'm really proud of it. 00:20:08 Speaker 3: Oh my god, this is so exciting. I had no idea. I feel like, I know that you cooked, but as far as being a now a cookbook author, this is a whole new thing. Now, how did this come about? I actually am very curious about how a cookbook is started, because obviously you've just had recipes piling up. I assume we had. 00:20:32 Speaker 4: A blog that we were, me and my friend Julie cook a lot together, and we would, you know, post things on Instagram and the people wuld ask for the recipes. So we started a blog called it Wait for It Julie and Jesse Cook. I now don't ask me how how we thought it that great. 00:20:46 Speaker 3: Time, months of brainstorming. 00:20:48 Speaker 4: Months of brainstorming. So that caught the attention of the publisher and they asked if they could maybe turn these recipes into a book and so, but we really did start over. I mean, there's very few rests piece in that book that were actually on the original blog. Okay, but it was a there's very I don't know very many cook books that are actually co authored, and the way ours is very unique in that way. It was. It was interesting that it came out kind of at the beginning of the pandemic because you know, it's called flud between friends, and it's about coming together with people that you love, and we obviously were in a time where we couldn't do that. So I think it gave a lot of people something to sort of bring into their home and feel like that they were part of something and shared experience. And you know, cooking for friends is all about shared experiences, and I love cooking for my family and friends, and it was it felt like I was participating in that activity and a time when I couldn't participate in that activity. 00:21:43 Speaker 3: So how long have you been you know, I mean, of course you've been cooking, I'm sure for your entire adult life. But like, how long have you been really trying to be a good shif? 00:21:54 Speaker 4: Yeah, probably in the past, like ten years or so, maybe less. I think after I sort of settled in with my now husband, you know, when we were sort of seriously dating, and it felt nice to be able to take charge of like Thanksgiving dinner and Christmas dinner and you know, have dinner parties for friends. And I liked bringing people together and celebrating our lives with other people. And so I think after I sort of found my person, it became this other thing that I also wanted to have be a part of our relationship, that I could be the one that could really delicious meals for a cross and. 00:22:27 Speaker 3: People we loved, right And where, So where were you learning your techniques? Was it just a lot of trial and error or was it yes? 00:22:35 Speaker 4: And that's where Julie comes in. Julie is someone I met at the dinner party and I found out she was a chef, and we talked about our love, our mutual love of cookbooks, and I told her that I'd always dreamed of writing one, and she said I have two, and so I said, well, come over and like teach me some of the things that you learned in culinary school, because I don't have time to go to culinary school. I'm a modern family. And so she would come over and like teach me how she learned how to dice an onion, or how like debone and chicken, and so, you know, I've learned some of these techniques from her, and I'm not good at them necessarily. Well, my knife stills are not great. 00:23:10 Speaker 3: But let's fluff up these skills. I'm sure you're incredible. You've got a cookbook to sell. 00:23:15 Speaker 4: I'm better than many people. 00:23:17 Speaker 3: Must be better than most. 00:23:19 Speaker 4: I don't know about that, but well, I mean there's always room to grow, is there. 00:23:26 Speaker 3: What were some things that were like particularly difficult to learn with cooking? 00:23:32 Speaker 4: I mean, when you're talking about recipe developing, it's like, you know, just flavors that would go together, and you know, I mean some of it's just common sense, but you have to sort of push the envelope. And that's something I'm still learning how to do. Just like the timing of cooking a meal, I've really realized and embraced the importance of meis on plas, which means getting all your stuff together and chopping everything beforehand and making the actual cooking process easy. Also, you feel like when you're doing it and you're like pouring bowls of like chopped onions in and it's all coming together remarkably fast like it does on a cooking show. But you know, there's a lot of work that goes into, you know, before you get to do that. So I kind of find that part of it very meditative and learning that you need to take your time at the beginning so that you can cook efficiently with something that I've took a while for me to grasp. 00:24:22 Speaker 3: Yeah, the idea of cooking more than one dish in a twenty four hour period, to me, I just emotionally shut down. I begin to panic. Like so when there's a full meal prepared by a single person, it's a true it's a miracle to me. Yeah, how did this happen? 00:24:40 Speaker 4: I know, I know, and I like that I can impress people with that. I mean, I'm going to be really honest with you. I've been doing this play in New York for since February. I've been rehearsal and so I have not been cooking, and I feel like I've lost all my skills. So I actually, when I go back to La, I'm going to open up my own cookbook and like try it and follow the instructions to tea and sort of re emerge myself into the life of chef. 00:25:07 Speaker 3: Yeah, so when you were developing this cookbook with Julie, was it like the balancing of a cookbook, like, oh, we have way too many chicken recipes. We've got to is that kind of the process where it's like, now we need a beef, now we need like how many chicken recipes? There's too many chicken recipes. 00:25:25 Speaker 4: Well, and that's the thing. It's like, you know, chicken is the thing that most people cook from a cookbook, and you know, our editors told us that, and so we listened to them. So there is a whole chapter that's just chicken, and then there's another chapter that's you know, beef and pork. But yeah, there was one point where I realized we had like four three or four fried chicken dishes. Oh boy, we had chicken tenders. We have fried chicken, and there was something else with like a crispy chicken. I was like, okay, we need to pull back. And that was all Julie being a Southern she likes to butter and fry it. 00:25:58 Speaker 3: You know what you're saying is there's at least one unreleased chicken fried chicken recipe out there, kind of a b side. 00:26:08 Speaker 4: Exactly, That's absolutely true. 00:26:10 Speaker 3: What's the best dish you can make? What's something you can count on that everyone will be thrilled to eat? 00:26:15 Speaker 4: Gosh, there's a there's a skirt steak recipe in our cookbook that I really love, like a carne asada. That's just a delicious marinade. And you know, you could serve it by itself, you could do it in tacos. It's it's really great. There's also this ground beef and pickle taco. Oh that was inspired from So did you ever go to Mallow in Silver Lake? 00:26:38 Speaker 3: Yes, it's now kind of a bar restaurant, I think is. 00:26:42 Speaker 4: What it's exactly. I think it's called bar. Yeah. Anyway, they had a ground beef and pickle taco on the menu and we loved it so much, and Mallows since shut down, and so we paid homage to them by creating our own ground beef and pickle taco and it is just so good and I it's a combination that a lot of people are nervous about but it is really worth it. It's delicious. 00:27:07 Speaker 3: Yeah. I'm trying to do the math in my head right now of like to get to a place where I would want to eat a ground beef and pickle taco, and then I just think, oh, that's basically a hamburger. I eat a pickle on a ground beef. That all make now, it makes sense, but it just required a little context before I was able to. But I bet it's delicious. 00:27:24 Speaker 4: Yeah, And you can make it with ground turkey. 00:27:26 Speaker 3: Rightious poultry. I always get scared with beef. I'm like, you can basically cook it too. Once it looks cooked, you can basically eat it with chicken or turkey. Terrified, Yeah, just yeah, I never so I always burn it. If I have a ground turkey or a ground chicken, that will be the driest thing on a plate. Absolutely, But you'll be safe, and so I guess that's the trade off. Now let me, I just want to open the book here and take some take a peek at what's going on. It looks like there's also some breakfast, yeah, seafood gumbo. Well, I'm so excited. And there's also desserts. I love to bake, and so I'm going to have to just dive in and make some some treats or something. We'll see what happens and then you know, I'll report back and we'll see. I mean, I've all, I'm not a good I'm not a good cook, but I am a decent baker. So maybe I'll try one of each thing and see what happens. 00:28:24 Speaker 4: Just try it. 00:28:26 Speaker 3: Yeah, we'll give it a shot. 00:28:28 Speaker 4: It's give it a shot. You'll get there. 00:28:31 Speaker 3: I think it's time to play a game. Okay, We're gonna play a game called Gift or a Curse. But I need a number between one and ten from you. 00:28:39 Speaker 4: Seven. 00:28:40 Speaker 3: Okay. I have to do some light calculating to get our game pieces. So right now you have the mic. You can recommend something, you can promote something, you can do whatever you want. I'll be right back. 00:28:50 Speaker 4: Okay. So Also, something I've been working on right now that I'm really excited about is I co produced and am acting in a scripted podcast called Gay Pride and Prejudice. It's written by my friend Zachary Grady, and it is an adaptation of Pride and Prejudice set in twenty fifteen when marriage quality first became legal. And if you're a Jane Austin fan, it's something that you're absolutely going to love. If you're not a Jane Austin fan, it's said something that you're absolutely going to love. It's available to stream on Spotify right now. There are ten episodes, and you know, we're happy to be going into Pride Month with this really fun, sort of serialized, quirky rom com. It's a wrong com as Jamie jay Asen was the first rom com writer, so we're just taking her a writing and updating it. And it's got a great cast, me and Rosie O'Donnell and Malik Pancholi and it's actually, i think almost entirely queer cast, which I'm really proud of as well. So yeah, that's something I'm very very happy to be doing right now. 00:29:59 Speaker 3: Beautiful. That sounds wonderful. Listener, there's a podcast recommendation. 00:30:03 Speaker 4: Gay Pride and Prejudice. 00:30:05 Speaker 3: Any version of Pride and Prejudice is always delightful. 00:30:07 Speaker 4: Agreed. 00:30:08 Speaker 3: We love romance, we love a little funny, so go find that. But in the meantime we need to play Gift or a Curse. Jesse this is how the game works. I'm going to name three things. You're going to tell me if there are a gift or a curse and why, And I'm going to tell you if you're right or wrong, because there are correct answers, and you could lose, okay, Yeah, and losing is shameful. Losing is embarrassing and everybody hates it when that happens. But look, we'll just see what happens, all right. Number one, This is a listener suggestion from somebody named Nina, and Nina wants to know gift or a curse? Buying holiday candy on sale the day after the holiday gift? Why? 00:30:54 Speaker 4: I mean, I listen. I love candy. That's that's I mean, that's where we're starting. I love candy. I shouldn't it as much as I do, but I do. And if you're gonna get it at all discount price, why not? I mean those bags of hollowing candy are huge. They're gonna last you a few months, and it doesn't go bad after a day. It's just a day. I mean, I would. I'm the type of guy that will buy candy corn in December if it's available to me. I'm not gonna wait until until October or late August, late September. I'm gonna buy it when I want it. I love candy corn. So if candy Corn's involved what, I don't even know what. I don't even know how this is sit up for debate. 00:31:34 Speaker 3: Oh Jesse, what a horrible way to start the game. It's a loss, absolutely, of course. Look I understand everything you're saying there, but for me, the reality of buying the candy the day after is always it sends me into a panic, like you go, the aisles have been picked bare. Yeah, really, Well, what I'm thinking about right now is the Cadbury Mini Egg, which absolutely will not still be available the day after. You're not getting fifty to seventy five percent off on the mini egg because everybody bought them up, so you're showing up and it's like black licorice peeps. After Halloween, you've got like eighty pound bags of circus peanuts. Sure you can get them for cheap, but to me, it's just a sad walk down the aisle. It's a reminder that the holiday is over. And also, I have to say, the full price kind of fences you in with your candy purchases. You can't go too wild. I know I can only buy one bag of the candy rather than fill my cupboards with And again, I'm just talking about mini eggs because that's the best holiday candy. But here's Jesse with the candy corn. Do they I feel like they should make Christmas candy corn? They like make them look like little trees. 00:32:49 Speaker 4: If they haven't already, that's I mean, that seems like a no brainer, right right. 00:32:53 Speaker 3: It should be green with a white tip. It looks like there a little snow on there. Sure, I can't. I can't come up with every idea for everybody. I don't. I don't have the time or energy. But there's one for the candy industry. If you haven't already done it, okay, well you didn't get that point, that's fine, Let's give it another shot. Give her a curse. Robes? 00:33:16 Speaker 4: Oh, I kind of feel like it's a curse. 00:33:21 Speaker 3: Why. 00:33:23 Speaker 4: I just like, no one looks good at them. The minute you sit down, or just even your body moves a certain way, something's falling out. They're either too short or too long. The shoulders never fit. The shoulders always like down by like my the mid part by my elbows. The the tie part always comes out of the little loopy doo bees and you have to go find the tie. I just and then when you use it after getting out of a out of a bath or a shower, you're wearing a wet towel. That's true, that's what you're doing. You're just wearing a wet towel around. Dry me off, and put me in some clothes. I don't want to sit in that in between stage of getting out of the shower and getting dressed. Now, if I'm at if I'm getting a massage and I to get from the locker room to the massage room, fine, I'll wear a rope as a as a as a an outfit of transportation. 00:34:22 Speaker 3: Okay, Well, so you're saying curse. 00:34:25 Speaker 4: I'm saying curse, Jesse. 00:34:27 Speaker 3: I'm not trying to make this hard for you. I'm really not. But you've you've failed another robes a gift what you have. Every point you just made I can absolutely argue against. First of all, you're saying they're either too short or too long. Okay, if it's too short, it's sexy. If it's too long, it looks like a wizard's cape. That's fantastic, that's powerful, that's exciting. Off the shoulder. Who doesn't love an off the shoulder. Look, okay, now you're talking about putting them on right after the bath, Jesse, dry off, then put it on. Look here's the thing. I never thought I would own a rope. I never you know, it always felt like something that was just not for me. Then I was given one as a gift. It is something you kind of need to receive as a gift to unlock its full potential. And now suddenly it'll be eleven thirty and I'm wandering around the yard in a rope, feeling incredible, feeling luxurious. It's a beautiful object. It's a gift. Ah, Okay, all right, you've got one chance left to redeem yourself, and I'm really I'm rooting for you here. 00:35:31 Speaker 4: Contrary again though, this is this is the thing I think it's. 00:35:36 Speaker 3: Listened back on this podcast. There have been winners, there have been losers that have been in betweens. You might be the first full loser, and I don't want that to happen. 00:35:43 Speaker 4: I'll embrace it if I am. 00:35:46 Speaker 3: You've done an excellent job making your points. They've just happened to be completely wrong. Okay. Final one, This is from a listener named Daria. Gift or a curse? Claw hair clips? Are you familiar a little laws front your hair? What do you think? 00:36:04 Speaker 4: I find them to be a curse just because I don't think that they're appealing to look at. 00:36:12 Speaker 3: You just think that as an object, it's ugly. 00:36:15 Speaker 4: Yeah, I just feel like it's kind of like like I feel the same about a scrunchy. Like I just I think that there's other option. There's other options, like we've been provided with better options that are just more more appealing to the eye. I just find I find that I find the claw as well as a scrunchy. And I know we're not talking about scrunches been but both of these sponsors category. I just find them to be a lazy solution. 00:36:42 Speaker 3: You like a little work to be put into a hairstyle. 00:36:44 Speaker 4: A little bit more of work. 00:36:45 Speaker 3: Yeah, Jesse, I I absolutely cannot believe this. You have made history on this podcast. As far as I know, no one has ever been walked away a complete loser just claw hair clips. They're a gift, it's and you've also brought up an excellent point with the scrunchy, which I'm also on the side of. Both these are the two hair items that I know that also double as a toy. Both are kind of fun to play with, but I feel like the claw hair clips, just with the nineties being back in full force, are probably back on trend. I love to crunch them. You know, when you're bored in church or whatever, when you're a kid, suddenly you've got a toy. Suddenly your little sister's hair clip is around your wrist. This scrunchy is around the wrist. We're using it as an elastic rubber band. What a delightful thing. And look, we don't all have time to throw our hair into a full thing. Obviously. I'm not wearing either of these. My hair's far too short for either, so I can't really speak to the experience, but I find they're toys. They're fun, they're exciting. Jesse, it breaks my heart. It absolutely breaks my heart to watch you walk away from this game just burned to ash. 00:38:02 Speaker 4: Yeah, but. 00:38:06 Speaker 3: I will say the effort was admirable. I didn't want it to work out this way, but at least you made history. 00:38:14 Speaker 4: I'm happy to make history anyway. 00:38:17 Speaker 3: And let's be honest. To walk away from this game with one out of three, that's actually more shameful. 00:38:23 Speaker 4: I agree. 00:38:24 Speaker 3: So you're a star in my eyes. And we're now at the final segment of the podcast. This is called I said no emails, and people are writing into I Said no gifts at gmail dot com. For some reason, my listeners have just an unending amount of problems and questions about social situations, receiving gifts, giving gifts. I'm running out of patience with it, but I have no choice but to answer these questions. And then, of course my guest is always delighted and so excited to help me. So, Jesse, I assume you'll help me to answer a question. Sure, all right, let's get into this. Let's open the document. Okay, this is okay, Highbridger and guest. I live in an apartment that is above one other person. I don't fraternize with the person, but I do sometimes keep tabs on his behaviors, like vaping outside at one am and looking at the parking pass on his car to see where he works. Okay, some alarm bells are going off in my head. A one day, I took a nice self care bath in my bathtub that was previously having some draining issues. This issue came to a head when the tub was draining. It caused the pipe to burst and spill into the neighbor below me's bathroom and the basement. The landlord assured me this was not my fault, but I do feel partially responsible for putting my neighbor's bathroom out of commission for a few days. I want to give him a gift to express my remorse and guilt for inconveniencing him, since he is a very quiet neighbor. Any ideas on if this is necessary and what I should get him? Many thanks? And that's Monica in Michigan. I love when somebody signs off from where they're from. It just feels a little bit more official, and it allows me to imagine where their problem is and why their life is falling apart. 00:40:11 Speaker 4: Well. And it's a very it's a very Midwest thing that she's wanting to do. 00:40:15 Speaker 3: To give to give a gift for a problem, Yes, yes, yeah, what do you think of this situation? I mean, I will say there were the first couple of sentences I was thinking, Okay, so this woman is basically stalking her downstairs neighbor. She's looking into his car, she's watching him in the dark, and then she's flooding his apartment. So what needs what needs to happen here? 00:40:37 Speaker 4: Well, I think I think that the gesture is very nice. I don't think that that, you know, sending something as an apology. It's not her fault, but I think, you know, it's a nice gesture. It's sort of like, you know, when you move into a neighborhood and you bring you know, your new neighbor cookies. You know, it's it's a nice neighborly thing to do. It's certainly not going to hurt her relationship with her neighbor to do that. Is it necessary? No, it's not necessary, But you know a lot of things that not everything needs to be necessary. I think if it makes her feel good. I'm a people pleaser. I don't like people being mad at me, So I get where she's coming from. You want to just do something. It's to make herself feel better, which is okay, okay. 00:41:19 Speaker 3: Interesting. So Monica's out there kind of willy nilly, taking baths and flooding neighbors apartments. Have you ever dealt with flooding? 00:41:29 Speaker 4: Yes? 00:41:29 Speaker 3: Yeah, how was that emotionally for you? 00:41:32 Speaker 4: Well, I lived in a place in New York where the there was a leak in our art unit and it actually our floor started to decay and I just could walk down and so that Yeah, I looked down into the apartment below us. I mean, it's just sort of you know what happens when you live on top of people in these old apartments, Like things are bound to happen. But it took the building a very, very very long time to fix it, and you know, there was a mold issues and it seems awful. I was a kid, like they weren't taking I was in a priority and you know, I had plastic bags around this hole so I could you know, have privacy when I was in my bad It was awful. It was terrible. So emotionally not great. 00:42:17 Speaker 3: Did you grow closer to the neighbor you were able to observe. 00:42:22 Speaker 4: No, I don't even think. I think we both avoided each other. We were so like humiliated. 00:42:29 Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a that's an odd spot to be and where you're kind of both just always in each other's business and the landlord doesn't care. 00:42:36 Speaker 4: Yeah. 00:42:37 Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I had some flooding in this very room I'm recording in over the winter, and I had been away on vacation and I came home and suddenly my my little office is full of water, and it was it was a breakdown situation. It was a real life lesson, you know, wielding a mop until the actual professionals could show up. So I know what Monica's neighbor's dealing with, and he's furious. He's not in a good spot. So Monica, you do need to get him a gift. But the thing is is, Monica apparently has really been spying on this person in a huge way where she should know some personal details about what he enjoys doing, the cleanliness of his car. She didn't provide much to go by other than the fact that he vapes at one am. Right, So Monica leaves us in a lurch where it's like, I don't know what this person needs outside of flood repair, maybe some new tiling. I mean we were talking about and we did, you know, kind of getting a huge fight earlier about robes. One of us thinks that they're a curse. One of us knows they're a gift. But I did mention that a robe makes an excellent gift doesn't make a good gift for a stranger. That's the big question. Showing up to someone's house and giving them something that they'll probably wear in their underwear or naked. It feels maybe a little invasive. But again, we've Monica has kind of described herself as somebody who doesn't mind spying or getting into people's business. So Monica, that is an option, and or maybe a set of towels, a little you know, a little nod to the fact that you destroyed his bathroom piece of art to hang on the wall. Bath salts, I mean, the world that is kind of the The world of bathing products is the perfect kind of non gift. It's almost in candle territory where you don't need to know anything about the person. So some nice soaps a basket. You go and fill a basket with the soaps, the bath salts, the bath bombs, what have you. And I think that your neighbor is going to be thrilled or a ape pen. He could always use a new vape pen. Yeah, so Monica, maybe you know, make sure the pipe and what have you is fixed before you take another bath. That feels like a gift enough to me, and maybe you reach out to this guy at one am while he's vaping, Maybe yell down to his balcony and start up a conversation. He sounds lonely. His apartment is filling with mildew and mack all because of you, and it's time that you mend this fence. Jesse, I feel like we answered that question more than perfectly. 00:45:21 Speaker 4: I think we did. We nailed it. 00:45:24 Speaker 3: Monica has nothing to complain about, and it's hopefully she'll be able to solve that problem and move on with her life. Or you know, she can just leave town and forget about the neighbor. That's always an option to always. 00:45:38 Speaker 1: Well. 00:45:39 Speaker 3: I now have this cookbook from you, and I'm going to have to dive in and make some recipes. And a cookbook you'd have kind of placing blame on the end user because the recipes may look perfect and they may have been tested to within an inch of their life. But then it gets into the hands of someone like me and. 00:45:58 Speaker 4: Going to take as long as it tastes right, as. 00:46:01 Speaker 3: Long as it tastes great. I mean, we'll see what happens. I cannot be trusted with almost any recipe, but I'll start with a baking with a treat and we'll move on from well, I've just had a fantastic time with you here today, and uh, listener, this is the end of the podcast. We're moving into the part where you have to, you know, as you do every week, make some decisions for your own life. You've got to take responsibility for yourself. And I hope that you're willing to do that. And I trust you. I'm learning to trust you, You're learning to trust me, and we're both going to move on with our days and just h we'll talk again soon. I love you, goodbye. I know that I just said that this podcast was over. I have to take one more moment of your time forgive me. This podcast obviously is based on integrity, accuracy, and honesty, and it only occurred to me after the recording that Jesse Tyler Ferguson is not the first loser of gift or a curse. He did not make history. I have to make that very clear. I realized after that I and again I could be wrong. I'm wrong on occasion, let's be honest. But I did realize that Carl Tart is the first loser, the first person to drop the ball on all three gift a curse suggestions. Carl lost the game big time, and then he came back for the Holiday episode and also lost that. So not only did Carl make history, he is zero for four, not zero for three. So he's kind of the king of the losers of the game, and I don't want to take that away from him. Jesse Tyler Ferguson. Yes, he is a loser and has lost the game, but he was the I believe, and again, who can tell? Jesse Tayler Ferguson is the second loser of the game, which makes him It does make him a loser in a different way. He couldn't even be the first, but I had. I couldn't let you go without revealing this information. Thank 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 Mannon. 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? 00:48:36 Speaker 2: Livit? Did you hear? 00:48:40 Speaker 1: Thought a man myself perfectly clear. When you're a guest to me, you gotta come to me empty. And I said, no, guests, your presences presence in. 00:49:00 Speaker 2: Already had too much stuff. So how do you dare to surbey me?