00:00:08 Speaker 1: And I invited you here, thought I made myself perfectly clear. When you're a guest in my home, you gotta come to me empty. And I said, no, guests, your 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 Richard Wineger, I'm the host, you're the listener. The world is full of magic and possibilities. And I'm kidding. I look where. This is an extremely special episode. It was supposed to be recorded in my backyard, and then there was some you know, drilling, et cetera. My neighbors have kind of taken on a little project at you know, maybe they're putting on a nice edition. I can't say for sure. So now we're in my home and we're with a wonderful guest, well, actually two wonderful guests, Kevin T. Porter and his dog, Dexter. Kevin and Dexter, welcome to me. 00:01:36 Speaker 2: Hey, we're so happy to be here. And Dexter is not the gift, by the way, I just want because I'm talk about doing that like my gift is my dog. But it's like, well, I'm not going to leave you my dog. But like the gift of hospitality that he brings everywhere he goes. 00:01:51 Speaker 3: I would have been thrilled to just suddenly have a dog saddled on me and suddenly I'm taking care of a new orphaned pet. 00:01:58 Speaker 2: But you said you already had it. 00:02:00 Speaker 3: I do have a dog, and my boyfriend's constantly asking to get another dog, and I refuse. I think one dog is probably enough for now. 00:02:11 Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not only children's syndrome where they're going to grow up weird or messed up if they don't have a sibling. I think you'll be okay, Yeah, shouts out to only children listening to Are you an only child? No, I'm one of three, and I'm the youngest of three. 00:02:24 Speaker 3: What are you I've got? I'm middle of four okay, third. 00:02:28 Speaker 2: Of four, third of four okay, the penultimate, penultimate of the in the lineage. Okay. 00:02:33 Speaker 3: There were three boys, and my parents tried once more and they got a girl. Okay, And so I think if I had been a girl, my sister would not exist. But also, three children in a Mormon family is a little small. Four is kind of the middle grew up Mormon. 00:02:49 Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, so how do you like The Killer's new album? Look, I have my first question. 00:02:56 Speaker 3: I've heard that The Killer's new album is like about Utah or something, the Nephi. 00:03:02 Speaker 2: It's about Utah, which is of course Nephi itself is named after the guy Nephi, our favorite, everyone's fan fave. There's a lot of Nephi fan thick on Tumblr you can check out. I Actually, I feel like that's probably close to the Troupe. Probably. 00:03:22 Speaker 3: I feel like the Nephi character within this, within the Book of Mormon is kind of the fan favorite. 00:03:28 Speaker 2: Mm hmm. 00:03:29 Speaker 3: But the town itself not a lot going on. 00:03:33 Speaker 2: No, It's like three thousand and it seems ravaged by the opioid crisis as well as just abject poverty. 00:03:39 Speaker 3: And right a lot of I feel like I've been through. I feel like I saw a lot of sheep. 00:03:46 Speaker 2: Okay, and you mean literal sheep, not like wake up sheep sheep. 00:03:50 Speaker 3: Because I came on strong with I saw. 00:03:53 Speaker 2: A lot of sheep out there. This becomes a. 00:03:56 Speaker 3: Choices just step third wives, literal sheep crossing the street. I could be wrong, that might be a different there. You know, there's you know, various small towns throughout Central Utah with different types of farms and farm life. 00:04:14 Speaker 2: Wait, where are you from? I'm from Texas? 00:04:17 Speaker 3: What part of Texas? 00:04:18 Speaker 2: I grew up in Houston. I was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. By I moved to Houston when I was five, So I feel like I'm from Texas essentially. 00:04:25 Speaker 3: No, you're not from Tulsa. I think post five, that's when you start to you can make a memory, you formed that identity. 00:04:34 Speaker 2: But I like Tulsa as a sort of off the beaten path origin hometown. Like I believe Bill Hayter's from Tulso Clo. Christin Chino is from Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. I believe an Arrow Hunter Harris if you're familiar with her work, she's a Tulls, Oklahoma native. Herself Hunter Harris. Who is this? Hunter Harris is a phenomenal culture writer. She used to work at Vulture Okay, and she's an amazing follow on Twitter at hunter. 00:05:01 Speaker 3: Y Harris Hunter. If you're out there, welcome to isaid no gift. 00:05:06 Speaker 2: She's the best. You should have her on. Honestly, she's funnier than me. She's way better. 00:05:13 Speaker 3: How am I not familiar with Hunter Hunter? My apologies? 00:05:16 Speaker 2: I bet you've probably seen one of her tweets and you didn't know it or read something. She's very obsessed with the Star is Born. She's very ubsessed as I am. I maybe by proxy, I do have a poster of Jackson Maine hiding above my bedroom. 00:05:30 Speaker 3: Is Jackson Maine from the Gaga version? Mm hmm, yeah, I've only seen I only saw it once in theaters. Okay, do you love the movie an ironically or. 00:05:40 Speaker 2: I tell you what, man, I can't tell anymore. I truly I don't know, and it haunts me. I do you know that you know the internet speak that people use the vernacular where they say I think about this every day, or I think about this line in this movie every day, or I think about this at least once a day. Now I don't think about Stars Born once a day, but maybe every week. It does come up, whether it's shallow, whether it's hey, what just wanted to give her a look at show, whether it's one of those instantly iconic moments, or Jackson Main and Bradley Cooper's bronze or in the movie and his hair like that does come up on a weekly basis. 00:06:19 Speaker 3: I would say, when you saw the movie for the first time, I assume at the premiere. 00:06:26 Speaker 2: Yes, it literally was. 00:06:27 Speaker 3: You were at the premiere? 00:06:28 Speaker 2: Yeah, how'd you know? 00:06:30 Speaker 1: Ow? 00:06:30 Speaker 2: I goes to joke out, Oh, I'm not. How are you at the premiere of the movie? Oh, there's a funny story to that I made. When that movie came out, this was like, looking back on it, maybe the peak of theater attendants of the last decade, and it's never going to come back in the same way, probably unfortunately, sadly. But in twenty eighteen, the year that the movie came out, that trailer was before I want to say, an estimate of five hundred movies I saw that summer. So the trailer got burned into my brain and I remember I saw a movie. The movie was a simple favor the Kendrick blake Lylac movie like kind. 00:07:12 Speaker 3: Of the Spot, Yeah, Murder Mystery, Yeah, yeah, yeah, the and uh. 00:07:15 Speaker 2: It was at the lows Fleet three and they played the trailer before and my friend who I was with, I was like, it'd be funny if like it was Kurban and Miss Piggy starting going to starts born. So I made a trailer in which was just Kermit and Miss Piggy and I like took all this footage from the Muppet movies and the Muppet Show and like tried to do like a perfect lip sync with all the lines in the trailer, and like Dave Chappelle was Fozzy Bear and Piggy was Goga and Kermit was Jackson. And then I put it up on Twitter, and I don't think it went viral, but there was enough views that Warner Brothers reached out and said, Hey, do you want to go to the premiere? That's incredible, So me in a plus one way and you and Miss Piggy. Yeah, me and Miss Piggy. I will go on record as saying she was not Miss Piggy. I would never do Kerma dirty like that and take his gal out. Nor would I call the person I was with Miss Piggy. 00:08:09 Speaker 3: No, I would Miss. It would be an honor to be called Miss Piggy. She is one of our great people. 00:08:14 Speaker 2: She's one of my favorite fictional characters of all time. 00:08:17 Speaker 3: She's incredible, she gets what she wants, she's extremely violent, u she dresses impeccably. 00:08:24 Speaker 2: And she's probably good. That relationship probably unlocked things for a lot of hetero couples, and I'm sure a lot of queer couples too, but especially for hetero couples, they are like, hey, you know what, this is a model. She can be a bit of a dom you can be a bit of a sound right in these different ways, Like this is fully viable and healthy. 00:08:42 Speaker 3: She looks better than ever. Why there was never just a miss Piggy movie is beyond me. She has a whole family. Some of them goes are like astronauts. Somebody wrong. 00:08:53 Speaker 2: I mean, the Muppet IP right now is kind of in a state of disarray. It's it's really wild if you if you follow it down. 00:09:02 Speaker 3: I saw a new story recently that Frank Cause is like, I'm I want nothing to do with the Muppets anymore. 00:09:07 Speaker 2: Well because Disney doesn't want him to have anything to do with the Munkets too, because he was obviously ogmus Piggy, right was Frank Cause. Because it is like, especially in those early Muppet shows, it's like, this is like a fem Yoda in ters of the. 00:09:20 Speaker 3: Voi and Yoda. Yoda is like her ancestor. 00:09:24 Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what it feels like. But then there's that and then four years ago the guy who's been voicing Kermit since mister Jim Henson passed away, Steve Widmeyer was fired by the Hintson estate. And now the new guy doing Kermit, because the one that we grew up with in our generation is like hi home, k Frog here. And now the guy that they have doing it a guy named Matt Vogel, who's like a very talented muppeteer, but he's like. 00:09:50 Speaker 3: Oh hey, Fozzley, it's good to see you. 00:09:52 Speaker 2: It's like way lower. It sounds like a grown man who's like a real estate agent doing a Kermit impression. Oh I don't like to hear that. 00:09:59 Speaker 3: No, And that's what we're just stuck with. 00:10:02 Speaker 2: I know. That's the thing too, is like everyone in America has a Kermit impression. You think you could find someone to do it, but Matt was in the in the system. He's I mean, honestly, he's very talented, but just is not my Kermit. Hashtag not my Kermit. 00:10:19 Speaker 3: That's your bumper sticker. Yeah, that's I saw you pull up. 00:10:22 Speaker 2: I have very few core beliefs, but that is one of them. 00:10:26 Speaker 3: Now, this is the thing with the Muppets. 00:10:27 Speaker 2: For me. 00:10:28 Speaker 3: You could talk about the Muppets for the rest of this podcast. I don't care. The only Muppet movie that ever really landed for me is the Original Muppet Movie. Okay, yeah, the first one, the seventy Yeah. What are your feelings on all of the Muppet movies? 00:10:40 Speaker 2: I mean, honestly, that twenty eleven Muppet movie. I love it worked. I thought it was terrific. The Jason Siegel Amy Adams one interesting. I thought the songs were great, I thought the story worked. And I didn't see the follow up the Muppets most wanted. I didn't watch the TV show that was kind of a pair of The Office and the Docuseriies style. I didn't watch any of that. But I love the twenty eleven Muppets. I don't know if I've seen the Original Muppet movie all the way through? 00:11:10 Speaker 3: Are we talking about it's excellent? I know up so well. I believe you. 00:11:16 Speaker 2: There's almost a way in which I don't want to watch it, because then I won't have it to look forward to anymore, if that makes sense. 00:11:21 Speaker 3: Eye on your way home today and then you never saw them up at mine? 00:11:24 Speaker 2: I know, But then isn't that beautiful in a way? And that'll be the first line of my oh bit. It's like he never saw the Muppet movie, but he did some other stuff, but he appropriated Muppet culture all throughout his life. 00:11:36 Speaker 3: Unbelievable. This is for me. This is a little upsetting. You know, I understand you get things revealed on podcasts that are shocking, that are disappointing. This might be the most disappointing at all. 00:11:49 Speaker 2: It's like talking to someone who is a fan of the aforementioned Killers and you're like, and you love mister Bridside, right, and they're like, what's mister Brightside? It would be like that that that's central of a text to the fandom. 00:12:01 Speaker 3: Promise like home, yeah, I watch. 00:12:04 Speaker 2: I will, you know, I'll make a promise you I'll watch it before the end of the year, which we only have like three and a half months left, No, two and a half months? Is that? 00:12:11 Speaker 3: What? 00:12:12 Speaker 2: Half and a half devastating to hear? What horror as of recording this? Maybe not when this comes out. 00:12:17 Speaker 3: This is coming out in twenty twenty four. Oh wow, So who knows what. 00:12:21 Speaker 2: You're really banking ahead? 00:12:24 Speaker 3: I've got a lot of big plans. 00:12:25 Speaker 2: I just got to get ahead, you know. 00:12:27 Speaker 3: Ye who knows where I'll be like, may be kidnapped, I maybe stranded on an I go on vacation for three years. I may just vanish into the wilderness. There's no real telling. So you've got a bank episode this. Uh who knows where? 00:12:41 Speaker 2: You know. 00:12:41 Speaker 3: The twenty twenty four elections are coming up. Everyone get out and vote. 00:12:45 Speaker 2: Yeah, MTG we represent Hive, Rise Up. Marjorie's our gal. It is crazy. You know in the intervening years how she did switch to become a radical left socialist. She renounces literally everything she has said in her life, and now she's on our team. 00:13:02 Speaker 3: Saw the light, Yeah, Marjorie, Welcome to the resistance. 00:13:07 Speaker 2: Welcome Marge. Yeah. 00:13:09 Speaker 3: Okay, well that's shock. And you've seen the Great Muppet Caper. 00:13:12 Speaker 2: Yeah, I did see that when I was a kid. I think that one stinks. Really Okay, that's not what she's on the motorcycle, right. 00:13:18 Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe I don't think it's stinks. I remember watching them being like, this doesn't work for me. And then there's Muppets take Manhattan. 00:13:25 Speaker 2: Have you seen that one? If I have, it's been a long time. 00:13:28 Speaker 1: I know. 00:13:28 Speaker 2: This is disgusting. It really is discussed. I saw the twenty eleven one, Muffett Treasure Island, and Muffets Since Space. 00:13:36 Speaker 3: Have you seen Christmas Carol? 00:13:38 Speaker 2: Yes? I watched that last year. 00:13:39 Speaker 3: I feel like that's good. 00:13:40 Speaker 2: It is good. It is good. 00:13:42 Speaker 3: It's scary. 00:13:43 Speaker 2: Mm hmm. Parts of it are genuinely well. Michael Caine is acting in it as if he's not in a Muppet movie. He's like going for an oscar in that movie in the best most incere way possible. 00:13:54 Speaker 3: Who plays? Is she the love interest in it? Who's the female lead of the movie? 00:14:00 Speaker 2: Feel like she's good? Wait? 00:14:02 Speaker 3: Really, there isn't like Muppet Christmas Carol? Yeah, isn't there like pig I feel like there's a woman who sings kind of a beautiful love song or something in it. 00:14:11 Speaker 2: I'm not remembering yet. There's no way to look it up. 00:14:14 Speaker 3: Race to this person from the movie. Unfortunately heartbreaking. That's the only thing. 00:14:19 Speaker 2: About the Muppet culture is that it's not It's not a super like female progressive. There's like two women Muppets that you could name. You've got Miss Piggy, you got Janice? Wait, who's Janie? 00:14:33 Speaker 3: Is the one in the band. 00:14:34 Speaker 2: She's like a man. She kind of looks like Joni Mitchell a little bit Gianos. That's a good name. 00:14:40 Speaker 3: But then past that, I mean who. 00:14:44 Speaker 2: You have to go Sessame Street and that's not even technically muppets. 00:14:47 Speaker 3: I feel like Rizzo might have a wife yet speaker and wait, what Speaker's friend? 00:14:54 Speaker 2: Uh doctors, doctor nothing, I don't know, yeah, doctor Greenbald. I'm not a muppet, unfortunately, I know this is a oh god, I know, I feel so embarrassed. And also with Jackson Maine, I. 00:15:10 Speaker 3: Promised you a muppet, you know, expert, and we bring on a fraud someone who's kind of just built his entire brand about around knowing Muppet and Muppet and shame. 00:15:22 Speaker 2: This is kind of my A million Little Pieces moment. 00:15:26 Speaker 3: For Oprah. 00:15:27 Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right, I'm you know, I that is I believe that's gentleman's name. 00:15:34 Speaker 3: James Pray. 00:15:35 Speaker 2: I never read the book. Did you read the book? No? I just saw sprinkles, honest, and I was like, that looks gross. I'm not reading that. 00:15:41 Speaker 3: I only recently learned those were sprinkles. I feel like I had only seen like thumbnail photos that they were bees or something. I was like broken glass or something. 00:15:48 Speaker 2: And for the listener, that may not know. There's a gentleman named James Frey who put out a memoir I think about drug addiction and going to rehab and whatnot. In the two thousands. Oprah had him on her show and plugged his book on the book Club and she's like, it's great, everyone read it and it came out. He was like, oh, yeah, I lied about a lot of that stuff. And then she had him back on and she's like what the hell and he's like sorry, and it was uncomfortable. 00:16:12 Speaker 3: Yeah, I wonder if the book is compelling if you know that it's fake, you know, maybe he's a good author, or is it one of those things where it's like, well, this is fascinating. So I'll read garbage. 00:16:23 Speaker 2: With most memoir and especially the celebrity memoir stuff where it's more than half ghost written, you just kind of take it with a grain of salt, like that this is does anyone remember this this? Well? Any I always think that, especially like reading autobiography stuff, and so you kind of have to factor in fiction as a part of it. Now, if it's like literally lying about like I went to rehab when you literally didn't, that's that feels different. 00:16:49 Speaker 3: But yeah, my memory is shot. Like if I sat down and tried to read a memoir, I would absolutely have to fabricate ninety percent of it. 00:16:56 Speaker 2: I feel the same way. 00:16:57 Speaker 3: Just to keep people interested in my life is extremely. 00:17:00 Speaker 2: Or are you afraid they're going to use a SoundBite against you and your memoir? Different port Yeah, in a week from now, as this episode comes out, Penguin made the book deal, that'd be more like a random house Shoin. 00:17:13 Speaker 3: I My goal for this podcast is always to have audio that can be used against me in court. Great, and so this is a little something for my lawyer, you know, uh, the other lawyers involved, whoever suing me. 00:17:27 Speaker 2: You're trying to Mike Richards yourself whenever you can. Yes, please the dream just to destroy me. No, Glenn, Wait, not Glenn. I was gonna say, James Fray. Glenn Fry is the Eagle. Eagles, Glenn Fry is. He's another person who's created a bunch of garbage. My apologies to the Eagles fan base out there, but especially Sam, Sam the Eagle. 00:17:53 Speaker 3: Back to the Muppets. Forget the Muppets for a minute. Okay, Okay, the Eagle vote for Trump? 00:17:59 Speaker 2: Yeah he did. I hate to hear that. I think so, yeah, the dark road of like which of my favorite fictional characters voted for who, Like Mayor of Eastown had economic anxiety? You know what I'm saying, Like. 00:18:12 Speaker 3: She not letting you come on here and say that Mayor voted for Mayor had a good head on her shoulders. She's got her daughter who's in the cool band. She's got you know, she's got the life experience. I think that she she was also in a swing state. 00:18:29 Speaker 2: Mm hmm, I know That's what I'm saying. 00:18:32 Speaker 1: Mayor. 00:18:32 Speaker 2: Reach out. Correct the record now, there is as we're recording this, there is a new series coming out on Paramount Plus called Mayor of Kingstown. That this is true, is one hundred percent true. So Jeremy Rinner and Kyle Chandler, who I love. 00:18:50 Speaker 3: I love Kyle Jenner, I know. 00:18:52 Speaker 2: And presence, oh gosh, I mean I when I was in college, I got to interview him on a red carpet event for the Texas Hall of Fame. It's I think it's still the most handsome man I've ever seen. 00:19:04 Speaker 3: A Really, he's such a good looking person. Yeah, I uh, He's got just a general vibe that I find deeply good looking. And I've never watched I've only watched the pilot of Friday Friday. I loved it. Yeah, why haven't I finished it? It's I also love Connie Britton, Oh gosh. 00:19:22 Speaker 2: I got to interview her too, but still, and she's obviously gorgeous. But Kyle was just like a it's a different level, man. I wouldn't be able to do that interview. I'd pass away. I know, I was like eighteen years old. I'm sure brief another while we're on the subject of young interviews, you know, and I've gotten to talk to a lot of great people that meyer over the years through podcasting and whatnot. But maybe the one I'm most slashly s proud of is I did interview Katy Perry when I was twelve years old. 00:19:51 Speaker 3: What was this pre fame? 00:19:55 Speaker 2: This was in her Christian rock face. She was not Katy Perry. She was Katie Hudson. And she did a concert at a church and I attended that concert. She was the opening act, and a friend of mine worked at the local Christian radio station. He said, I'll interview this acting. You can interview her. She was like fifteen or sixteen years old. At the time, because she's not that much older than me. And I had like three or four questions. I'm like, tell us about the album and the audio of this does exist. A friend of mine did keep it from. 00:20:24 Speaker 3: Like released on the internet. 00:20:26 Speaker 2: Yeah, I put on an episode of one of my podcasts. It's it's like it's cringe, but it's kind of cute, and it's also like it's such an interesting look into like what her life must have been like at the time and how strange it must have been because we all had crushes on her even at the time, even when she was doing all these Christian songs, she was really charming and effusive and charismatic and in that way that was so magnetic. And yeah, so I did interview. So was this like there's only two thousand and two. Oh, this is a long time. This was eighteen years ago. 00:20:56 Speaker 3: Woh, well, I am so she was nice and she was fun. 00:21:01 Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd like three questions. It was like they it was like I think was early do you have anything else to say? It's a twelve field while I was like, well, shows what you got prove to me why I should care about you? 00:21:19 Speaker 3: I love When do you have anything else? To say that's another podcast. You just set up the mic. I think you should end these podcasts, right, and then you just I walk away and leave the mast with the microphone and then I fill a buster until the next episode the next week. Katy Perry. My one experience with Katie Perry was I believe it was maybe two and eight. Some friends and I used to go up to Sundance while it was happening and would try to get into concerts this sort of thing. We got into a concert that she was playing pre pop. She was like playing acoustic guitar, excruciating. One of the worst nights of my life. 00:21:58 Speaker 2: She wasn't good. 00:21:59 Speaker 3: I oh, you know it was she was doing the like kind of like trying to be edgy thing but with folk music, and like I didn't want to be there anyway. I believe Shooter McGavin was also there, just as a celebrity or something. Seeing Shooter mccalvin. And then when she really hit the scene, it was like, you know, she really went through an evolution there. 00:22:24 Speaker 2: If you listen to her two thousand and two Christian album, which is available on YouTube. As All Good Things Are, YouTube is my favorite streaming service by the way I pay from a premium subscription. Yeah, no, ads, and I'm there on there all the time. It's amazing. 00:22:38 Speaker 3: Wow, what are you watching? 00:22:40 Speaker 2: You know, like a lot of cooking videos, a lot of tutorials, a lot of video essays, a lot of old performances, a lot of Dick Cavit show interviews. 00:22:49 Speaker 3: I love Dick Cavit, right, excellent interviewer. 00:22:52 Speaker 2: So yeah, surfing on YouTube. Oh what was my larger point by Oh, her vocal antecedents you can hear on the Christian album are a little warped to core like it is like it is more that that vocal delivery that you can hear a little bit on a kissed a girl, but is like all but gone on Smile or whatever her newest album. 00:23:13 Speaker 3: Yes, I feel like she bless her. I mean, we don't need to get into the Katie Perry world. 00:23:20 Speaker 2: Pieces of Me, all of Me whatever that documentary was called. 00:23:26 Speaker 3: Look Katy Perry, miss Piggy, all of this aside. I asked you here today for a specific actually just to talk. I just wanted to see you in my backyard. 00:23:37 Speaker 2: I mean, what a great premise for a show. Or it's just give me that is not the premise of this show. Kevin, absolutely not. 00:23:45 Speaker 3: I asked you just to come over to my backyard. I thought we'll have a nice time. We're both deeply tan work. 00:23:52 Speaker 2: On our I know. Is this a strange Marx Brothers podcast experience right now, like doing the mirror routine? 00:24:00 Speaker 3: It really is. 00:24:01 Speaker 2: I'm certain I've gotten you as as a look alike in my past. I hope that's not not flattering. 00:24:08 Speaker 3: It would be extremely flattering. This does feel kind of like a spider Man running into the doppel ganger. Yeah, that sort of thing. But you know, we thought. I thought we'll spend some time in the backyard, we'll have a nice time. He'll go home, and we'll move on with our lives. And then of course the neighbors start their construction. We move into the house. We're in this kind of echo office that I've constructed, and you came in. You were holding a bag. I was, yeah, the podcast is called I said, no giving. 00:24:41 Speaker 2: I know, and I was a bad little boy, and I'm not following the rules. I'm going a different way altogether. 00:24:48 Speaker 3: You are kind of known in the podcast community as a troublemaker. 00:24:52 Speaker 2: Oh I know, listen, I mean if you smell something, it's the bridges I'm burning. That's that's what that is. You brought this bag with you, and I'm just I have to ask, is this a gift for me? It is a gift just for you. 00:25:04 Speaker 3: Okay, it's a key friend, a little brown bag with some pink tissue coming out of it. 00:25:10 Speaker 2: Should open it here on the show. I would love if you did. Okay, I'm going to open it. 00:25:18 Speaker 3: I'm gonna open wait, oh my god, that kend Okay, Kevin for the listener should know runs a which it's a business at this point. 00:25:35 Speaker 2: Oh sure, yeah, kind of a little baked goods. 00:25:39 Speaker 3: It's called Kevin Bacon. I have, of course been to the website multiple times, always tempted to buy, but then I think I'm just going to bake at home because I love. 00:25:49 Speaker 2: To bake it. You love to bake as well. 00:25:51 Speaker 3: Of course I not like you, not like you because you are like you're you are doing your own stuff at this point, trying to so, listener, I've brought out another little brown bag full of some sort of baked good a bar, a bar cookie. 00:26:08 Speaker 2: I have bars for you today. 00:26:10 Speaker 3: What type of bar cookie is? So? 00:26:11 Speaker 2: This is a snicker doodle, cheesecake, bar good, grief and freshly baked from yesterday and then chilled in the fridge for twenty four hours before coming here. And it is pretty much what it sounds like for a listener home. The aesthetic is it looks like almost a sandwich cookie, but in bar formed there's brown cinnamon crumbling on top and bottom with a white cheesecake streak going through the metal. 00:26:38 Speaker 3: This is okay, so we need to get into this. I could talk. I mean, this could if if I wanted to, could just transform this entire podcast into talking about baked goods. And I'm sure a shot of listeners are like, oh no, it's one of those episodes. 00:26:51 Speaker 2: I'm out. This is a type of episode I have on the show now. 00:26:55 Speaker 3: It comes up that frequently occasionally when baked goods get brought up. I'm like a dog with a bone. It's all I'll talk about. 00:27:04 Speaker 2: Really. Look, I'm up in Utah. 00:27:07 Speaker 3: My mom's a baker, I mean like at homebaker, but an excellent baker. I love a baked good. I have a long history with cookies that at one point was deeply unhealthy. 00:27:19 Speaker 2: Oh is that true? I was eating nine cookies a day at what age? 00:27:24 Speaker 3: In my twenties okay, mid twenties, you know, whether they were purchased at a store or baked by me? It was nine cookies a day. Okay, I was obviously, you know, filling a void. Just is before I came out, I was living alone. What else do you do at night but eat nine cookies a day? 00:27:43 Speaker 2: And then were you counterbalancing that with a lot of exercise? 00:27:47 Speaker 3: Oh? I was walking to work, so maybe that's but that was only a mile. This sounds like the saddest person's No, I just actually was. 00:27:57 Speaker 2: I'm interesting. Everyone has a different relationship with food, and especially it's changed in the last eighteen nineteen months for a lot of us. Yes, so it's it's all valid. Wow. 00:28:09 Speaker 3: Yeah, So I love to talk about baked goods, and I love to hear about other you know, it's always kind of shocking to me that other people don't like regularly. I eat cookies every single day? 00:28:21 Speaker 2: Is that true? Every day? Unless I'm having ice cream? Are they cookies that you bakee? Yes? 00:28:26 Speaker 3: At this point they're unless like somebody sends me cookies or for example, now suddenly I've got these in my life they're cookies baked by. 00:28:35 Speaker 2: Me, because I did say as I came into your lovely home immediately envious of the counter space. 00:28:42 Speaker 3: Yeah, I have more. I moved in here last year from an apartment that had essentially no counter space, and so, you know, I don't know what your your current counterspace situation is, but it makes baking. You have to get creative if you've got smaller and I feel very lucky now that I can kind of spread out and make an even bigger mess. Yeah, but I also have become so efficient. You know, I started baking in a studio apartment that was essentially the size of it was essentially my bathroom and a futon, and so I was really working in a tiny space there. Moved into various other places, and so I still work in maybe a two foot by two foot space. 00:29:27 Speaker 2: Yeah, that's about what I'm rocking now. I got about sixteenth of what I saw out there. 00:29:33 Speaker 3: And you're baking. You're running a business. 00:29:35 Speaker 2: I know, how does this work? Not efficient? It apparently is. It's a bad idea. I've just added ice cream to the repertoire too, right, I have an ice cream flavor to pitch to you. Oh, I would love to hear it. I'm trying to get more creative. 00:29:49 Speaker 3: I want somebody to create this flavor for my own selfish reasons. 00:29:52 Speaker 2: Can I tell you it here now? 00:29:53 Speaker 3: Yes, I even have a name for it. It would be called Grasshopper Road from Ent ice cream with chocolate, marshmallows and nuts. It's like a Rocky Road but mint. It's a Grasshopper meets Rocky Road. 00:30:08 Speaker 2: I'll make it. I'll make it tomorrow. Make it. Yeah, that's like a huge that could be a Ben and Jerry's chocolate cream base with like two teaspoons of peppermint extract. Then maybe like candied walnuts plus either homemade vanilla being marshmallows, or just a stay pop from the I say do staypuff Yeah. 00:30:27 Speaker 3: Easier, and I think the texture it is easier and let they're like slightly less sweet. Okay, I'm sorry. I'm now pitching my own ice cream flavors on my podcast because how often do you meet someone who makes ice cream? 00:30:39 Speaker 2: I mean the other day, so I was selling you we'll do a local plug if it's not inappropriate or it doesn't conflict with a sponsor. But Jameson Brown is a local coffee shop and roaster here on this part of town in Pasadena, closer to where I live, and they have certain signature drinks, one of which is a Vienna latte, which is just you know, it's probably a drink a lot of cafes half, but it's something which is honey and cinnamon. They have another one called a Mine Mocha, which is mocha plus chipotle powder. 00:31:10 Speaker 3: Oh sure. 00:31:11 Speaker 2: And so I did an ice cream version of both of those lattes using their ground up beans in espresso. And that was my first time like really experimenting with like trying to match a flavor that I'm seen before in a recipe, and I think it came out pretty good. 00:31:28 Speaker 3: How God, I truly have so many questions. I'm all over the place. I need like an assistant sitting here for it to whisper my questions. Remember this, remember this, But let's let's start. Let's keep with ice cream for a moment. I'm curious how you make ice cream at home and how you learn how to do it. 00:31:45 Speaker 2: Sure, So I got an ice cream maker about two months ago. Okay, it wasn't too long ago. And for those who are thinking about it at home, I say do it, especially if you're one of these filthy one percenters with a kitchen free keen island living in Idaho and making like thirty grand a year, but you can afford a five bedroom house or a kitchen island. I say spring for the ice cream maker that has a compressor in it, okay, which is different from ically the hand crank stuff. But then also sort of attachments like you would have for like a kitchen aid stand mix or something where you have to put the bowl or the bucket in the freezer for at least twenty four hours, because that's the big bummer at least up until recently of making ice cream. Is like, I want to make ice cream today, Okay, well I can make it tomorrow after putting in the bucket if I haven't, like had the fourth thought to do it. But what the compressor machine does? I have a Queasin Art ice one hundred machine and I'm not sponsored by them. 00:32:41 Speaker 3: I would love to be said, Queasin Art, please send Kevin something, just. 00:32:46 Speaker 2: Something you're like a sticker I'll put on my laptop. And so what that does is you just turn it on for fifteen minutes and it freezes the bowl as it churns. So what that means is you can also make multiple batches in a day, which you cannot do with your traditional ice cream machines. So I got this machine, and then I got about five or six different ice cream cookbooks, Jenny salten Straw obviously, the Ben and Jerry's one, Van Lewin The Perfect Scoop was another one I got and just started like mixing and matching different recipes from that o. Jenny's has had my favorite strawberry ice cream recipe, salten straw my favorite goat cheese with like a hob and narrow BlackBerry jam recipe, or like a lavender honey. A lot of people have lavender honey recipes. I think salten Straws is my favorite, and essentially what it is because I've been less creative even with baking, I think than I've been able to do with ice cream. Because if you just start with the bass, like whatever your base is, like Ben and Jerry's has a base that's like custard. So it's just two eggs, two cups of heavy cream, three fourth cups of sugar, and then one cup of milk, and then that's your base, and then you can do whatever you want with it as far as yeah, you can get freaky dickey like I made. I like doing like a lot of cereal based stuff, so like making like a Lucky Charms ice crumber crunch. I made a Captain Crunch one where I added like freeze dried corn powder like you would use like in a milk ball formerly known as crack pie or some of the other stuff that they have, And I did that plus like a teaspoon of grounded up Captain crunch and then two cups of Captain Crunch in it. And it's like a sweet corn crunch that sounds tastes different from the cereal, right, but it is like familiar enough where it's like, well, I like Captain Crunch. It's like, well, you may also like sweet corn crunch this particular ice cream. So it's been really fun and it's honestly, it's so fun to make because it's a little bit easier, especially with that machine, than making something like a full like three tear layer cake or even a pie where like the crust process can take two hours in the dating. Oh man, I made a pistachio cloud pie the other day. Oh that sounds lovely. It was really good. It was actually I think maybe the prettiest things I've one of the prettiest things I've made, which is not saying a lot, because I don't know of aesthetics are my strong suit. But it took forever, but it was worth it. But something like ice cream you can just be like, well, and you can be a little more intuitive with it, I think in the way that you can with cooking, because people talk about like the precision. 00:35:20 Speaker 3: You need with with baking, Oh my god, you can't screw around if you're like a quarter teaspoon off this or that. 00:35:26 Speaker 2: It's like, well, the whole thing's ruin. If you get the base right and then you're adding like mixings and stuff, you can actually be a little more imprecise, right, if that's the word with it, So I recommend it. Do you have an ice cream maker? 00:35:37 Speaker 3: I'm not making ice cream, as you could. I love to bake, but almost exclusively cookies. Like with a bar recipe, I'm like, if it gets screwed up, it's an entire pan ruined, Okay, And the anxiety for me over the top, gotcha. I'll occasionally make a brownie and I'm usually satisfied, but the lead up is just too much, the melting, the chocolate, all of this. It's just it's a very stressful and I bake just to basically calm myself down. So it's nice, Like I know how to make a good chocolate chip cookie, and I know I'll use different recipes from various bakers. 00:36:16 Speaker 2: What's your greatest hit of a cookie where it's like, I really want to I'm having people over, I want to have some sweets I've created. 00:36:23 Speaker 3: I've kind of created my own little recipe at this point, using different things that I like. That's like it's on the thicker side. I'm now using partially bread flour, which was in the last couple of years a discovery for me. I really like the flavor it brings to a cookie. You ever use a bread flour in a cookie? 00:36:41 Speaker 2: I don't believe. I have no. 00:36:43 Speaker 3: It gives it a bready taste that may sound strange. 00:36:46 Speaker 2: I've only used bread flour I think in like cinnamon roll stuff. 00:36:49 Speaker 3: I'm using part almost all bread flour in this particular recipe, and it creates a nice cookie. It's thicker. It's thicker, it's got like a slight it's got the slight breadiness to it, which saying that aloud sounds bad, but yeah, that's kind of my thing. I've been using this pan banging recipe from this baker Sarah Keefer, I want to say is her name, which always dazzles people. But it does require a lot of banging in the oven. You have to lift up the pan and bang it. It's like a crinkle delicious. What's your favorite thing to bake? 00:37:28 Speaker 2: I mean, I go back and forth. I get into phases with different kinds of cookbooks. So I've been hosting people over my place recently again because I was the number one thing I missed about last year, right, more than restaurants, more than travel, more than going to the movies. I was like, I miss having more than one person. It's my place, so to host. I've been making a lot of different kinds of cakes. Oh and I got really into the milk bar cake stuff sure, which for those I may not know, the milk bar cake sort of philosophy is exposed edges. Instead of having like a perfectly uniform frosting on the top and on the sides, you do it where it's all exposed, but you can see everything that's in it. So you can see the frosting, you can see each cake layer. And my piece to resistance, says of Late, was I made an ice cream milk bar cake, homemade ice cream. So it's a roasted strawberry buttermilk homemade ice cream, vanilla cake, sour cream frosting, and then Graham cracker crumble in between. That sounds disgusting. It was really tall. It was I almost could not make it was for foot I think, yeah. 00:38:40 Speaker 3: Wow that so I mean yeah, for me, that's so many things that I couldn't even begin to imagine making that at home. 00:38:49 Speaker 2: So it's admirable. Yeah. And again with this much counter SPI. 00:38:54 Speaker 3: What you see before business is this ruining your life? 00:38:57 Speaker 2: Uh? You know what? Well, when I launched it, I did it all for uh for charity. So all the profits went to the Sila Neighborhood Homeless Coalition, which is a nonprofit here in Los Angeles helping on house people. And it was great to be able to do it as like to just like jump start and get like essentially a customer base, and it was easy for people to plug because it was for charity. And then after that leveled out and because I got like a deluge of orders where it was literally like I was baking and delivering within La County because I said, we're in La County, which turns out it's really big. 00:39:31 Speaker 3: It's a very big amount. 00:39:33 Speaker 2: And Pallas Veraday's technically La County. Monrovia, La County. Did you go to Monroevia? Of course Monroe is actually not far from where I lived. That's like two exits down for me. But Pallas Vera days, that's a that's a drive where for Biola is where is that? I mean it's actually Promona Bible Institute of Los Angeles. That's technically La County. Baby, So there was a couple of weeks where it's just like that's all I did. It's leveled out since and it's more manageable. It's more like a dozen or less orders per month now, so it's just like this fun little thing I get to do. 00:40:07 Speaker 3: So do you wait? 00:40:08 Speaker 2: Do you ship at all? No? Because I well, one, I don't think I'm technically licensed to show, right, so there's like the legal issue. But then two I get a little nervous about how cost prohibitive it is because to do shipping on top of all that stuff, And then to keep it fresh and to get it within a certain amount of days so then when they get it it's not stale. Takes a lot, and it's something that people have asked about specifically, because there's a lot of people who have DMed and just said, hey, I'd like a cookie, can you freaking ship? And I'm like, I'm working on it, but not yet. But it's something i've just like constantly put off. 00:40:44 Speaker 3: Would do you want to expand the business? No, that's something you like doing, Yeah, and we'll continue doing at the level you're at. 00:40:55 Speaker 2: The margins for food, like any dummy can tell you, and I guess now I can tell you from experience, the margins with food work if you're not producing at a mass scale or overcharging, are just like hard to make it work. And I'm even finding that even with like just little deliveries where it's like why don't want to charge like five bucks a cookie for a dozen cookies? Like I want to do something reasonable where it's not like, well, why would I do this instead of just either making myself forget oreos from the grocery side, So to do that and then like keep it at a reasonable rate, it's just hard to I understand why like food businesses, restaurants, cafes struggle to do it. 00:41:36 Speaker 3: Okay, well look I could. I literally could talk about baking for the rest of the day. 00:41:42 Speaker 2: I know. We didn't even get into pies, Big Little Pies. 00:41:47 Speaker 3: That's right. You have the whole Big Little Pies thing that you were doing years ago, right, I was like two years ago. I guess that's time. 00:41:54 Speaker 2: I know that was twenty nineteen was the season two of Big Little Lies. Was Big Little Pies a theme party we did in my place where everyone brought pies. I didn't bake a single pie for that. That was when I was not in my baking face. Wow. Yeah, so is that been a late pandemic? 00:42:08 Speaker 3: Started the baking for you? I hosted a cookie party and maybe twenty I want to say twenty twelve, which was simultaneously very successful and also a real learning lesson where it was like, you ask people to bring cookies and they expect you to eat every Everyone expects you to eat their cookies. 00:42:31 Speaker 2: Twelve pies. That's just not viable. It's not sustainable. I did a bake off for my birthday last year. Oh like yours. No, the whole idea is like I don't want to bake, and it was really cute. We had a really fun that's a good idea with it. But you know, in the spirit of Big Little Pies. I don't know when this comes out, but October seventeenth, Succession Season three comes out and we are going to have the Succession Suck Session, which is an ice cream social and popsicle gathering where we have homemade popsicles and ice creams like roasted Strawjerry buttermilk cousin Greg Nogg Beautiful served in Wistar roy Cones, homemade roy Cones. 00:43:15 Speaker 3: Yeah. That's the thing we haven't mentioned about your business, Kevin Bacon, is that every cookie has kind of a name, a terrible pun, terrible pun baking name. Wait, did these bars have a name? 00:43:26 Speaker 2: You know? I call them Sneaker Little Cheesecake Bars. But my friend Chelsey, well she gave me the name. If you really want to call it something, you can call it Lana del Cakes, send it time cheeseeness, not doing it. I refuse those words. 00:43:43 Speaker 3: Yeah, but it's good to know that an attempt was made like it. 00:43:49 Speaker 2: And it kind of does taste like a cop lover. You know, you when you sink your teeth into it, it tastes like a yeah, problematic them fetel. 00:43:58 Speaker 3: This is the thing with a del Rey for me is I think I've heard maybe twenty seconds of Lana del Reray, yet I know almost everything about her outside of her. 00:44:08 Speaker 2: Could you do one second impression of her? Yeah? 00:44:12 Speaker 3: Is that close? 00:44:13 Speaker 2: Yeah? I would be like. 00:44:16 Speaker 3: Kind of like someone maybe dying on top of a piano, like lying there, like wasting away on. 00:44:23 Speaker 2: Top of a piano in like fifties. 00:44:26 Speaker 3: Right, like Marilyn Monroe's dying breath on top of brand Yeah. I could be wrong, but that's on top of a cattle park next to the beach. People love Lana. I have nothing against her. I just I don't know that what. I've just never sought her out yet. Her influence on culture is. 00:44:48 Speaker 2: Enormous, unparalleled. I mean, listen, I think she's a tremendous songwriter. Norman fing Rockwell, that was that I've heard. I think she's terrific. It's just interesting to parse out. It's it's an interesting I think empowers the music critic over at MPR. She drew a lot of parallels to like what she does in her music. What Lana does and what Randy Newman used to do in his music, which is like a lot of satire singing and character. But I think what we didn't anticipate, especially with Lana, was like she's kind of for real and she's like, it's not a character. I really believe some of those weird stuff, and it's like, oh, okay, well and that is different. Oh, Lana reach out. 00:45:31 Speaker 3: Yeah, she'll bring a gift. She'll bring me a gift. She will write me a song that's problematic in some way. 00:45:36 Speaker 2: What a great gift? Has anyone done a music oriented gift on this show? The only and you're one hundred and forty four episodes of the show. 00:45:43 Speaker 3: He was one. The gift from the very beginning is Amy Man wrote the theme song and performed, which maybe the best gift I will ever receive man Man. 00:45:54 Speaker 2: Indeed. 00:45:54 Speaker 3: Yeah, the fact that Amy men notice me in any way is still shocking to me. The Magnoli podcasting, you know, like this is this is equivalent and I Magnol you, I'm forgetting your Frank DJ Mackie, you respect the pod and tame the cast. Yeah, that is the one musical thing that's been given to me. So far. But look, we've you know this episode airs in twenty twenty four. There's multiple guests in the meantime. Somebody could write me a song, somebody could do a dance. I hope I'm not forgetting somebody who's like, who wrote me a meaning? 00:46:35 Speaker 2: Guitars? 00:46:38 Speaker 3: Okay, it's time to play a game. Oh, do you want to play Gift or a Curse or Gift Master. I'll tell you how to play when we get playing. 00:46:45 Speaker 2: Oh, but I don't know how to play until I pick one. Yes, that's the dangers Gift Masters. Yes, okay, let's do a gift a curse. Okay. 00:46:54 Speaker 3: I need to number between one and ten from you for Okay, I have to do some light calculat Okay. So while I'm doing this, you can promote, you can recommend, you can do whatever you want. 00:47:04 Speaker 2: Well, it's been out for three years, but The Chair on Netflix starring Sandra Oh taking a look at the world of academia a terrific show. What's funny is Amanda Pete created it along with another woman. Amanda Pete is the wife of David Benioff, who did a show called Game of Throne. So why sint Benioff produced the show. In some of my cheeky little line about that show, The Chair, it's a six episode, half hour show on Netflix, is you know what, that's the best thing why some Benioff ever did on TV. And everyone's like, oh, by stand by. 00:47:40 Speaker 3: The Chair, I've heard it's good. Yeah, Sandra, oh National Treasure, that's all I know about it. And then this Benioff and et cetera. 00:47:48 Speaker 2: Sandra oh, holland Taylor. 00:47:52 Speaker 3: Yeah, all that aside, it's time for Gift her curse. This is how we play. I'm gonna name three things. You're gonna tell me if there're a gift or a curse and why? Okay, Now you have to be extremely careful because there are correct answers. This isn't just some opinion thing. This isn't just how does Kevin feel today? What does Kevin think? This is there are correct answers, So be careful. You don't want to lose. That'd be so shameful. 00:48:19 Speaker 2: No, I wouldn't want to shame myself on it. 00:48:21 Speaker 3: Right, You've done it enough already. Whoa that was embarrassing? Good grief Number one, Gift or a curse? 00:48:30 Speaker 2: Quicksand quick sand Oh, that's it, you know. I mean my instinct is a curse, but that I feel like you're being a little tricky dicky and I may not should pick that one is curse. So no, I'm going to find my heart. I'll say curse and because quicksand if I step into it will curse me to the grave, I believe, because there's no getting out of that for me, any sort of like bodily harm I encounter in my life, I'm gonna fully give myself over to immediately. 00:49:05 Speaker 3: Okay, look, Kevin, you got it. Oh great quick sense. Absolutely a course, maybe not for the reason you're saying. For me personally, I love the idea of quicksand I love the idea of getting stuck in quicksand it sounds exotic, it sounds exciting, sounds like, you know, uh, what a thrill to be trapped in a pool of sand that is going to suck you into the earth. It's in your garden. Yeah, it's something that only the likes of Indiana Jones or Katina Jones rip. That death could have been avoided if she had just stepped around the trap. But we all know that her skeleton is resting at the bottom of kind of a soupy sand. 00:49:49 Speaker 2: And it's gorgeous for me. 00:49:50 Speaker 3: I would love to get stuck in quicksand. Has anyone actually does it exist? Does it quick sand? 00:49:55 Speaker 2: Actually? 00:49:57 Speaker 3: I feel like it's only. 00:49:58 Speaker 2: In duct tails. No, it must exist. Okay. 00:50:05 Speaker 3: On Alyse is pointing out a does quicksand exist? 00:50:09 Speaker 2: Oh wow? 00:50:10 Speaker 3: And now here we go. This is the information from a quick Google search. So don't take I don't want to put anyone in danger. But he says, nope. Quicksand that is sand that behaves as liquid because it's saturated with water. Can be a mucky nuisance, but it's basically impossible to die in the way that is depicted in movies. That's because quicksand is denser than the human body. And that's from Britannic. So I don't know if I you know, look quicksand. So I think ultimately it is a curse, though, because it's kind of this lifelong dream of mine to die aita, okay in a pool of quicksand, and it doesn't seem like it's gonna happen. 00:50:50 Speaker 2: No, I'm sorry I had to find out this fight. 00:50:52 Speaker 3: I know live on a podcast. I would of course love to edit out this dash dream from the episode. But we're gonna live in and we'll kind of like the last twenty to thirty minutes of this episode. Right yeah, Okay, great, we are letting we're confronting issues on this podcast. We're facing them in a positive way. And my dash dream has been confronted. Quick sand doesn't exist. 00:51:14 Speaker 2: It's a curse. It's the second most wanted way to die for. 00:51:17 Speaker 3: You thrown from a plane. Okay, I'm not going to have children, unfortunately, but the hope was, I mean, the dream would be to have grandchildren. Have a will that stipulates if you want this, you have to throw me from a plane. 00:51:31 Speaker 2: I think you could get grandchildren. I think you could have like a surrogacy thing, and then like stipulate I don't want the kid, but I want the grand kid. Then looks like only grandchildren exist. 00:51:42 Speaker 3: My look, this is what the goal is. Now, I'm maybe one of my nieces will have kids. I'll have grandchildren. Grand What does that become a grand niece? I guess that's a grand niece. Yeah, that makes sense. 00:51:56 Speaker 2: I'll tell you. It becomes a headache speaking of someone who hasn't seen his nieces or nephews in four years because of the pandemic, of course, the pandemic that's been raging since twenty seventeen. 00:52:13 Speaker 3: Grand nieces and nephews will be required to throw me from a plane, okay if they want those bucks. So obviously the quicksand is not an option. So they're gonna you know, there'll be tears, there'll be thrills, there'll be grand thrills plummeting towards earth. And then they'll probably have to use the money for legal fees, I assume, because now suddenly they're murderers. It's complicated. 00:52:37 Speaker 2: I can put a gop on you and make a pretty sick TikTok though, that would be cool. 00:52:42 Speaker 3: Okay, you're one for one so far. This is very impressive. Number two. This is from a listener named Phoebe. Phoebe has suggested gift he a curse corn on the cob. 00:52:53 Speaker 2: Oh. You know, I feel like for me, it takes me back to Texas. Cuisine is very near and dear to my heart. So going to a local Texas establishment like Chili's Chili and going to get the chicken crisper, the sidur fries and a corn on the cop it takes me back to like right after church, no one knows where to go for lunch. We all end up going to Chili's, even though no one actually wants to go there, but we decided it's fine. We'll get the chicken crisperries. We get the fries, and we get the corner on the cop and I could see for like the more toothy Amonga said, it could be a little problematic getting in that corn on the cop'n fallow my heart again and say it's a gift. I think it's a gift. Flavor wise, it's a gift. And maybe that's just the sweet corn crunch ice cream in my head talking right now, mind. 00:53:41 Speaker 3: Saying gift, Kevin. No, shoot, sorry, Dexter. Dexter is freaking out. No, Dexter's fine, He's perfectly what we've got. We'll post some. 00:53:53 Speaker 2: Sort of picture to the instagram of the dog. He is a gem. 00:53:57 Speaker 3: But we can't get into Dexter right now because I need to tell you why. And on the cob as a curse, it's because it's gross corn. I like surprisingly corn things the ice cream you describe and wonderful. I love a corn chip. I love a corn tortilla, but give it to me on the cob. Corny I love, I love corny. I love a corny performer. I love a corny entertainment. 00:54:21 Speaker 2: But you love corn Ballly Ray, you love who is that girl puts your corns on? 00:54:28 Speaker 3: We're getting way way out of my It's the corn world. Corn on the cob, curse Chili's out of all that type of wrist runt. Now, listen, I haven't been there since two thousand and one. Seems like the best of those. Would you say that you know. 00:54:45 Speaker 2: The restaurants, You'll definitely better than Applebee's better than when people compare shake check to it. And now it's like shake Check's better because it's not even in the same category. 00:54:55 Speaker 3: What oh god, I'm not even going to get into that. We're not approaching that. There's a screaming podcast. Uh, you've gotten one attitude so far. So you're in dangerous territory and that's fine. This third one is also a listener suggestion. Someone named Kelsey has written in Gift or a Curse, couples who sit on the same side of the booth at a restaurant. 00:55:17 Speaker 2: Well, my instinct is cursed because I remember being so annoyed by that, especially, like I know, I remember ten years ago being annoyed by that, maybe because I linkl in my head two couples that would get married and then merge their Facebook accounts, oh boy, or their social media accounts. But there's something lovely about people being committed to each other and desiron closeness. But I'm gonna let my cynism rule this and say it's a curse. 00:55:44 Speaker 3: Kevin, You're right, Okay, I can't make an argument. There's no world where I'm going to argue that's a gift. 00:55:51 Speaker 2: So this is three curses in a row. Look, we live in. 00:55:55 Speaker 3: A cursed world, a cursed age, and we especially this year. Well we got the election stuff that's going on in twenty twenty four. We've been through a lot. Oh gosh, the Zeta varying end. Oh, we hated it crawled out of that quicksand out of her her body, out of the skeletons. Zeta was patient carrying that thing and the quicksand revealed it and kind of you know, that specter flew out of the quicksand nobody saw it coming. But it was exciting. 00:56:23 Speaker 2: It was exciting, so it was fun. 00:56:25 Speaker 3: And then you know, it's essentially just Kevin and I left here on earth, and we're hoping this reaches the outer limits that someone hears our voices. 00:56:36 Speaker 2: Rescue us. 00:56:37 Speaker 3: We're two people sitting on the same side of a booth at a restaurant. 00:56:40 Speaker 2: Here on Earth. We are, that's what it feels like, is the one judging? I forgot that. 00:56:47 Speaker 3: Look, But that is their job as producer is to kind of vanish and on realise does an excellent job, only revealing when there's some piece of news, such as the quick and knowledge. Okay, back to the people on the same side of a booth. I've worked at restaurants. I've been at restaurants. Okay, what are we doing if there's another look, if there's somebody else on the other side of the booth. Of course you can sit next to each other, but what do you do, Like, how are you having a conversation sitting next to each other? 00:57:15 Speaker 2: I like it when it is like, yeah, a couple of them, their friend on the other side. 00:57:19 Speaker 3: I think that that makes sense. That's like makes some logical sense. But when it's just them and then there's an empty side of the booth, unless they're communicating with the dead. We're not at a sock hop. We're not you know, here we go. 00:57:33 Speaker 2: If we're not at a sock cop Yes. 00:57:36 Speaker 3: You are not sitting next to each other unless the other part of the booth is occupied. 00:57:42 Speaker 2: I am now. 00:57:43 Speaker 3: Imagining kind of the haunted mansion of it all when you go through and like you have the ghosts next to you or do you know that? 00:57:50 Speaker 2: Of course yes, it would be a little hot grand produce. 00:57:52 Speaker 3: So if that's happening, If something like that's happening in the restaurant and you're talking to the ghost of you know, Chili's okay, go for it. Otherwise get out. Don't do that. It bothers everybody. Nobody can understand what's going on in your relationship. If you're sharing a Facebook account, of course that's well trodden territory. Obviously someone was cheating at some point. 00:58:14 Speaker 2: Curse, curse, okay, curse two Disney adults sitting on the same side of the booth. One's wearing a goofy hat. On'es wearing many hat Can they make you work? I don't know, Kevin. 00:58:29 Speaker 3: You got two out of three? 00:58:30 Speaker 2: I got two out of three. 00:58:31 Speaker 3: That's that feels pretty good. It's a majority Corn on the cobs, a tricky one. Nobody blames you for that. Look, we have to This is the final segment of the podcast. It's called they Said No Emails. We have to answer a listener question, Oh lovely, are you in the mood? 00:58:48 Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm in the mood. How many? How many of these do you get a week? Like? 00:58:52 Speaker 3: Get too many? Which you can feel sometimes. Look, I don't want to discourage people they write into I said no gifts at gmail dot com. I'm trying to be as helpful as possible, but there's only I can only give so much. My guests can only give so much. 00:59:07 Speaker 2: Here's why I get intimidated by I always. You know, I saw the documentary and then the movie starring Tom Hanks, and then I read the book The Biography of Mister Rogers, of Fred Rodgers, and his big thing with correspondence is that he would respond to literally every single person who wrote in which incredible. I mean, what which we always like, I feel like guys like us, you know, like we talk about like so many emails and stuff, and I'm like, yeah, but we probably still never got as many as email like snail mail stuff but he still did it. 00:59:42 Speaker 3: I will say this, I respond to every email, really, just I try to respond to every email like you know, respond Yeah, I got it. I read the email, respond to it, and say I'll try to get to it as quickly as I can. That's it. That's very as relative. I'm trying to stay on top of it. I'm trying to be a professional. But again, there's only so much I can do, and my blood sugar is frequently very low and. 01:00:08 Speaker 2: So freaking your mouth. 01:00:10 Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe I'll eat some movies. 01:00:12 Speaker 2: And you know, respond to more. I don't know. That's email, feel right there, that's what you're. 01:00:16 Speaker 3: Looking Okay, this is the question. Uh, let's see here. This is kind of a long one. So buckle in. Hello Bridger and despicably disrespectful guest with no honor. So usually they kind of butter up the guests. This person's just this person's I don't know, and it's honored with the you. 01:00:35 Speaker 2: It's because I'm I'm a bad boy who disobeyed and brought right. 01:00:39 Speaker 3: This person knew where you were coming. Okay, honored with the you. So we're immediately dealing with someone outside of the United States, so be prepared I'm a huge fan oh interesting, and have been listening to your podcast since the very beginning. 01:00:54 Speaker 2: God bless you. I am someone who thinks. 01:00:56 Speaker 3: He is relatively good at gifting, at least with my family, but I find myself in a lifting perdicament and desperately need your help. At the beginning of the month, I moved into a new apartment in downtown Toronto. There we go outside of the United States. We're dealing with a Canadian. On movin day, I was greeted by many friendly residents of my apartment building and had small talk while carrying boxes up to my unit. Everyone was so friendly and welcoming. Halfway through the day, once the truck was unloaded and I was unboxing my belongings, I received a knock on the door from a friendly older man in the building. He welcomed me to the building and gifted me a bottle of red wine from him and his partner. Nothing fancy. Okay, well, look it may have been fancy for him. I feel like criticizing the bottle of wine is a little cruel. I kindly too chug real cheap shit. This guy's broke. I kindly thanked him and accepted the wine before he left me to continue unpacking. I asked my friends afterward if I'm now obligated to give him a thank you gift or a card of some sort, to which I received mixed responses. How many people did you reach out to here? Did you crowdsource this? 01:01:58 Speaker 2: Respect? 01:01:58 Speaker 3: I mean, ask one person, and now you're asking a podcast. Okay, it's now been a month since I move, possibly longer depending on when you read this. It is twenty twenty four. As mentioned multiple times, you and this man could be dead and I still haven't done anything about the gift. Does eighty, of course taken care of them? Should I feel bad for not reaching out over a gift from a stranger? To make matters worse? I completely forgot his name. I do that all the time. Most of the people in my life I don't know their name. That's my big secret. This is me Bridger saying that, not this person. I completely forgot his name, his partner's name, and his unit numbers, so I don't even know how I would give him a card or gift. Okay, we're not done. Do I owe him a gift? Do I seem like an unappreciative millennial they all are, and Glenn Beck here, let's say, for not delivering a gift or thank you card? Do I admit to forgetting their name? If I run into them? Should I just move again so that I never run into him again? Or should I get plastic surgery? 01:02:57 Speaker 2: Okay? 01:02:58 Speaker 3: What are we talking about here? And I need your help to put my conscience at ease? Okay, sincerely, Kai from Toronto. He hi, okay, Kai, you've look first of all, Kai, this could have been three sentence as long you know it. Kevin knows that I know it, on alas knows it you sent in an encyclopedia. I'm so lost. I'm in quick saying. 01:03:21 Speaker 2: No, I got this. Okay, I got it because I've been in this exact same situation, but now as the recipient, but as the giff. Oh I am now at the place I live, which I won't dox myself for. But as far as my units go, and the people that my landlord, that people who pay money for rent his tenants, I'm his most veteran tenant of all them. And the situation is one where I only share a wall with one person, but then it's units in front like little like separate houses. Oh sure, sure, or like little separate units. And so what I do every time someone new moves in is I beg them something like that, right, I type them a type written hard Sam, Welcome to the neighborhood. Here's a little gift to goodies. Blah blah blah. Here's my phone number just in case you need me right for anything, if there's anything you need. Just trying to be a good names What are you hiding, Kevin Well? The motive isn't fully altruistic because it is sewing Well I mean, but hopefully it's reciprocal and that it's like sowing the seeds of being a good neighbor where it's like, hey, I got a little dog named Dexter. Sometimes he whinds when I leave. It's not annoying and just general neighbors stuff. And even just like that little bit of a relationship will pay off dividends in the future if you just established and I even like we're best friends out but just like, hey, I'm not insane and like weird, I'm not a weird person. You can eat this thing. Here's this cute little dude I've kept alive. I don't expect a gift and return to explain people do it. I think in the times I've done it, I've put my phone number on it so they have my number, and they've usually text me like, oh the cookie, We're so good, thanks so much. That's all it is, and that's all I need. I don't need a gift and return. I don't think it becomes like a like a never ending feedback loop that you enter into by just receiving a gift. I think the neighbor Kai is probably expecting nothing in return. I think the idea is just neighborly. 01:05:16 Speaker 3: Good will, a smile in the hallway. 01:05:18 Speaker 2: It's not a trap to get into, like, Okay, now I gave him a gift, now he gives me. I get like, it's not I don't think that's actually what's going on. And I think it's fully fine to admit that you don't know someone's name. 01:05:30 Speaker 3: Two words Rosemary's baby. Okay, this person could be trying to get into Kay's life. Ah, you know, I kind of subtly trying to. You know, Satan needs to have a baby, and Kai, for whatever reason, is the choice. And this Satanist and his partner have brought the bottle of wine. 01:05:50 Speaker 2: I think you. All I'm gonna say is be careful, be careful, and you know what after Bridger said that, I think that is correct, kind of forget everything I said. 01:05:58 Speaker 3: Be on the look, always be looking over your shoulder. Kai for this sweet older gentleman and his partner, maybe Satan. 01:06:09 Speaker 2: We don't know. 01:06:10 Speaker 3: We would love to follow it right, Not so many details in this email yet no mention of Satan being the partner could have helped a lot, could have provided some clarity here, Kai, better luck next time writing an email. And I can't give you any more anymore suggestions or help. That's on you. Kevin. Yes, I cannot wait to eat this street. 01:06:36 Speaker 2: I can't wait for you to. 01:06:38 Speaker 3: I probably should have eaten it on the podcast, but then I wonder, I'm very cautious about mouth noise. 01:06:44 Speaker 2: Well, of course you would take the microphone away, like what are we dealing with? Just silence? Should I take a bite and have a silence the vamp in the whole time? 01:06:52 Speaker 3: Be like, okay, we thought it was the end of the podcast. I'm about to eat part of this tree. 01:06:58 Speaker 2: Well and part of part of it, and you can gun and digging. I want to say this, but part of what I thought might happen is like, oh, I'll make him eat it and him yes, what it is whilst eating? 01:07:10 Speaker 3: That would have been an excellent thing. 01:07:11 Speaker 2: That would have been diabolical and perfect. What's some other stuff that would have been better that we didn't do? 01:07:17 Speaker 3: Start over the recording. Let's get back into it. Welcome to I said, nopek, Hey, let's do it. I'm bridger winding on alas, do you want to try this too? Let's split one of these were off Mike. Kevin can do whatever he wants. 01:07:29 Speaker 2: Oh that's so nice. Well, Kevin want one? You know I've had one some good thank you I did, sayshy my palette before coming here. You know, this is the second time I've made this recipe, and it came out a little softer this time, more like almost a monkey bread if you're familiar, I'm sure you are, uh in a little bit different. The last time it was a bit of a crispier bar, which I don't know if that to do with like using tinfoil or not when I baked it. But honestly a not difficult recipe to do for people wanting to do it. 01:08:01 Speaker 3: Phenomenal great that. I mean frequently there will be a baked good with the cheesecake element that doesn't read the cheesecake. You This has the texture of cheesecake, which is something that most baked goods with the cheesecake lack. 01:08:15 Speaker 2: I think, Yeah, well, you gotta chill it. That's the thing. You gotta chill it after you bake it. 01:08:19 Speaker 3: But it's also a snickerdoodle, everyone's favorite cookie. 01:08:21 Speaker 2: To say, do you think you would have been able to guess what it was just purely by taste? 01:08:27 Speaker 3: This is what I wouldn't have been able to say, snickered? Well, maybe I would have started thinking, what is he doing? I would have said cinnamon crumbled cheesecake, which is which is technically correct, another name. 01:08:37 Speaker 2: For a snickerdodle. That's very accurate. 01:08:39 Speaker 3: Whoever came up with the snicker noodle, I don't know what were they doing. 01:08:43 Speaker 2: They were laughing while drawing. 01:08:45 Speaker 3: They were laughing. 01:08:46 Speaker 2: Perfect, Okay. 01:08:49 Speaker 3: I waited till the very end of the podcast to eat the dessert, and I hope that that that. 01:08:54 Speaker 2: Throwing climax, you know, yeah, you've got there's a three X structure beginning mental and in this is the Appleogus. 01:09:00 Speaker 3: You're satisfying conclusion. Kevin, thank you, this was so much fun. 01:09:04 Speaker 2: Thanks for having me, What a nice time. 01:09:06 Speaker 3: And Dexter, thank you for being here and being such. 01:09:08 Speaker 2: A polite dog. He says, thank you. 01:09:11 Speaker 1: Wow. 01:09:12 Speaker 3: He said it in full of English. I'm very impressed. And listener, this is the end of the podcast, you know, and we recorded it in my. 01:09:21 Speaker 2: Office, and I appreciate you putting up with pandemic audio in every way and form. I think people are used to it, you know what. People are listening to this at home or in their cars or on their commutes, and they're saying, this sounds like my echo office. This sounds like the bathroom stall I go in to cry when I'm at work. Sounds like home. 01:09:43 Speaker 3: For me, the listener, it feels great to cry together. And I'm glad you were here. Take care, goodbye, I said, No Gifts is an exactly right production. It's produced and engineered by our dear friend Annalise Nelson, and the theme song is by miracle worker Amy Mann. You must follow the show on Instagram. At I said No Gifts, that's where you're going to see pictures of all these wonderful gifts I'm getting. You have to see the gifts, listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you found me, and why not leave a review. 01:10:26 Speaker 2: While you're there. 01:10:27 Speaker 3: It's really the least you could do considering everything I do for you. And if you're interested in advertising on the show, go to midrol dot com slash ads. 01:10:39 Speaker 2: I invit, did you hear? 01:10:43 Speaker 1: Funa man myself perfectly clear. When you're a guest to me, you gotta come to me empty. And I said, no, guest, your presences. That's enough. I already had too much stuff. 01:11:05 Speaker 2: So how do you dare to surbey me?