00:00:08 Speaker 1: Well, I invited you here, thought I made myself perfectly clear. But you're a guess to my home. You gotta come to be empty, and I said, no, guests, your presence is presence, and I already had too much stuff, So how did you dare to surbey me? 00:00:48 Speaker 2: Welcome to? I said, no gifts. I'm Bridger Wineger. Over the last couple of days been lifting a fair amount of objects, and it's been difficult, and so I just want to dedicate this to anyone that is currently lifting objects or has that in their future. Eventually you're going to have to you'll be able to stop lifting those objects and you'll feel great. I feel wonderful now it's in my past. Also, was in the restroom a few moments ago and saw a pair of clogs. I don't know who those belong to, but I hope the barefooted person eventually gets back into that restroom and gets some footwear. Anyway, I'm very excited about today's guest, A very very funny man, a comedian, an actor, just an all around funny person. Lengthston Kerman. Yeah, Lengthston, welcome to. I said no gifts. 00:01:45 Speaker 3: Thank you. 00:01:45 Speaker 2: I'm so excited to have you. I mean, we're just going to get right into something that we need to talk about. Okay, this morning I got on Twitter. Yeah, you know, any mental health proff she will say, first thing in the morning, to dig into that before you go to bed. Just take a deep. 00:02:05 Speaker 3: Dive, go into the psychosis. 00:02:08 Speaker 2: Yeah, that's just the place you need to be first thing. And so that's what I was doing. And uh, I saw you had tweeted about something. 00:02:16 Speaker 3: Mm hmmm. 00:02:17 Speaker 2: I didn't like the tweet because I wanted to blindside you with this. Sure, you're tweeting about tutsi rolls at eight o five am. Were you eating a totsi roll? What was happening? 00:02:30 Speaker 3: I was not eating a tutsi roll my my wife. It's her favorite candy. Oh okay, well, like and this is I agree. Yeah, she's a wrong a wrong choice. Yeah, her absolute favorite. Like she would weigh it against any Wow, this is shocking one. Yeah. No, I'm upset. 00:02:49 Speaker 2: Totsi roll is always just like you're eating. You're like, oh, I guess I could have been eating other candy right now. Right now, I'm chewing on it like a sweet piece of wax. 00:02:58 Speaker 3: It's the last option for everybody, for every child who was going to collect candy. You were never happy with the house, that left you tutsy role. 00:03:07 Speaker 2: I will say there was like one worse option was black calickorice flavored taffy. Sure, which, but that's just an active aggression by you. 00:03:16 Speaker 3: Take that as a personal attack, plan your revenge. That's a different conversation. But a TOTSI role is someone who respects you in theory. Yes, that then did something harmful to your person. 00:03:28 Speaker 2: Yes, they meant good and just really screwed you over. 00:03:32 Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, And you have to say thank you for what? 00:03:35 Speaker 2: Thank you for burdening me with this thing. I won't be able to resist, and then it will be unhappy. I'm true. 00:03:40 Speaker 3: I guess I can use this as insulation in my home. I don't know what to do with it. 00:03:46 Speaker 2: Yes, so wait, you're what it's her favorite care Absolutely you wake up talking about rolls. 00:03:52 Speaker 3: No, she just often has them in the house and will like put some in her bag. Is like, oh, that's a nice treat for me. Later, when I'm hard at work, I'll have a tipsy roll and I'll feel renewed and remember that life still matters. 00:04:06 Speaker 2: Wow, is she like regular sized twit? Zero, because there are also those ones for real maniacs, like six inches long. 00:04:14 Speaker 3: I will say she is not at that point. At that point, obviously I would have to start sleeping in a separate marriage. Yeah, maybe wrapping yellow books around my body in case of stabbing, you know what I mean. 00:04:27 Speaker 2: It's it's a different that's a real red flag. Exactly what flavor this is something I've always been curious about. What are we flavor wise? What is a twitzira? It's not chocolate. It's chocolate in what I need somebody to actually tell. 00:04:44 Speaker 3: Chocolate chocolate in the way that Adam Driver is handsome and it's it's an interpretation. 00:04:51 Speaker 2: Of someone's idea of someone who never actually had chocolate. Like, well, that's probably what this is. 00:04:58 Speaker 3: Probably a gorgeous man. 00:05:00 Speaker 2: It's the same cover as chocolate. 00:05:02 Speaker 3: It looks like a gorgeous man. He's very tall, yeah. 00:05:06 Speaker 2: But stoic. Then you take a closer look, You're like, oh no, well, who knows what's going on? 00:05:11 Speaker 1: Right? 00:05:11 Speaker 2: Exactly TOTSI rolls. And then there's of course, like the branch of tootsi rolls. I don't know if you're familiar with like a fruity fruit. 00:05:19 Speaker 3: Now those are fantastic. 00:05:20 Speaker 2: The lime, I'm eating a lime and I'm enjoying myself. 00:05:24 Speaker 3: I'm not mad at any of them. 00:05:25 Speaker 2: The orange, they're actually like pretty accurate flavors, say, considering they're like an old type of candy. 00:05:31 Speaker 3: Listen, if my wife told me that fruities were her favorite candy. 00:05:34 Speaker 2: Things would be much much happier. No, but then there's also a vanilla. Is that a fruity? Is that a TUTSI? Uh, that's the worst one. 00:05:47 Speaker 3: I believe, And I don't want to stand on this. 00:05:52 Speaker 2: Well, I brought you on as the that's we had that commitment prior to the podcast. 00:05:58 Speaker 3: I shouldn't have put it in my CV, but here we are. I believe that the vanilla falls under the fruity category. I believe that was. 00:06:06 Speaker 2: Them somebody fire. 00:06:08 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:06:09 Speaker 3: What I'm scared of is that they might have started with vanilla as like, oh, we're doing something the opposite of toutsy, sure, and then found themselves being like this is bullshit. We gotta do lime. 00:06:20 Speaker 2: Yeah, And then that actually worked out And that's the totsy world that should be sold in you know, big bags. But that's like a rare thing. You're fine, yeah. 00:06:28 Speaker 3: You. I mean, at least when I was a kid, you had to go to like beauty supply stores. 00:06:32 Speaker 2: The beauty supply stores, yeah, like to buy them or would they be like on the counter in a dish. 00:06:37 Speaker 3: They'd be under so I guess this is Chicago's I don't know, but like they'd be under like the glass where they kept like ear rings and rare whigs. Yeah. 00:06:48 Speaker 2: And then third category yeah, fruity. 00:06:52 Speaker 3: Yeah, let's read the option. And you know, if you wanted regular TUTSI rolls you went to Walgreen. 00:06:57 Speaker 2: Yeah, because I couldn't tell you where to buy a fruity right now, You're gonna did a specialist for sure. 00:07:03 Speaker 3: A person who sells wigs and fruities is the only person you can call. 00:07:09 Speaker 2: Do you have any fruities in your home right now? 00:07:11 Speaker 3: I don't have any fruities in my home, Okay, just the remnants of like Halloween TOTSI rolls and a weird amount of pixie sticks, a ship ton of pixie sticks. 00:07:22 Speaker 2: And you don't have kids, right, we don't have kids. There's something going on in your house. 00:07:25 Speaker 3: It's like, but we're trying to lure those kids in. No, we uh we got married three months ago. Oh, congratulates, thank you. So we uh we did as sort of like the goodbye gift, a bunch of candies. Ay, sticks were the ones that we did not get rid of at all. 00:07:47 Speaker 2: Nobody wanted that. Nobody were the other options. 00:07:50 Speaker 3: We had a bunch of sour patch kids, sure had Uh, we had TOUTSI rolls. 00:07:57 Speaker 2: Not my vote, the compromise of marriage. 00:08:01 Speaker 3: Yes, we had nerds. 00:08:03 Speaker 2: We had a lot of merd nerd in a while. 00:08:05 Speaker 3: Yeah, they're great. They still hold up, got a nice pep like sour Yeah, not canceled at all, yeah at all. Uh. Yeah, it was, you know, a bunch of the little classics. 00:08:15 Speaker 2: Yeah. And then people saw pixie sticks and they're like, they're like insane. 00:08:19 Speaker 3: I thought I thought that they would trigger a nostalgia in people where they're like, I haven't had pixie sticks in a while. And then I remembered we're in our thirties and that's just sugar. 00:08:30 Speaker 2: It's truly, there's no disguising the fact that you're literally just pouring sugar. 00:08:34 Speaker 3: And I think after certain age you need the illusion. 00:08:38 Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, you need something like I'm getting the exercise of chewing at least. 00:08:42 Speaker 3: Exactly or like this, maybe there's something held nugget. I don't know what nugad is, iron in it or something. 00:08:49 Speaker 2: Of course, it was like calcium, Yeah, potassium or something's happened. 00:08:52 Speaker 3: There's nothing, uh potassium based in pixies. 00:08:56 Speaker 2: No, absolutely not. Do you remember those pixie sticks that were like two feet long? 00:09:01 Speaker 3: Yes? I do. 00:09:02 Speaker 2: I would eat I would buy one of those and eat it within an hour. Yeah, what is it doing to your. 00:09:08 Speaker 3: Those? And there used to be something I don't know if you remember this. There used to be something called super rope. 00:09:13 Speaker 2: Oh of course was this. This is the liquorice that was like. 00:09:16 Speaker 3: The lickory was like three feet long. It was a whip that we used to buy. And like you said, within like twenty to thirty minutes, I would eat three feet of liquorice. That there's no My body has to be continuing to struggle to break it down. 00:09:31 Speaker 2: Now, the young human body is a miracle, is just like or a liar. 00:09:37 Speaker 3: It just might be convincing us that we're moving on. 00:09:40 Speaker 2: Yes, and it's also just allowing you to learn horrible behavior. Yeah, kind of ingrain it within yourself and then in your thirties. It's like, oh no, I'm still eating garbage exactly. This doesn't work for me. 00:09:52 Speaker 3: There's this, there's this wrapper Vince Staples. Sure it's very funny and also like a dope rapper. 00:09:58 Speaker 2: Yes, he's got like a show. 00:10:00 Speaker 3: Oh no, maybe that sounds right. He's he's an interesting charismatic person. I can't imagine that Hollywood hasn't. 00:10:08 Speaker 2: Done something with him. 00:10:09 Speaker 3: Yeah, but he talked about in an interview how like you know, as a kid, they didn't have any money and so oftentimes McDonald's dollar menu was the only option. Sure, we're sort of splitting like chicken sandwiches every night between him and his brother. And now he can't like his body doesn't function well because of the shitty things he put in, of course, And I think that's probably true for a lot of us. 00:10:37 Speaker 2: And we yeah, totally. I'm sure like most of the things I'm dealing with now are just for twenty years, made horrible choices. 00:10:44 Speaker 3: Just giant pixies. Thing catching up to you. 00:10:47 Speaker 2: Something about Vince Staples I learned recently, and this is just the more you get older, he's like in his twenties. Yes, he's very young, which is so crazy, like I forget. Oh yeah, like pop stars and rappers are young people. I'm in my thirties now, I'm like, I just assume they're all older than man. Is that Cardi B Is like a young person? Yeah, I'm like all of them are very successful. They should be in their fifties. 00:11:11 Speaker 3: The instructing us on love and heartbreak. Yeah, they're idiots. 00:11:17 Speaker 2: They don't know And do you feel like you've lived four lives and I'm still figuring out like how to pay a bill or. 00:11:24 Speaker 3: No, they're not complete people and we shouldn't listen. 00:11:28 Speaker 2: I should not be trusting any any sort of musician that's currently popular, but I do constantly Yeah. Something about you that you you're talking about in your comedy that I am constantly delighted about is your job. You worked as a high school teacher. 00:11:47 Speaker 3: I did. Yeah, I taught high school for three years full time and then various forms of like part time. Okay, where were you teaching English? I taught ninth the twelfth grade English? 00:12:01 Speaker 2: Wow? Yeah, I think I enjoy it so much. I've never worked as a teacher per se, but I worked in an elementary school as like a lunch lady. Ok And thank you so much. And then I worked like as a second grade They called us teachers, but it was like after school at a private school, okay, grade second graders, and it was horrible. Yeah, I mean they were. I mean you talk about how mean kids can be in weird ways, not in like ways you're expecting and can defend yourself from. 00:12:35 Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, as you know, especially as comics, as people sort of working in any sort of like funny industry, you've prepared yourself for all the bad things the human can say to you. Yes, you've looked in the mirror. You go, these are the problem, Mary is I'm ready for the day. And then kids figure out a way to articulate that thing that you were most afraid of them finding and just fucking. 00:13:00 Speaker 2: Just nail leveling you. 00:13:02 Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean mulaney has that really funny bit where he's like his fear of walking past a group of seventh graders and they just go that man has lady hips and he's like, no, that's the one thing I'm so conscious about, Like I do. 00:13:19 Speaker 2: Yeah, I like wondered like a teenagers. Teenagers are so terrifying, and I think the reason part of the reason I'm terrified is like, oh I was that, and I was terrible, and I was surrounded by terrible people. So there's just still that fear of like, oh, they're gonna do it to me again. Yeah, I'm back in middle school and they're going to be just as mean or as I was or people were to me. 00:13:39 Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean and they are. It's not even a question. 00:13:43 Speaker 2: Oh yeah they're nasty. Nay, like the second graders I would deal with. Yes, there was like one that was super racist, like his name was his name was Boston, which made perfect serve, but like the I was also for me as like a very small person like anyone passed third grade, as a physical threat as well. So it's I don't know, it's. 00:14:11 Speaker 3: A you're not only competing with their hatred. 00:14:14 Speaker 2: Yeah, like physical, proud, vulnerable to these people. 00:14:18 Speaker 3: I want to know what who was Boston's group that he hated the most? 00:14:22 Speaker 2: Did he Asian kids? 00:14:23 Speaker 3: Asian kids? 00:14:24 Speaker 2: Yeah? 00:14:24 Speaker 3: Sure he was. 00:14:26 Speaker 2: Once that came out, I obviously like punished him and then moving forward was just kind of low grade mean to him all the time, right, just like kind of secret secretly made his life a living hell. Yeah, And I realized recently this was like ten years ago. He's like an adult. He's probably a Trump supporter, But you probably, I mean I I think I didn't work that shob that long, maybe a year or so, but like you were really in it, and were you doing comedy at the time. 00:14:56 Speaker 3: I was, So I started comedy U probably six months into my first teaching job, okay, And I think I would imagine that the teaching job helped. 00:15:08 Speaker 2: Sure, yeah, of course, it gives you that final push like I've got to find something. 00:15:12 Speaker 3: Oh, I'll kill myself if I stay in this for too long. 00:15:16 Speaker 2: And yeah, you know, teaching was never the long Oh. So like leading up to teaching, what was the plan? Like maybe comedy? I don't know, No, I think I mean to be frank. 00:15:27 Speaker 3: I had just left college, and I thought I was going to go into advertising. Okay, you study college English. I studied English. I left thinking like, oh, well, like creative advertising, I'll write commercials and be funny that way, yes, and that would somehow gratify me enough to give me a paycheck. Little you, Little did I know that I had no skills for the work that I aspired to do, and I had the good fortune of having a teacher who I stayed very close to from high school through college. 00:16:02 Speaker 2: Oh wow. 00:16:03 Speaker 3: And when I left college without a job and found myself back in my mom's basement, he was kind enough to be like, Yo, come be my teacher's assistant. 00:16:15 Speaker 2: Oh fantastic. 00:16:16 Speaker 3: You know my basically my aid, my partner in this you know work that I do. And so I went back to my old high school and taught poetry and english there. 00:16:27 Speaker 2: Oh my god, so you the whole time you were teaching at your old high school. 00:16:31 Speaker 3: No, so that was only for the first year. 00:16:33 Speaker 2: That one, to me is like an extra level of terrifying. Yeah, you're like dealing with this bizarre history that you already went where you're You're like. 00:16:43 Speaker 3: Old teachers are now your peers and you sit. 00:16:46 Speaker 2: At the table. What does that even mean? Oh? 00:16:48 Speaker 3: It sucks. It sucks when they go from mister Quinn to Peter. It's gross. 00:16:56 Speaker 2: Were you a good student? I was a good because I wasn't like face single, like teachers who hated you or what. 00:17:03 Speaker 3: No, but you build nemeses either way. It's not like every teacher that suddenly becomes your peer is like your friend. 00:17:12 Speaker 2: Is just sort of the most confusing thing. Emotionally, yeah, no, it doesn't feel good. 00:17:18 Speaker 3: And then there's you know, the encouraging part is because I was a good student, because I think I was relatively well liked amongst most of the staff. It wasn't like I was coming to any sort of like negative energy as far as oh you're not qualified, Yeah you shouldn't be here kind of thing. Everybody embraced me, but it just isn't what you dream of. I gave my mom a big talk when I left home, like I'm never coming back here, lady, I'm better than this. And then I had to go right back and then teach at the saddest place I could have imagined. 00:17:50 Speaker 2: Yeah, that, to me is like the ultimate version of as a kid singer teacher at the grocery store or something. We're like, oh you're a person, Yeah shit, how do I deal? 00:18:01 Speaker 1: Uh? 00:18:01 Speaker 3: And So I taught there for a year, and then I went to grad school in Boston learn to be Racist to Asia, and then I taught for two more years while I was in Boston, Okay, and then moved to New York and taught. I mostly did after school programming in New York. So like you're tutoring and like teaching the s A T S. 00:18:24 Speaker 2: And okay, and do you do you write poetry? 00:18:28 Speaker 3: I do? I have a master's in poets. 00:18:30 Speaker 2: Oh my god, that's amazing. 00:18:32 Speaker 3: Yeah, so it's something is that I mean, is that something you're you're still actively seek now that you're you're kind of doing comedy full time or is it like appreciation it's more of an appreciation. I don't know that I actively seek it. I don't. I haven't probably written a poem in a year. 00:18:51 Speaker 2: Okay, I mean that's more recent than most of the plan. 00:18:55 Speaker 3: Sure, but that's because they're being reasonable and I'm the one that's that's making bad choices. But yeah, I don't know that I do enough writing or pay enough attention anymore. I'm not reading the way that I used to read. But at a time that was the plan as well, was like, oh, I'll become a poet, I'll become a professor somewhere and write books and like do that. 00:19:20 Speaker 2: The as a writer of other sorts of things poetry is very mystifying to me. I'm like, when you're ready to write a poem, do I mean what sort of poetry you're writing? Is it long? Form, is it? 00:19:35 Speaker 3: Uh, I mean it's it's not. I always tell people it's not that dissimilar from my comedy, Like it's a lot of just sort of narrative based, okay, storytelling, but not you know, it's concise. So the beauty of poetry is like in the way that you know, if you were to tell me a story right now, you have to figure out a way to almost add to the the flair and the yeah, excitement of this moment. I get to subtract words, I get to take words out of it, and it almost doesn't need to be a complete story. It just needs to be a complete feeling. 00:20:11 Speaker 2: Just like boiling it down into the essence or. 00:20:13 Speaker 3: Exactly, Like you just need to be able to walk away and go like, oh, I know, I know what he felt in his gut in that moment, even if I can't piece together exactly the who's, the where's, the whins, the whys or whatever. So that that was the fun of poetry is like I can I can make you feel some shit in twenty lines. 00:20:34 Speaker 2: That's incredible. Yeah, it was cool. So, I mean, it's been a year since you last wrote a poem. Do you feel like it's in your future or is it like I'll deal with this later or uh. 00:20:44 Speaker 3: I think it's hard to imagine the point where I'm gonna like sit down and like want to write another like book of poems or something like that. I say another as. 00:20:56 Speaker 2: Well, your gut multiple stop running, Yeah I. 00:21:03 Speaker 3: Don't, it's just heart your brain splits. I think. Yeah, like stand up and scripts and all the things that I'm sort of excited about writing now are don't easily lend themselves to the world of poetry writing. And so I think at some point maybe my brain will reconfigure itself and I'll be more attracted to poetry. 00:21:25 Speaker 2: But right it's feels like a retirement thing or yeah, hang me poetry. But I imagine you're using some of the I mean a decent amount of the skills you learn from poetry writing and stand up for sure. 00:21:39 Speaker 3: I mean we're I think we're all doing the same thing, right you. You you identify something interesting, you use examples to be able to sort of like make that interesting thing more specific and special, and then you use details and metaphor and hyperbole or whatever to really like build it up and make it's sexy, you know what I mean it's not. 00:22:01 Speaker 2: Everything I do. I'm trying to add that layer of sex. 00:22:05 Speaker 3: Add sex to everything. That's what sells. 00:22:07 Speaker 2: That's what I've been told a few times. I give it a shot. You I mean, you just said that you're not reading like you usually do. But I assume you're on some level a reader. 00:22:20 Speaker 1: Uh. 00:22:21 Speaker 3: Yes, Yes. It feels absurd to say when I know how recently I've read a book. 00:22:28 Speaker 2: Well, I need to know. 00:22:33 Speaker 3: I was reading. I went on my honeymoon. I was reading then. 00:22:37 Speaker 2: Oh, that's not that long ago. 00:22:38 Speaker 3: Yeah, that was it was, No, it actually was more so about a month ago. Was the last time I've sort of sat. 00:22:45 Speaker 2: Again, way more recently than a lot of people. 00:22:47 Speaker 3: Yes, but it was a long time before then. Yeah. Right now, I'm at a cool checkpoint where I could be like, yeah, I was reading recently, but well you asked me before then, It's been a while. 00:22:59 Speaker 2: After TOTSI rolls, destroy your marriage, you'll remarry, go on another honeymoon, I get to read another book. 00:23:04 Speaker 3: I'll read a book about how to build myself back up, yeah, and make better choices with women. And then I'll what were you reading? It's this book called The Grid of It. I can't remember the author's name. It's hard to pronounce. But it's sort of this weird book about the where she it's a book about ghosts or a ghost story book. But it also is deeply intertwined with the breaking of a marriage, and so it sort of is this weird thing of whether or not this house is haunting them or their own sort of like fucked up relationship is the thing that's creating these problems. This is around them. 00:23:50 Speaker 2: Gorgeous honeymoon reading. 00:23:52 Speaker 3: Oh, it makes your wife feel beautiful. 00:23:55 Speaker 2: You are reading it aloud? 00:23:57 Speaker 3: Listen to this, sweetheart, Hey, look out, miser well, this guy is. 00:24:03 Speaker 2: Well. This is a very pro reading podcast. I just I want people to read books. Read something. It's just longer than two sentences on your phone. I don't know. I just it's a very easy thing to do. Sure, I don't know. I've discovered recently. Are you familiar with Goodreads? I've only heard of good Reading. 00:24:25 Speaker 3: I think it's familiar. 00:24:27 Speaker 2: It's just like, I mean, it's people reviewing books, but people who don't necessarily who know how to read yelp. Yeah. I mean like if something has four stars on it's like, oh no, that book was bad and it was easy to read and like some mystery that people made. Yes, I was able to read this. So you have to look for like books that are like on the in between, like a low three is probably an actually good where it's like, oh yeah, people like that. There was a culling of dummies, and people who made it through the book actually knew what they were doing. 00:25:04 Speaker 3: So you're a pretty avid reader. 00:25:05 Speaker 2: I try to be. I enjoy it, and I just feel like it's an easy thing that like a lot of people are letting go up. Yeah, it's like we should value this. 00:25:13 Speaker 3: What kind of reading are you most attracted to? 00:25:16 Speaker 2: Mostly fiction? I try to dash a few on fiction books in every year, but largely fiction. It's but it's all over the place, and I don't know who going back to good Reads, Like I never know who to turn to for book recommendations anymore. I don't have a good I don't know a good critic or any of this. So it's just like truly shooting in the dark, and like. 00:25:40 Speaker 3: Yeah, that's I mean, that's the scariest thing with Like going to a bookstore is like all right, When I was a kid, I was going mostly based on the covers zone. 00:25:49 Speaker 2: Oh of course, I may think so much easier. 00:25:51 Speaker 3: And now I'm an adult and I almost know that the covers should not be making the decision. Yeah, but I don't know how to do it without that cover. So what are we doing? 00:26:01 Speaker 2: Yeah? I had a college professor that said there was no such thing as a good reader, only a good rereader. So my new goal isn't Maybe I'm going to go back and like find books that I enjoyed and just reread those. That'll make things so much easier. Yeah, because when I finish a book, I fly into a panic like I've got to find another book to read, and there's and then I usually make a bad decision. 00:26:22 Speaker 3: Well, I will say that like when I was teaching, more often than not, I enjoyed the book a lot more when I was going back through it with the kids. 00:26:34 Speaker 2: Oh interesting, much. 00:26:35 Speaker 3: More than I did when I had to do it simp like completely on my own. 00:26:40 Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. 00:26:41 Speaker 3: And some of that is just the discussion around seeing other perspectives on it exactly, Like I think that there's there's almost like something encouraging hearing, like, okay, we get to like if I was in a book club, I'd be I think I'd have a great time. 00:26:57 Speaker 2: Oh yeah, of course. 00:26:59 Speaker 3: But then it's also like I don't know everybody's taste, and so you join a book club and it becomes like this thing where they want to read a bunch of like nonfiction, and I don't give a non fiction, and so like if there's no ghost or like weird stabbings. 00:27:13 Speaker 2: Yeah I need some that's not happening in my actual life. 00:27:17 Speaker 3: Back in the book. 00:27:25 Speaker 2: You don't want to derail our book conversation. But I did notice when you came in you were holding something. This podcast obviously everybody knows is I said, no gift, and here comes Lengthston down the hall holding a bag. 00:27:43 Speaker 3: A bag. I mean, that's one way of phrasing it. 00:27:46 Speaker 2: Let's just let's be honest. You did not wrap the gift. 00:27:48 Speaker 3: I didn't wrap the gift. 00:27:49 Speaker 2: The gift came in a leather backpack, which belongs. 00:27:52 Speaker 3: To you, which I don't plan on giving you now. 00:27:54 Speaker 2: Unfortunately, you're not leaving the studio until I own a leather backpack. So I, uhody. 00:28:00 Speaker 3: Open up the Cole's website. Let's get this man a leather backpack. 00:28:06 Speaker 2: But I guess we should see what you brought me. 00:28:09 Speaker 3: Yes, I'm so excited, and it doesn't, in fact derailar conversation. It only adds to it. 00:28:15 Speaker 2: Oh, you're kidding. It's a book, Oh my god, Book Unexpected Love, Seasons of Redemption. This is by three, Book three. I've sorry read the first two that's on my other love podcast, Sure written by Andrea. Do you know how to pronounce this? 00:28:34 Speaker 4: I do not. 00:28:35 Speaker 2: I'm assuming bouchark b o E s h A A R. It has like a like a Dutch looking woman on the front or kind of looks like a a pilgrim or something holding two roses. Book three. I'm let's I'm just going to do a quick survey of this. 00:28:58 Speaker 3: The back of the back's exciting. I really enjoyed. That's what sold me. 00:29:02 Speaker 2: One of my favorite things in the world is reading the backs of books. The language used to try to sell books. It's so funny. 00:29:11 Speaker 3: It's always it's funny because it's you can tell the author was involved, but not as much as. 00:29:17 Speaker 2: They would like to yeah, to the point that they're like, oh, I regret that now, mad right. I will frequently, like one of my favorite things, if I'm in a grocery store, I'll find those like the terrible novels being sold at a grocery store and just read the back someone, because it's like the back of a Tom Clancy novel is psychotic. It's always the most the weird. His wife is dead, yes, top secret Nurse loent Lorena, Lorena Loraina, I believe. Yeah. Nurse Loraina Fields is drawn to a blind patient searching for his past, but as his memories return, will there be a place for her in his future? Now let's say, let me just read this real quick. 00:30:00 Speaker 3: See it's all very exciting because that Dutch woman is actually based in Chicago, and the blind man, he's just a guy who got lost on Lake Michigan. Is very exciting. 00:30:16 Speaker 2: That's this is a perfect example of this sort of thing. His regained site will reveal a secret about herself that raina wait, is there another character? What are we talking about? He learned that she has a nickname on the back of this book. They couldn't stick with Lorena Summer. We've said it too many. She's like family to you. That's his regained sight will reveal a secret about herself that Reina has been trying hard to hide. So she's going to learn he's going to learn who knows? Uh, and this is the third book, I mean the stuff that's been going on. Oh and I'm also learning the author of the book is a certified Christian life coach, which go on out of an author. Yeah, if somebody's going to write a book that I'm going to read, I need to know that they are not only a life coach but also deeply religious. 00:31:12 Speaker 3: Make sure, I mean, you don't want any of those other messier religions. 00:31:17 Speaker 2: No, of course, you need a nice, clean cut Christian writing your bizarre romance. I mean, her resume before it says that she writes novels is like fifty jobs long. This person should not be writing on them. 00:31:32 Speaker 3: No, she's got a lot of work to do in other spaces. 00:31:35 Speaker 2: Where did you get this? 00:31:37 Speaker 3: I got it from the ninety ninth sense to that. 00:31:41 Speaker 2: Is the library we should all be visiting. 00:31:43 Speaker 3: You know what's funny is it's literally the only book they sell. So wait, so there was just stacks of this. There were four copies of it, and there were no other books. The rest of them were all coloring books, and weird, this is essentially a coloring book. Yeah, it was that in Nascar holograms. Oh, I said to. 00:32:01 Speaker 2: Myself, already owned the whole hologram. 00:32:05 Speaker 3: I knew that about you, and I know we're just meeting for the first time. But I said to myself, No, Bridger. 00:32:10 Speaker 2: Knows nailed this in every way. I mean, wow, I'm so excited to read this. I actually, at a couple of jobs ago, my friend Bestcalvin I began writing a romance novel called Seasons of Desire. Oh, that's beautiful, and it was the I've talked about this on this show with Bess. But the promise was going to be someone was going to have sex on every page. 00:32:35 Speaker 3: Nice. 00:32:36 Speaker 2: The front cover is just going to guarantee the one thing you are, your favorite character, your Lorena, will be making love every single page. 00:32:44 Speaker 3: Can I Oh, it's it's your main character making love. 00:32:49 Speaker 2: This person's all over the place. 00:32:50 Speaker 4: Wow. 00:32:50 Speaker 3: So they're just like a urinary tract infection. 00:32:55 Speaker 2: Oh yeah, there's all the way. That's kind of the battle that she's fighting. She's gonna like just come to a climax at one point, damaged. 00:33:04 Speaker 3: Does she get cranberry juice because she I mean, it takes place in New England, so she's gonna. 00:33:09 Speaker 2: Go to a bog. She's gonna squeeze her own juice, and she's. 00:33:14 Speaker 3: Gonna take somebody's gonna squeeze her juice every page, every single page, even when she's drinking the cranberry juice. 00:33:21 Speaker 2: She's getting it. You know this lady is she loves to just do it. So this will be good research if nothing else. What's the worst book you've ever read? 00:33:34 Speaker 3: The worst book I've ever read? 00:33:37 Speaker 2: Do you finish books when you hate them? 00:33:39 Speaker 3: I don't. 00:33:40 Speaker 2: You're somebody who can give it up. 00:33:42 Speaker 3: I will quit immediately. 00:33:43 Speaker 2: Oh I'm so jealous of it. 00:33:44 Speaker 3: And there are books that, like I've been told are fantastic that I get a few pages in Clockwork Orange was like. 00:33:51 Speaker 2: Oh, sure that's not for everybody. No cup of tea. 00:33:55 Speaker 3: I got like ten pages in. I was like, hey, bro, if y'all are gonna speak regular English, I'm not. I'm not gonna pretend that this is enjoyable for me. I will move the fuck on. 00:34:07 Speaker 2: Had you seen the movie prior to reading it? 00:34:09 Speaker 3: I had not. I just I mean, you hear it's like this. It's hailed as like one of the most classic pieces of literature of all time, and you know it was one of those things where I think my counterpart at the high school I was teaching at was teaching her group, so like I took a certain half of the eleventh and twelfth graders and she took the other half, and I think she was teaching a clockwork orange for that other half. And so I was like, I've never read it. I'm gonna like steal one of the books and read it now. Sure, And then I made it, you know, ten pages, and I was like, oh no, this is for the kids. 00:34:46 Speaker 2: Good. And then you told your half they would be reading Unexpected Love. 00:34:49 Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly one and through Okay, sure, we gotta make it through this series. 00:34:55 Speaker 2: I feel like, I don't think this is the end of the series. I have to believe that this goes to Book. 00:35:00 Speaker 3: Twelve would have said the finale, Yeah, the very end Unexpected Love, the very end, Seasons of Redemption. 00:35:09 Speaker 2: So you are able to give up a book, I like, I'm learning slowly that it's okay to be like, oh yeah, I just don't enjoy reading this and that's fine. What is it that makes you not want to give it up? I feel like I don't know. I need to have the whole picture I'm like, well, maybe I make it to the end and all of this nonsense I've been through will finally feel rewarding. Yeah, but that's happened enough now that I mean, it's happened enough that it doesn't feel rewarding. I'm like, oh, yeah, maybe. 00:35:41 Speaker 3: Sometimes I say, how often does it ever pay off? For your question? 00:35:45 Speaker 2: Probably never? Yeah, the something I tried reading recently, I like, every once in a while, I'll be like, oh, wouldn't it be fun to read like a fantasy novel, like just a fun thing that fails almost every time, especially where there's like they're like building out a world or whatever, and I'm right, oh, I should just maybe I should just be reading a history book learning actual facts. 00:36:08 Speaker 3: We have real world stuff already. 00:36:10 Speaker 2: Yeah. They're like, there's some really intense fantasy novels that are like the person has created a dictionary, right like fifty pages, and I'm like, oh, I don't know what I'm doing with my time. I cannot use this knowledge in any space. 00:36:25 Speaker 3: I mean, that's what's essentially happening to what's her name from the Harry Potter series? 00:36:32 Speaker 2: Right, Oh, yeah, of course I have never said her name out loud. Jk Rowywing I believe is Yes. 00:36:39 Speaker 3: Anyway, I think she just built out this world and like doesn't want to go learn regular history, so she's just going to keep making up and you. 00:36:47 Speaker 2: Can't leave it alone. It's so bizarre to watch. But yeah, that is a weird thing. It's like you're like richer than the Queen of England. Yeah, you've wrote all these books just like right it used to do ecstasy. 00:37:00 Speaker 3: In your car? 00:37:01 Speaker 2: Yeah, talk about. 00:37:04 Speaker 1: That, dude. 00:37:04 Speaker 2: Yeah, I want to hear more. Talk about that. 00:37:06 Speaker 3: Time where you were homeless and the only salt in your head, the only solution to your bad feelings was doing ecstasy alone in your car. That seems like a pretty good story. Yeah, you've got theme parks. Now let's go back to the bank just being on drugs car Ja and to maybe the you. Let's let's figure out what that Jay in that case stand for. 00:37:30 Speaker 2: Judy Coody, Judy Coody, I wonder what that is, Stephen, do you have any idea what that is? Joanne for that Christine Joanne Kevin Killer, Joanne Killer, Joanne Killer rally. It's funny, Kawhi, Yeah, it's funny. 00:37:54 Speaker 3: Your take on books is very similar to what I can in books immediately I can't with television. 00:38:02 Speaker 2: Oh, you're stuck on a show, like I will finish it. What are some examples of this that, Like you were watching a show and not enjoying it, but I. 00:38:11 Speaker 3: Didn't like Dexter after like season two. 00:38:14 Speaker 2: Oh, I feel like that's like common, right, Yeah, that show immediately went insane, it went really. 00:38:21 Speaker 3: Wild and bad, and I wooh boy, went all the way to the end. There's like almost every show that I've watched, I've watched until the very end of it. 00:38:32 Speaker 2: I think it's like, I think that's kind of common because like the first season of a show will usually be good, yeah, and then they get you emotionally on some level. You're invested and you're like, well, I'm just now trapped. I want to see what happens to these characters, right, I imagine that's what happened with Dexter, where it's like it's. 00:38:50 Speaker 3: That And I think I also have a fascination with the artists, Like there's there's a part of there's so many artists involved in making a television ship, right, Like the actors, the writers, the directors. 00:39:03 Speaker 2: You've got the makeup people, yeah, exactly, the production assistant giving their own little touch. 00:39:07 Speaker 3: And I like the idea of seeing the crack in their armor, where like, at a certain point you see the actor know that they're saying something stupid out loud, and I want to see it. I want you to admit that you made a mistake. 00:39:23 Speaker 2: You've made a horrible bargain with the devil. 00:39:27 Speaker 3: Deal with you sign a contract that requires you to be here for seven years so long as this show continues. So great, let me see how much seven years breaks your spirit. 00:39:39 Speaker 2: It's beautiful. 00:39:40 Speaker 3: I want to I want to know how this goes to the end. 00:39:44 Speaker 2: What happened with Dexter, Like, I mean, what what? What was so horrible about the show? I mean, you know the premise, yeah, kill kill. 00:39:55 Speaker 3: Serial killers, and I think at some point they continue you to sort of create enemies for him, who started to figure out who he was in his world, and it became much more of every episode is like high jinks to hide his truth from people around him, and then becomes a varse Yeah, but then people around him started to know it and then like manipulate him to kill people they preferred. Oh wow. And then at one point he had a sexual affair with his sister who was oh technically his sister, but then they found out was his sister in. 00:40:34 Speaker 2: Fact, like later on they like rewrote it basically to be like just kidding. You went through it once and I think about it again, and this time it's real. 00:40:44 Speaker 3: It's just and I could be wrong, but it just became like these weird like inner in you know, just layering of like, oh, we ran out of story a while ago, so let's just make some shit up. 00:40:57 Speaker 2: That's something that I hope that people in TV or learning, which I feel like the British have learned, where it's just like, oh you can you can only do this for two seasons. If that's the story you've got, that's okay, you can just end it. 00:41:08 Speaker 3: I just started. Sherlock Holmes, uh huh. They do three episodes this season. 00:41:14 Speaker 2: Perfect, nice, Jane, you commit some quality to it. 00:41:20 Speaker 3: You do They do like an hour and a half episode, So they just treat every episode like it's an independent film. Sure, and they just won three episodes of it. That's fantastic. Although I don't want to split. I haven't watched the show, but I spoiled this for you. I've heard horrible things about later seasons. Oh, I'm sure it's terrible, but you're committed, so it doesn't matter. I'll figure it out. But I like the idea that you're just like, Nope, this is we're just going to cover. We know how far our imagination can stretch. 00:41:49 Speaker 2: We have a beginning and an end. Let's get there. Let's get that then we'll stop, rather than just beating it into the ground and making people beg them And. 00:41:56 Speaker 3: Really, with three episodes of season, you have a beginning, you have an end. You can make nonsense episode right in the middle of it. 00:42:02 Speaker 1: Just on. 00:42:04 Speaker 3: This is Sherlock Holmes going to the DMV. 00:42:07 Speaker 2: Let's watch him to his laundry, right, let's watch him go on a first date or something. 00:42:11 Speaker 3: Yeah, Breaking Bad I think is my favorite show. 00:42:16 Speaker 2: Wonderful. 00:42:16 Speaker 3: Part of the genius of it was like it's one of the few things that like has ever hit television where they knew exactly what the ending was. 00:42:25 Speaker 2: Yeah, where like felt like we're headed towards a goal. 00:42:28 Speaker 3: They had a goal in mind. 00:42:29 Speaker 2: He's got an expiration dates and it's like he's gonna die on some level. 00:42:33 Speaker 3: Exactly, Whereas like a Game of Thrones was oh boy, the books are gone. You don't know what we're doing. That old guy won't answer our phone calls. Let's just make it up. 00:42:46 Speaker 2: Yeah. Game of Thrones is like a good example of a show that I just stuck with till the end. Sure, despite knowing, oh, this is just off the rails at this point, I'm not going to be happy with whatever happened. 00:42:57 Speaker 3: By the time you hit season seven, you are furious. 00:43:00 Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it's just like why am I still watching this? 00:43:03 Speaker 3: Yeah? But then it's like, but they were so good. He has a few years ago. They have to be able to figure. 00:43:08 Speaker 2: Out to lend this thing. But like even those I read those books, and like after book three it was like clear that George R. R. Martin, like he had three books of story and then for whatever reason they were probably popular. He keeps going. And obviously that guy, he obviously does not know how this is going to end. Otherwise he would have published the books, didn't. 00:43:28 Speaker 3: I think he came out into some article where he said, I want to thank the show for helping me really figure out why. 00:43:37 Speaker 2: That's not a good sign because everyone hated how that ended. 00:43:42 Speaker 3: But it's either a terrible sign for his intuition, meaning that he's going to follow the trajectory of the show or he's shitting on the show. I was like, that's not how ill now I know what everybody hated, and I'll just do something complete for letting me right, Okay, that's not the ending people want it. Yeah, I think he Yeah, I don't. I think he has no clue. I think even like the amount of detail he puts in the books mostly him just trying to fill the pages. 00:44:14 Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it's like a dick In style thing where it's just like I'm getting paid by the word. So let's do this for seven hundred pages. 00:44:21 Speaker 3: I'll describe the meat in their mouth. 00:44:23 Speaker 2: Yeah. People really enjoy the feast, and they'll forget that there should be a decent plot line here. Yeah. Well, I feel like we're at the point of the podcast where we should play a game. 00:44:35 Speaker 3: Let's do it. Let's see of a good game. 00:44:37 Speaker 2: The game we're going to play is called Gift or a Curse. So basically, I'm gonna name three things, okay, and you're just going to tell me if there are a gift or a curse. 00:44:48 Speaker 3: Each individual thing. 00:44:50 Speaker 2: Yes, So we'll go through one by one. But from what I what I need from you is a number between one and. 00:44:56 Speaker 3: Ten of scale on gift or curse. 00:44:59 Speaker 2: No, just give me a number right now. Oh, right now, because I'm going to pick these randomly. And yeah, so give me a five. Five. It's a good number. 00:45:07 Speaker 3: It was my number in high school. 00:45:09 Speaker 2: You're a basketball Oh you're a basketball. 00:45:11 Speaker 3: Yeah, basketball player. I was pretty good. I I wouldn't. I can't do anything now, but at a time I used to be a I played as a practice player for the women's basketball team colleague beautiful. Yeah, I've been pretty woke my whole life. 00:45:29 Speaker 2: Wow, you were really ahead of the game. 00:45:32 Speaker 3: Yeah no, but that I went to a D one school. We were playing against very talented women's that's great. 00:45:39 Speaker 2: So you're, I mean, not a bad player. 00:45:41 Speaker 3: I wasn't a bad player. I was not anything worth bragging. 00:45:44 Speaker 2: You're really balancing the scales there because I'm may be the worst basketball player on the planet. I was sure on a little league team for years and did not score a point. 00:45:52 Speaker 3: Okay, never once in a real game, not. 00:45:55 Speaker 2: A single time. Wow, my parents should have pulled me. Yeah, did not go calculate this while I'm doing this, I want you to just you can promote something, you can tell people something about yourself, whatever you want. The time you have is you have no idea because I've got Yeah. 00:46:12 Speaker 3: I love this. I just get to talk. This is great. My name's Langston. I have a Twitter. It's at Langston Kerrman. It's also my Instagram. And I have an album and that's on all of the places where you buy music and listen to the things. And it's called Light Skin Feelings and it's me telling jokes and it's pretty funny. It got some warm reception. 00:46:37 Speaker 2: At a time Lengthston, your time is up. I will say Light Skin Feelings is a very good album. 00:46:43 Speaker 3: Thank you. 00:46:44 Speaker 2: I don't know how people find albums anymore me neither. Seek it out. Sure, seek it out, try to pay money for it. I don't care if you pay it. Okay, it doesn't matter that. 00:46:52 Speaker 3: Just listen to it and tell your friends to also listen to it. Apparently that's more valuable than money nowadays. That's what they're That's what all these companies keep telling me. 00:47:03 Speaker 2: Yes, you want to raise this man's clout, make me popular on the internet. Yes, that's valuable. Okay, we're getting into the game here. Number one thing. I want you to tell me if you think the following is a gift or a curse, and they'll tell me why. Small plates small plates at restaurants, you know, at small plate restaurants that. 00:47:25 Speaker 3: Sort of tappas if you will. Yes, I believe that small plates are a curse. I do not support small plates. I think that it is just an excuse for people to order a lot more than they otherwise would have ordered, and paid for a lot more things than they otherwise would have paid for. And basically it makes you have to sit through an explanation of the way that restaurants work in a way that you did not need to sit through the explanation because we've all been going to restaurants our entire small. 00:48:01 Speaker 2: Plates curse Lengthen, yeah, just nailed it. I mean you're absolutely correct on this and there are correct end in correct answers. Okay, So I just want you to be aware that he's good to know afterwards fail. I didn't want to put too much pressure on you, but I absolutely agree small plates are a curse for all of those reasons. Also, I need to know. I just need one plate of food in front of me, so I know what I'm eating when the fifty plates, I have no idea what I put in my body. I could eat all of them and not realize that I've eaten seven meals. 00:48:35 Speaker 3: Why do I need octopus and olives? Yes, that's not a good mix. 00:48:40 Speaker 2: Also, I know I'm going to find something that I really like, and then they're gonna be like nine things that I kind of like. And why can't I just eat all of the thing I like? 00:48:47 Speaker 3: Yeah? And the thing is with small plates, we all always like the same thing. Of course that thing disappears immediately. 00:48:55 Speaker 2: Maybe one or two of those gets ordered, and then it's like a bunch of cauliflower, right. 00:49:00 Speaker 3: And you feel like an idiot just being like, hey, would you bring out like eight more plates of this thing that we all like? 00:49:06 Speaker 2: Hey, this was twenty five dollars. Can we get a bunch more of the well so we can throw throw away the rest of. 00:49:11 Speaker 3: It, you know, so we could all have a human serving amount of that thing that we liked instead of a bunch of shit. Yes, we're gonna not finish. 00:49:19 Speaker 2: I do feel like fortunately small the top is small plates trend is like kind of waning or something. I feel like I'm going to more restaurants where I can just order my plate of food that I can selfishly eat. 00:49:31 Speaker 3: I think there's there's and it's the beauty of comedy. And I don't want to say that comedy is completely responsible for this, but I do think that we tend to call out the bullshit. Yeah, sort of has been like there was a period where people were sort of fascinated with small plates, and then comedy in all forms was sort of like, hey, don't y'all feel stupid doing that? And then it's a bad thing, right, And now restaurants are like, all right, guys, they get it. It's a rue. 00:50:00 Speaker 2: Yeah, regular amounts of food. 00:50:02 Speaker 3: We just got to give them spaghetti again, normal people. 00:50:06 Speaker 2: Take a giant plate of spaghetti. Sure, Okay, one for one. Nice, let's move on to the next, the next thing. Uh, oh my god, I'm having a hard time reading this. House plants, house plants, house plants gift her a curse. 00:50:22 Speaker 3: Ah, that's a tough one. Hmmm, I'm gonna say gift. I think house plants are a gift. My wife has murdered a number of house plants. She does not take care of them, well, she does not water them. There was once a point where I gave her a cactus that she kept by the door where there is no sunlight, because she was under the presumption that cactuses didn't need sun. 00:50:48 Speaker 2: Sunny places. 00:50:49 Speaker 3: Sure, they just needed water. 00:50:51 Speaker 2: Yes, you find all these cactus in the rainforest sort of thing. 00:50:56 Speaker 3: You know, cactuses love a cave. She has murdered a number of houseplants, and I think that has, uh, it has been a gift in that it has taught me what we have to do to grow and improve in our relationship. And I say gift. I say they're a good thing because they teach us lessons. 00:51:19 Speaker 2: Well unfortunately, Okay, so they're a curse. That's obvious. Sure, it's very clear, and it's it's sad to watch you just fail immediately after nailing the first it's. 00:51:31 Speaker 3: Such a long ran. 00:51:32 Speaker 2: Hey yeah, and then you just truly fall flat on your face. It's embarrassing, canceled Lson Kerman, I think there, I don't think. I know they are a curse because they offer this beautiful promise of beautifying your home, but they immediately just become a stress inducing nightmare. 00:51:55 Speaker 3: They do cause stress. 00:51:56 Speaker 2: I have killed so many and it's just a depressing feeling to watch this thing you brought into your home slowly die. And they are the most fickle things in the world. Like I've done the research, I've looked online for the advice on how to take care of them. I kill them every time. Sure, unless you live in a greenhouse where there's constant sunlight, it is the most difficult thing to take care. 00:52:20 Speaker 3: I will say that if I had as many bodies on my hand as you do, I'd call it. 00:52:27 Speaker 2: A curse as well a total curse. It's there is a house plan that I can I refer to on this podcast from time to time and continue to forget to research the name of it, which is you don't you don't have to do anything to keep alive. And I'm never going to I've decided I'm never going to tell people on this podcast at this point. I'm not going to look it up. But there is one house plan out there that you do not have to maintain. And it's an incredible feeling to just leave this thing and it just looks good. 00:52:57 Speaker 3: Have you heard of air plants. 00:53:00 Speaker 2: I have heard of airplants, and I don't know what we're talking about. 00:53:02 Speaker 3: So they essentially and I don't know how they work, but they essentially are able to sustain themselves without any soil. Okay, So they just literally are plants that sort of like spike out in every direction and you can put them in like a some sort of container. And it doesn't require dirt to be able to light. 00:53:25 Speaker 2: Does it require water or a light light? 00:53:29 Speaker 3: Yes? And the occasional spray from like a you know, a spray. 00:53:35 Speaker 2: Or what is that called a water spray? 00:53:38 Speaker 3: Water bottle? 00:53:41 Speaker 1: Yeah? 00:53:41 Speaker 3: Whatever? What do we spray cats with? 00:53:43 Speaker 2: Water? 00:53:44 Speaker 3: Yeah? Hell yeah? I listen. I abuse animals, and I'm not ashamed. 00:53:49 Speaker 2: Of or that someone you've made your spraying cats. 00:53:53 Speaker 3: In their face because fucking like them? 00:53:55 Speaker 2: Do you do you have pets? 00:53:58 Speaker 3: We don't have hats. I grew up with a lot of pets. O. My wife did not, so and I'm gone too often to justify adding an obligation to a person who otherwise is. 00:54:11 Speaker 2: Not here take care of this thing you have no interest in doing. 00:54:14 Speaker 3: Exactly, and by the way, keep murdering our plants in the process, So just kill I know you're not good at keeping things alive here much more. 00:54:26 Speaker 2: Okay. So now you've you've gotten one, You've just failed another. Yeah, final final thing. This is big gift a curse. This could go either way. This basically will mean pass or fail. 00:54:43 Speaker 3: I don't know that it will. I think I'm going to land at a sixty six. 00:54:47 Speaker 2: Sixty six? What does that mean? Yeah, that's I kind of maybe that's passed. You barely fail? 00:54:53 Speaker 3: Is fifty? Are we talking? 00:54:54 Speaker 1: Yeah? 00:54:54 Speaker 2: I guess yeah, you have to get down to fifty? 00:54:57 Speaker 3: Okay, cool, All right, here we go. 00:54:59 Speaker 2: Do you think the desert is a gift for a curse? 00:55:02 Speaker 3: Ah? Wow? The desert? Is the desert a gift or a curse? We currently live in a desert. I'm gonna say it's a gift. I like it here in this desert. I think they lie to us often and say it's not a desert. They tell us that we're in some sort of weird tropical paradise by putting up trees that don't belong here. But that's not true. And this desert has made it so that I can live off of my silly jokes and ramblings, and it doesn't rain very often, and hot people are for some reason attracted to being here. So I'm gonna say gift, it's a gift. 00:55:50 Speaker 2: Lengston. You're correct. Ah, the desert, of course. I love the desert at all. So much mystery, so much warmth. You've got the cactus, you've got just the quiet. You've got very little rain lizards. There's a lizard. Everybody loves a lizard. Exciting snake with less threat. Snake you want to get to know. Yeah exactly. Yeah, I'm just realizing that the lizard is kind of to the snake as like a squirrel is to a rat. It's like the more pr friendly version of that animal or whatever. 00:56:29 Speaker 3: Yeah, they got the right people in front of him. 00:56:31 Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. It didn't make like the bad moves of not having legs or not having fur on your tail. 00:56:36 Speaker 3: Yeah, what are you idiots doing? Yeah, with no legs and no furs. No, the desert, I absolutely. I think most people love the desert as long as they've got water, they've got cool shelter. Yeah, but it's just you go out into the desert and you're having a wonderful time. It's a good time. 00:56:56 Speaker 2: Do you spend any time in Palm Springs. 00:56:58 Speaker 3: I haven't. I I've done a few shows down there, but never like gone and you know, chilled. Okay, I think I'd like it. 00:57:08 Speaker 2: You've got to give it a shot. 00:57:09 Speaker 3: I enjoy drugs. I'd like go do some drugs and wander and yes, stare at stuff. 00:57:15 Speaker 2: Yes, it's a wonderful town. There are like two restaurants, good restaurants, so you don't have to make any decisions, like those are the places I'll eat. Yeah, and uh, it offers everything that I've talked about with the desert here. I've never seen a lizard there, but you've got to take a peek and maybe you'll see one. 00:57:31 Speaker 3: Yeah, they've got to be a lizard there. Look at you. Two out of three out of three really not too bad. Sixty six point sixty six with the bar over it. 00:57:40 Speaker 2: This is a former high school teacher here and he's going to graduate. Yeah, I mean, good for you. Okay. Final segment of this podcast is called I Said No Questions. People are writing into I Said No Gifts at gmail dot com and they're getting advice on gift giving. Need to give people in their lives gifts, and they're obviously extremely desperate, have turned to me as the final result. 00:58:11 Speaker 3: Need to ask a podcast, Yeah, what to do? 00:58:15 Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a sad situation and so I through pity. I'm trying to help these people. Let's give it a shot. The first one up here. Just this is very simple, deer Bridger. I'm finishing up a job. What kind of gift should I get? My bet get my I've been talking a lot about reading on this podcast, and every example of me trying to read so far has really been a D level reading. 00:58:39 Speaker 3: As a person who struggles to read out loud. I'm here with it. 00:58:42 Speaker 2: It's tough. Yeah, it's frequently your. 00:58:44 Speaker 3: Difficult judgment on this side of the table. 00:58:47 Speaker 2: I'm going to give it another shot, deer Bridger. I'm finishing up a job? What kind of gift should I get? My boss? Best Aril in Los Angeles? Ariel is out there. She's saying goodbye to a job. We don't know how long she was there, we don't know what her if she actually cares about her boss? Right, I mean, obviously it's done with the job, so it couldn't have been that great. No, you don't like it, What do you get a boss? I don't know that I've ever. 00:59:16 Speaker 3: I've never once bought my boss. That's not true. I bought my my boss. I still buy my former boss. The teacher who is like a mentor. Yeah, right, a gift, but not because he was my. 00:59:29 Speaker 2: Boss's, because there was a relationship prior to the boss. Exactly what are you buying him? 00:59:35 Speaker 3: I'll get him like like books or like some sort of like gift card or something or just something relevant. Yeah, time, but it's nothing like super intimate totally. 00:59:53 Speaker 2: Well, I think with a boss, this person has been working you. Let's just assume to the bone. 01:00:01 Speaker 3: Let's I think yelled at you, yelled at you. 01:00:04 Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, like just screamed right into your face, stared. 01:00:09 Speaker 3: Over your shoulder. 01:00:10 Speaker 2: They're a lot, Yeah, just like a dominance, you know, like tapped their watch when you came in. This kind of just passive aggressive. 01:00:22 Speaker 3: If it's a mail boss, he might have locked his door when you. 01:00:25 Speaker 2: Let's hope not. Let's just hope there might have been some dangerous Yeah, you want to get him a visit from the police. I mean, I'm assuming Ariel that your boss here. You must have been pleasant enough. Yeah, I'm thinking of restaurant gift card. 01:00:44 Speaker 3: That's a good offer. 01:00:46 Speaker 2: Everybody likes that. It's kind of like it's not too personal. I feel like getting a boss a personal thing. It might weird them out, or you don't want them. You don't want to start crossing the line to we're now friends. Yeah, sure you want to like leave a good taste in their mouth, but you don't want them like calling you socially right, keep the distance. 01:01:08 Speaker 3: I think similarly, a desk ornament sort of has that vibe of like, here's a thing that I don't have to look at anymore, but maybe you can put on your desk and it'll make you feel like you are loved, like appreciated in a way that doesn't matter to me. 01:01:27 Speaker 2: Yeah, just like a nice card that actually reminds me. I intern for David Letterman years ago and was tasked with buying if it's his birthday, and my bosses at the job told me to go get the greeting card for his birthday, which picking out a greeting card for anyone is absolutely terrifying. Yeah, and this added this whole new dimension of like, what what card do you get Dave Letterman? 01:02:02 Speaker 3: You're not that guy who transformed late night comedy? 01:02:05 Speaker 2: Yeah? 01:02:06 Speaker 3: What makes him last? Of course? 01:02:07 Speaker 2: Like cards have some stupid bullshit on him that's like you don't want to give that to him, so I finally just settled on one that said like happy birthday and had some balloons on it. Oh boy, no, no text within the car. Yeah, I take it to my bosses. They furious with me, sure, totally unhappy. But you can't. You can't saddle me with getting a greeting card for someone else in your life. You're gonna get what you're gonna get. 01:02:32 Speaker 3: And then also give me a give me a trajectory. Yeah, like some advice. Yeah, it's like, okay, you want a funny card, I'll go funny. You wanna you wanta more like a poem? Poemy cards? 01:02:46 Speaker 2: Sure? 01:02:47 Speaker 3: Like they say weird romantic things to a person you don't have romantic feelings. Seems right for David, he's you know, he grew that beard for a reason. 01:02:56 Speaker 2: Yeah. No, I think the secret I mean with cards is let's just make them all blank. I don't need anybody writing my message. You should say happy birthday, happy anniversary, whatever, sorry your mom died, and then leave the rest to me. Do just folded cardboard, lad put a nice picture on it. I don't need anybody expressing my feelings for me. Yeah, Aril, I hope something that we've said here adds up to the perfect gift for your boss. If not, it doesn't matter. You don't work for them anymore. 01:03:32 Speaker 4: And a knife, Send a knife, Send a knife. That's a good message. What does this person have in mind for me? Okay, next question, Bridger, My anniversary with my fiance is coming up. We don't share expenses yet, and he hasn't worked this year, So what can I give him that's nice but won't make him feel guilty for not giving me something expensive. That's Neil in Pittsburgh. So wow, this is this is an emotionally complicated thing. 01:04:09 Speaker 3: Yeah, you're trying not to. 01:04:11 Speaker 2: Dog, yeah, which on some level you kind of do want to, you know, you do want to get them a nice thing. This person obviously he hasn't worked. He probably could have a nice thing in his life. 01:04:23 Speaker 3: But then why is any word? 01:04:26 Speaker 2: Yeah, we need to talk about Neil's fiance. It seems like he's a problem person. 01:04:33 Speaker 3: What is mister Neil doing here? 01:04:34 Speaker 2: I feel like maybe is there like a premium account on LinkedIn? Is there? Does monster dot com still exist? 01:04:45 Speaker 3: Perhaps a nice interview time. 01:04:47 Speaker 2: Yeah, or like yeah, a little book on tips on the job hunt or just you know, you clip out the classified section of the newspaper. 01:04:56 Speaker 3: Media tutorial on firm handshap. 01:05:00 Speaker 2: Firm handshakes like the perfect, not too much, not too little. Let's go just like a normal person, because obviously your fiance has got to do something to get back into the job market. Yeah, I mean, maybe we're just finding out that Neil's fiance has been kind of just milking this thing, and who knows, maybe it's time to say goodbye, break it off. 01:05:25 Speaker 3: Yeah. I don't know if that's a great gift, but. 01:05:27 Speaker 2: I mean I think, I mean, I actually think it might be the perfect gift, give him the gift of you've got to figure it. 01:05:35 Speaker 3: Out, buddy, I'm leaving. 01:05:38 Speaker 2: I'm leaving, and maybe we'll see each other in the future and you'll have a damn job. Otherwise I don't want to see you anymore. We're in Pittsburgh. It's not that it's probably a relatively expensive city. 01:05:50 Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, get a get a job working. 01:05:54 Speaker 2: Steel, working steel, Yeah, bam of steel town. 01:05:58 Speaker 3: It's a steel down those beams, those jobs aren't going anywhere. 01:06:03 Speaker 2: Nobody else has this steal. Uh Okay, So I feel like it's Neil. Unfortunately, it's time to end the relationship. 01:06:12 Speaker 3: You got to break up, Neil. 01:06:13 Speaker 2: This man has warmed his way into your life and has probably gotten too many gifts already. Get him some walking shoes, getting get him some walking shoes to walk right out of the apartment onto a new life. Bless you, Neil. I'm excited for your future as a you know, somebody who is an independent woman. Okay, well, I think we we nailed it with both of these. The world is a better place because of us. 01:06:45 Speaker 3: For sure. 01:06:45 Speaker 2: Ril is getting our boss something I can't remember exactly what we talked about, and Neil is single. We're gonna wrap it up. I think that's the end of the show. Links delight having you. I've got this beautiful new book. I'm going to dive right into it. Aase, do finish up some James Baldwin and get right into Andrea Bouchar, my second favorite, one of his peers, one of his peers. I think we can say there's Baldwin at Bouchar, both equally important to America. All Right, that's the end of the show. I said. No Gifts isn't exactly right production. It's engineered by Earth Angel Stephen Ray Morris. The theme song is by miracle worker Amy Man. You can follow the show on Instagram and Twitter at I said no gifts, and if you have a question or need help getting a gift for someone in your life, email me at I Said No gifts at gmail dot com. Listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you found me, and why not leave a review while you're at it? 01:07:52 Speaker 1: Did you hearn a man? Myself perfectly clear? Here, I guess to my home, you gotta come to me empty? And I said, no, guest, your own presence is presents enough. I already had too much stuff, So how do you dare to surbey mea