Family Trips with the Meyers Brothers - JOEL MCHALE Went On a Ton of Cross Country Road Trips

Episode Date: January 16, 2024

Note: This episode was recorded prior to the WGA/SAG strikes ending. The hilarious Joel McHale is on the pod this week! Joel talks to Seth and Josh about his family’s cross country trips from Seattle to Chicago, what happened when his mom fell asleep at the wheel, what his sons think of him being famous, and more!To submit your story go to: www.speakpipe.com/familytripspodSquarespaceHead to https://www.squarespace.com/trips to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code (Trips) Eight SleepImprove the way you sleep by using my link at eight sleep dot com slash trips for $200 off plus free shipping on their high tech Pod 3 Cover. Zoc DocGo to Zocdoc dot com slash TRIPS and download the Zocdoc app for FREE. Then find and book a top-rated doctor today. Go to usbank.com/altitudego to learn more about how you can earn 20,000 bonus points, worth $200, if you spend $1,000 in the first 90 days of opening your account. Eat out or eat in, with the U.S. Bank Altitude® Go Visa Signature® Card. Limited time offer. The creditor and issuer of this card is U.S. Bank National Association, pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A. Inc. Some restrictions may apply.

Hi, Pashi. Hi, Sufi. Happy New Year. Happy New Year. A lot has happened. Yeah. Since we've last said hello to each other on our podcast. Yeah, tons.

We both had birthdays. Yeah, happy birthday. Thank you, happy birthday to you. Thank you. Did you have a good birthday? Great birthday. You went skiing. Yeah, I went to Mammoth.

I took myself to Mammoth. Mackenzie was away over the weekend, and my birthday is Monday, January 8th. And she was like, well, I'm off that day if you want to find a movie to see or pick a restaurant. And I was like, if you don't mind, how about I go up to Mammoth before you get home from your weekend away, and I will be skiing alone. So the dream. A dream. I mean, I miss her, and I'm very excited to see her when I get home. But to ski solo, it's pretty great. Now, obviously, the ski part, you know,

I am not drawn to. But man, oh, man, does that solo sound pretty good. Something else I noticed with my birthday, if I can rail on something. Yeah, rail away to your podcast. So when people wish you happy birthday, it's super nice. Yeah, rail away to your podcast. So when people wish you happy birthday, it's super nice. Like, you know, your producer, Mike Shoemaker, like my lawyer reaches out and says happy birthday. That's super nice. I get all these like automated emails from like my bank wishing me a happy birthday. My dentist emails me like, today is all about you. My chiropractor emailed me and texted me, but it's not my chiropractor. It's just a

thing. And everyone that you give your birthday to, I don't know if they want me to be like, oh, that was so nice of them because they did not put any thought into it. And I do not like that I even have to open those emails, especially when I'm skiing. And I'm like, oh, what's this email? It's like, oh, I don't have an appointment. You know who did put some thought into that? Who's that? Me. I reached out to your bank, to your chiropractor, to your dentist. I did all this legwork. I talked to each of them. I don't even know them. Individually said, hey, you don't know

me. I'm Josh's brother. It's his birthday. I don't even know them. Yeah. Individually said, hey, you don't know me. I'm Josh's brother. It's his birthday. I think you'd really appreciate. Well, that was a waste of time. You were the first person I spoke to on my birthday because I was sleeping with a sound machine. Yeah. Or like my phone was playing sort of a rainstorm through my, this Bose speaker that I have that like, I don't know, seven in the morning, it was like, call from Suvi Myers. Call from Suvi Myers. And we had a great talk. I felt a little bad because I could deaf tell

you were knocking the cobwebs out. And I hated being a dude who called somebody on their birthday and woke them up when they were solo times. But you did want to get out and hit the slopes. I did. And it was a great, it was super nice call. And thank you.

And yeah, it was, yeah, it was great. My birthday is December 28th and didn't do much. It's a bad day. We've talked about it. It's just a bad day. Yeah. On the calendar. Yeah. But then very nice, sort of a birthday saving surprise party for me on January 6th. Yeah. January 6th, Alexi said, we're going to go have dinner with friends. Went over to a friend's house. Alexi could not believe how dumb I was.

Walked into a house where there were two fully set long tables. No one was there. There were a thousand cars in the driveway. And walked in, no one was there. And I didn't, nothing, no alarm bells went off. In my head, I thought, why are we the first ones here? Which doesn't make any sense because we had to park so far away so just a dumb guy yeah and then i walked in everybody else surprised and uh my friend adam did a just incredible job the theme was birthday drinking with seth yeah and uh there were uh cocktails inspired by my uh illustrious life and the most

fun thing was they printed out pictures of me from the few, very few films I'd been in. And I had to guess the name of the movie, the name of the character, and the year it came out. And there was not a single one where I got all three right. Wow. Yeah. But it was lovely and was a really, was a very cool night.

A great way to surprise someone is, I feel like they were pretty well queued up to surprise you because you had had a surprise party from your staff. Yeah, at work. Yeah. You had been away for your birthday with your family. Mm-hmm. And the surprise came nine days after your birthday.

That's how you get them. That's how you get them. Yeah. Yeah. Again, it is a little bit like April Fool's-ing someone on April 9th. Right. Like, am I a sucker or are you doing the holiday wrong? Yeah.

Point being, they got me and it was just a delightful night. And because we were doing a lot of drinks, a bunch of my friends, and these are friends I've met in my adult life, found out for the first time that I can put them back. Oh, do they not watch day drinking? I think they don't quite fully appreciate how real it is. Yeah. And so at some point, they had watched me imbibe a level they thought was unhealthy.

And I was still incredibly conversant yeah could have done a podcast that's my sort of tolerance i'm very proud of the fact that i've kept it maybe we do a drinking podcast at some point yeah if there's the right guest comes through i don't want i don't want to glorify drinking i do yeah okay but also we are our mother's children. Yeah. And yeah, we can put them back, I would say, without great effect. Sometimes when I talk about and glorify a mom's drinking, which I know you don't want to glorify that either, but sometimes I'll talk about how she has a really high tolerance and people will sort of say in the YouTube comments, you know, it's not as cool as you think that your mom can drink as much as she can. And what I want to write back is, okay, I'll tell her. Wet blankets.

I called mom and dad the other day after the Steelers game. Yeah, I was very excited. After the Steelers made the playoffs, the Titans had beaten the Jaguars to get the Steelers in. And I talked to mom, it was just mom. And I've said on the podcast that I like just talking to one of them at a time. And we probably talked for about five minutes. And then dad chimed in. He was like, hey, I'm here too. I just wanted you to know, I'm not saying anything because I know you like to talk to us separately, which was a nice little burn, but also a recognition of a request I had made. I think that the real message here is if there's anyone listening and there are things you've had trouble telling your parents over the years, do a little podcast. Say it on the podcast.

Let them hear it that way. Mom told me the story. And then she said when she was done talking to you, you offered to talk to dad and he said he'd only talk to you if you called a second time. Is this accurate? Yeah. So you had to call back and ask for him. Well, I had stopped for a beer on the slopes and then I was like eager to get back out there. So then I forgot to call and then I felt bad. So now I feel like I'm sort of, that's a demerit for me.

And then the next day was my birthday proper and I FaceTimed both of them. And at the end of the FaceTime, he did say, well, feel free to call me back anytime you want to talk to me. He still feels as though he's out of call. We interviewed Joel back in 2023. It should be noted. Yes. Joel McHale. Joel McHale. Yeah. Who you are going to be delighted by. And a lot has happened. We do mention football

in this and a lot has happened since, including our Pittsburgh Steelers beating his Seattle Seahawks, which sort of hurt and cost them the playoffs and was very valuable to us. And I just want to say, while you're listening to this, know that Joel did send me a congratulations message

after that game, just to speak to the level of gentleman he is. He's a very good man. Class act. And I hope you all enjoy our conversation. And we're very excited to have you back with us here in 2024. Before we get to Joel, we want to put out one more call for sibling stories. This is not tied to any.

Oh, real quick, Josh. Yeah. I can't believe I almost forgot this. I texted you this but i want our listeners to know because this is a story about a listener oh yeah this is crazy one of the most wonderful things and i think it happens to you it happens to me we love when people come up to us and say they listen to the podcast never feel like you have to hesitate um if i'm i like it more when they say that they like it not that they just listen to it because they could be like i

listen yeah that's true and but you know what all the advertisers care about is whether or not they listen they do they like clicks advertisers just want like click click click click click click every time you click click anyway so i agree it's better when they say they like it and a woman comes up to me at the trampoline park in albuquerque i was in new mexico for the holidays i me at the trampoline park in Albuquerque. I was in New Mexico for the holidays. I went to the trampoline park in Albuquerque three days in a row and it was incredible. I, Josh, I think the next time you see me on a trampoline, you're not going to believe how much better I am. Well, yeah. Because where would you put me on a one to 10 as far as my trampoline

skills? Two or three? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So it'soline skills two or three yeah yeah okay so it's gonna be the same so so maybe now it's a hard three anyway a woman comes up to me and not only says i like and listen to the podcast she was someone who left us a message on our listener episode about the turkey that came into her backyard during thanksgiving yeah and she had said she was like from a place, maybe the villages? Yeah. I don't know if it was the villages.

That's that place in Florida. But it might be called something like that. Somewhere in New Mexico. Yeah, and it was near Placidas. And it was a real trip because the more she talked, the more I felt as though I had spoken to her before because I'd listened to her leave a message for us. So that really, as fan interactions go,

what a trip to actually meet someone who had been a guest on our podcast without us ever having met them. Yeah, that's awesome. Small world. I think if you leave us a message with one of your sibling travel stories at speakpipe.com backslash family trips pod,

it probably increases the chances you'll run into me at a trampoline park or maybe a place with a climbing wall, a zip line studio. You can't get enough. I can't get enough. So anyway, one last thing about the trampoline park. And again,

not a sponsor yet. There's a climbing wall situation and you know, they strap you in with harness and the kids are doing it. And then a parent, they strap you in with a harness, and the kids are doing it. And then a parent, I thought it was just for kids, right? Yeah. And then one of the parents is doing it. Ash, who's not, I don't consider him fearless, so I was really proud of the fact that he was climbing

all the way up this climbing wall, and then just from the top you jump off, and you just sort of slowly get lowered down. But you still got to jump, you know? Yeah. Into the void. Yeah. And Ash said, oh, you can do it with me climb up the wall next to me and i gotta tell you i thought great i'm an excellent climber but then you get to the top and i had some real doubts about everything yeah well

you know my history of like rappelling off of things. You fell off a zip line in Mexico. Yeah, like the platform. They told me, just step off and we're going to sort of slowly lower you down. And I broke my leg and my back and my jaw. And I want to stress, in the end, everything went quickly. But it was like a 14-year-old kid who put me into this harness. Right. And, you know, so I'm thinking even if I hit the ground,

I don't think I'm going to get the kind of money, lawsuit-wise, out of this kid that I need. You think it's just him? You go to his insurance, the 14-year-olds? Yeah, that's probably right. I probably would have got the trampoline park money. Which you, I mean, you might own a trampoline park, which based on how often you go, you would love. You know what the worst thing, there's a lot of terrible things

about having kids, but you know what one of the worst things is? What? How much they like claw machines. Yeah. Arcade claw machines, yeah. Yeah. And there was one at the trampoline park

that I thought was great because it guaranteed a win on the claw machine. Yeah, when Ash told me he won something, I was flabbergasted because those are notoriously like scams, little rip-off machines machines ash got a rubber duck and then axel did it and axel got one and that's when i realized wait back to back what the f is

going on and then i looked and pretty clearly labeled on the claw machine it was guaranteed winner every time do you think that's like in the claw machine world they put out those guarantee machines to get kids hooked is that right it's kind of like the first samples free probably or maybe the rest of the claw machine industry looks down on that as sort of the purists in the claw machine world are like how dare you yeah it's you know it's a problem with modern kids today they don't work hard they think everything they think every claw machine's a winner no matter what you do rubber ducky all right we've gone a very far afield of our introduction of joel mckale so let's not take any more time it's 2024 we're gonna be a lot more to the point

here's joel mckale but first here's jeff tweedy is it working oh there he is working Here we go yeah and i've had you as a guest during covid and you were wonderful then well but there wasn't microphones sent and i wasn't locked out of my gmail account because i entered the passcode wrong too many times how many times until they lock you out of gmail joel twice twice that seems punitive it's uh like the catholic school of passcodes. And they don't. So I'm locked out for 48 hours. Second time it's happened. And then it says it sends it sent a code to my Hotmail account, which I haven't used in 17 years. But you still know that password? I guessed.

I used to have Hotmail and my password was like a five letter word. And it was a very basic word yeah it was amazing that and that word was it was bowie oh bowie yeah joel we're so happy to have you on our new podcast talking emails and we do want to let you know it's not a popular podcast very few people if any will hear it yeah people like talk about the popularity of Taylor Swift and how she can affect entire cities and I think this is as entertaining. I think it is too. We're very happy to have you. You are, and I have

told you this to your face, you're one of my favorite talk show guests to have on my show. Oh, God bless you. Well, you know how excited I get to come on the show and your brother and I did a pilot about in 2006. Yeah, a long, long time ago now.

What was the 2006 pilot? Which one was that one? Giants of Radio, directed by Jason Weiner. Oh, my goodness. Giants of Radio. I went to college with Jason Weiner. So did Josh. Yes.

And Ethan Sandler. Oh, my goodness. And Katherine Hahn. Was it a network sitcom? I think it was Jason's idea and he got money from CBS to do it and I think it was like a hundred grand total and we shot it in an office building and there was like one trailer and I think it turned out really well and then of course they said no way yeah but it was it was fun and yeah weiner's got a great eye and he was able

to do a lot with a little in terms of budget i know like people are like a hundred thousand dollars that's a ton of money and it is but now when you're making a tv show it's not a lot for a pilot it is not no or like a like a joint strike fighter jet it's barely a couple of screws you can barely a bag of screws do you's nothing. You can barely a bag of screws. Do you feel like people, well, anybody in entertainment or in industries that know, you know, they have to use a lot of money because they're like, look, we got it for a million bucks, which is a lot of money because people like, whoa, whoa. Right.

Right. You guys just said it wasn't a lot of money. You made a pilot that nobody ever saw. And people are listening, saying, so a house. Right. You guys just said it wasn't a lot of money. You made a pilot that nobody ever saw, and people are listening saying, so a house. You basically spent a house worth of money to make a pilot that didn't. Not a house in Los Angeles anywhere nearby. No, but a home somewhere. We have listeners spread out all across this great nation, where there's a lot of different price points for homes. You know, there really is. And that's why Rocket Loans is sponsoring this portion.

Oh, wait, you brought your own sponsors? We have sponsors that pay for space on this show. And now he brought his own sponsors. Do you get paid separately? Do you have like a side hustle every podcast you go on? You sent me a box full of sponsors that I had to hit. We didn't send you a rocket mortgage box. That's true.

But you know what is great? Crumbles cupcakes. Crumbles. We do love crumbles. Joel, I did not know that you were not born in America. I was not born in America. You were born in Rome, Italy. Yes.

Divertissimo. No. But you were not there very long. I am here now. I'm there now. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, I hope. But you were not there very long. I am here now. I'm there now. Oh, my goodness. No. Yeah, you have a real Roman background.

Thank you. Yes. No, I wasn't there. I was like three when I left. Okay. Okay. Because, you know, I became an exchange student at three. No, my parents had three boys.

And so my dad lived in Rome. He was the dean of students at Loyola Rome Center, which was out of Chicago, which as you know, is right up the lake from you or down the lake from you from Northwestern. And he saw the movie Roman Holiday and was like, that's where I'm going. And he figured out a way to get there. My mom's dad worked for the UN and he was in charge of stimulating fish populations around the world. And so my mom was a student. My dad was the Dean of students, uh, romance broke out and,

and, uh, they had three boys and then, um, they couldn't afford a regular school there. So there was either go to public Italian schools or move back to America. And they were trying to decide whether they wanted to raise Italians or Americans. And they went, they went American. So are you the youngest of the three boys? I am the middle,

the middle. So does your oldest, does he have the best memory of the time in Italy? He was fluent in Italian apparently. And then just stop speaking it completely. Yes. So he definitely has the best memory. He was fluent in Italian apparently, and then just stopped speaking it completely. Uh, yes. So he definitely has the best memory.

And I just pretend like I liberated the city and, uh, 1944, uh, that my memory goes way back. And so, yeah. And I was baptized at the Vatican and I'm not joking.

Wow. Wow. Yeah. So let me know when you go to an italian restaurant does your older brother say like i'll order like i'll handle yes when we go into olive garden or sparrow he just those are the two and i was like i don't feel like you should do that here uh so but yeah he he actually doesn't remember any italian wow have you gone back there as a family yes okay we took uh my family a couple times and way back in the 90s, I went

alone for a month because my aunt and uncle still live there. And I lost my passport or it was stolen. And I had to go to the American embassy to apply for a new one. And they were very confused. They looked me up and it obviously said I was born in Rome. And then I'm this, you know, I look like this and I'm going, I lost my passport. Can you help me? And where do you buy gum around here? So they gave me a temporary passport because they're like, we're not sure what's going on. So here's a 30 day one so you can get out of here. It was very exciting. How did your family decide on Seattle as their sort of port to raise their boys? My mom was raised in Vancouver, British Columbia.

My grandfather and my grandmother, they weren't born in Seattle, but they were both at the University of Washington. And that's where they met, which is where I went to as well. And my grandfather kind of gave my dad a list of like, here's some leads I got for you. And we moved there. My dad

had never been to Seattle. And at that point, Seattle was not the cultural center, like dripping with money and culture. And it was a depressed C-town with Boeing and Weyerhaeuser. My dad got a job at Weyerhaeuser, which is a timber company. And he said, first day driving to the job, because they had left swinging Rome, right? That was like the height of like Frederico Fellini Rome. And they were in Seattle, which had trees and serial killers. And my dad said, he told me, he goes, I said out loud in the car, car i said to myself the fun part of my life is over and so like i grew up in this suburb called mercer island which now it's like so swanky now and people are like oh and i was like at the time my parents paid like 80 grand for their home so it

was it's less than a pilot less than a pilot. So it really shows you the value of money. And like literally there was billboards in Seattle that said, would the last person in Seattle please turn the lights off? And then it just it all changed. Then all of a sudden Microsoft and Kurt Cobain and Starbucks. And did it feel like when it changed, were you the sort of family that it doesn't sound like you were the sort of family that said, oh, we miss the old Seattle. Was it an exciting time to go through the Seattle boom? Oh, yeah, it was great. Oh, yeah. It was so, you know, like all those bands and all that time, like all the musical festivals happened every year. And then

I took it for granted. You're like, well, everybody's hometown just gets better. And then your music like, well, yeah, of course, everyone's listening to this music because it's really good. And then all of a sudden, then MTV was I remember MTV talking about it. And I was like, wow, I guess we are cool. Then you start telling people you're from Seattle. And they're like, Oh, I hope to spend some time there. That was not the case at all for, you know, for forever. And so now no one can afford to live there. And, you know, it's great, but it's, yeah, it's, it is changed. I mean, it just like everyone would sound like such an old man, but how dramatic the changes is pretty stark. One of the more dramatic American city transformations in our lifetimes. Yeah. Did your dad then admit there was some fun left in

his life? Yeah. Now that he just fell in love with it. Oh, that's great. Yeah. And then there was time like they were going to move back to Chicago. And then my mom was like, you don't want to move back to Chicago. And I mean, like that was his home and they love it. But, you know, the winters are rough. They talk about the winters, but they're fine. But no, they never left because the whole boat culture and all the water and all that and all the mountains. Yeah, he begrudgingly to this day admits how much he likes it. In a weird way, he kind of got out just in time from Italy

and hit the wave perfectly in Seattle. Yeah, we spent some time in Athens, Georgia, of course. Ooh, yeah, I've been to Athens, Georgia. No, I'm kidding. We did. I did. No, just because remember in Athens, Georgia, of course. Ooh, yeah, I've been to Athens, Georgia. No, I'm kidding. We did. I did. No, just... Because remember when Athens, Georgia,

they had like R.E.M. and B-52s and a couple other bands came out? And now Portland, Maine is the place to be. Is Portland, Maine the new place to be? Ah, there's like Michelin star restaurants. Yeah, it is exploding. We grew up not far from Portland, Maine and I had never been.

And then recently I was back east with my fiance and her dad and stepmom, and we drove into Portland for a day. And man, it's great. It's a fabulous, fabulous town. And I've been to Athens, Georgia, and I've been to Michael Stipe's house when Michael Stipe was not there. But I swam in his pool and he had this like sort of silo next to the pool, which was like the changing room. What happened at that trial?

Yeah. For breaking into the Stipe home. Yeah. Is it weird? Cause you were pretty famous at that point. There's a lot of dog action going on over at my house right now. I apologize. You're changing the subject to how you got into Michael Stipe's home. That's what he did on the stand when they kept asking him. The lawyer was saying, what were you doing? He's like, sorry, I feel like I hear a dog. Yeah, is there, you all hearing that, dog? The transcripts from that trial, pretty much all my brother's answers are dog related.

It's hard to answer. I didn't hear your full question because of the barking dog. And then he just started bringing in other animals to up the end you guys hear that bear i think there's a bear there's like a bear oh the dog must be barking at the bear so you grow up you have uh you're in the middle your brothers are how much older how much younger wait what happened to you at michael stipe's house how did you get in my My friend, Christy Bush, lives in Athens, Georgia, and is old friends with Michael Stipe. And I was there for, you know, Christy's ex-husband's 50th birthday party. And we were hanging out and she was like, hey, do you guys want to go swimming

at Michael's? And we were like, yeah. And he wasn't there. And I met him years later. And I was like, hey, I've been to your house. And he's like, I think I've seen pictures of that. When he says pictures, do you think he means security camera footage we took a picture and sent it on a phone camera yeah he's a very nice man he is a very nice very talented he was like it's really great to meet you and I'm glad that you spent some time in my such a good type it's either the high voice type or the because Johnny Depp and type do the same thing where they're they're talking voices like what I can't hear you're just mumbling everything

this can be great we're excited we sing hymns now we don't sing pop music at all you can either do the impression of type singing or what you just did and I'm also very much in the category of what you just did you want to hear my

type singing oh where are you now pussy willow that's my entire type so very much in the category of what you just did. You want to hear my stipe singing? Oh, where are you now, pussy willow? That's my entire stipe. That's perfect. Singing. Guys, I hate to do this. I am going to go. What? I got to deal with this dog thing.

You might not hear it. It is relentless. Great. And there are dogs barking at my dogs. Okay, great. I'm going to be back. You know, Joel, my brother and I started this podcast and Josh said, do you have any advice on what would be helpful to do during the podcast? And I said, you should get a new rescue dog. Yeah. You know,

one that is frightened all the time and reacting and impossible to quiet down. And did you say, and wherever the dog is, make sure the podcast is about 20 feet away from it. I said, ideally, you don't want the dog to get too far away from the podcast. And you know, it's a real older brother, younger brother thing, but he took my advice and I'm real proud of him. His lighting game is really nice. I know he's way better lit than both you and I. Yeah, he's got the two matching and then the teardrop and the flowers. It's really pretty. But you can't light a dog to be quiet. Let's talk about your brother's hair for a second.

I'm glad we're going to do this. You are blessed with good looks and all that. But his hair. Never mind. Don't say a word. Well, no, he'll like that we're talking about it. Well, no. We just watched my brother's butt pass through frame.

So he does have excellent hair and one of the nice things about doing a podcast with him is because it is a audio medium i don't have to hear people tell me how great his hair is right you know the listeners don't know oh this is not on camera you don't you just it's all audio yeah it's all audio i did you think you were camera ready that is yeah i'm in full this is you think this just happens i was almost certain you showed up positive that this would not be on camera uh wait are you saying that i look like shit and so there's no way i would uh there's no way you would be lucky We'll clip this for the promo video for this episode. We'll use this. Seth, I do like how

in your show you have abandoned, I mean, when the show comes back, but you already did it. You abandoned Suits a long time ago. I don't regret the choice. It's really good. Was there pushback from the network? This is more embarrassing than anything. I'm

certain they haven't even noticed i think when you're the 12 30 talk show on a network that has an 11 30 talk show you have to do a lot of shit to get them to notice yeah no when i was on the soup that happened a lot where we would say something and nothing would happen and then there would be a complaint and then they would be like hey did you guys say that i'm like yeah we said it two weeks ago yep and they're like oh well oh all right well don't it's great uh josh we were talking about your hair okay all right on behalf of a person with a bunch of you know fake hair it's really hard well it looks great whatever you have going on is also great transplants baby they're the best good for you thank you so real quick your brothers you have

one older one younger so how how far apart are you all the older one is 26 months older my younger one is 21 months younger so my dad they weren't wasting any time. My mom was barely healed. So my dad was hopping up. That's a very Catholic spread. Yes. And C-sections too, like Italian C-sections. So it was, I don't know how it all works, but after me, the Italian doctor told my mom that she was no longer able to have kids. So then when she got pregnant with my younger brother, she was like drinking and smoking and going out and having a great, you know, their Italian life. And then she started noticing.

She was like, oh, I am. I am pregnant. And it's ironic because my little brother is the only one of us not to be like dyslexic and have like ADHD. He's like focused. He went to a have ADHD. He's focused. He went to a good college. He's smart.

He reads a lot. And I know you guys are big readers, but my older brother and I, we can only listen to books if we're kind of just running around a table to distract ourselves. So you can't slow down even, right? Yeah, you can see this,

I need medication. Or like my wife hits me with a trank dart when I'm making coffee. Were you close? Were the three of you close despite the differences in one reader and two non-readers? Yeah, no, yeah. And we were close in grades. So I got held back. So I was only one grade older than my little brother, which he made fun of me.

And then we never flew anywhere as a family. We only took road trips. So we were forced to be with each other at all times with no seatbelts in a Dodge Aspen. Describe a Dodge Aspen for those of us who don't remember. Dodge Aspen is a compact wagon, which Lee Iacocca, when he took over Chrysler, was one of his babies. And it partially saved Chrysler because it had the Slant 6 engine, which was an extremely reliable engine. And ours never broke down.

And we put like 200,000 miles on it. When you look at it now, you're like, how did we ever fit in that thing? And it was a great car. It had wood paneling and they're valuable. They're actually worth something now. So if you find one, a Dodge Aspen wagon, everybody.

Look it up. Hey, we're going to take a quick break and hear from some of our sponsors. We are supported by Squarespace. Squarespace is the all-in-one platform for building your brand and growing your business online. Stand out with a beautiful website,

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we're going to have to need a website. Yeah, I feel like it'd be crazy in this day and age not to have a website to do that. And to build a website, we might have to use good old Squarespace. Yeah, this is going to be good for us, Seth, because if we're looking to sell our products in an online store, whether we're selling physical, digital, or service products, Squarespace has the tools you need to start selling online. One of our service products is you can order Josh

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off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's squarespace.com slash trips to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Family Trips is supported by 8sleep. At this point, I'm guessing a lot of you heard about Eight Sleep. It's a buzzworthy mattress cover called the Pod. It can be added to your existing mattress to automatically cool down or warm up each side of your bed and in turn improve your sleep quality dramatically. Pashi, did you even know you preferred a cold to a hot mattress? I didn't, but there's a lot of nights where I'm like too hot or, you know, Mackenzie will want a different temperature than I want. And what Eight Sleep does is it sort of will adapt to your body and it uses sensors. I don't understand

this technology, but it can give you a better night's sleep. Like for me, I want it to be cooler at night than she does typically. And Eight Sleep will just do that. It'll make my side of the bed cooler and her side of the bed can be warmer. Like, for example, I like it a little bit warmer than Alexi and Alexi likes it when I sleep on the couch. So that's kind of cool. So each morning it'll give you insights on how the temperature changes or your habits, late night exercise or caffeine impact your sleep and overall health. It's a non-wearable way to track your sleep and health metrics. That's right. Say goodbye to any wearables on your wrist while you sleep. Do you sleep with anything on your wrist?

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So you are a tall person. Yes, thank you. Were you a large child? I mean, because again, now thinking about a compact and if there are two other McHale boys that are also on the same growth chart as you, I would imagine it was incredibly tight quarters.

Yes. So what we would do is put the seat down and we would lie down in the back and drive from Seattle to Chicago. And we had the big thing on the top to hold all the luggage and no seatbelts, of course. Yeah.

And that's how we would move across the country. We did that a lot, like every summer, practically. It was that to see grandparents? To see all the Chicago family, which was my, yeah, my grandma, my grandma Marie, who was born in 1899. I have 27 first cousins. Wow.

Yeah, I got it. They're all over the place. And my aunt had 10. One of my aunts had 10. Yeah, there's just, we're littered all over the Midwest from, yeah, from Lake Geneva down to Naperville. Are you close? I mean, I can't imagine you're close with all 27, but it does seem like you were spending a lot of time with them.

Yeah, we know each other strangely pretty well, which is pretty great. And like when we have the family reunions, like 90 people show up and that's still like half of them, like when now it's all spread out. But it was strangely close and wonderful. So Seattle to Chicago, first of all, how long does that drive? 40 hours. So you stop, how many nights would you do it in? Or how many days would you do it in? Two usually, or two and a half. They did one time they went from chicago to boise without stopping wow and that's just like tag teaming the driving and somebody sleeps or yeah yeah and i used to talk about my mom fell asleep

one time and crossed all the lanes and then woke up and barely saved us and then she my dad was like do you want me to take over and and she was like no i'm just now i'm very awake and uh so they we just kept going do you remember being in a car that drifted over or was that okay yeah yeah no we we went through wildfires in montana and uh we used to have a volkswagen minibus which broke down at the end of every block. And so that's when we moved over to the Dodge Aspen. But no, those were really good memories. Everyone in Seattle, if you had any money, you always went to Hawaii. And that was just like, don't even, that doesn't even exist. That is Westeros, basically.

You're never going there. You're never getting the Dodge Aspen there. No. You're never going there. You're never getting to dodge Aspen there. No. Vacations were always breakneck pace, driving and visiting and living with other relatives. And then I was taken to Hawaii with a friend.

They had a place. And we got there and they were like, all right, we're going to the beach. And then we sat on the beach and I was like, what are we doing? And they were like, this is it. Yeah. And I was like, you just sit here? And they're like, this is it. Yeah. And I was like, you just sit here? And they're like, yeah, you could read a book. But of course, that was no good for you.

No, they turned it back. They're like, you have it upside down. So did you hate it? The first time you realized this is the luxury of Hawaii, did you actually hate being on a beach with nothing to do? No, I was just like oh man I wish my parents had had more money first time going to Hawaii I think people have like it looks like it doesn't look like it's real and you're like this is oh this is like people live here no it just didn't seem like you guys I'm assuming you've been there I mean uh but

it doesn't it looks unreal It's so distinctly Hawaii. Like when you see it, you're like, oh, this isn't like anywhere else. It's just like Hawaii. Yeah. It is beautiful. I think the craziest thing about when you fly into Hawaii and you realize there's also, you know, office buildings. Yes. You can't believe that anyone can focus enough living there to actually have a proper job. And I tip my cap to them. Yes. Long story short, you guys grew up in the East Coast. So you guys all went down to Florida, right? Yeah, that was it. Yeah. But we didn't do a Florida of luxury. The nice thing though, was even a hotel with a pool felt like luxury. Yeah. Yeah. Looking back now, I realize what it was. And it's a nice reminder that kids are just so happy with almost anything.

A soda machine in a hallway is just the best thing you could ever imagine. Anywhere that's not even home seems. Yes. Like in Florida, when you walk outside, it's warm. It's summer temperatures. Yeah. Because we would go to the beach, like the New Hampshire beaches or the Massachusetts beaches. And it always felt cold.

Like going in the ocean always felt freezing. And in Florida, you could get a hot day. And then just getting in the water was, yeah, it was like getting into a bath. It was the best. Yeah. That same thing where I was like, how does anybody live? How does anybody get anything done here? Yeah.

Although when I've also, when I've been to Hawaii, it's beautiful. and there's these big waves and you're like oh i'm gonna go out there and people are like oh you can't go out there like this is like neck breakers beach and you're like what it's like hawaii also can get you yeah oh it's gonna kill you at any moment now we went to this beach that they were like you have to stay on the beach and you can only swim in this little part and don't go in the field behind you because that's full of wild boars and they'll kill you. And I'm like, great paradise.

Wonderful. Right. That's not paradise. That is, you are surrounded. They have you. You are surrounded by chaos. Wait.

So obviously you both grew up in New Hampshire. Yeah. Why do people by chaos. Wait, so obviously you both grew up in New Hampshire. Yeah. Why do people of Boston, like I have brought it up on stage or to them where I'm like going to New Hampshire and they're like, sorry. Yeah. They hate it.

They're like as a real thing about it. They don't like each other. Well, they love coming up there to buy their booze at the state liquor store because they don't have to pay taxes. We don't even have sales tax up there. So I think there's a little shame. It's almost as though you're talking about their mistress

and they have to, you know, oh, I'm from New Hampshire. I don't care for that. But they do come to buy tax-free liquor. I think that in general, and I have a great amount of affection for the people of Boston, they have no problem looking down their nose at the states that are closest to them in proximity.

Yeah, because we also naturally claim the Red Sox as like, that's our team. And they're like, yeah, they're in Massachusetts, pal. And it's like, yeah, but we don't have a team. So it's like for all of New England. We all, we're not Patriots fans, but New England can sort of stake claim to the Patriots. And I wonder if people from Boston and Massachusetts are like, they're not yours, they're ours. And you guys are just like glomons. I was once at a charity event and I was talking to one of the Wahlbergs.

I won't say which one. It wasn't Mark. I was talking to one of the Wahlbergs. If it was Mark, I would have said it was Mark. I was talking to one of the Wahlbergs and they it was Mark, I would have said it was Mark. I was talking to one of the Wahlbergs and they said, are you- It was Chip. Chip. Chip Wahlberg. One of the lesser, what I said to Chip Wahlberg.

He said to me, are you from Boston? And I said, I'm from New Hampshire. And he said, so not Boston? That sort of encapsulates how Bostonians feel about New Hampshire people. Does that mean you've been going to do shows in New Hampshire when you tell Boston crowds? Have you done stand-up? Yes, and I work them against each other.

So I'll do a show in Boston and then bring up New Hampshire, and then I'll be in New Hampshire and bring up Boston, and they cancel each other out. I mean, the best example of this is people from Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket think the other place is bad. So it just is the whitest feud. Would you say that you two are the most famous brothers out of New Hampshire? Most famous brothers out of New Hampshire.

I can't think of another famous brother duo out of New Hampshire. So I'll throw it out and say yes. Okay. Yeah, maybe some like colonial stuff. Yeah, we're willing to be shown up. Yeah. I mean, the Wahlbergs clearly probably the most famous group of brothers out of Boston. Well, the Afflecks have done quite well for themselves. Ooh.

Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Don't sleep on the Afflecks. I feel like Boston, I think that's where you sort of go back to the Revolutionary War. And I think there were probably a bunch of Boston brothers,heads, busting heads, I should say. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like New Hampshire and Vermont have sort of a better rivalry just because they are that sort of like weird mirror image flip version of one another. And to the rest of the world, they're probably just like, you guys are the same. Right. Vermont, though, has you think about maple syrup and I don't know, like movies like St. Elmo's Fire or something like even though that didn't take place there.

It's like this romantic leaves are always changing. And like growing with the West Coast, you hear about New Hampshire and you're like, oh, right. Where is that? And then you're not sure. And you're not even sure where Vermont is, unless you're one of the kids that memorized states and where they are. But it was, yeah, I'll stop talking. You seem pretty derisive about kids who could memorize states.

Were you the kind of guy that would bully the kids who could find all the states? Not only would I bully them, I made sure they never came back to school. Do you know the capital of new hampshire yeah yeah okay cool great so i have another question joel yes you were talking about lying down in the back of your car driving out there seat back down three boys lying in the back of the car now we've established you and your older brother not readers we've also know just based on timelines, there's no iPads. There's no phones to look at. What were your memories of what were you were doing in the back of a car on a 40 hour drive?

There was a lot of staring out the window. Yeah. And I remember thinking Montana is the longest state. I was like, how many mountain ranges are here? And I don't think my parents were like, it was a time when we would just talk and talk and really discuss. I don't think we did that either. It was, yeah, it wasn't like I had a book with me because I didn't know what I was doing. I went into kind of a fugue state where, you know, like my eyes were like half masked, but I was awake, but I was resting kind of like a horse.

Yeah. And we were so excited to get out. Like I was like, I'll pump the gas. And we looked forward to the gas stop. Any roadside attractions? Were there any like things along the way? You're like, we got to go see this. Like they got the biggest pickle never oh my god like wall drug started advertising 400 miles away from wall

drug and we're like you want can we go to wall drug they're like tourist trap no way and at one point i was like can we go to mount rushmore because that is, no, it's too out of the way. And it was how fast can we get there? It was not check out this beautiful scenery. Some of it was, I mean, I-90, as you guys know, goes through Boston, longest highway in America. So that goes straight through Montana and then heads down and goes through Chicago. But it was never like, here's a ball of yarn the size of a battleship. No, there was none of that ever. So did you guys fly or drive to your vacations? We drove a little, but I think started flying.

Certainly Florida was a fly. Yeah. Yeah. I remember Piedmont Airlines. Like we were on Piedmont for a while. They had a drink, a fruit punch called Piedmont Punch. And that's all I remember about that airline. But I feel like they were one of the first low-cost carriers.

Yeah. And Piedmont Punch, probably you were looking forward to that. You're like, we're going to get Piedmont Punch when we get on here. Yeah. I did enjoy flying. Our mom did a very nice job of sort of, and my wife is very good at this now, packing a lot of materials for us to go through over the course of a three, four-hour flight. A lot of, you know, those magic pen things where you...

Oh, yeah. Yeah. That is what I remember from flights, how exciting that was. Now, do your kids use iPads? We're pretty good. We're pretty snobby about not letting them use iPads. Everyone else on the plane would love it if they'd give them an iPad. They would love it.

At some point, I want to say, I'm not doing this for them. I'm doing this for everybody else. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So when do they get the iPads? I will take the train with my boys every now and then. And when it's just me and the boys, that's iPad time.

But it's good because they know not even to ask when my wife is around. And the nice thing about that is it's, I don't know, we're planting these very important seeds of resentment where they don't like her and they think I'm the bee's knees. And I think that's important. Before the kids even knew what it was, I was like, this is called Angry Birds. This is how you launch the Angry Bird to hit these things. And it falls down. Now go ahead. Yeah, I'm going to go watch two episodes of Band of Brothers.

Hey, we're going to take a quick break and hear from some of our sponsors. Family Troops is supported by ZocDoc. Josh, you know I like to pamper myself. Yeah, you sure do. I'll get a little extra leg room on a plane. You know what I mean? Mm-hmm. If you can supplement a menu with a little extra, I'm the kind of guy that'll do that. You're what I like to call top shelf. I'm a top shelf gentleman. And so if I'm going to do the top options with everything in life, why would I settle when finding a doctor? Enter ZocDoc,

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Remember the old van doctor in our old neighborhood? He was not a good doctor. I don't know that he actually was a medical doctor. Well, he certainly had a van. Go to ZocDoc.com slash trips and download the ZocDoc app for free. Then find and book a top-rated doctor today. That's Z-O-C-D-O-C dot com slash trips. ZocDoc dot com slash trips.

This episode is brought to you by U.S. Bank. I'm a foodie to the core. Whether it's in the kitchen, trying out a new recipe, or end of the year lists, I get so excited, Pashi. Yeah. When the New York Times prints best restaurants in the city, make a list, try to spend the rest of the year hitting them all.

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points, a $200 value at usbank.com slash altitude go when you apply. Live every day your way with the Altitude Go card. Learn more at usbank.com slash Altitude Go. Limited time offer. The creditor and issuer of this card is U.S. Bank National Association, pursuant to a license from Visa USA Incorporated. Some restrictions may apply. How long would you stay in Chicago

for those summer trips? Eight days, and then we'd drive back. That's it? Oh, it was not long. Wow. It was not. Once in a while, summer trips? Eight days. And then we drive back. That's it? Oh, it was not long. It was not. Once in a while, it'd be 10 days, but it was breakneck speeds. And what's the itinerary?

Like, oh, you go to Chicago for a few days, stay with my grandma for like two, stay with our friends, the Kellys and Wilmette. Oh yeah, there you go. We got friends in Wilmette. Yeah, they went to Nutrier High School and they had the big fancy house and we loved staying there.

And then we'd shoot up to Door County, Wisconsin, and that would be like three or four days. And I thought Door County, Wisconsin, I was like, this is the greatest place on the planet.

And I don't know if you guys have been there, but it's so beautiful. What do you do? You're at someone's house, but are's so beautiful. What do you do? You're at someone's house, but are you going to a lake? Are you going to, you know, they just got a great backyard? We all stayed at the same kind of motel.

It had a pool. And I remember there was like a candy shop in Fish Creek, and it also had, in the candy shop, you could buy little cap guns. And so it was just like cap guns and candy. And, and then the, every night that adults would get together and have like a clam bake and drink. And it was just great old times. And I remember that's when Trivial Pursuit started. So they were very much into that because it was always men against women. It was always the husbands against the wives. And the dudes would always try to trick their wives into like name, like the college that the most presidents went to.

And they'd be like Harvard. And they're like William and Mary's. And they move on to the next one. And then the wives were like, hey. And then they would be like, you. And then they go back. So I thought that was pretty great. What would they go back and find out that it was Harvard? Right. They were like, I just lied and we're winning. And I I thought that was pretty great. What would they go back and find out that it was Harvard?

Right. They were like, I just lied and we're winning. And I just thought that was so funny. A bunch of bad dudes. Yeah. But then there was fishing. There was like a real big boat culture. And you could just hop in Lake Michigan.

And at that point, it was August. So it was very refreshing. And I look back on that as like, I felt like I was in the movie Flamingo Kid or something when I look at it now. And I was like, what a magical, cool time. And we would do it practically every summer. So we were constantly driving across the country. How much dread set in when you got in the car to drive back to Seattle? Boy, I'm trying to think because I think there was also CYO camp in the future.

So I always did look forward to camp. It wasn't nearly the same dread as that I had when you like mid-August, you start seeing all the back to school commercials and I'd be like, enough of this. I was like, I'm not getting anything back to school. I'm not going to think about until I'm going to school. It didn't have that dread. Yeah. Did you have this because I, Josh and I are huge football fans, and I got so excited every year as a kid, so excited about the NFL season starting,

and felt it was so deeply cruel that it dovetailed with the start of school. Like, it almost made it impossible to look forward to. You don't think it was cutting? Like, see, I have to go to school, but it's leveling out because of NFL football. I think now with hindsight, yes, it was good to have both of those at the same time. But it mostly just felt like such a cruel poison pill to attach to football that it also meant you had to go back to school. Also, we're Steelers fans. And when we were going to school, the Steelers were also pretty terrible.

I feel like if it was the beginning of a great season, it might have helped, but it was pretty early. Also, they weren't on TV. They'd only be on TV a few times a year in New England. Yeah, it was bad. It wasn't like it is now where if they have a bad season, you can watch it all. So like Terry Bradshaw, that whole era was done,

and obviously before Roethlisberger. Yeah. Even before, it was like before Cordell Stewart too, which was a nice mini era. It was like Bubby Brister, Mike Tomczak. Seth can do these names. Mark Malone. Yeah, it was pretty, David Woodley.

Did you guys actually go to games as a kid? Not many. Now we go once a year with our parents, which is a lot of fun. Yeah. Yeah. No, I never went to a Seahawks game before. My friend took me in high school and I was like, I cannot believe I'm here.

I think that even more than baseball was so awe-inducing to go to my first professional football game. Yeah. No, the crowd alone. It's always weird now because everyone's like, ah, soccer's better. All the European, all that stuff. But the soccer crowd is just kind of a rolling. It's always kind of going. And then something good happens and it kind of goes up.

But in football, if you're in the home team, you are silent while your team has the ball. And then when it's not, there's mayhem. And I love it so much. Do you go back now for games? Yeah, I went to the home opener where I took my 15 year old. We flew out of Burbank on the Alaska flight at 7 a.m. and then came back on the 9 p.m. flight and we lost. So that was the only disappointment. But, you know, my son gets very he can get really stressed out about the Seahawks winning and losing, but being in the crowd as we were, it wasn't looking good. There was a camaraderie of like, well,

and you could see everybody pissed and kind of, and he was like, oh, I'm, I'm not alone. And then yesterday we went into overtime and won and it was, it's just more relief than it is like joy. It's like, Oh, okay, we did it. Okay. All right. And so he knows it way better than me. The 15 year old, the 18 year old doesn't care about sports at all,

but yeah, he, he was like, it's a lot of wasted time and money. And so, and now for Seattle, cause Seattle had always been the city in the corner with the Mariners sucked.

The Seahawks sucked like uh the sonics were turned out really well and then we sold them and then we went to the super bowl with uh with um what's his name with hasselbeck and then against your stealers yep remember that we were there and then do you remember how the ref who made the call made the bad cult, like wrote a letter? It was like, if I don't get this off my conscious, I won't I will die unhappy. And I was like, even he wrote a letter. And so then when when the Seahawks finally in 2014 pulled it off, the amount of joy that I had was unnatural. Well, I am sorry that it happened at your expense, but we brought our parents to that

game in Detroit against Seattle. And, you know, it basically as a fan, because the last time the Steelers won a Super Bowl was 1980 and I was not old enough to care. And I had just deeply cared for, you know, over a quarter century and being with my dad and my brother and my mom who all cared deeply about it. it is one of the most and again it was sort of relief it was just oh yeah our father cried and it was like it's a video that we have somewhere on like you know an external hard drive and seth has said like you have that right and i'm like i think i do yeah yeah he's like i was like do you need it for something he's like no i just want i just really want to know that we have it.

Right. You got to pull that out. So who's ever got it? My dad sobbing into a terrible towel was just like the culmination of everything. Because I'm having this moment, Joel, and maybe you already knew at this point. So the oldest, my oldest is seven and they don't. Now, again, I'm not actively trying to make them steelers fans i was kind of hoping it would happen naturally but they're at the age where i'm not really watching

games on sunday because it just would be such absentee parenting to disappear in the middle of an afternoon so they're not even watching me watch them but i'm trying to decide if it's a some positive or some negative to their life to give them this burden of being a fan because and i know we're time stamping when we recorded this steelers are oh and one they're playing monday night tonight and i am i have i was saying to josh before you got on all i feel right now is dread that if the steelers are oh and two it just feels like almost in a weird way like a lost year not just for the steelers but for me as well and that is a very way, like a lost year, not just for the Steelers, but for me as well. And that is a very, it's like a sickness. Yeah. I don't watch like if the Seahawks lose, I don't watch any highlights.

Oh no. I won't turn on ESPN. I won't turn on the NFL network. I won't watch good morning football, which I love. It's too, I realized with like my, he's going to get mad that I said that, but like yesterday, friends were going to come over. And then as it was getting closer and he's like, they're not, we don't need to have anybody.

Like he basically was like, I don't want to have any friends over if this is loses. So I'm, and I'm like, okay, well, I'll just have them wait until, and then we marched down and score,

but you're right. My entire week gets, it's okay with the Mariners because the Mariners play so many games and now we're pretty good. I know that it hasn't been great just over the last couple of weeks, but I'll be like, okay,

we still got this many regular season games left and it's going to be okay. But it hasn't. We went to the playoffs last year for the first time in 20 years. Thank God. But it is like, if you guys go 0-2, if we did this podcast tomorrow and you're 0-2, what's it going to be like? It'll be awful because already people write articles about the percentage chance

of teams that start 0-2 going to the playoffs. You immediately, the math is so bad. I, that same thing, won't watch highlights, won't pay attention. My Twitter feed, which is just, I follow so many people who write about football. X. X. Right, sorry, I know. I know that was your idea. It's great. So I go on X and I'm scrolling

and I'm the person who chose to follow these accounts and I see highlights of other games and my reaction is, who the fuck cares about football enough because I just yeah I don't follow I don't follow any football or sports things no and like my dad's always like I read this article in the post gazette like and he he loves it but I just I've never cared that much I've cried when they've lost I've cried when they've won so if they're getting, if they're going to the playoffs,

you're watching everything, right? Yeah. And like, you know, tonight, my fiance is going to have the second half of the day off. We're going to have a night together. So I'm probably not going to watch the game tonight, but I will record it and wake up at six in the morning and watch it. By the way, I think that reflects very badly on my dad and I, that Josh said, I don't care that much. I've cried if they've won and cried if they lost. But that,

compared to my dad and I, that doesn't register as caring that much. Because it doesn't ruin my week. It doesn't ruin my week or my offseason. It should. But for not caring, you will wake up at six in the morning and watch the entire game? Yeah. I mean, I like it. I really enjoy it. but I don't, I just can't rattle off like the whole roster. And I don't want to hear detailed analysis. I don't want to like, after a loss, like read about someone say like, oh, why the defensive backfield needs a new, you know, we got to think about next year's draft. Like that's so boring to me. Yeah. Have you taken multiple trips with your son to Seahawks games? We have gone to a lot of Seahawks games

because I am a weasel. Like I try to get tickets and sometimes the Seahawks will be like, we hear you're coming to the game and then I will shake my son and go, do you know how lucky you are? So I got to raise the 12th man flag. So I love doing all that stuff.

Now, do you feel like your son is well within his rights to say, do you know how lucky you are? If I didn't care about these games, you wouldn't be allowed to go. You get to do the thing you wanted to do anyway, but also be a good dad while he's doing it. Ooh, yeah. No, I'm not going to tell him that.

He will use that. Like we were walking through Seattle because we had never done this where we had flown two hours from L.A. to Seattle. I just took a cab to the Pike Place Market and we're like talking to the fish throwing guys. And then people, because it's Seattle, I get recognized there 5% more than I do here. So my son was like, hey, dad, in L.A., you're like a D level celebrity. But here you're a full C minus. And I like this kid.

I was like, thank you. This kid's got some real Joel McHale in him. Yeah. Doesn't like I like I love cars and he he could not be like, don't ever pick me up in any of these. Don't don't even like he wears the same clothes to school practically every day. Same thing with my older, they don't care about any of that. So what about the four of you? You're a core four, like my brother and I were, two boys.

Do you guys travel a lot now? Yeah, we go to Seattle a lot. Great. And because we have a place there and a lot of the families there, some of them are ailing as far as health so we go up there a lot more but this summer we went to ireland for the first time with all of them oh nice we went to ireland last summer it was great are you irish no we took our parents because northwestern played a football game there last summer so we went for that it was great in dublin

in dublin northwestern played nebr. We were like 14 point underdogs. We won. It was so exciting. And then we lost the next 11 games of the season. We were 1-11. You were the one that you... Yeah, we were. And was...

And I cried. I will say I cried. Yeah, for a guy that doesn't care about sports, you cry a lot. I'm an easy cry. I'm an easy cry. Did you both go to Northwestern? You both went to Northwestern. Did you both go to Northwest? You both went to Northwest. We both went to Northwest. Our parents met at Northwestern, and we both went to Northwestern. Joel, I want to jump

in here and see if I can pull one of your credits out of thin air. So Josh and I did an episode of a show called The Getaway, which was a travel show, and we went to Amsterdam. I feel like you did an episode, and maybe it was Ireland. It was. It was Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland. So it was Belfast.

So yes, technically I had been to, well, I've been to Northern Ireland. And as you know, if you tell a person from Ireland that North is the same, they'll, yeah, there's a reason, there's been a few years of problems. The troubles, the troubles, not the problems. So my wife, she lived in Belfast for a year in the eights and uh that when it was you know pretty rough and then we went and it's changed it's so different than it it was for her she couldn't believe it she would i'm saying you know it was one of those like i got this complete you know and city blocks completely different but i had never been to dublin sarah had uh but the kids hadn't and then we went to this place called akhil, which is where my family was from. And it was hilarious because I went there,

my little brother was with us with his family and he was so excited because of course, anytime you walk, an American walks into any pub, they're like, I have ancestors. And the Irish are just so annoyed. And so we walk into these places and they'd be like, oh, you guys here because you have family? They know to even anticipate. And then my little brother was like, yes, we are the McHales.

And all the Irish people are like, yeah, there's no McHales. There's never been any McHales here. That's a Scottish name. They're like, that's Scottish, actually. Oh, they're like, oh, you're from County Mayo. And they're like, my brother's like, no, no, you're from here. And he would like pull out on his phone. He'd be like, I have the, here's the record.

And they're like, oh, all right. Good to know. And that made me so happy. Did your boys like it? Were they excited to go to Ireland? And did they enjoy it? As excited as I was a kid to be like, if I just can get on an airplane and fly somewhere,

that sounds great. They're like, like, we're going to Ireland. My kids are like, how long? I'm like, what?

Because they like, you know, they want to come back. They want to play with their friends. And they're like, okay, fine. And then they, once we were there like they're sheep wandering the streets and they thought that

was pretty wild so once they get there they're like oh all right this is better but what's the wi-fi connection and what's why is it so bad and so that's you know there's it's a have you ever taken your parents uh on on one of trips? Do they ever travel with you? Or did they ever travel with you? A couple times. I mean, I brought my mom and dad to, well, I brought them to New York to see the original cast of Book of Mormon and with my mother-in-law. And then we went to Marea for dinner, which is like this great Italian restaurant. And then, of course, I gave a speech. I was like, this is a this great Italian restaurant. And then of course I gave a speech.

I was like, this is a great night for you guys. And no, and so there's, yeah, we've flown a few times. I took them to, you know, DC for the White House Correspondents Dinner because they would have never talked to me again if I hadn't. Yeah. And so, yeah, a few different,

but I've never gone like, we're going to Kuala Lumpur as a family. I've not done that. Have you? We haven't traveled too far afield. We haven't done a lot of international stuff with them, but we lived in Amsterdam for a few years and worked for a theater out there.

And so they'd come visit and we went to Paris. We like took a day trip to Bruges. Wait, you were working at the same theater in Amsterdam? Yeah. We worked for this theater called Boom Chicago, which was these American guys started this improv theater, and Josh and I overlapped for a year, which was really fun. And they love having a reason to come do stuff.

I mean, they came to D.C. when I did the Correspondents Dinner as well. Again, I think it was not a thing where they were waiting for the invite. It was more like, just tell us where to be. Right. You should have told your parents they can come, but they had to drive their Dodge Aspen. I think that would have been. That would have.

Wait, did you pay for the day trip to Paris, or did they pay? I'm pretty sure they paid for that. Yeah, because we weren't sort of in the money in any way, shape, or form when we were working for it. We were making 80 bucks a show, something like that. Like, just, yeah, making guilders. We did fly them to Ireland. Didn't we do that?

Yeah, I bought the tickets to the game. They bought the hotels in Ireland, and you paid for the flights. That was a great Christmas gift because we don't need things. We don't need stuff. We don't want to buy each other things that we don't want. That hit perfectly in a way. This is something we can all do together. And that's also,

that's what we like. Did you get them business class or nicer? Seth got the flights. He got us, he got his business class. I did. I think that my, and again,

I don't want to make my mom sound like a huge snob, but I think that had I told her I bought you flights to Ireland and it had been coach tickets, she might've. And I think I want to say that my mom would fly coach. My mom would not raise a son who had his own television show and then accept that he would fly her coach. Right. You know what I mean? She feels like she's an angel investor in this operation and she deserves a certain treatment.

Yes. And whenever you preface something with like, now I don't want my mom to come off as a snob. But here, no, I'm right there. No, mine are exactly the same. Yeah. By the way, and I think they deserve it. And I especially should note,

it's almost better that they're not saying, look, we flew you business class when you were a kid. And now we expect it back. It's more like, hey, we weren't of means when you were a kid, but we still gave you experiences. We, you know, we drove you 40. It was not fun. I had to drive. I fell asleep. I drove across three lanes of traffic. And now I want a little luxury. Agreed. Same exact boat. But my question is, when you went to Paris, what sporting event that Josh did not care about did he burst out crying at or imbued? Yeah, no sporting events. There was a heat wave when we were there, and the Pope was there for

an international youth conference. And it was brutally hot, and it was packed. And we knew a couple who had lived in New Hampshire and she was Dutch. And I don't know what her husband was. He might've been Dutch too, but they had an apartment there. And all I really remember from Paris is going to their apartment because it had air conditioning and they had a Jeep Wrangler and some kind of muscle car. And we drove around the streets of Paris in American, like cool American cars. And that's my only memory of Paris. It was August.

It was so hot. It was so crowded that I will say I left and my takeaway was Paris sucks. And it wasn't until years later that I went with my wife that I realized. That's how Rome is as well. When it's just, cause it's packed with tourists in the summer

and the Pope's always there. Pope's just because it's packed with tourists in the summer. And the Pope's always there. Pope's just hanging out. He smells bad because he's got all those robes on and a hat. And it's a tiny, that Popemobile's tiny. There's not even a seat you can put down to lie down. No. Oh, it's so, oh, it's just, it's like a locker room in there.

It's like a sock. But maybe it's changed now, but all the business, all theians were on vacation because they're like it's too fucking hot and then i remember getting like coming in and be like there's just a layer of soot on your clothes from the day out and seeing beautiful rome but yeah yeah it's fine yeah and then i was like man i do just want to swing back real quick on cyo camp is Is that a sleepaway camp? Yes. Yeah. Where did you excel? What did you enjoy most about your summer camp experiences? Oh, I loved CYO camp.

Camp Don Bosco out in Carnation, Washington. I think it's still there, but now Carnation is a suburb of Seattle. So it was exotic when you went. And now it's just, there's like, you know, McMansions all over the place now, I understand. But it was a, so fun. I just remember thinking I was looking forward to it. And there was that awkward first day we were getting to know everybody. And then you get care packages from your parents and they never signed us up for it. But horse camp was more expensive.

And then one year i finally convinced them to let me do horse camp which is just like riding a horse for half an hour then they're like yeah that's an extra 200 bucks and um it was like bows and arrows at one point they had a rifle range they got rid of all that but it was i remember like tears for fears was popular i don't know how great of a camp it was but to me it was like oh this is the greatest place of of all time and i mean it was organized but it me, it was like, oh, this is the greatest place of all time. And I mean, it was organized, but it wasn't. It was just kind of screwed around all day. Like, let's go make candles and then we go do that.

And then I became a counselor there or a counselor in training because I loved it so much. Did your boys go to camp? One of them just started going to camp. The other, the 18 year old was like, eh, nah. But the 15 year old loves it. Did he enjoy it? He did. He went away for like three weeks, and they take away the phones.

That's great. I would think that 15 is almost too late to go away for three weeks. Yeah, he was counselor in training-ish. Okay, gotcha. Yeah. Because I think that that is the intimidating thing about certainly people on the East Coast who go to camps, is they start so young, and if you wait three years into it, it's like you're going to a new school. Everybody knows each other. They're so young. And if you wait three years into it, it's like you're going to a new school. Everybody knows each other.

They're super tight. On the East Coast, it's a tradition of you go away for a month or two months. Or two months. And the kids want to go away for two months. The kids I know, the parents who tell me it's so awful that my kids are gone for a month,

the worst part they say is the kids get back and they're like, why did you pull me out? Some kids are there for two months and I want to be there for two months. Wow. Yeah, no, that is not a west coast tradition like like cyo camp was seven days like that was it that's that was like that was what you were offered like that's that's the option yeah i have a buddy i don't know if this is actually right but he was like hey i'd love to like do like camp i want to go to like man camp where it's like, you know,

now I'm an adult and I'd like, I miss going to camp. And I feel like I Googled man camp and it was a picture of like three guys in their sixties and seventies standing on a lake, all completely naked. I was like, well, this isn't,

this isn't where we want to go. Maybe a non-starter. But I would love to go to like a, like the cyo sort of like yeah we're gonna make candles for an hour and a half and then we're gonna go out on these sunfish on the lake and whatever but i hope you sent the website to your friend and we're like i'm in yeah book it your instincts are right on yeah two months don't just do a month because you're gonna be mad that you left yeah I feel like man camp is like, I don't know, every hotel in, I don't know, in Florida or, you know, just where you take golf carts and they're gigantic.

I feel like that's, I don't know, maybe not. They'd realize man camp was bad branding, but I think there are a lot of active man camps in America right now. When you take a big trip to Ireland, are you the planner or is your wife, Sarah, the one who puts it together? She is mostly the planner. I'm usually the driver because I find it a personal challenge to drive on the other side of the road. How did you do overall? I do way better than I was expecting. I was looking for like a YouTube video or like a practice thing. Only one time did I just pull straight into the wrong way. But they were always like, keep the center line on, you know.

Do your wife and kids sort of root for you as the dad behind the wheel? Or do they sort of, are they derisive in your efforts? Because that is the thing that's already happening with me and certainly with my wife and the boys. The girl's too young to have an opinion yet. But nobody thinks dad can do anything right. Oh, that is the case.

Yeah. Yes. So you get behind the wheel in a foreign country and are they already sort of rolling their eyes and sighing? Okay, in that particular case, I am pretty good. Okay. They were like, dad loves this thing. Got it.

Because you're a car guy, so they have faith in you. So I like that. Like in Italy, it took almost a year, but a year later I got two speeding tickets and there was a side of me that was like, yep, that's right. It's just like a real Italian. And, uh, but no, but most, yeah, most things they think that I'm half brain dead in most of the things I'm doing. My 18 year old constantly is like, he'll be like, Dad, what is wrong with you? And he's like, what? Why? Why are you so?

He'll be like, why are you like, are you dumb? I mean, you're dumb. And then I'd be like, that means you're half dumb. And I mean, we're joking. But like, yeah, I was in a movie. The New York Times actually had a nice write-up of my performance thank you and my sarah my wife was like oh this is an actual good review and i was like what do why did you have to say actual what the uh i bet it kills you that we're in the midst of a strike

and you can't tell us what movie it is the one one you are good at. You can't break the SAG rules by promoting passwords. Okay, it's not called Man Camp. All right. I just, all we have to do, Josh, is Google Joel McHale good, and it'll probably be the one that comes up. It'll be like shocker. Like shockingly.

My wife and boys call me da-der daddy. And I heard my son saying to my wife i was downstairs they didn't know i had come home and he said well it's not my fault it's dud dur daddy and my wife said you can't blame everything on dud dur daddy and then i said i'm i can hear you and my wife said we know so it turned out they did know i was home and they just had not chosen to talk about me in a different way what is dudder daddy dudder like the third wow the dirt daddy there was a time when my older one i don't know he must have been like 14 every time that i'd go eddie he'd go, oh no. Just like, and he'd be like, whatever it is, you're going to mess it up.

And they don't come to me for homework. Not at all. They would never dream. It's not even an option for me to try to help them out. This is different, but I have now, I've reached this point because just saying, a dad saying, Eddie, my kids all the time are like, Daddy,

and I've just reached this point where they're like, just start talking. I can always hear you. Whatever it is, don't make me do this double step of, what? Just start talking.

They're like, Daddy? I'm like, what? Just go. Just go. Start talking. And then they'd be like, duh, duh,

duh, what? Who do you think invented duh, duh it sounds like an alexi creation you know what i think it might be by my own hand i think i did it once as like to be like self-deprecating wait you made up da da daddy i think i said it once like oh sorry daddy was being da da and then like it i like watched all their eyes light up and i realized that you know i'd given arsonists the gift of fire now he says that every day like if we sit down to dinner together we say grace and he will go god is good and dad is not

what the i i swear i'll be, I look, look around the house. I'll be like, look at all this stuff. Look at this. Look at this. All this electricity running through the walls and the ceilings. I pay for this all. I like just the fundamental misunderstanding as to what grace is supposed to do.

It's like, it's not, it is the, just another opportunity to take a shot. Joel, we are now going to do what we do with all our guests on the show. And Josh is going to ask you some questions. Some quick hitters here.

You can only pick one. Is your ideal vacation relaxing, adventurous, or educational? I feel like man camp is all those things yeah that's why this is one of your other sponsors that you brought man camp even though i would say relaxing it always becomes adventurous yes so yes i would say i would go for adventurous first all right uh what is your favorite means of transportation train plane automobile plane, automobile, on foot, bike, boat, Aspen? Oh, well, I would say, I don't know. I got this electric bike that I like a lot. All right. Yeah. It's called a Super 73. It goes real fast. So when you take it out, it's a mix. Sometimes

you just turn it on and you're biking on your own, right? Yes. When I go pick up food for the family, I always take the electric bike. Great. Gotcha. Could you pedal it? You could. This one is designed to look like a little motorcycle from the 1970s. And it's extremely heavy. I'm in a fantasy world where I'm like, this isn't like a motorcycle. And then I'm going 35 miles an hour and it's got pedals, but you can't really. Yeah. I also like cars a lot, so I know that I was only. So, yeah, I just bought this 1966 Oldsmobile Tornado, which is pretty stupid and wonderful,

and it's got this gigantic engine, and I love everything about it. Was that a car you had had your eye on for a while, or did the opportunity present itself to buy that kind of car, and you thought, oh, that could work for me? i've thought about it for about 10 years wow and then i finally bought one and then my wife soon as she saw it she goes what are you going to do with it and i was like wrong question and then yeah yeah and then my 15 year old calls it the broken car and i'm like yeah okay great great all right if you could take a vacation with any family other than your own And then my 15 year old calls it the broken car. And I'm like, yeah. Okay, great. Great. Wonderful. All right. If you could take a vacation with any family other than your own family,

what family would you like to take a family vacation with? The Menendez brothers? The Menendez brothers? Menendez. Yeah. Those guys. Okay. That'd be a fun one.

Yeah. I would love to hear what they're up to. And then also it would be a trip where everybody would call you the good guy. Just to be like, that Joel. My kids would be like, wait, oh, they killed that person? Oh, you're great, comparatively. If you had to be stranded on a desert island with one member of your family, who would it be?

I got an uncle who builds boats. Look at you. That is the best answer we've ever had. Yeah, I would get him. He's an asshole, but... It wouldn't have to be there for long, yeah. Kevin McHale, probably. He might be related.

I don't know. You're from Mercer Island, would you say? Mercer Island, yes. Would you recommend Mercer Island as a vacation destination? No, no, there's no hotels. There's nowhere to stay. It's all residential. There would be, there's like two public beaches. So yeah, it would be terrible. Seattle though. I mean, there's, there's places around there you can go, but Mercer Island is not a vacation place. Gotcha. And Seth, have you been to the Grand Canyon? Yes. And was

it worth it? Okay. I have not been to the regular part of the Grand Canyon. This is going to be, Bear Grylls and I got dropped into the very tiny beginning part of it in the Slot Canyon area. And it was, I was like, this is the most beautiful, coolest thing I've ever seen. Did you get dropped in? And then it's like, we got to get out of here but you got dropped in where it was super easy to get out uh they were like we got to get out of here but this cameraman and sound guy and the lady with the snacks and the the dude with the the first aid dude uh yeah i got asked years ago to do the bear grill show i had no interest mostly because i yeah i was like but you know me and the outside posh we're not meant to be together but how much

time did you spend with bear grills to shoot an episode was it days one day oh you can do a one day like some of them are days but i happen to be in they were like can you come to arizona for one day and it started really early and it ended pretty late but again it was it was you gotta do it man it even if it's it doesn't sound like too great it's it's so great all right this is the most resounding team grand canyon we've had yet although you did do with bear grills which i feel like is maybe the perfect way to do it yeah you had a chance to do something with Bear Grylls, and you didn't do that either.

I have no regrets. I have a Bear Grylls knife. I have a Bear Grylls shirt. Wow. Josh's at Grylls never asked me to do anything. But every time you watch his show, you cry when it's over. I do. I cry multiple times.

But you're not interested in those shows at all. I'm not that into them but i do cry hard when it's over i will say we took the kids to zion national park in utah we drove there from la and when we drove in i was like holy fuck this has been here the whole time it's the most gorgeous place i've ever seen yeah it's incredible and then you're like oh yeah there's another national park 40 minutes from here and then you're like dear god, yeah, there's another national park 40 minutes from here. And then you're like, dear God, this is beautiful. I was like, why didn't we come here as kids? It's just stunning.

It's yeah. Well, you had gas stations to go to and stuff like that. Real quick, though, now you had that reaction in the national park. Do your wife and kids have the same reaction? Was everybody in the family in agreement that this was incredible? They were a little bit littler that back then. And we went with a family that they're close friends with. So none of them were like, Dad, look at the stunning peaks.

But they were happy with their friends and climbing and swimming, and really, it was a good time. I can't recommend Zion enough. All right. There you go. That's a very nice way to wrap things up. Why the Grand Canyon question? Because Seth doesn't think it's worth it and I,

neither of us has properly been and I am very eager to and Seth, I think is clear from- I have my doubts. I have my doubts. Yeah, he has his doubts.

Would you guys do like a river rafting trip? Does that sound appealing to you? I would, yeah. I would. We did one once years and years and years ago on the kennebec river in maine but i would i would definitely would i feel like i'm sort of a

disaster magnet and that when i do things like that it's the one they'll be talking about 30 years later about you know then of course there was never an incident on that river until the storm and i'll be the guy who was on it for the storm. I'm the one that got dropped out of a zip line. I'm the one that breaks my leg. I'm the one that, you know. Well, maybe your traumas are the reason I don't want to do shit. So when you saw the movie The Impossible with Ewan McGregor,

you're like, yep, that would be me. I'd be that dude. Just a little bit less charming and a lot less handsome. And just one tsunami away from that. So your vacation is like going to a nice, just like parking at a hotel in front of a beach? Yeah, but I don't really like beaches either. I think it's maybe, I don't know.

I like going to a cool city where there's a lot of things to do, but none of them are sort of nature-based all right yeah yeah no we've been to copenhagen twice and i was like this place is amazing see that's right up my alley i've been to copenhagen and that's a perfect example because i like a place where you can bike you know i don't hate being outside i just like being outside when you're moving from point a to point b okay i like functional i like the outdoors moving from point A to point B. I like functional. I like the outdoors as a functional place to be in between indoor locations.

So if someone said, hey, Bear Grylls wants you to come to the Amazon and you're going to float down the Amazon with Bear Grylls. I haven't. I've already hung up. I didn't even get to Amazon. It sounds like a lot of bug spray and yeah sweaty joel it was a delight to spend this time with you thank you so much joel thanks joel nice to chat all right love you buddy so much fun all right love you guys thanks for having me bye in the driver's seat

And head and knees to pray that mom don't fall asleep And make the drive to Chicago There's a walled road but you can't go Mount Rushmore, Dad But Dad says no It's straight to Chicago The first stop is To see Granny

Up in Fish Creek Buy some candy And a motel At a pool, yeah Buy some cap guns Pretty cool, yeah And you feel so Kid Flamingo

Camp Don Bosco What's he wire? Yeah Hey Hey Bye.