00:00:08 Speaker 1: And I invited you here. I thought I made myself perfectly clear. When you're a guest in my home, you gotta come to me empty. And I said, no, guests, your presences presents enough. I already had too much stuff, So how do you dare to surbey me? 00:00:47 Speaker 2: Welcome to? I said, no gifts. I'm Richard Wineker. Look at us. Here we go. It's the beginning of the podcast. I hope you're prepared. I hope you have whatever you need. It is you need to enjoy the podcast. If you need to take a minute to call friends or family to let them know you're listening to the podcast, I can wait. Otherwise, I think we should just get on the road and move on. Because, you know what, our guest today is truly a delightful person, and I'm so excited to have him here, none other than Chris Estrata. Chris, Welcome to. I said, no gifts. 00:01:27 Speaker 3: Thanks for having me. Real, How are you? I'm doing good, you know, trying to stay sane. 00:01:32 Speaker 2: You're sitting in a in a room with some incredible w What is this room you're currently in now? 00:01:37 Speaker 3: This is our closet that my girlfriend converted into an office. 00:01:42 Speaker 2: Wow, it's beautiful. Yeah, I forguess that was a closet. Yeah, it's a closet. And she just converted. She was like, she likes to feel like she's in a small space when she's working. It helps her focus, right, So she's just like, you know what, let's make this into a nice office. She's great at designing, and I'm great at occupy in space? 00:02:00 Speaker 3: Is that she that she made for herself. 00:02:04 Speaker 2: I can understand, like the need to be kind of closed in or whatever I feel like if I'm working. Is even if I just put on headphones, something to like chain me to my desk, something that keeps me trapped to my computer is very helpful. 00:02:17 Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm like a cow, you know in Temple Grandin, Like, yes, I need to feel enclosed so I can feel focused and I feel calm, and I go, okay, you know I can work on this right now. 00:02:29 Speaker 2: Right if I have a just wide open space, my nerves are all over the place. I'm panicking. 00:02:34 Speaker 3: It's the worst. It's the worst. 00:02:36 Speaker 2: What does your girlfriend do? 00:02:37 Speaker 3: My girlfriend she works for a branding and marketing company. 00:02:42 Speaker 2: Oh wonderful. She set up your audio equipment as you mentioned before the podcast. 00:02:47 Speaker 3: Oh, Yeah. I have a model that I live by, which is by behind every mediocre man who doesn't understand technology is a great girlfriend who thoroughly understands technology. 00:02:57 Speaker 2: I think that's terrific. I think everybody deserves a love in their life that just knows how to work technology. You can be ready for when you need to record a podcast or what have you. 00:03:07 Speaker 3: Nothing makes me feel older than asking her, how do you do this? How do you like? It's so bad? 00:03:15 Speaker 2: I know, I feel like I'm aging about like a year every week now with technology where I just there are certain things where I just have to let them go. I'm like I will never understand what that is, and that's fine. If it's crucial, somebody else can do it for me. 00:03:30 Speaker 1: You know. 00:03:30 Speaker 3: I just feel like technology wise, things should have stopped maybe like five years ago, because we would have been noticed, like they still would have been great. You know, we would be like this is good. 00:03:39 Speaker 2: Yeah, in twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen, things were, you know, technology wise, we could do everything we do now just a little more. 00:03:48 Speaker 3: Little world, a little fast and a little better. But back then I felt like it was just easier if it if it just stayed that way, I feel like I would have It would have gave me time to catch up. 00:03:58 Speaker 2: Right, Yes, I think we should just every couple of years, just everybody takes a pause on technology. Everybody gets on the same page, and then we move forward. We don't need these just this NonStop avalanche of technology. 00:04:11 Speaker 3: I had a job once which I was horrible at. I eventually got fired from it. But I was so bad they they paid for computer classes for me to go to this off this adult learning center to take Microsoft wordsheet like a wordsheet program, how to learn how to do Excel and all that. 00:04:30 Speaker 2: Did you did the classes work or were did you return a failure? And that's why they fired you? 00:04:36 Speaker 3: They temporarily worked. I was fired. I'm not lying to you, Like a month later, what was that? 00:04:43 Speaker 2: What did the firing have to do with? 00:04:45 Speaker 3: Well, you know what it is. I was doing stand up comedy at the time. 00:04:49 Speaker 2: Well, I'm you know, you're not done. You're now back in just straight business. 00:04:53 Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm just back into business. I'm really focusing on worksheets right now, but I'm focusing on grids microsoftic self. But at the time I just started stand up and I was I was staying out late and really going out every night. So and even during like during working hours, I was sort of focused on jokes and thinking about stand up that my job really suffered. So and I remember being thoroughly hurt by being fired because it was it was one of those jobs where I had health insurance. 00:05:28 Speaker 2: Oh right, it felt like a kind of like a job job. 00:05:31 Speaker 3: Yeah, it felt like a job job, which I didn't want, but I loved all the benefits of having health insurance, having like decent pay. So when I was fired, I was just like, I can't believe it. I'm like I lost my health insurance. And it also made me not feel like an adult. It's just like, oh god, I'm just like now I have to go back to like exercising and doing things that will like all this preventative stuff that you should be doing if you don't have health insurre. It's like taking care of yourself, you know. 00:06:02 Speaker 2: Yeah, the moment you get health insurance, you just let go, Just let your body deteriorate and let the doctors take care of it. 00:06:08 Speaker 3: Let the doctors worry about it. 00:06:11 Speaker 2: What was this job that like they hired you, but then you were terrible with all the computer stuff and so they literally had to send you to classes. 00:06:19 Speaker 3: I was working at a labor union. It was. I was working at a labor union. You know what's really funny about it is I was working at the Writer's Guild, which is doesn't sound that laborers, not. 00:06:32 Speaker 2: At all while you were at the guild. 00:06:36 Speaker 3: Yeah, I was working at the writers Guild, And you know, I just kind of had a desk job there and it paid really well, and it was it was just so funny. I was just like, you know what, writers suffer enough, I shouldn't be in charge of of some of their payments, or like, yeah, I should. 00:06:55 Speaker 2: I should talk to you off of this about how to skirt payments, how to avoid paying my do is this sort of thing. 00:07:01 Speaker 3: We'll have a confidential talk after this. Yeah, a lot of it, which is this might be a little bit too inside baseball. But there was a certain time around during that job, during the holidays, where I would get a lot of phone calls from people from writers angry that they didn't receive their screeners. 00:07:19 Speaker 2: Oh give me a break, I didn't get my DVDs of the movies this year. 00:07:25 Speaker 3: Oh that was so funny. 00:07:27 Speaker 2: Those screeners are probably one of the biggest dangers to the environment. 00:07:33 Speaker 3: Oh, I know, it's so funny that there's so many. Yeah, they're just get thrown away. 00:07:38 Speaker 2: I've heard that the reason that they still do DVDs is because a lot of Writers Guild members are older and don't have streaming services and they're still watching things on DVDs, and so yeah, I mean, nobody cares. Why am I bringing this information? 00:07:53 Speaker 3: Yeah? Well, it also makes me laugh of like antiquated technology, because I'm still My girlfriend makes fun of me because one thing I did tell her one time, like a few years ago, is we were having an argument because I still buy stuff like CDs or records or DVDs, right, And I remember one time just yelling, I go, look, I still like physical media. 00:08:18 Speaker 2: I support you, though I feel like physical media, I truly. I mean this just makes me sound like I'm out of my mind, but I feel like at some point, the whole grid is going to shut down and none of us is going to have any access to any type of entertainment or art except for people who are still buying physical media. Yeah, and then they will be the kings and queens of Earth. 00:08:38 Speaker 3: Oh yeah, and then it'll go back to the Barter system trading CDs. Yeah, I'll be trading. I'll be trading DVDs. And it's like. 00:08:49 Speaker 2: I've got season two of Arrested Developments. Yeah, look, I got Hugh Grant's nodding hill. Have you? Is that the only job you've ever been fired from? 00:09:00 Speaker 1: Oh? 00:09:01 Speaker 3: No, I've been fired from countless jobs. Away, I was fired. Let's see this job I should have been fired. I worked this job for too long. I used to work at an animal hospital and it was a twenty four hour emergency center animal hospital, and it was pretty sophisticated. They had a cancer wing of the hospital where they treat dogs and cats who get cancer and whatnot. So I had I was. I had various jobs there. One was to monitor the parking. Two, which was really one of my main ones, was to pick up dog shit because they used to walk the animals. And then three was to Sometimes pet owners would get irate and they would get really angry and they would feel that the doctors were lying to them about their animals being sick. And I often had to go in there when people felt violent, you know where they felt like you're getting in my face, and I had to be sirr calm down. Nobody wants your cat to have cancer, not even the doctors. 00:10:05 Speaker 2: And some people thought that the doctors were lying about the illness yes, or oh boy, yeah, this is just a money grab. I'm gonna take her somewhere else to get a second opinion. And you know, the doctors don't want to deal with someone being angry. They want to have sort of a middle person in there that will talk to them, you know, especially because some of these people would punch a wall inside. 00:10:28 Speaker 3: One of the waiting rooms or get angry. So I would go in there. I remember one time this this sounds this sounds so ridiculous and on the nose, but I was talking to this biker. He looked like a huge kind of Viking looking guy, and he was in his construction work outfit. And I went in there and he was he was saying. He was just told me, he goes, you're fucking lying to me. My cat doesn't have fucking cancer. You're a piece of shit. All you just want money, your fucking thieves, And then he punched the wall like right next to me. And then I just I just remember I just told myself, don't fucking piss your pants. Just talk this guy down. And then I get I just went, sir, calm the fuck down. And then I and then I went, nobody here wants to tell you that your cat has cancer. You think you think I have joyce? I know what I said. I know what this cat means to you. I can see it in your eye. And then he started crying and he told me this, this cat has been with me through my divorce. It's I love this cat. And then he he he started crying and I had to sit there patting like kind of hugging him and being like, oh. 00:11:31 Speaker 2: This would be such sweet. Who would have thought, I mean, I guess that the steaks are very high, even in an animal hospital. Oh yeah, I mean this is like er or something. 00:11:43 Speaker 3: This is It was very much that. And then aside from that having to be like, after I was done with that, somebody would walk up to me, one of the doctors and go, hey, there's a bunch of dogs shit outside. Can you go pick that up? 00:11:56 Speaker 2: You just definitely handled this emotional, high stakes situation. Now you have to go clean up the ship out of the parking lot. What was your title there, liaison? Oh no, that's that's very unfair. That means nothing. 00:12:10 Speaker 3: Nothing absolutely means nothing. It should have been like it should have been ship picker upper and in house therapists, in house therapist. I remember one time picking up I went out there to and I didn't have like an office or anything. My job was to stay outside and monitor the parking and pick up dog shit and then go talk to clients if they were being confrontational. So I remember one time picking up some dog shit and somehow my finger went through the bag and directly into the dog shit. And then I just remember I looked at I looked at it, and I felt so sad about like where am I? What is my life? And then I just said I need to I need to quit this job. And then the next day I went back and I really I worked for another six months there. I just I didn't quit. I just thought, you know what, I guess it happened. 00:13:03 Speaker 2: Sometimes that's me almost every day, asking what is my life and then just continuing to stick around with the exact same thing. Oh yeah, yeah, wait, So did you end up getting fired there? 00:13:15 Speaker 3: I did not end up getting fired there. I built the I built the courage. After six months of picking up, another six months of picking up dog shit and being a therapist to irate pet owners. 00:13:26 Speaker 1: Is. 00:13:26 Speaker 3: I ended up just leaving. I just said I can't do it anymore, right, And then I'm sure I got another I think I got another shitty job. I was not a literal shit job, but you know, yeah, I just got another job. But I was also I was fired from I was a delivery driver for a catering company. I was fired from that. And then I remember them just telling me. They just said, you know, just not good at this. I think they just said there's other things you're good at. And then I stayed quiet, and they go, you need to find those things. 00:14:01 Speaker 2: Oh no, we haven't found them. And apparently you haven't either go out yea and be unemployed and find yourself. Oh yeah, what were you doing so poorly with the delivery thing? 00:14:13 Speaker 3: Well, I was a delivery driver for the catering department at UCLA, Okay, sure, yeah, And it was just busy. It was running all over campus getting stuff set up, right. I would forget stuff and then have to run back and be like, oh, yeah, they needed a tray of cookies. I left that back at the at the kitchen. Let me And you know, it's a big campus, so I would have to drive, like I would have to drive back to the kitchen, then drive back to this hall wherever they had the event at, and it was just not great at it. And it was really funny because my mom worked there. 00:14:45 Speaker 2: Not you're kidding. Was she ashamed? 00:14:48 Speaker 3: No, That's what's so funny about my mom is that she's had this naive belief in me all the time, where she just went, you know what, they don't know what they're talking about. You're gonna find something better. 00:15:00 Speaker 2: Well she was, I mean technically right. 00:15:02 Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, she was technically right. But yeah, it's so funny. I just been I've raither been fired from so many jobs or just had so many bad jobs. 00:15:10 Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I know that feeling. I've never been fired. I've been like quietly let go from a couple of jobs, but never fully fired. 00:15:18 Speaker 3: I've been escorted out by security where I'm like, is this necessary, and we're literally the security is just said, ah, my man, it's just protocol. Nothing's more dehumanizing. I hope that was the job with your mom. As your mom watches you get escorted out of the building, that's so funny. I wish it was. It wasn't, but I really wish it was. 00:15:41 Speaker 2: Your mom quietly ratted you out and then watch you get escorted out. I've got to get rid of my son. I can't have this person around the campus anymore. I know what else has been going on. 00:15:52 Speaker 3: Not much. I mean, I feel like I'm trying to stay sane. I just got a negative test back for RATS. Yeah, I feel happy. I don't get tested too often. I feel like I get attested once a month, like once a month, but you know, I feel good. And then other than that, it's like kind of crazy. I mean, it comes to the point where I go, how many fucking hikes can I go on? I'm hiking. I'm just like, I'm just enough. I'm tired of hiking Griffith Park or you know, it's really embarrassing. I'll actually tell you this is the worst thing that has I would have preferred to have gotten COVID a few weeks ago. It's actually like maybe two months ago. My girlfriend told me I want to go hiking, and I want to go hiking by the beach. And she goes figure it out, and I said, and I say, you got it. I know exactly where to take you and there's this really beautiful hike in the Santa Monica Mountains called It's like in the up through Topenga Topenga Canyon, and it's this beautiful hike. It's you know, round trip, it's like three point four miles and you see all of the ocean, like you see all of the beautiful ocean. It's really beautiful. I'll send you the coordinates for it. But then after the floor stone, you might not want to go. So she packed the lunch. She packed the lunch and we did this hike is really beautiful, and on the way there, I was just like, man, this feels really great. And there's not that many people here, and it's like if you can find beauty in this time, it's like fucking hiking here and looking at the ocean. Then we sat down at the end of the hike and we were looking out over the ocean and she brought out some salami, some cheese, some you know brishetta stuff like that. And I have really bad stomach problems. 00:17:37 Speaker 2: Do you have like ibs or yeah, yeah. 00:17:39 Speaker 3: That's it, okay, right, so I'm lactose intolerant. 00:17:43 Speaker 2: Oh boy. 00:17:43 Speaker 3: Yeah, so maybe I didn't take any medicine that morning. I'm pretty sure I didn't, so I was just pigging out, hanging out with nowhere in the world. And then after we're done, we go, okay, let's hike back to the car. Five minutes into the hiking back, so it's an hour. It's hour round trip, like a hour going hour back. 00:18:06 Speaker 2: Horrifying already. 00:18:07 Speaker 3: Oh, it's really horrifying. My stomach started hurting, and I knew what was going to I had to go to the restroom. And I said, it's okay, just breathe, just breathe. You're gonna be fine. You're gonna be fine. And I said, let her walk in front of you, and I kind of let I just said, don't say anything. And then she walked in front of me, and then she turned around, and I don't know what I must have looked like, but she thought I was having a heart attack. And then she said, oh my god, are you okay? And then I said, I think I have to go to the bathroom. And she knows my stomach problems and we've never had anything like this. She just looked at me and she goes gave me a napkin. We only had one napkin left from the and then she goes, just go and I said, no, I'm not going to do that. I won't go. I go, I'm not going to go to the bathroom here, not in front of you, not like this. And then my stomach hurt one more time and I yelled at and she goes, I'll stay here and keep a lookout, and I yelled, go, just leave me alone. 00:19:06 Speaker 2: Please, like you're escaping a fire. 00:19:08 Speaker 3: Yeah, and she ran away, and I felt, oh my god, dude, I felt so embarrassed. I pulled down my pants and then I I just I fucking my ass exploded, and I just went to the bathroom right there over the ocean, like just it was really embarrassing. 00:19:26 Speaker 2: What a beautiful place to have this happen, though, I mean, at least you're not like in the middle of a casino or something. 00:19:31 Speaker 1: You know. 00:19:31 Speaker 2: This is you're out of nature, You're the Pacific Ocean lies before you, and you're just losing control of your bottels. 00:19:39 Speaker 3: Yeah. And the worst part is after it was done, we still had forty five minutes of an incline to go up, and there was no talking. Every now and then she would tell me she would say hey, this is okay. She I will never forget. She said, your body betrayed you. 00:19:55 Speaker 2: I truly did betray you. You're supposed to be able to trust your bowels. 00:19:59 Speaker 3: And I to I said, I don't want to talk right now. Don't talk to me. And then every ten minutes she would just say it's okay. She goes, it's better that this happened now than this happened in our first year or even our first date. And I said yeah, and I said, you're talking too much. Once we got to the car, it was forty five minutes back to our place. When we got back, I just said, I'm gonna go take a shower. Please don't talk to me. And then I went. I showered, and then I went to Right after the shower, I think I still felt so much shame that I didn't want to be awake much longer. So it was four in the afternoon. I went to sleep for three hours. 00:20:44 Speaker 2: It is so traumatic. 00:20:46 Speaker 3: Oh and it's also because I I have I'm very insecure about bathroom stuff, like. 00:20:54 Speaker 2: You know, everybody is well. 00:20:56 Speaker 3: You know, when I go to the restroom, I play music. I don't I'm not a guy who likes the fart. I don't think farting around my girlfriend or around my friends is funny. 00:21:06 Speaker 2: You're a polite person, Yeah, you need one of I think they're like literally like Japanese toilets that like make noise, like make artificial noises to for privacy. I think you need to invest in one of those. 00:21:19 Speaker 3: Yeah, I am take a cue from well mannered People's why we respect the Japanese. What a beautiful culture. 00:21:28 Speaker 2: Yes, they're the most polite people on the planet, and they know what they're doing with that sort of thing. Well, I mean I think we do also as a society just need to embrace If you're on a hike and you need to you're you know, it's either poop your pants or use nature. You've we've got to feel a little less shame about that. Otherwise it's an hour of uncomfortable hiking with your partner. 00:21:50 Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I mean it was just it's it was bad. It's just one of those things where like now when I go on hikes, I'm just like, don't eat anything hours before you go. You know, Oh it was was awful. 00:22:03 Speaker 2: Yeah, you just need to fast for a solid week and then die of starvation on the trail. 00:22:08 Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, that's a more honorable death. 00:22:11 Speaker 2: Truly, hike up, see the Pacific and then just collapse, just go and buries you. You're good to go. 00:22:19 Speaker 3: Yeah, I told her, I said, you did the worst thing than break up with me is that you were supportive. I go. It would have been easier on me if you had broken up with me and said you're disgusting, I never want to see you again. But the fact that you were so understanding is even worse. 00:22:40 Speaker 2: Right. Also, she's got a nice clean exit there her next boyfriend, the first stage she can She's like, I can tell you exactly why I broke up with my last boyfriend. It's such an easy clean exit for everybody, rather than getting all of these emotional entanglements than years of living together. No, she should have just gotten out. But now you're stuck together with this horrifying secret. 00:23:03 Speaker 3: Yeah, it's awful. It's one of those things too, where I think, for a long time, I've always thought, you know, you want to be cool. You want to be the cool guy for your girlfriend. You want to you want to let her know that you're in control, that you're always cool, that you know that the day that happened is I said, drop this co cool bravado. 00:23:25 Speaker 2: Right, there's no hiding it anymore. I mean you are just now what you are to her. Yeah, yeah, a sufferer of ibs. You will never be cool to your girlfriend again. 00:23:34 Speaker 3: Yes, that's exactly fine. 00:23:37 Speaker 2: That's fine that. I feel like the sooner you drop being cool to your partner, the better you can just move on with your lives and both just live in shame. 00:23:46 Speaker 3: Yeah. I think that's about right. 00:23:48 Speaker 2: I mean, Chris, I don't want to, you know, get off of this subject. But we were talking about politeness and this sort of manners and this sort of thing, and I mean, there's something I do want to talk to you about. Out The podcast, of course, is called I said no Gifts, and I host this show once a week. It's you know, the title is right there. It's essentially just a clear rule to my guests. And last night I was sitting at home and I got a text from you and it said I'm outside, and I thought, what is Chris doing at my house? We're in the middle of a pandemic. We didn't make these plans. I mean, I did know that we were having this we would be recording today but I couldn't quite put all these puzzle pieces together in my mind. Yet. I come outside, put on a mask. I come out. You're wearing a mask, and you hand me an envelope, correct, which says to bridge your wineger from Chris Estrada, and then in big letters it says the word gift. That is true, and then you kind of just vanished into the night, leaving me with this history. Chris, I have to ask, I mean, I assume this is a gift for me. 00:25:06 Speaker 3: It is absolutely Okay, Okay. 00:25:08 Speaker 2: Fine, whatever should I open the gift? 00:25:11 Speaker 3: I would love for you to open the gift? 00:25:18 Speaker 2: Okay, I'm going to open this envelope and see what's happening inside here. Okay, there's a piece of paper. I'm going to open this, and now there's some Oh what's going on here? Okay? So this is a very I mean, it's a mysterious, very mysterious thing. There are two pieces of paper that say quiet Mind, Mountain Retreat, and then there's a twenty dollars bill. Chris, what's happening here? 00:25:48 Speaker 3: Well, you know, I wanted to give you the gift of money. I wanted to give you the quiet Mind Retreat. Is just a place that we me and my girlfriend recently visited and I needed something to cover the money with. It's not a list. Is not to go to Quiet it's a lot more expensive than twenty dollars, but to stay there. 00:26:06 Speaker 2: But the worst retreat in the horse is okay. Well, there are two two paths I want to go down here. First. Let's first start with the Quiet Mind Mountain retreat, because I am curious about this. What is that? 00:26:20 Speaker 3: I did not mean to call attention to that. I just needed something to hide the money. 00:26:23 Speaker 2: Well I'm calling attention to it. We're putting the spotlight on this retreat. 00:26:27 Speaker 3: Yeah. By all means. My girlfriend she wanted to get away for the weekend, and she said, let's go to Julian, which is a mountain town. 00:26:38 Speaker 2: I've been to Julian. 00:26:39 Speaker 3: You've been at Julian. It's very nice, it's very beautiful. It's like two hours south of two and a half hours south of Los Angeles. 00:26:45 Speaker 2: Right a little bit north of San Diego. 00:26:47 Speaker 3: Correct. And because she's really because she's better out a lot of things than I am. She administers her money really well. She racks up a lot of points through her credit card and her points afforded her a three nights stay at at this retreat in Julie. 00:27:05 Speaker 2: God. 00:27:06 Speaker 3: So it was really nice. I mean we went up there, it was snowing, it was beautiful. It was a snowstorm. It's quite it's sort of a kind of yoga you have to kind of be quiet type of place. But we were one of only two people that, like two groups there, so it was great. Nobody was around, it was beautiful. 00:27:23 Speaker 2: Oh that sounds lovely. So everyone's just kind of meditating and going about their business and. 00:27:28 Speaker 3: Yeah, that's all it's meant to be there. It's like a yoga studio where you can go do yoga. There's like it's just funny that they find the need to put peaceful imagery up like everywhere. 00:27:41 Speaker 2: Like what is it like serene net like mountain scenes and this kind of thing or. 00:27:45 Speaker 3: That kind of stuff. Pictures of bamboo. 00:27:50 Speaker 2: To me, bamboo is not that not that calming because I know how quickly it grows. It kind of makes me nervous because it's like the fastest growing plant and that's all I can think about to bring me any peace of mind. And then I think about pandas, which are you know, an endangered species. It's just sending me into all sorts of anxiety. 00:28:09 Speaker 3: It's funny. I mean we had to end up fasting because it was knowing so much that it was dangerous to go pick up food. And no, they didn't have any food. So are the retreat has no food on premises? Just cereal? Okay, just cereal. 00:28:25 Speaker 2: Cereal is a very loud food by the way. 00:28:27 Speaker 3: Right, yeah, just cereal. And then so we were just stuck from like around I would say, three till the next morning. 00:28:33 Speaker 2: We had Oh no, just angry and hungry. 00:28:38 Speaker 3: Nothing peaceful about this. 00:28:41 Speaker 2: So what did you do for the three days you were there? Just yoga? 00:28:44 Speaker 3: No, they didn't offer any of those services because of COVID. It was actually just a place to stay at. You just went to an abandoned cabin. Yes, that's basically it. There was no activities, the gym was closed, like the only thing they let us use is they had an infra red sauna. 00:29:01 Speaker 2: Oh what is that? What does that mean? Now? 00:29:04 Speaker 3: It's not a steam sauna. It's infra red light sauna where it's it's basically dry heat in there instead. 00:29:12 Speaker 2: Of the still right, it's like a like a fry heater, yes, like at that restaurant. Yeah, is it is that relaxing? 00:29:19 Speaker 3: It is? Yeah? I mean I do well with heat. So like I was in there. It was about one hundred and twenty five degrees. I was in there for ten minutes. I felt fine. I loved it. I loved it. 00:29:30 Speaker 2: And then did you go out into the snow or did you just slowly go back to a normal temperature. 00:29:35 Speaker 3: We went out to the snow for a bit and that was really fun. And then when we tried to go get food, we drove out to the snow, but there was a huge wreck, like a huge in front of the shining Yeah, in front of this peaceful mine retreat place. 00:29:51 Speaker 2: There was a huge directly. 00:29:52 Speaker 3: It was a mess. We had to turn around and be like And then at one point my girlfriend said, why don't I get out of the car and walk to go get us food? I said, I go, You're gonna freeze. It's snowing, like there's inches of snow out here. What's wrong with you? 00:30:06 Speaker 2: Your girlfriend is a young Shelley Devall. She's hysterical. She's running through a hedge maze. At this point, this is a wild trip. Who would have thought. 00:30:18 Speaker 3: It wasn't even that peaceful because there was a skylight over the bedroom, so at like six in the morning, the sun would rise over my face. 00:30:27 Speaker 2: That's a horrible design. 00:30:29 Speaker 3: It's awful. It was an awful room. It was a beautiful place, in a beautiful room. But I would go to sleep at like one or two in the morning and then this light, just the sunrise, would wake me up. 00:30:45 Speaker 2: It was just exhausted and starving, that's what it felt like. 00:30:50 Speaker 3: It was pretty bad. 00:30:51 Speaker 2: Oh boy, is this the first trip you've taken in the pandemic. 00:30:57 Speaker 3: It was the first trip that we took in the pandemic. I have, Oh you gone anywhere? 00:31:01 Speaker 2: So what a beautiful retreat? Yeah, yeah, Well, getting back to twenty dollars, I want to understand why you gave me twenty dollars. 00:31:12 Speaker 3: Well, I'll tell you why I gave you twenty dollars, which is a lot of things come to mind. Which is one thing that's particular that comes to mind from my childhood is God bless my grandmother when she was alive, my Abulita. When I was a young man in my early twenties, I lived with her. I would often find her in my room putting money into my wallet. Oh, and then I would tell her. I would say, why are you doing that? And she says, men are supposed to have cash in their wallets. And then I would show her my debit card or my credit I go, this is money right here. And this is probably some internalized misogyny. She would go, that is for women. Men are supposed to carry cash. She hated the concept that I relied on my debit card or a credit card. She goes, no, you need to have cash on you. That is it's a manly thing. It looks good in front of women, like all this kind of stuff. So anytime every few weeks she would sneak off and look to see if there was any cash in my wallet, and if there wasn't, she would put cash in there and then just scold me on how men should have money in their wallets. 00:32:28 Speaker 2: This is like less of a grandmotherly instinct and more of just like a I don't want my grandson to be a I want him to be a real man. 00:32:36 Speaker 3: Yeah. It was a real like a Tim Allen's style man. Yeah. She used to say, your grandfather always had money in his wallet. 00:32:45 Speaker 2: I guess, I mean, I feel like I have heard that, like even in the last couple of years. I mean, who what article could I have possibly been possibly been reading that, like was suggesting that a man carry cash in his wallet. But I feel like maybe somebody tweeted or something. But I have heard that before, like men carry cash. I mean, cash is not like a gender specific form of currency. No, I mean, but I guess if like old fashioned rules, I guess that makes sense on some level, if you're a grandma or something. 00:33:17 Speaker 3: Yeah, I think old fashion in terms of like, I don't know, it's like she goes. It just makes me laugh because she goes, your grandfather always had cash and I never met him, and I said, there was no ATMs or debit cards when he was alive. It was he had no choice with the carry cash. 00:33:33 Speaker 2: Yeah, what was this other option? 00:33:34 Speaker 3: Yeah, I use iouser, you know, not or not have money and beg for it, you know. But also I think money means it's just one of those things where Also one time, I remember somebody gave me a birthday card and it was just a personalized note, and I said, there's no money in here, and then I said, I don't care how personalized this note is. It feels like you're giving me something that says, hey, can you throw this away from me? 00:34:05 Speaker 2: Truly? 00:34:06 Speaker 3: Yeah, I said, you know, because I have an aunt. When she gives you a birthday card, she writes a little personalized note in there, and then she puts a lottery ticket in there, like a scratcher. It's great, it's great, you know. I remember that one time. It was somebody just gave me a It was a very generic personalized note too, which was like you basically reiterated what was on the card. It's already, so. 00:34:33 Speaker 2: Why did you You're a plagiaristic Yeah, put some money in there, right, I don't. I couldn't tell you the last time I got just a blank I mean an empty birthday card. Yeah, like that's something that like a car dealership sends to you. 00:34:47 Speaker 3: Or something like. Yeah, it feels like something like you know when you get mail from your dentist. That's right, your dentist, Happy New Year. 00:34:55 Speaker 2: I hope that's what it felt, your chiropractor. 00:34:58 Speaker 3: Yeah, that's what it felt. Life. It was so also, it just money means so many different things to me because anytime it's my mom's birthday or Mother's Day or Christmas, I go what do you want and she goes, give me money, right, And then I go, are you sure? She goes, yes, I'm gonna give you money, and you give me money. 00:35:22 Speaker 2: We will keep passing this back and forth. Yeah. It's also one of those things too, where sometimes I don't know what to get people. 00:35:31 Speaker 3: Anymore, right, and then I go, what if I give you money and you decide what to get with it? It just seems to be so much. It's easy. 00:35:40 Speaker 2: Oh, it's so nice. I mean, I still I don't know. Maybe it's just because there was such a long time that I was just working crappy jobs and whatever, and like every dollar was like, this is incredible, but still like five dollars, like a five dollar bill to me, I'm like that's big money. Oh yeah, like twenty dollars, this is incredible. I like, It'll probably be six weeks before I decide what I'm going to spend this on. 00:36:04 Speaker 3: Yeah, And you know what's great about it, you might forget about it and then find it in your pocket later, like. 00:36:10 Speaker 2: In like the best feeling in the world. 00:36:12 Speaker 3: It's the best feeling in the world. I feel like then I'm regiving you read it's so easy. I just think It's one of those things where it's like money is such a great gift. 00:36:22 Speaker 2: It doesn't even have to be a lot, No, of course not. Yeah, I mean give me under five dollars. It starts to be like, what's happening here? Yes, but five dollars and above, I'm taking it. I'm thrilled. 00:36:35 Speaker 3: Well, then you actually brought up something that is interesting. Anything under five dollars is offensive. 00:36:41 Speaker 2: Right, It's like, now, I mean you thought I needed a dollar? 00:36:45 Speaker 3: Yeah, what is this? This is ridiculous. But we still live in a world where you can do something with five dollars. 00:36:50 Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I could think of a million things to do with five dollars. Yeah, you can still rent a movie for five dollars. 00:36:56 Speaker 3: Absolutely, It's so practical that you can can't beat. 00:37:00 Speaker 2: It, right, You simply cannot be just a nice twenty dollars bill. 00:37:05 Speaker 3: Yeah, twenty dollars shirt. 00:37:07 Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I can fill up my car with gas. It like I can truly do whatever I want. I can go out to dinner. Well I can't go out to dinner right now, but order dinner. 00:37:16 Speaker 3: Yeah, that twenty dollars. You can break it up four ways. Now you have five dollars to section off like it's amazing. It's really I sort of got I just I think money is the most practical gift to give someone, and nobody's ever offended, like, wow, you just gave me money. 00:37:33 Speaker 2: Right, You couldn't think of something. 00:37:34 Speaker 3: From it, didn't think of something. 00:37:35 Speaker 2: No, everyone's happy to just have some extra money in their bank account. 00:37:39 Speaker 3: And also money. It's somehow it means so much to everyone that it's like, Wow, you gave me some of. 00:37:47 Speaker 2: Your money, right, the thing that you also want. 00:37:50 Speaker 3: Yes, the thing that you also want, Yes, that's exactly it. That's what I love about it. It's just it's like it's nice to look at. I don't think it solves the world's problems, but I think it solves small, immediate problems. 00:38:04 Speaker 2: Right, And most of the time I just need to solve immediate problems. I mean, if I can solve an immediate problem and at least takes a little bit of weight off of me for a minute, and I can move on to my next problem. 00:38:15 Speaker 3: Yeah, that's so much of what I love about Like the gift of cash. 00:38:20 Speaker 2: What was the last fun thing you bought for yourself? 00:38:24 Speaker 3: Wow? I'm trying to think well, this is really funny. So my mom, for I want to say Christmas, gave me one hundred dollars. 00:38:33 Speaker 2: Ooh, that's a nice gift. 00:38:34 Speaker 3: That's a nice gift. So and it's funny too because I got some return on what I gave her, because I gave her two hundred dollars. 00:38:43 Speaker 2: Oh perfect, So you essentially got a fifty percent off on her gift. 00:38:47 Speaker 3: I got some money back. But we never look at it that way, which is like I still look good because I gave her more money, right, and I still got some money back. 00:38:57 Speaker 2: It is weird, like the inflation rates between exchanged money gifts. Right, It's like, well, now I have one hundred dollars despite the fact that I gave away two hundred dollars. 00:39:06 Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, so with it. With the one hundred dollars. In that time, I bought a book, I bought some food, you know, so it was great. It was just like it's enough that I could just it lasted me like two weeks. 00:39:20 Speaker 2: One hundred dollars is nice because yeah, it allows like to buy maybe a little piece of media, book, movie, whatever. And then also we're all just blowing money on food at all times. Yeah, you can go out and get a nice little dinner or something. 00:39:34 Speaker 3: And then also at the retreat we were at, I left money for the. 00:39:38 Speaker 2: Cleaning lady, Oh bless you. 00:39:40 Speaker 3: And that was from that money. That's a really nice one hundred dollars spent. Yeah, it was good. Bought some food when we were in Julian, bought a book when I was here in La and then just other miscellaneous things, just kind of I said, you know what, this is great? What book did you buy? It's this book called Overstated. It's by the comedian Colin Quinn. It's his okay, his history on the fifty States and whatnot. So oh interesting. Well I haven't even read it yet and I bought it a month ago. But I'm gonna get to it. 00:40:13 Speaker 2: You'll get around to it. 00:40:14 Speaker 3: I'll get around to it. But what's great is that I can look at it and go I didn't spend my money on that. I spent my mom's money on that. I cannot. I love it. I love giving me. 00:40:24 Speaker 2: I'm now going to have to like really put this will be my next project, is thinking of how to spend this twenty dollars and then I'll update you. You can make it lass I'm gonna really, I think I'm gonna, like really figure out something good to buy with this twenty dollars. So I'm not gonna just let it go to coffee or whatever. It's going to be a physical object that comes into mind. Maybe some physical media, right, maybe I get a new I could get a video game. I mean this, I mean, the mind reels with the possibilities. 00:40:53 Speaker 3: You can buy yourself a nice shirt, right. 00:40:55 Speaker 2: I was looking at a shirt this afternoon, and then I ultimately said, twenty five dollars is too much, didn't buy it. But now suddenly the shirt is within reach. 00:41:05 Speaker 3: It's in reach. Put five dollars of your own plus my twenty. 00:41:08 Speaker 2: Right, I mean it's essentially a five dollars T shirt. Who can beat that? 00:41:11 Speaker 3: Yeah? And now what's great about that is when you look at that shirt, you won't even think I bought that shirt. You could be like, oh, I bought that shirt with the money Chris gave me. 00:41:21 Speaker 2: Right, I know it'll be I mean, it's it is imbued with meaning. All of a sudden, it's the Chris Estrada shirt. 00:41:28 Speaker 3: Yeah that's yeah. I'm telling you you can't really fail. I don't think there's ever been anybody who is like, why do you give me money? 00:41:38 Speaker 2: The only time somebody I think is upset about getting money is if you know, you see this in movies, somebody throwing money in someone's face, like this is all you want? Yesny, which I would love to get to a point in my life when someone's just saying that to me and throwing money in my face, you know, a jilted lover this kind of thing. 00:41:56 Speaker 3: Yes, I would love that. But you know it's actually too. It's better than a gift card too, because I know I've gotten gift cards where I go, oh great, now I have to go to this fucking place, right. 00:42:09 Speaker 2: Gift cards are kind of a scam, especially like I mean, I worked at best Buy right out of high school, and they like basically said, get people to buy gift cards because people forget about gift cards and then we just get their money. 00:42:22 Speaker 3: Yes, that's exactly. 00:42:23 Speaker 2: Yes, you got to be very careful with that sort of thing. 00:42:26 Speaker 3: I remember I was given a gift card once to Target, and I recently a few months ago, I found the card and there was still money on it and a beautiful feeling, Yeah, beautiful feeling, but also now I looked at it and said, oh, great, now I have to go to fucking Target. And then I go, now I gotta go to Target. It's fucking COVID targets are usually there's a lot of people there. And then I went, but what am I gonna do? Let this go to waste? Now I feel like, but with money, you decide where you to. 00:42:55 Speaker 2: Go, right, I can do whatever I want. Well, you have to just get on the top Target website. Well, see, don't go into what. 00:43:03 Speaker 3: I never thought about that. I'm still a person that buys CDs, so the idea of going to the Target website had never occurred to me. So now there's a revelation for me. 00:43:16 Speaker 2: Right now, I want you to use that money. Don't let them just hold your money hostage. Go and buy truly anything on their website. Get your return. Yeah I'm going to do that. I want to know what you end up buying from Target. And yeah, these giant corporations that we can't let them just hoard our money. It's ridiculous. 00:43:37 Speaker 3: Last I checked, I had like four dollars and fifty two cents on that. 00:43:42 Speaker 2: Oh that's a hard amount of money. That's like, what am I going to buy? 00:43:46 Speaker 3: Yeah, what am I going to get? I feel like i'd go. I would literally go and get em. 00:43:50 Speaker 2: And m's like toothpaste. 00:43:54 Speaker 3: Yeah, do a toothpaste and just be like I really stuck at the target. They're not going to get my fucking money. 00:44:01 Speaker 2: Oh beautiful? Oh man, I want to play a game. Yes, I think we should play a game. We haven't played this in a while. It's called gift Master. Okay, I need a number between one and ten from you. 00:44:13 Speaker 3: Let's go seven. 00:44:14 Speaker 2: Okay, Well, I do some light calculating. You have the microphone to promote something, recommend something, send a message to somebody, whatever you want to do. I'll be right back. 00:44:26 Speaker 3: Okay. During that time, I want to say that if my girlfriend Katie is listening to this, I promise I will get better at technology. And also I will eventually see a doctor regarding my IBS issues. And also, you know what, while you're listening, not my girlfriend, but people who are listening, follow me on Twitter at Chris Estrada eighty five. I love Twitter. I love writing jokes. Oh this is what I'm gonna recommend. Don't buy people gift cards. Really listen to what I'm saying is give people money, even if it's twenty dollars, Just give it to them. What are you going to do now they have to drive somewhere, or they have to go on and then order something to target. It's going to take long forever to get there. Nah, money, money is the way to go. 00:45:09 Speaker 2: Okay, I've done the calculating. I'm sorry that took so long, but we have the tools we need to play the game. Now, you got it, and that's what's important. This is how the game works. I'm going to name three potential gifts items that you can give away, and I'm going to tell you three celebrities. You have to tell me which celebrity you're going to give which gift? And why does that make sense? 00:45:31 Speaker 3: Yeah? Absolutely all right. 00:45:33 Speaker 2: The gifts we're playing with today are an astrological consultation, so sending the person to an astrologist to you know, consult on whatever their future they're past their present. Then a box of gram Crackers. Everybody loves a gram Cracker. And then finally, what is the final gift here? Oh, it's a used Apple Watch, so it's not a new Apple Watch. It's you know, maybe you found it. Maybe you you know, it's just used to keep that in mind. And the three people you have to give these two are basketball player Lebron James, musical duo Daft Punk, and oh another musician, Julian Casablancas of The Strokes. Are you familiar with these three people? 00:46:23 Speaker 3: Familiar? I'm familiar, right, take it away. I'm going to give the gram Crackers to Daft Punk, okay, and I will tell them you can have these Graham Crackers. You have to eat them, but you cannot take your helmets off. And I want to see them kind of lift them up or sneak the gram cracker under their helmets into their mouth. I want to see them have a hard time. 00:46:48 Speaker 2: You want to see like crumbs falling down from the thing as they're eating from the helmet. 00:46:53 Speaker 3: Yeah, and I want to say, not so fucking cool now, Huh. 00:46:58 Speaker 2: Those do feel like in convenient things to have in the middle of a concert. I don't know how you're drinking or anything that feels troublesome. 00:47:05 Speaker 3: Yeah, So I would love to have that. I just would want to, you know, there's so flick looking with their helmets and their costumes that just to have them try to eat that while not taking off their helm. I just love that. I love that. 00:47:19 Speaker 2: And they're French, the French gram crackers. It's hard to say. 00:47:24 Speaker 3: No, I don't know that they eat Graham crackers. Feels feel very American, right, they feel very American. They feel like a Biscotti people, even though I know Biscotti is the Italians. 00:47:33 Speaker 2: But right, but yeah, I can see the have Funk eating a piscotti without the masks, but we want to see them eating a gram cracker with the masks. Yeah, exactly, in the middle of a concert, they're shoving a sheet of crackers up the thing. Nobody knows what's. 00:47:48 Speaker 3: Happening, nobody. They just see the crumbs all. 00:47:50 Speaker 2: Over their word, right, all over their shiny suits. 00:47:53 Speaker 3: That's right. And then I'm thinking for Lebron James, I would I would give him the used Apple watch. Why, well, this is a man I don't I don't believe he's bought anything used ever, you know, I mean maybe in his you maybe before he rich and famous, you know, but I mean. 00:48:14 Speaker 2: He's been rich and famous since he was like a teenager. 00:48:17 Speaker 3: Yes, that's what I mean. So it's like, you know, I would just love for him to have that I think it would have ground him. I think I think it would be like, here's this use watch. You have to wear. Another person's sweat was on this. Yeah, it's a humble I feel. 00:48:35 Speaker 2: Like he like truly, despite the fact that it's an Apple watch, the fact that it's used. I feel like he wouldn't even be able to register what it is as an object. 00:48:44 Speaker 3: Yeah, he wouldn't register it. He would just go, what do I do with this? You know, I think I think he'd be offended. I think he'd be like, I could just buy a new one. Why don't you give me cash? Yeah? Why didn't you give me cash? I could have bought a new one with the cash, and I said, no, you get you. And also, what I love about that is you can guilt him into saying, buy this to use one, because if not, this is just going to become trash. Right, It's like this is good for the environment. Like I recently cracked my cell phone screen and I'm right, I don't have an iPhone. And then my girlfriend said, you have to buy an iPhone now, no more that, and I'm gonna go buy one. But I'm not gonna buy a new one. I'm gonna buy a used one. 00:49:24 Speaker 2: No, that's a great idea, I think, Yeah, you can. I mean they're all essentially the same technology. 00:49:28 Speaker 3: Yeah, I was like, you know what if I don't buy a used one, it's just gonna end up in the trash somewhere. I'm trying to be a decent person. You can guilt Lebron James into, even though you know it's funny. Is I feel bad saying this because he actually does seem like a good person. 00:49:42 Speaker 2: He seems like he tries to do well. 00:49:44 Speaker 3: Yeah, he tries to do well, but you know what, put a little more pressure on him. Why not? 00:49:49 Speaker 2: We can all, you know, we can all afford to do a little better in our lives. Lebron James not accepted. 00:49:54 Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. And with that said, I would I would give the astrological reading to Julian cass Blank of The Strokes. I think he would be into that kind of thing, right, Yeah. 00:50:04 Speaker 2: Yeah, he seems like somebody who's kind of into, you know, weird experiences. 00:50:09 Speaker 3: Yeah, he's into a weird experience. He kind of strikes me a new agey, right, you know, I think he would like that. I think, you know, I think if anybody needs to know what's in store for their future. It's musicians. I mean, it's oh my god, well this next album do good? Yes, you know, like what going. 00:50:28 Speaker 2: Get the Strokes back together? Will I be a solo artist? Will I get into painting? 00:50:34 Speaker 3: Yeah? I think that would be good for him. I think he would appreciate that. 00:50:37 Speaker 2: Actually, yeah, who knows what the future holds. 00:50:40 Speaker 3: For Julian yeah or the Strokes, right. 00:50:43 Speaker 2: I mean it feels like a real guessing game for the entire group at this point. So absolutely, maybe you could use a little direction. 00:50:51 Speaker 3: Yeah, I think so too. 00:50:52 Speaker 2: Have you had an astrological consultation before? 00:50:56 Speaker 3: You know, I have not. I feel like every now and then I read my you know, my astrology, like whatever they put out, and I always go, yeah, I guess that makes sense, you know, I just never had one. I one time went to a fortune teller. Oh where Yeah, in close to downtown Los Angeles and Pico Union. This girl I was dating at the time said you should go see my aunt. She's a fortune teller. She can read poems. And then I was like, I really wanted to like keep this relationship going and I wanted to get and I said, I'll do whatever you want. So I went to her aunt and it cost me fifty bucks and she gave me she read my palms and read my cards and you know, and it's really funny. She was just like, I feel like, she just said, it feels like you're someone who is trying to do trying to please their partner. And I just remember being like, I'm here. 00:51:55 Speaker 2: You completely nailed it. This whole thing, this relationship hinges on me visiting a fortune telling aunt. Yeah. 00:52:03 Speaker 3: So I'm just like, I feel like you're just talking to your niece about what. 00:52:10 Speaker 2: That's incredible. 00:52:11 Speaker 3: Yeah. So I did that. I mean, it was an experience. It was kind of interesting. I mean, there was something ominous about her aunt that I was just like, oh, I love that. I went, I don't know if you if I really believe you can do this, but I believe that you believe you can do this. Like she was convinced, like you know, like it didn't feel like an act, Like it didn't feel like she was some snake oil salesman. She believed this. 00:52:37 Speaker 2: That's incredible. Yeah. I feel like that's part of the thing that's missing from like psychic and astrology things right now, is just like this scary factor. I needed to feel like, you know, there needs to be a crystal ball this kind of thing. That's what I'm really looking for in my fortune telling experience. 00:52:55 Speaker 3: Yeah, I want to have, you know, I want to go into somebody's like into somebody's house where you go, oh, okay, you sectioned this part off of your living room or at your base. 00:53:06 Speaker 2: There's a lot of beads hanging and that kind of very dim lighting, although you have to be careful. I read about like this woman who got scammed by a fortune teller who made her buy like a ninety thousand dollars gold pyramid and all of these things, so you some people can really get led down a crazy pay that type of thing. 00:53:23 Speaker 3: I mean, I remember I knew people who were if you remember miss. 00:53:27 Speaker 2: Kleio, oh of course, yeah, forget and then she. 00:53:30 Speaker 3: Got into legal problems and whatnot. But I knew people who would call those type of lines. 00:53:35 Speaker 2: And they were like a like a dollar a minute or something. 00:53:38 Speaker 3: Yeah, it was insane. You know that they foresee debt in your future, right. 00:53:45 Speaker 2: How is that a relaxing phone call? I would just be sweating, thinking, yeah, I've got to get this over as quickly as possible. I need my fortune and I need to get off the phone. 00:53:53 Speaker 3: Yeah. I also feel like if somebody's going to tell your fortune or not that I believe in it, but I feel like for it to be slight licam vincent in my mind is I have to be there because then I could then say, wow, she must be able to really read my energy, right, you know, I have to find ways to justify it in my mind. Where if it's just a phone call, I'm just like, what the fuck does she know? 00:54:15 Speaker 1: Or he? 00:54:16 Speaker 2: Right, if I'm dialing one nine hundred, I'm like, oh, this is not They don't know who I am. 00:54:20 Speaker 3: No, Yeah, they have no idea. 00:54:23 Speaker 2: That all that they literally all they know about me is that I make poor decisions and I'm desperate. Yes, yes, clearly. Well, I think you played the game perfectly there. I think all of those gifts are well well thought out and everybody would be happy with those I Now we need to move on to the final segment. This is called I said no emails. People are writing into I said no gifts at gmail dot com. Let's answer a question or two to it. This first one says hello Bridger and disobeying guest into they're obviously talking about you. Yeah, my husband and I got married in October, but had to move our wedding to June eighteenth, twenty twenty one because of obviously the pandemic. We had so many nice friends and family members bias gifts off the registry last year that when we officially got married. Oh, this is interesting, what a great question for this podcast. Actually, and our registry is now empty. I've had a few people mention slash complain to me about this, but I really can't think of any more registry items that we still need. Is it taki to basically ask for money and not add more kitchen or house items to the registry. By the way, you're absolutely invited to the wedding if you care to venture to North Carolina when the world opens up again. Invitation accepted. Chris and I will be coming. That's sincerely, Sam. So, basically, they got everything they needed off this registry, and apparently they have the most generous friends and family in the world. Is it okay to ask them for money? What do you think I will say this. I think it is taki, but I think it's perfectly okay. I think you can get absolutely taky, but. 00:56:02 Speaker 3: Absolutely to just say you don't ask for money, you are given money. But with that said, I do believe money is a great practical gift. So people should be like, it is tacky, but you are doing them a favor in that they go great. I don't fucking have to think about what to get them, right, and you know I can just send them fifty dollars or one hundred dollars or twenty dollars. You know, well, you know I wouldn't send a couple who just got engaged twenty dollars. 00:56:31 Speaker 2: Right the wedding twenty dollars doesn't feel quite appropriate. 00:56:35 Speaker 3: Fifty is a fifty. 00:56:37 Speaker 2: Dollars is the wedding amount. I think it's probably like the Lewest universally agreed wedding amount. 00:56:42 Speaker 3: Yeah, so yeah, go from there. I mean, I definitely wouldn't asked for money. A little tacky, but you know, you, Sam, go for it. Don't have shame in. 00:56:51 Speaker 2: Your I say, go for it. I've seen wedding invitations that say that will be like give us money essentially, like here's a link to a website to give us money. I don't think. I mean, at this point, I think anything goes, we're all living in a tacky world. Everything's tacky. Just go for it. 00:57:08 Speaker 3: Well, you know, it's really funny. I don't know if this is just a Mexican tradition, and a lot of the Mexican weddings I would go to. There's a tradition where there's a part where you pin money, where you dance with the with the bride or the groom and you pin money on them. They give you little pin needles and you. 00:57:24 Speaker 2: Oh, that's great. Yeah, so why is that not a tradition to every wedding. That's incredible. So it's really funny. 00:57:32 Speaker 3: So then by the time you're done dancing this part of the ceremony is over, the bride will have money pinned all over her and the groom will have money pinned all over him. I love that. Yeah. So it's like so she can kind of look at it like this and be like, hey, there's an aspect of Mexican culture. We really like we're there. 00:57:53 Speaker 2: And now she whether she's Mexican or not, she could say, Chris told me to do this at my wedding. It's now an element of the wedding. Everyone money to me, Yeah. 00:58:01 Speaker 3: Pin money on her pin money on her or the groom. Yeah. Absolutely, I love yeah, because then you can hide tackiness in the guise of tradition, right. 00:58:12 Speaker 2: I mean, most traditions are kind of tacky. They've just been around a long time. I think that's the definition of a tradition, something that started out tacky than people kept doing. 00:58:19 Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely, what a great question. I mean that totally fell in line. 00:58:23 Speaker 2: That's so bizarre that the game. Oh, let's you know what I have. I have literally fifty nine pages of questions. Let's answer one more. I feel like I've got to be more on top of this. We'll do this one quickly. And it says high Bridger. My mom doesn't have hobbies, and in this global pandemic, it seems risky to get her tickets to a concert or event. 00:58:43 Speaker 3: I agree. 00:58:44 Speaker 2: For her last birthday, I got her some candy and made a donation to a local a local beagle rescue in honor of our late family dog, Ginger. She seems to enjoy those gifts, but I don't want to give repeating gifts any ideas. That's from Kathy and California, So it sounds like the mom I mean, from all I can tell here is the mom likes dogs, and obviously we can't be sending moms out into the pandemic right. 00:59:08 Speaker 3: Now, No, we cannot. 00:59:09 Speaker 2: What do you get this person? 00:59:10 Speaker 3: So she doesn't like gifts and she likes to donate money on. 00:59:14 Speaker 2: Her behalf, right, I mean, I mean it can be a gift. She just doesn't want to give a repeating gift. I mean, Kathy, it would have been nice to know what some of the past gifts are outside of the beagle rescue, but you know, we can only do what we can. The first thing off the top of my head, and this is an actual gift, I'm just realizing this. I've known this artist, Katie Kimmel does these like ceramic pet You send her like a picture of your pet, and she'll do like a ceramic vase of your pet. That's just I rarely give good gift advice on this podcast, and the fact that that came up out of my head, that's something to think about. 00:59:53 Speaker 3: That's great. I like that. That's better than I was going to say, which was, why don't you just rescue a beagle? 01:00:00 Speaker 2: That's not a bad I mean, it sounds like the dog is out of the picture, right now let's get another animal. And there are dogs all over the place. 01:00:06 Speaker 3: Let's get another one. Let's you know, let's properly mourn your past dog, Ginger and keep her in our memories and keep you know, you're going to always keep her in her memories. But you know, get a new dog. Maybe that that's a great idea. I think that might be a good idea. 01:00:22 Speaker 2: There are so many, you know, homeless dogs, and I mean my dogs rescue, fantastic animal, the most valuable thing in our house. 01:00:31 Speaker 3: Yeah, do you have a dog? I do not. Well, we have a family dog. I don't live at home, but I do consider it our dog. 01:00:38 Speaker 2: All right, what's its name? 01:00:40 Speaker 3: Her name is Sophie. Oh cute, she's fourteen years old. I love her to death. She's a grandmother. She's hard of hearing. Now, that's just kind of wants to lay down all the time and the sun doesn't really well. Play for maybe like two minutes and then go yeah, I'm done with this and then you'll go to sleep. So yeah, that's our dog. But me and my girlfriend do have a cat. 01:01:04 Speaker 2: Oh, you have a cat? What's a cat's name? 01:01:06 Speaker 3: The cat? Beget beget buget. Yeah. 01:01:08 Speaker 2: Oh, that's great. 01:01:09 Speaker 3: Yeah, we take it's a really good cat. We take it out for walks. 01:01:13 Speaker 2: Oh what on a leash? 01:01:14 Speaker 3: Yeah, a harness and a leash, and it does it well. It's not like walking a dog and where a dog will walk wherever you go. Cat want to have a miner of their own, so they're just like you. Basically, we take it out into the parking lot and we just walk with it as it hunts crickets and kills crickets. 01:01:34 Speaker 2: Oh that's great. 01:01:35 Speaker 3: Yeah. 01:01:35 Speaker 2: Oh so you just have to have a different attitude about walking a cat. Yeah, you're not walking it around the block. You're following it. 01:01:42 Speaker 3: You're following it. You realize, oh, this cat's walking me while it hunts people, while it hunts crickets and other bugs. You know, you have to put your ego aside and go this fucking cat owns me. I don't own it. 01:01:56 Speaker 2: That feels like a good character building exercise. 01:01:58 Speaker 3: Yeah, it's not bad. I enjoy it. 01:02:00 Speaker 2: Okay, Kathy, you know we've we actually just gave two just solid gift recommendations. I mean, Kathy, bless you, but you gave us very little to work with here, So take what you can get. 01:02:12 Speaker 3: Yeah, but I think we did good by you. 01:02:14 Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean we've done a stunning job. Nobody can say we didn't do that, Chris. That's all we need to do there, We've done our work. Look, I now I'm twenty dollars richer. This is incredible. Who would have thought that I'd sit down and make twenty dollars on this podcast. 01:02:31 Speaker 3: Now I feel good about myself. I also felt like, I feel good about that I gave you twenty dollars. I also feel good that I helped Kathy. I helped, you know, and then I helped the I gave some self awareness that she is TACKI for asking for money. But it's okay, you know, I think I feel great. 01:02:47 Speaker 2: This podcast is essentially community service. At this potent, you just get on here and do good for the world. 01:02:53 Speaker 3: Yeah, this podcast was a gift to me. 01:02:56 Speaker 2: It absolutely Yeah, Chris, thank you so much for here. This has just been a wonderful time. 01:03:02 Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you. 01:03:03 Speaker 2: I'll keep you updated on what I end up buying with the twenty dollars. Let me know, it could be years before I decide, but I will make the perfect choice. 01:03:11 Speaker 3: With this cred it out let. 01:03:12 Speaker 2: It bring you joy, everyone, this is the end of the podcast. I have twenty dollars and you don't. You're going to have to find out how to make your own money, so that's your responsibility for the rest of the day. Move on, goodbye. I said, No Gifts is an exactly right production. It's engineered by our dear friend Analise 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. Listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you found me. And why not leave a review while you're there. It's really the least you could do. And if you're interested in advertising on the show, go to midroll dot com slash ads. 01:04:04 Speaker 1: But I invited you here thought I made myself perfectly clear. 01:04:12 Speaker 3: But you're a. 01:04:13 Speaker 1: Guess to my home. You gotta come to me empty, and I said, no, guess. Your presences presents enough that I already had too much stuff, So how do you dare to surbey me?