00:00:08 Speaker 1: Well, I invited you here. I thought I made myself perfectly clear. When you're a guest in my home, you gotta come to me empty. And I said, no guests, your presences presents, and I already had too much stuff. 00:00:35 Speaker 2: So how do you dare to surbey me? 00:00:48 Speaker 3: Welcome to? I said, no gifts. I'm Bridger Winninger. I hope you're doing okay. This is a very special type of episode. We're outdoors, and so you might occasionally hear some sound of nature, and I don't want that to scare you or to agitate you. If you hear a bird or a police helicopter, that's a bonus that's free of charge. Most other podcasts will not be giving you that, so enjoy it. You're not going to get that that often, even on this podcast. And the other thing that's very exciting about this episode is there going to be hearing a familiar voice, and just moments a voice that you hear. You just heard the person who wrote and sings our theme song and a lot of more important songs. Amy man Amy, Welcome to. I said no gifts. 00:01:42 Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Bridger Amy. 00:01:45 Speaker 3: How are you doing? 00:01:46 Speaker 4: You know, I think the standard COVID. Answer is like hanging in there, right, And as we were just discussing, I've sort of recently come down with I don't know if that's the term developed a my grainy disorder, which now I'm understanding, is I mean some kind of basically like brain malfunction that just causes all sorts of weird symptoms. And in my case, it's not it's not like really a headache. It's sort of a dozzy feeling. It feels like a constant hangover. And also like the symptoms just get their symptoms just sort of develop, like they just add on. You're like, oh, oh this is great. Now I can't look at my phone screen or I gets it or you know, computer screen, or oh I can't watch TV anymore? Oh grant because it's not at all a pandemic that you have to try to kill time on Netflix with. 00:02:45 Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's you know, so it's up and down. Right. 00:02:49 Speaker 3: When did this develop? 00:02:51 Speaker 2: It was like six months ago? 00:02:52 Speaker 3: Okay, so you've just been hanging in with this migraine for basically COVID. 00:02:58 Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I did you know? I had a few I had like four had four months where I felt like a good time off and then I can do I was like doing a lot of work and writing and doing a lot of stuff, just. 00:03:12 Speaker 3: Enjoying the pandemic in general. 00:03:13 Speaker 4: This means like I literally can't do anything. It's it's kind of crazy. I can walk and I can drive. 00:03:21 Speaker 2: I'm trying to hear. 00:03:21 Speaker 4: I'm gonna I'm going to count my blessings right and walk and drive and I can. 00:03:26 Speaker 3: Read some reading for me. I mean I made this connection recently with migraines when I had one recently. I mean, it is the sickness that you can't be entertained. So it's just you just literally have to suffer. Yeah, it's absolutely terrible. I mean that's part of the reason you're here in my backyard rather than I mean, God bless Zoom, but it is a terrible service. So this is a bit of a blessing that we get to see each other in three dimensions. 00:03:51 Speaker 4: I can't stare at a Zoom screen's nightmare. 00:03:55 Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a large part of my job right now is being on Zoom meetings. And so when I had a migrain, I just had to at eleven am go into the bedroom and close my computer. 00:04:04 Speaker 4: And how long just excuse the migraine. Talkin cast your regular listeners. 00:04:12 Speaker 2: How long does yours last? Mine? 00:04:14 Speaker 3: So far? And knock on wood. This is as bad as they ever get. Is once a year, usually in the fall. I think, maybe do fall or winter the winter change yet or the weather change. I get it for about a day, and usually they come at night and then I can just sleep it off. But this recent one was alarming because it was basically two hours after waking up, so I couldn't even sleep through it. It was just go and lay down and be miserable. 00:04:39 Speaker 4: Mine's worse than night. But it means I can't sleep. I can't sleep. 00:04:43 Speaker 3: Oh that's awful. 00:04:44 Speaker 4: If I could sleep sitting up, which is really not easy. It's really it's really like how it's just logistically impossible. 00:04:54 Speaker 3: Yeah, And speaking of all of this, this was an interesting I felt very close to you the second the day after the migraine. The migraine had essentially gone away, but I was still having a hard time looking at screens. And you recently gifted Jim and I my boyfriend, a copy of Bachelor Number two on vinyl, and it was in my office and I placed it over my computer screen. It was the only thing, the only appropriate size thing to cover the screen, so I was able to continue to communicate with my coworkers. But I was looking at your album. 00:05:25 Speaker 4: Cover hilarious, and I'm so glad to have been of help. 00:05:28 Speaker 3: It felt like a real Migraine gift that you had given me, so I really appreciate that. Speaking of Jim, the way we met was kind of interesting. Do you remember anything about this. We were at a party and you and I had followed each other on Twitter for a while, but we didn't know each other. 00:05:49 Speaker 2: Was it at an ice cream place? 00:05:52 Speaker 3: You know? It was at a pizza party. 00:05:54 Speaker 4: That's of course. I can't eat pizza, miserable. I'm one of those people with like a hundred allergies, which I think is also migraine related. 00:06:03 Speaker 3: Oh I bet it is. But yeah, Jim and I were sitting there and he said, oh, is that Amy Mann? And I said, yes, leave her alone, don't talk to her because I didn't want to bother you. 00:06:12 Speaker 2: Imber, yes, I remember, yeah, yeah. 00:06:14 Speaker 3: He immediately just we have a leaf falling on the tables, a beautiful long piece of leaves. But Jim immediately be lined over to you, as he does with everyone and just started chatting, and now we've been friends for a couple of years. 00:06:29 Speaker 4: I was so glad by the way because I had there was no one I knew there, and I right no want to talk to and like I couldn't even look busy by eating pizza. 00:06:41 Speaker 3: Yeah, that's usually my move is to just find some food to at least look like you've got something going on in your life. But if you've got a gluten intolerance of somebody, you can't even you have a glass of water. 00:06:50 Speaker 4: No glute, no dairy now, no red wine, like literally. 00:06:57 Speaker 2: It really is, I know. 00:06:59 Speaker 4: And then when you read about the migraine diet, it's like no beans, no, like, no food that are that's like more than a day old. Like what that's everything you can't have leftover. 00:07:12 Speaker 3: You have to become a farmer and just take everything straight from the field. 00:07:15 Speaker 4: It's like every the only fruit, no oranges, no CITs. The only fruit left is apples. Like, I can't even tell you. 00:07:23 Speaker 3: How are you getting into a varieties of apples? 00:07:27 Speaker 4: No, it's just like whatever, just shove a I'm hungry, so I guess I'll just shove my fourth apple of the day. 00:07:38 Speaker 3: What sort of apple are you eating today? 00:07:41 Speaker 2: Is brayburn? 00:07:42 Speaker 3: Oh I've never heard of a bray burn. 00:07:44 Speaker 2: Just like whatever was that? 00:07:45 Speaker 4: Lessons grabbed a few, but I had to say with a little mealy, which I think just means it's probably older. 00:07:54 Speaker 3: Right, more than a day old, more than its off diet. I want the migraine diet to become like a that sweeps the nation. 00:08:01 Speaker 4: I can't even tell you it's literally every food and then. But they also don't agree. So like when I could search the web, like trying to find more information, like you know, some bananas and pineapple and all citrus is I'm like a vocado avocado. 00:08:17 Speaker 3: These are mild things. 00:08:19 Speaker 4: I know, gluten jerry, so literally vinegar, enjoy eating your lettuce draw. 00:08:27 Speaker 3: I mean I could at least on some of them, see vinegar because it is a strong flavor, so I can be like, well maybe there's something stronger than in it. But with an avocados, what did an avocado ever do? All? Right? So what are you eating? What's a normal diet day? 00:08:44 Speaker 4: Like a lot of chicken. My husband Michael. 00:08:47 Speaker 3: Pan, excellent chef and possion. 00:08:50 Speaker 4: Michael Pan, figured out a recipe for a gluten free bread that didn't oh, like all the additives to like the xanthem gum and that's all forbidden. So he so he's making me bread, so like the bread and apples and chicken and like roccally that's like literally alimating. 00:09:09 Speaker 3: It's just like what it's essentially the food pyramid, the little images you see in the food period just they can't mix together. They've got to be more than I mean less than a day. My leaves of that is well, migraines are very it's such a weird, mysterious ailment. I feel like somebody's got to clamp down on that. That's a shark take pitch if I've ever heard one. 00:09:31 Speaker 4: So I just got to discovery is we can cut this out. I know, I'm really like, you know, I'm a migraine bore. 00:09:38 Speaker 3: I think it's a very interesting topic because it's like one of these the few things that we don't know what causes it, so. 00:09:44 Speaker 2: Such a weird mystery. 00:09:45 Speaker 4: And what I what I recently discovered is that there's a protein called c g RP that is also that that that's the thing that causes that inflammation, right, you know, which is sort of present in the you know, migraine storm or whatever surge or whatever it is. 00:10:02 Speaker 2: But that's also. 00:10:03 Speaker 4: What happens in COVID when you know, when the body sort of overreacts and you know, fills up your lung lungs with fluid and everything. Right, So one of the treatment one and the new treatments is monoclonal antibodies, which is also treatment for COVID. 00:10:18 Speaker 2: So oh, I started doing that. I knows. 00:10:21 Speaker 4: I'm really excited, Like, please, let this be the miracle cure, right, just let me like be able to watch TV, yes, for the length of a movie. 00:10:32 Speaker 3: I don't think that that's asking too much when it's truly the only thing we can do right now. You should be able to watch a television probably. 00:10:38 Speaker 4: And I'm like the crazy person where a sunglasses in the drug store now, because fluorescent lights are just murder. 00:10:44 Speaker 3: Fluorescent lights, even without a migraine, will cause a headache. Yeah, it's the worst type of light we've developed. Yeah, we've got a CVS. Lighting situation is just agony for me. 00:10:56 Speaker 4: Yeah, remember when, like back when Trump was like going on and on about light bulbs, like they. 00:11:01 Speaker 2: Won't let you have the light bulbs. Like now, I'm like you know. What I'm kind of about. 00:11:05 Speaker 3: This is when we find out that you've gone mega. 00:11:08 Speaker 4: Kind of on the side, like bring back then In Kandessa light Bulb. 00:11:11 Speaker 3: Amy is walking around the pharmacy with a red hat on, screaming at the employees lighting. We do need to we need to clamp down onto that. If we could just capture the energy of the sun in a light bulb, just get some nice natural lighting for all of us. Yeah, that's all I asked for. 00:11:28 Speaker 2: How could it can't be that hard. 00:11:31 Speaker 4: It can't be that difficult, NASA or the Space Force on it. 00:11:37 Speaker 3: Oh, Amy, have you ever been in a public feud? 00:11:41 Speaker 2: I will say that I had. 00:11:43 Speaker 4: There was a little I mean, I can't even call this a feud because it was supposed to be a joke. But when when I was nominated for an Oscar for the for the song Saved Me for Magnolia, the movie Magnolia, and I was up against Phil Colin, and I like, and I did an interview about it, and as a joke, I was like, I always thought it would be really funny to you know, like when they have the camera on you to like oh like uh, and you know, be visibly angry and upset. Of course, I actually I said it. I said it at a show and then and then of course, like somebody reported it because it's. 00:12:23 Speaker 2: Like hot news. Like I don't really be like who he. 00:12:26 Speaker 4: Was even paying attention to what I'm saying at a show, but you know, but then it like got printed in US magazine, like you know, Amy Man is like furious that or like it's going to cause a scene or so it was something like that, so that I did, you know, then we did see like Phil Collins backstage like kind of like very unamused, like yeah, so it didn't really rise to the level of feud, but it was publicly uncomfortable. 00:12:56 Speaker 2: Like, no, it's a joke, don't you get it? 00:12:59 Speaker 4: Because it's they always have the camera on people and and everybody's gracious, would it'd be funny if there's one person. 00:13:05 Speaker 3: Who knows in the moment, people would get it. 00:13:08 Speaker 4: Yeah, no one, No one thought that was funny. 00:13:10 Speaker 3: Also, in this territory something I'm always curious to ask you, and I feel like in more in this interview type context, do you have a least favorite song? 00:13:18 Speaker 2: I do? 00:13:18 Speaker 3: Oh, I want to hear it. 00:13:19 Speaker 2: I do? 00:13:20 Speaker 4: I have two that VI for worst song, and one is COmON Eileen. Oh interesting I have and I have a lot of friends who love that song. I don't understand. It's just so it's it's just there's a tambour to it that is grading and possibly I'm influenced by the visual of like the shirtless overall from the radio from the eighties and then Ebane and Ivory. 00:13:48 Speaker 3: Wait do I know Ebony and Ivory? Who Paul McCartney and steal Oh, I don't know that, but that's kind of famously one of his worst songs. 00:13:54 Speaker 2: God God bless them. 00:13:55 Speaker 4: I mean, because Paul McCartney is like the quintessential genius of our time. 00:13:59 Speaker 2: But right, it just. 00:14:00 Speaker 4: Didn't that feels like a huge misfire too, Treaily Yeah, right, I. 00:14:05 Speaker 3: Mean, And when you're Paul McCartney, occasionally you can just absolutely real. It's a devastating song. Yeah, you've built up in wigs. Still it's still and he's still moving, He's still it just put out a. 00:14:18 Speaker 2: New album makes me happy for him. 00:14:21 Speaker 3: He's someone who just seems to enjoy doing it. 00:14:24 Speaker 4: So he's just so musically astute. I'm more and more impressed with him. Is the older I get. I just realized, like, how effortlessly great he is? 00:14:34 Speaker 3: Right, Well, I mean I can kind of I like, come on, Eileen, But I can absolutely see why the relentless. 00:14:43 Speaker 4: It's just like it's jolliness is like intrusive. It's like somebody forcing you to drink four beers in a row, Like it has that like. 00:14:55 Speaker 3: No, that makes perfect sense to me. I think my absolutely's favorite song is Red Red Wine by Ub forty. 00:15:02 Speaker 2: That comes up a lot. Oh it does, it does. 00:15:05 Speaker 3: Oh, that makes me feel much more comfortable. 00:15:07 Speaker 4: I mean in that if you were a Tory musician, there is inevitably going to be times in the front lounge where people start taking a poll as to what you think the worst song ever read right, and Red red Wine is definitely and Lady in Red also Lady. 00:15:28 Speaker 3: I made a playlist of my least favorite songs recently, and then I thought it was to one end. 00:15:34 Speaker 2: No, No, that's to the end that it needs to happen. 00:15:37 Speaker 3: But then I was like, if I share this, it just is it's furthering their devastation on humanity. I don't want to share this. It feels like a secret formula I have to hide away or something. They're also bad. 00:15:48 Speaker 4: I wonder if we would agree on it everyone. I wonder if there's a song on there that I secretly like. 00:15:55 Speaker 3: I would love. I should I should have come with a list. I mean, I feel like life is a high way is definitely on the top of the list. Any version of life as a highway has it. 00:16:03 Speaker 4: Has its points. I can find points in Life is a highway good points. You know what, it's a jam. 00:16:08 Speaker 3: It is certainly not a jam. Everything it represents is horrible. 00:16:15 Speaker 2: I love how outrage you. 00:16:17 Speaker 3: Are that that intro with the guitar. I'm just immediately in a horrible mood. I'm imagining that jackasses listening to it. 00:16:25 Speaker 2: I mean, so life is not a highway. 00:16:27 Speaker 3: Life is certainly not a highway. And even if it is, we didn't didn't need a song about it. I mean, in what. 00:16:33 Speaker 4: Way now I have to refresh my memory? And what way is life a highway? Because you have to ride You want. 00:16:40 Speaker 3: To write it all night long, which doesn't make any sense. 00:16:43 Speaker 2: To ride a highway all night long. 00:16:45 Speaker 3: I can't relate to that in anymore. 00:16:47 Speaker 4: It should be like life is a pony, you want to ride it all day. 00:16:51 Speaker 2: See, I've already. 00:16:52 Speaker 3: Approved it or life is an ambling street, neighborhood street. Occasionally you go through areas that aren't as comfortable. Sometimes they're not, you know, fall leaves. You get to go at your own speed. If you go too fast, people are in danger. That feels right to me. But if you're just life, you're not constantly going seventy miles an hour. That I mean, that's this is written by someone on cocaine. 00:17:14 Speaker 4: Yeah, where his highway is a different highway because he is driving in a different car, is fueled by different substances. 00:17:22 Speaker 3: That is a Corvette song, and the whole Corvette genre I think is not really my speed. Yeah, oh, I bad to the bone, but that's an obvious one. Yeah, oh, I should have written down the list. We'll have to We're going to swap at some point because i'd like to hear. I feel like you can't. I mean, the fact that you're defending life as a highway is a little shocking to me. 00:17:42 Speaker 4: No. I try to find the good points, like does it have a part of it that I liked? 00:17:47 Speaker 2: And have a lyric right, like. 00:17:48 Speaker 4: An Eddie Money song, Oh Eddie's Paradise. Yes, absolutely, I mean, you know, I'm a hater though, like you're absolutely in general I'm a hater, but I do you know, I'll give. I'll give somebody either due you know, if there's like a little piece of melody that I like, Wow song I enjoy. 00:18:10 Speaker 3: Bob Seger, I can see. I'm now just going to I just want to see if there are any others. I'm gonna see if I can find this lists really quick, it's. 00:18:18 Speaker 2: Worth the wait. 00:18:19 Speaker 4: I mean, I don't know, you know, in general, I don't like to slag other. 00:18:24 Speaker 3: Okay, these are safe to slag Jack and Diane. What do you think of Jack and Yeah, pu, let's see Born to Be Wild? 00:18:38 Speaker 2: You know, nostalgic reasons. 00:18:40 Speaker 3: Oh, I hate to say it, but until Collins is on here another day in Paradise, I should probably not be doing this. Uptown Funk. I'm sorry, this is not amy. 00:18:51 Speaker 2: What about Uptown Girl? 00:18:52 Speaker 3: Oftown Girl is that's pretty rough? Yeah? That song I can like tolerate, but is definitely bordering on absolute terror. 00:19:00 Speaker 4: Really come to like Billy Joel in the last few years. 00:19:03 Speaker 3: He I think Billy Joel is an amazing He's such a writer, right, Yeah, I mean, and he did he is it truly stop writing music, and yeah, that's an interesting able in some ways. 00:19:14 Speaker 2: Yeah, he's done, he had it, he had enough, right. 00:19:17 Speaker 3: I think some people just need to know when to stop. 00:19:20 Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, you know, if it's not doing it for you. I think he wrote some like classical if that's the word, pieces, right, you know, instrumental pieces. 00:19:31 Speaker 2: So maybe he just got, you know. 00:19:32 Speaker 4: Wanted to move on right right and expand and just to contract, relentlessly contractice. 00:19:41 Speaker 3: I feel like, I mean, we'll get into more of these songs off the podcast, because you never know. I mean, oh, I'm so tempted to just go through this whole list, but we have to move on. I do want to talk about We're going to get to another thing here. But and this is a gift based podcast, and something you have the ability to do as a gift is write people's songs, which you did for Jim. 00:20:03 Speaker 2: For Jim, yes, I wrote, I. 00:20:06 Speaker 4: Wrote, I totally forgot. I wrote him a song for his birthday that was about you, right, just about your relationship. 00:20:13 Speaker 3: It was about the you know, we've been together for about six years now, that's what we say, but there is it's actually we've been we were together for about two years and then we're broken up for about five minutes and then started our new era. And we were on vacation. We were in England and we got in a I think we were both very tired and got in a fight over like what breakfast restaurant we wanted to eat at. 00:20:37 Speaker 2: It's good, just a good thing to fight over. 00:20:39 Speaker 3: And we were sitting there and we essentially said we're not in a relationship anymore. And for whatever reason, I said to Jim, I'm now on vacation with a man. I know. 00:20:50 Speaker 2: And then I mean, that is the greatest line of all time. 00:20:55 Speaker 3: Thankfully I said it because it I mean, it made him laugh. I on some level, I wasn't trying to be funny. 00:21:03 Speaker 2: That's hilarious. 00:21:04 Speaker 3: But then our relationship was healed. And then this song came of it, and you wrote a whole song called I'm on vacation with a man. 00:21:11 Speaker 4: I know. 00:21:11 Speaker 2: That's the greatest line. That song writes itself. 00:21:14 Speaker 3: It's incredible. The song is really spectacular. But that to me, I'm so deeply jealous because for me to write that one song would take decades of my life. 00:21:26 Speaker 2: Well, you know, it's just. 00:21:29 Speaker 4: You develop a that's like the language you speak in when you speak it all the. 00:21:33 Speaker 3: Time, right, you know, it's just like learning to do math or something. 00:21:36 Speaker 4: Yeah, or you know, if like like an artist, you know, I think you start translating your thoughts of feelings into you know, visual ideas. I mean, I imagine it's kind of the same. 00:21:46 Speaker 3: Right, But it does require some innate ability, which is I. 00:21:50 Speaker 2: Think it requires some innate ability. 00:21:53 Speaker 4: But I did not start out being one of those musicians who, you know, just picked a guitar and learn how to play, you know, figured out how to play Beatles songs. Because I had such a great year. That was not me like, right, you know, I'm one of those people who learned and loved to learn and practiced and then got better. 00:22:13 Speaker 3: You are someone who loves to learn new things because you're always figuring out how to Like you've been learning to draw more during the pandemic. That to me, I admire the ability to just see a skill you want and then chase it. Yeah, but you're I also think it's a little unfair for you because you're just good at a lot of things naturally. 00:22:35 Speaker 4: Well, I've been trying to learn how to draw, for you know, for years and years you know, there was a point where my bass players are a really good cartoonist and we would sketch together, and you know, I look at those sketches and you know they're just not I mean, he said, like, if you feel this, fill this notebook up and it'll be better. 00:22:51 Speaker 2: You'll be better at the end of it. 00:22:52 Speaker 4: I mean, it's just it's a matter of practice, like everything, right, and then you know sometimes like looking at other cartoons is to see how they solve certain problems. And you know, I think if I really applied myself, I would be I would be better. But you know, again, like that was what I was doing at the start of the pandemic. But the concentrating on drawing is is like a migraine trigger, Like I can't, I can't do it right now. 00:23:20 Speaker 3: And can we talk about part of the reason you're learning to draw your project coming up? 00:23:26 Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, you know, I don't know what's gonna happen to it right now? 00:23:29 Speaker 3: Well who knows when? 00:23:30 Speaker 4: Yeah, So I'm I'm working on a graphic memoir. 00:23:34 Speaker 3: It's so great. 00:23:35 Speaker 4: You know, I sketched out the first chapter and then that's when I when I got sick. 00:23:40 Speaker 2: So you know, it's marinated. 00:23:43 Speaker 4: I mean to be honest, like I do think rummaging around in your past, which is I don't know how you feel about your past, but almost everything in my past is it's like a bomber and so like when I think about it, it actually it is kind of hard because you have this or put yourself back into a situation and remember what it was like and try to reconstruct events. And I have to say, like it, I wondered if it was like a little stressful, right, and that sort of contributed to my thing. 00:24:14 Speaker 3: Yeah maybe, I mean, yeah, looking back at your past, you have to both be an observer of it and feel it when you're trying to create something. I think that's a frustrating, stressful feeling to have. Yeah, you can't just go back and look at it and feel bad, But you can't also go back and just clinically look at it. So it's yeah, tricky thing, yeah. 00:24:32 Speaker 4: Exactly, or just sort of reliving the story or like looking at certain things that happened with new perspective, going, God, that is really sad, you know. 00:24:43 Speaker 3: I kind of my past I kind of try to look at in like ten year increments I give myself a pass every ten years. I'm like, if it's more than ten years ago, whatever I was, that's a different person. Yeah, so I can look at it a little bit easier. 00:24:56 Speaker 2: Yeah, I get that. 00:24:58 Speaker 4: I look back through some notebooks, you know, very sporadic diary keeper, and when I did write in a journal, it was just almost always about some terrible relationship. Right, so you're like, oh my god, is it this dumb guy again, Like, well we broke up, and this time it's like, oh, you know, I'm like I'm in my thirties. Like it's not like I'm not a kid, right, it's just so like, oh, I can't I Why couldn't I make a better choice, And like I couldn't, you know, like that was the best I could do. But you're just you know, you just want to go back and make different decisions, to deal with things in a. 00:25:39 Speaker 2: Different way, and you can't. It's very frustrating. 00:25:42 Speaker 3: Well, this is my trick is in my journal, I just wrote what I had for dinner that day and nothing else, and so I just forget everything else that's going on in my life, and the past just fades away, and soon I just won't remember the pain with the agony unless it was a bad meal. 00:25:56 Speaker 2: So yeah, that meal. Really you really kept track of. 00:26:02 Speaker 3: What what not to, right, Well, I don't want to veery. Wait, well I guess I do. I guess what we're going to because you've brought something here. And this isn't really my fault, you know, this is this podcast is called I said no gifts, and we've arranged for you to be in my backyard and all these things, and so I asked you to do this with just the simple request, Amy, don't bring me a gift. I know you, I know you're a generous person, but please, this one time, leave it be. And yet you show up today holding a bag. 00:26:41 Speaker 4: Well, I have some excuses. First of all, I want to say that my husband said you didn't bring him anything. 00:26:49 Speaker 2: You wrote a song for him. 00:26:51 Speaker 3: Well, Michael, look, she's just explained to us that writing a song is as easy as brushing her teeth. 00:27:00 Speaker 4: And then you know, but it's like there's a holiday that is happening, right you know. 00:27:08 Speaker 3: Okay, Well, I mean while we're here, while you're here, should I open it here on the podcast? 00:27:13 Speaker 2: Should I explain? 00:27:14 Speaker 4: I love when people explain their gifts beforehand, but I do have to. I have so many explanations. First of all, because it's a pandemic, so I can't go to a store. I can't look online to order a thing. So my gift is shopping the storage space. 00:27:34 Speaker 3: I love shopping in the storage space. 00:27:36 Speaker 4: And this was a thing that this is one of a thing that I for a while collected and absolutely loved. 00:27:46 Speaker 2: So it's not a piece of garbage bridger. It might be cat hair. 00:27:50 Speaker 4: It's a clump of cat hair that I've combed out cat It's mostly in the form of a ball, but there's a couple of strands that I. 00:28:02 Speaker 3: Spun gum wrappers, this kind of thing. 00:28:04 Speaker 2: So that's why. So so I shopped my storage space. 00:28:08 Speaker 3: I love to shop the storage space. I Jim recently found something in our office and he said, I can't believe you got me this gift. I was like, what, I don't remember getting you a gift, And then he told me what it was. And I wish I had been quicker on my feet and I would have just given it to him as a gift. But now he knows that it was just something from another event. We just own this thing, so well, let's see what what's inside. 00:28:32 Speaker 4: This may not remotely be your taste, but I'm taking a chance. 00:28:35 Speaker 3: Okay, let's give a shot. I'm going to freak out. If it's not my taste, you will be leaving the podcast while you're opening. 00:28:42 Speaker 4: I do want to say that to your audience, that that you had some some suggestions for the lyrics of the theme song, and you want I remember specifically you wanted the singer to be more angry about how the like I said, note of kifts, like can you make it like? So they're mad that like they were disobeyed, and. 00:29:07 Speaker 3: You did a perfect job, which, by the way, the final line of the song disobeyed me. My friend Leela texted me a while ago and she the first time she heard it, she thought the lyric was how can you dance with a baby? 00:29:20 Speaker 2: How can you dance with the baby? 00:29:22 Speaker 3: It's a great question. And then she covered the song and sent it to me. So now I have two versions, one about a baby and one the official version. 00:29:29 Speaker 1: Wait, oh, but. 00:29:31 Speaker 3: This is beautiful. This is a mask. 00:29:34 Speaker 2: It's gorgeous. 00:29:35 Speaker 3: Wait what kind of mask is this? 00:29:37 Speaker 4: It's an African mask. I think the tribe is Mollie and I used to collect African masks. I mean, I you know, because finally I just bought some. I had so many, like this is ridiculous, right stop, because you know it is when you collect you're like, oh my god, this there's another different, a different example of it that's even more beautiful. 00:29:57 Speaker 3: This is where did you get this? 00:29:59 Speaker 4: And this was like in the eighties there was a store that just sold kind of little art objects like you know, like that. 00:30:09 Speaker 3: This is an almost like Jim carries the mask I placed placed this on and become a like CG creation. This is so you have a lot of these homes in your storage. 00:30:19 Speaker 2: Space, I do. 00:30:20 Speaker 4: Well there we painted the wall so like we had to take them down, but we're going to put put them back up, and you know, and I had just more more than Michael will allow me to put on the wall. 00:30:33 Speaker 3: Quite frankly, he has a very strict number of masks that he can have on the wall. Yeah. 00:30:37 Speaker 4: When I when I recorded my the first record with my band Till Tuesday, we recorded a place called Bearsville in Woodstock and in the hall they had African masks and and that's where I got That's where I sort of oh got the you know, got the end because I just thought they're so interesting and I love like you from area to area. The style of the of the faces are so they're so different. 00:31:07 Speaker 3: And have you like read about these? Have you done something a little not that much? 00:31:12 Speaker 2: I mean I just thought they. 00:31:13 Speaker 3: Were beautiful, you know, and they are stunning. I mean it's like and it's just like faces. 00:31:17 Speaker 4: I thought this is interesting because it's got pounded like a figured metal and it has almost like a medieval look to it. 00:31:25 Speaker 3: Yeah, almost like Roman or something like the nose feels very very or something. I mean, it's stunning. So you started collecting these in the eighties. Yeah, and before the Internet, I would have no idea how to track down particular objects, Like what what was your initial thing trying to find masks? 00:31:44 Speaker 2: It was just this one this one store. 00:31:46 Speaker 3: You just it and they had them. 00:31:49 Speaker 2: Yeah. I was their best customer. 00:31:50 Speaker 4: I like literally bought everything, you know, like they would, you know, just every week I would come in and then they'd have more stuff. 00:31:57 Speaker 3: Oh that's incredible. Do you have I mean, how many ballpark would you say you own at this point? Twelve twelve mask? And is that like over the decades or was it like a concentrated gathering and then I'm done gathering masks. 00:32:11 Speaker 4: I think mostly Yeah, probably a period of over a period of a couple of years. 00:32:15 Speaker 3: Okay, do you collect anything else now. 00:32:18 Speaker 2: Or is this not now? 00:32:19 Speaker 4: I mean, I you know, I'm trying to get rid of stuff, but like once you have it, you know, it's really hard to give it away. 00:32:25 Speaker 3: Yes, unless you know you've got to find some more podcasts to go on. 00:32:29 Speaker 4: Yeah, yes, this should be your new thing. There's a part where I collected fossils. Why why I don't you know, like you just it's the collecting mind. I just think it's like that obsessive mind and you see a thing and you think it's cool, and you're like, I just have to I have to have. 00:32:44 Speaker 3: The wall, right completions, like I need collect the complete set now and with I thing like fossils, good luck? 00:32:51 Speaker 2: Yeah? Right? 00:32:52 Speaker 3: What sort of fossils were you getting? 00:32:54 Speaker 4: I don't even remember anymore, Like you know, I think I think it might have been the same store. Okay, they just had all sorts of interesting things. 00:33:02 Speaker 3: And for me, like a fish fossil doesn't do anything. I don't care to see a fish fossilized. But do we get into other animals, that sort of thing. I can get. 00:33:11 Speaker 2: Into it, those snail things. 00:33:13 Speaker 3: The snail things. Obviously any level of prehistoric dinosaurs pterodactyl I can get to full sized connect. 00:33:22 Speaker 4: If it's not terodactyl, don't even forget, you don't even bring it around. 00:33:27 Speaker 3: I live in a musicum. 00:33:28 Speaker 4: And then the other thing I collected, like these three collections of no or there's a couple more things because I like definitely went. I'm one of those people like who go into a you know, an antique store, thrist shop and it's like, oh, it's old, like that's all. I just literally all I require any era, anytalk. But so stuffed Santa's was, Oh stuffed Santa's. 00:33:51 Speaker 2: Yeah. There. 00:33:52 Speaker 4: I was on tour one time and went into you know, like like a thrist store and there was this stuff Santa there. My tour manager was like, wait till tomorrow, like you don't, you know, you don't want to load up on stuff. It's like the first day tour or whatever. So then I was just thinking about this adorable little stuff Santa all night. Like I went back and it was gone. So that just was like, oh my god, I have the search like the Holy grail of like the perfect stuff, Santa. 00:34:19 Speaker 2: I mean I probably have twenty five. 00:34:22 Speaker 3: Oh wow, a lot. Do you put them around the house. 00:34:25 Speaker 2: During the holidays. 00:34:27 Speaker 4: We used to just keep them around, but I mean, my god, we have so much stuff. 00:34:31 Speaker 3: You've been to our house, yeah, you do it, But I mean I've never seen an out of place stuffed Santa. No. 00:34:36 Speaker 4: I because we did a bunch of constructions, so we put stuff away and I never bought it back out because it's just, you know, there, it's just too much, too much. 00:34:46 Speaker 2: We got to winnow it down. 00:34:48 Speaker 3: You and Michael are surprising to me because you're two of the few people I know who have kind of real adult interests and things like this. But there are a few surprises, like, for example, you love Disneyland, especially with Michael. Right, Michael like he's a very he has a great sense of humor, but he's also like if you just were speaking to you didn't know him that well, you think he's a very serious person. Yeah, And so the first time I learned that he loves Disneyland, I was like, always kidding. 00:35:16 Speaker 2: He can be very intimidating because right. 00:35:18 Speaker 3: Because he's extremely intelligent and also is not afraid to give his opinion. 00:35:24 Speaker 4: Yeah, he is definitely not afraid to get his opinion. You know. He loves he loves to if I have like a you know, a doctor thinger insurance thing. He he loves to be the guy to He's like, give me the phone. I want to like, ye, I'll yell at them. He loves to, like tell people they're not doing their job right. 00:35:45 Speaker 3: That's what Jim posits himself as in the relationship. But really, when push comes to shove, he'll be like, I'll call him all yell at them. Never happens. He calls some of the He's perfectly nice. So I'm like, but you can't do that. 00:35:59 Speaker 4: Yeah, but you know, I don't know. It's easier to be nice when you know you were willing to yell. 00:36:06 Speaker 2: That's true. 00:36:07 Speaker 3: You didn't push me to yelling, and so I'm happy to deal with you. 00:36:12 Speaker 4: So you are you just like you just avoid your absolutely. 00:36:16 Speaker 2: It's like, you know what, I don't need it that much after a Yeah, that's me. 00:36:20 Speaker 3: I'll put it off at least as long as possible, to the point that something breaks something emotionally or physically literally, or I'll just let it fall away. And my life is worse because of it, and I just deal with it. Yeah, I rarely will confront So I guess that Jim toxic big game and then usually doesn't quite land on what he was telling me he'd do, but takes care of it. So I guess there's some value in that. Yeah, but I don't know. 00:36:50 Speaker 4: Well, back to the unanswered question. Yes, Michael does love Disneyland, and he loves Disneyland because I think actually because he used to go as a as a kid, because his father was a director and there was some like directors Guild, you know, gets in free day or something like that, But he also he loves it because it's very well art directed, because they did their job right. 00:37:17 Speaker 2: Yes. 00:37:18 Speaker 3: I mean once he explained, I was like, oh, of course this is Michael loves this because Disneyland is the ultimate example of art direction and people like staying on top of every detail at all times. 00:37:27 Speaker 2: Yes. 00:37:28 Speaker 3: So did he kind of introduce you to this and you found you enjoyed it? 00:37:32 Speaker 1: I had been. 00:37:34 Speaker 4: I had been before a long time ago. But then there's some some friends of ours and their kids like we went and we started going every year, right, and that was fun because it's nice to have a couple of kids around, right. 00:37:48 Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a little weird if it's just I've gone just with it like adults before. And it can be especially if the other person's not great at conversation. You're in line for hours, yea silence, it can be a difficult experience. 00:38:03 Speaker 2: To do a fast pass. 00:38:05 Speaker 3: You got to do the fast pass. Yeah, but ultimately you've got to take a child or you're gonna you're gonna be there for two hours and want to get out. 00:38:11 Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree. 00:38:13 Speaker 3: I don't know. Why don't we play a game? 00:38:15 Speaker 4: Oh? 00:38:15 Speaker 3: Okay, do you want to play a game called Gift Master or Gift or a Curse. 00:38:19 Speaker 2: Let's see Gift or a Curse. 00:38:20 Speaker 3: Okay, this is I feel like this will be a good game for you. Okay, I need a number between one and ten. 00:38:25 Speaker 2: Eight. 00:38:26 Speaker 3: Okay, I have to do some light calculating. So while I'm calculating, you can do whatever you want with the time. You can promote something. You can recommend something, Oh truly do and I feel like you should. If you don't promote something, I'm going to come back on and promote things for you because I feel like you're not. 00:38:41 Speaker 2: What do I have to promote. 00:38:42 Speaker 4: I put out a re release of a record of mine called Batcher number two that you referenced earlier. That is also has songs from the Magnolia soundtrack on it because they were all recorded at the same time, so we saw they should be on the same record. It's uh remastered, it has new liner notes, and uh what else. 00:39:10 Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't have anything else to promote. 00:39:11 Speaker 3: I calculated I was very efficient and managed to get it. Yeah, that's a great, uh great self promotion. I think that people should go out and get that. And also mental illness is a couple of years old now, but. 00:39:23 Speaker 4: We still press that many so I don't even know if there are any left so to promote that Enriched scalters, yeah, we may, you know, press up more at some point you should. 00:39:37 Speaker 3: It's a beautiful album and very nice packaging too. But this game Gift or a Curse. I'm going to name three things and you have to tell me if they're a gift or a curse and why and there are I have to be as clear as possible there are correct answers, so you can fail, and then you're going to drive home in shame. 00:39:55 Speaker 2: That's my usual part of driving. 00:39:59 Speaker 3: Number one gift or a curse Range Rovers. 00:40:04 Speaker 4: I'm not super familiar with Rangers at rovers, but I'm gonna say curse because I feel like they're at this point too big for the road nobody needs. We don't need big SUVs anymore. 00:40:17 Speaker 3: Excellent, Amy, excellent, You've done it. Range rovers are absolutely a curse. Why are we still making them? 00:40:26 Speaker 2: I don't know. Do they still make the Hummers? Those ones? 00:40:30 Speaker 3: I think Hummers coming back as an electric car, to be honest, for. 00:40:33 Speaker 4: God's sake, it's still a big, giant piece of junk. 00:40:37 Speaker 3: But with a range Rover, I just feel like you should know better. Yeah, these people, I mean, it's an expensive thing. I don't know, and for me, it's the car of people who like acknowledge climate change is real, but think that everybody else should do something about it. 00:40:53 Speaker 4: I think there's one other thing that that's like good marketing, and you don't I mean it's almost propaganda, like you don't realize that this is the way you're thinking. Because this happened to me in the nineties when I bought a Ford Explorer. Oh sure, you know, because I thought like, well, it'll you know, like I'm schlepping equipment around, right, and like it has like an outdoorsy woods. 00:41:18 Speaker 2: Well, because that's what you saw in the commercial. 00:41:20 Speaker 3: It was driving through a forest. 00:41:22 Speaker 4: Like there's nothing ecological about a rate of a Ford Explorer. 00:41:27 Speaker 3: Yeah, any SUV. The commercials should be them circling parking lots trying to find a parking that's truth in advertising. 00:41:34 Speaker 4: Totally totally agree. But like after the fact, I realized, like, oh, this is why you didn't question that, right, because you thought that you were buying some outdoorsy, sporty thing. 00:41:43 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:41:43 Speaker 3: I feel like those Ford Explorers were even like in like a forest green color. You would often see them in that. It was like everything was in their power. 00:41:50 Speaker 4: It's like tan, you know, deserted tan, as if it's running on sand and sun gets thirty miles to the gallon. 00:42:02 Speaker 3: Thirty is generous? No, No, like it's probably like eighteen. 00:42:05 Speaker 2: Yeah, eighteen, I think you're right. Eighteen. 00:42:08 Speaker 3: Okay, well you've nailed number one. Let's see number two. This is a listener's suggestion suggestion from someone named Rita. Rita has suggested gift her a curse joint birthday parties curse. 00:42:22 Speaker 4: Why I don't because no one wants to share their birthday give them a minute. And also there should be a moratorium in having a birthday within six weeks of Christmas. 00:42:36 Speaker 3: Oh, certain, like if your. 00:42:38 Speaker 4: Birthday is in December, that you just move it up a month. Yes, it just happened automatically. 00:42:44 Speaker 3: My sister's birthday is December fourteenth, and fortunately she and I have just come to the agreement that we don't give each other Christmas presents anymore. So I'm able to just give her birthday presents because I'm not thinking of double presents. I don't have. I can barely deal with the one vaccasion. Yeah, joint birthday parties. You think people need a little bit of space. Yeah, Amy, I hate to say it, You're wrong, but I'm coming at this joint birthday parties as the guest. Yet as the guest, this is uh yeah, two birds with one stone. I'm showing up. I socialize with whoever. Maybe I get to see two different friend groups that in one location, and I think it's an episode. I mean, as the guest, as the host, I think it's probably a curse. As the birthday boy or girl, I. 00:43:36 Speaker 4: Wants to buy two presents as you said, it's like hard enough to come up with one every. 00:43:41 Speaker 2: You know, a couple of months or so. 00:43:43 Speaker 3: Right, So you're various friends, I mean, I'm I think we're just seeing this from very different viewpoints. We're six feet apart, and so that might be altering how our opinion on the joint birthday parties. Okay, so you've gotten one out of two, we've got one left. 00:44:01 Speaker 2: Everything rides on this last one. 00:44:03 Speaker 3: Yeah, everything rides on this. This is also from a listener named Jenna, and this is called gift or this is a gift or a curse. Dessert hummus. Dessert. 00:44:13 Speaker 2: I don't even know what that is. 00:44:15 Speaker 4: But no, that's disgusting. I don't know what that is, but sweet hummus. 00:44:20 Speaker 3: I don't know that I've ever had dessert hummus. 00:44:23 Speaker 4: Just leave a thing alone and let it be one thing. Stop trying to repurpose everything, like the birthday parties. 00:44:32 Speaker 3: So you're saying, curse, curse, just for the scoreboard, we need a definitive answer, Amy, You're absolutely correct. Dessert hummus. I also have never had a dessert hummus. I love a good old fashioned hummus, of course I do. But dessert hummus. Is that not just cold frosting. 00:44:51 Speaker 2: Or but made of chickpeas? 00:44:53 Speaker 3: Is it still? That's the other question. 00:44:55 Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a sweet chickpea. 00:44:57 Speaker 3: I don't think that makes any sense. 00:44:58 Speaker 2: Is not enough that. 00:44:59 Speaker 4: Regular hummus is chickpea. You know what I'm gonna say, Throw it mumus all together and make it, make it a different sauce. 00:45:08 Speaker 3: Why not just think of a new word. Yeah, yeah, I don't know what that word could possibly. 00:45:13 Speaker 2: Be, bomas. 00:45:16 Speaker 3: But we don't need to drag hummus into your And what are we even dipping in a dessert hummus? 00:45:21 Speaker 2: I know, I have so many problems with this idea. 00:45:26 Speaker 3: It does fall into like the last spread. 00:45:28 Speaker 4: A sweet chickpea on a like a chunk of bread or a cracker. 00:45:34 Speaker 3: You're not a cake. Can't withstand the dip, So that's not happening. No, no dessert that I can think of. 00:45:40 Speaker 4: Oh here's an idea. A piece of fruit dip, A piece of fruit dip an apple, give it as you know, but then we're just really sick of apples. Give it a zing. 00:45:51 Speaker 3: This is fondue. Yeah, I don't think that that works. And it does fall into that category, which is probably the last ten years which Instagram is largely to blame for, which is trying to make food something you take pictures of or that is something else. It's the burrito is sushi, or the pizza is cake, or what have you. And I think I absolutely agree with you. Just let everything be its own category. Every it doesn't need to be another good thing. Dessert hummus, I hope I don't come across. I don't even know what flavor we're dealing with there. The only thing that makes sense to me is putting. I mean I don't I don't want to nauseate the listeners. I'm not even going to get into my ideas for dessert hummus, but it's it feels. 00:46:30 Speaker 4: Let's think, let's think about this raspberry. 00:46:33 Speaker 3: Hummus jam see, I'm just we just go back to it. But I guess Oh chickpeas and raspberries, chickpeas and cinnamon. 00:46:44 Speaker 2: Oh gross, It's just it's gross. 00:46:46 Speaker 3: Overwhelming to me. 00:46:48 Speaker 2: Too many nows. 00:46:49 Speaker 3: I mean, hopefully this listener wasn't on the other side of dessert hummus because she's devastated now. She probably runs a you know what. I bet Dessert Hummas was on Shark Tank at some point. My guess is that somebody pitched Dessert Hummus and mister Wonderful loved it, and now it's probably in supermarkets across the country, not for me. 00:47:10 Speaker 2: Good luck to all hummuses. 00:47:14 Speaker 3: Well you got two out of three. That's pretty good. You won't be kicked from my backyard. 00:47:19 Speaker 2: I don't take a solid bee. 00:47:21 Speaker 3: Yes, okay, So now we just need to answer some listener questions. This is called I said no questions. People are writing into I said no gifts at gmail dot com. Every one of these people is at rock bottom. They need help, They need answers. So let's read some of these and see if we can help anybody. This is deer Bridge or in guest. My best friend and I are in oh are engaged in a violent birthday gift war. They want to give each other the best gift. Last March, I gave them a basket with original art, a six pack of mountain dew, goldfish and fruit snacks, and handmade knickknacks. This September, they returned the favor with their favorite things, including a T shirt which they hand painted. So now that's the best gift. How do they top this? In March? They love theater and baths. The budget is limited and that's from Kate. The budget is limited and baths and theater. 00:48:25 Speaker 2: I like to take a bath and that's it. 00:48:28 Speaker 3: I guess they like. 00:48:29 Speaker 2: Okay, bath salts. I did it. I'm terrible at gifts. I don't know why. 00:48:35 Speaker 4: I think if somebody doesn't have any money is that it's like they're great to buy for. But people who are grown. 00:48:43 Speaker 3: Up, right, it's hard to get somebody in house. It's everything that they already have. 00:48:47 Speaker 4: So you know one of those bath caddies that you put across the bath. So I know, guy who takes a lot of baths, he's got like one of those caddies, is always instagramming himself. 00:48:59 Speaker 3: Okay, you're talking about me. I'm a bath king. 00:49:05 Speaker 2: Yeah, bath caddy. 00:49:06 Speaker 4: And then you know a bunch of bass salts. Look, I'm of the opinion that five like small things are more fun than one moderately big thing. 00:49:17 Speaker 3: I think that's usually unless you can think of a wonderful. 00:49:22 Speaker 2: Like the top of the line big thing. 00:49:24 Speaker 3: Go, you know, do the shotgun blast one of these things, maybe two of them will appeal to the person, and if the other ones fail, it doesn't matter. They at least got something out of it. Yeah, with theater, I don't. Unfortunately, right now you're not getting much out of the theater. 00:49:40 Speaker 2: When does this air? 00:49:41 Speaker 3: This is January, so we're still deep in COVID. 00:49:44 Speaker 4: There's I'm sure that they are going to be online theater performances, like special ticket items, items like the guy, you know, the guy who does like all the characters in Christmas Carol. 00:49:59 Speaker 3: I don't know that. 00:50:00 Speaker 2: I can't remember. 00:50:00 Speaker 4: I can't remember his name, but it's like a fifty dollars a kid or something. Okay, So I was going to suggest that, but it'll be too late. 00:50:08 Speaker 3: I wonder. I'm thinking, like, I wonder if they make any of those moisturizing masks that are also in the design of a theater mask. If they don't, that feels like something. 00:50:20 Speaker 2: The comedy dramaty moisturizing mask. Yes, oh my god. 00:50:26 Speaker 3: If somebody hasn't created that yet, I'm on it. I'll be trademarking that and patententing it. Patenting it. But that look for those go google a comedy dramaedy moisturizing mask. I think a nice candle with a bath is always good. 00:50:41 Speaker 2: Oh, candles are so annoying. I hate candles, Amy. 00:50:46 Speaker 3: I've taken two baths this year with candles, since since pandemic, I mean maybe the first two in my adult life. One of them was with a candle, which felt like I was going too far, but I thought, you know what, I think this was in early December. It felt incredible. It felt like I was really treating myself. All I had done was light a match and set a candle on fire. 00:51:07 Speaker 2: I'll give you that. 00:51:08 Speaker 4: I mean, it does feel like you're making an effort, right. I think there's just some of the scented candles are really like an annoying sense. But you know, I mean, you can always sniff at first and just give it a try. Okay, here, how about this idea? Find out what their favorite play is, right, and get like an old theater poster. 00:51:29 Speaker 2: Oh well, that's a great idea of a smaller theater posters or a playbill or. 00:51:33 Speaker 3: The play bill you get the playbill frames. I'm sure that sort of thing is all over eBay. 00:51:37 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:51:38 Speaker 3: I feel like there's a lot of uh kind of tacky theater merchandise that you'll want to avoid. But if you go with the poster or playbill you're getting you're kind of getting the pure source of the theater. Yeah, and she'll probably be you know, she's in the bath looking at an old playbill. 00:51:55 Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. 00:51:56 Speaker 3: Be careful. You don't want to ruin the gift. 00:51:58 Speaker 4: No, you know, Yeah, I think like the smaller poster of like an older you know, some carousel or something. 00:52:06 Speaker 3: Right, we don't have those details here, so she's got it. Hopefully she knows her friend's taste. 00:52:10 Speaker 4: Yeah, but that's the thing that says like classic theater, classic musical theater. 00:52:14 Speaker 3: Right, and giving somebody something like that is really telling them I think you have good taste. Yeah, And so it's also a compliment. Kate. I think that your friend is going to be stunned by your generosity and your thoughtfulness. And it's all thanks to me. Amy has helped, but it's largely my doing. So Kate, go on and do what you need to do, and hopefully your relationship will just this one uping will keep happening until it destroys the relationship and then you can forget about giving each other gifts. That's a good strategy plan I think we got into that and gave such good advice there that we don't have to answer another question. 00:52:55 Speaker 2: I agree. 00:52:56 Speaker 3: I mean people can only ask for so much. 00:52:58 Speaker 2: You want to end on a high note. 00:53:00 Speaker 3: You want to If you the next question, who knows, it could end up with you and I in a fight, and then people leave the podcast in a sour mood. You and I drift apart. 00:53:10 Speaker 2: We each get a migraine, we each. 00:53:12 Speaker 3: Except from a migraine meld, and that could be devastating. Amy. This mask is beautiful. I'm so excited. I hope that this sparks something in me and suddenly I'm collecting masks. 00:53:25 Speaker 4: I don't know how it's going to fit in with your decorps, but I will find a way cram it in somehow. 00:53:30 Speaker 3: Well. I told you about a few months ago I received this giant box. I had ordered something online and received this giant box and I opened it up and it was a tiki mask that was like forty pounds. Oh my god, it was not what I had ordered. 00:53:43 Speaker 2: That great. Did you send it back or is it? 00:53:45 Speaker 3: I tried to game the system. I tried to be like because I wanted it. Of course I didn't want to pay for it, but I was like, maybe I could have a giant tiki mask in my backyard. So I tried to game the customer service by being more difficult than I needed to be about returning it. They demanded that I return them, so I said, Okay, I'll just leave it on my porch and you can come find it, thinking that was my last ditch effort for them to be like, Okay, we'll keep it. They came and found it, like in the middle of the night, and it was gone. Well maybe I got sobody. 00:54:11 Speaker 2: That's a good question. 00:54:12 Speaker 4: But god, I just wish I could have seen it. 00:54:15 Speaker 3: I know, I wish everyone. I wish I would have thrown a post COVID party all about my teaking mass. What are you going to do? Well, thank you so much for being here. I've had a wonderful time. My pleasure, Bridger, and thank you for the theme song. I mean, this podcast is whatever it is, but at least people the first forty five seconds they get an incredible world class treat Nobody can deny that. 00:54:38 Speaker 4: I appreciate the compliment, and I mean, it's no come on, Eileen, but but I. 00:54:45 Speaker 2: Am wearing overalls without a shirt, so. 00:54:49 Speaker 3: Amy stumbled out of her car without a shirt on, just overalls. I asked, Amy, what are you doing? But here we are recording it. You'll find out later if you ask the right questions, you'll know what's happening here. Listener, that's the end of the podcast, and that's the end of you being outside with us. And so you know, we've all got to be careful, and so we're all spending more time outdoors with our friends distantly apart. Let's be careful. We're in the final act of this horrible pandemic fingers crossed. So let's just keep being careful and I'll talk to you soon. Bye bye, I said, No Gifts is an exactly right production. It's engineered by our dear friend an Alise 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 mid roll dot com slash ads. 00:56:03 Speaker 1: But I invited you here, thought, I made myself perfectly clear. When you're a guess to my home, you gotta come to me empty. And I said, no, guess, your own presences presents enough. I already had too much stuff, So how do you dare to surbey me?