How To Destroy Everything - How To Destroy Everything Presents: Toughen Up - Episode 3: Wes, Skatebarn, The Big Split and Frank

Episode Date: May 6, 2025

Wherein young Stephen seeks refuge from his own family at a house “down the street.” His father then reveals a side of himself that no one could have imagined, just before the marriage finally falls apart. Gene moves away while Maureen makes a new “friend.” Then, hear why the boys call this “The Darren Episode” and define the true meaning of an oasis. Then, Danny and Darren explore the hidden meaning behind Stephen’s sound effects and what it meant to have his father reveal that he could “fly.” Head to https://bubblycleaning.com/HTDE to get your first 3 hours of cleaning for only $19. Thanks so much to Bubbly Cleaning for sponsoring this episode! If you would like to support this podcast, please consider becoming a patron at www.patreon.com/HowToDestroyEverything and please don't forget to share, rate, and review! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Toughen Up written and performed by Stephen Caron Episode 3 Wes Skate Barn The Big Split and Frank Now I didn't run away from home like my sister, at least not officially, but I did start spending more and more time at what was known as Down the Street, at the house near the corner,

the house that had his and her Cadillac Coupe De Ville's in the driveway. And a motorhome. And a Volkswagen Bug. And a boat in the garage next to an all-terrain vehicle. Motorcycles plural. A partially restored Model A Ford. And a 39 Dodge sedan with suicide doors. Go ahead. Go around back. and you'd find a giant swimming pool with a little Italian

pool off to the side that they called a jacuzzi. This was Wes's house, and they had something I'd never seen or heard of before. They had money. They owned clothing stores and malls all throughout Southern California. The prep shop. I never knew what that meant like prep like prepare yourself to look amazing in these clothes. The prep shop. And they sold a lot of western wear. And they had a real cowboy named Bob who worked for them and he knew actual martial arts. Which allowed him one day when no one was around to pin me to a wall in their warehouse with one of his long

long kung fu legs and hold me there with the tip of his shiny cowboy boot just underneath my Adam's apple, pushing real softly and looking at me with dead Greg Allman eyes and whispering, I thought you were supposed to be funny. And Wes's parents were younger and way, way better looking than my parents. My father wore button-down short-sleeve white shirts with a packed pocket, a high-waisted sensible black slack, and a hard shoe. Wes's dad came home from work with zip-up boots that matched his effing briefcases, man. Shirts opened down to here that were

made of silk, and polyester pants that would flare into something I would come to know as a bell bottom and man jewelry. With big Bob Guccione sideburns, and sunglasses that span temple to temple. My father didn't even own a pair of sunglasses. I think he saw it as something quitters wore. That's what squinting is for, Steven. To me, Wes's mom was basically a pint-sized country music star, with big aquanetted Loretta Lynn hair and sporting white stretchy matador pants with a notch. When my mom smoked, it looked like shit was about to go down. But when Wes's mom smoked, it looked like everything was going to be okay somehow.

And his mother would not start dinner until about 11.30 on a school night. And there was a big lighted jukebox just off the kitchen. And it would play Patsy Cline and Johnny Cash. Because Wes's people were from Idaho and Wyoming. So dinner would be tater tot casserole or tuna on toast. Next to the stove was a big bottle of black velvet Canadian whiskey. So big it had the glass handle on the side. And Wes's mom would pour another glass and dance a little,

singing, Crazy, I'm crazy for feeling so lonely. Cooking late into the school night, as his tiny sisters traced figure eights on their tricycles around the enormous kitchen floor. And over there, watching one of those giant projection screen televisions that by today's standards would be super shitty, but because they had money back then it was considered amazing because it was massive with those tri-color projection lights. Sat Wes's dad in a high-backed easy chair with just his hand visible off to the side

making the ice and the black velvet sing a little. Watching The World at War, the world war two documentary series and I would see the white canopies of the parachutes filling the night skies over France and think to myself my dad's on that show his parents would wake us up in the middle of the night and lead us like zombies out into the motor home, and they would drive in the cool of the darkness, and we would wake up in the morning in the heat of the desert, where I learned how to handle an all-terrain vehicle and how to crash a motorcycle on a whoop-de-doo.

The only vacation I ever remember my family taking was the one where we went to the mountains and I was allowed to fight my cousins, slinging rocks the size of sweet potatoes and using metal trash can lids as shields. Wes's family would return home from the desert and we would be sunburned and covered in white sand. We ate big sticks and listened to Cheech and Chong on their bubble stereo in their conversation pit, wondered aloud if jackalopes could possibly be real, and looked up at portraits on the wall of John Wayne that were painted on barn wood with frames made out of lariat rope.

I didn't know it at the time, but this little space era Kennedy Democrat was being partially raised by Republicans. Or what used to pass for them? Wes and I would play with the king of toys. An American icon. A man doll, 12 inches tall. The original G.I. Joe. And I had a little low end G.I. Joe. Just one.

With painted on hair and a scar. But Wes? Well, Wes had entire battalions of those kind of Joes. They were considered expendable, enemies even, and if those Nazi Joes weren't talking, they'd quickly find themselves on the barbecue. This should loosen your tongue, Nazi. And their molded bodies would sizzle on the grill, dripping hot, molten Hasbro plastic onto the briquettes below.

While we'd double-squeezed, tonka tonka, the can of lighter fluid, and screamed their too-late confessions in gibberish German. Wes's main GI Joe, his hero doll, had beautiful blonde synthetic hair and a beard. And his mother, because they were in the clothing industry, would make underwear for our hero on their industrial sewing machines, for real. Like tiny boxer shorts that actually fit, and little form-fitting wife-beater t-shirts

for those especially hot days on the sands of Iwo Jima. And we would play for hours, and then I would sneak out, and I would look up the street at my house, and expect there to be like an ambulance in the driveway or perhaps see fire blowing out of a hole in the roof. And so I would disappear again back into Wes's backyard, into our little world of army men blissfully lost in our stories and sound effects.

Because it was all about the sound effects. Just a moment, sir. You were saying corporal? Sometimes when we played, I felt as if even my little cut rate GI Joe was more real than me. This episode is brought to you by OneSkin. So guys, you know, we're in Mother's Day territory now, and one of the things that I noticed about my wife is that, you know, because we've got so much going on with young kids and trying to do our work that the thing that is the last thing that she thinks about, my wife,

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Wes's grandfather was the former chief of police of Laramie, Wyoming. And when he died, a giant crate showed up on their crowded driveway. And when they pried it open, there stood an eight-foot-high gun cabinet from his grandfather's office at the police station, filled with all of the confiscated weapons from all of the criminals during the entire time that he was the chief of police. And it was made out of stained wood and etched glass, and under that glass there leaned thick, clustered rows of long rifles, and the center part was devoted solely to sawed off, filed down shotguns, and if you pulled open one of the big deep bottom drawers, it would just be brimming with ammunition.

And you could just plunge your hands down into that cool lead, fish around for a couple of pistols, and slowly raise them up, just dripping with bullets. Of course, in the presence of his parents, we were not even allowed to reference the cabinet in conversation, or look in the general direction of where they kept it, which was at the foot of their bed, where Bonnie and Clyde no doubt kept theirs. But when they went to work during summer vacation, we got deeply into that shit. One such day, Wes and I became convinced

that someone else was in the house with us. So we went to the cabinet, and with nine fully loaded rifles under each of our arms, we swept the place until it was all clear. Of all the wrong houses to rob in the neighborhood, Wes's house was by far the wrongest house of them all. How his parents didn't return home to find what used to be their son, and the remains of that poor little red-headed left-leaning orphan up the street, I will never know.

As if all of this wasn't enough, Wes's dad had a vast and far-reaching collection of what I would come to know as pornography. Playboy, sure. Penthouse, yeah, more to the point. But he also had genre porn. Western genre porn. You know, like when you go to the state fair, and you put on a big cowboy hat, and you're wearing a vest with a star on it, because you're the sheriff, and you've strapped on some chaps, and your lady friend is next to you,

and she's dressed like a saloon girl, with a big feather in her piled-up hair, and a boa, and a bustier, and it's all photographed in sepia tone. Like that. Only people fucking. Saddles thrown over hay bales, and a horse stall. You get the simulated f faded picture.

My parents knew they couldn't compete with Wes's family. But it didn't stop them from trying. And one Sunday afternoon, I went up the street and my dad was home. And he said, let's go. Where are we going? I asked. Dad said, we're going skating. I'm taking you, Sheila, and your mom skating.

We're going to Skate Barn up in Santa Ana. So we got in my dad's white Ford Torino, because mom wouldn't step foot in the green Datsun. So we go up to Skate Barn and we get our skates on and we're up on the carpeted area next to the half wall that has the opening in it and mom is perched on a little bench watching us. We'd never been skating before so after dad got his skates on, we went out through the opening and onto the wood floor with all the people, and he taught us how to skate. We kind of... and then... and we went around and around, with Dad in the middle, holding

our hands and letting go a little and then holding them again and after a while we floated back over to the opening in the half wall and onto the carpet and sat with our mom and started to take our skates off but our dad was still standing on the wood floor and he said to my mom I'm gonna go for one more turn and And she blew smoke straight up, which translated to, knock yourself out. And then we watched as our father stood very still, slowly assumed a semi-crouch, looked over one dropped shoulder,

and then, with a clap of thunder and a burst of light that shot out of the middle of his chest he took off. He took off. Backwards. Our father was skating backwards. We ran up to the half wall in our socks and watched as our dad, with little half tosses over his shoulders, was suddenly bitch slapping every other so-called skater at Skate Barn, only in reverse. He weaved effortlessly in and

out of the moving crowd, and when he got to the end of the room and leaned hard into the big turn, his legs were pumping over and across each other like a racehorse, while one arm rested on his chest and the other reached out, his fingers delicately brushing the air. Now he's coming this way, and we're staring at his straight, upright back as he says something to some woman, and he raises his hand up, hard and still, and she raises her hand up into his. And now, my father is waltzing with the complete stranger we've never seen before at Skate Barn, in and out between all the moving people.

And she says something, and he says something, and she pushes off his upright hand, and my father turns, drops his head, and fast as a Saturn V, is at the half wall and scorching to a stop on the carpet. And my mother turns her attention away from my father's roller mistress on the wood floor, levels her gaze, and hisses at us. Get your fucking shoes on. It turns out that our father, before and between the wars, was a competitive skate dancer. I once found a beat-up metal case in one of our closets. I opened it up and there were his skates, with some instructional dancing manuals tucked

between them, and on the inside lid were stickers from roller palaces all across the plain states. Our father, who for years we knew mostly as a pillow, was suddenly Fredistair. So now we're barreling home in the Torino. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr and has stuck her foot out and is dragging one of her little kids and hot little corkscrews of her shoe sole are spiraling off. Stop this car! Stop this car, Gene Kieran! And we're in the back seat thinking, all families are like this.

And down the hill and around the big corner we went, with the car door still open and what was left of her shoe still dragging and crackling on the street, and then hissing as we slowed onto the driveway until we stopped and the marriage was over. Our mother took Sheila and me into the bathroom, closed and locked the door, turned on both sinks and the shower to create a massive wall of sound to tell us she was divorcing our dad because she swears our family doctor had told her when she was in the hospital that if she stayed married to our dad because she swears our family doctor had told her when she was in the hospital that if she stayed married to our father, it would kill her.

So she said, I'm only doing what the doctor told me to do if I wanted to live. It was at this time that I started to pray and my prayer was to God and I asked God to kill me if my parents could please, please stay married. Because at that age, when you're 11, you blame yourself somehow. This was my fault. And so every night, I just prayed to God to please kill me if they could please stay married. That was the deal I was offering God.

But God didn't kill me, and they didn't stay married. The day my father moved out, I remember watching the Ford Torino leave, and I watched and I watched until it completely disappeared around the corner. First the front of the car, then the middle part with my dad in it, until the trunk, then the back bumper was gone. And my father moved into his office on Woodman Avenue,

slept on a military cot under his army blankets, next to a blueprint machine with a.22 pistol in the bottom of the filing cabinet in case someone broke into the office to steal vellum. And our dad would come visit us on Sunday mornings. My mother had given away my father's prized John Deere lawn mower to our new neighbor with one condition. That he always be mowing his lawn on Sunday mornings when my dad pulled up to

visit. Welcome to the neighborhood, new guy. But dad didn't seem to notice his lawnmower was missing, or at least never admitted it, and we would go out to breakfast and then drive around, listening to Stuart Hamblin, host Cowboy Church on the car radio. Sometimes we would drive up the Ortega Highway, pull over, and watch people jump off a cliff strapped to giant kites called hang gliders. An exciting, fledgling sport with a very poor safety record.

Even if it meant occasionally watching people leap to their deaths, we were just happy to be with our dad. To support sustainable food production, BHP is building one of the world's largest hot ash mines in Canada. Essential resources responsibly produced. It's happening now at BHP, a future resources company. Things just sort of went on this way for a little while, living in our strangely empty but beautifully carpeted house with our mom. Lisa was long gone, having moved out of the Schneider's house up the street to go live with... some religious girls.

It was just Mom, Sheila, me, and eventually a guy that started hanging around. A guy named Frank. Frank had been in an explosion underground and burnt his leg up pretty bad. He had worked for the utility company Southern California Edison and after he recovered from that explosion he started collecting disability and dating my mom. Frank was okay.

Frank had a thick beard, curly black hair and and a big beer belly, and he looked kind of like James Garner. If James Garner had one day just said, ah, fuck it, and he had that bad leg, and when Frank would tickle me and not stop, even when I begged him to, that would be the bad leg that I would kick and say, You're not my dad. And then he would stop, because he really was a good guy, and he sure liked my mom. Frank picked up a little extra bread during the summer, working pool parties as a comic diver.

It's okay, I wasn't familiar with that genus of theater either. Comic diving. You know, where you're a middle-aged man who's packed on a few pounds and a pair of long johns that are showing a little too much, and you're drinking a tall boy and holding a broom, and you're on the end of the diving board and it looks like you're stepping off into the water but instead your bottom bounces off the end of the board and you're suddenly standing on your feet again comic diving and now you're down at the edge of the board again and you pretend to sweep the

edge with your broom and that sends you into a flip into the water and you come up for air still holding your beer and you take a drink even though it's just been underwater and you slowly attempt to get out of the pool but intentionally never quite make it showing now way too much and you're soaking wet Long John's comic diving. A lot sure had happened in a short period of time. Our father was now an office camper, and our mother was sleeping with a pool clown. How to Destroy Everything is brought to you by Bubbly Cleaning. Guys, I just want to apologize for my mood.

I know it's springtime and I... No, no, no, really. I should be cleaning, but as you know, I've been traumatized by vacuuming and I just can't go anywhere near a vacuum. That's right. You know, Stephen, you don't actually have to be cleaning because I'm going to tell you about bubbly cleaning which has true story changed my life. My wife and I, we have two young kids, we cannot keep our house clean but bubbly cleaning with its consistent and

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I'm talking about. It's affordable. It's fantastic. Take home cleaning off your plate this spring by using Bubbly Cleaning. Head to bubblycleaning.com slash code to get your first three hours of cleaning for only $19. Okay, there we have it. Episode 3 of Toughen Up. Wes Skate Barn, The Big Split, and Frank, we're in the studio now, alongside Mr. Darren Eugene Gronski. Hey, everybody. And Steve, what's your middle name, Stephen? Christopher.

Stephen Christopher Kieran. You're Daniel Aaron Jacobs. Yep, my name could not be more Jewish and your name could not be less Jewish. And my middle name, Eugene, is, Yeah, my father's first name. We got connections here, connections left and right. It's a Venn diagram. That's right. Wow, this episode.

Oh man. First of all, I sort of think about this in a way as the Darren episode of- Oh, interesting. Of toughen up in that, you know, this is- My skating career? Well, no, no, that's different. I'm talking about in terms of Wes.

I don't have a skating career. No tease there. Just being cheeky. I'm talking about, we all have secret skating careers. Whatever that is, in case. No, just in terms of like, this is Kieran's version in a way of what you and your family was to me, this oasis, this place to go to as you were growing up. Obviously very, very different.

But I had that thought too, not so much about my analogy with Wes, which you're right. I mean, other than like you, your family and my family were not of different socioeconomic statuses. But the, this is definitely the episode. I mean, you started off talking about you running away, not quite like Lisa, but more or less.

And that is in a sense, what Danny did. Yes, to me, but also just in general, I think Danny, you, you know, you ran away into your, your performance mode, you know, into, into, into many different ways. So I do think there's an interesting analogy between the two of you at this point. But your house was like a refuge?

Oh yeah. It was like a safe harbor in a way? Yes. Absolutely. Yes. How much did your family know? Like did your family recognize it as such? Were your parents sort of like behind the scenes going, look, we need to keep an eye on this kid?

I didn't know this at the time, but evidently they did. I mean, so if you remember, my mom and dad went to high school with Danny's dad. And they thought of him as weird, not all theirs, the euphemism they would use. And- My dad, not me. Yeah, well, anyway, no comment.

But in one of the interregnums in season one, we interviewed my mom and she revealed that she and my dad did talk about wanting to show Danny some kind of stability, normalcy. And so we took them on vacations. Wow. And, you know, that even that, right? There's that analogy.

Yeah. You know, we weren't having dinner at 1130 PM on weeknights. No. Oh my God. But, but yeah, the, the, the refuge away from home, you did spend a lot of time at my house. Yeah.

You ate a lot of our food. Yes, I certainly did. A lot of time at my house. You ate a lot of our food. Yes, I certainly did. Lot of snacks, they had great snacks. Yeah, as they tend to, these type of families that take us in. Yes, there's something. Were there good snacks? Oh my God.

What kind of snacks? Like everything from waffles and ice cream to like potato chips and like every cereal you could imagine. Oh yeah, we had a lot of cereals too. What was the food situation like? Like what was the snack situation like at your home? There was no, we didn't have snacks. Yeah. What a weird analogy again between you two.

Yeah, that was the same with my dad. My dad's house was- Yeah, you would have to forage a little bit and then my dad would come home and cook like he did in the army. Like it would be like ground beef. Some army. Like, like it would be like a ground beef. Some kind of stew or like. Well, more like ground beef and like a spaghetti,

like spaghetti thrown in with the, with the ground beef and like chopped up like he was feeding troops. And my mom, I gotta say my mom, we would like do frozen dinners a lot, but honest to God, Thanksgiving, my mom rocked Thanksgiving. She brought it and she would make potato salad that was like a potato salad in her accent that was just mind blowing, that just wrecked us for every other Thanksgiving. But everything, and then it all shut down for the rest of the year. And we were on our own.

It's like that was it. Did you ever say like, mom, how about turning some of that charm on some evidence? She'd have none of it. The kitchen was open once a year. It makes me think, Danny, Thanksgiving, your, did your, I guess you probably went to your grandparents with your dad, right?

Because your dad wouldn't have prepared a Thanksgiving meal. No, no, no, it was always either my grandparents or my aunt's place. Yeah, we'd all go to. You were gonna say something, so. No, I was no. It was always either my grandparents or my aunt's place. Yeah, you know, I'll go too. You were gonna say something, Steph. No, I was just very interested more about your family and what it was like. Oh, yeah, I mean, again, like I did not know

that this was a conscious choice my parents were making when I was a kid. Of course. I just thought I was hanging with my friend, but yeah, I mean, evidently they knew enough to know that he had, um, you know, some tumultuous times over there at the old home compound, the old royal manor and wanted to show him a different life.

It makes sense in retrospect. I mean, like we talked about this, but Danny's dad would show up at, you know, school concerts and other events and it was pretty evident. Sure. He was not your average bear. They probably were talking to my mom, too. There you go, yeah.

What was, what was, what did Wes's family know about your internal, your family's stuff? Well, Wes's mom was our den mother in Cub Scouts. Sure, sure. So that's how we first met. And they kind of were able to kind of figure out that chaos was raining. I'm sure Wes was like, hey, they don't have any furniture. And they don't, instead of drapes, they have newspaper and their backyard looks like something out of the Bible, you know, it's like something insane. So I think Wes probably led on and then they, you know, it's a trip. I mean, Wes's mom and my mom, they knew each other.

And they liked each other. They certainly really liked each other. And my mom may laugh a lot, you know, cause my mom was pretty funny, but our dads could not have been more different. Oh, interesting. Yeah. I mean, my dad, Wes's dad was like a rock star. They were like rock stars down the street. They had money, they were good looking.

They just had this crazy like image. Everything was just crazy. What were they were doing even in a track tone? They shouldn't even been there. But it was like, it was crazy. And then- They invested all their money in automobiles it seemed. And like, I swear to God, I mean,

and then uncle Larry was in on the, it was the two brothers and then they had massive, you know, incredible seventies chops. And what was really wild though, is I think on one level, I mean, my dad was like, uh, you know, my dad was, was, uh, kind of looking out, you know, a scant. Yeah. was kind of looking out, you know, a scant, like those hippies or rock stars down the street. But Wes's dad, he's watching the world at war. He's watching, he was obsessed with World War II and he knew that my dad had fought two wars.

Right. And not just any, I mean, my dad was with liberation forces, second wave, north of Paris, my dad was with Liberation Forces, second wave, north of Paris. My dad was a paratrooper. Yeah. And was, so I think on one level, I don't want to say Wes's dad was intimidated by my dad,

but maybe he was a little bit. I mean, but he had nothing, they were, again, they were loaded and had all this sort of, I don't know, stuff going on and we were obviously just, just getting by. So I think, I don't know what Wes's dad really thought about my dad. I think he respected my dad. He respected my dad, but he didn't really know how to, I think my dad would be like the ultimate square. Yeah.

Right, right, right, right. That's so interesting to me that you were saying that, um, that they could probably tell the backyard was the jungle and the, and the, and the newspapers and the windows that that is, first of all, I just think that's again, not to keep bringing it back to me, but like the parallel, the parallel of my house being that house in my neighborhood. Kind of the Boo Radley house. The Boo Radley house. Oh yeah. Yeah.

But also I think it's interesting that, because you were talking, I think in the last episode about how your, it was about appearances. Oh yes. But it, but it clearly wasn't, that it gets through the cracks. You know what I mean? The chaos, the internal chaos can always be seen. No, yeah. It's really interesting. Yeah, or sensed or something's up. The center could not hold.

Yes. And when Lisa moved out, hers was the only, her bedroom was right out facing the street and our immaculate front lawn, it was immaculate. So the house, looking at it from the street, you're like, oh my God, this is like a, this is like a model home inside. It was a shit show. And you didn't have to look far. You just had to lean a little out as you're passing the house and go, is that, is that newspaper?

And then on the, you know, you go to the backyard. It's like, all bets are off. Yeah. So, so, but yeah, that center could not hold and the inside of the house was, it was so symbolic, you know, but once Lisa left, things just started to fly off the cart fast. Yeah.

Yeah. I think a lot, um, in a lot of this episode, you did a really phenomenal job of putting me in your perspective as a kid. Some of the earlier episodes, I'm still laughing in this episode, but some of the earlier episodes, maybe because you were so young, the memories I didn't feel as a listener, like I was in your shoes as often there. I was at times, but not, but this episode, I mean, like, you know, just things,

going over to Wes's house, not knowing what, what was it?, but not, but this episode, I mean, like, you know, just things going over to Wes's house, not knowing what, what was it? The prep store, not knowing what. The prep shop. The prep shop. Yeah. Yeah. Just like so many vivid details and moments

that I was totally with you. And I think it's interesting that this episode, the arc of it essentially is the dissolution of the marriage. You're right that it started last week with Lisa going, but it's like the journey is Lisa goes, then you kind of go because you're spending almost every waking hour and it sounds like

sometimes overnights also at Wes's house. Fully, yeah. And then we have the incredible sequence at the skate barn. Which we'll get to, but before we get to that, I also want to make note of, to me, what's, what's nice about this episode is there's an origin story of you, Stephen Kiernan in the sense

of we finally understand sort of where this sound effects thing has come from, which obviously you use as part of your storytelling, but I've known you as having this skill for many, many years that is really remarkable, and that it came from this joyous sense of play. I don't know, I have a, I guess I have a couple of questions, which is like, my first question is, obviously the sound and sound effects is like, would you say that that is a big way in terms of how you interpret the world or, tell me about sound and your, the lens through which you view the world and what relationship that has.

I've never been asked that before. I don't know. All I know is like, again, this way I tell stories is more like cartoons. So it always seems to me like a reflection of that, like of cartoons or things that are blown out or maybe the era that I grew up. Not to mention that Wes had, like was crazy good at sound effects. And he would teach me sounds and I would teach him sounds or we would combine sounds.

I remember we would do like, we would trade off camera angles. Like if we had two planes, toy planes in the air, mine would be like, and we would cut to, we would trade off camera angles. Like if we had two planes, toy planes in the air, mine would be like, and we would cut to Wes's angle. Oh my God. So it would be like this strange back and forth. And then, you know, the sound of power steering,

when you max it out, when you're turning like, and he would do that and I would go, tires on the pulling into a gravel spot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we would team up on stuff like that. But I think as far as how to see the world, I think, again, I've never thought about this, but I think it's an expression of just sort of the, sort of the way I sort of see,

at least through telling stories, how I process it, which is not academic, and it's just more just like through feelings and colors in a way. It's sort of a secret language. Like honestly, when I think of The Sims and how The Sims came about, that that. We should just step and say that you were one of the original creators of Simlish. Yeah, co-creator of Simlish. Yeah, the video game phenomenon. Yeah, yeah. And that came out of improvisation merged with sound.

Yeah. So that we were both both Jerry Lawler and myself and Claire Curtin who was our producer and Robbie Cocker and Will Wright. Between the five of us, there was this mashing of sounds that we were working with and then trying to corral it and shape it. And to this day, if I hear a sound, I'll try and match it. I'll try and match it. Like certainly the crows lately, don't get me started on crows.

Fucking crows, man. Talk about stuff that is internal, like already on board with every crow. I can't even, it'd be a whole nother podcast. I mean, I think, because I had to note also about the sound, which is it connected to what I was saying earlier in terms of you putting us in your perspective.

That's the, I don't know what the intent is or what it says about your worldview, but the effect for me is it just, you know, in the way that a great visual art, a movie can, I can forget that I'm, that I'm watching a movie. It brings me into the moment. Like I find myself hearing it and really feeling immersed in the moment. Oh, that's interesting.

I wonder if, you know, actually, you know, we talked about this, I think, when you were on How to Destroy Everything OG. But you were talking about how people that grow up with this kind of trauma become vigilant about noticing the details around them. Hypervigilance. Yeah. And I wonder if that is part of what, even as you're discussing now, how you're list hearing the crows, like it feels like, oh yeah, you are experiencing these little frequencies of our world that I think a lot of people would just go right by them, you know what I mean? Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. Also sort of seeking out order in some way, or like trying to get... Right. seeking out order in some way, or like trying to get, a feeling like you're on a wall, a sheer wall,

trying to climb it, but you're trying to get any purchase at all on anything that's above it. And for me, a chance sometimes to go into the natural world, like look to the sky, you know, look around like- As like an exhale? Yes, as an exhale, but also an awareness of your senses. And I've heard there's so many more than we think. I taught scientists once and I talked about the five senses and they kind of were like,

actually, I once did a damn bad scientist and they said, well, actually, they didn't sound like that at all. No, they, they were talking about how many more senses there are that, that we don't even know about, well, actually. They didn't sound like that at all. No, they were talking about how many more senses there are that we don't even know about, but they know and won't tell us. So I stormed out. So don't get me started with their secrets. No, these are really amazing questions.

And Wes, one thing that Wes would do also is a way of, cause Wes was also in his own way, I believe getting through it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. In his own way. Yeah. Right, any family. Yep. And Wes would do, he would do soundtrack stuff.

What do you mean? Like if you walked into a room at GI Joe, he might go, hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm And I would be like, boom, boom, boom, boom. Just ridiculous like obnoxious. Audio files. Yeah, like of the era, you know, I've also beat boxy stuff and like trying to so. Shaft.

Yeah, shaft, exactly right. Wow. So how we played was a reflection of a lot. Yeah, shaft, exactly right. Um, um, wow. So, and then. How we played was a reflection of a lot. Yes. Oh yeah. I think that I, I hear that in the episode for sure. Um, and then we get this just unbelievable, um, revelation. About your father and, um, there's just, I just think it's just so wonderful because it is, him being a competitive

skate dancer is just so outside the box for everything, especially just in terms of what people have heard so far in terms of who he was and our image of him, I just feel like just got exploded. Pete So, what's really interesting, right, and my image of Him was exploded in that. I will say this, this is hard to talk about, but to the end of my dad's days, my dad had a command of line, of line. The way, you know, he said, I remember holding his hand, his drawing hand, after he had died. I remember holding his hand, his drawing hand after he had died. I remember holding his actual hand that was so elegant and so graceful.

So I remember before the skating story, I remember watching my dad move once in the garage, the way he was sweeping, he had a single broom in his hand, but there was something in the way that he pulled the broom that was this grace and this almost elegance and economy of line and the way that he would sign his name and the way that he commanded line on the page as an engineer back when they drew by hand. And then this happened. And so it all coalesced in that moment of like, my father was this graceful, there was so much graceful in this movement

that my father had. He was an artist. A true artist and so graceful, I believe so. I believe he really was. And my father had the way that he moved in the world, my father was dapper. He didn't spend a lot on clothes, but my father knew how to dress.

Remember one of the reasons he became a paratrooper, they dressed better. Yes, yes, yes. He loved that they, their boots went higher and that there was a fold over. I remember he would tell me that like, so there was just his, the way my father looked in clothing was like, he just, he moved in clothing in a different way. Or again, when he would sign his name, I think they called it the, the pot. was like, he just, he moved in clothing in a different way. Or again, when he would sign his name, I think they called it the pilot finger,

which is your pinky on whatever hand you write with. There was an old school way he would like sort of line up the shot and then he would, after it was like one pass, two pass, three pass. So you wouldn't just start from nothing to sign your name. Dad would have a little. Like a windup. A windup or a, yeah, it was like a picture.

It was like a picture. It's also one of the reasons I think dad loved baseball so much Yeah. Was that there was a, it's not so violent. There was a certain. There's an elegance to it for sure. There you go.

That's a great word, Darren. Yeah. So it was really crazy. So that one of the last things I remember seeing of my dad's actual body was his hand. And I made sure that it was his right hand. And I just, I have my dad's hands. My hands look just like my dad's. Oh, interesting.

So, so I'll see that move sometimes. And I just think, yeah. I think you have more than your dad's hands. I mean, I think you have an elegance of movement. Oh, for sure. Having seen you on stage, you know, just like a physicality. Yes, yes, yes, yes. I have a question, which is why do you think, because obviously he knew that by doing this at the skate park, that you would see it. Yeah.

Right? Why did he take that moment? Why now? Why then? Because of Wes. Because of the, he knew they couldn't compete. So dad was like, dad, you know, where I showed up, I was at Wes's house.

I believe dad was like, we don't have any fucking money. I don't have a fucking Cadillac. We don't have a boat. I don't have stores and fucking, you know, we don't have that shit. You know what I can do? I can dance on skates. I can dance on skates. It's sort of a fucking crazy thing to say, but I think, and he knew the marriage was

going away. So Dad was like just at least saying, Hey, I can, I can contribute something. I can contribute something because the other things that he contributed, he couldn't ever share with me that he had basically been of a generation. The fucking saved the world in some ways. I mean, really, is that too strong? No, I don't think so. Jesus Christ, you know, and I think back, it's funny, these are things I've never really

talked about, but I think in that moment, Dad was like, you know, I can fly. Yeah. Yeah, what? Yeah. Yeah, I can fly. I just thought you should know. Go have your fucking fun down there. And again, you know, whatever, go on your trip to the desert and eat steak out in the desert. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But I can fly. Yeah. Like what? And did that work? Yeah, what was your reaction in the moment? In the moment, there was so much chaos that happened after that, that sort of nuked it. But over time, over time it came back. Over time it came back in so many ways about my dad

about, look, I remember when ATM cards came out and we're all using ATM cards and dad thought that's fucking witchcraft, you know? And I remember we went to the, we went to the post office, this is answering your question. Went to the post office and we're waiting in line. We have a package, I'm waiting in line, dad's older now, much older, you know? And we're waiting in line. We have a package. I'm waiting in line dad's older now much older You know and we're waiting in line and I look over there's the machine I'm like, you know dad if we took this little box and walked over there and we swiped your card We'd be out of here no line. No line. There's no one over there and he's like, uh-huh Why don't you do some of your hocus pocus over there while

I keep, while I'll stay here. So I was like, just give me your card, give me the package. And I'm like, and whatever it was like, give me your, give me your card, just give me the card. It's the way kids now say, give me your phone, just give me your phone, give me your phone. I'll do it. I'll do it. It's an I'll do it. So in that moment, there's complete and uttered like, Jesus Christ, it's fucking generation. So this is what I did.

I went over there and I'm looking over at him and I see him waiting in line. He's just like taking one step, you know? And I'm over there, whoop, you know, out comes the thing, whoop, on goes the thing. I'm done, I'm done. But as I'm walking back, this sounds like I'm making this up but this is exactly what happened.

I'm thinking, fucking like fucking afraid of a card that links to your bank. You old man. You old man. And then this is what I thought, jumping out over occupied France. Ha ha ha ha! Fuck it.

At night. Fuck it. At night. At like maybe 19, Jesus. Just give it, just give me your card. And it dawned on me like, what the fuck am I doing? Yes, yes. So that was the house of cards that I started to see more and more, like my mom and dad, this is where I started,

I feel, to not only really accelerate this, and again, it's grace. It was an acceleration of understanding, which led to compassion, which led to forgiveness, which to me is automatic. Once I started to understand the whole picture that my father like did what? Yeah. Yeah. And he lied to get in. Yeah. You know, maybe they'll cut this out. Anyway, on 9-11, when the second plane hit and we all went, huh. I called my dad and I said, what are you doing? And he said, I'm looking for my uniform. Oh my God. Wow. Wow. And I remember I heard something like

break in the background, like, like he, like he hit something in rage, he was enraged. Now look, yeah, it's not black and white, you know, all that happened on that day. But for this, for my father, I'm looking, this is what he literally said, I'm looking for my fatigues, my fatigues, which is different. Your uniform is one thing, but dad's fatigues, those are fighting fatigues. Yeah, uniform is the ceremonial. It's battle. Uniform is ceremonial. Battle is the fight. I always love that Hamlet's dad shows up as the ghost. He shows up in full battle armor. He's not just showing up, he shows up

ready for war. So it's funny, I will never forget that day in that moment. I thought, I should probably check in with people that I love. It's all called dad across the, you know, we were in Los Feliz. Dad was in Northridge and he said, I'm looking for my fatigues. And I'm sure that he was. Yeah. Wow. No wild.

That is wild. Absolutely wild. You know, to this, um, to back to the skates for a second and the impact that they did have on you off the air, you were showing us a picture of the skates, um, which you guys found and you were telling us about a moment when your dad was right about 80.

Thereabouts. Yeah. Yeah. Can you talk about that? Yeah, we're all up to the house and we're dads and we had the box, dad didn't have the box. So we brought the box up to the house that had the skates. It was this ridiculous silver, you saw it, iron clad box, you open it up and it's like,

light would shoot out there with the actual skates. There was the key, there were the manuals, and then on the back cover, like you saw, were these stickers from the skate palaces all across the Midwest, right? And so we said, Dad, would you ever want to get up on these again? No, no, no. And we did, we got them up on his skates. Oh man. At eight years old. Yeah, we all stood around because we were like, oh Jesus did, we got him up on his skates. Oh man. At eight years old. Yeah, we all stood around, because we were like, oh Jesus Christ,

this would be a horrible ending. But we all got around him and he hung on to us and he just was sobbing. Oh my God. I mean, I think about that in context with the moment when he first revealed his skills to you as like, yeah, you think Wes's family's so good, well, I can fly.

And Dan, you asked whether or not it worked in the moment. And maybe in the moment, you're right, it didn't cause it got nuked by all the drama that came after, but it worked in the long run. In the long run, it didn't. I have to say in the moment, technically, as I stood at the half wall with Sheila, it worked. I didn't know what I was seeing.

I was like, I couldn't believe it. And then he's dancing with some total, I always see her so I was like, Ann-Margret, really tall with lots of hair and stuff. And I just was like, I think we were just in pure and complete awe and also couldn't process what we were seeing. Like, what?

Yes. And then the part that, I mean, obviously to me, the most emotional part of this is hearing you deal with this prospect of them separating. Yes. And praying to kill you in order to make that not happen. It's what kids do. You can't process that your parents, they're gods. They have to be. So I think that was just, well, it's you. It was obviously me and it was like, here's the deal. I remember it was such a Catholic thing, like, okay, all right, if you're going to play it this way, here's the deal.

Tell you what, I'm going to make you a little deal, God, and kill me. If they can be married, don't just kill me, by the way. It was like, don't get me wrong. I was real clear about it. I'm not going to die in vain. Don't let me die in vain. But if they can be married, I'm willing to give up my life. And I really, really believed that and prayed for it in earnest, which I think is just,

it's gotta be evolution, right? What is that? You blame yourself. The kid blames themselves for the divorce. Just what a horrible thing though, for a kid to be genuinely praying for that. Kill me. It's unfathomable to me. That breaks my heart when I see pictures of myself at that age.

Cause I was so young. I was 11, 12 years old. Did you have any of that, Danny? Um, no, not that I can remember. Well, you were so young, Danny, when they split. I was six when they split. There you go. Yeah, there you go.

It was just, yeah. But even as you, as things got horrible, when you. Yeah. I was six when they split. There you go. Yeah. There you go. It was just. Yeah. In my regard. But even as you, as things got horrible when you were 10, 11 and 12, uh, it doesn't strike me that you would have been praying. It was always very clear to me who was the problem and it wasn't me. Like that's that. That's a blessing. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. It was that, that it's true. It's at that moment that we talk about in the pilot of the first season where I had this thought that my, oh, my dad is sick, that I realized that that's what that was about. Did your parents have any sense that that's sort of where you were at emotionally? God, no. No. No. At least, you know what? They may have. Here's the only indicator. My fourth grade report card said,

Steven is much too hard on himself. How old are you in fourth grade? Yeah. 10 or something? Yeah, 10. So this is like a year prior to the divorce. 10 and 11. So this is that behavioral like controlling,

I've gotta be good, I've gotta be good, I've gotta be better, I've gotta be good, or've got to be good, I've got to be better, I've got to be good. Or else I'm going to kill my mom. I thought I was going to give my mom another heart attack. Oh, wow. I thought, you know, that I somehow was to blame, you know, for her racing heart, you know, and when it's like, she's smoking like a chimney, you know, and it's- It's not the lucky strikes, it's you.

It's right, exactly. It's not all the stress with my dad. Yeah, yeah. So, and all the stress with my dad. And all the trauma growing up. So I remember that that was one indicator, but I was never taken aside and going, honey, you know, you got to stop being so hard on yourself. I also wonder, it's so interesting to me that obviously this is episode three, we've heard about some of the kind of epic fights that your parents would have, that there was no sense of relief whatsoever when this chapter

comes to a close. No, it was just even in some ways more terrifying, because at least they were together, at least we had a home. And now, as we're leading up to this, now things start to get like surreal. Like things now like terrifying as a kid, like that to me to this day, I think I'm still sorting it, but this is where things started to feel like, I don't know, like it's like we were.

You had a safety net. At least they were together and at least we had a place to be, you know, and now I didn't know what was going to happen. What's the expression? The devil, you know, you don't. Um, yeah. Yeah. Wow.

Well, maybe that's a pretty good place to, to, to, um, to start to wrap up because you are starting to get into kind of the next chapter. Can I just say one thing? Please. In Wayne, in the show Wayne. Yes, which you acted in. And I acted in.

They asked if they could use from my one-man show the monologue where I described dad skating. Oh, yes. So on Wayne, I had to do that monologue as a character who's largely based on my father, describing what happened in that moment of my dad becoming a skate dancer right before my eyes, including Fred Astaire, like here is this man that I, the line I think in Wayne is who, who like went through life like a wrecking ball became Fred Astaire.

That was surreal. But I remember them calling me. It was on my day off. We were filming in Toronto. I was at a mall and they called. They go, do you think we could use that monologue? Do you think your character could do that? And I said, let me call my sisters.

Yeah. It's amazing. People should look it up. It is wild. It's incredible. It's really great. Yep. So next week is episode four, the road to 333. Oh yes. Yeah.

What should we look forward to in this episode, Mr. Kieran? This is the road trip. This is the epic road trip that I won't give too much away, but this is the epic road trip with my sisters that sort of culminates in us, in us getting, you could say our lucky number. Jared Okay, so there you have it. But before we wrap up this episode, let's go ahead and play a clip from that episode, which will be airing next week.

Alan My two sisters and I, with a stashed wad of bills in a dented little Dotson, next week. conjures images of a romantic panoramic strip of two-lane heaven, all savored at the gentlest, most humane pace you could imagine. And to be fair, large southern stretches of the coast highway are as idyllic as a retro postcard would have you believe. But push north, and you become increasingly aware of the prelude to the Vertigo soundtrack pouring out of your dashboard. And should you make it as far as Big Sur, the party is now officially over. How to Destroy Everything presents Toughen Up is written, performed and created by Stephen Caron. Executive produced by Darren Grotsky and Danny Jacobs.

In partnership with Eastman Productions and 333 Productions. Story editing by Lisa Blair and Sheila Stevens. Music mixing and mastering by Arlo Sanders. Audio engineering by Glenn Eastman. Original Theme Music by Alan Simpson. Original Artwork by Derek Yee. Kitchen Pep Talk by Joyce Kieran. Thanks to Helen, Diane and Steve, Bob and Carla, Art and Joyce, Dave, Sean and the DeTye family. Special thanks to Mom, Dad, Lisa, Sheila, and Joe. For questions, feedback, and of course any stories about Danny's dad,

we can be reached at Iknowrichardjacobs at gmail.com. If you would like to support this podcast, please consider becoming a patron at www.patreon.com forward slash howtodestroyeverything. And of course, you can find us on Instagram and Blue Sky as well. How to Destroy Everything Presents Toughen Up is available on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Special thanks to Spotify Studios for the use of their beautiful recording space in downtown Los Angeles.