00:00:08 Speaker 1: Well, I invited you here, thought I made myself perfectly clear. When you're a guest to my home, you gotta come to me empty. And I said, no, guests, your own presences presents enough. I already had too much stuff, So how did you dare to surbey me? 00:00:48 Speaker 2: Welcome to? I said, no gifts. I'm pretcher wine girl. Oh that continues to be my biggest challenge. It just rained. We're in the backyard, of course, so the air could not be crisper. And the only real situation is the leak in my garage that I thought I had repaired. Absolutely did not hold. Do not ask me to repair your garage. Let's stop talking about it. I'm ready to get into the podcast. I love today's guest. He's incredible. It's Paul Fige. Hello Bridger, Paul, Welcome to. I said no gifts. 00:01:26 Speaker 3: Thanks so much. I was going to ask you to fix my garage. 00:01:28 Speaker 2: But if you die, I've lost the job. 00:01:30 Speaker 3: All yeah, I'm sorry. 00:01:31 Speaker 2: Oh god, Well, let's just shut down the podcast. You can go home. You got lost on your way. 00:01:37 Speaker 3: Here, I did, I did. My GPS screwed me. 00:01:40 Speaker 2: And you went to Van Nins. Yes, which is very much the other direction. 00:01:44 Speaker 3: It's totally the other direction. And I thought it was sending me on some route that was really clever because I wasn't sure where I was coming to, but I had gone somewhere in Van Eys yesterday and for some reason, it made that my first stop on my way to sue you. 00:01:55 Speaker 2: Yeah, that would be kind of like a sneaking around way if you were going like a sneak attack. 00:02:00 Speaker 3: I want to actually go around the world and meet you by coming the other. 00:02:04 Speaker 2: Way, which I would have appreciated. Yeah, big entran, I mean. And then the other thing about your entrance is you're now storing some things in my fridge. 00:02:13 Speaker 3: I am, I am. I'm storing some eggnog and some heavy cream for cocktails I will be making at this party. 00:02:19 Speaker 2: I'm going to Christmas Beautiful, So this is a stop on your way to a party. 00:02:23 Speaker 3: Yes, to a Christmas party exactly. 00:02:25 Speaker 2: And you're dressed very appropriate. 00:02:27 Speaker 3: Well I would normally be wearing a suit and tie, but not this one, right, I'm wearing a very christmasya. 00:02:32 Speaker 2: How many suits do you own? 00:02:34 Speaker 3: Quite a few, I would say, between the three places that I live, because I live in London, New York, and here, I dare say, there's one hundred suits spread across this globe. 00:02:45 Speaker 2: And let me ask you. Have you always worn suits or is this like in the last twenty years. 00:02:51 Speaker 3: No. When I was a kid, I always wore suits. I actually got my first suit when I was about nine years old, got a three piece suit. I loved, a Pierre Carden. It's a very spicy number. And then yeah, then I I kind of you know, I you know, I'm an older man. I grew up in the disco era, and so when I was in high school, like from seventy six to eighty, it was very disco oriented and so I, you know, you always dressed. 00:03:16 Speaker 2: Up for right right? 00:03:17 Speaker 3: Yeah? 00:03:17 Speaker 2: And do you have any of those suits left over? 00:03:20 Speaker 3: No? I wish I did. There's actually some suit I honestly, you know, you look at like Tom Ford these days and it's so inspired by the know that with the big lapels and everything. So I usould have just hung on everything I had. 00:03:30 Speaker 2: What's the oldest suit you're currently own? 00:03:33 Speaker 3: What is my oldest suit? I got some really old books. I gotta say, I think my oldest one is probably I would there say, twenty years old. 00:03:42 Speaker 2: Oh my god. 00:03:43 Speaker 3: Yeah, great. 00:03:44 Speaker 2: And is it still in the rotation. 00:03:45 Speaker 3: No, but some other ones have been bumped up. I had some fifteen year old ones that I had retailored. Okay, so I have a really great tailor in Beverly Hills who can take like a suit that's out of style and kind of put it slightly back into style. 00:03:58 Speaker 2: That's incredible. Yeah, and of course you hold on to them because they can circle back. 00:04:02 Speaker 3: That's exactly it. There's nothing worse than getting something. Then you're like, oh, you know, like if I had that, I could have worn it. 00:04:08 Speaker 2: Oh, hunting failing. Do you just think about a piece of clothing tragedy, absolutely horrible and you have basically a uniform? 00:04:16 Speaker 3: Yes? 00:04:17 Speaker 2: Does it make life feel easier or are you still stressed about what you're wearing? 00:04:20 Speaker 3: Well, it'd be easier if I just wore the exact same suit every day, you know, like like Jeff goldbloom in the Fly or whatever anything he had, like, so he didn't you have to use any extra brain power or Steve Jobs. I think to that. 00:04:31 Speaker 2: Oh Steve Jobs, I've heard. 00:04:32 Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, exactly. 00:04:33 Speaker 1: No. 00:04:33 Speaker 3: I have a lot of stress about my wardrobe. It's not so much figuring out what I'm gonna wear. It's more during the day, like making sure everything is not falling apart. Tie is not cricket very anal very anal. 00:04:45 Speaker 2: Right, And let me ask you this, what do you wear to bed? 00:04:50 Speaker 3: Well, I'm I'm actually in the buffer fantastic exactly, but I have nice pajamas that I wear before. 00:04:57 Speaker 2: Oh okay, So is there any point in the day where you're like in a T shirt? 00:05:02 Speaker 3: If I'm for my workout, I do a morning walk every day, oh okay, four mile walk, So for that I will put on a T shirt and sweat sweatshirt. 00:05:09 Speaker 2: And are those do you feel like you really pick those to belong within your style or those truly just for comfort des are? 00:05:17 Speaker 3: Yeah, it's all swag. Every T shirt I've ever gotten for free from a production gets worn when I go out. 00:05:24 Speaker 2: So that's the only time of the day that we might catch you looking like a slob. 00:05:27 Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. If you were to go to my local coffee shop where I have breakfast every day, you chances are you will see me like that. The funny thing is because I'm usually in there in that, so when occasionally come in a suit, they're so surprised and yet everybody else will be surprised to see me in sweatpants. 00:05:41 Speaker 2: Oh that's so fascinating. Do you have any other rituals like this in your life or is this the one big thing? 00:05:47 Speaker 1: Um? 00:05:48 Speaker 3: Well, I mean it's probably the main one. I mean yeah, I would dare say that's you know, other other than you know, liking cocktails and making stuff like that. But no, that's the thing that you know, daily I have to do with is you know how I dress right? 00:06:02 Speaker 2: And as far as like today was raining, Yeah, do you have a raincoat you throw over the suit. 00:06:08 Speaker 3: No, I'm more of an umbrella guy and you just kind of dash to the dash to the car. But when I'm in you know, New York or London, then I do have raincoat. It's getting hard to find good raincoats. I will say, Oh, really like functional rain raincoats. 00:06:22 Speaker 2: Where are you looking for them? 00:06:23 Speaker 3: Well? I like to go to like, you know, I want a proper like for over a suit kind of a raincoat. And they used to make ones that were just like you know, like it was a shell, looked like you know, a man's raincoat, right, But now it's either got to be like a big trench coat, from berbery and they're not that they're not waterproof ale out of them. Oh, I know, it's very weird, like it's hard to find just like a lightweight long, you know, down to your knee kind of you know, not duster but a shell or something that. Right, I can put throw pono, but why would I do that? 00:06:53 Speaker 2: Add to the rotation. 00:06:55 Speaker 3: That's if I can make a make poncho stylish, I would be I'd be all, yeah, there are some beautiful actual poncho as opposed to rain ponchos. 00:07:01 Speaker 2: Right right, yeah, I feel like I could, I should throw a poncho in the road. Take I appreciate that support you could. 00:07:10 Speaker 3: Friend, and I always we always want to bring back like antiquated men's fashion stuff, and we're really obsessed for years about trying to bring the cape back. 00:07:17 Speaker 2: Oh the cape. I feel like somebody is going to eventually nail the cape. 00:07:21 Speaker 3: I think. So the problem is is so not functional? 00:07:24 Speaker 2: Yeah, what what does it offer? 00:07:26 Speaker 3: Not much unless you want to be like Dracula and cover your face or you or try to fly off a building. 00:07:31 Speaker 2: I get or say I'm wearing a cap, Well, that's exactly that's the reason you wear a cape. Do you own any capes or have you tried to wear one? 00:07:39 Speaker 3: Yeah, I've got a couple and I've tried to wear them, but they're they're really you really get stared at me. 00:07:48 Speaker 2: It's just such an affect where it's just like people this jerk. 00:07:51 Speaker 3: Yeah exactly, because you know, I use a walking stick a lot, like when I direct. I just love walking sticks. I don't need it. I needed it would be a cane, But I like walking with the But that you have these mornings, You're like, did I want to have that many people staring at me today? Because you know it's either going to drag the tenent or people are gonna get them up and say something right, And. 00:08:11 Speaker 2: I feel like even because you you are always so nicely dressed, Like if you're at the grocery store, are people taking a look? 00:08:18 Speaker 3: H yeah you do look well? Well No, here's what happens, my friend, is wherever you are wearing a suit, people will come up and ask you questions because they think you work there. Oh interesting, anywhere you're at the airport, excuse me, yours a bathroom? I don't know what any Yeah, because there's some about a man in a suit and tie. They just assume you work there. 00:08:37 Speaker 2: They assume you're mister lax, you own the airport. 00:08:40 Speaker 3: No, I know, I wasn't like the lounge the other week, and I mean I couldn't walk the length of it without like it. I think like three people ask me a different question about the lounge, like do you just assume I know the lounge so well because I'm a frequent flyer, or no, it's because you think I work here. 00:08:58 Speaker 2: You should take advantage of that power. 00:09:01 Speaker 3: I just send them done terrible. So whatever you want, it can only be revenged. That's all I could ever do with it. 00:09:07 Speaker 2: You hope that you run into like a low level anime that you can kind. 00:09:10 Speaker 3: Of eactly say, right out that door, right on that door. 00:09:14 Speaker 2: Here's a question. Is there anything that you do badly? I mean I was thinking about the garage and me my horrible attempt at fixing a leak. Right I should not. I should have just had somebody do it. 00:09:24 Speaker 3: Yeah, well you know, but I mean but that you kind of want to save money. Sometimes you want to feel like a DIY or too. 00:09:29 Speaker 2: Well, I would feel incredible, But I mean every DIY I've ever attempted has failed What do you do poorly? What's something you're like? I wish I was better. 00:09:37 Speaker 3: At anything sports related. Oh sure, anything that requires coordination, to be quite honest, and I always think I can do it, and it's always a disaster. 00:09:48 Speaker 2: I'm very much on the same page with you there. Yeah, let me ask you. Do you like badminton? 00:09:52 Speaker 3: I do like bad mote. I enjoyed playing the sports. I'm just terrible at them. 00:09:56 Speaker 2: Okay. 00:09:57 Speaker 3: I started playing pickleball with a friend of mine. I might have a shot at that. 00:10:02 Speaker 2: The way it's taken the world by storm is remarkable. 00:10:05 Speaker 3: It's why I think I think it's just for older folks, but maybe the younger generation. 00:10:10 Speaker 2: Everybody's doing really everybody except for me, of course, because I have not been given the opportunity. And it scares never. But you're into pickleball and you feel like you're improving. 00:10:22 Speaker 3: I've only played twice. Okay, well, but I wasn't a disaster, that's all I know. 00:10:27 Speaker 2: Well that's a pretty good thing. Sign two games in and you're decent at it. 00:10:32 Speaker 3: Ye, Well, yeah, I'm not embarrassing at it. For those of the those are your audience that don't know what pickleball is because up until a few weeks ago, I had no idea what right, right. It's basically like a ping pong that you can stand on the table because you have these solid kind of you know whatever, they are rackets, and the ball is like a little whiffle ball, so it super light and bounces, and then the cord is like the you know, the size of somebody's driveway. 00:10:55 Speaker 2: Right, Are you going to like a community pickleball court? 00:11:00 Speaker 3: That would be sad. It's like I've joined a very high end pickleball club. It's very exclusive. I'm sorry you and your friends. 00:11:08 Speaker 2: Yes, exactly, Yeah, I guess I should give. I feel like I played pickleball in high school. Any game with a solid, hard piece of plastic scares me. I feel like i'pen to get hit by it. 00:11:18 Speaker 3: Well, I'm with you. This one's pretty light though. Okay, but yeah, because I remember having to play like hockey floor hockey, Oh, being the goalie and just getting smacked right in the floor. Horrifying pucks. 00:11:30 Speaker 2: Floor hockey is that you're on foot? Yeah yeah, yeah, that doesn't seem like a good game at all to me. 00:11:35 Speaker 3: No, it was, it was. I don't know if it's played beyond grade school. But all I know is that they, you know, there's not I hate about sports and playing sports and all that. There's everybody else is so into it and it's so competitive and they just you know, how many times have I been like on a show and we started a softball team. You got to come out and play. It's gonna be so much fun. It's never fun. It's always fucking terrible because there's always some asshole. You come on, then you can pick that up, you go throw it. It's like, all right, I'm out. You know what, this is not fun. 00:12:05 Speaker 2: This was meant to be fun, and we've turned it into a horrible, horrifying business. 00:12:09 Speaker 3: Yeah, because it's always somebody who's super competitive. 00:12:11 Speaker 2: And better at it than everybody else, of course. 00:12:14 Speaker 3: Of course, and though they want you to be at their level and we're just there to like to goof around. 00:12:19 Speaker 2: Do you like watching any sports? 00:12:21 Speaker 3: I used to be into baseball. I found kind of fun. But then I honestly I had like season tickets to the Dodgers back in the nineties, and then when they had this big strike it was like a year long strike that shut down baseball was kind of like it made it not fun anymore. Oh that's right, it's a business. 00:12:38 Speaker 2: Yes, this is all about money. 00:12:39 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:12:40 Speaker 3: When I'm in England, I actually can enjoy watching cricket occasionally. 00:12:43 Speaker 2: Oh sure, that's fun. It's a very win in rome situation, very much. 00:12:47 Speaker 3: So. Yeah. 00:12:48 Speaker 2: I feel like for the last probably at this point eight years, I keep saying I'm going to get into basketball. When the season rolls around, I'm gonna start, I'm gonna pick a team, and absolutely has not. 00:12:59 Speaker 3: It's just too much mayhem for my test. You know about like baseball and cricket or forever is like okay, one person comes up and watch them do their thing. Then it goes you know, like you know, I tried to watch the World Cup and it's just like what's happening? Everybody's running around and then it's like suddenly there's a score. 00:13:15 Speaker 2: You know, I will say this about soccer. I love that the clock starts ticking and you know it's going to be over. 00:13:22 Speaker 3: Oh no, totally that's true. But that's why I you know, I talked to a lot of my my British friends because they're always like, what is you know this a soccer football take off? Over here? He said, it's because Americans we are so goal oriented that you got to know when it's gonna end. Like you watch a soccer game, it's like, oh, it's almost over. Oh no, oh, and there's two and a half more minutes because of penalty one, you know, and then it can end in a tie or no score, and like that's just so not American. 00:13:49 Speaker 2: No one ever gets to just tie. No, no, someone must be defeated. 00:13:53 Speaker 3: Yes, exactly. It's not going to movie and go and there's no ending. We just go home. 00:13:59 Speaker 2: Well, look you we're obviously both huge jocks, and we could talk about sports all day. 00:14:03 Speaker 3: Yes, but there. 00:14:05 Speaker 2: Is something else I wouldn't mind talking to you about. 00:14:08 Speaker 3: Lea. 00:14:09 Speaker 2: Obviously, you ran into some trouble getting here, and then you show up and you rudely ask to use my fridge. 00:14:15 Speaker 3: Exactly. 00:14:15 Speaker 2: I'm putting all of these things aside. I'm thinking we'll just get to the podcast. It'll be fine. 00:14:19 Speaker 3: Let's get them out of here, just get. 00:14:21 Speaker 2: Through it, just deal with it. And then of course there was another surprise. Yes, the podcast is called I said no Gifts. 00:14:29 Speaker 3: I'm a rebel. I'm a rebel. 00:14:33 Speaker 2: Yeah, you showed up with the eggnog and everything. Put that in the fridge. And then you had two objects that are clearly gifts. They're in gift wrap. You handed them to me. Are these gifts for me? 00:14:44 Speaker 3: They are? I'm sorry, I just I can't show up without a gift. You can tell me not do what I will do. 00:14:49 Speaker 2: It they're okay, Well that's not a behavior I expected from you. Why I thought, you know, I thought Paul is somebody who's in control. Well, he respects boundaries, Well, he doesn't stir the pot. 00:15:05 Speaker 3: Well, this is my way to control the situation. So it's actually control freak. 00:15:09 Speaker 2: Highly manipulative. It's sickening to see this sort of thing happen on my podcast. 00:15:14 Speaker 3: I know, I know. 00:15:15 Speaker 2: Well, should I open it here on the show? 00:15:17 Speaker 3: Yes? Please open your gifts? Okay, open a small one. 00:15:41 Speaker 2: Okay, there are two, Yeah, there are two different objects here. One's kind of a round thing and then the other's more of a a rectangle thing. You know, I know my shapes, so I'm going to open this round thing first. It's an interesting uh hoalase, I'll hold the mic while I open this on. Lias is in a striking jack it as well. Everyone's really well dressed. 00:16:02 Speaker 3: They stepping it up. 00:16:03 Speaker 2: Let's see. Oh, this felt way harder than I expected. 00:16:08 Speaker 3: I think it's a little old. 00:16:10 Speaker 2: It's a lemon, which I was like, is this going to be a whiffle ball? It was so hard. 00:16:14 Speaker 3: I should have brought a pickleball. I know, had I know we were going to venture into pickleball territory. 00:16:19 Speaker 2: But then we would have exhausted the conversation. I would have just had to move on from the ball. Why are you giving me a lemon? It's a well, let's say it's an average looking lemon. 00:16:28 Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's not the greatest lemon. Well, it's it's part of a part of a set. Oh is it part of this out? 00:16:36 Speaker 2: We're going to open it up? Well, let's yeah, let's open it. 00:16:38 Speaker 3: We can dwell on the lemon if you like, we'll get back. 00:16:41 Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, I've got thoughts on lemons. On Lisa's returning. 00:16:45 Speaker 3: To hold the mic, I wish I'd brought even more presents, just so could never get We're. 00:16:52 Speaker 2: Slowly getting into the package here, and it's a very cute rap. Is that a Scottie dog? 00:16:58 Speaker 3: We have a Scotty dog? 00:16:59 Speaker 2: Oh you're kidding? 00:17:00 Speaker 3: Yeah, Okay, well, we'll he lives in London. Oh he does, yes, Okay, well he's moved aways, moved back to his home. 00:17:06 Speaker 1: Career. 00:17:08 Speaker 2: It's a citrus squeezer. 00:17:09 Speaker 3: It is. 00:17:10 Speaker 2: This is okay, So, first of all, whatever we end up talking about wonderful. This is such a practical, wonderful thing for me to own. 00:17:17 Speaker 3: Yeah, well, it seems like a lot. 00:17:19 Speaker 2: Of people give me. Let's be honest, things are that are unusable. They're cluttering my home. 00:17:23 Speaker 3: Oh I've heard that. Yeah, I know, I know. I don't want to add to clutter because my life is trying to get rid of things that I don't need. 00:17:29 Speaker 2: Yeah, this is something I can put in the kitchen drawer and actually used. But I'm curious as to why you brought these things. 00:17:36 Speaker 3: Well, I like to make cocktails, and then I find that in cocktails you do use a lot of fresh citrus, right, you know. And I don't want you, if you're going to make a cocktail to go to the store and buy one of those like plastic lemons. Squeeze that horrendous whatever that is out of it. It's supposed to be lemon juice. I want you to be classic when you have friends over you want to make a cocktail, you pull this out. 00:17:58 Speaker 2: It's so yeah, so Alton professional, Well that's exactly it. Okay, So you're very much into cocktails. And is this a long time thing or is it like you've slowly developed this interest. What's the deal? 00:18:11 Speaker 3: Well, to me, cocktails always stood for everything I wanted my adult life to be because it made it was cool. Right. So, like I I've told this story before, So if an your listeners have listened to me on other. 00:18:23 Speaker 2: Podcast, just go forward writing that bad review. 00:18:26 Speaker 3: That's right. No, when I was about five or six, my parents took me to Las Vegas because they were going to see a fight, like a Muhammad al Leaf fight, and and so they were going to put me in the nursery at the casino nursery. They went casino nursery. I know there used to be a casino nursery. Yeah, this was like the dunes or I know, one of one of those old ones. 00:18:46 Speaker 2: Could you smoke there too? 00:18:48 Speaker 3: You know you could ask. That's where I had my first martini. No, but so you would kind of you couldn't go. The kids couldn't walk through the casino. Now I think kids can walk in Oh yeah, but you have to go around the outside or this like outside like outer rim and in the for some weird reason, the nursery was a glass sliding door right there that looked out on the casino floor. So I guess you could watch your parents lose, lose your college money, just ruined their line exactly. So they put me in there. And so I'm up against this window staring out. I didn't want to be in there because I hated other kids when I was a kid, because I just wanted to be with the adults. And I'm watching this, you know, grown up playground of people. And that's when people dressed up nice, right, They're drinking cocktails, they're smoking and all this Now just the they go like, God is my witness. I'm going to be that, like you know, and so as a kid, it just like but to me, seeing people sipping like Martini's was just that was the thing that stuck in my head. 00:19:46 Speaker 2: Oh that's lovely. Okay. So at a very early age, you decided this is going to be me. Do you have siblings? 00:19:53 Speaker 3: No? 00:19:53 Speaker 2: Oh, okay, so there was no sibling that like fell by the wayside as a slob while you were soaring. 00:19:57 Speaker 3: No, no, I did not have an odd couple situation. 00:20:02 Speaker 2: Okay, And so now I have these things, and are there any cocktails you recommend I make? 00:20:07 Speaker 3: Well, I mean squeeze er aside. I'm a martini guy. That's my favorite. 00:20:13 Speaker 2: Classic yeah, classic, classic. 00:20:16 Speaker 3: Yeah, but it has to be made very the correct way, right, to be very cold, very dry. 00:20:22 Speaker 2: When you're at a party or some sort of mixer or airport lounge, like, are the drinks being served to garbage and you're usually unsatisfied? 00:20:31 Speaker 3: Well, it depends. Yeah, it's I mean, if you're at a place that doesn't kind of specialize in cocktails, and I'm not talking about those real some some I just find obnoxious because the mixology is so over the top, you know what I mean. But just like you know, you like like like Polo Bar in New York, you know, or Bemmelman's or something like that, or here you know, the Roosevelt or then you know, they're just like they're making you know, Musso Franks. They make like a great martini, right, you know, and it's just old school. Yeah, but I've the martinis go off the rails so easily. It seems like the easiest drink it's one of the hardest drinks to get right for some weird reason. 00:21:08 Speaker 2: What does it take to make one correct? 00:21:10 Speaker 3: Well, First of all, it's personal taste. So some people like a very wet Martin which has a lot of remouth in it. Most people don't. I don't, and so I like just like a drop of vermouth or even just a rinse where you rinse the glass with it first. But I do like I'd rather have it in it because I'd rather have it mixed with it right, right, So if there's too much remouth and it's like, uh, that's kind of a drag. And then if it's not cold enough. That's the biggest sin I find a lot of places, is that it's in it like it's lukewarm. 00:21:39 Speaker 2: It's the room temperature, right. I've heard of this rinsing before this is I don't. I don't drink, and so this is all so fascinating too. But the idea of rinsing a dish before putting another thing in, just for the touch of flame, it. 00:21:54 Speaker 3: Kind of you know, you're seasoning the glass with it. 00:21:57 Speaker 2: It's so fascinating. 00:21:58 Speaker 3: It is good that you don't drink. You look, but is it good because I'm only forty years old. This is how bad I like from drinking. No, Paul is. 00:22:07 Speaker 2: He is not doing well. 00:22:08 Speaker 3: He's lived a hard eighteen lives or eighteen years and lives. 00:22:12 Speaker 2: It's a problem. No, I don't think it's good or bad. It's for me. It's not really a it's I grew up Mormon, and so it's like, uh, not nice. 00:22:22 Speaker 3: Well, my editor at bread White is mormonal. 00:22:24 Speaker 2: Oh you're kidding. Yeah, I mean, there are a lot of good things, a lot of bad things, but it just was a thing that I never did, and then it just followed me into adult life. And so but the whole world is fascinating to me because I still feel like such a baby about drinking. I know nothing about it. 00:22:38 Speaker 3: Well, there's nothing wrong with that, But now the juicer is even more important to you. 00:22:41 Speaker 2: But yeah, making my grapefruit juice, making my lemon juice, my trees here, finally fruiting some sort of things, so I'll be able to use it for those and when my friends come over to drink. There you go, I can make the Maybe I should teach myself a few little well. 00:22:56 Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean yeah, Well, I have a cocktail book that just came out. Oh you should get that, and it's got one hundred and twenty five recies. 00:23:03 Speaker 2: Work did you put into the cocktail book? Like? How long did that take you? I'm curious. 00:23:07 Speaker 3: It was a pandemic. Oh, of course, because I did a live show on Instagram one hundred days in a row, every day at five o'clock to raise money for charities, and to teach myself how to make cocktails. 00:23:20 Speaker 2: Oh that's amazing. 00:23:21 Speaker 3: Yeah, and so it just kind of came out of that. People were like, oh, put out a book with the recipes, and then it just grew into this whole thing of how to throw a cocktail, powder, how to stock your bar, and then every drink comes with like a funny personal story. 00:23:32 Speaker 2: Oh sure. Was that purely enjoyable to write or did it become stressful? No? 00:23:37 Speaker 3: That was fun. That was a lot of funk. Something like that is fun because it's not you know, writing scripts is stressful. It's all like how do I do it in the shortest time? How do I you know, I mean, how do I make each scene short and get it across and then the story in a track? And it's just so stressful. So like I do that writing in the morning and then the afternoon like, oh good night, just gonna write something dumb. 00:23:55 Speaker 2: Just something that's so far removed from what you actually do. Yeah, did you do develop your own cocktails? 00:24:01 Speaker 3: Yeah? I do. I've got about twenty originals. 00:24:04 Speaker 2: And twenty and do they each have a different name, Yeah, they have different such as well, there's a fig teeny of course, which had to be in there. 00:24:13 Speaker 3: Actually it was called the quarantine. But then when nobody wants to think. 00:24:17 Speaker 2: Of it, that's a bit of a bummer at this point. 00:24:19 Speaker 3: Exactly, we're all done with that. But no, I have one called the Squeaky Door, which was for my wife because when we would shoot our show is out in my guest house and she would always come into the end to try the drink. But our guest house door is super squeaky, so people would hear that and they go, oh, there's a squeaky door. Youre can floor you. And so that I just whatever herd called the squeaky door. 00:24:38 Speaker 2: What's in the squeaky door? 00:24:40 Speaker 3: A lot of stuff in the squeaky door. It's got like cherry hearing in there, and it's got orange cirasow and it's got gin of course, and a bunch of several ingredients and then it's then it's on the rocks with a club soda. It's a very refreshing drink. 00:24:54 Speaker 2: Now, why haven't you fixed the squeaky. 00:24:56 Speaker 3: Door because it just became part of part of our lore. It would be sad. It would be sort of you know, like Seth Rogen making his voice melodic and British accent. 00:25:08 Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess, yeah, you're just stuck with it now. It's part of your brand, the squeaky door. 00:25:12 Speaker 3: I know that door opened and there's no squeak. 00:25:14 Speaker 2: I would be very like it moved out or something. 00:25:17 Speaker 3: And then I could be murdered too, because nobody's in here. I didn't hear the arts squeak. 00:25:21 Speaker 2: And then, yeah, squeaky door is kind of a natural alarm. 00:25:23 Speaker 3: Yeah, it's interesting. My dog doesn't alertic to anything if enyody's in the house. 00:25:29 Speaker 2: No, so you said your dog lives in England full time. 00:25:31 Speaker 3: Yeah, he's in England. 00:25:33 Speaker 2: Did he start in the US. 00:25:34 Speaker 3: Yeah, he's only moved to England in the last like half a year. 00:25:38 Speaker 2: I guess, okay, And is he enjoying life there? 00:25:41 Speaker 3: He loves it. According to my wife, she's like, he's so happy. He's like, is he happy? Yes, he's obsessed with black cabs. 00:25:48 Speaker 2: Oh, right, of course he's. 00:25:49 Speaker 3: A black cab. He will run and jump in. 00:25:52 Speaker 2: Does he like riding in cars? 00:25:54 Speaker 3: Yeah? 00:25:54 Speaker 2: He does, Okay, he does. What was why did you make the decision to send him away to England? Because my wife wanted him there. 00:26:01 Speaker 3: Well, my wife she wants to be based there. That the home base, and we've been living there pretty much for the last four years because my last two movies shot in the UK and then I did Post and all that. But now I'm kind of all over the place, so she just wants a base out of there because I'm never around anyways. 00:26:17 Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, So how much over your year are you now spent? Is it London you're living in? 00:26:22 Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it just depends on what project I'm on, because yeah, like I said, you know, the last four years we were there, we were back here for the for the pandemic, for the lockdown. Fortunately, we were actually supposed to be there where they were renovating the place we were going to rent, so we would have been stuck in it commpletely not finished the Yeah, so this worked out great to be here but yeah, but I you know, like this year, I'll be living in Atlanta for the coming up in the next four months to do post and then I'm probably going to do post you know, shoot it there and do post here, so I belong to the world. 00:26:53 Speaker 2: Do you like being all over the place? It keeps things interesting. 00:26:56 Speaker 3: I never happier than when I'm getting on an airplane. 00:26:59 Speaker 2: Yeah, wow, interest. Yeah, I have. I struggle on an airplane physically. It is so difficult for me. 00:27:06 Speaker 3: Well, yeah, the actual flight is not that fun. Well you know you're going somewhere. 00:27:10 Speaker 2: Yeah, to know the destination. But I guess like maybe I just need a lobotomy or something, because even the destination at this point doesn't matter to me. It's just all pain and wanting. 00:27:20 Speaker 3: To be home. I hear you, I hear you. 00:27:23 Speaker 2: So you were Did you shoot a movie? Is that what you're doing in Atlanta? 00:27:26 Speaker 3: Yeah? 00:27:26 Speaker 2: Oh fantastic. And can you talk about the movie at all? 00:27:29 Speaker 3: We haven't announced it. 00:27:30 Speaker 2: Oh wow, this is so exciting. 00:27:32 Speaker 3: Yeah, but it's it's gonna be fun with a big action comedy. 00:27:34 Speaker 2: Oh, wonderful thing. And is this for twenty twenty four? 00:27:37 Speaker 3: Yeah, no, it's actually going to be out the end of supposedly out of the end of next year. 00:27:42 Speaker 2: Oh wonderful. Okay, so twenty twenty three, that's there. You go, there you go. That's very exciting. And have you spent much time in Atlanta? 00:27:49 Speaker 3: No, this is my first time. I was there once overnight when we were doing the movie The Heat, because I had to go into Melissa McCarthy that was shooting a movie there, and so Sandra came and I came in and we just did the day of kind of reading script and rehearsal. But that's the only time I ever spent there. Oh. 00:28:03 Speaker 2: Interesting. Will there be a lot to explore there? 00:28:06 Speaker 3: Yeah. I was just there for this last week to scouting locations and it was nice. It was really nice. Found some good food. I'm going to gain a thousand pounds there though, because that's Southern cooking, so good and so famming. 00:28:17 Speaker 2: A good biscuit, Is there anything better? 00:28:19 Speaker 3: Oh? My god, biscuits and gravy, delicious, Shrimp and grits. That's my favorite, my obsession for breakfast. 00:28:25 Speaker 2: I've never had shrimp and grits. You have it for breakfast? Yes, it's so often. 00:28:30 Speaker 3: I had it every day of the week when I was here this last week because because I know I'm not going to be there. But when I go back, I can't do that every day, right, Although I do, I do them as lowcale as you can. I don't do the shrimp grits. I mean, I don't do the cheese grits. Oh, regular grits, and then the shrimp is in there, and then I don't have any like bacon on it or anything. And they sometimes I'll put like a cream sauce. I don't do that. 00:28:51 Speaker 2: Wow. It doesn't really go all out with Oh you can go. 00:28:53 Speaker 3: Nuts, Oh my god, totally. I just get hot sauce. I slather it with hot Oh sure, I'm a hot sauce. 00:28:57 Speaker 2: For hot sauce is a miracle. Everything tastes wonderful. Everything it's healthy always, it's not. You don't have to feel You can have as much hot sauce as you want. 00:29:06 Speaker 3: Yeah. There's some some famous explorer, I don't know, somebody today who travels constantly and it goes to all the craziest places all in the world. It eats. And they said, what's the one thing you always have with you? And they said, a bottles of tabasco. 00:29:19 Speaker 1: Sauce. 00:29:19 Speaker 2: Oh interesting, are you a tabasco io? 00:29:23 Speaker 3: But I like a little more flavor, like jlula, like tapatillo, But I don't like those Like I like hot, but I don't like those ones are just like just burn your mouth and then butole. You know, it's kind of like, forget it. I don't enjoy fire in the whole eight hours after I eat. 00:29:41 Speaker 2: Yeah, I need it to be just enough to excite me. Yeah, and add some flavor. 00:29:46 Speaker 3: Exactly if it becomes painful and I'm not getting anything other than pain. 00:29:50 Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a whole other category of the psychology. There is a fully different thing. Yeah. 00:29:55 Speaker 3: Anytime, like you know, the name of the hot sauce has death or he exactly, then I'm out. I don't need that. 00:30:03 Speaker 2: Yeah, well that's interesting. I've never thought of shrimp as a breakfast food. 00:30:08 Speaker 3: Yeah, it can be, you know, I don't. I'm not a fan of just breakfast food, you know what I mean. 00:30:12 Speaker 2: You're not like an eggs and bacon person. 00:30:15 Speaker 3: I mean, I can eat them, and I do, but I don't find that's what I look forward to, like the greatest experience I ever had. We were in Italy number of a few years ago and staying at this place where they just kind of they will go, well, we'll make you whatever you want for breakfast. I was like, can I have like Penny arabiata with chicken? Yes? It's like, oh my god, this is the greatest thing ever. Yeah. So I can stay away from breakfast. 00:30:36 Speaker 2: With them, but you do have breakfast somewhere here every day, and what like, what are you ordering for breakfast? 00:30:42 Speaker 3: My breakfast is I have a chicken breast with steam broccoli. 00:30:46 Speaker 2: Paul, This is absolutely fascinating. That is absolutely fascinating. My boyfriend and I went to breakfast with a friend a couple of years ago and she got I believe, chicken soup and a glass of wine. And it was, what's happening? 00:31:03 Speaker 3: The glass of wine? Is that's the great one? 00:31:05 Speaker 2: Yeah? So this is, uh, this is very close to that. 00:31:08 Speaker 3: Will You'll be surprised how many people I see at this coffee shop order mimosas in the morning. Oh yeah, this is this is not like a fancy coffee shop. This is like a you know, a down and dirty cor Oh. Interesting, So this thing, you know, with some orange juice and then those little kind of baby sham or whatever, those little sidecars. Oh sure, I'm just like, oh, that just something seems sad. 00:31:31 Speaker 2: About No, yeah, that's if your mimosa should be part of a light brunch yea where you're chatting with friends in the sunshine at the counter. 00:31:39 Speaker 3: You know, it's kind of I don't know, but God bless anybody for you know, I don't. I don't want to judge even I just did. 00:31:45 Speaker 2: Yeah. Meanwhile, you're gobbling down a chicken breasts and broccolike like I'm the weirdo. 00:31:50 Speaker 3: Exactly. 00:31:51 Speaker 2: We're all weird, right, we all have something going on. So then for lunch and dinner, what's what's your go to. 00:32:00 Speaker 3: Lunch? I struggle with the most. I just find that's the hardest meal to kind of figure out. 00:32:04 Speaker 2: Confusing time of day for mind and stomach. 00:32:07 Speaker 3: Yeah, because I because I'm basically gluten free. I have been for years and years, So like it's grabbing a sandwich is hard, right, but I like to get like a wrap and like when I'm shooting my movies, all I ever have is a turkey rap for lunch. Yeah, turkey rab with pickles and then like a you know, the bag of Durido's or something like that. 00:32:24 Speaker 2: That's very much like an airplane meal. 00:32:27 Speaker 3: Yeah, it is. It is that that's where that's where I don't want to have any kind of you know, extra strake, you know, like having a uniform. My uniform is my turkey rap. 00:32:36 Speaker 2: I have got to settle on a lunch meal because I waste so much time in the middle of the day and so much energy thinking about what I'm going to eat. 00:32:44 Speaker 3: Yeah, because dinner is this like destination at the end of your day, and that's fun, like we're gonna eat and all that stuff. It's like, I gotta eat lunch. What am I gonna have? 00:32:52 Speaker 2: So frustrating, But then for dinner you're just doing whatever you want. 00:32:56 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:32:57 Speaker 2: Yeah. Do you have any particular favorites. 00:33:00 Speaker 3: Like everything, I'm a foodie, my friend, Yeah, but I you know, I everything. I mean, I love to go to an Italian restaurant, get something you love, a steakhouse, get a good steak, going to a Mexican restaurant, having Mexican food. Mexican food was sometimes I'll do that for lunch, but then it just wipes me out for them, of course, because I just eat too much. 00:33:17 Speaker 2: Can I ask where you're going for Mexican Mexican food in Los Angeles. 00:33:20 Speaker 3: Well, my favorite place was Gardens of Tasco. 00:33:23 Speaker 2: Oh where what was that? 00:33:24 Speaker 3: Well it was in West Hollywood on Harper and Santa Monica and is there forever. I mean he was there from the early seventies and they were famous for they didn't have any written menus. The waiter would come and recite the menu, but it had jokes in it, the same jokes all the time. One of the jokes was something about this cream chicken with the cream sauce, and it tastes like the chicken was born in that sauce. But they'd like drag out the born with this thing, and we'd all laugh every time. We used to go there twice a week, I mean for twenty years. You bring people like, Okay, here comes a joke. And the other one was, oh, the mole poblano in a very spicy sauce, not hot, spicyy. They would drag that out really long. We'd all laugh. 00:34:10 Speaker 2: We need to get back to restaurants with novelty events. 00:34:14 Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, when I was growing up, there's a place called Farls, which was an ice cream parlor restaurant, and I just had every birthday there, and my goal in life was to be a waiter at Ferrells because it was all like Banjo's all that kind of you know, that kind of nineteen twenties thing. But they would all come over with jokes and then like, if you order for my birthday, you get to think called the Zoo, which was it was a giant like punch bowl that they'd fill with this ice cream every just you know, every syrup and nuts and all that stuff, and then when you ordered it, they put it on this kind of stretcher and then two of them would run around. They would run around the restaurant lifting it up and down, and music was playing and everyone cheer, and so I just thought that was the greatest thing ever. Then then I think called the pigs Trough, which was a giant Sunday and if you finished it, they'd come over and announce to the to the you know, the restaurant, you were officially a pig, and they would. 00:35:07 Speaker 2: Give you like like shame and a lord yeah exactly, and. 00:35:10 Speaker 3: You're like, oh my god, I'm in the spotlights. So that was good. 00:35:13 Speaker 2: Did you ever know someone who finished the Trough? Ah? 00:35:16 Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I say, I think I finished it. It wasn't that big. I mean it was big, granted, but when I was a teen I could rob that. 00:35:23 Speaker 2: Yeah, it's amazing how the body kind of begins to fail you as far as eating massive amounts of food, well. 00:35:28 Speaker 3: Especially when it's tons of ice that never goes well. Cream and shook exactly. But just to close the book on Guards and Tasco, they are still open, but they moved out of that restaurant. Now they are takeout only, but they are a Santamonic of Boulevard and it's the greatest food. 00:35:43 Speaker 2: Okay, the food is good, but you just don't get the jokes anymore. 00:35:47 Speaker 3: Jokes. 00:35:48 Speaker 2: What an absolute drag that is to Okay, so we've learned that you failed your life goal to be a waiter at the ice cream. What a shame for you. I know, that's really too bad. Do you still like ice cream? 00:36:02 Speaker 3: I like ice cream. Ice cream doesn't like me, It doesn't really, no, but I like it. But once I made ice cream and you're like, oh my god, like that. Nothing puts you off ice cream more than seeing how much fat goes into ice cream because it's all solid, that's all it is, butter and cream whole Milken. 00:36:22 Speaker 2: But I feel like one major thing Los Angeles is missing as an ice cream parlor, which makes perfect sense for this city. I feel like people would really get on board with that. 00:36:31 Speaker 3: Yeah, because there used to be Schwabs where everybody got discovered and you know, back in the in the day in old Hollywood, and you. 00:36:36 Speaker 2: Know, I'm not familiar with Schwabs. 00:36:38 Speaker 3: Oh Schwab. That's a famous that's where, like I mean, I don't think Maryland or Roll got discovered there, but like famous old movie stars would. They'd be working as soda jerks or whatever, and the thing and that was the famous place where people get discovered. 00:36:50 Speaker 2: Oh interesting, And is Schwabs? Did that eventually become like a truck like a frozen food service that was like in trucks that would drive around. 00:36:57 Speaker 3: It may have, I don't know if they were. 00:36:59 Speaker 2: They were related, Okay, yeah, I remember a bizarre service as a kid that their truck would drive around and sell you frozen meals or something. 00:37:08 Speaker 3: Oh really, Oh interesting, somebody tried to sell any sushi out of their trunk once. That cannot be the hottest day in the valley. I was going to the Guitar Center back way back when in instrument and Oaks and I came out and the guy's like, I got one more thing of a sushi in the back if you want to buy it. It's like it's one hundred degrees out, sir, Why would I possibly do that? 00:37:27 Speaker 2: Did you get a look at the sushi? 00:37:29 Speaker 1: No? 00:37:29 Speaker 3: I didn't want to see it. 00:37:32 Speaker 2: What could have possibly been happening? 00:37:34 Speaker 3: Though? 00:37:35 Speaker 2: That is someone who is trying a very bad assassin entrepreneur. 00:37:39 Speaker 3: It's a very bad assassin. 00:37:42 Speaker 2: Do you play guitar? 00:37:43 Speaker 3: Yeah? 00:37:44 Speaker 2: I didn't know that. 00:37:44 Speaker 3: Guitar and drums? Yeah? Do you do it? 00:37:48 Speaker 2: Not? How long have you been playing in my whole life? 00:37:50 Speaker 3: Oh? 00:37:50 Speaker 2: I mean think you must be pretty good. 00:37:52 Speaker 3: I'm I'm a good drummer, Okay, drums are I've been in a lot of bands as a drummer, and I like that guitar. I'm a little more remedial on. 00:37:59 Speaker 2: What sort of stuff are you playing? Are you writing your own things? Are you playing? 00:38:02 Speaker 3: We were always cover bands. I mean I went through a period where I was actually writing a lot of music and recording and I had a recording studio. Yes, yeah, back in the back in the eighties when you could get like these four track things. I mean, now with your computer, you right, But I had this, like I fent all my money get this eight track recorder that was built in the whole soundboard, and then there's reel to reel and you can Oh my gosh. So I recorded a lot of music and we use some of it in actually in Freaks and Geeks. Oh you're kidding. A song that I recorded, it's called space Funk. 00:38:31 Speaker 2: Oh of course. Yeah, that's a that's. 00:38:33 Speaker 3: You that's recorded that whole thing. 00:38:36 Speaker 2: Oh my god. That's a wild to hear because I'm obviously, along with every other person, a huge fan of the show. But my sister and I love that and the space the space Funk song is. 00:38:47 Speaker 3: For the bills danced dancing. 00:38:50 Speaker 2: So was that basically the style of music you were recording? 00:38:54 Speaker 3: I recorded everything. I mean, I really like funk. You know, I'm like James Brown fans, So I've always tried to do that wow thing. 00:39:01 Speaker 2: And do any of the other recordings still exists? 00:39:03 Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, I got yeah, yeah, I got a lot of songs recorded that I engineered and all that. I was so into it. I loved it. I mean I kind of wish I still had a studio just a noodle around it. 00:39:14 Speaker 2: Do you ever consider releasing those things in any way? 00:39:17 Speaker 3: I don't know. I guess I probably could. I never thought of it. There's some that are kind of fun. There's something that I would never let him. 00:39:24 Speaker 2: Here, right of course, But no, I was kinda it was fun. 00:39:27 Speaker 3: I mean, I guess space Funk's my most famous famous one to get out in the world. 00:39:31 Speaker 2: Did you get paid for space Funk to put it in the show? 00:39:34 Speaker 3: No, I give it for free. Good for you. Yeah, I think BMI or one of them, and they had to pay me, like, you know. 00:39:40 Speaker 2: Right, just like legally they had no choice. 00:39:43 Speaker 3: Yeah, but it's still not available anymore. Wow. Yeah, I know. I wish you get it released on Spotify. 00:39:48 Speaker 2: I should be on Spotify or something. Yeah, I mean Freaks and Gigs has kind of a history of music licensing issues. 00:39:55 Speaker 3: Yeah, totally. That's what killed us. That's the only song that would have gone forward if we gotten the rights. 00:40:00 Speaker 2: Vere you should have replaced every other song in it with space That would be a very interesting. 00:40:04 Speaker 3: Show if we ever do a sequel there it is. 00:40:09 Speaker 2: Was there ever talk of doing more Freaks and Geeks? 00:40:12 Speaker 3: Yeah, there was always talking, but I wasn't. I mean, right when we got canceled, we were hoping we were going to get picked up an MTV did step up and wanted to do it, but they couldn't give us the budget. What Yeah, I mean we were always you know, the show was it was expensive. 00:40:26 Speaker 2: Actually yeah, the music alone, right, it's a period piece. 00:40:30 Speaker 3: Well, that's why we had so much trouble because we only licensed the music for to be able to air on network TV. Right, So then when they want to put on DVD, they had they you know, they had to rework all the contracts and that's why nobody wanted to do it. And we had music that we had recorded that Mike Andrews, our composer, had done for International, and it was so I don't know, not clear headed back there's like, oh International cares. It's like, so they were out in the world without the songs in it. It's like and it's long. I mean, that's there's like a character in the movie. 00:41:01 Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a different show. 00:41:02 Speaker 3: Yeah, but then when they want to put those out, it's like, no, I can't. I'd rather not have the show out. 00:41:05 Speaker 2: There right too, Right, Yeah, that's that feels I guess incredibly short sighted on the network's part to be like, we'll just do this limited song deal. 00:41:15 Speaker 3: Yeah. They never know. They never think, you know your show is going to be I mean, they figure they'll deal with it down the line, because you know, that was when you have to go into syndication, so you need to leave one hundred episodes, so that's you know, they kick the can down the road. 00:41:27 Speaker 2: I'm sure it was terrible at the time that it got canceled as quickly as it did, But is there some part of you that's like, I'm happy that it didn't go for fifty seasons and eventually get ruined. 00:41:36 Speaker 3: Yeah, totally. Oh no, very much so I kind of look, that's why when people go like, oh, you know, you do a you know, a reunion show, and like, you know what all we can do is fuck it. 00:41:44 Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, even the best version won't be like what some people want it. 00:41:48 Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, the only good thing is, like my problem with the most reunion shows is it's just a chance to watch and go like, ooh, look how old everybody is. You know, but our show was so young that its like and then they're all famous. 00:41:58 Speaker 2: Right, they all look great still yeah, but. 00:42:00 Speaker 3: It's just I don't know if I had some brilliant idea. Sure, but I'm very much as a James Brown fan. You say, hit, hit it, and quit it. That's what I am very much a fan of. 00:42:10 Speaker 2: I think. Yeah, I feel like people are learning that lesson more and more to just. 00:42:13 Speaker 3: Like leave it be. Yeah, you got away with it. 00:42:16 Speaker 2: Yes, don't toy with it anymore. People will be furious. Well, I think it's time to play a game. Oh please, We're going to play a game called Gift or a Curse. Okay, I need a number between one and ten from you. 00:42:27 Speaker 3: Okay, let's go with seven. 00:42:29 Speaker 2: Okay. Well, there's a little bird chirping. I hope the listeners can hear that. 00:42:32 Speaker 3: Beautiful bird in the background. Very zen back. Oh good. 00:42:36 Speaker 2: I hope that this is a calming thing for everybody. Okay, I have to do some light calculating. Okay, so while I'm doing this, you can recommend something, promote something, talk to the listener in any way you wish. 00:42:47 Speaker 3: Oh, very good. Well, if you go to Netflix right now, my movie The School for Good and Evil is playing right now. We came out about a month a month ago or a little maybe a month and a half ago and starts char Least the Throne and Carrie Washington, Laurence Fishburne, Michelle Yo and a cast of fabulous young people. So that's streaming right now on Netflix. And my book, Cocktail Time, The Ultimate Guide to Grown Up Fun is available now in bookstores everywhere on Amazon. It's the perfect Christmas gift gift everybody will this be on before Christmas. 00:43:20 Speaker 2: After Christmas, but there's always they're nice thing about Christmas. There's always another there. 00:43:24 Speaker 3: You go for the following, but don't wait that long or buy it now and then put it in the course. 00:43:29 Speaker 2: Right so the next Christmas and you're not freaking out when you go the date rolls exactly. 00:43:33 Speaker 3: I hope everybody had a great Christmas. 00:43:35 Speaker 2: I do too. I hope that Christmas wasn't too terrible. Okay, gift to a curse an excellent job. There. Sometimes people totally dropped the ball and the information is scattered. I mean, you did mention a Christmas gift twitch true, but I would give that a solid be plus. 00:43:52 Speaker 3: I'm always selling. 00:43:55 Speaker 2: This is how we play gift or curse. I'm going to name three things you're gonna tell me if there are a gift curse and why, and then I'll tell you if you're correct or not, because there are objectively correct answers. 00:44:05 Speaker 3: Now, where did my number come into play? 00:44:07 Speaker 2: I had to. I have this a truly insane looking Google doc that I well, now the listener. Listeners are just helping out. They send in suggestions, I drop them in, and then I do I use the number to randomly pick to make sure it's a fair game. 00:44:21 Speaker 3: Okay, I'm fine with that. 00:44:23 Speaker 2: Okay. This first one is from a listener named Liz, and she suggested gift her a curse real estate videos that feel like movie trailers. 00:44:33 Speaker 3: And this would be gifted. 00:44:35 Speaker 2: No, this is just like your oh your thought. Do you think it's a gift or do you think it's a cri humanity? Yes, I think that's a curse. 00:44:45 Speaker 3: I don't like anything that fakes out, kind of like like just watching TV the other day, watching MSNBC, and like some ad came out that tried to look like the newscasts. Yeah, and he's like, oh, come on, really, like we're not falling for it, you know, but clearly they think your might. 00:45:02 Speaker 2: So no, okay, you think that's a curse. 00:45:05 Speaker 3: I think it's a curse. 00:45:07 Speaker 2: Oh Paul, I hate to hear it. Oh no, it's a gift. 00:45:10 Speaker 3: It is. 00:45:11 Speaker 2: I love it. The world of real estate is fascinating to meals. I feel like there's an arms race with reeltors to be as wild as possible and to just create things that are like this has nothing to do with homes, and they're all just kind of making very interesting choices that we get to kind of enjoy and just live in. 00:45:33 Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, I like realtors swag. I as everything it's just got their picture on it. So it's a notepad, it's a pen, it's a coffee cup, and it does that one picture of that person. And like there's been some realtters in our neighborhood, I mean for years, and this is the same picture. 00:45:49 Speaker 2: I love a real litor headshot. Everything about it is always fun to look at. 00:45:55 Speaker 3: It looks like they're done when when I don't know if they had this when you were growing up, but we always didn't go to like and even you have these portrait and you get your portrait taken, Oh sure had that look of like a high school photo, you know, And so that's what I always feel those there must be a real litor like photography center somewhere. 00:46:11 Speaker 2: I would maybe I should open one. I'd love to take photos of ree litters for a living. 00:46:15 Speaker 3: Come on, that would be great. 00:46:16 Speaker 2: I mean, speaking of seers and things going on in series, let me ask you this. The seers near me growing up had a dentist in it. Does this sound remotely familiar to you? 00:46:28 Speaker 3: It doesn't sound familiar, but but it makes perfect sense because seers used to kind of have everything. Oh that was where you would go for like everything. I mean, the day of that kind of department store is gone right, thanks pretty much. 00:46:39 Speaker 2: Department stores are very much on their way out of business. 00:46:42 Speaker 3: Yeah. Malls, my god, you're just scouting an abandoned mall and in Atlanta. Oh that's weird. You know, it's like the apocalypse. 00:46:49 Speaker 2: I need to write something with a mall, an abandoned mall that just will allow me to go on scouts to look through these better do it haunting experience. 00:46:56 Speaker 3: It really is. It's really and it's kind of sad again as an older man. You know, when I was growing up, malls were everything. Of course, the center of the universe was the mall, and now it's it is a nice thing to still go back to. Yeah, but the mall walkers, where do they walk? 00:47:13 Speaker 2: I love to be in an empty mall. Okay, well, you got the first one wrong and it's horrifying to watch, I know, so, but you have two more chances to kind of redeem yourself. Okay. This next one is from a listener named Pete after a curse gummy vitamins. 00:47:28 Speaker 3: Oh there's a gift. I would dare say, why because I actually take one for for cholesterol. Oh I don't even I don't even know what it is, but I just my friend gave it. Okay, sure, Yeah, I'm taking vitamins as as a bummer, like swallowing pills as a drag. And there's there's this one potassium pill I just got that I like to take, and it's those chalky ones. Every time the first attempt, it gets stuck in my throat and I almost like throw up, and then it gets trapped on the way down. That's the worst. When you get like a vitamin stuck in that pain It won't go away. 00:48:02 Speaker 2: What is that pain? It feels like it's in your ribs, you know exactly. 00:48:05 Speaker 3: It's drinking and swallowing and get down, get down, and try to eat something to k not get down. 00:48:10 Speaker 2: The chalky ones are the there's no excuse at this point. 00:48:13 Speaker 3: I know, yeah, I know, we're living in a civilized world. 00:48:15 Speaker 2: Yeah, there's there are so many different textures of vitamin or it can be. 00:48:20 Speaker 3: They can put some something slick on it to get down your gullet. 00:48:24 Speaker 2: Not resemble a neck a wafer in any way, right, exactly. Okay, so you're saying gift. 00:48:29 Speaker 3: I am saying gift. I have a feeling I'm about to lose. 00:48:32 Speaker 2: Oh, I'm right there with you. I love look, I love it. I mean my absolute favorite vitamin. I haven't had one since I was a child, but sun Kissed made a type of vitamin that were delicious. 00:48:43 Speaker 3: Oh, like a vitamin C. Yeah. 00:48:45 Speaker 2: They were like a chewable that we hadn't gotten to the gummies at that point. I like Flintstone's chew right, but I will say the Flintstones ones were disgusting. They had a real weird aftertaste. This was the perfect vitamin. But I like a chewy vitamin. 00:48:57 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:48:57 Speaker 2: I'm also going to recommend and I haven't talked about this in a long time on this podcast. Brazil nuts. You should be taking two brazil nuts a day. My cholesterol was at the high end of normal, right, my therapist recommended. This was the only piece of advice that therapist gave me that I took into my life. Take two brazil nuts a day. My cholesterol lowered. It's amazing. Really, I can't recommend it enough. 00:49:19 Speaker 3: I'm rushing out to get brazil brazil nuts. 00:49:21 Speaker 2: Everyone hates them. They are sort of like the outcast of the nut mix. They are, But I'm telling people they're not that bad, and it's kind of a hearty snack that does something for you. 00:49:34 Speaker 3: I think it was great. Yeah, maybe I can get off my statins. 00:49:37 Speaker 2: Then yes, please. Okay, well you've gotten one right so far. That's not too bad. 00:49:42 Speaker 3: It's the tie breaker. 00:49:43 Speaker 2: Okay. And now Mike has suggested gift to a curse people who go jogging with their dogs. 00:49:51 Speaker 3: Oh, I'm going to say it's a curse. And why because I don't think the dog has anything, you know, and we all know dogs love to run. But at the same time, I don't know if the dog was really up for the run that you wanted to go on, you know. And also also it's just I you know, I could never jog with my dog because he just wants to stop every five minutes and smell everything and go to the bathroom everywhere, So, you know, so then you're denying them that pleasure. They can run with you. So, unless it's a super sporty dog. 00:50:21 Speaker 2: Right right, a Scottie dog is not a running dog. They're kind of a neighborhood wanderer. 00:50:27 Speaker 3: They have their occasional bouts of room springer where they run around and then they'll just flop down. 00:50:33 Speaker 2: You got it. Yes, I think this is a curse in so many ways. Leave the dog out of it. It's unfair. It's it's like, go do your jogging on your own. I mean this also falls into the category of people jogging with a stroller running with the stroller, which feels like such a show off move. I don't need to just if you have to run publicly, right, do it on your own. I don't want to know anything about what else is happening in your home. Totally, don't push a stroller, don't drag your dog along with you. It's one hundred percent curse. 00:51:05 Speaker 3: I was wondering how babies feel about being because they don't know that they're being pushed. They don't see what's happening behind them, so they're just in this out of control thing that's flying down the street. Yeah, this is a love of therapy. I think could go back to my earliest memory was going very fast, no one was. 00:51:23 Speaker 2: There, absolutely no context for the situation. Yeah, we've got to think about those babies and toddlers who are just terrified. They're hanging on for their lives. You got two out of three. 00:51:34 Speaker 3: Oh, I win. 00:51:35 Speaker 2: You certainly don't win, Paul, but you don't lose. And that's amazing, you know. 00:51:40 Speaker 3: All I ask is. 00:51:44 Speaker 2: Very impressive. Congratulations. 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. My listeners are desperate people. Their lives are horrible, and they are seeking help from me and now from you. Will you help me? 00:52:02 Speaker 3: I would love to help. 00:52:03 Speaker 2: All right, let me get into the dock here and get a question happening. Okay, this says deer Bridger and guest. Hello, I hope this finds you well. Excuse me for being so forward, but I must cut to the point immediately. My husband's thirty fourth birthday is coming up, and I need some advice on what to get him. He is a reformed chef who now works on trees. He likes PC games, garage, rock, and knives. Here's the thing. He has a talent for giving me gifts that are really for him, such as screwdrivers and a Nintendo switch. Oh no, that's a bad okay. I work in surgery and like cats, girl power, blood and guts parentheses see occupation. I'd like to return the favor this year, which begs the question, what can I get him that's really for me? Deepest gratitude for your assistance with this quandary regards Susan in Kansas who gives a screwdriver as a gift in anything, to say that just badross hor Just go buy yourself a screwdriver. 00:53:04 Speaker 3: It's a really nice grew. 00:53:05 Speaker 2: The world's most beautiful jewel encrusted screwdriver. That's a This husband is out. 00:53:11 Speaker 3: Of control, I would dare say. 00:53:14 Speaker 2: A reform chef who now vaguely works on trees, I don't even know what that. 00:53:18 Speaker 3: Means, and who loves knives. It's getting weirder. Get out of the what's her name out of there. 00:53:26 Speaker 2: Absolutely what could Susan get for herself? Essentially that her husband will unwrap for. 00:53:32 Speaker 3: Her a restraining order? 00:53:35 Speaker 2: Goodbye, David. 00:53:38 Speaker 3: I mean, well, she likes cats and she. 00:53:42 Speaker 2: She loves blood and guts, girl power. That's such a vague thing. What are we talking about that? Yeah, general of a thing. 00:53:50 Speaker 3: Well, is there like a home cat surgery. 00:53:52 Speaker 2: Kit, like a cat dissecting kid? 00:53:54 Speaker 3: Well, yeah, that's not I don't exactly No, like like you know, for their nuts off you know. 00:54:01 Speaker 2: Oh interesting, Yeah, like a neutering or spain. 00:54:04 Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. 00:54:05 Speaker 2: That is not a bad idea. He unwraps full surgery kit. There's the anesthetic. There's a little cat table that you put it to sleep. No, you don't put it to sleep. 00:54:15 Speaker 3: I keep What do you have against cats? 00:54:18 Speaker 2: I have nothing against cause I adore cat. 00:54:20 Speaker 3: I like jogging with my cat. 00:54:24 Speaker 2: I would absolutely more people should be running with cats. Okay, I think that's actually the perfect gift, a cat spayre neuter at home kit. 00:54:35 Speaker 3: Now, the problem is he likes knives, so oh, I wonder there's side. But do you use a knife or is it more like a needle or something a laser? Oh? 00:54:42 Speaker 2: Yeah, put you laser. A cat out of commission, out of procreation. 00:54:48 Speaker 3: I don't know. We have to look in them. 00:54:49 Speaker 2: Is there some sort of pill that you can give the cat that? 00:54:52 Speaker 1: Uh? 00:54:53 Speaker 2: Yeah, but I mean yeah, I just I'm doing us not to do a call exactly. He's the callback king, I am. He's built his reputation on it. No, I think that that's not aboud idea. I mean, we don't know if there's actually a cat in a picture, why not bring home a cat? 00:55:10 Speaker 3: Oh that's true? Oh yeah, well maybe. 00:55:12 Speaker 2: And maybe like a bag of raw meat. She loves blood and guts. You're kind of strewing that about the house for the cat. 00:55:19 Speaker 3: Actually get a cat and then get a whole cage of mice and let him loose, and then the cattle, you know, do its thing and tear him apart, and then she gets everything she wants. 00:55:28 Speaker 2: She brings the cat home. He's wondering what's going on. He has this beautifully wrapped gift. He opens it. Suddenly mice swarming everywhere. Everything makes sense. 00:55:37 Speaker 3: Cat's tearing them apart. There's blood and guts everywhere. It's like like a horror show. And he's out working on a tree. 00:55:44 Speaker 2: Susan's completely satisfied and the birthday is perfect for everybody. Paul, we answered it in an ideal way. 00:55:51 Speaker 3: I think we did. I think and honestly, since there isn't a home, you know, neutering and spaining cat, I think, just get a cat. Get a cat and a bunch of mice. 00:56:00 Speaker 2: I think that I Susan can't complain about this. No, she has to be happy with our antswer. Unfortunately she is not on the podcast, so she can't complain. I'll block her email if she does try to complain. Yes, that's perfect. 00:56:15 Speaker 3: Good. Here we are wed. 00:56:17 Speaker 2: I've got this lemon, I have my citrus squeezer. I have more lemons happening up here in the yard. It's perfect. 00:56:23 Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a perfect night. 00:56:24 Speaker 2: Thank you for this my pleasure. I've had such a wonderful time with you. 00:56:28 Speaker 3: This was great. I had a great time listener. 00:56:31 Speaker 2: This is the end of the podcast. God knows what you're going to do next. I mean, I would suggest putting on some sort of loud music. I think you need that emotional release. You've been listening to a podcast. Your feelings have been just piling up. I'm sure you're an anxious mess. Put on something loud and enjoy that for a minute. I recommend it completely. 00:56:52 Speaker 3: Dance it out. 00:56:53 Speaker 2: Dance it out, whether you're in the car, or in your workplace or in the kitchen washing the dishes. 00:56:59 Speaker 3: Dance like no one's watching. 00:57:01 Speaker 2: Or like someone's watching. Sure, like, uh, yeah, maybe you want to impress somebody. 00:57:06 Speaker 3: Like you're on stage at the Met. Yes, really, you. 00:57:08 Speaker 2: Should start dancing like we're on stage at the Met. We need more standards. 00:57:14 Speaker 3: Yeah you're here. Let's hide your light under a bush. 00:57:16 Speaker 2: Thank you. Uh, time to go, get off. The podcast I love you, goodbye, I said, No Gifts is an exactly right production. It's produced by our dear friend Annalise Nilson, and it's beautifully mixed by Leona Squillatchi. And we couldn't do it without our guest booker Patrick Kottner. The theme song, of course, could only come from miracle worker Amy Man. 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? 00:58:02 Speaker 1: Thought I made myself perfectly clear. But you're I guess to my home. You gotta come to me empty, And I said, no, guess your own presences presents enough. I already had too much stuff, So how do you dare to surbey me?