If I Were You - 378: Sing Along

Episode Date: April 15, 2019

In this episode we discuss adopted siblings, Jake's childhood, and Amir's LASIK.HeadGum Live! Is coming to Chicago on June 14-16. Come hang with us and our friends -- tickets here.See omny.fm/listener for privacy information.

This is a headgum podcast. I got quite a few podcasts too. But back to if I were you. Well you can't forget your mom's house. Stop. Don't do it. Don't go wrong. Don't go wrong.

Don't go wrong. Don't go wrong. Now look over here right now. These are funny shows you got drained off from on a rainy day. No you're off script. These are vows on a plane. The ragged flag in half miles. These are all funnier podcasts.

Ass. Another diss track. We've been trolled. We're absolutely been trolled. I hate and love that one. That was so good and bad and mean and funny to us. It was written by Taylor who's 19 years of rage he says. Whoa.

And he's also on the latest season of American Idol. What? Yeah. To summarize, in life I wish you the best. In chicken I wish you the breast. And needless to say in treasure I wish you the chest. My Instagram is at Taylor Van Cleave official. Is it legit?

Instagram Taylor Van Cleave. Yes. His name yields a New Jersey Singers to Hollywood for American Idol news story. Wow. And not just to audition like to be on the show. Oh no. To open call. That's a pass for me dog.

Nice. Taylor Van Cleave. I wonder how many great singers there are in the world that just don't know it because they never sing. Maybe there's a decent amount. No, I mean not you. You've obviously sung before and it was awful. I was just saying, I was just, I was comparing with you.

I really do think maybe there's a decent amount. I obviously was talking about me. Oh my God. That was so bad. That was not even warmed up. Well yeah, it clearly wasn't warmed up. It was so much worse than mine. No.

Yes it was. We should do an actual American Idol style. See you as a better singing voice. Me or you. We'll let the people decide. Okay. I think what did I say? Like I wanted you to sing something earnestly once.

Like I need a week to prepare. No, I said I needed, it needed to not be funny to me anymore because I knew that I would laugh. I would not take it seriously. Okay. No, I won't either. So singing contest. You and I will have a singing contest.

And people would vote for which one did better. And what song do you think you would choose? I would probably choose a Weezer song since my voice is already kind of like a Weezer. That's like close to his range and I would do a Rob Thomas. That's cool. Yeah. It's like so smooth or something. Yeah.

Well not smooth. It probably be like a little bit more of like, oh I wonder what it'd like to be the rainmaker. Yeah. He's not in my range either actually. My voice is a little, maybe a Goo Goo Dolls. What's a Goo Goo Dolls song? Baby's Black Balloon makes it fun. That's a little too deep too.

What about With Eyes Wide Open? Who's that one? Yeah. That's good. I don't think so. I don't think. Maybe I'll just do something simple like, oh you do kid rock. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Maybe I'll do like, yeah motherfucker. Like first I fucked your bitch in the west side when we ride come equipped with gangs. You claim to be a player but I fucked your wife Tupac. Tupac. So that's not even like a song. Yeah.

That's really singing. That's rapping. Yeah. I get that. And I understand what you're coming from. It's not really, you have a good rapping voice but if you have a good rapping voice it's not necessarily a singing voice, right? Yeah.

And it's rare that you have both, right? Drake has it. Drake what? Has it both? That's what I would do. I would do a Drake song. Like what? Like probably I would do Take Care.

Take care by Drake? Yeah. Let's hear it. No, I can't. I can't just fucking bust it to take care. No, I honestly can't even think of how it starts. Hold on a second. One time you and all your girls in the club one time.

No, I can't. That was really good. Really? That was like awesome. Were you talking or singing? Because it sounded so clear to me. We both made mistakes girl. Like that?

That's good. That was really good but that was like a little taste. That was an appetizer. Now my tongue is wet for more. I'll be there for you. I'll care for you. You keep saying you just don't know. Try and run for that taste.

Stop it. Stop it. Because it's so good. Because you said you have the taste. So bad. You wet my appetite with an amazing little amuse-bouche. A dumpling that I loved. And then for the main course you fed me coal.

And for that I am in dog. You're through to Hollywood. You're in? Yes. Because you gave me something during that appetizer that made me realize it's in you. And whatever happened during the second part. And that'll never happen again dog. I promise you.

I think dog for you and for me that would have been a pass for me dog. But what happened dog was totally different. It's not going to be a pass. So for you that was really good. Wow. And for me I would choose a song that's close to everyone's hearts. Go ahead. Someday somebody's going to ask you a question that you should say yes to once in your life.

Baby tonight I've got a question. Knock it off. Knock it off. You're accosting me. And for you dog what do you think? You're obviously through to Hollywood dog. Oh my god. We're on the search for the worst singers in America.

And you're it dog. It's me you and Van Cleave. It's American Idol but spelled I-D-L-E. People so stagnant in their music career that they have to be American for it. That makes sense. And you are through to Hollywood for that dog. All right. This isn't a singing competition.

This is a fire you. The only advice podcast on the web hosted by me. And me. I'm Randon Jackson. And I'm Simon Crowell. This is our first episode that I hope comes out after we have announced the new Head Gum Live 2019 show. That is correct. This is our biggest head gum fest to date.

We usually go to South by Southwest. But this time we said let's make it a little bigger in a more glorious city. So we're moving from Austin to Chicago. Chi Town, baby. The Big Apple. The Windy City. Not really the Big Apple. The City of Angels.

Not the City of Angels. Austin, Texas. Not Austin, Texas. Oh yeah. The different. That was the old one. That's not even like a nickname. That was just the wrong city.

You know about Chi Town. Do you think about me now and then? Do you think about me now and then? Because I'm going home again. Baby, we should start again. That was incredible. Really? Can you see the tears rolling down my cheeks?

No. That's because I'm not crying. That's because you suck, Mickey. You can't sing, Mickey. You're Aspen. You're never was, Mickey. I want you to go to Hollywood, Mickey. I want you to stare Simon Cowell in the face and sing for him what I just heard.

Because once he gets a whiff of that taste, Mickey, you'll want another one. Mix of Mickey and audition. Very good. I love it. Head Gum Live 2019. It's not only this podcast. It's also not another D&D podcast. It's NADPod.

It is Nicole Byers. Why won't you date me podcast? It is us. It is Doughboys. Wow. It is Hey Riddle Riddle. It is maybe Twinnovation. They haven't accepted or rejected yet.

They're a little slow on the uptake, but we're hoping to God they'll be there too. We're coming with not only us, but so many of our Head Gum friends. The show's going to be big. The theater is awesome. We could fit like 600 people in there. We're going to have six shows over the course of three days. Full weekend, baby. Tickets are just getting announced this week if we play our cards right.

If you go to jacadamere.com, maybe headgum.com, we'll try to put them as many places as possible. Buy a ticket for our show. Buy a ticket for my D&D show. Buy a ticket for all of the shows. We hate movies, I should say. It's also going to be there. Come for the whole weekend. Come and hang.

It's going to be fun. And even if we're not performing, we'll be there hanging out. So come on by and see as many as possible. You see me after the show, baby. We haven't been to Chicago in a minute. Yeah. I don't think I've been to Chicago. I don't even remember the last time we did a show there.

Same. It's been a long time since I've been to Chicago. Two years ago that we did that. I really hope it's not snowing in June. It's not going to be snowing in June. It won't be snowing, but with the wind chill, it'll be negative five. Forty-two. Shit.

It's just not going to be dreary that day. And we're not even doing a Midwestern run. So if you're in Madison, Detroit, Minneapolis, make a fucking weekend out of it. Hell, if you're in Austin and you feel like we let you down by not going to South by. Hop on that bus and you come to Headgum Live. Tickets available, hopefully now. All right. Let's see if we can answer some questions, shall we?

Yes. Do what we came here for. About time. This one was written by a lady who's in AP Physics. So we'll call her Sunny, the name of my AP Physics teacher in high school. That's right. I took college level physics as an 11th grader. I stared that curriculum in the eye and I say, I want to take the exam at the end of the year.

I want to be graded as such. I am a 16-year-old, but my level in physics is so high it is college level. It is advanced placed. Yeah. I went busy getting a second base in high school. Okay. Really? Actually, no.

But I also failed physics. You what? I failed physics. You said also. Bish. I failed physics. I failed physics, man. You can't even talk anymore.

I failed physics. Man. I actually barely passed the exam. It was quite a hard course for me. Really? I spoke a big game, but I missed a lot of the curriculum. I had acne that year and it sort of sidelined me. Acne, bacne, and thacne.

That was thick bacne. I had echinacea. I had rosacea. I had echinacea. That's right. I spent four weeks killing kids in Japan. I had echinacea. Twice over.

But this question is from Sunny. Hello. I'm a senior in high school and this year in AP physics, I got placed next to my friend's brother. Long story short, we hit it off. We have the same sense of humor and are both extremely smart and athletic. He's one year younger, but I don't even relate to his sister as much as I relate to him.

We've hung out a few times and he was the one who actually introduced me to Jake and Amir. Hey. Cool. I really like him and he introduced me to so many new things and surprises me so often with little quirks like origami, juggling, and solving a Rubik's cube way too fast for a cool person. Sounds like my kind of guy.

He always says things that make me way too hopeful like, you're one of the smartest and funniest girls I know, which is crazy to hear because he is usually an impatient, hypocritical asshole who doesn't like most people, a.k.a. just my type, but like, what do I do about his sister? Me and her don't talk very much and are nothing alike physically and in person. Oh, sorry. Skipped a line. Me and her don't talk very much anymore, but it is super awkward to run into her while

I'm hanging out with her younger brother. Then again, she's adopted. So it's cool, right? Huh? We're nothing alike physically and in personality, but I knew her first and I don't even know if he likes me like that. Sure, he snuck me into his house to do acid that one time and we've slept in his bed together, but he also hates commitment and seems to not give a shit about a lot of things

and I'm cool with a casual relationship, but at least let it be a step above just friends. Again, the whole sister thing is an issue. Will I ruin their family? I feel like I can't tell anyone how close we are because of all the technicalities. How do I handle this? Not sure if I can keep it on the low. He's a six foot five inch basketball MVP and I'm the salutatorian, musical theater star.

Any help is appreciated. Love your show. Love Sunny. That's a fucking TV movie in the making, right? Sunny came home. Like six foot five basketball star and the salutatorian theater nerd. Salutatorian is second place. That's a weird thing high schools do, that they rank people and give them little names

like that. Yeah, second place is funny because it's just the first loser. I salute you, salutatorian. Not quite the valedictorian, right? No, that person beat you, but second place is pretty good too. What was your rank at school? We didn't even have ranks. I went to a private school.

Maybe that's a public school thing. Public schools literally give you a number out of a number, right? Right, I think that- Like you're 63rd out of 122. Yeah, you like fully know. Why is that? Why do you think they tell that to people? Is it to make the smart people feel good and the dumb people feel like they should

work harder? Maybe for college admissions. There's no reason to know your rank. Do you remember any of your ranks? I also went to private school. You never got the ranks? I think, I don't know, there was like a rumor going around school that there was like rankings, but-

Yeah, school rankings should be like private, like a thing that you hear about. It's weird that they printed on your report card your individual ranking. My ranking was definitely low though. And then how do they tell? Is it purely just GPA, like just, because there's also like the teacher's list of the hottest students. Were you on that? That's right.

I was on that. Yeah. I was the third, it was called the Pudatorian. I was the third ugliest male in my weight class. In your weight class. They would weigh us. What was your weight class in high school? I was 115 and under.

Jesus. Yeah. I was the Pudatorian in the Scronitorium. Were you not the Juditorian? Everyone was the Juditorian in my school. They would put us all, there was a scale on stage and they would weigh us all. They would pants us and they would see who had the stretchiest sack. That would make you the Pudatorian.

I had the tautest sack. Yeah. So the least amount of wrinkles. And that made you the Pudatorian. Yeah. That was so. Because you had the. Third ugliest, Scroniest and I had the greasiest skin.

115 with a tight sack and a greasy pimple. Oh, and guess what? I was an AP Physics. Failing. Yes. Failing. The thing is I cheated at honor's physics. What was this girl's problem?

Should I date someone's, I'm friends with her sister, this is her brother, but she's adopted. Does the adopted thing play into it? No. I like how it's like, she's adopted. They're nothing to like physically. Yeah, I figured, unless this is weird coincidence where you look like the person that adopted you.

Yeah. That'd be interesting. I think if she says anything, he's not even your real brother. You're adopted, right? And then you and the boyfriend laugh and then it's, come on, don't be a dick to her. You walk away. What is this role play? So it's two girlfriends, like their friends.

That's right. But now she likes this girl's. Younger brother. Okay. Which happened to you? You somebody dated your sister? Knock it off. Was it an awkward situation?

Cool. If you were adopted, would that make them less hesitant to do so? I guess that, it makes sense that that would be in the person who wants in on the fam, in their mind. Yeah. But I feel like to the fam, you grow up with somebody, that's your sibling. So it's not really like, I don't know. How often do you think about like, this is my brother, we share blood.

Yeah. It's more like, this is my brother. I've known him since I was zero. And now you're really, now you're at dinner with my fucking parents and I'm here too and it's weird to me. But at least for me, it was like, I didn't want it to happen because I was like, I don't want you guys to hurt each other and for it to be weird. But then they dated for a very, very long time and it ended up being nice.

I would prefer that I had the two people that I love, love each other and be in my life even more. So like, if the choice is they hook up and it's weird or they hook up and stay together and get married and that's my family, I would choose the second one. Well, obviously I would choose that one. And the third option is like, you just remain friends and sibling. Of those three options, I'd choose marriage togetherness. So I guess the weird thing is that you don't really know what's going to happen if it's

going to be the marriage and together or hook up and weird. For me, it turned out dating for four years and then breaking up. So that wasn't super convenient either. But that option is on the table here. It's in play. Or you can say like, oh, if I get married to your brother, I guess we can both be your parents' fake daughter. Stop being such a bitch.

I hate this role play. Yeah, it's sort of like bully cosplay. Yeah. But the guy's kind of nice. Yeah, the guy's like, don't be so fucking mean to my stupid sister. Stop, Sheila, let's go. I've never heard you do this voice before. Sonny stop being like a little bitch.

What? You're like a chill hero douchebag. Yeah. Because like he's not stopping her, but like he like sort of feels bad that he has to like tell his girlfriend. We'll talk about my family. Come on. Come on.

Let's fucking go. We're going to go make out. Where are they going? Bye. You're adopted. Shut up. So am I. What?

What's the big deal? I honestly had no idea that you're adopted. Why did you need me to have parents? My gift is my song and this one's for you and you can tell everybody that this is your song. It might be quite simple that now that it's just really, you like really have to cool it. Stop being such a bitch.

Come on, Sonny. Let's just go. So Sally can wait. She knows it's too late as she's walking up. Key change. Whisper change. So slides away. You're an ugly singer and it's not just the voice, it's the face you make makes you ugly.

You're actually going to make me look back in anger. You're going to make me look back in anger right now. Shut up. I'm serious, Sonny. All right. Let's take a break. We'll be back after thanking a few sponsors. Thank you to Aura Frames for sponsoring this Head Gum podcast.

You know, Aura Frames is sponsoring not just this episode, but the entire Head Gum network, Jake. Wow. That's correct. I mean, this might be the Goat Father's Day gift. I think it actually is. Yeah. Yeah, not just Father's Day, but if for any not so tech savvy family member that you

need a gift for soon, these digital photo frames might be the best of all time. Yeah. Personally, these things are perfect. I'll tell you why. As you know, I am expecting my first child. We got one for Jill's parents. Oh, wow. We got one for Jill's grandma.

Holy smokes. We got one for my parents. So there are three of these bad boys in our family right now, but they're great, really easy way to like stay in touch with your family. You can upload as many photos as you want directly into my parents' kitchen. It's really nice. That's cool. So you take a photo of anything, perhaps a baby, and then it goes to their digital photo.

Yeah. Frame. This is actually how we told Jill's grandma she was pregnant. We got her the aura frame. We plugged it in. Jill's grandma was pregnant. Really nice asshole. This was actually a really sweet moment for me and my wife and you're trying to make a

joke of it. I was just being goofy a little bit like, this is how I told my grandma she was pregnant. Yeah. She misheard it or something like that or the way you said it was kind of like, could go either way. By the way, Jill's grandma is pregnant. Oh my God. Jill's grandma is 90 and pregnant.

It's pretty cool. And you told me with a digital photo frame. Holy smokes. And we let her know with an aura. Yeah. Thank you. The aura announcement. So you can instantly frame photos from any device anywhere and invite the whole family

in on the fun through the aura app. Add me to your aura app. I'd love to upload just a picture of me like at a pool or something. That could be funny. Yeah. Like your banana or your dog alongside pictures of my daughter. Yeah. Yeah.

Exactly. You deserve that. You can even preload photos and add a personal video message that will display as soon as your dad or anybody connects to the frame. Yeah. It's a great gift. A really, really iconic gift. And right now you can save on the perfect Father's Day gift and visit auraframes.

That's A-U-R-A frames.com. And our listeners can use code HEADGUM to get up to $30 off plus free shipping on the best selling frames. There it is. Oh, wow. This is timely. The deal ends on June 18th. So don't wait.

Terms and conditions apply. That's A-U-R-A frames.com. Okay. Go get your parent something, all right. And use the code HEADGUM for $30 off plus free shipping. Thank you, Aura. And now back to the HEADGUM podcast you were listening to. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp.

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Check him out. Thanks, BetterHelp. And we're back. Jake, do you have any? Oh, it's a letter to the fire. Mom, I'm coming. Gross. Um, no.

How about Head Gum Live again? June, I don't think we have said the date. Oh. So, okay. June 14th, 15th, 16th, I believe. Yeah. Middle of June. Should we go back and edit in the beginning?

No. It creates intrigue. I hope I'm available. I guess we gave people the URL they could search. So it's mid June, Chicago, Head Gum Live, our show, your other show, various other family. My other show. You just toss it aside.

My other show, Jake's other show. It's like your little side thing, the hard one thing, the hard one family hour or whatever the fuck it's called. All right. Hard one family hour. Not another D&D podcast. And it is not any other D&D podcast. It's the best podcast in the fucking world.

Makes this one look like a piece of shit. All right. Sorry. You guys have a... Oh, this is you singing. This guy was gold. It was rose. I was taking sips up and through my nose and I wish I could get back there someplace.

Back there. Who made the D&D theme song? What? You guys don't have a theme song? Yeah, we do. It's like this story. Is it like royalty free music? I don't know if Emily makes like almost all of the music in that show.

So maybe she did it. But I'm not sure if she made the theme song. I think that might have been like royalty free music that Murph bought. I see. But then after that, it's all been Emily. Very smart. I would say maybe I would suggest LASIK has my unsolicited advice, but though this is coming out the week after I got it, I still haven't received it yet.

I suggest it is my unsolicited advice? Yes, you did. And here I am taking it. That's fucking cool of me unless I'm completely blinded. So I will wait. I'll feel bad if that happens. If I was blinded. Some people do LASIK one eye at a time just for that fear.

Really? Yeah. They're like, if you're going to blind me, I'm not giving you that second eye, dumbass. Jokes on you, brother. I only did one eye. One eye is blind and the other one is like negative four and a half and you're like, just try to do the other eye because one of the odds of getting it. If I'm only going to have one good one, I want it legit.

I don't want to put a contact in it. In the history of LASIK, done LASIK, one eye at a time because they were so freaked out about being blind and they were right. Well, motherfucker, you actually turned out. Better to be safe than sorry, right? Jesus. Did I get a real right, doc? Imagine if I did them both, you bastard.

All right. I'm not fucking begging you for this one, obviously, and I need a monocle recommendation. It was just so fucking absurd. I'm happy that I was vindicated, but fuck you, dude. Right. I've got to admit, it feels a little good to be right. It's all you quack. Af quack.

No, I'm going to leave you a fucking three-star yell for me for that. Right, and I do the af quack thing because I'm going to use my insurance to sue you. I said I wanted to do one at a time, and you kind of giggled at yourself, being like, suit yourself. You had this goal from the get-go. And so, yeah, fuck you for not believing in me and then for blinding me, and then I have to wear one contact. I can't play catch with my little boy anymore.

Fuck, I'm going to attack you. Don't hold me back. Let me out of him. The laser's getting in your other eye. No, no, no, no. That's smart. That hurt me. All right, stay tuned for how my experience went.

Hopefully better than this midlife man with a mustache who's now blind in one eye, a Ned Flanders of sorts. All right, time for some more questions here. Yeah. This one is from an Indian man who will call Kunal our Indian friend. Hi, guys. Kunal here. Hope you guys are doing well in Todah to Jake on getting married.

I'm in a bit of a sticky situation here, and I was hoping y'all could shed some light on it. Okay. My girlfriend and I have been dating for a little over a year and a half, and everything is absolutely perfect. But? So not absolutely perfect. Just say things are great.

You don't have to say absolute and perfect. I don't feel guilty as they're writing this. 100% no complaints except for this one thing. Did I ever tell you about the one...this is a real non-sequitur and I apologize. Well, let's have that. But this is like, I feel like kind of the vibe of like when you're writing something. You feel a little guilty almost as you're doing it. Yeah.

So you're like, if she ever hears it, just know that I said you're absolutely perfect. Right. But I like, all right. So I had like, I didn't really have a journal when I was a kid, but when I was in sixth grade, I was like really mad at my mom and I like wrote in a, I just like had like a yellow legal pad and I just like wrote this like angry letter of like, it was like, basically my first entry of a deer diary, but I only started this like legal pad because I really had to vent about like some shit my mom was doing.

I can't remember what it was, but I went to town and then the second half was just me like systematically taking everything back. And the one detail I remember is that like my parents were like trying to buy a beach house, which I like vented about in this because they haven't pulled the fucking trigger yet. No, cause I thought it was so ugly and I wanted to spend the summer like with my friends and I didn't want to like go to the beach every day. And I was like, this, and it sucks. It's so ugly.

And then two sentences later, like, and I guess it's not that bad and I love my mom. Just in case you found it. No, just cause I felt guilty putting it into the world that I was like, that I was mad. Like just. I was so therapeutic that you did a complete 180 by the time you finished this. Like I can't talk shit about my mom. I love her. How old were you?

I guess I was 12. Oh, pretty solid. Sixth grade. Not yet a woman. Actually, you know, maybe it was fifth. I'm not a girl, not yet a woman. Now we're finding our range. All I need is time, a moment that is mine.

Yeah, but that song sucks. She's so lucky. Oh, she's. Oh, she's. Shut up. Cry, cry, cry with the broken heart thinking shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up. Hold on. Shut up.

I'm singing. She's so lucky. Oh, shut up. And anytime I see her in my dreams, I see your face is haunting me. I guess I'll need you, baby. So, you know the lyrics are now. I don't. Shut up.

Shut up. The only thing that seems to be a bit of an issue between us. Oh, here, sorry, I skipped this part. We live together in a small town and I can't get enough of each other, even though we're almost always together. She's definitely the girl I want to marry. She's from a small town in Texas and I was born in India, but grew up all over the world and moved here in 2012.

The only thing that seems to be a bit of an issue between us that we have some wildly differing views on certain topics. One of the biggest ones that we always seem to argue about is whether we should eventually get a firearm for protection. I'm pro gun control and don't want to have a gun in the house, but she believes that we will need it when we have a family just in case. I also feel strongly for things like Black Lives Matter and support things like Black Panther, the movie, and This Is America by Childish Gambino.

That's such a light stance. I support this song, but she feels stuff like that and any discourse about race relations like Spike Lee's speech at the Oscars are inappropriate and not everything should be about race and stuff like that. She believes people who quote, throw the race card at everything are actually racist. I love her more than life itself, but whenever topics like this come up, we have little arguments that make me wonder if these are deal breakers. Sorry for the long question, but if you guys could shed some light on my quandary, I would

really appreciate it. Break up with her. Oh, those are deal breakers to him? They're deal breakers. You don't know what he thinks if that's fine. I think if you are in a perfect relationship, he's in this honeymoon romance stage and you're arguing over these really, really large issues. Well, let's start with a gun thing.

Gun control and racism. This is gun control to Major Tom. This is gun control to Racist Tom. It really makes the grade. If Jill really, really wanted a gun, did you get a gun? No, no way. Even if she's like, I'll put it in a safe. I would move out before I allowed a gun in my house.

Really? I don't think I would be that against guns. I don't want a gun, but she's like, I really, really want one and we could put it in a safe. I'd be like, sure, go for it. I mean, I'd really want to, no, I wouldn't stand for it. You just say no. A gun in a safe, what is that for? For my protection?

Yeah, you hear someone break in, you fucking, oh, get up, get up, get up. Then you go to the fucking closet. Safe opening now. Shut the fuck up. Go past zero, you have to clear it. They're already in your bedroom using a fucking AR-15. I feel like for the guns that make sense as protection, it has to be like not in a safe. Yeah.

It has to be like, it has to be bond style under the pillow duct taped like under the bed. You grab it and then at that point, it's not safe because it's not in a safe. Yeah. It's a loose gun in the house. Yeah. It's almost like if someone breaks in the house to kill me, I deserve it and I should die for it.

Right. And if they break in the house to rob me, then I'll pretend to be asleep until they're gone. Watch this. But I don't need to get into a firefight with the guy robbing me, right? And I'll fucking pretend like he got me if he shot me. I guess if someone was breaking in my house, I would just sneeze really loud so he'd like, oh, shit.

Someone's home. Do you have a baseball bat? I do have a baseball bat. That's cool. Yeah. That's as far as you'll get. Yeah. And I've used the baseball bat.

What do you mean you've used it? I've gone to town on some criminal stuff. A pizza man who was sort of lost his way. I broke his leg. There was a Girl Scout incident that I don't want to talk about. There have been times when we heard something and I exited the house with my baseball bat. Whoa. How'd that feel?

It felt cool. I still didn't want there to be a problem. Yeah, you didn't want to use it. But I felt like it sort of was like, I hope my cute neighbor is seeing me do this because I look like a badass. You were just an underwear, a pajama pants, no shirt. I was squaring a night guard and a night gown with a stocking cap. Oh no, oversized Elmo slippers.

My sleeping mask was on, I tripped and I had a little, you know, like the little buttons over my fanny so I could sit down and take a dookie at night. I had that and the flap was open. So that what happened there? You hit your head on the bat. I bonked my noggin. Yeah, you fell down flat. The flap came open and you started shitting yourself.

The robber, who was a robber, not the neighbor by the way, it felt so bad for you. He walked in, couldn't help but crack up at the sight of your ass like a volcano going off. By the way, it's 11 AM. Nobody needed this to happen. Most crimes will happen when somebody, they suspect is there at work. That's right. You had slept in on that day.

I slept in on the day. Do you have a ring cam? No, I don't, but I was thinking about getting one of those. Now I'm in New York, so I don't know if I really need one. I got a ring cam and ring cam is starting to socialize its app where it's like, hey guys, take a look. This ring cam footage I uploaded, this guy's rummaging through my trash at 3 AM last night, post it.

Or like, hey, this creepy looking lady is just walking by my house at 2 in the morning. That seems like it will very quickly become problematic. Look at this young youth in a hooded sweatshirt. What is he doing on my street? He was trying to sell me something, but I was afraid of his hoodie, but people can upload and comment on this stuff. It's like that next door app, but as a ring camera. God, I would hate to be in that comment section.

Anyway, you should give your girlfriend that app and ask her what she thinks about it. See if she's like, oh, let's upload this video to see if these are just sort of passing ideas that she has because she's from a small town or if they're rooted in deep racism that she just can't shake because like, he's all over the place. He's like, she wants a gun. Also she thinks that supporting Black Panther is racist and also she doesn't like me listening to childish Gambino. It's like some of the stuff she's saying is like kind of misunderstood and some of the

stuff is like over borderline racism. Right. I think, I guess like there's some more research that you have to do, but I feel like things like when you talk about inequality, somebody saying that you're playing the race card is like textbook thing that racist people do. Yeah. So you want to be like careful of shit like that. The context clue of being in a small town in Texas leads me to believe that there is

something there, although not all small town people in Texas have racist sensibilities. Of course. But I think if these things are important to you, they're worth talking about in the relationship and like, sure your relationship seems good if you can't talk about hot button issues, but like you have, those are things that are worth talking about. They're going to come up. I mean, how racist can she be? She might want to marry this non-white man.

That's true. He's a brown man. He's an Indian man. So right off the bat, she's not a hundred percent certifiable R word. We should do couples therapy. Me sitting in front of both of them, they're both crying at this point. What? So I don't know what I'm talking about.

I'm just saying have a conversation is all Christ. All right. Another question before we get the hell out of here from another dude who's in a legit pickle. Okay. My little brother is being a douche nozzle, so let's call this guy Micah. What? Because it's a little brother of yours.

Yeah. My little brother's the man. Yeah. But this guy's little brother's being a douche nozzle. Yeah. Well, my brother would never be a douche nozzle. Let's call him Amir because you're a little brother to your two big brothers and you're being a douche nozzle.

This guy has a little brother. So do I. He's a little brother. All right. I'll call him Jake then. Okay. Okay. Fine.

Awesome. I'm in a legit pickle and I could use your combined Jewish wisdom to help me out. A couple of days ago, I was talking to my dad and found out that my little brother hasn't been turning in his homework on time basically every week. He's currently in eighth grade. He told me that he has homework due every Sunday. So next Sunday, I decide to text him and remind him, but he tells me that there's no assignment that week.

Cut to the next day. My dad gets an email from the school saying that he has a late assignment. I call the little shit out on it because he lied right to my freaking face and said there was no assignment that week. He then proceeds me to tell me how annoying I'm being and blocks my number. He has not talked to me in over a month and I'm legit confused. I was just trying to help him out because I used to do the same thing back in the day and came to regret it.

So why is he pegging me as some kind of brotherly douche? How do I get my brother to unblock my number? I'm here as a chipmunk. Thanks. Love Jake. This guy's just trying to do some tough love for his younger brother. Damn. That sounds like-

I'm just like you kid. Not turning in my assignments. You gonna block me? Like I block my old man. I don't think so. I'm not gonna lose you. And then like the dad is right there and be like you never blocked my number. Right.

But that's still like a really cool speech. Yeah. So you could like, if it lands- It'll have been worth the lie. Yeah. Sometimes the land is worth the lie. The land is worth the lie. That's really cool.

Yeah. So you could do like a, you could deliver a big epic speech. Yeah. That's one option. I'm worried about you man. Even though it's just about turning in homework on time. Right. You should have turned out like I did.

You're like, I don't know. What are you? You're a sophomore. Yeah. Yeah. UC San Diego. It's fine. You gotta do a good school.

Yeah. I turned shit around. All right. So I'll do that. Like what I'm doing isn't that bad. Oh. All right. Keep learning from your mistakes then I guess.

Unblock my number though. Because sometimes I want to text you about other shit. I have funny memes that I've been collecting. I wonder how old this guy is that he is texting his eighth grade brother. Yeah. Like if he's texting him then I mean, then it sort of seems like he's not living at home. Like maybe he's in college.

Yeah. Which is that too. College to eighth grade situation. Yeah. I think, I mean with anything like that you just gotta give him, you gotta give him space and time. Yeah. Cause maybe he's going to learn from his own mistakes.

It's not going to work when you just force him to do it. What's going to work is like him failing at school and getting detention and needing to repeat shit. Yeah. It's tricky because then like sometimes you have somebody that like needs to learn from their own mistakes and then you sometimes have somebody that like can't help themselves. Yeah. Like, you know, if when you're a father and then your son is acting like you acted when

you were a teenager and you're going to be like, listen boys, little b-boys, he's going to ditch school and get high or you're going to be like, what the fuck are you doing? You can't do that. And then they'll be like, why you did it. It's true. Like my parents were very concerned about me often as they should have been. Like, yeah, when I wasn't doing well in middle school, they're like, you have to turn this around.

Like this is like, when you get to high school, it's, it's serious. Like those grades get you into college and then I was in high school and I like did bad and they were like, you're like, we're not, you're not going to be able to go to college. So like, I wonder if there's a psychological reason you did poorly because you weren't dumb. You just didn't want to try. Yeah. I guess the psychological reason is being lazy.

Yeah. But why were you lazy? Right. And why, like, why aren't your people still cared and they cheated? Like, I didn't even want to cheat. I was just like, it doesn't matter. Yeah. Why did you, because you didn't get it at home.

So who instilled you with the values of this doesn't matter? I don't know. I don't know when those things happen. It was probably like a fucking stray cartoon you read. No, I think it was like when I was growing up, I would never stay in trouble that long. So I like got the sense that consequences didn't really matter. So it was a parental thing. So, well, I don't want to blame my parents because they're perfect, but like, I met

like, if I did bad in school, they're like, you're grounded for a week. And then like that afternoon, I'd be like, please, I want to go and hang out at Joe's house. Yeah, fine. Yeah, fine. Just get out of the house. Okay. So I can fuck up and still get what I want.

I guess because you had like five siblings. Yeah. I couldn't care that much about you. Right. It's definitely, I feel like my prop, like all of the failures of raising me were my own fault for being a piece of shit to begin with, you know? Yeah. But to begin with, there was six, but there were six of us.

So I really should have taken a little bit of the onus and just been like, all right, I'll try to do good because they don't, they don't have the bandwidth to watch everybody. Yeah. Watch this. Uh, Liza has the flu. Yeah. Can I go to Joe's house now? Right.

There's like three screaming children. My mom's pregnant and she's like, I just grounded Jake, but he wants to play video games and he's going to not stop talking until I let him play golden eyes. So just fucking do it. But I wonder why your sisters didn't act that same way. Yeah. I don't know. I guess their temperament was just, they were just better people than me.

Hmm. I also wonder if it matters like where in the hierarchy you were born. Like if you had younger siblings, you're more likely to be messed up or older siblings or what? Yeah. Usually older siblings like take on a caregiving thing where like you don't want, you're more responsible. Right.

They could also be a little bit of a cautionary tale. So like even, I was like constantly at war with my parents through high school. Well, not like, I mean, it was like fine, but like definitely about grades, you know, we'd like argue and stuff. So maybe the triplets saw that and they're like, Oh, that seems stressful. I'll just do my homework. Watch this. I did homework and I got an A. It was pretty easy.

Right. I got out of bed when you guys asked me to. Jake screamed at you for an hour. He just sort of yelled and jerked off. I was an example of what, what stress was looked like. What stress looked like. Did you ever get A's like accidentally? You're like, Oh, I think I know this story.

I think I told this story on the podcast once, but there was like one semester where like the teachers were like, my teachers just said that they were going to give up or they doubted me or something. And I like, at almost to prove a point, I like got straight A's for one semester, my junior year. That's right. This proves that it's in me and you guys aren't good at motivating me smoking a cigarette.

You're like some sort of Riddler and you're the joker of high school. I really think, I think the headmaster like basically, we like had a teacher, a kid teacher meeting where he basically called me dumb. And I was like, okay, I'll, and I got straight A's and then, and then I started failing the next time. Just know that I'm capable of it. I'm not stupid. That's right.

I'm just lazy. So here come the D's again. Like that's its own version of stupid because school's not that hard. No, God, no, that's the best part. They basically give you the answers. Yeah, they want you to do is the effort. Yeah. Everybody wants you to succeed.

It's not like school is hard. Yeah, it's made to be easy so that you do good. I don't know how you, but I don't know how you can convince an eighth grader. I think at the very least, being an eighth grade, there's a, there's a long runway and you're a good brother for caring about this right now. Yeah. Convincing a 13 year old to do something boring is nearly impossible. But you're, but you're, your head's in the right place and you have some time.

So just keep an eye on the situation. Or maybe you unblock and you don't even bring up the homework stuff. So that he's, he doesn't view you as like the annoying older brother that does that kind of stuff. Yeah. He's probably got to start to look at you as a peer and to look up to you for you to give him some nice earnest advice rather than to, uh, you know, force up the down as a gullet.

Yeah. Um, all right. All right. That's it. That's our time. Thanks for listening. We'll be back of course next week. If you have your own questions or theme song submissions, send them all to

if I were you show at gmail.com, that opening theme song was written by Van cleave, somebody named Van cleave. That's right. Taylor Van cleave, uh, the American Idol man. Uh, and this close vote for him on American Idol. I think just text, text Van cleave to seven, one, three, six. Ryan's secret, uh, and this closing one is, uh, I want it that way cover. Oh, dope.

Uh, let me see who wrote it. Oh, yes. Davey, uh, he sent parodies of the cheers theme in Africa. So he thought he'd throw another one back at us. We got Davey on keyboards, Mark on guitar and vocals and Josh on vocals and editing. Toda, thanks to you guys for submitting. Thanks to you guys for listening. We'll be back as always next week for more if I were you.

You can always, uh, check out our Patreon, patreon.com. slash j a every other week. We have a bonus 30 minute ad free episode of if I were you. And we also make video versions of it all. So you can check all those videos out, check that shit out at patreon.com. slash j a and we'll be back next week. Yeah. Yeah.

We met on Tinder, and she's a winner. But there's one problem. And she gives me bad head. She is the fire. So, please, guys, help me.

I don't like it that way. Help me out. If I were you, the podcast. Help me guys. If I were you, the podcast sees the cheese. I really badly need your help. If I were you, the show. What would you guys do?