Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to What Future. I'm your host, Joshua Topolski,
Speaker 1: and I have to say I'm very excited about today's show.
Speaker 1: You know, I feel like I say I'm excited about
Speaker 1: every show. Into some degree, I am not to some
Speaker 1: degree I am. I don't know why I'm qualifying that
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't understand why I would have to
Speaker 1: augment that I do get excited about every show because
Speaker 1: I get a chance to talk, and I think, as
Speaker 1: everybody knows, that's my number one favorite thing to do
Speaker 1: and probably my best I don't know about best quality.
Speaker 1: I'm I think I'm pretty good at talking. I'm not
Speaker 1: saying that everybody wants to hear what I have to say,
Speaker 1: but I think I'm good at the thing that is talking.
Speaker 1: Like if there could be a skill that I could
Speaker 1: be said to have, I feel like talking would be
Speaker 1: one of the skills, or maybe the top skill. Here's
Speaker 1: a great example of me doing it badly, weirdly enough,
Speaker 1: And I don't want to waste too much time because
Speaker 1: we have an amazing guest on the show today. Her
Speaker 1: name is Jamie Loftus. She is a comedian, an Emmy
Speaker 1: nominated TV writer, and actor, a podcast host actually host
Speaker 1: of several has done several great podcasts that you should
Speaker 1: listen to, and has just written a book called Raw
Speaker 1: Dog The Naked Truth about hot Dogs, which is all
Speaker 1: about hot dogs and it is like a wild travelog
Speaker 1: and exploration of you know, what you would think is
Speaker 1: a simple, simple food item, but it actually has quite
Speaker 1: a complex story. Anyhow, I don't want to waste any
Speaker 1: more time. Let's get Jamie on and talk about this
Speaker 1: hot dog situation. Jamie, thank you for coming on the show.
Speaker 1: First off for having me. You've got your knee up,
Speaker 1: which is it looks like a very uncomfortable position. I
Speaker 1: think that's a knee there, right, Is that what I'm saying? No,
Speaker 1: it's like, I don't know. I guess that's when I
Speaker 1: said it. For a second, I had a moment of
Speaker 1: panic because I was like, what if that isn't a knee?
Speaker 1: And then I was like, what could that be? What
Speaker 1: if it's a really big arm? What if I was
Speaker 1: really strong? I'm taking it down. I'm sorry, I don't
Speaker 1: want I'm not trying to put you on the spot. Caryl.
Speaker 1: I think it is like this is seating position. I've
Speaker 1: never in my life. I've never done like, I've never
Speaker 1: sat how you're sitting right now. I can tell you
Speaker 1: I don't think even as a child. Maybe as a
Speaker 1: child it looks comfortable. Actually, but I was like this
Speaker 1: is that or knee? When you first came out, I
Speaker 1: was like, that's a knee And it's like you don't
Speaker 1: normally on a podcast on this you get this shot
Speaker 1: of like head and shoulders or whatever. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: I'd like to give a full service appearance, you know,
Speaker 1: show some full services. Actually, how it? Actually? I guess
Speaker 1: related You're adjacent to people I know and things, and
Speaker 1: so I knew of you, but I never like fully
Speaker 1: googled you because yeah, I'm not a sick creep. I
Speaker 1: only do that for work purposes. One of the first
Speaker 1: thing that comes up, and I didn't understand. I had
Speaker 1: to ask Lyra, why is like the second Google thing
Speaker 1: for you? Like how tall is Jamie aloft Us? Oh?
Speaker 1: Is it? Yeah? And I guess it's because you're tall?
Speaker 1: Is that correct? Yeah? Yeah, I'm six feet tall. So
Speaker 1: I mean to put you on the spot. I'm talking
Speaker 1: about your knee and how your height. This is all
Speaker 1: very uncomfortable stuff. I apologize. I feel very objective. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I am definitely. I'm six feet tall. I think it's
Speaker 1: it's kind of funny. It's very tall. That's very tall.
Speaker 1: It's pretty tall. Yeah, I've been touring. It's funny because
Speaker 1: I've been touring with my friend Sarah, who is like
Speaker 1: six foot two. Recently, I've been like, I'm rather petite. Really. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a tall crew right there. That's you know, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like model height situation going on there. That's intimidating. Yeah.
Speaker 1: We've just been doing like pick up volleyball. It's pretty exciting.
Speaker 1: Really do tall people? Is that of volleyball? Like a
Speaker 1: tall person activity? Yeah? I think that you can tell
Speaker 1: how attracted a random person is to you by like
Speaker 1: what they are, like, do you blank if you're a
Speaker 1: taller woman, Like if they say you know really yeah,
Speaker 1: Because if you're a tall woman and they think you're hot,
Speaker 1: they'll be like, oh, are you a model? And then
Speaker 1: you'll say no, sure, yeah that makes sense. Yeah. But
Speaker 1: otherwise they'll be like do you play volleyball? And you're like,
Speaker 1: all right, well so you us you're saying you're out,
Speaker 1: you're having a beverage or whatever. Somebody comes up to
Speaker 1: a random person approaches you and they say, you're pretty tall.
Speaker 1: Do you play volleyball? That to you, you're saying the
Speaker 1: signal is this person is not romantically interested in me.
Speaker 1: Is that what I'm hearing? That's my general impression, and
Speaker 1: that's just I. You know, other tall women may feel differently,
Speaker 1: but I do feel like when a person defaults, and
Speaker 1: I guess it's different. I'm thinking mostly men, But like
Speaker 1: if if a man asks you do play volleyball? I
Speaker 1: don't take that as a sign of interest. I take
Speaker 1: that as a weird question that I'm being forced to answer.
Speaker 1: It's a weird question. It's weird to think about. I've
Speaker 1: had people ask me because I am tall if I
Speaker 1: play basketball, which sort of I understand, because I also
Speaker 1: think people don't have a lot of a lot of
Speaker 1: people and this is not a knock on humanity, although
Speaker 1: I will say, you know, it's all sorts of people
Speaker 1: out there. Sure, I feel like a lot of people
Speaker 1: don't have a lot of questions ready to go. I
Speaker 1: appreciate no one's cut straight to the knee. I appreciate
Speaker 1: you put the knee up there, and I'm going to
Speaker 1: ask about it. That's just how it is to be fair,
Speaker 1: I introduced the conversation starter. Yeah, I do feel like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. The height stuff is weird. I think something,
Speaker 1: I get a lot and I don't know. This is
Speaker 1: heavy speculation, but very often, and I've been trying to
Speaker 1: parse us apart for years. I have a working theory,
Speaker 1: but I don't really know. Is like people are surprised
Speaker 1: to hear that I'm tall as I am based on
Speaker 1: my personality, like if they only know my voice, they
Speaker 1: only know like they've never liked met me in person.
Speaker 1: They're surprised that I am as tall as I am.
Speaker 1: I don't have a tall personality to others. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: could I say as a tall person, especially in the
Speaker 1: last several years where where a lot of people are
Speaker 1: interacting with you on like this, like a zoom call
Speaker 1: or whatever, I have gotten a lot of I always
Speaker 1: have gotten this. So it might just be being a
Speaker 1: tall person is a thing that people don't perceive, like
Speaker 1: if they don't if they haven't actually physically been in
Speaker 1: your presence. I have noticed that certainly in the last
Speaker 1: few years when I've met people, everybody seems very surprised.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that you're that you're not have a
Speaker 1: unique experience, and that your experience isn't valid and special.
Speaker 1: I just want to be clear. I'm not trying to
Speaker 1: take you have to be special. I mean, I know, Well,
Speaker 1: I just wonder why it is. Yeah, it's possibly just
Speaker 1: a tall person thing where people are consistently thinking that
Speaker 1: they're not going to be tall. That like you just
Speaker 1: expect maybe average height people, Like if you're not a
Speaker 1: tall person, yeah, you might be constantly expecting people to
Speaker 1: be whatever height you are. I'm not sure, but I
Speaker 1: don't expect people to be tall, so you know, I
Speaker 1: don't know maybe this series, Yeah, I don't expect people
Speaker 1: to be tall either. I think it's like the examples
Speaker 1: I go to her, like other tall women specifically who
Speaker 1: I know I feel like have a tall personality and
Speaker 1: qualifying what that is is confusing. But like there's a
Speaker 1: comedian who I know and love, Marcella Arquia, who is
Speaker 1: six foot two, I think, and she like has the
Speaker 1: personality of someone who is six foot two, you know,
Speaker 1: and I feel like I project a lower height and
Speaker 1: I don't. I choose not to judge myself for that,
Speaker 1: but I do think maybe it's I I'm you know,
Speaker 1: maybe given a five six versus a six feet that's
Speaker 1: what you think your personality suggests as five six? I
Speaker 1: think so so like one inch above average? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you think you think your personality is just a little
Speaker 1: bit above average. I think no height to personality match.
Speaker 1: I mean my working theory right now, as it has
Speaker 1: to do with how you talk and like I have
Speaker 1: a low, softer voice, and I feel like that's not
Speaker 1: qualities associated with with tall women. I don't know, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't. I mean I've never considered it. I wish
Speaker 1: I hadn't told you that I was tall now, because
Speaker 1: then I could have we could have asked you if
Speaker 1: it's if I sound like I'm tall, Like do I
Speaker 1: sound tall? I mean, now you know, but I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean you can't and once you know you can't,
Speaker 1: you kind of can't go back, and then you're like, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: of course he's tall. I mean I'm stuck, like when
Speaker 1: I hear myself, I'm stuck with like the kid who
Speaker 1: said I sounded like Kermit the Frog when I was
Speaker 1: twelve or something, which like really hurt my feelings. And
Speaker 1: then I think I might have for a short period
Speaker 1: of time acquired the nickname Kermit Shank or you like.
Speaker 1: Definitely No. I had a really weird schooling experience where
Speaker 1: I missed a lot of school because my brother and
Speaker 1: I were delinquents, And so it's possible that, like I
Speaker 1: managed to dodge a real sticking Kermit nickname by just
Speaker 1: not being at school very much. But I don't have
Speaker 1: a strong recollection that it was a big thing. But
Speaker 1: there was a moment when somebody called me that. Then
Speaker 1: maybe some of his friends continue to call me it
Speaker 1: for a little while. Sure, and now it seems cool,
Speaker 1: like being associated with Kermit the Frog seems like a
Speaker 1: cool thing, like a legend. An ally, Yeah, did you
Speaker 1: say a legend? And an ally? Is that what you
Speaker 1: said about Kermit the Frog? That's how I perceived him.
Speaker 1: I guess I don't totally disagree with that sort of take. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know of evidence to the contrary. I wish
Speaker 1: somebody would nickname me Kermitt. I don't get any nicknames anymore.
Speaker 1: Are you ever able to get like a different nickname
Speaker 1: to stick with any sort of like permanence? Because I
Speaker 1: was not successful, not really later in life, like I
Speaker 1: like people would call me like Josh Tops, which I
Speaker 1: always thought was kind of where's that come from? Well,
Speaker 1: my last name is to Paul's key, so it's like fun,
Speaker 1: it's fine. I don't think it's it's good. I sometimes
Speaker 1: refer to myself as the Josh Man, like I started
Speaker 1: doing as a joke. Like I love even more than
Speaker 1: hearing what someone's nickname was from someone else. I love
Speaker 1: hearing what nicknames someone tried to make happen for themselves
Speaker 1: that was not completely successful. I think that that's a
Speaker 1: great call. I have a history of doing things like
Speaker 1: sarcastically that then become like real. Well, like one time
Speaker 1: I was maybe I've told this story before in this podcast.
Speaker 1: I can't remember, but there was a period where I
Speaker 1: was like, I'm going to get into the Big Bang Theory,
Speaker 1: like I've always thought The Big Bang Theory was a
Speaker 1: terrible show, and I you know, I hope you know.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe you've written some episodes of the
Speaker 1: Big Bang Theory. I don't know, but no, thank you
Speaker 1: for assuming I have that much money. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't like to make assumptions about people that I
Speaker 1: don't like to assume that people haven't worked on the
Speaker 1: Big Bang Theory, you know, like just as a rule,
Speaker 1: that's a really sensitive progressive I think, like you have
Speaker 1: to acknowledge just across the board as the possibility that
Speaker 1: somebody you're talking to who has worked on the Big
Speaker 1: Bang Theory in some capacity. Anyhow, as a joke, I
Speaker 1: was like, you know, telling people I'm going to get
Speaker 1: into that's gonna be my thing. And then I ended
Speaker 1: up watching like five or six seasons of The Big
Speaker 1: Bang Theory just like I'm not sure why, Like either
Speaker 1: I was bored or I thought like if I knew
Speaker 1: a little bit more about the show, I could like
Speaker 1: the joke could continue and sort of expand. Anyhow, the
Speaker 1: same thing happened with my love for Tom Cruise, which
Speaker 1: started as a joke but it turned out is actually real.
Speaker 1: It became real. It's very real. I mean that's like
Speaker 1: a kind of a liberating thing to be like, oh,
Speaker 1: I can just feel this thing. Sincerely, it's nice I
Speaker 1: should say I should go on a humble bragg. People
Speaker 1: don't say humble bragg anymore, but I'm going to use
Speaker 1: it the term here. I got to meet Tom Cruise
Speaker 1: and chat with him when we were both on Late
Speaker 1: Night with Jimmy Fallon when he was doing his later
Speaker 1: show That's so cool. We actually spent like a pretty
Speaker 1: good amount of time. He like came into my dressing room.
Speaker 1: We talked about books. What books. Well, my wife was there.
Speaker 1: She was reading Game of Thrones. This was when Game
Speaker 1: of Thrones I think wasn't even on TV yet or
Speaker 1: was just starting. Oh okay, and he was like, what
Speaker 1: are you reading? And then we got in Then she
Speaker 1: was telling about Game of Thrones and he was talking
Speaker 1: about this series called The Lensman, which is like, was
Speaker 1: a sci fi series written in the twenties that he
Speaker 1: was trying trying. I don't even know if m can
Speaker 1: I say this? Well, Tom didn't put me under NDA. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll be disappeared though, like Shelley, Misscabbage or whatever pretty soon.
Speaker 1: Um yeah, you will be living beneath the Denver Airport
Speaker 1: within the way. That's all right. No, he was like,
Speaker 1: I've been trying to make this series The Lensman with
Speaker 1: Ron Howard, and I was like, that sounds cool and
Speaker 1: then I looked it up and it's like this weird
Speaker 1: space opera from like the twenties. And he was actually
Speaker 1: extremely cool and I felt like anything that I'd ever
Speaker 1: heard bad about Tom Cruise was completely erased by spending
Speaker 1: like ten minutes in his presence. So which is I mean,
Speaker 1: if nothing else that is star power. Its incredible you
Speaker 1: forgot about all of my crimes in a moment to
Speaker 1: talk about a tall personality. Yes, I didn't perceive at
Speaker 1: all that he was short, not even a little bit.
Speaker 1: Like it didn't strike me. Now he might have been
Speaker 1: wearing some liftshues or whatever. I don't know. I didn't
Speaker 1: check out. It wasn't thinking about it. You're enamored after
Speaker 1: the fact. I wasn't like, yeah, he was a pretty
Speaker 1: small guy. I was kind of like he seemed regular
Speaker 1: heights to me, Like he seemed like a normal height,
Speaker 1: not like especially small. I think that that does go
Speaker 1: both ways, where it's like a quality that knows no gender,
Speaker 1: where you're just like I think some people can just
Speaker 1: project a different height than they actually are, and you
Speaker 1: can kind of fucking forget. Like I've dated people who
Speaker 1: are shorter than me, but it doesn't feel that way right.
Speaker 1: It feels like they've got a gravitas that puts us
Speaker 1: on the same height level. Because I'm bringing it down Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're bringing it out right, and then we hit in
Speaker 1: the middle at like a five nine or so, You're
Speaker 1: you're like actually turning into an average height person, or
Speaker 1: maybe even a little bit above average, but not two
Speaker 1: above average. So that's nice, that's kind of beautiful. We've
Speaker 1: talked a lot about height for no reason at all
Speaker 1: except that I what I googled you was the thing
Speaker 1: that came up my knee and how in my mind
Speaker 1: the knee position was related to your height, Like maybe
Speaker 1: you know, you're in a chair that's just really not
Speaker 1: that big and you've got to kind of get your
Speaker 1: knee up out of the way. I don't know, this
Speaker 1: is I didn't go very far with that. I'm on
Speaker 1: my couch and that's where most things and yeah, I
Speaker 1: kind of take a ferrel position. I kind of forget
Speaker 1: about it. Yeah, no, that's interesting. Farrell's an interesting way
Speaker 1: to describe it. This is I get exactly what you mean.
Speaker 1: It's like you're ready to pounce on something like a Yeah,
Speaker 1: I could get very small or very big pretty quick.
Speaker 1: That's scary. That's like an X Files episode. There's an
Speaker 1: X Files episode about that, for sure, and it's very upset.
Speaker 1: It yeah, okay, So Jamie, actually there were some specific
Speaker 1: things I was going to talk to you about, not
Speaker 1: just random things, although okay, I'm enjoying the random things
Speaker 1: and I could we could probably go for a while. Yeah,
Speaker 1: first off, you're a very talented person with many pursuits.
Speaker 1: You're doing like a hundred different things. Is that would
Speaker 1: you say that's true? I definitely like to do a yeah,
Speaker 1: different different stuff. I get aunty doing the same thing
Speaker 1: all the time. Do you have one thing that you
Speaker 1: consider yourself like, obviously you're a comedian, would you consider
Speaker 1: yourself a comedian? Yeah? I think that that's kind of
Speaker 1: like the broadest is that the top through line comedian writer,
Speaker 1: Like okay, writer is in there, right, Yeah, comedian is
Speaker 1: the top though, because I've noticed that and I kind
Speaker 1: of am like, well, maybe I'll, you know, get over
Speaker 1: this over time and it doesn't really matter, but it
Speaker 1: does matter to me. That is like the thing that
Speaker 1: I hold closest for whatever is it probably just because
Speaker 1: I was doing at the longest. If I were to
Speaker 1: start this and say you're a writer and not mention
Speaker 1: that you're a comedian, it definitely does bug me. And
Speaker 1: I like joke about it, but I'm like kind of
Speaker 1: serious when people are like this podcaster, and I think
Speaker 1: that that's still kind of like a professional pejorative. It's
Speaker 1: definitely a pejorative, exactly what I was going to say. Yeah,
Speaker 1: podcasts are I think they've rightfully gotten a pretty bad
Speaker 1: name because there's a lot of podcasts and there's a
Speaker 1: lot of bad ones, right, I think we can all agree.
Speaker 1: I mean this goes for everything, but I just think
Speaker 1: that the last decade has been We've just saturated the
Speaker 1: market with podcasts and it's kind of like, I don't
Speaker 1: know's I have a feeling that, like ten years from now,
Speaker 1: that will be kind of different where it's like most
Speaker 1: new kinds of jobs are pejorative at first, and then
Speaker 1: after a while it's just a job that didn't exist before.
Speaker 1: So I'm sure I'll feel different down the line, But yeah,
Speaker 1: right now, is I think that there's still a kind
Speaker 1: of a weird, a weird little stigma attached to it
Speaker 1: that I'm not comfortable with, even though it's like I
Speaker 1: like doing it. I'm like proud of the stuff that
Speaker 1: I've done, but yeah, it's just it feels like kind
Speaker 1: of an achy term still, right, I think it's like
Speaker 1: you you mentioned it as a job, and I think
Speaker 1: not to be like inside baseball with podcasting, but because
Speaker 1: we are doing one right now, which you know, but
Speaker 1: like there's a lot of bad ones and this is
Speaker 1: one of them. But as a job, there aren't that
Speaker 1: many people who are doing it. Like there are people
Speaker 1: obviously who do it professionally. There are people who make
Speaker 1: their living by podcasting. But then I think one of
Speaker 1: the problems is that it's not an art form, that
Speaker 1: it isn't necessarily a job. There are a lot of
Speaker 1: people who just do it because, like they got together
Speaker 1: with their friends. I guess I'm thinking of a type
Speaker 1: of podcast here that's also I mean, it's like, but
Speaker 1: you could say the same thing for like music, or
Speaker 1: like you could say the thing for most art artists.
Speaker 1: Like you know, you can call yourself a comedian and
Speaker 1: still be operating at a loss every time you walk
Speaker 1: out the door. I was doing that for years. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but music is interesting because like you couldn't just get
Speaker 1: together with your friends and be in a band, Like
Speaker 1: you'd have to have some level of skill, right, Like
Speaker 1: you'd have to be sure skill. Yeah, let's say you
Speaker 1: wanted to have a band with your friends and you're like, hey,
Speaker 1: you play bass, I play guitar. Let's start a band.
Speaker 1: Let's say you both suck and you go play a
Speaker 1: show and the music is terrible and everybody hat too.
Speaker 1: That's not really sustainable. Whereas a podcast, the stakes are
Speaker 1: in many ways very low, and if you suck at it,
Speaker 1: or if it's annoying or just a bad one, you
Speaker 1: could just keep doing them, like no one really the
Speaker 1: barrier to entry is very low, Like you don't need
Speaker 1: a book a show. Yeah, you don't need to actually
Speaker 1: how to know how to play an instrument, which I
Speaker 1: think is kind of I mean, I think that, I mean,
Speaker 1: it can go a lot of ways, but I think
Speaker 1: it's generally a good thing because it's like when I started,
Speaker 1: like having a podcast, it was I was bad at it,
Speaker 1: Like I was not good. What was your what was
Speaker 1: your first podcast? What was the first thing you did?
Speaker 1: My first podcast? I still do it. It's called the
Speaker 1: Bechtel Cast. It's a feminist movie podcast that's on this
Speaker 1: very network and I Heart my Heart Radio. I heard
Speaker 1: podcasts whatever whatever we're calling it right now on that
Speaker 1: and but yeah, like we started doing it for fun
Speaker 1: and like we're just figuring it out for two years
Speaker 1: for fun and often kind of like at a either
Speaker 1: breaking even or a kind of a slight loss because
Speaker 1: you're to pay to hosted and all that shit. But
Speaker 1: but yeah, I was like, I was a lot of
Speaker 1: our early episodes were like should we even still have
Speaker 1: these up? Like we suck so bad? Like we're so
Speaker 1: bad at I like that. I like the being honest
Speaker 1: with yourself is good. I think there's not enough people
Speaker 1: who are honest with themselves if they suck. I think
Speaker 1: that's by the way, I'm not like, I'm not trying
Speaker 1: to like say there's a problem with the whole podcast
Speaker 1: illustrating thing. I was just saying that you feel that
Speaker 1: the term podcaster is a pejorative, and I do think
Speaker 1: there's something about it I'm trying to understand. I guess,
Speaker 1: like where does that come from? And there is like
Speaker 1: this undefinable quality of like it feels almost not like
Speaker 1: a slur, but there's something about it. When people you
Speaker 1: hear people say it's like it's not a compliment, it
Speaker 1: feels like, you know, it is not. It's definitely not
Speaker 1: a compliment, even when it's intended as a compliment. It
Speaker 1: doesn't feel that way. Yeah, And I don't know what
Speaker 1: that is, but it's interesting. I don't know. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: guess I haven't really thought about like why it bothers me,
Speaker 1: just that it does. I want to spend like two
Speaker 1: or three hours on just the term podcaster. So you
Speaker 1: have the Bechdel Cast, which is am I saying that right?
Speaker 1: I think I'm saying that right. Yeah. Yeah. Be classic
Speaker 1: of a man to fuck that up, though, wouldn't it.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, do you have any male guests on that show?
Speaker 1: Out of curiosity to you? Haven't let men talk on
Speaker 1: that show? We do you do it? Yeah? Yeah, yeah
Speaker 1: we do. We used to do it more. But but
Speaker 1: what happened? But I think it was Honestly, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I would want to know what my co
Speaker 1: host thinks as well, but like, there are certain things
Speaker 1: where it just felt like it became weirdly combative or
Speaker 1: like oh really not even or maybe combative isn't even
Speaker 1: the word, but just like it felt like we were
Speaker 1: going over the same what to us felt like basic
Speaker 1: concepts again and again and again for the benefit of
Speaker 1: male guests, and like they were learning, which was great,
Speaker 1: but it was like, you can't teach you every man
Speaker 1: individually on a podcast, right, Yeah. It started to see
Speaker 1: like even when it was like men, we really like
Speaker 1: people we were friends with, Like it wasn't even a
Speaker 1: personal thing. It was just like, this is maybe like
Speaker 1: a conversation we could have as friends. But it doesn't
Speaker 1: feel like we're providing our listeners a lot of value
Speaker 1: by explaining pretty basic feminist concepts every single week. So
Speaker 1: then we sort of like we were a little more
Speaker 1: selective these days. Okay, but not a blanket solution. I
Speaker 1: hate to do this, actually, but now that you've said it,
Speaker 1: I'm so curious. Can you give me an example of
Speaker 1: a situation, a conversation you would be having on that podcast?
Speaker 1: Maybe I would end up getting the same treatment. Perhaps
Speaker 1: it'll happen right now, Well, it's it's not even a
Speaker 1: value judgment. It's like, what's a topic that men that
Speaker 1: men come up against? And are like, wait, I don't
Speaker 1: understand that there is there anything specific that you can
Speaker 1: think of. Yeah, I think something that we we were
Speaker 1: talking about on the show in a recent episode that
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, yeah, we used to have to
Speaker 1: like go over this kind of concept all the time.
Speaker 1: But it was, like, to be fair, not always familiar
Speaker 1: to us. It's not like you're not a man and
Speaker 1: therefore you know this. But like I think a lot
Speaker 1: of like dead wife stuff and a lot of like fridging,
Speaker 1: just like kind of basic concepts like that of like, oh,
Speaker 1: we are killing a woman to advance the male protagonists plot,
Speaker 1: and that happens in a lot of classic movies. And
Speaker 1: I think that like sometimes we would have male guests
Speaker 1: and this is years ago at this point that like
Speaker 1: would get a little defensive about that and they're like,
Speaker 1: but I love this movie, and no, really, you're allowed
Speaker 1: to love this movie. And that's still happening. I feel like,
Speaker 1: so we were talking about Heat before you got on,
Speaker 1: and which is a very male never seen you've never
Speaker 1: seen heat, Oh my gosh, you are doing this is
Speaker 1: why you think the show so incredible because this happens
Speaker 1: to that, like you've never seen Heat, and like, no,
Speaker 1: I've never I personally don't feel like you can understand
Speaker 1: in the male experience if you haven't watched Michael Man's
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety five film He probably right, you're probably but
Speaker 1: wait a second, I'm now I'm very curious, like what's
Speaker 1: a movie that you could cite where this happens, where
Speaker 1: like a female characters is killed off just to advance
Speaker 1: the plot or sort of, you know at the Sorry,
Speaker 1: I know this is where down a rabbit hole here,
Speaker 1: but I'm so fascinated by this. It's a lot of them.
Speaker 1: I want to say that. I'm pretty sure is the
Speaker 1: writer Gail Simone that like solidified this as a concept.
Speaker 1: It comes from like comic books, and it's like referencing
Speaker 1: this issue of like Green Lantern from the nineties. That's
Speaker 1: like Green Lantern is like sent on his new whatever
Speaker 1: the fuck mission because he comes home it finds that
Speaker 1: his enemy has assaulted, murdered, and stuffed his girlfriend into
Speaker 1: a refrigerator. Oh my god, now the plot can begin.
Speaker 1: So that's why it's called fridging. It's like literally and
Speaker 1: shoving her in a fridge. Wow, I didn't know that
Speaker 1: about the Green Lantern. It's very sad. I hope, I mean,
Speaker 1: hopefully that's send him on an epic quest of revenge
Speaker 1: and redemption. I don't know, but best of luck to
Speaker 1: that fake man. Truly trying to think of like a
Speaker 1: really really popular example. I mean, I think in general
Speaker 1: it happens a lot in action movies. It happens in
Speaker 1: a lot of Leonardo DiCaprio movies where like his wife
Speaker 1: has died under tragic circumstances and that is why yea
Speaker 1: inception shutter island as well, Like, oh yeah, it's a lot.
Speaker 1: I mean there is like the plot of the movie
Speaker 1: would not function unless his wife, which is often like
Speaker 1: the only thing we know about her is like killed
Speaker 1: in a brutal way previous to the movie starting. And like, right,
Speaker 1: it's I think that like a lot of stuff we
Speaker 1: catch shit for is which is annoying to me, is
Speaker 1: like whoa, well, does that make the movie bad? It's
Speaker 1: like no, but it doesn't mean that. It's like not
Speaker 1: a thing that happens in movies all the time. Right,
Speaker 1: But that's like that's the thing about critical thinking, is
Speaker 1: um is like you have to can you have to
Speaker 1: be able to go like it can still be a
Speaker 1: good movie, but you should know or think about or
Speaker 1: be able to think about this other lay or this
Speaker 1: other level that it operates on. Yeah, frankly, like all
Speaker 1: criticism and critical theory and actual critical thinking is okay,
Speaker 1: you know what the story is, but like that's not
Speaker 1: all this thing is and so or you know what
Speaker 1: this painting looks like or how it makes you feel,
Speaker 1: But that doesn't say everything anyhow. I can't understand how
Speaker 1: somebody could be like viscerally bent out of shape about
Speaker 1: that interpretation of one of their favorite movies. But I
Speaker 1: don't even think it's like bent out of shape. I
Speaker 1: think that sometimes people will hear that as a criticism
Speaker 1: and receive it as like, well, then you think this
Speaker 1: movie sucks and I'm bad for liking it, which is
Speaker 1: very like not what we're ever saying. And that's a
Speaker 1: bold take on anything like that. You even if you
Speaker 1: did think that, it's hard to imagine being Actually, this
Speaker 1: is just me speaking now. I'm not speaking for all men,
Speaker 1: but not all men, as we all are fond of saying, again,
Speaker 1: just this man. But I always think it's weird when
Speaker 1: I hear people trying to convince other people of things
Speaker 1: that they liked that they should like as well, like
Speaker 1: that somehow there's an idea that that liking it is
Speaker 1: a thing that you can kind of force someone into,
Speaker 1: that you can like change someone's opinion of a work anyhow.
Speaker 1: I don't know it's system okay, but that's not the
Speaker 1: only podcast you do, are you on You're wrong about?
Speaker 1: Which the podcast? I love? You're on it on a
Speaker 1: regular basis? Are you on it all? You're not on
Speaker 1: it all the time? Are you? No? No? But I've
Speaker 1: a'm touring with them for the Sprain. Yeah. I love
Speaker 1: that podcast because it's the best, and it's one of
Speaker 1: those things that's a very modern phenomenon where we are
Speaker 1: constantly now reevaluating and I feel like that was actually
Speaker 1: a very early like entrant in the conversation of going
Speaker 1: you think you know all about this thing that you
Speaker 1: just assume but it's completely wrong. Yeah, right, and you're
Speaker 1: wrong about it's literally it's that a lot of the time. Like, Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a great one. Sorry not to talk about other podcasts,
Speaker 1: but there was a great one about No, I mean
Speaker 1: I love it The Dark Night, which is about the
Speaker 1: basically largely about the Joker in the Dark Night, which
Speaker 1: you know, again talking about guy moves highly you know,
Speaker 1: guy centric film but but good oh and actually a film,
Speaker 1: a film where the female character is killed off spoiler alert,
Speaker 1: I guess sorry, but the romantic partner of the lead
Speaker 1: is killed off ceremoniously. Not on ceremonies. Now that you've seen,
Speaker 1: now that you've seen fridging, you can't done see it yet. Yeah.
Speaker 1: This is like when I got into motorcycles. Then I
Speaker 1: started hosting the motorcycles everywhere. I was like, wow, there's
Speaker 1: like that everywhere, Like they're behind my car, they're on
Speaker 1: the side, they're parked, like people are pulling up in
Speaker 1: motorcycles to fascinate anything. Um. But yeah, but so you do.
Speaker 1: You're wrong about you had this Lolita podcast, which I've
Speaker 1: listened to a bit of, which is a huge downer.
Speaker 1: I mean in many ways. Not it's not a knock
Speaker 1: on it. It's fascinating, but but no, I love the book,
Speaker 1: but it's on that similar wavelength, which is like again,
Speaker 1: it's almost like in the year wrong about space as
Speaker 1: well as the kind of like interpretation of like male
Speaker 1: art or whatever. But it's like I read the book
Speaker 1: and obviously it was like, whoa, this is a spooks
Speaker 1: crazy and but also really beautiful written. I was like,
Speaker 1: this is like one of the most beautifully written book
Speaker 1: I've ever read. Obviously the subject matter is fucked up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but weirdly, when I read it and I was much younger,
Speaker 1: and the way it was sort of portraying culture. This
Speaker 1: is what you explore a lot of on the show,
Speaker 1: is like it's sort of like you don't think about
Speaker 1: how I actually fucked up it is. Why did you
Speaker 1: want to do a podcast about that? I mean, you
Speaker 1: sort of explain it, but like, I mean that's a
Speaker 1: lot of effort, Like, yeah, well, was there a tipping
Speaker 1: point where you were like someone needs to talk about this.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of that was honestly timing where
Speaker 1: I made that show completely during lockdown, and so I
Speaker 1: think it was just like I had an unusually large
Speaker 1: amount of time and energy to do something, and it
Speaker 1: was something that I'd always wanted to work with because
Speaker 1: it was something that really really affected me as a kid,
Speaker 1: and I think like really affected how I viewed a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff. And then as I got older, I
Speaker 1: got to the point where I had seen an of
Speaker 1: its influence that I'm like, I need to go back
Speaker 1: to like what it is, because I don't remember it
Speaker 1: feeling this way. And so when I returned to the book,
Speaker 1: it was where it's like, whether people liked it or not,
Speaker 1: the way that the book is talked about didn't feel
Speaker 1: true to how I remembered it. So I went back
Speaker 1: I read it again and was like, no, I think
Speaker 1: that this is actually a really interesting thing to dig into.
Speaker 1: And I wonder because I believe the author, you know,
Speaker 1: knows exactly what he's doing and is like very anti
Speaker 1: the crimes that the book is describing, but it's not
Speaker 1: portrayed that way and it's rarely adapted that way. And
Speaker 1: then by the end of his life he sort of
Speaker 1: was like seemed kind of having to some extent having
Speaker 1: to like capitulate to that in order to make a living, right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just sort of exploring all those different angles of it
Speaker 1: was interesting to me. And then I had so much
Speaker 1: energy and desire to put all of my energy into
Speaker 1: something and so that was sort of like why it
Speaker 1: kind of worked out the way that it did. And
Speaker 1: so I was like eight slept and breathed it for
Speaker 1: like six months. Yeah, and uh yeah, pretty depressing. It's
Speaker 1: a fascinating podcast, and even your description of the book like,
Speaker 1: here's what the book's about, Like when you think about Lolita,
Speaker 1: weirdly the way culture has portrayed it, I was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: that is exactly what the book is about. And when
Speaker 1: the way you describe it. I was like, holy fuck,
Speaker 1: that sounds so disturbing, and like, yet when you read it, yeah,
Speaker 1: it is disturbing, but it's not disturbing in the way
Speaker 1: you're like, I need to put this down and put
Speaker 1: it away. Like I think at least the experience for
Speaker 1: me was like that, and I think for a lot
Speaker 1: of people, and you're right, like there was an adaptation
Speaker 1: with Jeremy Irons and I feel like in the nineties. Yeah,
Speaker 1: my recollection of that is that it was like kind
Speaker 1: of like this is a sexy movie. Like it was
Speaker 1: like this is hot. Yeah, I mean, and like that's
Speaker 1: how the film I mean, that's how the director kind
Speaker 1: of described it. Like I tracked down because again infinite time,
Speaker 1: Like I tracked down a DVD of it because I
Speaker 1: was like, I want to listen to the commentary and
Speaker 1: maybe he's like playing a game of forty chest that
Speaker 1: I'm not seeing or whatever, but like I went into
Speaker 1: the commentary and like he absolutely is reading it like
Speaker 1: reading an unreliable narrator, as if it's like, well, let's
Speaker 1: adapt this directly, and like it's not consider it's it's
Speaker 1: so weird. It's no, it's it's definitely. And yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I was like, it's such an interesting exploration because it
Speaker 1: touched on so much just also so much like cultural
Speaker 1: stuff that again like the undercurrent or these things that
Speaker 1: you're not aware of. And I like the fact that.
Speaker 1: I mean, but I think it's interesting about you in
Speaker 1: your career and what you do is that you are
Speaker 1: very funny. You can be, like you said, you're a
Speaker 1: comedian first, but you want to talk about and and
Speaker 1: be talking to have people talking about and thinking about
Speaker 1: things that that really go like way deeper into the
Speaker 1: surface I think culturally, which is why I find your
Speaker 1: hot dog books so confusing, to be honest with you.
Speaker 1: M So this is my segue. This is probably lead
Speaker 1: it to the hot Dog book. I think it was
Speaker 1: waiting for anyhow. But everybody should listen to this. It's
Speaker 1: called the Lalita podcast. Is that what it's called. No, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm shit at naming stuff, so it usually does like
Speaker 1: the thing podcast. No, that's smart, that's good. Then people,
Speaker 1: Then that's the one you know, like you now own
Speaker 1: it now. It was like you started doing that in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty you did it right, that podcast? Yeah, into
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one, and then I've done a couple of
Speaker 1: others that are kind of like deep, divy kind of things,
Speaker 1: and that's kind of what the hot Dog Book is.
Speaker 1: It's just a book version of it. Kind of when
Speaker 1: you think about some of the projects you're working on,
Speaker 1: they do have a quality of obsessiveness, like where you
Speaker 1: get one thing and you want to like just dissect
Speaker 1: it completely. And yeah, I mean it's like, I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm medically obsessive, and I I feel like, well, i
Speaker 1: mean it's not one hundred percent hit rate, but I
Speaker 1: feel like I've gotten kind of lucky to find a
Speaker 1: way to like channel that energy in a way that, um,
Speaker 1: it's not harmful to myself for others kind of like truly,
Speaker 1: like it's it makes me sound maybe more dangerous than
Speaker 1: I actually am. But like you know, before I because
Speaker 1: I didn't get diagnosed with anything until I was twenty three,
Speaker 1: and it was really helpful. But then it was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: now I know what the thing is. Like wait, wait,
Speaker 1: what were you diagnosed with? Can I ask? Is that
Speaker 1: too personal? Yeah? No, I was. I was diagnosed with
Speaker 1: OCD oh wow. Oh yeah, I mean I have a
Speaker 1: big time. I'm like not not like you were just
Speaker 1: talking that was that's the real deal. You have OCD
Speaker 1: for real? Yeah, I mean it, and it had escalated
Speaker 1: to a point where it's like really affecting my life,
Speaker 1: and I just didn't know what it was. And it's
Speaker 1: like that thing where once you have a name for something,
Speaker 1: it just becomes infinitely feels like it's you know, you
Speaker 1: can handle it, yeah, because there's a name for it.
Speaker 1: So you're not uniquely fucked up or whatever, right, So
Speaker 1: that's kind of nice. I mean, you're not special anymore.
Speaker 1: But outside of that, it is like kind of amazing
Speaker 1: to be diagnosed with something. When I was a kid,
Speaker 1: I was prescribed RIDDLE and of course, I mean as
Speaker 1: every child was in the late Ada big industry, big
Speaker 1: big industry at that time. But yeah, I was diagnosed
Speaker 1: with like add as a kid or whatever. And then
Speaker 1: not that long ago, actually during the pandemic, I was like, man,
Speaker 1: I'm really like struggling with certain things, Like I feel
Speaker 1: like I never actually got to the bottom of I
Speaker 1: never really like it was like I was a kid,
Speaker 1: I was diagnosed with this thing, and then after that,
Speaker 1: like there was a period where I was like medicated
Speaker 1: and then I wasn't and then I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm fine now, like I'm normal or whatever you know
Speaker 1: that is, and I don't need to address this any longer.
Speaker 1: And I spent like twenty years not addressing it or whatever,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe even longer. And then I got to
Speaker 1: a point and it was like, can I do anything
Speaker 1: like to affect whatever this thing is that feels like
Speaker 1: I don't even know, like is it that? Is it
Speaker 1: something else? And then it went through like a whole
Speaker 1: process of like that, what's happening? Certainly, Okay, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: I was just plugging my iPad in. Oh really, you're
Speaker 1: on an iPad? Yes, okay, I would never have guessed that.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Wow, Okay, interesting fact you were.
Speaker 1: You were giving me an interest. I was about to
Speaker 1: tell you I was about to bear my soul, and
Speaker 1: then I got distracted. I was plugging in so I
Speaker 1: could continue hearing about it. And then actually, what just happened?
Speaker 1: There was a classic add shit where something very minor
Speaker 1: happened where you like tilted your screen a little bit,
Speaker 1: and I was like, something's happening. I need to stop
Speaker 1: what I'm doing and shift gears to talk about that,
Speaker 1: and here we are talking about your fucking audio interface.
Speaker 1: That's on me. But yeah, it's interesting to get diagnosed
Speaker 1: and have somebody be like, you have a thing, Like
Speaker 1: that's not in your head, You're not just annoying like
Speaker 1: I've always felt a lot of my worst behaviors are
Speaker 1: just really fucking annoying. And maybe I'm just in a
Speaker 1: annoying person who like talks too much. I mean that
Speaker 1: can be true also, but it was nice to kind
Speaker 1: of hear somebody go, you know, one, you have a thing.
Speaker 1: It's real, Like they were like, you're off the charts,
Speaker 1: like you're like every all of the tests that we've done,
Speaker 1: you're in the highest percentile or whatever of like having
Speaker 1: the thing. And then they're like, here' stuff you can do,
Speaker 1: which is sort of amazing that they even happen. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's like, I feel so lucky that I was able
Speaker 1: to even get that, because it's like a lot of
Speaker 1: people never get that, whether they're like not comfortable getting
Speaker 1: it or don't have access to it or whatever. It
Speaker 1: is like it Yeah, it was totally. It definitely like
Speaker 1: changed my at least mindset because I was in total
Speaker 1: like chaos brain. And also I and this is like
Speaker 1: obviously like not a medical I don't know shit about shit.
Speaker 1: But I was originally diagnosed with OCD and bipolar, and
Speaker 1: then when I got a second opinion about a year
Speaker 1: and a half later, because the medicine I was taking
Speaker 1: for bipolar, like it wasn't really making a difference and
Speaker 1: it was kind of like not like not helping. And
Speaker 1: when I spoke to another professional about it, like a
Speaker 1: year and a half after that, they're like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's like very often if you have severe OCD, it
Speaker 1: is mistaken as low grade bipolar because of the kind
Speaker 1: of like intensity of it. So like it just took
Speaker 1: years to like for a while, I thought I was,
Speaker 1: you know, OCD bipolar, and then as time went on,
Speaker 1: it was like, no, I think I just have you know,
Speaker 1: X games OCD and that's you know, like it is manageable,
Speaker 1: and I think it's I don't know. I guess I'm
Speaker 1: curious of like what your experience of this is with
Speaker 1: add because I feel like when I knew that there
Speaker 1: was a problem, it was like, oh, okay, so how
Speaker 1: do we kill the problem kind of and not like
Speaker 1: this is a part of my personality and like I
Speaker 1: either are ways to temper it so that it's not harmful,
Speaker 1: but like you can't just kill a part of you,
Speaker 1: like no, So that's yeah, well that was always when
Speaker 1: I was a kid. I always one of the things
Speaker 1: I felt about, like when I was taking Riddlin was
Speaker 1: I could feel like there was a part of me
Speaker 1: that was being killed, that was being like I didn't know.
Speaker 1: I think, like the drug was so strong. I mean
Speaker 1: only an extreme case. I feel like you should be
Speaker 1: giving kids riddle it. And that's just my opinion. I'm
Speaker 1: not a doctor at all, but having been a kid
Speaker 1: on riddling and then like kind of understanding it after
Speaker 1: the fact, I was like, wow, like I was on
Speaker 1: a very powerful drug that did make me feel like absolutely,
Speaker 1: like I was cutting off a certain part of my
Speaker 1: personality or like just reshaping my personality to be this
Speaker 1: other thing, which is like obviously still me, but yeah,
Speaker 1: chemically enhanced me or chemically sort of you know, deviated.
Speaker 1: I feel like now the modern interpretation understanding of having
Speaker 1: any kind of neurodivergence as we call it, but which
Speaker 1: is brand new. By the way, people didn't call it
Speaker 1: neurodivergence ten years ago. You didn't hear anybody using that term.
Speaker 1: It is a pretty new thing. I do think there's
Speaker 1: a whole generation of people who are like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: like I have issues, I have things with me that
Speaker 1: are not like you, and like I'm it's like that's
Speaker 1: part of who I am, and like sometimes like people
Speaker 1: are actively treating it for all sorts of different reasons.
Speaker 1: I think it's a very modern and recent occurrence that
Speaker 1: you can even feel comfortable talking about it, like even
Speaker 1: this conversation a few I feel like a decade ago.
Speaker 1: And maybe this is the gift that podcasting has given us.
Speaker 1: Perhaps it's given an opportunity for all kinds of people
Speaker 1: to just be like like spin, I'm a fucking weirdo,
Speaker 1: and you know that's fine. And I don't know that
Speaker 1: like being diagnosed with a thing that is like definitely
Speaker 1: like this kind of weird chemical imbalance or behavior has
Speaker 1: changed any of that. I mean, you feel like you're
Speaker 1: not trying to kill the behavior. Is that what you're saying,
Speaker 1: Like that there's a different stance. Yeah, I think that.
Speaker 1: I And again, like I think I totally agree that
Speaker 1: like the way that people have talked about it has
Speaker 1: changed so much because even when I mean, you know
Speaker 1: us like diagnosed with us in twenty sixteen or twenty fifteen,
Speaker 1: and like even then, it was like, oh, so we
Speaker 1: we need to like kill this with fire. That's the solution, right, right,
Speaker 1: and like I will fundamentally change as a person and
Speaker 1: then things will be great and normal. Oh god, yeah.
Speaker 1: And it's like and it's not even that any professional.
Speaker 1: Like the more I talked to people, the more they're like, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: that's not We're just trying to like make it so
Speaker 1: that you can like function, and and and as time
Speaker 1: went on, it was like you know, with trial and
Speaker 1: error with different medications and different treatments. Because I did
Speaker 1: like exposure therapy for as long as I could afford it,
Speaker 1: and then I stopped, and like, you know, it was
Speaker 1: like all over the place exposure therapy. Oh gosh, I
Speaker 1: don't know if I this is a good explanation of it.
Speaker 1: But basically it was like sessions I would do with
Speaker 1: my therapist for yeah, the few months that he was
Speaker 1: giving me an eighty percent discount and then he was
Speaker 1: like no more. But but he was like, yeah, you're
Speaker 1: in the trenches. I'll do this. But it was stuff
Speaker 1: we're like we would take something that would like trigger
Speaker 1: my OCG brain, and we would look at it together
Speaker 1: and it would be sort of this repeated pattern of like, Okay,
Speaker 1: you're looking at this, what is the worst case scenario?
Speaker 1: With this in your head? Instinct doesn't need to be rational?
Speaker 1: What's the worst case scenario? And I would have to
Speaker 1: say it out loud and then he's like, okay, so
Speaker 1: if that is the worst case scenario, would you die?
Speaker 1: What would happen? How would you deal with that problem?
Speaker 1: And we would talk through how to deal with the
Speaker 1: worst case scenario in my head, and even so it
Speaker 1: was usually solvable, and then we would scale it back
Speaker 1: and back and back and back until we were at
Speaker 1: like a more objective way of viewing the thing, and
Speaker 1: it actually did really help, and it like really helped
Speaker 1: with my I mean not that it's healthy, because I
Speaker 1: would not say it is, but like I think a
Speaker 1: lot of what would sort of put me in a
Speaker 1: horrible place would be like stuff with the internet, and
Speaker 1: it like, well, it's very bad like that. I mean truly,
Speaker 1: Sometimes we would be looking at like a tab and
Speaker 1: it's like, okay, right, what is set? Okay, what's on
Speaker 1: the tab? What's on the tab? I have to know
Speaker 1: I'm not telling you what's on that. Can you give
Speaker 1: me a realm of what's on the tab, like the
Speaker 1: kind of thing that might be on the tab. You
Speaker 1: don't have to be specific. It was like Twitter sometimes
Speaker 1: it uh, that's what I was. That's where my head went,
Speaker 1: is like social media okay. So it's like it was
Speaker 1: not like intellectual. I wasn't like I was like beheading
Speaker 1: videos because there's so much horrible shit on the Internet.
Speaker 1: I was like, sure, you know what I mean. My
Speaker 1: head went in like all these different places, but for me,
Speaker 1: the top one. When you said it, I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's got to be like social media is in that tab.
Speaker 1: Would be like, yeah, oh, it's like you know, a
Speaker 1: tweet from that you that you're like, am I Like
Speaker 1: did I do something wrong? Like that kind of reactive
Speaker 1: And that was the sort of stuff that, especially when
Speaker 1: I started to treatment as something that I got to
Speaker 1: work on for a long time, but like I could
Speaker 1: get in my head so easily on no information. They say, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's terrifying. That's like the Internet is designed to reinforce that,
Speaker 1: and I show it to you more and more, and
Speaker 1: so it's like having to ask myself those basic questions
Speaker 1: and like even if this is the worst case scenario,
Speaker 1: you'll live, like you'll be all right, and you're it'll
Speaker 1: suck for a little bit. Yeah, No, I know what
Speaker 1: you're talking about. Like, I mean, it's it's but it's
Speaker 1: such an acute sensation of you like tweet something and
Speaker 1: then it becomes a thing and then like suddenly there's
Speaker 1: a pile on. I don't know if this is the
Speaker 1: same situation, but like maybe it was less than that,
Speaker 1: but it's kind of like it can feel so high.
Speaker 1: The escalation of it in your mind and in your
Speaker 1: like soul can feel so overwhelmingly. I'm not saying that
Speaker 1: I know the experience that you're talking about, but I
Speaker 1: can kind of understand, like I can kind of understand
Speaker 1: obsessing about that kind of situation because it is, Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's so many unanswered questions on that screen in that
Speaker 1: tab that you can't possibly wrap your head around or
Speaker 1: get inside of, and you're sort of like, at this
Speaker 1: remove going, where is this going? How is it going
Speaker 1: to play out? What do these people really think? Like right,
Speaker 1: that's terrifying. Honestly, mine were like pretty innocuous like things
Speaker 1: where I was not even directly implicated, but I'm like, oh, fuck,
Speaker 1: like you know, okay, interesting. Yeah, I mean it was
Speaker 1: like a problem. It's really stressful, and it was like
Speaker 1: stressful to me and annoying to people in my life
Speaker 1: because they're like, what are you talking about? Like you know,
Speaker 1: like really yeah, So I think this is how I
Speaker 1: feel about myself, Like when I'm at my sort of
Speaker 1: most extreme version of my add or whatever, it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm definitely annoying all the people around me, Like I'm
Speaker 1: definitely being really overwhelming. And it's like occasionally that's true,
Speaker 1: but sometimes I feel like when you're in that like space,
Speaker 1: or at least for me, I'm like I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm being horrible, I'm being annoying, and then they're like
Speaker 1: you haven't said anything in twenty minutes, Like what the
Speaker 1: fuck are you talking about? You're like, oh, this was
Speaker 1: like everything was going on inside my head right But anyway,
Speaker 1: that was like one of the higher that was like
Speaker 1: one of the things that we talked about right away
Speaker 1: because it affected my daily life. But there's still I
Speaker 1: mean I think that it's like I guess reorienting my
Speaker 1: brain to be like, Okay, this is something I need
Speaker 1: to learn to live with I'm not going to be
Speaker 1: able to kill it. Yeah, because there are still like
Speaker 1: stuff with OCD that is like a day to day
Speaker 1: thing that you know, I try to have a better
Speaker 1: relationship with. I have to I have to walk a
Speaker 1: certain number of miles every single day or I'll you know, explode.
Speaker 1: That's great, Wow, I allowed to keep those ones. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I wish I had a problem that was like you
Speaker 1: have to exercise and move your body. That would be
Speaker 1: like a great like obsession for me to have. Mine's
Speaker 1: like the opposite of that, like I can't well, it
Speaker 1: gets kind of like there's no direction in which it
Speaker 1: is like completely applicable because it's like I even that
Speaker 1: like with with my last therapist. At first he was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that sounds good. That's a healthy one, and then like
Speaker 1: I took it too far, and then I I was like, sorry,
Speaker 1: I feel like shit today, and he's like why, I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: the skin's falling off my feet. I'm taking so many steps.
Speaker 1: I was literally gonna say, like your legs are broken.
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, maybe you don't keep walking, don't you know,
Speaker 1: Like that's crazy. You just can't apply that level of
Speaker 1: energy to everything, so it's like I've had to learn
Speaker 1: to distribute, right the energy and all that shit indifferent.
Speaker 1: So anyways, work is actually you know not sometimes probably
Speaker 1: I take it too far, but for the most part,
Speaker 1: it's like, Okay, this is something specific, it is a task,
Speaker 1: and I'm putting this energy here and it's helpful because
Speaker 1: then you don't put it somewhere else. And I and
Speaker 1: I think to bring us back on topic, well, I
Speaker 1: mean whatever, there's no on topic on this podcast, but
Speaker 1: one quick thing I'll say, and then I do want
Speaker 1: to talk about the book because like, you know, like
Speaker 1: you've just done it and it's kind of wild, and
Speaker 1: I want to get into a little bit. But I
Speaker 1: was going to say on the exposure therapy thing. What's
Speaker 1: interesting to me and what has been eye opening personally
Speaker 1: is the realms and ranges of treatment that exist now
Speaker 1: that I feel like there was like a very one
Speaker 1: size fits all solution when I was younger, and now
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, like, if this particular medication or this
Speaker 1: particular sort of strategy, you know, or therapy isn't working,
Speaker 1: there are these other things you can do, and like
Speaker 1: they could actually be better and improve the situation, and
Speaker 1: like it's interesting to have a menu of options now
Speaker 1: instead of um, I don't know whatever. I don't know
Speaker 1: what people were doing before there was you could even
Speaker 1: like talk to a doctor about this stuff. But I
Speaker 1: mean they were going insane, is what was happening. They
Speaker 1: were their la but they were just kind of having
Speaker 1: worse lives than they should have, right, right, they were
Speaker 1: all very draper or whatever. I don't know. Yeah, now
Speaker 1: completely on topic. You wrote a book. Yes, it's called
Speaker 1: Raw Dog. Yes, what is the subtitle? Uh, The Secret
Speaker 1: History of hot Dogs? I think, yeah, yeah, Now, I'll
Speaker 1: be honest you, I haven't I'm not finished it yet.
Speaker 1: It's but I I've read a bunch of it. And
Speaker 1: did you mentioned it early on that there's like some
Speaker 1: horny parts of the book, which I think is interesting
Speaker 1: and I think I guess I was like, oh, that
Speaker 1: makes sense. Like hot dogs are somehow I guess just
Speaker 1: naturally they're very they're extremely phallic. Yeah, and they're like
Speaker 1: you know meat, it's not like just a shape, it's
Speaker 1: like made of you know, animal parts. And let's pretend
Speaker 1: someone's listening to this and they have no idea. They
Speaker 1: haven't listened to the rest of this podcast. I don't
Speaker 1: know what's happening with them. They just joined us. But
Speaker 1: explain the book to it to a lay person, how
Speaker 1: would you describe this? The book is, I mean, it
Speaker 1: is quite simply about hot dogs. It is. There are
Speaker 1: other books about hot dogs, but I've never found I
Speaker 1: wasn't able to find a book that was about hot
Speaker 1: dogs that also was I guess like funny or or critical.
Speaker 1: Those are the two things they've found missing. It was
Speaker 1: just like, here's some information about hot dogs that they
Speaker 1: were aimed at people who love hot dogs and don't
Speaker 1: want to love hot dogs any less than they already
Speaker 1: do because they don't want to be challenged on hot
Speaker 1: dogs in any way. Right. And I feel like my
Speaker 1: my my tendency. When I get interested in something, it's
Speaker 1: like I want to know every single thing about it,
Speaker 1: whether it's good or bad, and present it to people
Speaker 1: the best way I can, and then let them decide
Speaker 1: how they feel about it. It's none of my business.
Speaker 1: And there wasn't an equivalent of that for hot dogs.
Speaker 1: You could read about, you know, the horrific things going
Speaker 1: on and meat packing factories, or you could read a
Speaker 1: fun guide book about where to eat hot dogs across
Speaker 1: the country, and I was like, I think that there
Speaker 1: is actually something interesting about trying to present both in
Speaker 1: the same space and hopefully, you know, have it be
Speaker 1: funny and find moments of like levity inside of it.
Speaker 1: And then I'm also talking about like the road trip
Speaker 1: I took to research it right while not trying to
Speaker 1: you know, shy away from the stuff that is like
Speaker 1: genuinely scary and fucked up. And then also like there's
Speaker 1: all of these like side quests of stuff that I
Speaker 1: didn't think was like, oh my god, like this is
Speaker 1: a huge like microcosm for this big issue, but it's
Speaker 1: hot dogs. It's I don't know, Yeah, can you describe
Speaker 1: like a side quest, Like what would be one of
Speaker 1: the that you consider a side quest in the book?
Speaker 1: One of the side I mean this is like a
Speaker 1: more of a horny side quest. But like the Wienermobile,
Speaker 1: Like that's a thing that like, you know, I knew
Speaker 1: of most people know about in the States at least,
Speaker 1: and but like you talk to people who drive the
Speaker 1: Wienermobile and they're like, oh, yeah, everyone's fucking you know,
Speaker 1: like or in the in the Wienermobile, there is an
Speaker 1: extremely high rate of people who drive the Wienermobile who
Speaker 1: end up getting married. Like it's like, yeah, you mean
Speaker 1: like people who are drivers and they get into a
Speaker 1: relationship and then they get married Wienermobile people. When you're
Speaker 1: driving the Wienermobile, there's still pretty um. They have their
Speaker 1: reasons for this. I don't know what a way to
Speaker 1: feel about it, but they're still pretty gender essential over
Speaker 1: at Oscar Meyer. So generally they will have a man
Speaker 1: and a woman driving the Wienermobile and very often this
Speaker 1: will result in uh fucking in marriage. And then yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I mean it makes sense in a way. I mean
Speaker 1: you're driving six months, six months at a time with
Speaker 1: one person, You're in the Fallus car. I mean it's
Speaker 1: very suggestive, just dick on the mind NonStop. But probably
Speaker 1: I would imagine that. Or hot dogs, which are you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know sure. I mean I don't think about
Speaker 1: sex and hot dogs as a thing, but I'm sure
Speaker 1: that a lot of people do. Are you a hot
Speaker 1: dog fan? Do you eat them? Well? I am vegetarian,
Speaker 1: now that's okay. I was vegetarian and then I went
Speaker 1: through a thing over during kind of during the pandemic.
Speaker 1: I was like, fuck this, I'm ski whatever. I'm skin
Speaker 1: eat everything. I don't care, like I can't do it anymore.
Speaker 1: I'm going to just eat whatever. If an animal happens
Speaker 1: by and I'm hungry, it's that's it. Yeah, you're Ferrel. Yeah,
Speaker 1: exactly Ferrell indeed, and then and then so now I've
Speaker 1: gone back. I do like hot dogs. They're not something
Speaker 1: that I eat very often. My daughter loves tofu dogs.
Speaker 1: There's a company called smart Dogs. They're lightlight. They make
Speaker 1: us think they're very good. They're good. They're actually I mean.
Speaker 1: The weird thing about it is if you can if
Speaker 1: you can model like a little bit of the spicing
Speaker 1: of a hot dog and the casing a bit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you can get those kind of right, like you
Speaker 1: basically have all the things you need, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, because it's such a weird Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: the hot dog itself is like made up of like
Speaker 1: what you would know you could describe specifically, like what's
Speaker 1: in a hot dog. Typically it's like a foot, I
Speaker 1: mean it really depends, but leftovers basically. Yeah, it's like
Speaker 1: the stuff they can't use in anything else. They're like,
Speaker 1: if we grind this up, fine enough. Yeah, it's mostly head. Yes,
Speaker 1: I don't think about food very much. I was actually
Speaker 1: just talking about this with my wife. I was saying, like,
Speaker 1: she'll get obsessed with like this idea, she wants to
Speaker 1: have this thing, like this soup or whatever. I hardly ever,
Speaker 1: I'll have a sandwich of any type. Basically, I love
Speaker 1: a sandwich, and as we know, a hot dog is
Speaker 1: not a sandwich. So oh is that your feeling? No,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I actually don't have a strong opinion.
Speaker 1: Do you think of hot dogs a sandwich? I just
Speaker 1: am like, if that's the number one thing on someone's mind,
Speaker 1: they should buy the book because there's more interesting debates
Speaker 1: surrounding hot dogs, right right. I don't. I'm not trying to.
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to spark a debate over that. But yeah, so,
Speaker 1: I mean I like hot dogs. Do you still eat them? Now?
Speaker 1: Do you feel like you've done a book, You've like
Speaker 1: gone across the country. Are you still get hungry for
Speaker 1: a hot dog? Yes? I do, Um, which kind of
Speaker 1: surprises me. I didn't think that that would be where
Speaker 1: I would land. Um. I skew more veggie dogs these days,
Speaker 1: just because of learning so much about But I am not,
Speaker 1: you know, completely vegetarian, I will still eat meat hot
Speaker 1: dog and you know, live with myself for that. I'm
Speaker 1: interested to talk to people once they read the book
Speaker 1: about how they how it makes them feel, because I
Speaker 1: do think it's like I think my first time like
Speaker 1: bumping up against something like this was like seeing supersize
Speaker 1: me when I was a kid, which I don't remember,
Speaker 1: you know, how thoughtfully done that actually was. But I
Speaker 1: do remember being like, oh shit, I shouldn't eat McDonald's.
Speaker 1: And then I didn't eat McDonald's for a couple of months,
Speaker 1: and then I went back to eating McDonald's because it
Speaker 1: was good and it was what my family could afford.
Speaker 1: And I just like, willfully let that information leave my brain. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that there is a lot of like meat
Speaker 1: eaters that um that go through go through that, And
Speaker 1: that's sort of what I found too, is like when
Speaker 1: the road trip ended, I did stop eating hot dogs
Speaker 1: for a while, but then a little bit and and
Speaker 1: I have more information than like, you know, I'm in
Speaker 1: the I'm in the top percentile of people with information
Speaker 1: about this, and I still went back to eating meat
Speaker 1: hot dogs. I mean, I don't I don't know, I
Speaker 1: don't know you I mean, you wrote a fucking book
Speaker 1: about hot dogs, so like if you wrote the book literally, so,
Speaker 1: I mean you definitely are in in terms of information
Speaker 1: about the thing. You're in a rarefied space. Right, There's
Speaker 1: like four other hot dog experts in the world who
Speaker 1: can meet in this guy named Bruce who I would
Speaker 1: really like to meet. I hope you would like Bruce
Speaker 1: wat let's get him, maybe we can. Maybe he's listening
Speaker 1: right now. Bruce. What is his last name? Bruce Craig
Speaker 1: with a kay. Yeah. I found his book about hot
Speaker 1: dogs that was like kind of the north Star because
Speaker 1: he had a lot of interesting stuff in there, right,
Speaker 1: and you want to meet Bruce and compare notes. I
Speaker 1: would love to meet Bruce. I just yeah, I would
Speaker 1: like to know what Bruce thinks of the book if
Speaker 1: he reads it. I would like to chat with him.
Speaker 1: I don't know, I just kind of want to. I
Speaker 1: just would like to, even if it was private, have
Speaker 1: a hot dog with him. I'd like to sit down
Speaker 1: with Bruce at some point. I mean, I'm I'm hopeful
Speaker 1: we'll see how he feels well. I hope that happens, Okay,
Speaker 1: I think we Unfortunately, as much as I would like
Speaker 1: to continue talking to you. We have to wrap up
Speaker 1: before we do that. Obviously, you've just done this book
Speaker 1: about hot dogs, Raw Dog May twenty third. You can
Speaker 1: buy it at whatever ethic book outlet you'd like to
Speaker 1: purchase it at. I should note my wife is opening
Speaker 1: a bookstore here in the town that we live in,
Speaker 1: No Way, and that's called it's called Make Belief Books.
Speaker 1: You should come and read. You should do a reading
Speaker 1: at the bookstore. Actually just occurred to me, that's amazing.
Speaker 1: This is if you're ever out in the New York area.
Speaker 1: We're just outside the setting. I am. Yeah, we're very excited.
Speaker 1: So cool. Oh, congratulations to her. That's amazing. I literally
Speaker 1: have spent the last several months building shelves for the bookstore.
Speaker 1: So um, it's very thrilling. Oh wow, I'm so excited.
Speaker 1: That's great anyhow, But May twenty third, your book is out, Yes,
Speaker 1: you have a lot going on. What are some other
Speaker 1: things that people should be looking out for that you're
Speaker 1: working on or that you're doing right now? Sure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've got a new podcast coming out in June that
Speaker 1: hasn't quite been announced yet, but it's about a political
Speaker 1: scandal that happened in Alaska. Are we allowed to talk
Speaker 1: about that? Is that? Are you under NDA that? I
Speaker 1: can say that, but I can't say much more than
Speaker 1: that right now. But yeah, it's it's the next um
Speaker 1: reported podcast that I worked on. It's about Alaska. And
Speaker 1: then over this summer I wrote on Star Trek Lower Decks. Oh,
Speaker 1: on Paramount Plus. That was really fun and um yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that that comes out in like July and August.
Speaker 1: So I thought I was worried for a second. You're
Speaker 1: gonna be like I worked on the Big Bang Theory
Speaker 1: reunion show or something like, Yeah, I really want to
Speaker 1: bring it up, but uh no, I worked on I
Speaker 1: worked on a Star Trek show, which is wild because
Speaker 1: I didn't know very much about it. But oh really,
Speaker 1: you're not You're not a Trekkie. You're not a Star
Speaker 1: Trek fan. I mean I am now, but prior to
Speaker 1: coming in I had I mean I watched it growing up,
Speaker 1: but I didn't have my obsessive brain did not latch
Speaker 1: on to Star Trek facts. But it was fun because
Speaker 1: once it was you know, once it's in front of you,
Speaker 1: there's it's a crazy universe CD charcutery board. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: much to jump into it's great, that's fantastic. Um, first off,
Speaker 1: you do have to come here and into a book reading.
Speaker 1: You should definitely do that. If you get out to
Speaker 1: the chasm, you've got to come back because there's so
Speaker 1: much more that we could talk about and h and
Speaker 1: I just I found this conversation totally fascinating. I have
Speaker 1: to say, like the conversation about just mental health and
Speaker 1: dealing with it. I mean I've like touched on it
Speaker 1: a little bit here and there, like I made jokes
Speaker 1: about having ADD, but I haven't had a lot of
Speaker 1: like very candid conversations about I don't usually talk about
Speaker 1: it very much. So like I enjoyed having that back
Speaker 1: and forth. So this is like super helpful. I mean honestly,
Speaker 1: I was like, my partner has ADD and sometimes it
Speaker 1: I feel like like a d D and OCD kind
Speaker 1: of chaf in a weird way sometimes where you're just oh,
Speaker 1: I'm sure, like it's helpful for me to talk to
Speaker 1: other people with ADD because I'm like, yeah, totally like it.
Speaker 1: Just like I don't know, it's interesting, No, it's fascinating. Anyhow, Jamie,
Speaker 1: thank you so much. This was awesome and you got
Speaker 1: to come back and do it again sometimes I would
Speaker 1: love that. Thank you for having me well, Jamie is
Speaker 1: the best I have to say. And and what a sprawling,
Speaker 1: strange conversation in the way. I did not think we
Speaker 1: were going to be talking about as much as we
Speaker 1: did end up talking about. I feel like I've exposed
Speaker 1: myself in a way that was, you know, fairly cathartic.
Speaker 1: Getting back to my original comment about my own talent,
Speaker 1: I may have met my match and Jamie because I
Speaker 1: feel like it's like I was being interviewed in some
Speaker 1: parts of this in some moments. But it was good.
Speaker 1: You know, read the book. That's all I can say.
Speaker 1: It's fascinating, well worth your time. Now I have to go.
Speaker 1: I'm actually starving. We talked about hot dogs so much
Speaker 1: that I started to think, like I do want to
Speaker 1: eat one, which is a testament to the power of
Speaker 1: the dog. Anyhow, that is our show for this week.
Speaker 1: We'll be back next week with more what future, And
Speaker 1: as always, I wish you and your family very, very,
Speaker 1: very very best.