Breaking Bread with Tom Papa - Episode 183 - It's Family Time!

Episode Date: November 28, 2023

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Hey! Don't you know? Hey, it's also a show. Hey! Welcome, everybody. It's another edition of Breaking Bread with Tom Papa and Kira Soltonovich. Dun-Tad-Dood-Doo, nice to see you. Nice to see you.

It's been 48 hours. I know. We did so much. We have so much to talk about today. But first, we'd like to thank the good people at Wild Grain. Wild Grain. customize your wild grain box so you can get any combination of breads, pastas, and pastries you like. For limited time, you can get $30 off the first box plus free cuisants in every box when you go to

wildgrain.com slash papa to start your subscription. That's wildgrain.com slash papa. Or you can use the promo code, Papa, at checkout. They send you all these artisanal pastas and pastries and stuff, and then you get to heat them up and eat them and put them in your face. Thank you, Wild Green. So good to see you. Yeah. We had so much going on. We've been everywhere.

I think I got the most response off of a social media post in quite some time of just the selfie I took when we were on the shuttle bus at 4 o'clock in the morning. It was just like rocking. And people, I don't know what about it. People like just really captured whatever misery was behind my eyes, I suppose. Yeah. Because that was just mean. I mean, it's necessary sometimes. I know, but they lied to us.

We were, just to recap, we just got back from Kansas City and St. Louis, Missouri. Yeah. And beautiful shows, great theaters, great people. All that stuff was amazing. But we do our research because Kira made us take a. Flight at 550. I'm going to let you say that sentence again. Okay.

Kira made us take a flight that required us to leave the hotel at four. Give people the correct facts. Okay. Kira is pushy. And sometimes she makes us get up early and go, which I'm totally cool with. I'm going to tell people. All right, you can tell it. I needed to get up at the crack.

of dawn. Why? Because I had to get home to see my daughter be flounder in Little Mermaid. Flounder. You also happened to want to come home earlier. Those are two different facts. Go on. So you got on my flight. And therefore had a bumpy shuttle ride at 4 o'clock in the morning. So if anybody out there that's not good at math, get on Kira's. flight means that Hera's flight was first, which

means it was her idea. Okay. That's fine. Now this mic seems even lower. We can't get our mic's sizes correct. You know, Mike sizes fluctuate. Do they? Yeah. It's a grower, not a shower.

Exactly. Different times of the year, seasons. So we do our due diligence. We're good travelers. We know what we're doing. We had it all down. We could talk more about that also about what you have to do during the day. It's pretty exhausting. We got to see our buddy Stavi and all that stuff was great.

But we had checked on our phones. We looked at hurts. Look, one of the biggest baines of our existence is what do you do with the rental car when you have to go catch an early flight? So literally we stayed near the airport because it was so early. I did not want to travel. a half hour to get to the airport. I didn't want to stay in a nice hotel in town

so we can sleep for two hours. Let's just sleep at the airport. We'll drop the car off, and we looked at Hertz, and it said it is in the parking garage, which means you drop off your car and you walk across, and that to do so easy. We were so happy not to be on a shuttle bus, and we got there, and the GPS lied to us,

and we went around and followed the sign, and we ended up not crazy far, but far enough where we needed to get in a van, And that shuttle bus driver was very nice to us. We came scampering in. She said, are you late? Are you in a rush? We said, yeah.

And she said, okay, no problem. She closed the door and took off, which was so nice at 4.30 in the morning. So we're on a shuttle bus, which we do not enjoy. And this thing was, I think, made of recycled cans that weren't really formed into a vehicle yet. They were still cans. It's like pieces of fuselage that are duct taped together. Just rocking, beating us. It was short.

No shocks. But no shocks. Just we're putting you in a washing machine. You are work boots in a washing machine. Yes, exactly. But they're all like that. They are all like that. So brutal.

Really brutal. So anyway, I took a selfie video of that and put it up. And people, I think it really captured. what we've been going through over the last two months. It's a lot to travel. It is. We do good. We do well.

Yeah. We avoided possible murder slash homicide slash hostage slash hostage. Yeah. I mean, I don't know what could have happened. It was literally the last show before Thanksgiving. And all we have to do is wrap this one up and get home, see. the little mermaid, bake some bread, welcome my daughters back from college. This is the finish line.

And we left the theater and like good little soldiers, which I have to say, anytime you do something that you're supposed to do, you kind of get screwed. Like, I'll be honest. I'll be honest, a lot of times I'm supposed to fill up the car with the rental car with gasoline. And I do not. I just pull in and leave it. And I don't want to talk to them and they don't care. And I don't even know if I get charged.

I don't even look. Yeah. I just can't do it. But we're leaving the theater. We had a good show. Let's put some gas in the car and do what we're supposed to do. And we pulled in to this little gas station a couple miles from the pageant theater in St. Louis. And I'm, we're in this giant black escalation.

kind of a thing? Yeah. It was a nice car. You darted into the mini-mart, food mart. I didn't know what you were up to. I figured it must be something lady involved. Because you took off, and I got the gas going, and I'm filling up this giant thing.

And I'm wearing a pretty nice leather jacket, standing outside this expensive big escalade. With your fancy hat. And my phone. Flipping through some stuff. You look like a gentleman. I thought I was a gentleman. But then you came out and said,

we've got to get out of here. Get in the car now. Get in the car now. We're getting out of here. We are not supposed to be here. What? But you, without saying a word or questioning me, took the gas nausea.

out, you put it the thing, you know, you mean, like so neatly and nicely, you got in, you didn't even ask any questions. Not one question. I was like, okay, she's not messing around. I know, I'll find out in a minute, but let's get out of here. Gas nozzle in, closed it up, and got in the car, looking in the rear of your mirror to see who's following you from the mini mart. and you saw a drug deal go down with a lot of face tattoos.

Look, I appreciate a nice face tattoo, you know? I get it. I really don't. But when the guy behind the counter has multiple, I don't know what that means. You know what I mean? Like, that does, I mean. Why is the, why is the guy with a job of face tattoos? Let me set up the situation.

So I lost my voice. I have this weird thing going on. I wanted to run and get some cough drops. Oh. Just any kind of throat, like keep the moisture going because I was having this weird. By the way, I went to the doctor yesterday. Yeah. Clear.

Lungs are clear. It was just fatigue. I don't know what it's going on, but I had a fit that you almost pulled over and called an ambulance for. But anyway, so I run in because I know we're going to leave in the morning, and I just want to have them on hand on a flight. Okay. So I told you I was going in to get condoms, but I went in to get just any kind of lozenge I could find.

The minute I walked in, I was like, ooh, maybe this isn't a good idea. Yeah. But I saw them right there, okay? Next to the cashier. I'll be fast, I'll be fast. There are some characters, and they're not shopping. You know, you can tell when someone goes in is like,

okay, what kind of beef jerky do I want? Yeah. Where are the funyans? Get my thing and go and pay and get out. They're wandering around. They're walking around. Not shopping. They're not shopping.

And I'm shopping and I am... A lady alone. Just standing there and realizing maybe I've walked into something. Yeah. And I did. It's weird because I, as I was sitting at the car, I told you, I had a little spitey sense of... Where are we? Yeah.

I didn't know what it was, but a little bit of a, maybe I should put my phone away. Yeah. Just a little inkling. And my body away. Isn't it interesting? And these guys were frightening and they were having a business transaction that I interrupted. What was the transaction? There was money involved and, you know, goods.

With the guy behind the? No, the guy behind the counter was just okay with it. So two other guys met in there. Yes. And there were these two women. And what did they do? That were there, too, and also just wandering around. What were they dressed like?

Very provocatively. Can I say that? A lot out? A lot. And it's winter. Yeah. Yeah. So a lot of cleavage, a lot of butt cleavage.

It's breaking bad. It's a scene out of breaking bed. Too much skin for how freezing I was. Yeah, it was cold. And so I watched them, and they're giving each other money, and there's, like, words, changed and and I just I realized and I swipe my card and the guy did you need a bag no no I'm good and I don't even know if that asked me for my pin I just left yeah I go thank you no receipt bye and I but I calmly walked out yeah because I think if I would have run out which is what I wanted to do yeah I would have been a red flag a hundred percent and I walk calmly to the car and that's when I said get in now we're leaving get in right now right now and you dutifully got in And the minute we got out of that gas station, what did we see?

Cop lights. No. We saw boarded up buildings. It wasn't even like a real place. We were like a mile from where the theater was. We were just around the corner. This theater was like this idyllic St. Louis Street. It had like Christmas lights.

So cute. It had coffee shops. It was like a nice spot. But you know, this is every city, I guess. Well, yes. But around the corner. Around the corner. No businesses, boarded up windows and doors.

And the cops, two cop cars had pulled someone over. And there were cop cars. But just where? Did we time travel? I know. I know. Well, we were about five miles, nine miles from the airport. So this gap between, you know, as you head towards those, you know, industrial area, whatever, it gets a little.

It was like a void. Strange. Yeah. Man, we got out of there. And I got to say from that point on, I didn't feel comfortable until I was on the plane. Because when we got back to the hotel, because I even said on stage, we're staying at the hotel. We're staying at a hotel by the airport. And the whole audience went, oh.

Oh, no. Well, it was definitely a fun show. It was really fun show. And we didn't have, and, you know, don't do it. Sebastian has a great joke about how awful. the gas station food mart at night are. Do you ever see his bid on that? No.

I'm not even going to try and do it because I don't remember all the specifics, but basically that it is the most dangerous, heinous place you can be as a food mart at a gas station in the middle of the night. I learned my lesson. And yeah, we should not, you just don't stop.

Don't, don't. That's not the time. Don't do it. Go anyplace else. There is criminal activity there. Back to the face tattoos, I think that Post Malone is the only one that should be allowed to have face tattoos. Didn't someone just get a new one? Joey, you're a youngster.

Didn't Drake just get a new face tattoo? I don't know. Whoa, look what just happened. Anyone that's watching on YouTube, Joey is on camera. There's Mr. Lincoln himself. The people could see Joey. Face reveal. Joey, you're only here because you're young.

So if you don't know these things, what's the point of Joey? No, this is going to be a high-risk subject that I'm going to go into right now. Because it's going to put me on an island. It's going to make me, it's going to isolate me. But a couple weeks ago, I was in Colorado driving to do shows. Keir was not there. Joey was. I'm driving in a rental car with Joey as he's coughing and dying next to me.

for a day and a half. We called Kira from there, and we tried to get him cures and did the whole thing, and we had to recruit Kira because she knows how to fix people. Fast forward a couple of weeks, and I am driving from Kansas City to St. Louis, and Kira is now in the seat where Joey was. Joey did not come on this trip,

and Kira is now dying and coughing in the Joey, spot. So at the risk of seeming judgmental and on my own, what is up with you two? I don't know. Like I said, I went to a doctor yesterday. The doctor's just

as baffled as I am. She's like, you're fine. We were pulling into Kansas City. Oh, God. And it went from it felt like Satan was choking me. I was like, Like, I guess I got to find a local opener.

I expected when you went to your room that you were going to text me and say, I can't make it. But do I sound like I can't make it? No, your voice was for the first time. It was. Fatigued. It was very fatigued. I had used it way too much. Yeah.

It wasn't doing shows leading up to. I was doing a lot of shows. I was doing late night shows and then I was coming home and not sleeping great. and then waking up at like 5-6 to do my motherhood duties. And then... You get up at 5-6? Yeah. 5-6?

5 a.m. Every day? I have a 12-year-old who was a farmer in a past life. He wakes up at 5 a.m. And we cannot... I don't know. I'm going to start strapping him into his bed. He gets up at 5?

When does he go to bed? Nine. Total reasonable legal time for a 12-year-old. To go to bed. Yeah, that is. He should be sleeping until seven. Why is he, what's he do? When does he leave the house?

What do you mean leave the house? He goes to school, right? Yeah. Well, he's got to leave the house for that. Yeah, we leave like a little after seven. Yeah, so it's not that unreasonable. It is. What's he doing?

I have no idea. Why, you're up. Well, yes, I'm up because I wake up. Doesn't mean I get up. Oh, okay. I wake up. If I hear them blink, I wake up. I wake up.

I don't know what it is about becoming a mom. I don't, I can't sleep. I'll tell you what it is. All right. Children are annoying. And they are terrible roommates. And they're filled with love and all that great stuff. Of course.

But to live with them is a nightmare. My daughter just came back from college. And last night, her friend comes over. And her job is to take care of friends. Frank, the pug, and go to bed. And we went to bed at 11.30. And Frank the pug comes in. You hear him open the door, come with this little pause right to the edge of the bed.

Hey, can I sleep here? I pulled him up. I'm like, something's going on. She's with her friend, whatever. He tries, he passes out, like right on my head. 20 minutes later, she comes in, lights on. What? Lights on in the hall.

Comes in with a thing, but, you know, right on our face, grabs the dog, dropping him, picking him up. Sorry, out the door. That happens again, another half hour. He comes back in, hey, can I sleep here? I don't know what she's doing. And she comes back in another half hour later, and she just keeps waking us up going after the dog.

Then at 3 o'clock in the morning, there is a movie play. in a multiplex above my head at full volume. I throw my robe on, I go upstairs, her and her friend are watching a movie. Full blast, three in the morning. Frank's looking at me like, I know, dude. I know. I just want to sleep.

I'm like, I want to sleep. I didn't even use words. I just went, what? Uh-huh. Pointed at the screen, and they lowered it. She kept us up all night long. This is an 18-year-old. You've got a 12-year-old ruining your life at 5.

And I'm not even asleep. I have two hours before your son wakes up. You know what I mean? But what is there a reason for that? Again, they are not bright. They don't care about us. Your son is getting up at 5 because he wants to do stuff while you're not looking. Because I know for a fact, he was getting up very early and playing video games.

that he's not allowed to play, and he figured if I can get up at five, before the rooster crows, I can get in some Fortnite. The irony is he's not allowed to play the video games because he gets up and plays them in the middle of the night. And so therefore we took the video games away, so then he would get up in the middle of the night and play them. And he doesn't understand that we can see it, we can track it. There's an app that tells you exactly.

They're not bright. Everything, they're not bright. He's just thinking, I can play Fortnite. Well, I had to take his texting privileges away. And I literally saw smoke come out of his ears. You got to be careful. I saw a bunch of videos recently where teachers take phones and video games away from their students. And the students just punch them in the face.

Yeah. Have you seen this video? I have seen that. And it's horrendous. Yeah. Horrendous. They really, you're like, you're taking. something so valuable and addictive.

It's like taking heroin away from a heroin addict as they're just about to shoot it into their arm. And that's why we have to stop the heroin from entering. Yeah. There's no way. Well, you can try. We can try. There are kids who, if you unplug their Xbox while they're in the middle of the game,

you've seen videos of them like trashing the TV. Trash the house. Yeah. Like the place on fire. I know. We really shouldn't live with them. I never would have done this as a kid ever. I know.

So what has changed? The phones. It can't be just a phone. The phones, yes, it can. It can. You're a parent. You have these children. You're doing all the parenting things.

I know for me is dropping on your conversations when you're not coughing in the car and you're calling your husband that you guys are doing all the right parenting things. You're disciplining them. you're loving them, you're doing all the stuff that every parent, good parent, for generations have done. And the difference now is there is another force in your children's pockets

that is, dare I say, more powerful than you. And they are feeding them not only just video games and texting, but shitty information and all this other stuff just pouring in. Well, he doesn't have social media.

He does. Uh-huh. Cute, right, Joey? Oh, no. What? Isn't that cute that she thinks that? You think he's finding it out somewhere? His phone doesn't allow it.

Mm-hmm. What do you mean? Mm-hmm. What? Uh-huh. That doesn't... Does he have a computer for school? Yes.

Does he have friends? Yes. Yeah. God damn it. Yeah. I don't want to even list the things. He has seen tits. Social media is the...

He's seen tits, hasn't he? Tits. Tits. Joey, isn't she adorable? I'm so old, I call him tits. You know, sometimes I'm like, you know, Kira's just so cute. He has a school computer,

but it's through the school. So he knows, if you go start Googling stuff, just know that everyone's at school can see it. You think he's still doing it? He's got friends. They're hanging out. They're going to play.

I know. Someone is showing him on their phone that isn't as monitored as his phone is. Because he doesn't have any browser on his phone. I know, I know. There's only so much I can do. That's my point. You're doing everything right.

But the force of this is so great. It's so big. It's enormous. I mean, look, they're literally concerned that TikTok is changing the mentality of an entire generation as being anti-American. Like there is, these are propaganda machines. They're everything machines. So, I mean, if they're that concerned, and it's true, like people are, it's changing entire country's way of thinking.

So, yeah, your kids getting up at five to play games and sneaking around and freaking out when you take his text privileges away. Yeah. It's. So, the other day. I went down to sleep on the couch because my husband's face was really bothering me. And it's just so loud, even with his machine that stops the snoring, the machine is wheezing. So I go down, and he comes down, and it's exactly on the nose, 5 a.m.

And he opens the fridge, and it wakes me up. Because we have a family room off of the kitchen. And I go, hi, Braden, and he freaked the hell out. He jumped and screamed so hard. So hard. Yeah. And I go, dude, are you doing this like every day? No, no.

Today was just a crazy random. This is just random, which tells me this is every single day. And I go, go back into your room, close your eyes, and try to sleep some more. You need more sleep. What does he say? What's his explanation? This kid has, he can weave a story. One time I got up in the middle of the night to get some water.

And again, it was probably like 4.40 a.m. And you've been to my house. So my house, you walk in and there's a circle inside my house. You can make a left and go into the kitchen. You can make a right. There's a little living room, a little dining room and go into the kitchen. So this is a little circle. And I, he knows.

I always come downstairs. and I immediately go, you know, one direction. He hid from me behind a plant. And I knew he was there because I heard little shi-d-ch-dick-should shuffling and little things happening, right? Little cupboards opened and shut. I could even hear him opening up a yogurt. You know what I'm going? And so I know he's there.

So I walk in, I go, where is he? So I go around the other way to catch him and he's hiding. behind a plant. And it's four, four. Why is he hiding? Because he doesn't want me to know. What? That he's awake at 440 in the morning.

Doing what? I don't know. I'm going to say, that's kind of the most important part. Titties. Now I'm assuming it's titties. Yeah. But he's, I go, I can see you.

He goes, oh, hi, Mom. Just check him out the root system on this. Oh, hi, mommy. The way that they can, what is it, cognitive dissonance, how they can just separate themselves from what's happening, like from reality. I took them to the dentist yesterday. Yeah. And the dental hygienist is like, hey, I'm sitting right there. Hey, how's your flossing, Brad?

And he goes, oh, pretty good. Never flosses. Never flosses. And I look at him and I go, you just lie? And she goes, well, your gums are inflamed. at 12. Just, no, no, no, they don't live in reality. They live in their own reality and they don't want you in it.

For sure. Yeah. I mean, yeah, there's no reason. I went through a period where I got up early. We were a little older, maybe eighth grade. And we would get up early. My friend and I realized that underdog was on, like the classic underdog. was on, like before six,

it was just so funny to us that there were, like, you know, that was a time when you got cartoons when they said you have cartoons. And during the school week, you waited until Saturday to get all your kid programming. There wasn't programming all the time, which is so insane. And we had to literally wait until Saturday to see it. And then we discovered the new zoo review and underdog were for some reason being shown at 5 a.m. to 6 a.m. Wow.

On the weekdays. And these were like silly shows for us. They were like much more childish than what we were watching at the time. Yeah. But we just thought it was hilarious that they were on. So we started setting our alarms early to go watch this stuff. And then my one friend who became a drug addict used to take contact. It was like a cold medicine.

Yeah. He would take it and try and stay up until five. because if he was fatigued and fighting the effects of the cold medicine, it would make you feel high. This is before we even knew what high was, and he was just on it. Like, this feels good. And so, yeah, we started waking up super early. My point is, if a kid's getting up that early, he's doing something dumb.

It's for a reason. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Something, definitely something his mom shouldn't know about. All right. We're setting up cameras, surveillance. system, those laser.

That would be great. Why not just get an S camera. I mean, I'm sure Mike has them. Just turn them towards where he goes. Yeah. What if it's a weird, like, a weird kind of... Double agent spy thing? No, like, horror movie thing.

Oh. Where he's down there and then, like, other children appear. He's, like, their leader. I would actually prefer. in the morning and then everyone leaves. I'd prefer that over titties. That would be pretty great. You set up the camera, it's kind of grainy.

Yeah. You see early in the morning, your son coming down, and the front door opens, and he's just standing there. The front door opens without anyone opening it. And then just child after child starts to quietly enter in their pajamas, and they stand in a half circle around him. And then he says something which you can't hear because it's just video.

And then they all bow and then they all walk off. I think he just pitched me a new Netflix series. That would be pretty cool. Let's pitch this. Can we go to studios with this? Go to networks? Yeah. That would be pretty great.

Yeah. I got to now check his browser on his computer. Oh. No? Well, yeah. Go after him. I say go get him. Go after him.

I say go get him. Why not? Do you want to hear about wild grains? I would love to hear about wild grains. All right. Well, let me tell you about it. Wild grains. This episode is a breaking bread is brought to you by Wild Grain.

It's the first ever bake from frozen subscription box for sourdough breads, fresh pastas, and artisanal pastries. How Wild Grain isn't just funding this podcast every week. They should be. They should be our only sponsor. I mean, it's completely up our alley. because I, of course, baked bread like crazy. I got up early this morning, even though my daughter tortured me all night. I still got up at seven to go heat the oven and get the breads done before we came here today.

Very early morning podcast for us, by the way. Might be the earliest ever, right, Joey? Is it? Oh, yeah. I think it is. Yeah. So, again, because of Kira. It's funny that you complain about your son,

waking up early and then you wake, you get us up early. It's 10 a.m. Yeah, which is early. So I got up early to bake the breads. A lot of people don't bake breads. What are these people at Wild Green do? They form all the stuff. English muffins,

pastas, fetichinis, rickettones, rickettones, scones, cookies, everything. They do all of the baking for you, and then you get it. You open up the box and you're like, let me throw, I'll take it the final steps. How great. Every item bakes from frozen in 25 minutes or less.

No thawing required. The team at Wildgrain just sent a new box, delicious stuff inside, and I have to tell you, because I do the breads, I went with the all-sweet stuff. I went with peach pie bites. I went with, you know,

I love a lemon, situation, raspberry lemon biscuits, and then I guess English muffins wasn't so fancy. And also they toss in croissants. How great is that? And here we come into the holidays. So what are you doing people? Don't be dumb. I mean, look, should this have been an idea that we came up with and we made money off of?

Yes. Do we have the ability to do it? No. The people at wild grains do. and you can now fully customize your wild grain box as you get any combination of bread's, pastas, and pastries you like. If you want a box of all bread, all pasta, or all pastries, you can have it. Plus, for a limited time, you can get $30 off your first box, plus free croissants in every box.

When you go to wildgrain.com slash papa to start your subscription. You heard me free cuisants in every box. and $30 off your first box when you go to wildgrain.com slash papa. That's wildgrain.com slash papa, or you could just use the promo code, Papa, at checkout. I feel like Joey would be good at this. I could benefit, yeah. You know?

For sure. How would you, I don't even know what the system is, but what is your skill level in the kitchen? Probably pretty poor, I think. I think I could do a lot of basic stuff. And then when I've got the time, I can kind of elevate the basic things, make them, you know, a little better. Like what? Well, this week I've been making this chicken, a chicken sandwich, another chicken sandwich.

But with like real mozzarella and I'm grilling the chicken. You have an air fryer? Have an air fryer, yeah. You put it in there? This I just put in a pan of olive oil and grilled it that way. That's good. But to reheat it, I use the air friar. It's called frying.

When you put oil in a pan. Gotcha. Yeah. That's why I didn't grill it. Yeah. I fried it. How are you in the kitchen, Joey? Well, I put oil in a pan and I grilled it.

I grilled things in my frying pan. Well, the fact that he said real muck. Yeah. I don't know if that, if he meant good mozzarella, like a real good quality. Like what's the fake mozzarella? Yeah. As opposed to shredded mozzarella, I guess. I just bought it in like the blobby form.

Yeah. So you graded it yourself? No, it was actually pre-slice already. I was pre-slice. I did not slice it even, yeah. That's good. And then you put it on a little roll? Yep, a little pretzel bun.

Ooh. Pretel bun. All right. You just redeemed your. Okay, okay. I feel like pretzel bun is going to be the name of your next girlfriend. Are you single right now, Joey? Yeah.

Now that everyone can see you. Yeah. He went through a pretty big breakup, like last year. Yeah. And he hasn't really rebounded. I mean, he's better now, but. This is it. We're going to get you laid, Joey.

Taking the slow approach back. If anyone out there is alone and looking for a man that can make you a, a chicken fried, grilled sandwich with mozzarella on it. With real mozzarella. I'm your guy. Joseph is your guy. Slide into Joey's DMs.

What is your Instagram? My Instagram is at Henry David Ther Joe, probably the worst Instagram handle on the site. No wonder I never found it. Yeah. Say that again? Henry David Ther Joe, you know, like the philosopher. No.

Because Thoreau was in your neck of the woods as a child He's really smart He's really smart Yeah maybe more of a regional thing It's a Massachusetts thing Yeah My Twitter is Vincent Van Joe

That's another Yeah these are like When I was 16 And I was like These are hilarious And now every day I'm like Can I think of anything else To go by on here

Can you change it? What's really making me worry Is that I rely on on Abraham Lincoln to handle some of my marketing. Yeah, understand like the concept of social media and marketing. Yeah.

Why not your name? Yeah, I don't know. I guess when I made the account, it was definitely an era where everyone my age are just like making a pun basically with your name. Now it's like very few people still standing, still doing that, let alone shoving their name into a different,

more popular name. How many followers do you have? Like a thousand. Okay, so it's definitely, you should definitely change it then. Yeah, yeah. You got to change it immediately. Mm-hmm. Yeah, like right now.

I will, to just my name, you think? Like a version of my name? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, Abraham, Joey, Lincoln, I would even accept. Yeah.

All right. I mean, using Abraham Lincoln is, just as dumb as what he's doing. So, yeah, I guess your name. Okay. Yeah, I could do that. I mean, look, it's, we're assuming you want people to follow you.

Yeah. You may not want that. That'd be nice. Sounds like he doesn't. All right, enough giving Joey a hard time. He's a good kid. He's a good kid. You're doing great.

Isn't that year? That was, yeah. Yeah, tell him. Yeah, that was good. I made a great meal last night for my niece and her boyfriend. Ooh. Yeah. Nice rigatoni.

Talk about the opposite of Joey's skills in the kitchen. How did you make the rigatoni? I put it in an air friar. Did you steam it? Did you put on the barbecue grill? We smoked our rigatoni last night. Did your husband, Fix his smoker.

Yes. Really? Are you coming over for ribs? No. Why? Yes. I would. Oh my gosh.

Really? Yeah. Although I wish he wouldn't use the words that he uses. He's like, yeah, I'm going to get a nice pork butt. Can we not? Mm-hmm. Can we not say? A shoulder?

Yeah, a shoulder. I know. Can you not give like the, a throat? Like, killing. My vegetarian wife. Yeah, she would lose it. Yeah. She really, she really gags on.

pulled pork. Yeah. That you're pulling it apart. Just let's call it like a brisket or some states. Yeah. Yeah. I don't want to even offend Native Americans and say Tomahawk. I'll be honest.

Right. A bigger steak. Can we just call it? Yeah. We can't use. I didn't really clock that. Yeah. Let's not like talk about I'm going to have some pork groin tonight.

Can we not? Please. You know, even ribs is a little bit. My kids are like, am I eating? the ribs. I go, yes you are. Finish them all up. Yum, yum, yum, yum. It's hard.

It's hard. It's hard when you give. Yeah, we don't know what a shank is, and I want to keep it that way. Yeah. I want to keep it. I made a, I was so exhausted when we got back. And then I ran, oh, I got to see David Sedaris. Oh, how was that? On Sunday.

It was great. I'd never seen him before. And, man, what an interesting thing. to like, I haven't sat in an audience and watched somebody. It's hard. It is hard. It was actually, I was so tired, though, because you made me get up early and take that shuttle bus that I rolled in there and was like, oh, this is so relaxing. Yeah.

Like, to not be backstage getting ready to go on. It's just like, oh, I see why people like this. Yeah. You just come in, you have a little snack and sit down in a chair, and yeah, you do something up there. And I'm just going to. It's very, very nice. And he has a podium up there, and he walks out and reads. That's it.

It's it. He says a little, a little comment, you know, here and there, a little bit of a... But it's funny. He's very funny. He's very charming. He's, I think, our most talented essayist by far. Yeah. And he's just a delight.

I got to interview him once on my... radio show and he knew my work from live from here from Prairie Home Companion when I would do my monologues and he connected oh you're the guy that does the things and then after the interview he went did a deep dive on all of my essays and then sent me a note complimenting the absurdity of some some of the stuff and the writing and sending on this perverted post card. It was really one of like a really just a beautiful little compliment. Yeah, from him.

Yeah. So great. So I'd never gotten to see him live. So watching him go up and do his thing. And he makes comments in between and his pacing and is so cool to watch. And so the biggest thing for me relating it to what we do is watching, oh, like he did like an hour 20 and I'm always on stage thinking, is this enough? Is it enough of a show?

Yeah. It's enough. For sure. It's enough. I've always, I've always had like a little bit of paranoia like when they leave. Like, is that enough for you to have a night out and go park and get a babysitter and do all the stuff? And it was totally satisfying.

You're definitely like, yeah, that was great. I got to see David Sinaris. Yeah. Right? Well, you know, when you're watching a movie, and it's, let's say, a two-hour movie, okay? And you got your advertisements and your previews and all that, a little over two hours.

You don't have to be an active participant. You can kind of, like, disconnect a little bit. Yeah. But at a live show, even if you're not, you know, talking to whoever's on, you're not, like, actively part, but you are a little bit more alive. Right. And I think people are done.

after an hour and a half. I really do. That's a very interesting point. I think a two-hour live event, unless it's a music concert where you can kind of go and, oh, I'm going to use the restroom. I'm going to get a thing. I'm going to walk over there. I think people are more involved when they're actively listening.

Yeah, we saw a musical not too long ago and there was an intermission. And by the end of, by the time they rolled into intermission, I was like, I'm good. Yes. How long is this next part going to be? Exactly. Yeah. It's very interesting. You know, because I haven't sat for a comedian, like, in a theater.

I don't think ever. I did once. You did? Mike's birthday. And he had hinted that he just loves Gaffigan so much. Right. He just can't stand how much he loves him. So I got him tickets to Gaffigan.

Oh, that's cool. And I was an audience member. Right. And it was hard. but also the same, very enjoyable to just sit and just be... More difficult because it's a comedian. Cedaris is a humorist and a writer. Yeah.

And I mean, he's very fun. The laughs he garners are deep when he really nails it. He had me laughing for sure. Did Cynthia go? She did, yeah. Yeah. And it's... But you think about it.

how many laughs are in our show. There's no... I think in the act, there's maybe two lines that don't demand a laugh out of that hour, 10, whatever? In his or yours? In ours. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

No, no. We're the... I mean, there's no. There's no downtime at all. Yeah. It's really interesting. It makes me think maybe we shouldn't work so hard. No, no, you should. You should.

You have to. I sat through a show the other night and God bless this guy. He's great, but it's a little too ranty. It's a little too preachy. I don't think people go to see stand up and want a TED talk. I think we just need laughs, laughs, laughs, laughs. And it was too much. It was like too.

I was exhausted before I even got up on stage. Yeah, it's a lot. The book signing, you know, I've been doing book signings this whole tour and it's really fun. and after the show, as I got more tired during the tour, started to really realize what an effort it is to do the book signing. It's another hour after the show. I've just been standing up there for whatever time, and now I'm standing again and signing and taking pictures.

And I love it. I really do really enjoy that part of it, or I wouldn't do it. And it's like, okay, but it is a push. It's like we could be someone in one of the theaters made a comment like that everyone would have gone home an hour and a half earlier if I hadn't signed books. Right. And the lines are long. The lines are long. The lines are long.

I thought until I went to see Mr. David Sedaris, who before the show, I mean, look, it's what it's his thing. I mean, he has all the greatest books around. he has a whole section, like a little bookstore of all of his books and books that he likes. And this is before, like we whirled in there a good 45 minutes before the show. And he's sitting behind a table. Oh, wow. Signing books. The huge line.

I don't know how he cuts it off and makes it to the stage. Yeah. They must tell people whatever. Yeah. And then he does the show. and then he goes back and signs more at the end of the show. So. Imagine if he didn't do the before.

Yeah. Hours. Yeah. I mean, really. Because I was saying to my wife, like, I don't know, should I sign books tonight or not sign books tonight. And after seeing it was like, yeah, you should do it. Yeah. Yeah.

Don't be a baby. You're out. You're here. These people want to come up and see you and, you know, they're so delightful. and their stories are so great. And they're, you know, you're spreading your book around. It is, but watching him like, oh, my God. He does sit across the table.

Makes it a little easier. Yeah. We're like right next to the people and hugging and kissing and stuff. Yeah. Can I ask a question? Yes, you may. Do you think, Tom, that you would ever sign books before a show, Or do you think since you're performing stand-up,

there's sort of like this illusion. You need to not be seen by them until it starts, basically. Do you think about that? I do think about that. And I'm not sure. I don't. My instinct is not before the show. I don't want them to see me before the show.

But I don't know if that's a superstition and just something in my head. It's a little weird before the show because people, and they're all well-me- meaning, but sometimes when I've seen people before the show, like, let's say there's a fundraising event and they want the comics to go to a thing and you mingle and you've got to talk to the president and the CEO and the biggest donor and all that, they tend to kind of get in your head a little bit. Are you going to be funny? You know what I mean? Or they say something that you're like, stop it, please, just zip it.

This is why we don't want to talk to you before our show because we want the show to be done and have that. post-coital, like, ah, I gave you everything. You know what I mean? Yeah. And then whatever you say is just kind of like, well, that's what I gave you. That's what we did it. Right. But sometimes, you know, well, they want to, sometimes VIP people want to meet you beforehand.

And they go, are you going to do the joke about the alligator? It's like, oh. And also, and this is in no way throwing shade on Cedaras's type of performance. Right. Our performance is harder. A little bit, yeah. His work goes into the writing of it Beforehand and he's still going to be nervous

And he's still got to dress And he's got to get there And he does all his very funny stuff about his travels But the actual performance of it For us to walk out there with no material Yeah All in our head And have to express it and have those laughs

Non-stop Yeah And moving around and all the rest of it It's more difficult It's more physically mentally taxing Right Than if you can actually just take your jokes.

I mean, before the show, we're backstage looking at the laptop and the notes and trying to cram it into your head, all the new stuff, and trying to keep track of it and get those lines right. And it's, we're working. Like, it's a lot to do. So, like, to mingle with people and not go right and then not have downtime. Right. To do that and decompress and isolate yourself and get into the show.

part of it. Yeah, it wouldn't work. And also, Joey, I'm selling books. They're there primarily because I'm a comedian who has some books.

Right. Or a T-shirt. He is a writer. They want, that's the experience. It's like, it's totally about that, you know?

So, yeah, so I guess no. Do you get asked to do like private little you know, Christmas parties, those little, like, but small corporate. Yeah, I've had like 20 people in a restaurant kind of a thing.

Yeah. What happens when they ask you to do like a full headlining set? Like, oh, can you come and do 45 minutes? Uh-huh. Do you do that for 30 people? Yes. You do.

Yeah. Yeah, I refuse. It's not that often. 45 is important. It's much better than an hour. If they say an hour, you're going to really struggle. 45, I could do that in a stand up in a restaurant. Easy.

Yeah. Easy. I won't do more than half an hour in those situations. There's no microphone. There's no real stage. There's no good lighting. There's a... I know, but it's...

You can totally do it. No, I know I can. But it feels like it's too much. much material for the amount and the venue and the experience. Like, I want to get in and out in those experiences. They're having a big Christmas party. It's 30, 40 people from the office. Yeah.

And it's in a little banquet hall room off the side of a restaurant or whatever it is. I want to get in, do some jokes and be like, okay, good night. Enjoy the rest of your, you know what I mean? Now you're going to give out awards or now you're going to, you know, do something. and then just get out. I don't want to linger with 45. That feels like way too much. Yeah, it feels uncomfortable.

Yeah. But it's so funny. It's our perception. It's really our perception. And this is going to be harder. It's going to be more difficult than doing 45 on a stage where people are all there and ready to go. Yeah. And it's going to be more difficult.

And it's going to be more uncomfortable. And there are more things going on that could destroy you. and make the whole set go wrong? Are they going to be serving? Are they going to be, who are these people? Do they even want comedy? Is this just Joe's big idea and everyone else is going to be annoyed by it? All those things can happen, and they have happened.

Yeah. So it's more nerve-wracking. Saying yes to those gigs is, as soon as you say yes, that day is going to be ruined. Yes. Ruined. And it could go great, but it's all uncomfortableness. And my thing is, I'm used to. doing an hour or so over an hour.

So if I can shave it to 45 and know that I can walk in there and for the first 10 be like talking about what we're all doing here and how this is going. That's true. And then that is true. Work into the material and then go back and do some more like talking to them a little bit and then get to 40. And if it's going really well, 45 and then you're out of there. It seems like a much lighter lift to me.

That extra 15 of getting to the hour. But that's why I say it's all in our heads. Yeah. Because if I would normally do an hour and a half on the road and then you tell me after do an hour, I'd be like piece of cake. Right. That's true. It's that thing of like when you have, it's a weird mental thing.

And it's in every aspect of life. If I sell myself, I'm doing 20 pushups right now. 18 and 19 and 20, I'll be like, we'll be really hard. If I tell myself I'm doing 25 push-ups, I'll blow past 20, and 23, 24, 25 are now the hard ones. Yeah. It's so crazy. But it really holds. I think you probably get paid way more for those uncomfortable situations.

An ungodly amount. Yeah. Yeah. And that's why I, if someone asks me. Is it worth it for sure? Is it worth it? I will have to double whatever they come in me with because it's not, it's. No, it's a hard.

It's a horrible experience. It's very difficult. Luckily, I've had more good experiences than horrible. Lately, of course, the longer you do it. Yeah. But there's always a potential. Always. Always of like...

I did one in October and I don't know what went, what went down. But it was, they were exhausted. They just did a... auction for all these people, and it went on for like an hour. This guy was really good at what he was doing, the auctioneer, but exhausting the people, just exhausting them. And they're all older oil people in Houston and in their fancy gowns and whatever. And they are tapped.

They were tapped out. And it was a whole dinner, alcohol, it's getting late. This guy just rang every, rung every scent out of them. And it was like, oh. And then they brought me on. And I haven't had one of these in a long time. Yeah. But went up, a couple jokes.

And in my set, I talk about how we're all fat. And they were like not having it. They're like, no, we're beautiful and we're rich. What are you saying? Yeah. And from that point on, I started, you could just feel the energy. And it was, I got in my head. and I started paraphrasing my jokes.

I mean, it was a bad one. Yeah. It was bad. I know what I'm doing. We tore all over. It has nothing to do with me. And I was a little tired, but not really. Like, I was on point.

I walked into a culture that did not want what I was told to give them at that minute. And that's the risk of those private things. And how much time? did you do? I think I was supposed to do 45. Mm-hmm. And I probably pulled the court at 40. Okay.

And it was a gargantuan effort to get to 40. Yeah. It was a lot. Oh, and then I did crowd work because I'm flailing. So I'm just grabbing it anything. I'm just like, whatever. And I'm telling you, these are like some of the rich, people in the country, old, rich, oil people.

And I turned to one guy, this one woman looks so elegant and beautiful in that kind of classic waspy kind of a way, you know, the country club of yesterday year, kind of the hair and the clothed, yeah, the coft and the posture and just like that, you know, Nancy Reagan kind of a yeah Rosalyn Carter kind of thing and I start asking her

I asked her are you married like you look so elegant you look so beautiful thank you are you are you married yes I'm married to

this guy over here and she was like 60 and her husband as comes out, my asking the questions. I'm sorry if I'm muddling it up. It was like 92. A 92-year-old, and there's only one, and it's his third marriage, I think, it came out. And the other ones died from old age. And now he's got this young, beautiful. And it's, I'm now doing crowdwork, and I ask the wrong question to the wrong couple.

and the answer to that is how did you meet or how did you, you know what I mean? Like there's only one reason. Yeah. A 60 year old is marrying a 90 year old. Yeah. There's not a love that exists in the universe. No.

That makes that happen. That is only because of money. For sure. And the whole room knew it. And the whole room knew I couldn't say a word about it. and we all just looked at each other for a beat and it was like, good night, everybody.

Brutal. But you walk into these cultures and you don't know what you're going to get. And a lot of them don't want comedy and a lot of them are like, you know, just a, there's a personality to these places. Well, we are entering Christmas holiday work party. Yeah.

gigs, at least for me, this is what I do. Do you have a bunch? I do. I have a bunch and you don't know what you're walking into. Yeah. Is there going to be anything that resembles any kind of focal point? Yeah. Yeah.

So I just kind of sometimes stand. I just stand there and I'm just like, please listen to me. They really, they really want you guys to enjoy this. That's sometimes what I have to say. Yeah. Look, you don't want me here. I don't want to be here. But Steve really wants you to enjoy.

Let's do this for Steve. Yeah. Who's with me? You know, and I have to like rally them. And they don't like Steve. And I even sometimes say that. I go, we're all mad at Cheryl right now. She booked comedy.

God damn it, Cheryl. Everyone wanted a DJ. You know they wanted a DJ. Why did you book a comedian? And then I make everyone turn on Cheryl. I've had to do that a couple times too. Yeah, that's a great way to go out. You just have to survive.

Yeah. And it is the season. And then you walk into another one and I had this one in Hawaii just last week and it was a dream. It was like this is better than some of the theater shows we've done recently. Yeah. They were such great people. They were having fun. They were, they're used to it.

Like they get, they have comedy at these events. Yeah. And it was just a blast. You know, I'm trying to convince my son to have. have a school fundraiser and have a bunch of comics. I told him it's very common. Mommy does these all the time for free. For, by the way, some very fancy schmancy schools too.

Which whatever money we're raising is going to let some kid go there for free for two weeks. That's really, like they're so expensive. And he says to me, goes, I don't know. Are people into that? Motherfying. Yes. They, this is what I do. Are you kidding me?

He's like, hmm, like I have to pitch it to my own show. I would help somehow, yeah. All right, well, that is a horrible mistake. Like, you think that I've done this for my kids. They didn't put it together, but the school does and they ask me to come do the thing. You talk about ruining your day when you say yes to a Christmas party.

the level now that you've increased your anxiety because now everyone you see a carpool, their teachers, the whole thing. And if that doesn't go well, you are now in the minds of all these people, a not that great comedian. Yeah, I know.

Everyone's walking around thinking, oh, that mom's a comedian. She's really great. And then when they, if you, if that doesn't go well, the whole year,

until you get to go do that event again and, kill you are kind of not that great and everyone kind of looks like oh good for you you're still doing that yeah are you still but you did well i remember when you were doing that gig we were like touring and you're like oh i got to do this fundraiser for my kids school i got yeah i did well i did really well okay but the anxiety leading up to it is much more potent than any other it's worse than going on the tonight show yeah all right Maybe I'll stop pushing it. Don't push it.

Especially because he doesn't want to book you. He doesn't. And it's kind of humiliating. He's on the student body. They have to come up with like fundraisers. And he's constantly telling me, we don't have any money for our blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, do a comedy event.

We, we, we, we, right. As your manager. I wish. I wish you were my manager. I don't, I don't think you need to try and get your 12 year old who's hiding behind a plant to book you. Joe, your cough is over? Yes.

You're better. I'm all better. Kira, your cough is better? I mean, yeah, I haven't coughed. Okay. So everyone's healthy. We can all make out. Let's keep it that way.

No more illness. Oh, we're coming into illness season too. So no more. I know. Keep it healthy. I'm back home. I have one more weekend on the rest of. road, actually two.

And I'm just going to be baking like crazy. You know what I made last night also? What? I know you're not going to be excited by this, but you can understand why people like things. Two lobes of jalapeno cheddar bread. Oh. Oh. Oh.

Oh, I felt it. Like, I started salivating. It's so good. So good. Oh, my God. Now, is it real chattrored? Cheddar? Real.

Real cheddar, Joey. Wow. Pre-sliced. We'd like to thank the good people at Wild Grain for coming aboard today. A great company. Get your wild grain box. Go to wildgrain.com slash Papa. A good company doing all the right things.

We'd like to let everybody know that all of the dates for 2024 are up for the first half. You can go to tompapa.com, look up all that stuff. And I guess it's holiday season, so you probably should buy my books and things. Oh, for sure. As presents. Yeah. We don't have another gig until the new year. February.

No way. Yeah. Wow, it's a ways away. I know. Well, at least we get to do this. Oh. Do you want to tell the people anything? Yeah.

Take care of each other. Oh, you mean like where they can find me? cure comedy on Instagram beautiful you guys are the best enjoy we'll see you next week