00:00:08 Speaker 1: And I invited you here. I thought I made myself perfectly clear. When you're a guest to my home, you gotta come to me empty. And I said, no guests, you're o presences presents enough. I already had too much stuff. 00:00:35 Speaker 2: So how do you dare to surbey me? Welcome to I said, no gifts. I'm Bridgard Winegar. We're here in the studio right up top. We're coming to Chicago May twenty third, the Den Theater May twenty third. Did I already say that Chicago? I've only been to Chicago once. You better treat me well. The last time it was not for a live show. This is for a live show, so I want to be treated with respect, a little respect. I want to have a nice evening with all of you. Go to the Dentheater dot com, I believe, or google it, or on a LIS's this something we can put in the show notes. Absolutely on Aalasa's on top of it. You can look in the show notes. You can probably go to our instagram. There are so many ways you can shop online. So buy your tickets if they're still available, Buy a friend a ticket, come to the show. We'll have special guests I'm gonna bring some gifts from you. Never know what I'm gonna bring to give away because I've got to get rid of some of this stuff. And uh, just brace yourselves, brace yourselves for the theater. Ah, what else is going on over the weekend? I went to Medieval Times. First experience at Medieval Times. And if you don't think I bought a souvenir glass, You're out of your mind. This one has kind of lights flashing at the bottom. So I've been drinking my coffee out of that every morning, which is going to lead to a migraine, and that's fine. It's also not dishwashers safe because as a battery, so I don't know. It'll probably end up in a cupboard and then ninety years from now, someone ninety years how long am I willing to gonna live? Someone's gonna find it at an estate sale and they're going to say, this is state sale sucks. Should we go? Anyway, let's get into the podcast. I love today's guest. It's Zeke Smith. Zeke, welcome to I said no gifts. 00:02:37 Speaker 3: Well, thank you for having me. 00:02:39 Speaker 2: I'm so happy you're here. I had a big weekend over at Medieval Times. 00:02:43 Speaker 3: Well, I'm I'm very jealous because I went to Medieval Times once when I was a child in Dallas, tex Okay, and have always wanted to go back. And my husband recently shot a television show for to b It on two B Great in Toronto, Okay. And this was two Bey's for a scripted show, and they weren't They just didn't know all the nooks and crannies of like filming something and all the rituals. So there was no plan for a rat party. 00:03:12 Speaker 2: Oh sure. 00:03:13 Speaker 3: So I always love to be the party planner, and I lobbied really hard. I was happy to do all the logistic work to have to go to Medieval Times in Toronto. 00:03:21 Speaker 2: That's a great irat party. 00:03:23 Speaker 3: Yeah, And they said no, Yeah, No one listened to me. 00:03:26 Speaker 2: What's happening over at Tube? This is ridiculous. Tooby is out of control. First of all, my apologies to Touby, but come on, hire somebody that knows the basics of running a television show. Yeah. 00:03:40 Speaker 3: I'll refuse to comment more because it's not my place. 00:03:44 Speaker 2: I just my husband. 00:03:45 Speaker 3: But I was just I was very disappointed they did not take me up them. 00:03:48 Speaker 2: Wow, that would have been great. Yeah, do you have any memories from your original medieval times experience? 00:03:53 Speaker 3: I just remember being my mother was very concerned that there was going to be no silverware and they will eat with your hands. Yes, So we went to like a Walmart or whatever and bought like a box of plastic silk, and my mom like brought it in in her purse and then was like concerned they were confiscated. Of course it's contraband, yes, and that. And they didn't have diet pepsi. They only had regular pepsi, and you know, we only drank diet. 00:04:23 Speaker 2: Of course, patty was a concern. Wow, I have well not to break, but I had a diet pepsi during my experience. Oh wow, so they've expanded their they've expanded it at least to diet pepsi. I still ate with my hands. I drank my soup out of the bowl holding my hands. Yeah, dipped my brit my clearly frozen garlic bread into the soup. Did not eat my corn, did not eat my clare that looked like it had been taken from a bad wedding somewhere. 00:04:52 Speaker 3: I'm not a fan of a mass produced a claire. I'm not either got to do it like you got to do it but Taga Louis style where it's very good, or don't. 00:05:00 Speaker 2: Because I think it is something that's so easily manufactured in a factory that it'll often be kind of like it's almost like an airplane dessert or something where it's just this is what we've got. Take it. I might give me a Milano, absolutely, this is me if like, if you're not gonna go all the way for the dessert, just buy a bag of chips a Hoy. 00:05:17 Speaker 3: Yeah, that's fine, They're great. 00:05:18 Speaker 2: I will prefer that because chips a Hoy knows what they're doing, and somebody who doesn't care about his dessert is gonna make something worse. 00:05:25 Speaker 3: Exactly exactly. 00:05:26 Speaker 2: Oh, I love to hear that. I had a pretty decent time at medieval times. I feel like it kind of feels like you're dining around a litter box. 00:05:36 Speaker 3: In a way. Yeah, I didn't think of it, but yeah, because there's just the horses pooping in the dirt. 00:05:40 Speaker 2: Yeah, and they have like those giant like they have the employees running around with like what are essentially giant litter box scoopers. So it's an odd experience. 00:05:49 Speaker 3: So I my father used to own a cattle ranch. 00:05:53 Speaker 2: Oh wow, so. 00:05:55 Speaker 3: I've I've spent a little time, and I believe the technical term for those are shit shovelers. 00:06:01 Speaker 2: That's a Latin term. Yes, wow, So have you spent time on horses? 00:06:07 Speaker 3: You know, we didn't have like horses. It was kind of like a small My dad got it after he and my mother sold their business and got divorced, which sort of happened simultaneously, and he had this like dream of being a cowboy, so he bought this little like. 00:06:23 Speaker 2: Ranch in. 00:06:26 Speaker 3: Prague, Oklahoma, which it's spelled like Prague, but we see Prague. 00:06:31 Speaker 2: There are several of those throughout the United States. 00:06:34 Speaker 3: Yeah, we also have a Miama, which is spelled like Miami Miama. Miama. Oklahoma is a very weird place. Both of our major airports are named after men who died in airplane crashes. Oh no, who will we Will Rogers in Oklahoma City, Okay, and then Wiley Post in Tulsa. 00:06:54 Speaker 2: That's tough. Was were they named after they died in the plane crashes? This feels like a weird move. 00:07:02 Speaker 3: Well, I mean Will Rogers was a very famous Oklahoma So it's like you get that, but then Wyley posts not as famous, and it's sort of like this seems like a bad trend. 00:07:13 Speaker 2: It's kind of a like a Springtime for Hitler situation. Let's try to just get this airport to go out of business. Wow? And were they big plane crashes or they these ones were They're like I'm a famous person and now I'm flying my own plane into the side of a mountain. 00:07:29 Speaker 3: Yeah. I think like they're sort of like Amelia Earhart style. We want to go and like do some sort of flight that no one has done before. 00:07:36 Speaker 2: And then right the Hubris, Yes, where's the Amelia Earhart Airport? We need to get that going? 00:07:43 Speaker 3: Is there not one? 00:07:44 Speaker 2: I would love? I would go to that. That should fly through the Bermuda Triangle. 00:07:48 Speaker 3: You know what is a great airport is the Charles Schultz Airport in Santa Clara. 00:07:53 Speaker 2: Is it Peanuts themed? 00:07:55 Speaker 3: Yeah? Oh, it's this tiny little airport with all this Peanuts stuff in it, and it like you know, takes you to wine country like near Heals Bird right. I don't know. 00:08:07 Speaker 2: Is that the Sonoma region? 00:08:08 Speaker 3: I think so? 00:08:09 Speaker 2: But you can fly there direct from Barbank and all the airplanes are shaped like doghouses and the red barn. 00:08:15 Speaker 3: Wow, there's a Snoopy on all the planes. 00:08:18 Speaker 2: Wow, that's where I love Peanuts. I absolutely adore Peanuts and I feel like anything Peanuts themed I'm on board with. It's our current television screensaver. 00:08:28 Speaker 3: Oh you know how Apple, if you have Apple TV, it was like landscapes and now you can choose Peanuts. 00:08:33 Speaker 2: You can and it just is it animation or is it just pictures of the various animation. 00:08:38 Speaker 3: It's a lot of like Snoopy sleeping on his doghouse and then like running around. It's very Snoopy. 00:08:43 Speaker 2: Oh, this is very sweet. Yes, yeah, I'm still on the lion scapes because I like to try to guess where they are, and it's almost nine out of times ten times. Dubai or lax La. 00:08:54 Speaker 3: Is the areal of x is my worst airport in the world. 00:08:59 Speaker 2: It's such a that is the best version of lax You only want to be in a drone above it exactly if you're down on the ground level, forget it. They should do a screensaver of Burbank Airport. Oh, they should have something Apple could look into right well. 00:09:13 Speaker 3: And you hear it. 00:09:14 Speaker 2: Burbank is going to be completely redone soon. What's happening, Well, they're just. 00:09:19 Speaker 3: Going to update it so it doesn't look like a who. 00:09:23 Speaker 2: Have anybody touching Burbank. I agree with you. 00:09:26 Speaker 3: I think it just needs to be its own special little thing where you can, forgotten time, valet your car for twenty seven dollars a day and you literally drive it up, you throw your keys at the guy and in five minutes you're past TSA and you're. 00:09:38 Speaker 2: It's the best airport in the world. 00:09:41 Speaker 3: I mean, it's got like six Guy Fieri restaurants, and. 00:09:43 Speaker 2: It certainly does. I think it's fiery, bathroom gates, only four flights a day, It's so cool. I wonder, Oh, this is genuinely concerning to me. I wonder what. I hope it doesn't get in the way of it being so easy, one would hope. 00:10:01 Speaker 3: Well, I think there's also the limiting factor of there can only be so many flights out of out of Bourbank, right because of the noise pollution. 00:10:10 Speaker 2: Oh yeah, because it's kind of in a suburban area. 00:10:13 Speaker 3: Yes, there's like very residential and also all the studios, right, because like we're in studio city and right next to like Radford and Universal and all that, and you can definitely like hear the planes of being Wow. 00:10:27 Speaker 2: Definitely like a stop for planes is Yeah, so that will kind of probably keep it as small as possible, you would think. So we've got to preserve it. It's it's heaven on earth. 00:10:38 Speaker 3: It is the best light experience in the world. 00:10:40 Speaker 2: Do you know when all of this renovation is going to begin? Uh no, I've brought you on here at the Burbank Airport official. 00:10:48 Speaker 3: Wow. 00:10:49 Speaker 2: But that is that sent a jolt through my body. I don't want them touching it. It's my little precious airport. 00:10:54 Speaker 3: I wouldn't mind it being a little cleaner, Like if we wanted to replace some carpets. 00:10:59 Speaker 2: The carpets are a little rough. 00:11:00 Speaker 3: Maybe wanted to update the bathroom situation a little bit. 00:11:04 Speaker 2: That's part of the charm. It's part of the charm. It's like, you know, it's just like it's just been forgotten in the back of LA's closet and we get to take advantage of how easy it is. But maybe they'll clean the carpets, maybe they'll put in some tile, get one decent coffee place. Yeah, but I don't really care as long as I can just walk in essentially. 00:11:24 Speaker 3: Right, I'm happy to spend sixty dollars on a whiskey cocktail and chicken fingers and Guy Fieri's. 00:11:31 Speaker 2: How are the chicken fingers not bad? I believe I feel like Guy Fieri would be decent with chicken fingers. Yeah. 00:11:35 Speaker 3: The peak chicken finger is wingstop. 00:11:38 Speaker 2: Oh interesting, I've never been to a wing stop. 00:11:41 Speaker 3: It's worth even just postmaning. But the chicken tenders themselves right well, and they're ranch sauce. Oh is it's peak ranch stace. 00:11:49 Speaker 2: A good ranch that's basically my number one chicken finger dipping sauce. 00:11:54 Speaker 3: Yeah. I'll take a barbecue or honey mustard every now and again, but ranch needs to be the center. 00:11:58 Speaker 2: And barbecue it could be any flavor. Essentially, you really never know with barbecue, but ranch, you're like there's a ballpark area of ranch. Sometimes barbecue sauce is a little sweet. 00:12:09 Speaker 3: Yeah, well, it's got tons of sugar in it. It's essentially you know, the base green. The base ingredient of American barbecue sauce is ketchup. 00:12:15 Speaker 2: Oh, I don't know. 00:12:16 Speaker 3: If you're never a major on barbecue, no, I have Okay, but it all starts with like, dump a bottle of ketchup, add brown sugar, throw in some spices, a little vinegar mustard. 00:12:27 Speaker 2: Yeah, I like a vinegar barbecue sauce. 00:12:30 Speaker 3: Are you from? Where are you from? 00:12:33 Speaker 2: I'm from Salt Lake City. 00:12:34 Speaker 3: Oh, Okay. So you're not from a like a barbecue. 00:12:37 Speaker 2: Ring No, no, no no. I guess your tay would say it's more of a ranch ranch oriented mayo based sauces. Yes, because we are famous with our fried sauce, which is ketchup and mayonnaise mixed together. Where you're from Texas? Oklahoma? Oklahoma? Right? And what's moy. 00:12:55 Speaker 3: Yeah very much? So Oklahoma. And I hate to say this because Texas, but sooner. Oklahoma is just culturally the northern province of Texas, right right, It's like it's cowboys and Indians, it's barbecue and yeah. 00:13:12 Speaker 2: I always for the longest time, I kind of just assumed Oklahoma was very dusty. 00:13:16 Speaker 3: Well because that's where the dust Bawl happened. 00:13:19 Speaker 2: So one a time did not make this connection. 00:13:22 Speaker 3: That's where all the oakie is left in grapes of wrath to come to California. So Oklahoma. More fun facts aside from our airports named after people. 00:13:32 Speaker 2: Graft Is. 00:13:33 Speaker 3: So the dust Bawl happened because well, first of all, we kicked all the Native Americans out of the southeastern United States, right, Florida, Georgia, alban right, march them on the trail at Oklahoma. They're like, this is a wasteland. No one wants this. And then they were like, well, actually we're gonna let like even further marginalized that and we're gonna let white people have the good land. And then they just they farmed the land so much without any regard for the environmental impact that literally all the dust bowl happened, and dust was blowing all over the country because they just plowed up all of the roots of the things that keeps the dirt in the ground. 00:14:11 Speaker 2: That is such a crazy disaster. 00:14:14 Speaker 3: All right, and then the legacy continues. So when I lived in Oklahoma, there were maybe like three earthquakes a year that like were imperceptible, right three day in la exactly the ground shakes a little, right it happens. I left in two thousand and six, and when had the time I returned to see my dad, like five years later, there were something of like one hundred and seventy four earthquakes a day. What because they started fracking. So, fracking is a process of extracting oil on natural gas from the ground where you shale is a very porous substance rock material. Sorry, so you inject wastewater into the ground to break up the shale and like get the gas and the oil to come up. And for a decade they were like, no, it's not it's not the fracking that's causing their earthquakes. 00:15:08 Speaker 4: It's not the fracking, which is the reason why a curse lights, which is cursed the devil's are rumblin. But yeah, for like ten to fifteen years they're like, no, no, no, it's not fracking. 00:15:19 Speaker 3: It's not fracking. And then finally they were like, yeah, this is like becoming a problem and people can like light their the drinking water on fucking whoa. 00:15:27 Speaker 2: So, what's what's the latest status of earthquakes in Oklahoma. 00:15:30 Speaker 3: Well, they, of course, they put a couple of regulations on it, and it was back to like seventy years. 00:15:36 Speaker 2: Okay, seventy years, you can handle seven years. Wow, that's Oklahoma's gotta eventually learn a lesson about screwing things up with the ground. 00:15:45 Speaker 3: Well you know there is. It's just such a weird place that is so dominated by like anti regulatory, right Mary cowboy, Yeah, pro capitalist stuff. So we had we I haven't live there, and I'm basically like as a transperson, like illegal and open anymore. But there was a ballot initiative in sometime in the early odds, you know, twenty tens, where Oklahoma legalized cannabis right, uh, just for anyone to go and purchase. But it was it didn't come from where it came from California, which is like lefty hippies who think people should be able to like medicate with cannabis. It came from like the libertarian side of it. And of course everybody wants to smoke weed. So it passed this ballot initiative and then it was like okay, but there was no regulation on it. Oh wow, to the extent that it was so easy to get a license to grow cannabis in California that drug operators from Russia and China were just like buying and opening up cannabis farms. 00:16:50 Speaker 2: And then this was in Oklahoma. 00:16:52 Speaker 3: Yeah, they would go and they would have these huge grows and they would just like dump all their trash everywhere, and people would be like, like, there's a bunch of Chinese people making drugs in next door, and nobody knew whose job it was to go and like investigate it because there were like thirteen people who worked in like the cannabis organization and nobody knew if it was law enforcement or the cannabis people or who. So there was this like massive growth of international illegal drug cartels growing to Oklahoma, and. 00:17:25 Speaker 2: Then what I assume at some point there were some regulations put on. 00:17:30 Speaker 3: Oh yeah, they've now like increased the regulatory agency. It's not as fun as it was anymore, right, But I think they're now trying to like a lot of the legalization of cannabis. It hasn't been the economic boon people thought it was, nor has it had the like decriminalization d you know, prisonification effects people thought it would. So now I think, I know, Texas just banned even sort of like secondary products like Delta nine and CBD. 00:18:02 Speaker 2: While they're going in the other direction. 00:18:04 Speaker 3: Right well, because Texas legalized hemp products right like CBD and like you know, jute rope or whatever. But there was this loophole in it where you could sell sort of like it's not quite as potent as the weed we get here. 00:18:17 Speaker 2: It's called Delta nine. Uh huh. 00:18:19 Speaker 3: I actually, so when I go visit my mom who lives in Austin, now we would go and just like buy weed from the like smoke shot. Right now it's Delta nine. So me and my husband be like, we light it up and it. I loved it, because California weed is too strong, too much for you. I used to be such a stoner in New York when I was just getting like dealer weed from a nation, little white lesbian with dreadlocks. 00:18:43 Speaker 2: It was great. 00:18:43 Speaker 3: I had so much fun. But this week it gives me a panic attack. But in Texas it was like the shitty dealer right right, Well, I'm disappointed Texas. 00:18:53 Speaker 2: Texas is all over the place, good grief. Do you consider Texas the south with the west so or the southwest? 00:19:02 Speaker 3: Uh? Southwest is what I would say the answers. But here's here's also the answer is that there are parts of Texas that are the south, like in the eastern part, right, it's sort of a butt Louisiana and Missouri along the Mississippi River, you know, that was sort of the earlier part of Texas that like geographically has the tall trees and the rocks and. 00:19:22 Speaker 2: The rice a lot doesn't look like a Looney Tunes desert exactly. 00:19:26 Speaker 3: Then you know, you go all the way out towards like El Paso or Martha, it is a cool town and it looks like you're in the desert with like the skulls and the tumbleweeds and the Canthus. 00:19:35 Speaker 2: I was just talking to somebody about this. I don't know why, but yeah, because Texas is so cowboy focused, but it's also a lot of the South bullshit happening. 00:19:45 Speaker 3: Yes, I mean it definitely. You know, was on the Confederate side during. 00:19:48 Speaker 2: The Civil War. Yeah, I guess that kind of I think that maybe the answer there. 00:19:52 Speaker 3: And I was actually I was talking to you know, Guy Brandam. Oh, yeah, of course, I was talking to Guy Brandam about this. So college football is the major cultural institution of the South and the Southwest, I would say. And there has been a realignment of conferences where Oklahoma and Texas went from being in a conference that was like Kansas, Iowa, Texas Oklahoma to a conference that is the Southeastern Conference, and it is all of those like principal deep Southern states. So Oklahoma realigned itself in this cultural way to the South as no longer as part of like the Southwest. I mean it's all the same, right, It's all the Bible ball whatever, of course, but it is interesting because there was always such a thing like Oklahoma's not the South. 00:20:36 Speaker 2: Yes, and Oklahoma was kind of in a weird thing of its own. Oh it was Indian territory. Yeah. Culturally, yes, I couldn't quite place them. If you had asked me five minutes ago, what do you consider, well, I guess I would have said Republican weirdness. 00:20:54 Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, but culturally, like I said, is it is Texas with a small man complex. 00:21:01 Speaker 2: That's hard to hear. Oklahoma listener, we love you. Hey. I spent eighteen years in my life there, and I feel like people are moving to Tulsa. 00:21:12 Speaker 3: Yeah, I hear that. 00:21:14 Speaker 2: I feel like they have some sort of like artists program trying to get people to go there. 00:21:18 Speaker 3: So they do. Oh my god. 00:21:19 Speaker 2: I was. 00:21:19 Speaker 3: I was in New York few months ago and NYU has a Tulsa campus. Oh, fascinating, And I was like they had all these like I wish. I went to the book starts They're like NYU Tulsa, and I was. 00:21:31 Speaker 2: Like, what the fuck? 00:21:32 Speaker 3: You pay all this money to go to NYU and like, and you want to spend a semester in Tulsa. 00:21:37 Speaker 2: How bizarre. 00:21:39 Speaker 3: So I looked up the program and it's basically like they found a cheap and willing place where they can go send artists to like go right for six right, I think right, there is some it's mostly that. 00:21:51 Speaker 2: Right, Baron Trump is writing his play there now something like that is one woman show, incredible, god willing. Okay, well, I think we should talk about something else. There's something I just have to get to, uh, which is unfortunate and I'm not thrilled about it. I was excited to have you here on the podcast today. Well, thank you, I thought, Zeko, comeby, we'll have a fantastic time. We'll move on with our days. The podcast is called I said no Gifts, So I was a little I would just say it was a little unsettled when I saw you come into the studio. Look, I'm sure you've got at least one email with the title of the podcast, and you walk in holding what couldn't more clearly be a gift. Uh, I have to ask is it for me? It is interesting? Okay, I'm going to just push through my feelings here. Should I open it here on the podcast? 00:22:46 Speaker 3: Yes? I think you should because it really dovetails nicely with this question of culture and cuisine of the Middle States. 00:22:54 Speaker 2: Oh, I'm excited to see this. Then, so here you got right, it's in this beautiful black bag. Yeah. I think we got that at a after party gifts somewhere. Yeah, they're the tote bags just piling up in people's closets from Yeah, various things. Okay, I'm gonna put it. Feels like there might be two things in here. 00:23:14 Speaker 3: They're actually uh four things. 00:23:16 Speaker 2: In Okay, does it matter what order I pulled them out? 00:23:18 Speaker 3: No, but I would pull the big one out. 00:23:19 Speaker 2: Okay, that's a big one. And you've really got them squeezed in here. That's oh. Oh, I'm thrilled at I'm already thrilled. I'm seeing a crock pot. We're seeing a slow cooker, yes, okay, And should I bring everything out at once? Yes? Okay, Oh, I'm so happy now I've brought out well, it's got to be seventy pounds of velvet to cheese. Wow, and diced chilis on a lish. It's this camera wise? Am I getting in the way here? Are you ready to? Are you about to scold me? Looks great? Looks great? 00:23:55 Speaker 3: Great? 00:23:56 Speaker 2: Wow? Oh my god, I mean obviously. I mean, first of all, I don't own a crock pot, which I'm so thrilled about this. 00:24:04 Speaker 3: Well, this is an intentionally shitty crockpie. 00:24:07 Speaker 2: So oh no, this is gonna be this is us situation. 00:24:10 Speaker 3: No no, no, no, no no no. So they in Oklahoma. The dip, the thing that you eat that runs through your veins is Velveta rotel dip, right. 00:24:22 Speaker 2: Which is just this shelf stable cheese product. Of course, we love a shelf stable processed cheese. 00:24:29 Speaker 3: And two cans of these diced tomatoes and green chili is incredible. And you cube up the velveta and you put it in the crockpot with the rotel dip or the rotel, and then you put the lid on. 00:24:39 Speaker 2: It, right, and you just kind of let it milk together. 00:24:41 Speaker 3: Yeah, but I will give you a warning. It dries out, so you got to put the lid back on it. So if you set this out at a gathering you do need to inform your guests to put it back on, because otherwise it will become this like desiccated block of cheese product. 00:25:00 Speaker 2: That is very hard to cre a frack basically, yes, exactly. Wow. Well I've never I mean, I've obviously had queso in various forms of this, but I've never made it at home. Yeah, so this is the easiest way to do it. 00:25:12 Speaker 3: And really, if you're getting queso at a text Mex place, it's just this but thinned out with chicken stock. 00:25:18 Speaker 2: Oh. Interesting, they're scamming all of us. 00:25:21 Speaker 3: Well, if you like it running, you like it running. This is a very thick cheese. 00:25:24 Speaker 2: Dap right right, Well, tell me why you brought this, I mean, other than the fact that what a delicious thing to eat. Sure. 00:25:29 Speaker 3: Well, so my my husband, my now husband, when we first started dating and sort of, you know, we're like, oh, this is like a thing our first purchase. 00:25:39 Speaker 2: We went to Target. We don't go to Target. 00:25:41 Speaker 3: Anymore, of course, Oh sure, but we went to Target in West Hollywood, the one on like Santa Monica. 00:25:45 Speaker 2: Of course, uh Highland, it's Santa Monica and Librea Librea yea connected to I got best Buy and a rock and roll sushi I believe. Yes. 00:25:58 Speaker 3: So yeah, our first purchased because I I wanted to introduce him to this cultural statement of first purchase was a crock pot just for making queso and we still have it. Wow. 00:26:12 Speaker 2: And how was his first experience? 00:26:14 Speaker 3: Oh? 00:26:14 Speaker 2: He loved it. I feel like it's something you'd be hard pressed to find someone who doesn't love a melted cheese. 00:26:20 Speaker 3: With a tortilla chip. It's the perfect thing. 00:26:22 Speaker 2: Oh, it's fantastic. How often are you making it? 00:26:26 Speaker 3: I think we only make it when people come over at this point. Okay, though sometimes sometimes we love to have what I like to call it taco's gringoes night. Oh so we get you know, the ground beef with like of seasoning, and we get the hard shell tacos. Yes, and you know, the grated cheese. And so sometimes when we do that for dinner, we'll he'll insist that I but the thing is, it's like it doesn't keep so. 00:26:50 Speaker 2: No, I mean this. I mean it's meant to be on a shelf four one hundred years until you make it and then forget it exactly. It'll be rotten within probably ten minutes. What is this cheese made? I mean, it's so made out of milk and stuff, but they I guess they just made it out of like atomic ingredients basically. 00:27:11 Speaker 3: So I forget when this happened, but there was you know, probably like you know, sometime the economy was low to the government to support cheese producers. Producers, they bought up all of this cheddar cheese and like stored it in a cave. What and then they're like, well, we've got it. We can't just like keep cheese in a cave forever. What the government owns all this cheese, what can we do with it? And there had scientists come up with a pasteurized cheese product, so it does technically start out as chatter at least it's original iteration, and then it gets like boiled down in whatever to the shelf stable cheese product, and then they then it became government cheese, right rightment, the government has all this cheese, what are we gonna do? 00:27:56 Speaker 2: We're gonna give it to poor people right right, And now it's for everybody. And I would love to know where that cave was. 00:28:03 Speaker 3: Yeah, I listened to that on an NPR podcast years ago. 00:28:06 Speaker 2: I'd have to Oh, it's like the cave in Aladdin, except first, I mean I would live in a cheese cave. Absolutely. I can imagine myself sliding down a hill of cheese, diving into it like Scrooge McDuck. Wow, what a whimsical thing for the United States government to have done. Yeah, and then turned into this. I wonder when this expires. I want to see August twenty first, twenty five. 00:28:31 Speaker 3: Oh, so you better get on it. 00:28:32 Speaker 2: I only have a few months. 00:28:33 Speaker 3: We usually stockpile this that came from the back of the shelf. 00:28:38 Speaker 2: But it does say best Buy, so it's not like expires, so it probably has another forty years after that. 00:28:43 Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I'm sure it's fine. 00:28:45 Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it'll probably get like less tangy but or more yeap potential. I mean, it's cheese. We've got a lot of age. 00:28:53 Speaker 3: Have you ever opened up a big block of valveto like, No, you're gonna have fun when you like cut it out of the foil and it's like gooey, it also like solid and wiggily. 00:29:01 Speaker 2: Should I do it now? 00:29:02 Speaker 3: You're more than welcome. 00:29:03 Speaker 2: I mean we're on video here. I think we should. This viewer would be so unhappy if they didn't get to see this, and it's even like I've never noticed it's in like this weird little box. 00:29:12 Speaker 3: You just gotta like gotta see. 00:29:19 Speaker 2: The listener right now is so confused. 00:29:22 Speaker 3: I can just grab the bottom of it up right. 00:29:23 Speaker 2: No, I'll shake it all the way. Let him learn. Let's see here. Here we go. Wow, this is uh, this is much more well, how's it gonna survive? You know, the nuclear apocalypse? Whoa, it's so soft and weird. Okay, we're opening it. This is probably gonna smell up the room. Let's see here. I'm gonna have to make I will literally have to make keeso tonight. Let's see here. Oh, it tastes wonderful when made. But smelling that that close? Whoa, I just burned my nostrils out or something. Okay, let's keep going. Is this gonna get all over my hands? Let's see here spanking it? But listen to that. That's horrified. That is the grossest possible noise. 00:30:23 Speaker 3: You want to pinch a little piece off and try it. Oh, I won't make you do it. I'm just saying it would be rude. I did bring it here, I have to do it. But I am gonna say to you there was. 00:30:33 Speaker 2: I would rather eat raw chicken than uncooked processed cheese, like a like a what are those like the craft singles? If that's not melted instant nausea? Yeah, hard agree. 00:30:47 Speaker 3: I grill a lot, so we do like a lot of bike burgers, and I'm a believer in cheddar on a burger, right, but my hobby and everybody else likes American and healing those little. 00:30:56 Speaker 2: Plastic packets over the ground. It's like, ugh, oh, I'm fine once it's melted on the hamburger. But okay, I'm gonna try this and just uh letting everyone know I may become violently sick. So this could be the first episode I've come really sick on. Which is excited? Oh right, get the podcast wonderful, So start booking guests, start thinking of future guests. Okay, okay, I'm gonna oh. 00:31:27 Speaker 5: Oh, it's a gross I can barely swallow that. And it was true because it's like paste texturally. 00:31:38 Speaker 2: That is not for me. This has got to be Do you want to try it? No, girl, I grew up on that and that's with me to. 00:31:46 Speaker 3: School for lunch. 00:31:47 Speaker 2: Would they really I'm trying to think, is there any other time other than melting it that you use this. People put this like spread it on sandwiches, and. 00:31:57 Speaker 3: Maybe you could make like a pimento cheese, but again you would still sort of be like melting any. 00:32:02 Speaker 2: Right, I can't imagine this as our Oh no, ou it's on my hand. I'm gonna smell like cheese for weeks, I know. 00:32:07 Speaker 3: Are there any recipe ideas on the box? 00:32:09 Speaker 2: There's another one that I agree with, which is mac and cheese. Okay, sure, yeah, that makes sense right. 00:32:14 Speaker 3: There might even be oh yeah, see look the recipe is even on the can. 00:32:19 Speaker 2: Oh wow, I love a can recipe. You can kind of count on these. And the recipe is it's just literally two pictures of the can or two cans, and then the cheese. Yeah, fifty percent less fat. That means nothing to anybody. 00:32:34 Speaker 3: Wow. 00:32:34 Speaker 2: And for the listener reviewer, if you want to know, this essentially requires two cups of macaroni. You need three quarters of a pound of cheese, so that's about a tenth of what you've given me here, and then a third cup milk and an eighth of tablespoon or teaspoon of pepper. That's almost nothing. And then you just cook all of that, I assume, boil the macaroni, and then throw it all together. What an easy recipe. This is a recipe podcasts. 00:33:00 Speaker 3: Now Okay, great. 00:33:02 Speaker 2: This is our first official recipe. It brought to us by Velveda. 00:33:07 Speaker 3: Wow. 00:33:08 Speaker 2: Do you have any other favorite dips? 00:33:14 Speaker 3: Oh? My whole thing right now? Do you know lobna the like? 00:33:18 Speaker 2: Oh? I love labnar, Yes, of course, So I like to. 00:33:22 Speaker 3: Take lobna because it's also it's a little healthier than like mixing mayonnaise and sour cream together. I take lobna and I pour a packet of the Inden Valley ranch. 00:33:32 Speaker 2: This is a great idea of powder, yes, of course, and then eat vegetables. Yes, I do this with cottage cheese. You blend up cottage cheese with ranch. 00:33:42 Speaker 3: I actually use cottae cheese when I make macaroni and cheese. There's a great recipe from the New York Times that's like you take cottage cheese and then you add like mustard powder and cayenna and like nutmeg, and then you blend it up with milk and cheddar cheese, and it becomes like the slurry. 00:34:00 Speaker 2: I don't love that word. It becomes essentially a slime. 00:34:08 Speaker 3: It becomes slightly viscousque kind of medium thick. 00:34:16 Speaker 2: You ruined eating macaroni and cheese for everyone. But it's a good recipe. That's great, I'll send it to you, Okay, fantastic. I'd love that they didn't give me your email address. But oh yeah, I've specifically said do not give it to Zeke. I can't have him emailing. 00:34:31 Speaker 3: I mean, there are there are so many armed guards around us, like, I don't even like, why have me on the podcast if you are so afraid of me. 00:34:38 Speaker 2: There's a little red dot on your forehead right now, I. 00:34:41 Speaker 3: Was told if I move out of the chair, I will be shot. 00:34:48 Speaker 2: I'm excited about this mac and cheese recipe. Yeah, obviously cottage cheese is having a huge moment. Yeah, massive moment, which. 00:34:56 Speaker 3: Oh okay, well, I feel like everything that was cool in the nineties is now cool again. Yes, like baggy jeans, baggy jeans and cottage because cottage cheese was like the diet food, right it was like, oh, I'm watching my weight, I'm having lettuce cups and cottage h nebresca. 00:35:11 Speaker 2: Yes, And it's like, of course nobody liked that because you're eating the worst version of it. But now we've realized cottage cheese is wonderful, at least I have. I've been crowing about it on this podcast for five years. 00:35:22 Speaker 3: I have a half used bucket of cottage cheese, and my fridge should have brought that. 00:35:28 Speaker 2: I would have eaten the whole thing. I wouldn't have gagged. 00:35:31 Speaker 3: Now do you season it at all? 00:35:33 Speaker 2: It depends on what I'm doing, you know, like I am. Sometimes I'll just have it with chips, a few chips. Sometimes I'll have it with toast. Sometimes I'm trying to like mix it up with because some people like it with sweet things, and I don't know that I'm quite on board with that yet, but I'll I might throw some granola in there. Okay, I'm all over the map. I'm also putting it in scrambled eggs. I'm trying to and then I'll make my ranch dip. You're such a boy from Utah. 00:35:57 Speaker 3: Oh You're like, You're like you're bringing cottage cheese back to the culinary landscape of America. What do you eat it with? Well, chimps and toast. Now, if I'm feeling crazy, I'll put granola in it. 00:36:10 Speaker 2: And then ultimately I turn it into ranch. Well, excuse me, no, I think cottage cheese. If you can find a way that you enjoy it, what a miracle product. 00:36:23 Speaker 3: It's really I don't know too much about it. I just know that they sell it in full fat and low fat variety. But you to gull fat. 00:36:31 Speaker 2: There's no reason to get the low fat. 00:36:33 Speaker 3: No, that's another nineties That is. 00:36:35 Speaker 2: A nineties fat and the manufacturers of that product are predatory. They should stop. They should only serve full fat cottage cheese. I don't like the big curd one though. 00:36:44 Speaker 3: Oh you don't like a big curd. They like it more like a slurry. 00:36:49 Speaker 2: I prefer a slush, a slurry, dairy slush. 00:36:52 Speaker 3: If they could just dispense it out of the seven eleven slurpy dispensers. 00:36:57 Speaker 2: Right into it. Straw. 00:37:02 Speaker 3: It's one of those big, those big Boba straw. 00:37:06 Speaker 2: I'm not a Boba person. 00:37:08 Speaker 3: It's fine. 00:37:09 Speaker 2: I'm not a sweet tea person. So boba is sweet tea with a texture that's hard for me, and then it becomes a nightmare product. 00:37:18 Speaker 3: So what I like is at Westfield Centry City, which is heaven. It's quite a mall it is they have and of course I forget the name, but there's like a bougie Boba place where you can choose your sugar level, so if you want to do and they have like nice things like a strawberry jasmine right. Oh, with strawberry jasmin iced tea sounds nice, but I only want twenty five percent of the sugar. 00:37:38 Speaker 2: Oh. 00:37:38 Speaker 3: Interesting, and then I want strawberries at the bottom instead of the boba pearls. 00:37:42 Speaker 2: Oh, so this is a little more my speed. So I probably could get an unsweetened tea, yes, with dirt at the bottom. 00:37:48 Speaker 3: Yes, Okay, that's put velveta in the bottom if you want it. Yeah. 00:37:53 Speaker 2: I remember the first time I ever saw boba. It's a long time ago at this point, but I thought, oh, that looks so magical and exciting, and then I had probably two SIPs. I was like, this is the worst thing I've ever tried. And God blessed boba and everyone who drinks it. But for me, I can't. The backwash element of it feels strange. See. 00:38:11 Speaker 3: I discovered boba when I was like in high school. I think I was at debate camp at the University of Michigan. And of course all these kids who came from the East Coast and from California, like they knew what boba was. I was like, what is it? And I always got like a a green apple slush with the boba on the bottom, so it was like it was like an icy and then the tap yoga pells got like really hard, and so I wasn't like really into that. But for me, it was all about getting like the fruit slush. 00:38:39 Speaker 2: Oh right, of course I never would get. 00:38:41 Speaker 3: Like the like the milk tea. 00:38:43 Speaker 2: Right, yes, for me, I love the taste of tea, but once it becomes sweetened, it's a it's like the opposite of tea for me. 00:38:51 Speaker 3: Yeah. Culturally, I am from an unsweetened ice team part of the country. 00:38:55 Speaker 2: Oh interesting because I kind of would have assumed you were from a sweetened tea part of the country. 00:38:58 Speaker 3: No, no, no, that's southwest West, remember. 00:39:01 Speaker 2: Right, Sure, you guys have the right idea exactly on sweet and icy. I'll drink it all day. 00:39:07 Speaker 3: Yeah, it's great. 00:39:08 Speaker 2: Put a teaspoon of sugar in that, and I'm throw it in the garbage. 00:39:11 Speaker 3: Yeah. I'm also not a big believer in like squeezing lemon in iced team. 00:39:15 Speaker 2: Okay, So now now we're going to get in a fight. Okay, fine, you know like the sourness of the lemon. 00:39:20 Speaker 3: No, well, I actually prefer My favorite form of iced tea is a mint iced tea. 00:39:24 Speaker 2: Oh sure, if. 00:39:26 Speaker 3: You ever been to Fresh Corn Grill in West. 00:39:28 Speaker 2: Hollywood, I have once. 00:39:30 Speaker 3: They do a mint iced tea. Okay, and if you drink it all while you're there, they'll give you it to go. 00:39:34 Speaker 2: Ones. Oh I love a free refill, free refills. I think we're gonna lose them soon. And I'm so afraid. 00:39:42 Speaker 3: You know this is it's it's very interesting because growing up, I'm sure you remember this too. You go to a restaurant and you got a court glass. Yes, I got three pints in a big red plastic glass, enough for the whole family. Yeah, and you drink half of it, they bring a new one. And that's how it was. We never drink water with a meal. We just went right up to the soda fountain import it right in our mouths. But now, and I remember the first time we went to New York and we had to like pay per diet coke. Oh, and my family's just like that. That was the thing. That really threw them about New York. 00:40:22 Speaker 2: Of course, not the whole says. 00:40:24 Speaker 3: It was like, you're making me pay per dik and I gotta finish it, and then I gotta like wave it, and I got asked. 00:40:29 Speaker 2: For another one. Unacceptable. 00:40:30 Speaker 3: Yes, So we found this pizza place called John's Pizzaia, very famous, and there for five dollars, they'd give you a picture of diet pepsi, so we would sit down and immediately orderly. 00:40:43 Speaker 2: If you find something like that in New York, I mean, I'm there, I'm there. I'm trying to think of other places in New York I'll go for a free refill, and I'm coming up blank. You have to go to essentially a chain. Yeah, it's been a minute. 00:40:55 Speaker 3: I even't I lived in Los Angeles for like nine years at this point, and I did nine years in New York before. 00:41:03 Speaker 2: Yeah, I can't think of a free refoo place. Yeah, I remember. 00:41:06 Speaker 3: The only place where you could probably get a free refill is if you go to a bar and order a non alcoholic memory right. 00:41:12 Speaker 2: And even there, I think it's gonna be tough. I think it's going to and they'll probably look at you like you're insane, like you're getting another soda, so. 00:41:20 Speaker 3: It's wow, do you really need another? 00:41:24 Speaker 2: The judgment there is really harsh. Yeah, but I feel like ten years from now, a free refill will be a thing of the past. And I don't know what I'm going to do personally, I'm gonna have a meltdown. 00:41:34 Speaker 3: Well, you know, as far as sugar sodas go, it's still largely made with corn syrup. 00:41:40 Speaker 2: Yes, and we grow a lot of corn here. Yeah, So I don't know. 00:41:45 Speaker 3: Let's not speculate about the world. You were saying ninety We began like ninety years at a in the future at an estate sale, and I was like, girl, the country's not going to make it ninety the planet's not going to make it ninety years on a plane to go to Mars. 00:42:01 Speaker 2: This cheese will be the emperor of Earth in ninety years. Yeah, and to rise up and because cheese, I do feel like you see a crockpot at a lot of a state sales. 00:42:12 Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, look, I'm a big believer in a slow cooker. This is not when you want to actually like cook things like. 00:42:22 Speaker 2: A dangerous product. I'm so afraid to use this. 00:42:25 Speaker 3: That's why it's just for Kso I have this exact same crock pot in my home. 00:42:29 Speaker 2: And it is do you have another crockpot for other things? I do? 00:42:33 Speaker 3: I do so many moons ago I did like, they probably don't do this anymore. I went to go like give a talk for Pride Month at Whirlpool in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Great, and I was brought there by like you know, the DEI right, and they were like, we can We're only authorized to pay you so much in cash, but then we have sort of like an unlimited budget to give you. 00:42:57 Speaker 2: Heaven Whirlpool products. 00:42:59 Speaker 3: So they all so kitchen aid is under that sure umbrella. So I got like a seven hundred dollars slow cooker and it has like an attachment with like an arm so it can like stir wostantly. And again I was Nico. My husband and I were just starting to date, and uh, you know, he's on this like big television show and this big flashy person and not trying to like, well, I can get cool stuff too, So I send them and I'm like, you know I can get I can. 00:43:27 Speaker 2: Get all the free appliances I want. 00:43:29 Speaker 3: Do you want an appliance? And so he he looks at it and this is this is very him. He finds like a one thousand dollars kitchen aid mixer. 00:43:40 Speaker 2: Oh, I mean this is I was going to ask you this because I would love I have a nice kitchen aid mixer at home, but if I was given carte blanche with kitchen Aid mixers, I'd have ten in my home. 00:43:49 Speaker 3: Yeah, and he picked out like it's a special limited edition. 00:43:54 Speaker 2: Matt Black Latman's Kitchen Aid mixer. 00:43:57 Speaker 3: They're individually numbered because they only make Like, so, I really want to impress this guy. 00:44:03 Speaker 2: I'm really into. 00:44:04 Speaker 3: So I email the people and I'm like, if this is too much, it's okay, here you go. And not only did they send me the kitchen Aid mixer, which I you know, got to kind of like, yeah, they sent me two of the slow cookers, and they were willing to. 00:44:21 Speaker 2: Send a budget they've got for this. 00:44:23 Speaker 3: I know they were willing to send me like a washing machine, yes, forget a dishwasher. But I lived in an apartment in West Hollywood. Like, I didn't open a showroom and sell these things. I know now, I'm like, we had to replace our washer and dryer in our our home that we purchased five years ago because the people we bought the home from stole the washer and dryer. Oh we bought our home from They have great they had impeccable taste. So the house is really well done. But they were terrible people. So when you when you buy a home, you set a date that you're going to hand over the keys. It was we'd had problems and then it was like two weeks before we were about to move into the home. And this is like peak COVID, right, so like life is complicated. We email them, we don't hear back. I email them again and they're like, yeah, we might be out at the outdate, what we might and then it was like no, ma'am. And then so what we had done was, you know, there was the date of the sale and then they wanted to have two months more in the house while they finished figuring out where they were going to live. And we're like, okay, fine, whatever, And so then technically we became because then we owned the house and they were our renters. 00:45:38 Speaker 2: Wow, technically, what a hassle. 00:45:40 Speaker 3: So the guy wrote back and was like, my child is had cancer. I mean he had been cured for years. Okay, but because the child had cancer. He didn't want to leave the house because of COVID restrictions, and the way that the law worked was like, you can't kick someone out of their home for uh having COVID health restrictions. 00:46:04 Speaker 2: Oh interesting, So I was, we have fucking squatters. 00:46:06 Speaker 3: They're trying to squaw so we had to get lawyers involved. Weird, and it was like it was such a hassle to finally get them out. And when you buy a house, they're like the things that are like included in the house price and then the things that aren't. So like your couch is your furniture, but anything that is like bolted to the wall, like light fixtures or Washington dryer or like cabinets in the garage, that's. 00:46:31 Speaker 2: Part of the house, right right. 00:46:32 Speaker 3: So when we were doing this walkthrough, when like we became the leasers and renters whatever, he was talking about all these like vintage light fixtures, which they are they're beautiful, sure, And he was like, yeah, we can talk about if you want to buy those from us, And I was like, no, ma'am, sir, ma'am sir, we own these. These are part of de Yeah, And like the guy like we're like, you have to specifically exclude those, and like it was not excluded, and then he wanted to fire his realtor, which he ultimately did, and in his realtor, in an attempt to sort of salvage, it was like, what if I just give you five thousand dollars like out of my own pocket. And so we looked up all the light fixtures and they were like forty thousand dollars worth of light fixtures. Who they're like really cool vintage pieces. So we're like, no, no, And if like we come to the house and the light fixtures aren't there. 00:47:27 Speaker 2: A lawsuit called the cops. Yes, they're stolen. 00:47:31 Speaker 3: Yeah, so we come finally we get to take over the house. The light fixtures are still there, but they'd taken the washer and dryer, and they had all these like cabinets in the garage which were sort of like piece together, right, they weren't like pieces that you got from Ikia, And they had taken all of the cabinets out of the garage as well. 00:47:50 Speaker 2: What what was the expectation of this person when they sold the home? Are they not familiar with the idea of selling an object? 00:47:57 Speaker 1: You know? 00:47:57 Speaker 3: It was It was so weird. It was like we were four seeing them out of their home. 00:48:01 Speaker 2: Yeah, it was somebody like holding someone out, like we paid well over asking you of course during that time period, Yeah, wow, it was It was nuts. Yeah, there was something else going on, something dark. Someone had a gun. They were holding a gun to these people. 00:48:17 Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know. 00:48:18 Speaker 2: Interesting, Maybe it was you. Maybe you're not telling us the whole stories. Can you force these poor people out of their house? Took their like fixtures. 00:48:26 Speaker 3: After paying them quite over asking price. I gave them more money than they asked off for their home and they were like okay, and then I was. 00:48:35 Speaker 2: Like, get out of there, it's mine now. 00:48:38 Speaker 3: Wow, another crazy little story if we have time, of course, so the uh it was a husband and a wife and a child, and we only interacted with the husband. But after they moved out and we moved in. Every now and again a package would come to the address address to the previous owners, which like sure you know, and she text me and be like, hey, you know, my aunt sent a gift for my my son. Can you you know, put it out on the and I'll come grabbing like yeah, not a problem, it's a gift for your trump people don't know you've moved. 00:49:12 Speaker 2: But then like the six month. 00:49:14 Speaker 3: Mark passed, which is like the acceptable time, yes, And then like every three or four months a package would come for her and she would text me and be like, oh, hey, I'm gonna not. 00:49:26 Speaker 2: Like you're now just like the post office, right. 00:49:30 Speaker 3: And so after we got to like the two year mark, and she texted me to have the like telling me when to have the package out for her, and I was like, this has got to stop. We're going to be doing this for decades if we don't stop. So I didn't respond to her. And then she showed up at the the time that she had decided wow, and she's calling me and texting me, and I'm like, I'm not responding, and she's ringing the doorbell. So our yard is like gated in sure, So she then, I guess, punches in her her access code, which we thought we had deleted from the memory but had not. She punches in the access comes into the yard, looks around, doesn't see it. And then I wasn't home, but my husband was, so and my husband he's Filipino, and he comes out to the porch and because it's like what the fuck just happened, like because we could see on the security cameras. And he opens the gate and she's like, oh hi, I'm you know who used to live here. I just came from my package. And but like speaks like down to him because she thinks he's like yeah, like the I don't know. Uh, And she goes and he's like, man, this is our property. You have entered it illegally. You need to not you need to stop sending your ship here because we're done. 00:50:56 Speaker 2: Good for him, How did you react? 00:50:59 Speaker 3: She was like, uh, she like didn't know what to you know, she was a white lady who was like spoken with fourth. 00:51:05 Speaker 2: She was oh also for her, like what is your life that that's convenient for you? Get control of your life? 00:51:14 Speaker 3: I know, but a mess. And it's like and it was all it would be like one bra or like one pair of ply its like it would be this like minuscule style. 00:51:26 Speaker 2: Right. 00:51:26 Speaker 3: There was one time where it was some sort of like tea she brought bought off Instagram. 00:51:31 Speaker 2: Like clearly, wow, what a menace? Yes, I mean whatever, good for her ultimately just kind of steamrolling everyone in her life. Alright, p H, Well I think we should play a game. Okay, We're gonna play a game called Gift Master, but I need a number between one and ten from you. Okay, I have to do some light calculating to get our game pieces. So right now you can promote, recommend, do whatever you want. 00:51:56 Speaker 3: I'll be right back. So I'm on the board of directors of a wonderful organization called LAD and we work in LGBTQ representation in media. Well you probably know it's from the GLAD Awards, which are super fun. If you would like to donate to our very important work right now, you can go to GLAD dot org or you can holler at me at z Kerchief on Instagram and my email is just Zkerchief at gmail. So if you would like to get if you were a person of consequence and influence and would like to get involved with GLAD and promoting LGBTQ plus quality, we would love to work with you. Or if you want to give us moneies, please feel free to holler at me as well. And also, if you are a showrunner and you are staffing a comedy writers m right now, I would love to send you my samples and be an asset to your team. So hire me and give me money, or donate to Glad and give me money. Money means the economy is great right now. 00:52:53 Speaker 2: So it's a time where people are feeling very generous. Well ultimately, what I'd say, especially the entertainment industry has never been better, right There are simply jobs everywhere for the take, No, I mean, uh yeah, what a nightmare everything? 00:53:09 Speaker 3: Uh my obvious. My husband's an actor. I'm a writer, and my husband has been traveling too far off land so much like you know, Atlanta and Connecticut to film over the price and it's just really inconvenient, particularly now that we have a puppy. 00:53:25 Speaker 2: Sure, a child in infants, yes, of course. 00:53:28 Speaker 3: And uh, my dad. I was going to Burbank to pick up my dad. He was flying in to see me, and I saw that there was like new studio construction around the Burbank airport and not far from here, and I like, I immediately called my husband. I was like, Warner Brothers is building new studio space. That must be you know, maybe it's just for the like the tax deduction, but maybe there's hope it's coming back. 00:53:49 Speaker 2: Oh I hope. So I really don't understand what's happening in the television industry. It's very scary. Yeah, listener, what can I recommend her promote? Well, I've got to be about telling you that we have merch available. Go to exactly rightstore dot com. We've got merch and you know, if you want leave a user review or a listener review, do whatever you want to support the podcast. We're also on Instagram. Blah blah blah. 00:54:13 Speaker 3: Do you ever sell the gifts that people bring you? 00:54:15 Speaker 2: I have never sold one. I've started giving them away at live shows. Okay, because you know I've We've done I think two hundred and fifty episodes and that's a lot of items to have. 00:54:24 Speaker 3: Well, you have a store, we could just. 00:54:26 Speaker 2: Get on there and start auctioning them off or just put them on he may. Yeah, that's true. Can you imagine the scandal for djer wineger is selling the gifts? 00:54:34 Speaker 3: I didn't want them in the place. 00:54:37 Speaker 2: It's very clear. Okay, and everybody donate to Glad. What a great organization. Hire Zeke Higher. Television writers in general, it's a nightmare. This is how we play gift Master. Okay, I'm going to name three people, three celebrities, and three gifts. Three things you can give away. Okay, you're gonna tell me which gift you would give to which person? And why does that make pay? Perfect sense? Okay. The three celebrities today are Number one, dough Chi We love Doci. 00:55:04 Speaker 3: Oh yes, I got to meet her at the Gladaward. 00:55:05 Speaker 2: You're kidding. Yeah, Oh I'm so jealous. 00:55:07 Speaker 3: Yeah, she won a glad Award. 00:55:09 Speaker 2: Wow, that's amazing. I mean she deserves a lot of awards. I mean the kind of almost Missy Elliott level visual music interaction at this point. 00:55:17 Speaker 3: Hers speature is actually fantastic. You can like look it up on YouTube. 00:55:21 Speaker 2: Very inspiring. Oh that's amazing, great, okay. Number two Diane Sawyer. 00:55:25 Speaker 3: Oh love, where's she been? 00:55:27 Speaker 2: Is she dead? I'm gonna google it. Diane Sawyer live. 00:55:32 Speaker 3: Such a fixture in the news world growing. 00:55:36 Speaker 2: Up, still alive? 00:55:38 Speaker 3: Great? Uh? 00:55:41 Speaker 2: First name, Leela. We're learning something about Diane right now. 00:55:45 Speaker 3: I guess it sounded too ethnic. 00:55:47 Speaker 2: Leela Sawyer, Leela, Diane Sawyer, Diane Sawyer and she's seventy nine. 00:55:53 Speaker 3: Oh good for her. 00:55:53 Speaker 2: Happy birthday, Diane, whenever your birthday is okay. And number three the Green Goblin kind of a spider man's nemesis. And the three things you'll be giving these people. This first one is from a listener. We don't we get listener suggestions for the other game we play, but this is a rare one. This is from a listener named Ashley. The gift is a Hi Ashley, A full hour of watching an expectant parent open gifts at a baby shower. That's kind of an experience. The second one is also an experience, which is a near death experience, and number three a reusable water bottle. So doci Diane Sawyer Green Goblin, a full hour of watching an expectant parent open gifts at a baby shower, a near death experience, and a reusable water bottle. 00:56:41 Speaker 3: Okay, I got it, So I am going to give the here's the thing, green Goblin. There's also a plumbing product called the green Gobbler. Really yeah, that's like a more environmentally friendly version of drainaw. 00:56:56 Speaker 2: Wow, Disney's going to sue them into the ground. Maybe. 00:57:00 Speaker 3: I don't know. It's a good product. I just bought some recently. Hard Yeah, so instead of like plunging your toilet when you plug it, which I'm sure you do on the regular branch, eating all that cheese. 00:57:11 Speaker 2: My home is just overflowing. Oh that's so cross. 00:57:14 Speaker 3: You can just pour it in and shut the lid and like leave it for five hours and then flush it on scarn. 00:57:19 Speaker 2: It's like a draino type product. 00:57:20 Speaker 3: Yeah, but it's more environmentally friendly, much safer. Yeah, green gobbler just pure acid. Yeah, donate to glad and buy some green gobbler. They're probably trumpers. I don't know. I went and I had to go find it, and it's hardware because we can't go to home. 00:57:35 Speaker 2: Deep word, it's just never ending. 00:57:39 Speaker 3: Yes, we won't have any money soon, so it's fine. Everything will just be the barter economy. But yes, so the green Goblin, I think he has had plenty of near death experiences, right, old hat right, So I don't think that is gonna because a near death experience can really be like life changing and beautiful. And we also don't want to give him anything beautiful. So I think he's a bad guy. We want to torture him and just make him watch an expected parent open. 00:58:03 Speaker 2: Gifts and what a guest at a baby shower. Yeah, he flies through the window and then he's sitting there quietly while the parent is opening the gifts. 00:58:13 Speaker 3: Right, and what story the parent can tell their child. 00:58:15 Speaker 2: Of course, what an amazing experience to have this man in kind of just armor his hovercrafts just in your living room. 00:58:23 Speaker 3: Well exactly, and you know, maybe he can be the gift of new life and the joy and love of expected parents can have some sort of a transformative effect on his heart. And I lead him to Christ and to give up his evil ways. 00:58:35 Speaker 2: And what a godfather to have? Yeah, my godfather is the green Goblin. 00:58:39 Speaker 3: Yeah, oh, you have Spider Man at your birthday? 00:58:42 Speaker 2: Well, the real Spider Man. 00:58:44 Speaker 3: He drove a Toyota gorolla. I once as a child, and I'll never forget it. Went to a birthday party. But I guess we were a little bit late and the like Batman like pulled up and this like jumped as far and like stubbed out his sick. I was like, Batman, that's not the batmobile. 00:59:01 Speaker 2: Batman has hit a rough patch, spend. 00:59:03 Speaker 3: They didn't make him like park around the block. 00:59:07 Speaker 2: Not a great bat He should have known to park around the block. 00:59:10 Speaker 3: Right, That should probably just be standard operating procedure. If you're a character, h and a non public character, you know when you're not just standing on the street trying to harass people. But when you're a hired character, this is professional hum. Okay, So I think that means, and I mean this in a beautiful way. In order to encourage her art and her growth as an artist and a truth teller and someone who brings a new perspective to the world, I'm going to give Dote the near death ex Oh, I like this. Diane Sawyer too close to death. Yeah, yeah, she's had enough. 00:59:51 Speaker 2: She'll get it soon enough. 00:59:53 Speaker 3: I don't want to bother her. She probably has a nice ranch out in like you know, Palm Springs. She has done her duty to the country by reporting the news faithfully and truthfully for decades. And like I'll give you a water bottle and leave you alone, give it to your gardener, give it to your grandchild, thank you for your service. 01:00:14 Speaker 2: And she probably is. Probably she might be forgetting to hydrate anyway at this point. 01:00:18 Speaker 3: Oh exactly. I mean, I will say, reusable toads. I don't need anymore. I have too many. I have to buy ten cents, you know, a bag for ten cents at Ralphs, and those those raups bags are very sturdy, right, And I should remember to bring them, and sometimes I even put them in my car and then just don't remember to bring them in. 01:00:34 Speaker 2: Of course it's a thing. 01:00:36 Speaker 3: But reusable water bottles. 01:00:38 Speaker 2: I'll take them off. I'll absolutely, absolutely, I think Doc's gonna do an excellent job with a near death experience, not a death experience, right, just gets close and then comes back hopefully doesn't well. 01:00:52 Speaker 3: As it was pitched, it was a near death experience with no risk of death occurring. That's at least the way I problem. 01:00:58 Speaker 2: No, absolutely, there's no risk of death. 01:01:00 Speaker 3: So it's like it could be as minor as like skydiving. 01:01:04 Speaker 2: Right yeah, I guess that kind of technically is a near death experience. 01:01:07 Speaker 3: Because you are hurtling out of an airplane. 01:01:09 Speaker 2: Right right, Yeah, So I mean sheese today was a near death experience. I can't. I could not possibly skydive is because you're not allowed to expose your skin to the. 01:01:21 Speaker 3: S when you're outside. 01:01:25 Speaker 2: I probably should at this point. No, my I think I probably would ultimately enjoy it. But my fear is that at that moment of about to jumping to jump out of the plane, and you have the person behind you, the trait or what are the expert I think that the animal instinct in my body would take over in such a strong way. 01:01:43 Speaker 3: And you would try to kill him. 01:01:45 Speaker 2: I think of an attack or like cause a thing that would ultimately lead to my death and probably their death as well, And I don't trust my primal instincts to be in control enough. Have you ever gone, I've never gone. 01:01:58 Speaker 3: It's I'm kind of like an venture junkie, so it's very much appeals to me. However, I was I threw so I was the best man at my best friend's wedding. He is a six' four heterosexual honkman From New, jersey and so we went to The poconos with like thirty hooligans From New, jersey and one of, them the guy who got the, drunkest the, fastest and the most often tried to start the most fights pete on people off of the like the deck, no and like started like throwing firecrackers into the. House he was a skydiving. Instructor oh, interesting AND i hear he's gotten sober and he's like bought in his own plane and he's like doing very. Well but the idea that that's the person WHO i would be trusting with my life an airplane really gives me. 01:02:47 Speaker 2: Pause, yes, yeah you don't really think about the professional behind the, jump. 01:02:54 Speaker 3: Right, yeah you know you want to think they're like fresh out of The Air, force right and then you, know highly tactical practitioner and. Whatever but, no it's like probably some twenty three year old they failed out of community college jumping out of. Airplanes, yeah, yeah you have no idea what that that person might be having a bad. 01:03:12 Speaker 2: Day oh, no thank. YOU i went indoor. Skydiving, Yeah i've seen. 01:03:16 Speaker 3: THAT i want to try. 01:03:17 Speaker 2: That somebody gave it to me as a gift on this, Podcast FLY I, fly and it was a it was enough for. Me did you do it At? CityWalk i did it At, CityWalk and going to City walk alone is kind of a near death, experience so it was thrilling in every way for. ME i recommend it. Once. 01:03:33 Speaker 6: Maybe. 01:03:33 Speaker 3: Yeah the parking At CityWalk is is, tough, atrocious but it is if you want to go to like DOING imax or like a big you, know big sure movie viewing, experience or you want to buy out a theater for like five hundred bucks or forty people, wow WHICH i do. Frequently you, know people pay me, back, right which of, Course but like we wanted to go See wicked not surrounded by? Teenagers right's right for gays adults? 01:04:01 Speaker 2: Only? Sure shall we bought it out and Saw? 01:04:03 Speaker 3: Wicked? 01:04:03 Speaker 2: Wow? Yeah or like. 01:04:07 Speaker 3: Guy brandon is a FRIEND i mentioned him, Earlier we bought out one and we did a bro. 01:04:10 Speaker 2: Screening, wow this is. 01:04:12 Speaker 3: Great, yeah we did it For. 01:04:13 Speaker 2: Cruella behinding out five hundred bucks does not seem that crazy for a movie, THEATER i. 01:04:16 Speaker 3: Know and you can fit forty people in, there so, right if you like divvy it, up it works. Out but the parking situation over there is is atrocious. 01:04:23 Speaker 2: Parking at a theme. Park, yes it's not for. Me, okay it's time you played the game very. Well by the, way we've got to answer a listener. Question. Great we've got people sending in voice, notes, emails all kinds of things TO i, said no gifts at gmail dot. COM i think we'll do a voice note, Today, onalise could we hear a voice? Note Hello bridger And. 01:04:45 Speaker 6: Aalise i'm not going to be telling you my name for reasons that may become clear in a, second BECAUSE i am looking for your assistance in some ideas of HOW i can exact petty. Revenge there's a member of my family who has greatly greatly screwed over the rest of my family in ways that are monumental and indeed, irreversible AND i don't want to cause any property. DAMAGE i don't want to cause him any physical, harm BUT i do want to annoy him for the rest of his. Life if you have any, THOUGHTS i thought perhaps that maybe, You, bridger have tried to exact revenge on some of your ungrateful, guests and maybe you would be willing to share some of your favorite techniques with. 01:05:25 Speaker 2: Me thank you so much for your. Help mmmmmm. INTERESTING i wonder what happened in this. Situation this seems like a genuine. Problem what did this family member? 01:05:36 Speaker 3: DO i that's Very that's WHAT i have to do with, money like absconded with something that was supposed to be everyone's general, inheritance, right you know? RIGHT i have two ideas for petty. Revenge, oh, yes well ONE i SO i had a friend who moved in with a girlfriend right before the, pandemic, okay and then the girlfriend was. 01:06:01 Speaker 2: LIKE i want to break up with. 01:06:02 Speaker 3: You you have to. Leave, oh and we're talking Like april twenty. 01:06:08 Speaker 2: Twenty, oh that's like. Him, Sorry april twenty. Twenty everybody had to just stay in the relationship for at least another, month. 01:06:15 Speaker 3: And she like went and like stayed with her. Family And i'm, like, why why does my friend need to give up the apartment when you can go stay with your family and my friend doesn't have that. Option so my WHAT i told her is that she should right before she hands the keys back, over she should take a massive dump in the toilet and not flush. It, great SO i would, say should you go to this man's house and visit, him you should encourage everyone to not flush and to blow up each individual. 01:06:45 Speaker 2: Bathroom, everybody get as sick as humanly, possible. 01:06:48 Speaker 3: Go and house some taco bell, yes get a Cheesy gordida, crunch and then you you give him. 01:06:54 Speaker 2: Head over To. Darryl's, okay that's a good. One the second one is. Glitter oh we're. 01:07:01 Speaker 3: Sand glitter never goes. Away you go and you just smear glitter on all of the surfaces of his. Home he will be cleaning it out for. Decades he will probably die of the microplastics that he and jests as a result of. 01:07:15 Speaker 2: It fill up an envelope with that and mail it to. Him, yeah mail a. Package this is. GREAT a box full of sand with a loose, bottom. 01:07:25 Speaker 3: Don't tell me with a good time. 01:07:28 Speaker 2: He picks this thing. Up life? Ruined any sand. GLITTER i think those are two of the anthrax anthrax is always an. Option those all feel like a decent petty go. 01:07:44 Speaker 3: Find an infected, cow like get That Benedict cumberbatch. 01:07:48 Speaker 2: Film is that where anthrax comes? From? ANTHRAX i feel LIKE i know where is anthrax. 01:07:58 Speaker 3: Leg it's not like the bubonic. 01:08:01 Speaker 2: Plague, Now i'm so. 01:08:02 Speaker 5: Curious anthrax spores are formed by anthrax bacteria that occur naturally in soil in most parts of the. 01:08:09 Speaker 2: World, okay so just some dirty. SOIL i feel like glitter is such a good way to just kind of you could even just dump it in his. Car there's so many ways to get glitter into a person's life and it will never. 01:08:23 Speaker 3: Exit, yeah you could also think of this if you want, to because She's she's, like you, KNOW i want to torture him for the rest of his. Life so there's all sorts of like fun petty pranks of like saran wrapping his car shot, right right right when you know that he's gonna like he's running late for, work if you can find a way to saran wrap his car and then ensure that he's running late for, work and then he has a saran wrap car and once he gets in steering wheel covered in, glitter, right just like make it like a fun thing you do with your family every six, months or like for the, holidays you, know like for the, holidays we're going to plan a new prank to prank Uncle. Frank you, know it could be a great way to bring the family back to. 01:09:05 Speaker 2: You of, course you have a common animate at this. Point what more do you? Need that should just like there should be like a almost a sure chart that every year one member of the family gets to destroy this guy's. Life, yeah AND i, said, MAIL i feel like sell his, address oh, yeah or email? 01:09:20 Speaker 3: Address oh you could give his address and phone number to The church Of Jesus. CHRIST a lot of Day. 01:09:26 Speaker 7: Saints former member sitting right, Here, YEAH i can tell what gave it, away and then you, know send some nice missionaries over to his. 01:09:36 Speaker 3: Home could do the same with. 01:09:37 Speaker 2: Scientology scientology is a brutal. One those people will not leave you alone and they. Are they don't pick up social. Cues i'll say, that. No And jehovah's. 01:09:48 Speaker 3: Witnesses, yes Though jehovah's, WITNESSES i feel LIKE i are a little more, mild you think. 01:09:53 Speaker 2: So the ones in my neighborhood have been relentless. Recently really it's hard because they're like, nice But i'm just leave me. Alone i'm not. Interested. Please this is why we have a locked. Fence this is WHY i have a door on my, home. 01:10:09 Speaker 3: Ghett i've only Had jehovah's witnesses like you'll see them ount with like a rack of pamphlets on the subway In New york or a public. Place they sometimes are at lax which is another reason to avoid, it or at The. Americana, yes but they're never especially Like i'm holding hands on my. 01:10:26 Speaker 2: Husband of, COURSE i will, say if these people come to your, door be nice to. Them i'm a former missionary and it's a miserable. 01:10:33 Speaker 3: Experience where did you? 01:10:34 Speaker 2: SERVE i was In East? Malaysia oh, WOW i. WAS i was supposed to be there for two. Years was there for four or five? MONTHS i. Guess then then you have a, breakdown et, cetera et. Cetera BUT i was, There, yeah and it was. 01:10:47 Speaker 3: HORRIBLE i you, Know i'm so sorry you had a horrible. 01:10:51 Speaker 2: EXPERIENCE i appreciate. 01:10:52 Speaker 3: That there is part of me that sort of loves The mormon mission culture because the idea that you take an eighteen year old out of high school and then you you go and you teach them how to speak a new, language and you give this like impossible task to them where people are going to be like mean and unkind and they have to figure it out and they have to write letters home and they can't have phones and they can't call it all that. Stuff that you go and you give them this experience where they have to like live by meager means and be part. 01:11:20 Speaker 2: Of a new. 01:11:20 Speaker 3: Culture and then after that they get to go to. 01:11:23 Speaker 2: College, well there's there are ups and. Downs, sure it's a little wing, CLIPPY i will, say, yes because they don't get to read anything but scripture the whole. Time and while your brain is, Forming, yes it's a little a little tough to be like you're a child for the next two, years your brain should be. 01:11:43 Speaker 3: Well i'm not saying everyone go be A mormon, missionary but some sort of experience like that where there is an open literature contingency in whatever you, Want, christy. 01:11:57 Speaker 2: That should be kind of a required thing for every eight year. Olds something that's just like you leave hometown and experience something slightly more difficult where you're going to. 01:12:06 Speaker 3: Learn and, obviously like so many people have so many challenging upbrings here In, America i'm thinking more about like suburban. 01:12:13 Speaker 2: White, kids private school students. 01:12:14 Speaker 3: Exactly, yes if you go to private, school. 01:12:17 Speaker 2: You have to be always started on. That but trust, ME i, went oh you. Did, yeah well you should be off building houses. SOMEWHERE i sho my dad's. 01:12:28 Speaker 3: Catigry there we, go there we. 01:12:29 Speaker 2: Go, NO i think That i'm kind of on board with that. Idea how did we get To mormon missionaries from petty? Revenge? Oh, yes send the missionaries to give up somebody's address, PHONE i guess ultimately docs this. 01:12:43 Speaker 3: Man, YEAH i MEAN i think that's just the thing is like whatever you, know one eight hundred number you can sign up with just your phone number and then it just bills your telephone. 01:12:52 Speaker 2: Company, yeah sign them up for free karate lessons at one of those they have those, restaurants et. 01:12:57 Speaker 3: CETERA i was once seeking sort of like nonviolent kind of secret ways to get revenge on. Someone and they don't have it. Anymore but it used to be that if you went to The department Of Homeland, security you could sign up for sign up anyone's phone number for. Updates oh and so there would be like fire, updates and there there's one hundred and twenty, things and you could just hit select all and then the phones would just get constantly spammed with all of these updates and people had to like change their phone. 01:13:28 Speaker 2: Numbers you can't do it. 01:13:29 Speaker 3: Anymore but that's another, thing is just to go and sign up his phone for all these people who are just gonna like call him and text him all the. 01:13:37 Speaker 2: Time somebody get in the comments and tell us some of these new things you can sign people up. FOR i think we should all have that in our back, pocket a way to basically ruin someone's. Life, oh we answered the question, Perfectly, okay. GREAT i feel like there was a range of, ideas a range of ideas a whole you, know just pick and. Choose it's a. Buffet whatever however you want to destroy, him do. 01:14:00 Speaker 3: It we'll do, it but like do it in like fun. Ways that don't ultimately hurt people that just are, annoying, right. 01:14:07 Speaker 2: Or watch Kill bill and kind of follow that. 01:14:09 Speaker 3: Formula on the advice of my, ATTORNEY i refuse to support that. 01:14:13 Speaker 2: Idea, YEAH i probably. Do, AH i have my beautiful crock. Pot i've got my gorgeous. 01:14:23 Speaker 3: Cheese, YEAH i MEAN i think it's been unwrapped for a little too long to be. Affected now you can already see it's like becoming even more neon on the edges where. 01:14:30 Speaker 2: It's, wow oh it's off. Gassing, wow this room is becoming. Toxic look at. That what a. Product, Well i've got to make some, case so may do with a different. 01:14:46 Speaker 3: Gotta give it a nice little we'll. 01:14:47 Speaker 2: Do one final. Spank, wow. 01:14:53 Speaker 3: That's sounds so. Naughty it is weirdly. 01:14:57 Speaker 2: Sacond that is a bizarre. Thing that's essentially it's a Great american. Invention, Zeke thank you for the. Gift thank you for being. Here how it's my pleasure and. Listener the podcast is. Over set the crock, Pot start making yourself some. Cheese do whatever you. Want i'm not in charge of. You that's your. Duty i'll talk to you. SOON i love. You, GOODBYE i said No gifts is an exactly right. Production our senior producer is ON A Lisa, nelson and our episodes are beautifully mixed By Ben. Tolliday the theme song is By Miracle Worker Amy, mann and we couldn't do it without our, Booker Patrick. Cottner 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 and don't you want to see the gifts? 01:15:50 Speaker 1: Line? 01:15:50 Speaker 2: Man did you hear? 01:15:54 Speaker 1: Fun a man myself perfectly? Clear when YOU'RE i guessed, him you gotta come to me, Empty AND i, said no, guests your own, presences presents EN i already had too much, Stuff so how do you dare to surbey me