Family Trips with the Meyers Brothers - JOHN MULANEY Ruined a Precious Antique

Episode Date: October 17, 2023

John Mulaney joins Seth and Josh right from his hotel room where they talk about John’s time as an altar boy growing up, going to mass while on vacation with family, getting kicked out of vacation homes, and so much more! Thanks again to Nissan for sponsoring this episode of Family Trips and for the reminder to find your more. Learn more at NissanUSA.com. Thank you to McDonalds for supporting this episode. McDonalds is 'Now Serving.' Much more than orders.

This episode of Family Trips is brought to you by Nissan. Whether you want more adventure, more electric, more action, more guts, or more turbocharged excitement, Nissan is here to make sure you get it. Learn more at NissanUSA.com. Pashi? Sufi. You had a weekend just now. I did. You had a college reunion. Congratulations.

Thank you. I had my 25th, which feels weird to say a number that big, but my 25th college reunion at Northwestern University. And it was so great. Like I've got a crew of people that I plan to go with. And then there's just so many other people that, you know, you go to the party or you go out late night to like a late night bar that we go to. And there's so many people to talk to and see. And it was beautiful. I cried twice. Now, what were your two cry points?

I cry at performance. Interesting. But I also, I'm very primed when I go to these reunions to cry. Five years ago, I left the reunion from the game because you were hosting SNL. Oh, that's right. And so I had to say goodbye to everyone. And I was bawling when I said goodbye to everyone because I just I love I loved my time at college. I love my friends. And to be saying goodbye to them really broke me down. This year, we were playing Howard University and football. And we were sort of like on this terrace where alumni go

and hanging out and chatting and like kind of watching the game on a screen, but you don't have a great shot of the field. And a friend of mine, we were just chatting and he was like, oh yeah, in Howard, they have like this incredible marching band. Like, so that should be fun. And the only time we went to our seats was at halftime to watch the Howard University marching band. And there were maybe two songs in when we got to the seats and they

were so good. Like they were so other level from the band major to all of it. I mean, it was spectacular. And at some point, you know, I sort of coaxed six of my old classmates to come with me. And one of them was like, are you crying? And I was like, yes, I am. I'm just so emotional. They were so good. But they also, they got a standing ovation from the entire stadium. They were otherworldly good. And you should know the Northwestern marching band, Nothing to Sneeze At, and the Big Ten full of great marching bands that we saw when we were there but that is what i've also heard about howard that it is otherworldly i mean yeah my my my hat's off to howard and then after the game we took a shuttle

back to campus and we walked through campus and it was really quiet i guess just because it's homecoming and it was a saturday evening so kids wouldn't be on campus and we walked through the student union building and there was kind of nothing to do there. And then we started walking by the theater building and I was with eight people, none of whom had ever been in the theater building. And I spent so much time there and I was like, hey, if it's open, can we just walk through there? And everyone was like, yeah, sure. We were just walking back to the hotel.

The door was open and I couldn't believe it. And then in that building, there are these two black box theaters. And when you had acting classes at Northwestern, they would be in one of those two rooms. And we walked into the big one, the Wallace, I want to say, and it was open. It's huge. It's just like, you know, black walls, black stage, it's in the round, and great acoustics. And there was a piano on the stage. And my friend, Nicole Vacchiarelli, my dear friend, knows how to play piano, but unbeknownst to me. So she just like walked over the piano. And we were a bit beat up from a day of drinking and tailgating and watching a football game. And so people sort of spread themselves out like almost theater students would.

And Nicole started playing and I sat on the stage and I just, I broke down crying. It was so, it was so lovely. That's so awesome. Like how much do you think your friends are texting each other now, the Monday after about how much you cried? I mean, I think it's a topic of conversation,

but also it's almost expected at this point. Right, you've built this. Is it fair, because we went to school together, if memory serves, you cried when I graduated. Do you remember that? Yeah, I do think I cried when you graduated. The other person who cried when I graduated was our dear friend Dave Baggeror. He cried really hard.

And I'm only mentioning this. I'm not trying to shame him or anything. But I feel like it's worth saying to find out if he listens to the podcast. Oh, yeah. You know what I mean? Because I think some of our friends, and we have the same group of college friends. We have a lot of overlap because we're only two years apart. And I think you can tell the ones who do listen to family trips, you can tell the ones that are kind of, they don't.

And so I just want to lay in that bags is a big old cry baby and see if we get any bounce back. I'll also say when I was in that, the theater and Nicole was playing piano, then I was sort of like, I was talking about what classes were like, and they were asking if some of the staff was still the same. And, you know, there was a bit of scandal at Northwestern at some point. But the old head of the department had also been the director and sort of coach of my mime troupe in college. And I was talking about the mime show. And I was like, and I'm guessing to the eight people there that none of you saw the mime show, but I really couldn't be upset with them for not coming to check out the Northwestern

University mime troupe. I remember you were in the mime show. You were in two shows. You were in Tommy. You were the lead in Tommy, the musical, after I graduated. I was living overseas. I was living in Amsterdam at the time. And one of my great life regrets is that I did not come back and see you and Tommy. The way mom talks about it, the way dad talks about it, it really, I kick myself that I did not appreciate at the time how special that would be. I am so happy I lived abroad during the mime show.

I am so glad that I never had to come up with an excuse why I didn't want to go see your college mime show. I will say, I like, if I could watch- Are you allowed to say? Oh, no, you're right. I'm not. If I could watch one, I don't know. I guess I'd want to see Tommy.

But I fear with Tommy that I never had the voice to carry that off. Right. Whereas you definitely had the voice for mime. I'm going to keep making Mime jokes. I hope I wasn't cringy in Tommy. But I know that Mime show was better than what everyone is imagining. Well, I can't stress to you how low the bar of what I'm imagining is. Well, I'm just saying it's definitely better. Better than that. I believe you that it's better than what I think it was.

Hey, I would realize, somebody said in a comment, and I'm going to really try to keep my eyes on it, because I do think it's true, that I say I should note too often. Oh, OK. So feel free to call me out if you feel as though I'm doing it. Yeah. All right. I sometimes find my way into these

little verbal tics of using the same expression over and over again. Yeah. I listen to the shows. We get sent sort of a cut of the show. And I listen at double speed so I can sort of take notes

and try to figure out what I'm going to write the song about. Yeah. So I'll definitely listen for that. But I hear myself doing things as well that I don't like. So we're working on it, everybody. You went back to Chicago and our guest today is of Chicago. Yeah. My dear friend, our dear friend, John Mulaney. And I know this person so well. I've talked to him so much. You'll find out in the episode that we have some family overlap. And so I thought it was a pretty well-mined territory, thanks to my friendship with him. But I found out so many new funny things about him

and the way his family took trips. Yeah. It did not disappoint. And before we get started, someone else who has certainly a giant connection to Chicago, he's our friend Jeff Tweedy. And now this Denny and Dad text chain. Who's Denny?

Well, Denny is our dad's best friend. Oh, I bet he is. That's so what your dad's best friend would be named. Denny Miller. Yeah, Denny Miller and Josh has pointed out that they have added us to a four-person text chain about the Steelers. And there's some interesting commentary going on. I'm surprised you weren't on it before.

Yeah. Well, I started this text chain, I think. Mea culpa. There was an article in the Washington Post about how the Steelers were going to be the sleeper team of the season. And I sent it to my dad, Seth, and my dad's best friend, Denny. And then later in the day, my dad started a text chain with me and Seth and sent the same article because he didn't realize that I had sent it to him in the morning. He thought it just came from Denny. And then he's like, hey guys, look at this. And I was like,

I sent you that. He's like, oh, oh. There's a lot of overlap is basically what we're saying. A hundred percent. Yeah. Well, it's a big, you know, it's a real three alarm fire when there's an article about the Steelers being the sleeping team. In a national paper. In a national. Not a local paper, mind you. In our third best paper.

Are you in a hotel room? No. That's your home? Did you guys move into a Hyatt? Did you buy an old hyatt fuck you okay now you're turning oh oh my god all right all right now i take it yeah i just for our listeners john showed me the hotel corner of his beautiful apartment well i wanted to have the best Wi-Fi I mean we could have spotty service if you want to be on this beautiful listen velvet couch you don't find that in a hotel yeah no uh it's so

lovely to see you John are you in a hotel with that ceiling me no I'm in your I'm in your old digs oh very nice 30 rock baby you're your conference room. I actually thought today I should shave before this Zoom, but then it was a real throwback for you to see me unshaven and slightly unwashed in the hallways of 30 Rock. I know. Yeah, viewers of Late Night would be shocked to see you in a casual shirt. Fucking ridiculous. He's all casual these days.

Yeah, no, John has taken issue with it. He brought me a suit last time he was on the show. Oh, good. I actually thought about wearing a shirt and tie on this, and then we could do that again. But there's no, you know, this is an audio-only thing. I mean, grain of salt. Like, when somebody like John shames you for your outfit,

you know, I try to remember that he wore a suit to second grade, probably. I did, yeah. I will say, I'm on Team Mulaney on this one. I feel like Seth gets a lot of support. He's like, yeah, I like not wearing a jacket and tie. And everyone's like, yeah, yeah. And I like that there's people out there like you. I think it's a bit of an echo chamber over there.

And I mean, viewers have said they like it because they feel like they're getting a tour of 30 Rock and watching the feed. Yeah. That's the feedback. And I leaned in on feed. yeah that's the feedback and i leaned in on feed well you know because a lot of our listeners are just plugged in with that kind of parlance absolutely absolutely john you are the king of well you were the prince of lincoln park and now you prefer to be called the king of lincoln park chicago a hundred percent yeah i like to advertise that I was called a prince. And we're not in Lincoln Park. We're in a different area of Chicago. No, I could tell.

My family is still in Lincoln Park. That's wonderful that they're still there. Now, I want to get our one family detail out of the way before we start talking about your family. I want to talk about the crossover between the Mullaney's and the Myers. Yeah. Which was discovered, unearthed, I should say, by your grandmother. Yeah, by my Nana Stanton. And it's not insignificant.

No. It's a big deal. Yeah. Your Mama Stanton remembered. Nana. Nana Stanton. But I like Mama Stanton. I'm going to try to get my family to say that.

Mama Stanton was her mom. Yeah. Now, you're from, because you're from Louisiana. Yeah, Big Mama Stanton, my grandmother. Nana Stanton and my mom, Mama Myers, were in a charity production of Pills of Poppin' in Marblehead, Massachusetts. Don't say Pills of Poppin' like it's a real show, though. It was a review put together as a charity show for the hospital.

A pun on Hells of Poppin', which is, I guess, words that have been strung together. And pills a-poppin' was, I think, just a sort of variety show, smorgasbord of songs and bits. Yes. Probably some dancing. I would assume some dancing

based on who put it together. Absolutely. Because the director of this show was none other than Tommy Toon. A very young Tommy Toon. I can't figure out what a very young 19-year-old Tommy Toon was doing in Marblehead, Massachusetts back then. It was like a, I don't know, whatever the equivalent of backstage for amateur housewives who go to do a charity show was. But it was some sort of, you know,

hiring call out for a director to come. I think he'd already danced in New York. There you go. This is like a sort of how you pay your rent gig, I think. So Nana Stanton, is she known for this sort of steel trap memory? Because she basically put together, she saw an interview where I mentioned I was from Marblehead, and then she immediately connected the dots based on remembering my mother it is a steel trap memory for sure

in my nana but i think it's also just north shore stuff where you have unlimited recall for local connections there you go and a sort of an intuition, a sixth sense for, because I don't think she went online. She probably, like, you probably said it and she walked outside. Right. And went to Marblehead Munchies or something and said, Seth Meyers has a connection. They go, yeah, he's Osborne. And they all started talking like that.

Yeah. So they stayed. The Stantons were Marblehead through and through? No. Well, so my Nana's maiden name is Bates and they were Salem heavy. Her dad was the mayor of Salem and then a congressman from the sixth district, which is that area. They got this house on Prince Street in Marblehead, maybe after my mom was born. I should double check. My mom might have been born in Salem and then they went

there. But Marblehead and then my aunts and uncles and cousins have spread out to Beverly, Swampscott, Lynn, Danvers, now Southie, all over. Sure. I like when you say they spread out and you basically went about five miles in every direction. Well, that's considered spreading out. I remember when one aunt and uncle moved to Danvers, it was a big deal. And because there had once been a mental hospital in Danvers, a great deal of joshing and also, you know, like, what are you going to live in a mental hospital? Like it was Danvers was like, what are you going to do?

This is insane. It was like all it was, was the mental hospital. A hundred percent. And people's minds. Well, it used to be an expression on the North Shore. They're sending you to Danvers, meant you were crazy. So it's really embarrassing for the family. You have met my father-in-law, Tom, and my brother-in-law, Tolia.

Would it surprise you to know that they came across a abandoned mental hospital in Connecticut near a train station and decided to just go poking around inside? Oh, wow. They basically pulled plywood off a door and then came back to report go poking around inside. Oh, wow. They basically like pulled plywood off a door and then came back to report how interesting it was. Like the rest of us had been waiting with bated breath. Somehow Tolia got roped into three odd jobs.

Yeah, exactly. The ghosts of mental patients hired him to do some siding. Hey, not bad, everybody. He had already promised Alexei he was going to do three jobs for her. So it was a huge thing that he chose ghosts over his sister. So, John, you grow up in Lincoln Park, Chicago. You have two older and one younger sibling. Yes. Your younger sibling, Claire, also a comedian. I was lucky enough to work with at SNL. That's right. Very funny. Very comedy. Right. So growing

up, you're a Chicago family. Where would you travel to? Were you a Trips family? Oh, yeah. It's interesting. You mentioned, were you a Trips family? My mother's family, my Nana and my Grampy, my Grandpa Stanton, they were not a Trips family because they lived on the North Shore. And it's where some people would vacation. So why would we go somewhere else when people vacation here was the logic? Which also, frankly, it's a money-saving device. But really, they felt they lived in a vacation town, so why would they go anywhere? Yeah, we did pretty much an annual trip in the spring.

What some people call spring break, but what we called Easter break, which is a lot less fun. One, because while Christmas is always December 25th, Easter can be like March 3rd or April 19th or May 27th. I'm sure there's a way they determine when it is, but I like to think- There must be. I like to think they forget every year and they go like, it's in the spring, right? And so going to a Catholic school, we had this floating Easter break that would pop up and we would go somewhere. And we grew up in a very Catholic family. So that meant that Thursday was your last day of school. And then Friday you had off known as a good Friday. And so we travel somewhere Friday morning, we'd fly to South Carolina, in one case, London.

And then we'd land and immediately find a good Friday mass service in whatever place the hotel had recommended. And a Good Friday mass is fun because it's a funeral for God. And it's sometimes upwards of four hours long. And when I was an altar boy, when you serve Good Friday mass, it's like normally you just have these same rote motions you go through. Good Friday, you like prostrate yourself on the floor. You like kneel on the floor. And it's very solemn.

It's truly played. It's not played. Like, you know, there was real emotion with you. I'm not trying to make fun of it, but it was like truly like, oh, my God, Jesus. Everyone would come in like, oh, my God, did you hear what happened? And Jesus is dead. And then also this like, and we don't know what's going to happen in two days. It's a weird, well, I was about to say it's a weird passion play,

but it truly is. Passion. Number one. Number one, it is the capital P. Was there ever any expectation that you could talk your parents out of this or did you as kids know you absolutely were doing that on friday of the vacation no it was absolutely happening yeah it was non-negotiable and it was everything at once you know my dad was working all the time so these vacations were you know you're suddenly like with him a lot you

know you're with him for like multiple days in a row yeah he was like just no nonsense about finding a church it was a you know we were you know raised very catholic it was that but it almost had an ocd quality to it because there were times when, due to flights, due to the fact that maybe my sister Claire was an infant, that it just wasn't popping to find a church as soon as you land in London or at a Club Med in Mexico. We'd still, we'd just go out. We were once at a Club Med, and we ended up in pretty rural Mexico under a like aluminum roof, outdoor church mass in Spanish that none of us understood because the hotel had told my dad about a church that was closed. So then determinedly, we just like kept driving till we found Jesus's funeral. Yeah, it was it was pretty non-negotiable. and was there any humor to the idea that it was a drag

to be doing it like obviously we're going to do this we know as parents this isn't anybody's first choice but we'll laugh about it after the fact or was it just taken very seriously there was a great deal of humor in the younger generation gotcha you know I should ask my mom, I bet she was annoyed. I bet she thought it was good to teach us the discipline and the respect for tradition and, you know, practicing your religion and following it to the letter to some degree. But it was also annoying. She had four kids. My dad is annoying. So I can't imagine She was like, I'm really glad he's like this. Were you well behaved over the course of four hours? No. I remember once being in a church in Charleston, South Carolina. And so churches look like big, you know, Gothic buildings. And then there's this sort of 1967 to 1975

Catholic church architecture that a lot of churches throughout, especially the Midwest and the United States went through, where the church sort of looks like the Brady Bunch house from the outside, like a long sort of slanted roof, a very tall kind of groovy cross, a lot of green carpet, a lot of teak wood. And we're not going to do stained glass. We're going to have like kind of groovier wood carvings of Jesus, kind of abstractions of Jesus and the apostles and things. And so there was this like carving of Jesus. And then next to him, I think was supposed to be a child that he was leading to, you know, to the faith or something, but it looked like another Jesus. So it looked like, like the guy didn't know how to do faces. So it looked like Jesus had a guy with him who's just like a littler Jesus. And I remember

my brother and I were doing this bit sitting in the pew about little Jesus and Jesus and little Jesus wanted to go to Sizzler and Jesus was, you know, wouldn't take him and Jesus. And little Jesus wanted to go to Sizzler and Jesus was, you know, wouldn't take him and stuff. And my dad turned around and he leaned in. This is one of the great typical thing where he thought this was really impactful. He went, remember where you are. And we're like, what?

There's two Jesuses on the wall. We know exactly where we are. We know where we are, but also like, as if we were like, hmm, well said, you know, like he's 10 and I'm eight and that you really landed that, you know, huh? That gave us pause. When you're an altar boy, what do you say? You'd say you serve mass or you, you don't work. No, you serve mass, but you work weddings.

Weddings were quite cool. We grew up in Lincoln Park, as Seth said. And there's a beautiful church called St. Clement where we went. And there were lots of weddings there. And so Saturdays, we would work weddings. And it was a shorter service. But the best man and groomsmen would often tip you like 10, 20 bucks. And you'd get $5, I think, for doing weddings.

And so you could make like $40, $50 on a Saturday when you were 10. It was great. That's amazing. That's huge. Yeah, I'm getting excited thinking about the money right now. It was so exciting, you know? It felt like, okay, we do the other stuff during the year so that from spring to August, it's just stacking money. Also, there's that age where cash in hand,

like actual physical money in your hand is better than any check you will get for the rest of your life. Yeah. Someone could have come to me and said, I'll give you $40 now and you give me 30% of your income as an adult. Or we walk away and I go, I'll take the 40. I'm not an idiot. Is there a pull as an altar boy to put any of that money right in a collection plate? No. We're children.

We're little kids running around in the 90s. Look at this. I worked for Jesus and now I got this money and I can put it right back into the company. I don't know if, you know, children forced to go to church, but I can't imagine less reverence because it was like I remember thinking as a kid, you know, like when my dad would say stuff like that, like, remember where you are or you think it's funny to make. make, you know, you think it's funny to make fun of the washing of the feet, you know? And it was like, I thought, yeah. And also I was like, I've been to church every Sunday since I was a baby. I have always felt and still feel I've accumulated enough hours that I'm fine. Like if I go in and he's like, hey, I'm God. And I really didn't appreciate the little Jesus jokes. Like that was pretty irreverent. I'll be like, I totally serve my

nickel. And this is a, this is in a world where God is Catholic and also speaks English. And you, when you die, you just immediately meet him. And he knows slang. He knows slang and he remembers every bit. When you travel for Easter weekend, is there ever an opportunity that you could like work in a way game at one of these Good Friday masses and be like, hey, I know what I'm doing here? That's a good question. I never looked into it, though sometimes you get roped into carrying the collection plate. They rightfully thought if a kid's doing it, people might find that a little adorable and give more money to the building fund. But no, I never served mass.

I also, I mentioned the washing of the feet, and that was mainly a shout out to Mike Shoemaker, who he and Colin Quinn every Holy Saturday text each other about the washing of the feet, which was a thing altar service had to do just before my generation to honor that Jesus washed people's feet on Holy Saturday. Children had to wash people's fucking feet. So you'd come in as an altar boy on a Baisley foot day.

Foot day, yeah. And you didn't know what you were going to get. No. Because, yeah. You know, large Irish and Italian population, you're going to see a lot of different feet. I would imagine. You might see the whole breadth of it, of the possibilities.

I feel like that's the day you should be getting tips. Yeah. I mean, if there's ever a tip day. They should keep money between their toes and you take it out and then start. Now, any of your siblings uh still uh go to mass with any regularity uh yeah to some degree you know do you think that one of the uh issues uh certainly the catholic church ran up against is that just there have been a few yeah the biggest

one i shouldn't have phrased it as biggest. I think we know the biggest. But just that like comedy advanced to the place that people were just slightly more irreverent with each successive generation. Even a non-comedian would appreciate that certain things are funny and that it was harder and harder to take things like washing of feet seriously. That's an excellent point

that generations have become more and more irreverent and it's really hard to just gather a ton of people in uncomfortable clothes on the hardest type of chair ever imagined and go, hey, this is a big deal. And now some guy in LensCrafters glasses and a gown will talk at you about how you should live and you're just going to take it. Yeah, that's a good point. Also, as more and more comedy seeped into people's daily lives through TV than the internet, I think priest jokes just absolutely cratered.

Because at one point in the olden times, no one heard any jokes because it was so bad and everyone was a farmer. And then you'd go to church and the priest might have a little joke in his homily. Even though homilies were only post-Vatican II and what I'm talking about is centuries ago, it all works in my head. You'd go to church and the priest would say, one can imagine jesus shopping for father's day and thinking what do you get the man who created everything you know and uh that would kill but now with tiktok where you have these these teens doing different hilarious challenges people walking on crates i can't imagine those jokes work anymore. And editing. Teens are so much better at editing.

Oh my God, they're great at editing. This generation is the greatest generation of editors we've ever seen. Yep. And it might only get better. I feel like there's something like, I'm not saying Broadway can't be funny, but I feel like every now and again, you'll be in a Broadway show and there's a joke and it gets a laugh through the whole house. And you're like, that was not a good joke.

It's just like the tenor of this show is such that anything that's willing to sort of break the dour sort of story we're watching is like a gift. And people are like, oh, thank you. Thank you. There's also that thing now where they like a show is set, you know, like an Oklahoma type show. Someone will get a telegram and they'll be like, hmm, sounds like fake news. And like just saying that, you know, destroys. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Anyway, I wrote that joke.

If you see that music. You've done punch ups. I've always said. Yeah, yeah. I go into Oklahoma and I drop in just garbage. Twenty twenty 2023 references. I was backstage at a charity event once standing with Ray Romano while Bruce Springsteen went on stage and between songs told a couple of real dad jokes that brought the house down.

And Ray Romano pointed out that the audience would not be as forgiving of he and I if we in between jokes did a song. That's really funny. Yeah. That's very, very funny. Because he said it would be about the same. But the fact that a singer does a joke, people, and again, I fell for it too.

It was fantastic to hear Springsteen tell a couple jokes. But if you guys had done a full musical number in Oh Hello, where you were just belt into the rafters. What if there had been one and it was cut? What if there was a larger scale dance and song number that got scrapped at New 42 during rehearsals? Oh, early, early days. Oh, early days.

Although there were things in previews, my God, that we would tech for hours and then immediately cut. Do you remember when you called me and asked me to, somebody canceled and you asked me to fill in for Oh Hello? And then, what, you called me two hours later? Yeah. To say. And I said, we got Steve Martin. You called and said, we're in a jam. That didn't bother you, did it?

No, it did not bother me at all. Yeah. I laughed so hard. It was such a no brainer solution. I do remember thinking as I called you, this is going to be absolutely fine. It was so funny. I also feel very good. My feet are planted on the ground knowing I'm an excellent plan B. And yet if another if another plan A shows up, I know exactly where to move. Absolutely. I once filled in in a pinch

for that neil degrasse tyson live show at the beacon theater and i walked in i don't know why i was so high on myself that day but i walked in thinking like i'm a hero you know yeah this goddamn guy in a vest talking about the stars people People don't like this. And I'm going to destroy. And this guy, I don't even know if what he's saying is true, nor does anyone else. We're just nodding, you know. And light years away, you know, and everyone's so, wow. And these people, by the way, everybody who's doing that

thinks that people who go to church are dumb. Meanwhile, they're listening to this guy just nodding along. Yeah, this guy's dressed like a magician. He's a space magician. He's a space magician. He's a space magician. He looks like a guy that, you know, you learn cartoon drawing from on a VHS. It was like Lauren said,

we need a new character for Kenan. Let's fund a scientist. Let's use dark money to create a scientist that keenan can play years later let's start a scholarship in uh astro astronomy excuse me not astrology that'd be silly anyway i showed up and uh everything i said he didn't like and at the end he's introducing the panel once again ellie kem! Everyone's applauding. And then he points to me. During the Ellie Kemper applause, he points to me and leans in and goes,

your name again? And I was like, oh, you have a booker. Okay. I wasn't on your list of stars, pun intended, that you wanted. Hey, we're going to take a quick break and hear from some of our sponsors. This episode of Family Trips is brought to you by Nissan. Posh, these days too many people have to settle for the next best thing, especially when it comes to choosing a car.

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With Nissan's diverse lineup, anyone can find something to help them reach their more. What are you looking for more of, Josh? I like a nice ride. I like a nice sound system. I like something that's, yeah, that's comfortable. You like to have room to load up a bunch of gear, go somewhere, do an adventure. I do. I'm never happier than when I have sort of a full car, a roof rack on my car. Makes me happy. And all I need is a cup holder for an iced coffee. And Nissan can provide you with both of those things.

So thanks again to Nissan for sponsoring this episode of Family Trips. And for the reminder to find your more. Learn more at NissanUSA.com. This episode of Family Trips is brought to you by McDonald's. Hey, Pashi. Yeah. Did you know that one in eight people in the U.S. have worked at McDonald's at some point in their life? That's crazy. That's so many people.

How do you not know that? This is like the third time I've told you. You guys, being an employee at McDonald's means you are making the world's so many people. How do you not know that? This is like the third time I've told you. You guys, being an employee at McDonald's means you are making the world's most famous fries on day one of the job, and you're able to make any kid's day with a happy meal. I mean, if you're working at McDonald's, you're throwing more birthday parties

than anywhere else on earth, and having every type of person in the world come through that store. And obviously we know about the food that McDonald's serves. What you might not know is some of the cool things they offer as an employer. McDonald's offers flexible hours, a schedule that works around your life, which means more time for your life. They also have an English Under the Arches program, which are classes offered to employees

looking to improve their English speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills. Career Online High School, where employees can graduate from high school by taking classes online. The Archways to Opportunity, which is a program that offers financial support for employees trying to graduate college. And Other Career and Education Advising, with success coaches who are available to help employees identify their education needs, review their career goals, and develop a plan for the future. McDonald's is now serving much more than orders. plan for the future. McDonald's is now serving much more than orders. Get back to your trips after you go to your Friday. This is what we do. This is usually Josh does that. In fact, Josh, do you want to get us back? Go. Yeah. So so you take these

Easter trips. It's not all mass like you also you're in london you're in south carolina you're in we took some nice trips like that you know um and our kind of family together in the car the forced time was really that every summer my parents rented this completely dilapidated house in Wisconsin on Lake Geneva. Now we're talking. Now we're talking. And it was a rental from a very old eccentric woman named Verna. And it was a stucco house that was genuinely, it was one frozen in time. You know, we had her old lady furniture, tons of velvet throw pillows, lots of cabinets that were locked that you're not allowed to go into as if we wanted to go into them. You weren't allowed to sit on the furniture in bathing suits, which we did constantly. So we would pick my dad up. That was a sort of summer

weekend thing. We'd pick my dad up sometimes from his office on Wacker Drive in Chicago. sometimes from his office on Wacker Drive in Chicago. He'd get in and my mom would hand him a ball, you know, ball, the glass jar company, a ball of beer glass and a cold Miller Genuine draft. And he'd open it and he would drink beer, not driving, but sitting next to her. Now, if he wasn't drinking, he would sometimes take over the driving. So he'd be coming right off like, you know, hot 1980s mergers and acquisitions law.

You know, he'd be very businesslike and serious because he was still, well, he always was. He wasn't just shaking off the work week. Sometimes, though he was a pretty law-abiding guy, we were pulled over once going 90. I think he'd had a very stressful week, and then my mom was listening to the Pointer Sisters. My first concert ever. Really?

Yeah. Oh, yeah. We were listening to Neutron Dance. In the Boston Common. Yeah. That's it. How old were you when you saw the Pointer Sisters? It was when Dare Me came out.

They were just rolling out Dare Me, and they were like, here's a new song so whenever that was but 80s definitely go alone no no no i was with my parents oh okay yeah that makes sense yeah yeah uh walking into i was like 12 and i was there alone or eight and uh he got pulled over doing 90 because neutron dance like just like psyched him up you know put him in a state it'll do that it'll do that it is now sometimes i listen to it when i'm you know working out and i'm like i get it dad yeah i get why you just stepped on the accelerator now do you think the beer and a cold glass was him saying and i'd like to start the weekend with the beer and a cold glass?

Or do you think your mom, knowing how stressful his job was, thought that might be a good, let's take the edge off right out of the gates for the benefit of everybody in the car? You know, that's a good question. I think it would have been my dad saying it. I don't think my mom sat around going like, well, we'd make him happy. Oh, so she's an Alexi. Yeah, yeah. You know, like how Alexi's always like, your father's coming home. Let's all be in a line.

He had a good talk show today. But your mom was working too, right? Your mom was a professor? Yeah, she's working too. Later on, when we were a little older, became a professor at Northwestern Law School. I'm also remembering now, and I think it's important to say because of open container laws, that my dad would get the beer and the glass when we would pick him up from the train station in Illinois, which was a little closer to the house in Wisconsin. in Illinois, which was a little closer to the house in Wisconsin. So for those of you listening,

the open container violation only lasted about a half hour versus two hours. Well, I can confidently say if it helps your case that our mother and our uncles 100% used to drive around Marblehead, Massachusetts with drinking beers. Oh, there's no, in terms of my Marblehead relatives, there's no, we won't even get into when the beer was opened. There's not a local court that would convict him as well, it should be noted. No, not if, you know, like, was he going to a boat launch? All right, well then, case dismissed and you're fired for bringing this to our attention. No, we'd either pick him up from the train if he had to work later, or we'd get him right from the office. The first time I ever saw a cell phone, my dad got in the car straight out of his office.

And he had a big Motorola phone. And he explained to us, like, this is a phone. We were like, wow, can we see it? No. Can I touch it? No. And no one's going to, shut up. No one's going to touch it. I'm going to be on a call the entire ride and no one can make a sound. So that added a new fun element to the rides.

What is the ride? What is the car back then? A long beige Chevy station wagon. All right. Gotcha. The springs were coming through the upholstery in the back. We had that. Then we switched to a white Chrysler minivan, a Plymouth Chrysler with the wood striper on the side.

Oh, yeah. I remember when we got that. That was a huge, huge day. I feel like if I saw a station wagon, a beige station wagon go by, and a guy was in the passenger seat with a Motorola cell phone, I would think it was a fake phone. Like, I wouldn't believe that that was a big mergers and acquisition guy.

Yeah, the dual existence. What's great about the house in Wisconsin was it only had one big pink rotary phone in the living room with, like, the shortest cord you could imagine into the wall. So in the living room, two screen doors on either side, all of the kids coming and going, you know, a deal would blow up and my dad Saturday would be on the phone all day. So he'd be sitting on the stairs that lead up to the upstairs on the phone. Once again, you can't talk or make any noise coming in and out of the living room. And my dad has this thing

that he actually, this was very good advice he gave me for life and for business dealings. He goes, if you're hearing something you don't like on a call, just stay quiet. Don't say anything. The person giving you the counteroffer you don't like or the proposal you don't like will just not be able to handle the silence and start to spin out. And they'll just start backtracking on the thing that you don't like. So a lot of these calls were just my dad totally silent and then occasionally going, no, I'm still here.

And then silence again. And then I think that would be prudent. Yeah, I think that would be wise. So that puts a real burden on the kids because silence. Exactly. Silence was one of his main weapons to lower valuations. A peep out of Johnny cost him a million. What are you doing?

So you're sitting on furniture you weren't supposed to sit on. In wet bathing suits. Were you on a lake? Yeah, we were on Lake Geneva. Very, very pretty lake. And this house actually was on top of a hill and had a really beautiful view,

as dilapidated as it was. Over the lake, it had grandfathered in this type of boathouse where you could keep boats underneath. We didn't, but it went out over the lake and had a very rickety floor, but it had a pool table in it that was totally warped.

But we would play pool on it it that was totally warped, but we would play pool on it, which was very fun. Actually, the reason we stopped renting the house was though it was a rental, we had been renting it for 13 years every summer. And my parents thought we're going to recover the pool table because it's so warped and the kids really like it. And so we recovered it making what some would call an improvement to the house. And the landlady was so furious at them for ruining what she said was a precious antique that we were not allowed back. Wow. Really? And that was it? We were kicked out. Yeah. The locked cabinets is such a great detail because I remember being in houses that my parents rented

and that a locked cabinet, all a kid thinks is what amazing treasures are in there. And of course it's always bullshit that they would be so bored by. We did break. I mean, we're there 13 years. We broke in eventually. And it was like, you know, small candles, small candles stacked badly. Did you rent it like for a full summer and you went out every weekend or it was just like one weekend you'd go? No, no, no. We went every weekend. There was no television there except during a major political convention or during presidential debates. And then my parents would bring this portable, tiny Sony TV.

It had, sorry, the house had an old TV from the 50s that was broken, just to kind of mock you. Imagine if this was a TV in the middle of a living room, but it was just basically a chest. They put this portable Sony thing on, and I remember sitting in a wet bathing suit

at night watching the 88 Democratic Convention, and being like, what's that? Who's that? You know, they're like, quiet. And speaking of church jokes, you know, I remember watching Ann Richards say like, poor George Bush, he was born with a silver foot in his mouth, which is like putting together two expressions. I didn't know either of them, but I still remember like being like, ha ha. Yeah. Now, the old broken TV, I'm starting to think, what, but I still remember like being like, ha ha. Yeah. Now the old broken TV, I'm starting to think, what did you say the woman's name was? Verna?

Was it? Verna. I wish I could tell you her full name because it's a really funny name, but I don't know if she has, you know. Maybe, do you think that she was putting around things, old things that she wanted fixed with the hopes, like pool table that you would eventually hit your breaking point. You'd fix it, improve the house. And then she would kick you out forever. And maybe the TV, she was also hopeful that you'd maybe fix the old TV. That would have been great.

I mean, I think if, I mean, if we just completely demolished the house and built a new one being like, look, sorry, we've been renting for 13 years. This is something has to change. She might've appreciated that. Being like, look, sorry, we've been renting for 13 years. Something has to change.

She might have appreciated that. No, she actually, she really believed that things in the house were very precious. Not just family heirlooms, but possibly capital H heirlooms. Right. Valuable to any family. There were thank you for not smoking signs everywhere. Multiple ones in every room. Did you do summer outdoorsy activities? Were you were you?

Yeah, we had to be outdoors because my dad was on the phone, you know, trying to sell Ameritech or whatever he was doing. Yeah, we'd be outside all day. There was a dock that I fell off when I was four and almost drowned because we were all just, yeah, we were just a bunch of kids down on the dock. I was four and I was just sitting on the dock and rocking back and forth. And I fell in and sunk like a stone. And then my older brother very heroically dove in. But he was six and he couldn't swim. Not that well, at least.

So he sank. And then our family friend, Katie Manning, who was on the deck as well, she jumped in and saved us both. And for this, my mom bought her a guest jean jacket. Wow. There you go. That was the medal of honor of the era.

That was. That was how you honored first responders. What was the relationship with the other three siblings? Did you have unique relationships with each one? When my brother and I were like inseparable, we'd walk into the town of Lake Geneva along the lakefront in an almost 1950s way. We just leave the house with like a stick and walk for an hour into the town. And we'd go to this arcade they had. And then we'd go stand in the Ben Franklin, which is a store that sells like tchotchkes

and stuff. We just were doing anything we could. You know, we reached a point where we went through an age where we didn't like just being stuck on a lake and wanted to like be where the action was. There's no TV here. We're going to go into town. We're going to go to the arcade. We would also fish off the dock. We had inner tubes. We do all that stuff. So my brother and I were together a lot of the time. And then my two sisters were far apart in age, but my older sister would watch my younger sister. So her job was to watch Claire

and Carolyn's job was to watch Claire. And Carolyn's job was to watch Claire. And then Chip and I always had to bring the garbage cans up the road, which I hated more than anything. This was before garbage cans had wheels. Oh, you'd just be dragging a wheel-less garbage can. Yeah, we'd be dragging an Oscar the Grouch garbage can up the road. Metal. Little kids. It was like moving a dead body.

I still don't like doing it i'm 41 and you know there's a dark winding road on the new house we have up at the lake you know my parents certainly shouldn't be walking it at night and still when anyone mentions it i'm like oh last time i was home it was like there was a holiday it was like, there was a holiday. It was like a holiday Monday. And it was such a debate between my parents and the neighbors on which can was supposed to go out. Like, is it paper tomorrow? Are they picking up paper? Are they picking up just trash? And it was like part of four conversations that I had with them. And it just was just like the worst show on PBS of these people trying to solve this mystery.

Here's the thing. You can just put them all out. And whichever one gets picked up will get picked up. And then if the next day another one gets picked up, they won't suddenly be like knocking on your door. Yeah, but I think it's like a bear situation. That was another thing with the garbage cans in Wisconsin was when we were asking the grouch in it, you just had these like lids and we were always worried about raccoons. And so me and my brother, like, you know, six and eight, and we'd be on the hook for the lids being tightly

on the garbage cans, less raccoons get it. Now, as kids, we couldn't have been more excited to see raccoons. Right. So my dad's like, be sure to do a good job with this messy old garbage can or hilarious raccoons will be gathered on our property eating all the food. Nature's burglars. Nature's burglars will come en masse and in a hilariously cartoonish way, rip open all the food. Nature's burglars. Nature's burglars will come en masse and in a hilariously cartoonish way rip open all the garbage.

I'm so jealous of modern kids who in a lot of cases have a cool camera on the garbage cans. Now they're incentivized to leave the lids off and then you get a funny video of raccoons. People have cameras on their garbage cans? I think he's thinking like ring doorbells. I don't know.

What are you talking about here, Seth? I bought a new line of garbage cans that come with their own film crew. And it's really worth the extra money. Well, you just hired Tolia and Tolia lives in one of them.

He was free. He just finished a ghost gig, as he calls it. Hey. All in a day's work, man. I didn't realize before you were doing a Tolia, but now I hear it. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Swinging shirtless from different people's rooftops in Martha's Vineyard. Yeah. Mr. Fit. My brother-in-law, as John just mentioned, is always shirtless. And am I wrong? Is this, I don't mean to paint a false picture, is often doing odd jobs for your sister and or anyone that they lease him out to. Yeah. He's sort of the village's handyman. Yes. Yeah. I should also note he's incentivized to have his shirt off because he has one of the most rocking torsos you've ever seen on a human being.

So this is not a slovenly man. I think he's kind of like shit. Oh, no, no, no. I thought from my impression you could tell this was an unbelievably fit. Yeah, he's a very handsome guy. Well, do it again. Let me see if I can hear it. Do the impression.

Hey, all in a day's work. That's not but a slovenly person. You can tell now. Yeah. I will say, I did see him this summer, and he was wearing a shirt, which I thought was weird. Was he in court? No, he was just in front of the uh for public indecency the country store where we grab lunch and uh but i'll say the shirt smelled really bad and i was sort of like oh you gotta get that shirt off man the shirt's not doing you any favors you gotta get that shirt off and um

put up some vinyl siding on ted and mary. He came to pick me up at the airport. I don't know if I ever told you this story, John, but he came to pick me up at the airport and we're walking out to the car shirtless. What airport was he picking? He picked me up at a sort of a local airport. Okay. A small local airport where he's well known on an island, let's say off the coast of Massachusetts. It's not Nantucket.

It's not Nantucket. So I land there and I'm getting my stuff into the car. And again, he shirtless. You were shipped by Governor Abbott to this place? Yes, I was. And I learned my lesson. And they did too. And I was going out to the car and some people walked by.

And John, your ear would probably also catch this moment where people whisper and you realize they have recognized you. That's. You know, and they passed me and I heard the woman they have recognized you. That's, you know, and they passed me and I heard the woman say to her husband, honey, do you know what that is? That's the guy that never wears a shirt. It turned out.

It turned out that in that moment, Tolia was the celebrity. The word of Tolia had spread Island wide. So there you go. He's a very famous man. That's great. That's the guy that never wears a shirt. So there's the four of you.

Obviously, Claire is of comedy now as well. But were you the sort of four kids that when you were allowed to talk in the back of a station wagon were laughing, making each other laugh? Yeah, we were not very antagonistic to each other in the car. You know, there wasn't a lot of like, get your hand off me. Like we were kind of, we got along well. And then the Walkman phase came in, which, you know, as we see with tablets, technology can really isolate children from each other. And I, well, I don't want to go off on tablets, but we all had Walkman and those like headphones that don't quite, you know, the thin headphones that don't quite fit your head. So everyone's music was bleeding into each other's. My older brother got into a phase of pink floyd's the wall and it was kind

of aligning with i think age 13 14 when you know uh you know dad's bullshit or whatever yeah it's very anti-authority you just gotta be anti i mean you're literally living with like someone a person who like if you told him like, you just reek of authority, he'd be like, that's awesome. And so, you know, we all went through our Pink Floyd, The Wall phase. And yeah, he'd be just blasting that. And it's like bleeding out of his headphones. And he's just like staring angrily. It's very funny. It's very hard for me to conceive now that you, again, Pink Floyd, The Wall is not modern to your brother's moment, right? When he hits 13, that's older music. I always picture you listening to music of a different era when you're a kid. We did, you know, not to be insufferable, but yeah, we liked, we just, I liked older things.

I, no, we got into classic rock when we were about nine and 11. Like that summer that I turned 10, my brother and I really got into Led Zeppelin. We'd listened to the Beatles and Simon and Garfunkel growing up, but we really got into Led Zeppelin and The Who and Pink Floyd and Eric Clapton. And yeah, that was like, that was the music I remember from that time. Like if you asked me what everyone was listening to in 1990, I'd be like, The Doors. Yeah. All I listened to was classic rock radio almost my entire high school.

It's odd when people go, how do you know those songs? It's like, we live in a constant nostalgia factory of a country. You know, like, there's like, how would you not know those songs? I think every high schooler, like, that's when you encounter Led Zeppelin now. Like Seth, your kids, like I wouldn't play it for them now, but like once they're, you know, ninth grade, tenth grade, it'll be like, hey, listen to this. And they'll probably get super into it. You're right about not playing it for them too young. Because I remember being 10 and listening to that song, No Quarter by Led Zeppelin on a Walkman. And really being like, oh, the world's a lot darker than I thought.

Like, I actually had a feeling of, this is a different type of thing. Like, something's out there that's, you know, mysterious and potentially dangerous. I also feel like Led Zeppelin has more value if you hear about it from an older sibling or a friend versus a parent. Yeah, our cousin TJ told us a lot about this. Yeah. Do you know Josh's story with my dad, The Beatles versus Tone Loke?

Do you know? No, but just go right into it, please. We were on a trip in, was it the Bahamas? Yeah, I think the Bahamas. I want to say, and Tone Loke had just followed up. Wild Thing, he'd followed up Wild Thing. With Funky Cold Medina. Yeah, so he had two.

He had two big hits. And I was adamant that Tone Loke would be bigger than the Beatles. You were adamant that he was about to break larger than the Beatles had broken in 64. It wasn't a who's better. It was that he's about to have that level of fame. It was that like, soon we will be looking back at this as a moment. And then the Beatles will be dwarfed

by the power that is Tone Loke. The collective work of Tone Loke. What was your dad's counter argument to that? Well, he wasn't such a Beatles fan, but he definitely thought I was wrong. That's very funny. But I want to say that he wasn't taking me seriously. And it was a part of my life

where I didn't like not being taken seriously. Yeah. So I don't think it was all like, ha ha. I think it was like, hey, respect me and my opinions. And then your voice starts cracking. Oh, yeah. I love that. I love that.

That's wonderful. No, my dad is like a little, he's lukewarm on the Beatles. Is he? He's a doo-wop guy. He's a Motown guy. He was a big Motown guy. And so I think he kind of thought maybe. He was the Motown guy.

Yeah, he was the Motown guy in New Hampshire. And no close second. But the, I feel like I have such a sort of almost, I don't know what to worry about. I have so much respect for my dad and his taste in a way that is probably not that healthy for a young man that it took me years to come around to the Beatles and that maybe my dad had been a little hard on them.

What was his take on them? Just was a little unimpressed. Like they're soft. I feel like they were like Stones houses and Beatles houses. And we were a Rolling Stones house if we were either of those. Oh, interesting. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. My mom was the Beatle queen of her high school voted on by a Marblehead radio station. And so she got two tickets to their show at, was it a Boston garden? Probably not the garden, but wherever the Beatles played Boston in 64. Our mom was the Rolling Stones queen of her high school in Marblehead,

Massachusetts. And she got two tickets. I think she got four tickets. She got four. Yeah. Okay. But you know, the thing is,

I don't think a high school would have a Rolling Stones queen. My mom was a Paul fan as a kid because I think she once said like bad girls like John. And I think the Maxim extends to like worse girls like the Rolling Stones. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

They would never, a radio station would never submit themselves to the angry letters of name Rolling Stones. Right. Yeah. They would never, a radio station would never submit themselves to the angry letters of name. Yeah, yeah, yeah. One lucky girl is going to meet Keith Richards. Behind closed doors. My dad grew up as a teenager and college student, listened to classical music only. And I remember when CDs came out and we got the CD of Sgt. Pepper.

We were playing it. My dad walked through and he went, I hate this. He goes, this came out my freshman year of college and everyone was playing it. And he just, he had a real problem with it. And I remember trying to, I would ask him things about these sort of baby boomer hallmarks. And he really had no, he was around for that generation, but he was always himself. He was never caught up in it. So I'd say like, do you like the Doors or the Beatles? And he went, I don't like either. And I went, but if you had to pick, and he goes, if I had to pick

between the Doors and the Beatles, I guess I hate the Doors more. I mean, again, your dad listening to classical music, you do realize you sort of run in parallel to him. I understand. Yeah, yeah. I understand that I'm playing in a way game by his rules. I know Malcolm is very young, but have you had a favorite family trip with him where you feel like he's appreciated it at all? Oh my gosh. Malcolm has only traveled. Yeah. Malcolm,

my son was born in 2021 and I was on a big tour then. And so he still sleeps in a pack and play, a travel crib, because that's what he's most comfortable in. Malcolm has been everywhere. He kind of grew up on a tour bus so far. He's an excellent traveler. That's wonderful. Loves hotels, loves people. I'm trying to think if there were ever any real... No, he hasn't. We haven't traveled outside of the country or anything. I know this is almost impossible to answer because you only have the one kid,

but do you think it's a nature nurture thing where because he was, he grew up on the road, he's a good sleeper? Do you think he was just wired to be a good traveler? I could see wired to be, you know, it's just kind of boring and yeah, a bit like, you know, here we go. You know, it's sort of, that's bit like, you know, here we go. You know, it's sort of – So cool.

That's Malcolm's policy since birth. Here we go. It's going to be very exciting because at some point he will – our kids are fascinated when you start telling them where they've been, and they're going to be very jealous of the fact that when Malcolm gets to the age where he's like, wait, what states have I been to? You're going to be able to really throw a lot of push pins, a lot of push pins on the map for old Malcolm. You've been to major markets, secondary markets, and sorry, folks, tertiary markets.

Well, you're not going to name names, but just know that some of you have seen John in a tertiary market. Sure. They know they're in a tertiary. And they're thrilled that you're there. Because you open with, you know, wow, look at this awful place. This town sucks. I was in Joliet last night. I took a little road trip yesterday to do a show in Joliet with Pete Davidson. I was invited to come in the morning to Joliet before the night of the show to meet the great Jim Downey. Wonderful.

Who, speaking of trips, took a train from Buffalo, New York to Illinois in order to see the show and show me the sights of Joliet, which yesterday included the abandoned prison. Great. Where they filmed Blues Brothers. Yeah. Which is not a museum. It is legit an abandoned prison great where they filmed blues brothers yeah which is not a museum it is legit an abandoned prison we had a great sort of guide who had keys to the different buildings and would let us into the death house stuff but um it was just a bunch of

abandoned prison buildings where leopold and lobe were held very impressive impressive to Chicagoans. You know, two brilliant young men. Local boys. Local boys made good University of Chicago. Things went a little sideways, but still. They were very well educated. And then he took me for a sandwich called a poor boy, which they serve at a restaurant called Mariska's. Not a po-boy, apostrophe, a poor boy. It's tenderized flank steak soaked in garlic butter on a roll. And Jim Downey, the great SNL writer, you know, in order to prep me about the sandwich, we had, I think, three one hour conversations in the month leading up to it. How was it? It was very good.

I didn't need to pound one right before a show. Yeah. But, you know, I made it through. I made it through. Did Pete join you for the tour of Joliet? He did not, but he would have enjoyed the abandoned prison. It was great. The youths of Joliet have adorned solemn places

like the Death House with wonderful, I'd call it pornographic Simpsons graffiti. That's really. Because you can make those characters do anything you want. It is really funny to think if you told someone who worked in the Death House back in the day what the future of the building would look like. Yeah. Because they wouldn't even be aware of the Simpsons. No. And then what they did to each other.

Yeah. No, they would have no idea. They would have no idea. The death row cells are quite nice. Interesting. Yes. High ceilings and a lot of light coming through. And that was our biggest takeaway was if you were to go to prison in Joliet in

the 1950s, a one would want to be on death row. Save for the, like, the end of it. Though, I don't know, you know, because you get out of Joliet. Right, right, right. The movie The Blues Brothers filmed some scenes there, and the people of Joliet will not let you forget it. I would imagine.

It is really funny. Even, you know, Alexis from New Mexico, there's so much breaking bad memorabilia for sale. And it's just so funny that it doesn't matter what the show's about or the movie's about. It's a robust meth trade. Uh-huh. And they're like, we'll sell it.

Chicago couldn't go more nuts. Growing up, the city couldn't go more nuts when a movie was filmed here. Like, I'm amazed that Harrison Ford was able to shoot that scene at the St. Patrick's Day parade in The Fugitive. Because I remember that day. You know how they ask people in the background not to look at the camera and stuff? People couldn't have violated that more. People were actively grabbing him and going, Indiana Jones. All right, John, this is a very exciting part of the podcast.

Josh is going to ask you some questions that we ask all our guests. Okay. Some quick ones, some quick ones. All right. You can only pick one of these. Is your ideal vacation, are you relaxing? Is it adventurous or is it educational? Education.

Look at you. I think maybe the first one who's ever answered that. Is that correct, Josh? I think so, yeah. I'm a museum guy. Yeah, I love a museum. I do. When you go to museums,

do you do the audio tour? I like an audio tour. I don't mind it. I like that you can skip around. If a museum has an app right now and I can use my own earbuds and just sort of download it. Wildly better.

It's the best. The actual device, that electric razor-sized thing they hand you, and the awful headphones, it's pretty nice to switch to your own device. Yeah. What is your favorite means of transportation for travel? Train, plane, boat, automobile, bike? Oh, can I say tour bus? You can.

Yeah, you may. Do you have your say tour bus? You can. Yeah, you may. Do you have your own tour bus? No, that is a dream to be kind of like a John Madden or a Whoopi Goldberg who, you know, to become a no-fly person. I don't mind flying, but I almost would embrace the sort of persona of someone who's afraid of flying

and only goes by bus because it'd be pretty fun. Yeah. If you could take a vacation with any family alive or dead uh fictional or non-fictional other than your own what family would you like to take a family vacation okay i'm gonna cheat a little because i'm gonna take that literally as i can't go with my family of origin nuclear family i would go with my mother's family because they take the funniest group vacations from Marblehead. One place they went a lot was Vieques off Puerto Rico, where the U.S. military tests missiles because they got a really good deal. And they would sit, my uncle Fran would sit, they'd sit out on a deck and they'd get wasted and watch the missiles go off.

I mean, it sounds interesting. That's educational to a degree. It's educational to a degree, yeah. Vieques is also a very, very good name to imagine said with a Boston accent. A hundred percent. North Shore accent saying Vieques is a lot of fun. If you had to be stranded on a desert island with one member of your family, who would it be? My dad. Okay, great. But now based on everything we've heard so far about your dad, what is the

draw? He's fascinating. Great. I talk about him a lot and sort of play up some persona of him, but which is true. And then it's so, it's just, it's endlessly interesting to me. I actually have never gotten bored of how particular he is. That's really one. I'm glad we got that in at the end because I think that, yeah,

sometimes I should say like, I'm a huge fan. This sounds weird, but I'm a little starstruck when I see him. Sure. Yeah. That's great. Yeah, that's what you want. That's what you want for a father and son relationship, is you to be starstruck by the oddity that is your dad. No, I'm kidding. I once walked in on him. We had a big grand piano in our house, and he's never played an instrument. And he was

just like pressing the keys of it. And I still think about it was the only time I ever saw him not be not good at something. It was very, it was very striking. Now that's not because he's great at everything. It's because he absolutely limits what he would do in front of someone. Right. That's as do I, as do I, you will never see me tolling around. Well, based on how you described your one garbage can job, I don't think I'd even ask. Well, you know, look, no one was upset when the raccoons came. Nope, no one was.

Well, your father probably was. Probably. But he wasn't the audience that you were playing for. No, and what's fun is that I don't think he was amused. Like, you know how sometimes parents go like, I told you, you know, but they're secretly amused. I think he was amused. You know how sometimes parents go like, I told you, but they're secretly amused. I think he was actually angry.

I think that's more our generation where we have to stifle laughter. And then we'll go specifically to Lincoln Park. Would you recommend Lincoln Park in Chicago as a vacation destination? 100%. Chicago is a great, great city for the relaxing, the adventure,

and the educational. Yeah, I would agree. I was just there. I was just up in Evanston for a reunion. It was a fabulous weekend. Very nice. What number reunion? 25. Whoa. I know. Anyone you ran into? It's hard in the social media age to be surprised by someone's path or appearance. I'm not on social media very much. So I sort of go with a group of friends that I know. You're like Selena Gomez. Very Selena. It was like a candy store.

Like everywhere you look, there would be someone else. And I'd be like, oh, let me go, you know, talk to him. Let me go talk to her. And like, oh, my God, it was. Yeah, it was exceptional. And also a beautiful weekend that is great and then seth you want to finish off here i i do i i will say i had a one of those stifle laughter moments this weekend john which is our middle axel was at a playground and i went to get a coffee and i came back and one of the other moms said oh i don't know how to tell you this. Axel just peed down the slide.

And I said, well, I said, yeah, I mean, you got to admit that's kind of, and they said, gross. And I was like, I was going to say funny. And she says, I think I know what happened is a couple of the other kids told him to do it. And I said, I 100% know how it happened, which is he

thought it would be funny and he did it. That's great. He did not need any. I also like, I 100% know how it happened, which is he thought it would be funny, and he did it. That's like he did not need any. I also like I don't know how to tell you this Axel P down a slide. That's that's the only way to tell it. All right. I will. I just thought this was this is worth telling. He's not here to tell it and it'll be hard to get ahold of him. So when you mentioned when you mentioned reunions, Jim Downey, the great SNL writer, told me yesterday, the last Harvard reunion he went to, his classmate Merrick Garland asked him, are you still doing the comedy writing thing? And he said, yes. And he said, we always hoped you would have moved on from that.

And then he wept in front of Congress. Right, right. All right, so real quick, last question. It's a two-parter. Have you been to the Grand Canyon? No. Do you want to go? 100%.

Interesting. Josh wants to go. I don't. Question for you two. Do either of you watch Yellowstone? Yes. Do you want to live like the family on Yellowstone now? To a degree. Yeah. Okay. All right. All right. Nevermind. I want it so much. Yeah. I want it so much. And

again, not a great outdoor aptitude, but. Yeah. No, I'd love to live in those landscapes and whatnot. I don't know if I'd want to do those jobs. I'd like those big indoor cabin rooms where it's just big, big fires and a lot of logs. And it seems like they're always drinking a hearty scotch. Yes. Thinking over some, you know, someone's easement.

Yeah. It does seem like Kevin Costner, his character follows your dad's rule of not talking. If he doesn't like the offer. It's really smart. Yeah. I always break. I've tried to do it.

Yeah. But then I always become the, I always end up going, ugh. Just so you know, I hate this. All right, finish. This has been so lovely, John. This has been really lovely. Remember when you thought I lived in a hotel and insulted the corner of my home?

I was hoping you'd forgot, but I do remember. Yeah, that was, man. I hung that painting. Man, this sucks. That was rough. But so you don't get any sort of loyalty points from living in that room, from any of the major... No, but there's a breakfast from six to nine.

Oh, that's nice. I miss it. I keep missing it. Yeah. They have little cereal boxes and say, look at all this stuff. Oh my goodness.

Love to you and your beautiful family. Thank you. Love to you and your beautiful family. Josh, it was so good to see you. You too, pal. Easter break and you get out of class.

And you take a plane to find yourselves a mass Jesus said, little Jesus, that's bizarre And your dad tells you, remember where you are Woo-hoo! Woo-hoo! Not the only trip that you will take In the summers rent a house out on the lake Trash cans fit for Oscar the Grouch Keep your wet bathing suit off the couch

And there's something you know that you're not supposed to do Though you're young and small, if your daddy's on the phone. You best hush up when daddy's on the phone. You got to zip that shit when daddy's on the phone.