If I Were You - 400: Memory Lane

Episode Date: September 16, 2019

In our 400th EPISODE we reminisce about our origin story and brainstorm future segments. Thanks to everybody who's listened to at least 350 of these! Including the live shows, of course.See omny.fm/listener for privacy information.

This is a headgum podcast. If I were you, if I were you, if I were you, the show starts now. Wow. Old school. Beautiful. Holds up. Holds up. I'll say that. It is aged like a fine wine. That was you on the guitar back in May of 2013. I think if you handed me the guitar, I would not remember the chords that I played.

Yeah, it was very short. And there was only two. I didn't even realize that I'm the one who said starts now. Yeah, that was completely improvised, the starts now. Holy shit, that changed the course of podcast history. You know what the first episode was called, our first episode? Starbucks? Yeah, it's the kill yourself with a Starbucks joke.

That's from episode one, and that is still with us today. Yeah, so this is episode 400 of our show. We wanted to do a little walkthrough memory lane and what better place to start than at the top. Episode one Starbucks, a theme song that Jake performed and sang. Oh yeah. When listening for the theme song, I just let the track play a little more. And oddly enough, the first minute of our first show, it didn't sound as old as I thought it would. I thought we'd sound prepubescent for some reason as if we were 13 when it happened.

Okay, dude, what should we do? Press record, man. Let's fucking talk about our moms, dude. We're making a fucking podcast, bro. I guess I was 30 instead of 36, so not that different. Yeah, kind of the same. Some of the jokes we still use today, let's play just the first minute of the show just to catch everybody up. This is the first minute of the first episode of If I Were You, May 8th, I think, 2013. Yo.

That was awful. That was the first, that's the way it's gonna start. The first episode ever. That was great. I rehearsed that for a year before you even thought of the podcast. I was rehearsing that. Well, the name of the show is If I Were You, and yeah, this is the first episode. We're not always gonna have Jake do the intro music.

Though we should. Yeah. Well, we just haven't thought of intro music yet, and we want to get the show on as fast as possible. So yeah, for now we're gonna be, I'll be trying out a different intro song every single week until you guys hate me enough that someone can send in a song that we can use instead. That's right. So this is the first and only advice podcast on the internet. From us. Hosted by us.

Yeah, exactly right. I'm Amir. And I'm Jake. And we are. Amir and Jake. You know, it's crazy. I didn't, I had no idea that I said from us. That that's the origin of the intro that you make every single time.

And I can't tell if I was setting up that joke and then you said it or if you just came in there and created a joke that we then repeated 400 times. I think, I would, I think you were, it was an alley-oop. We have the same brain. You knew that I was gonna say it. Yeah. I remember being scared because this was the first thing that we did quote out of character. Yeah. That was such a big deal back then.

I remember you being scared. That's, I remember that well. I was brave. I'm like, should we do a podcast where we're not in character? Yeah. It's, it was like a weird little leap. But I remember about, I remember being nervous that College Humor was going to sue us. That's what I was nervous about.

We're going to do this thing on the side. Can we do it on the side? I remember like being afraid. Do we ask or do we just tell them? It was a very meticulously crafted email to the CEO at the time. Giving him a heads up that we were going to do it. Uh-huh. It was like low key asking for permission, but we never asked for permission.

We told him we were going to do it ahead of time. Sort of testing the waters. Basically like this is happening. So if you're going to sue us for it, tell us before we do it. Yeah. Please don't do it. And he's just like, good. Have fun or do it or whatever.

Well, you remember just to back up even a little bit. So like this was 2013. We had been doing Jake and Amir episodes for five years. And do you remember the origin of wanting to even start a podcast? Didn't it just come from our agent? Yes. Yeah, really. It was incredibly prescient.

Is that the word? And smart and good planning. Truly. He was like, you know, you guys do these live shows as Jake and Amir. We did even the live shows we did in character. We never really performed as ourselves. We did the live shows fully in character. Yeah.

And then he's like, if you want, you should create a podcast because a lot of my comic talent clients now instead of coming up with stand up, just do live podcast shows. You guys can do that. And then you don't have to go out as part of College Humor Live. You could just go on the road with your podcast. And we're like, oh, huh. But wait, what? What's that?

What would that aren't all podcasts done already? I mean, it's 2013. What's left? Yeah. That was the thing that I remember you and I talking about. Like if we do a podcast, what would the point like, are there too many podcasts out there? Yeah. There's already Mark Marons and Pete Holmes's and I think that all.

And then we, we couldn't really figure out what to talk about because like what are our areas of expertise? It's not like we want to interview comics about their process. Like we felt like a little outside of that game. Yeah. We did not. Cause all, I think that was the other thing. Like most of the podcasts we knew in the comedy space were like guest, have, have a guest

and it's an interview. And we're like, we don't want to book guests or write interview questions. That wouldn't be fun. Yeah. Also we can't be quote in character for hours at a time where we're just like pretending as though we're these Jake and Amir people that are having conversations because then it would like step on what College Humor owned as a web series. Was there any other idea besides if I were you?

I don't know. I bet we were, we were toying around with a lot of ideas, but I think you came up with either an advice show or a dating advice show before we even started. That's right. I remember that. I remember that G chat. I remember pitching you the name if I were you. Oh, all right.

Because like, because in my head, I'm like, that's if, if you say if I were you, then like it takes away all credibility, credibility from your advice, because it's just like, this is the, this is the dumb thing I do. Yeah. And this is, it was also when we recorded like the first 30 minute chunk that College Humor fans got of us, where we were not like being prescripted silly dumbasses. Like whoa, Amir doesn't actually shove McDonald's down his fucking throat 24 seven. This is bizarre.

This was the podcast where people found out that I'm the dumb one. Yeah. We tried to do a little reversal as much as possible. And then we didn't really need any guests because it was just us two recording. Do you remember where the first episode was recorded? It was your, your apartment at 34 Berry. That's right. In Williamsburg, in my kitchen, just like those green and gold microphones zoom recorder.

That's right. We still record on a zoom. Some things never change. I would edit on final cut, which is a video editing software because I didn't know any audio editing software. Do you was still, don't you still edit on final cut or you are, have you moved over? Well, I moved over to just another video editing software, Adobe Premiere. Oh, that's right.

That's right. But it was so hard to make it sound good. Like I would ask Jeff Rubin who had a podcast, like how he did it and he would like use audacity and like a level later and all these like new softwares that I had to learn to make it sound normal. But like a lot of the times it didn't quite at first, especially when we recorded at your apartment, which is incredibly cavernous and echoey. That's right.

I remember being like, oh yeah, we can do like my place in your place. I was thinking it was going to be so convenient for me. I wasn't going to have to leave. And then it really didn't work. And then we also, we, I remember like hanging cushions and towels all around your apartment trying to get it to sound good. Yeah, calling it the towel fort. The towel fort.

That's right. The first like six months was just a struggle in audio quality more than anything else. Like I wasn't even concerned with what to say or how to say it was just like, how do I make it not quiet or too loud or too echoey? First guest. Do you know who the first guest was? See, I thought it was Ethan Trex talking about his experience battling cancer. Yeah, which might be true, but like that wasn't like the first full guest episode.

That was like for one question. That was the first foot like phone a friend thing. Our first guest was Ricky in episode six. Episode says RVV. And we have a, our first ever guest today. Wow. Very special guest. It's Ricky Van Veen.

Hello. You know what's funny? When I first started listening to this show, I've listened to all of them by the way. Thank you. We told him to say that. Long time listener. Long time listener. First time guest.

Long time. This whole, this show's been on for three weeks. So I was listening to it and I was driving in LA with Allison and I turned to her and I was like, you know what the best part about this podcast is? No guests. Was it like, hey, thanks for not suing us. Would you like to be on our show? Was it like, oh, Ricky is the person we go to with advice?

Maybe a little bit of both. Yeah. I do think, I think we were that calculating that we're like, okay. So the CEO signed off and, and the founder of the company was on an episode. This is obviously a okay. We're in the clear and it's only one month deep. This is iron clad. But we still hadn't done any live shows with it.

We spent like months and months just doing episodes. Yeah. Oh man. Do you remember our first podcast live show? No, I do not. I think I do. Was it in London? I think it was at Littlefield in Brooklyn, 110 seats.

No, we sold it out, but I remember, and we were like super excited. It was one of the, it's funny now because like we do bigger venues and nobody gives a shit like of our friends and family, but like at Littlefield, like both of our agents and managers were there. All of our friends came out. It was like a big deal that we had a podcast. This was 2013 after all. And I believe the next day we were traveling to South Carolina for a college humor live.

Oh, I see. So we're still doing a little bit of both. Yeah. And, but that was like the beginning of the end because we were like, wow. Yeah. And November 10, 2013, Snail Trail live at Littlefield. That's right. I think that was the first ever live show.

That was a great live show. I remember that question specifically Snail Trail. Unless she's Snail trailing the walls. I don't know how this happened, but my question is, should I not tell my girlfriend my discovery? She recently asked if her house smelled like anything and I said, no, then later made the twisted realization, thanks DJ Jazzy Jeff, the twisted realization. And of course, Sherlock's deduce that, sorry, there's nothing else it could be. I think your mom's Snail trailing.

Yeah, I think she's getting turned on, getting herself wet and just scooting across the floor and wall. Yeah. Like some sort of perverted sex Roomba, like an, like an air hockey puck being frictionless with her own mucous membrane, sliding hither and thither, just leaving tiny little traces of pee juice everywhere. Yeah. And I think we had been on like another college humor live tour with Streeter as we, when

we had already started the podcast and like on the tour, we're doing stuff like in Jake and Amir characters. And some of the people that had come out were like, didn't find it funny because we weren't doing stuff from the podcast. All right. Like how many people just know us from the videos and that was the majority of it. Also, we did a quasi live show even before that at Comic Con. Do you remember that?

Oh, that was, yes, with Pete Holmes. Yeah. It was like a panel. We did this episode 27. We had never done a live show. Pete had never heard the show before. Yeah. And we had to do it in front of an audience that didn't necessarily know who we are because

this was just Comic Con. So it was just like a panel of two dudes and beat Holmes and now we're doing our podcast in front of them. Yeah. In retrospect, that was a bad time. We shouldn't have done that. Yeah. That was not our best.

That was episode 27. Episode 27. Damn. And then your mom was on an episode fairly early on too. Yeah. Jake's mom with Laura Hurwitz, episode 32. I believe because the early episodes of our podcast were like really trying to figure out, I was going through some shit personally, you know?

I was like a dating monster piece of shit type guy. That's back when the mom turned down the podcast days. Yes, exactly. Now my mom can always turn the podcast up except when I talk about my sordid past. I think a testament to how long we've been doing it for, my mom doesn't listen to the podcast anymore. That's fair. I think I'm down to like one or two friends that still listen to the show.

My brother and my sister, well, two of my siblings, at least two of my siblings still listen to the show. Shout out to Sarah and Micah. What up, y'all? That's nice. I think my brother Ben still listens, but now that he's had his own child, maybe he doesn't listen to every episode. This will be a...

Well, I think he should have his daughter listen for sure. This is a really good test actually. Let's just start naming friends of ours and if they approach us and like, yeah, I heard your shout out, then we know they still listen to the show. That's right. That's true. Okay. I'm going to text me the following alphanumeric code.

It's like when you're trying to log in, yeah. If he doesn't text you, you'll be mad at him next time you see him and he won't know why. Okay. How about this? I'm going to name some friends and then I'll give them a week to listen to this and then I'll go one by one up to them with a gun and say, what's the code? If they say the code, they're hard as true and they can continue living and if not, then I'll shoot them in the fucking throat.

They're under arrest now, man. Oh, come on. It's just a goofy little game I'm playing to see which one of my friends still supports me. What's goofy about shooting somebody in the neck, dude? I wonder when Matt Damon started as a bit. I feel like that was pretty late in the game, wasn't it? But like, can't you imagine like Matt Damon when he eats a wrap, it doesn't spill at all.

Yeah. I wonder what, like Google, what does Matt Damon eat for lunch? Yeah. Matt Damon eating a burrito, I don't see it getting everywhere because he probably doesn't overfill it. No, I think he just has a great bite and a lot of patience. Wait, what am I school? What does Matt Damon eat for lunch?

He just, I don't know. There's a lot of Twitter campaign. We got our show. We got our pilot shot. I want to know what Matt Damon eats for lunch. Is that crazy? Hashtag what does Damon eat for lunch? What it does.

Actually, we should have Matt. Whenever I think of a bit, I imagine where we were when we came up with it. Yeah. Because we've recorded in so many places that it like acts as a memory palace. Like, I remember recording with Allison Williams, the first one was in her hotel room, so then we were still in New York. Wait, that was the first one in the hotel room? No.

That's, oh wait, her hotel room. Her hotel room, yeah. Where was that? That was at the hotel with like circular windows, like the maritime hotel or something. Dude, that was my hotel. That was our hotel room. Really? So, all right, I don't know the first time we recorded with Allison.

I'm not sure where it was, but I think, I think it was at the rec room. That's right. And then the second time was at your hotel. We were used to, that's another place that I forgot we recorded. So we recorded mostly in my apartment, sometimes in your apartment. If it was at work, like for Ricky and Streeter guested episodes, we brought them to the office. And then we recorded and then I think, Brian Korber, shout out to Brian Korber and shout out to Adrian Grenier, who ran Adrian Grenier's record company, which was in the basement

of a house. He sometimes lived at in Brooklyn. Yeah. So we went to Adrian Grenier's house. Never saw him there, which was really fucking nice. He probably, yeah, no, he didn't want to be around for our podcast recording, but they had an amazing recording studio in the basement and they recorded for us. I remember being so happy.

I didn't have to deal with Echo because it was like, it was soundproofed and the microphones were like music grade quality, like recording label grade microphones. I'm like, this is awesome. Yeah. I don't have to worry about any of this shit. I have like old Instagram photos of you in the rec room and calling it your happy place. You really were, you were so happy in that, in that studio. That's funny because when we made a head gum, I'm like, this is great.

Now we can do, we can pull off the Adrian Grenier dream of having a room that's a dedicated recording studio. That's right. But before we did that was before we, we had, so I think in that summer that we started the podcast. That was hot girl summer. What is hot girl summer? That's a, it's a meme that's going on.

I guess it's over now, but this summer was supposedly hot girl summer on Twitter. Interesting. I didn't know that, but that's cool to know. This was separate from hot girl summer. This was podcasting random dude winter. This was lame boy winter. So you were in your apartment. I was in my apartment.

I had like that, the loft nearby. And then we found out we were moving. I moved out of the loft into the shrub. Remember the shrubber? Yeah. And we used to record there in the basement with Dave. Yeah. I moved into this weird little like house in like near Bushwick that had it's like a freestanding

house that had a, it was covered in vines and it had a creepy little basement. I lived with Dave Rosenberg and we recorded, we started recording in that basement because it was so dank and it sounded really good down there, right? Yeah. Cause I was like, it was cold and humid and nothing echoed because it was just everything was softened. There was cockroaches all over the walls and they didn't deflect sound. And that was right before we moved because you moved there and you're like, shit, I have

to move to LA like two months after that. Yeah. That was a weird little situation I put myself in. And then once we moved to LA, we were recorded at your parents' house? Yeah. Well, first we recorded in an RV or a hotel room while we drove across the country. That's right. That's right.

Then when we got to LA, we recorded in my parents' house, which was really embarrassing. I'm like, we should wait until my parents aren't home. I don't want them to just hear me record this radio show out of my childhood bedroom. Yeah. Especially given the shit that I would say. What if my mommy came in and said that dinner was ready during the show? And she would. What if she just came in with bananas for us?

Get out of here, mom. You're embarrassing me and I'm trying to podcast, which is embarrassing enough. And then we would still do Jake and Mia videos in LA while recording the podcast in LA. That's right. All this time, we were still doing Jake and Amir. It was very much like a cross dissolve. As Jake and Amir ramped down, this would ramp up. Yeah.

And we timed it very right. I don't know if it was borderline accidental, but the fact that we started the podcast like two, three years before we ended the show. Right. And I think we also talked about Head Gum with Marty right when we started the podcast. Because he was the one that sold the, like the reason we did the Pete Holmes podcast at Comic Con is because he had sold something because he was a sales guy at College Humor. So yeah.

So like that was episode, what, 27 of the podcast. And that was also when we first started talking about doing a podcast network, the three of us. All right. And it just took another two years. Yeah. Pause right here because I think the end of Jake and Amir, the start of Head Gum is a good like second act.

So let's thank some sponsors. We'll be back with a continuation of this amazingly historic story. You guys will be brought to tears in the second act. And jeers. 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. That 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.

For me 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. Oh, 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. Yeah. Kind of like 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. She 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. 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 Aura Frames. That's A-U-R-A frames.com.

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That's Aura Frames A-U-R-A frames.com. Okay. Go get your parents something. All right. And use the code HEADGUM for $30 off plus free shipping. Right on. Thank you Aura. And now back to the HEADGUM podcast you were listening to.

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Thanks, BetterHelp. And we're back. So when was it? 2015. Jake and Amir came to an end right around there and we had the idea to form a podcast network because we were actually on a podcast network in 2014 called Podcast One. Do you remember that? I do remember that.

We like did a round of meetings, including with Year Wolf. In 2013, we were doing the show and I was selling ads by cold emailing brands. Yeah. And shout out to Naturebox, shout out to Frank and Oak, to Harry's Razors, was it? I don't remember the names. I don't know what the hell to do, but I'm like, hey, I host this show. It was the number one comedy or whatever the day it came out because that's how iTunes ranked people.

They just, you know, if your show debuted with more than like 5,000 listens, it would be the number one show in their comedy section. And we were down to like advertise and some people like, yeah, how much do you charge? And I'm like, I don't know, 100, 10,000? How much do I charge for an ad read? We had no idea. We were making 10,000 an ad read back then. Yeah.

Gantimes were good. Turns out it was closer to 110,000. But then we were like, we should join a network. That's what all these other big shows are doing. And so we took meetings. And I don't even remember where we took meetings other than podcast one. We had that meeting with Year Wolf and Midroll in like Tribeca, oh no, in Soho. Yeah, in New York.

And then we chose podcast one because they introduced us to their CEO who was like this lifelong Laker fan who had floor seats to every game and is like, you know, if you join podcast one, I can take you to some of these Laker games. I'm like, I'm in. 100% I'm in. The only reason we joined podcast one is because you thought you were going to get floor tickets to one Laker game. And we signed a year long contract with them.

A year goes by and I never went to a Laker game. Of course. Turns out the contract wasn't great. And I realized like, wait a minute, we could probably sell these ads ourselves. The CEO of that company like it got in trouble for pointing a gun at people. Yeah. Oh yeah. But never at me.

Brandishing a gun. Yeah. But that kind of goes into the whole, you're going to shoot your friend in the throat. Yeah. That is where I got the idea. So then we left and we're like, let's just be independent. And then at a certain point we thought, why don't we just start our own podcast network? We have funny friends.

Yeah. And that's the thing. I think we had thought about doing the podcast network at least a year or two before we actually acted on it because like we had talked about doing it. But the timing was weird because you and I moved to LA and Marty was still in New York. Yeah. And we were also at podcast one. You can't start a podcast network if your podcast isn't on that network.

But I think when we were weighing where to sign, like we considered, like if we sign this, we can't do head gum for a year. And we're like, well, it doesn't really, but I mean, at that point we weren't calling it head gum. We were like, but if we sign this, we can't do anything for a year. But we're like, it doesn't matter. We're in LA, Marty's in New York. We were still doing Jake and Amir.

So it didn't feel like that necessary. And then 2015 comes around and we start head gum with just our show and nine others, including Twin Innovation, still a show on our network. High and mighty, still a show on our network. Your mom's show, still a show on head gum. This is why you're single, still a show on head gum. Wow. So of the like nine or 10 shows we started four or five are still around.

Solid. That's really not bad at all. Yeah. And we've, you know, grown to 30 shows at this point. But we'll always remember the core nine. That's actually, that actually reminds me, we have to fire your mother. What? Yeah.

Just numbers wise, it doesn't make a ton of sense for her to stay on head gum. I mean, you get that. She gets, she gets ads. She gets ads. She owns 14% of head gum. That's how we had to bribe her to start your show. Yes, you can't kick her off. She's going to kick you off.

Yeah. I mean, episode a hundred was a classic. The, that's when Ben and Thomas were on together. Oh, damn. I remember that. Two veterans. You have the two veterans in here for number 100. But this is one of our first shows with four guests too.

So that'll be a terrible idea, maybe two. Mike gets a zero questions. Thomas, one of the bits I did for my old one is we never got two questions. I always asked to wait one more second. Oh, so if we can continue that bit on this one without just like. Maybe I like the question. Oh, then this is going to be weird. We'll see what happens when we get to a question.

My favorite part. Really? Yeah. Oh, I just like talking. I don't like listening to anybody's questions. But I want to help the little boys and girls. We record. Was that in the, in the house on Nickelterana?

That's right. That was pre-head gum in the studio that we sort of set up at the solarium of this house, which was a glass room. But I guess we, when we shot all the shades, it worked, right? Or we just had to record at night. Oh, yeah. But I mean, sound wise, because normally a glass box would not be a good place. Yes, that's true.

Then we moved houses, recorded some at that house. Remember little Dickie came over to that house and we recorded with George Basel. That was the one where I lived in the little cabin in the back. Yeah, exactly. And we recorded in the cabin often, right? That's right. Because much like the, the basement at the shrubberbs, it was a dank little outhouse. It's funny how studios basically just need to be sad rooms for them to sound good.

Yeah, the sadder the room, the better the studio. Padding on the walls, insulation, that's one thing. But if you can feel the sadness in the air, it really helps. Yeah, it diffuses the audio, the echoing. And then we finally, when we start a headgum, we're like, let's all move in together and get like a four bedroom instead of a three and build a studio in like the den or the fourth bedroom. Yeah.

And that, I think that in like, now that I look back on it, that really was like our cool ass Zuckerberg type thing that we, like we got such a silly house. Yeah, we, we, that was our hot Zuckerberg summer. We got a house that we couldn't afford to live in because we would like pay some of the rent with headgum money. Right. Or it's like, it's an office slash house so we can afford this mansion.

We basically got a four, we got a, yeah, we got a, like a huge, a huge house and just split the rent four ways between three people because headgum considered that since one room is theirs, headgum pays. And it was tax wise, that's fine. It was fully furnished because the lady that used to live there didn't want to move any of the furniture out. We brought like an arcade machine in there just to complete the idea that this was like a Silicon Valley hellhole.

Yeah. And that just, just to show you how much, how big that place was when we moved out, I believe the owner was just like, I'll just sell it for $3 million. And she sold it in three days. Yeah. So we were living in a place and throwing parties at a place that ended up selling for more money than we'll ever make in our entire lives. Awesome.

Remember we had that party in the bathroom flooded? Yeah. Why did someone clogged my toilet in, because that was also when we were looking for houses that, that was the beginning of the Raven's Nest bit and the beginning of the master and the en suite. Yes. Because when we were, we were house hunting, we were like, we're so hell bent on getting the master and deserving the master.

And then, and then at a certain point, people were just coming over to record at our house that we didn't necessarily know when they were coming because we didn't have like a producer yet. We didn't have super producer Mars. So it was just like, yeah, whenever you want to record, it's like, all right, Sunday at fucking 9 a.m. And we're like, huh, that's not ideal. That, that, that started making it, that was like when the beginning of the

dream was over, because when you start a network and it's just your, your buddies, it's always fun. Yeah. And then you like pick up more shows that are just like, I mean, let's be clear. Everyone on head gum is a close personal friend of mine. Absolutely. But like, you don't, you don't know everybody quite as well. And then you're like, I'm hungover and I just want to watch football all day.

But then the doorbells ringing and somebody is like, well, no, you have to host podcasters because it's also, it's the host and their guests. And sometimes the guests get there before the hosts and then you're just sitting there making small talk with somebody, but you, you just want to, you just want to have your Sunday, you know? Yeah. So we're like, maybe we should get an office at a certain point and go our separate ways.

And then hunting for the office was super fun too. We saw so many places we're looking in downtown, uh, in the arts district, just regular straight up downtown. I think we look, we're looking at like Hollywood a bunch too. I will say we nailed it because we've been in this office for like almost three years now and we have no notes. Yeah. Do you remember, we like had a guy and we looked at so many places.

Wasn't one of the places like on the other side of the river that was adjacent? Like we were sharing a space with a dog, grew in the studio or something. It was a place. It was, and it was almost a place that we went with because it was like so much, so much space with like a backyard, but it was, it was on the other side of the highway. So you couldn't actually like walk to any of the cool stuff in the arts district. Yeah.

And then it was also, uh, it was a dog grooming place and they were trying to evict the guy that was there. But when we were, when we were there, we were seeing it and he was like super suspicious. Um, and, and the realtor was like, no, they're like going to get the space next door, but they want, I want to show them this so they can, uh, see what they can do with the space. And we're like, I'm so sorry, man.

I'm taking over your studio. We're like walking around being like, oh yeah, this is nice. We could do that next door, but we were fully just going to take that guy's thought two dogs. They're getting groomed. Give us like the head tilt. What are you guys doing here? You can leave the dogs.

Do you want to talk about like the future? What's, what are the next 400 episodes like? I mean, there are things that we've introduced slowly, but surely like the unsolicited advice. Yeah. We keep taught. We keep having grandiose visions like, um, creating segments. So like unsolicited advice was born from them.

Like, oh, that was great. We should do more. And then we never did more. Yeah. I mean, there, maybe there's like a, like some kind of, uh, throwback 15 minutes, you know, the throwback 15, 15 with the th. Yeah. The followup pup, something that we do occasionally, but not really with any

regularity that we can call a segment. Yeah. But I kind of like the idea of, I mean, well, maybe. Maybe you get repetitive, but it's fun to be nostalgic. Like, I mean, that's like what the Patreon is a little bit, us getting to talk about like the stuff that we've made in the past. Shout out to our Patreon. Yeah.

Maybe there should be something that's more like future centric on it. What about the first segment idea will be us soliciting segment ideas, whether it be on Twitter or, uh, on our subreddit, every time we release a new podcast, there's like a stickied post at the top, leave a comment, let us know what segment idea is just like a fun five minute conversation leaping off point could be. I like, yeah, I like that. Like an icebreaker, a game, a game to play. Yeah.

A mini podcast within the podcast. Um, you know what, I also just realized that the, the initial concept of this show, I've said this before, but it was based to me off of car talk because, uh, clicking clack, uh, from car talk, it's like they, they know a lot about cars, but like the premise of the show, you don't have to know a lot about cars also. Cause it's just there the way they communicate with each other and the way they interact with their callers. Like that's what the fun of the show is.

It, they, I would listen to them, uh, do anything. Right. It's, it's not necessarily about cars. So I was like, what is something that just makes a mirror and I talk anyway, that show, uh, they had a segment, uh, just, just past the midway point of their show, uh, which was the puzzler every week, they would read a, uh, it could like a quiz, a puzzle, a riddle, basically, uh, and tell anyone if they knew how to, if they knew the answer to write them a postcard and they would reveal the winner on the

next, next week, they would come up with a riddle or is it like a famous riddle? They would, I believe they would come up with the riddles and they would have riddles submitted and, uh, one of the guys was like a puzzle guy. So like sometimes the riddles would be submitted and he would be like, but I, like it was, it wasn't perfect. I fixed it. And so he would like edit them too. Yeah.

Or like sort of a puzzle curator. This is like how we wish we came up with, Hey, riddle, riddle, which is another podcast on the headcom network, right? In which three funny hosts actually solve riddles. Oh, you know what? This section, a new segment could basically be podcast pilots. So every single, uh, every episode we, we just spend 10 minutes piloting a brand new podcast.

Uh, that's good. Or stealing another podcast, uh, show because, right. Cause it would still be the first ever done by us. That's right. So we'll, we'll steal the riddle one, but only for 10 minutes. So by the time they get mad, that podcast is over. And we also say the name, Hey, riddle, riddle as we, as we've stolen, uh, their idea.

So, yeah, it's almost like, if that, if 10 minutes of, yeah, it's a 10, sorry, sorry, we recorded an ad. As long as we shout out who we stole from, it's just an ad and then we can invoice them. That's a good segment. So the segment is podcast. We wish we hosted and then we host that show for about 10 minutes. Interesting.

That's good. But I think we should also come up with a rich, we can steal. And come up with original, okay. Thivery and brevery is the name of our new podcast. Why there's nothing more brief than creating a podcast. I'm the briefest of all. All right. How about a segment called cousins?

Okay. I don't know. Where does that take you? Well, we don't have to figure it out. Oh, actually, I would totally be interested to look at your family tree. A genealogy segment of sorts. Yeah. A little family history.

We find out what your great-great-grandfather did as a hobby. Yeah, I would have to figure that out first. I know, but that's one of those things that's like interesting for you. You should do that. And then I'd love to hear. What about, you know, like sometimes, maybe it was just once, but I created a musical. What?

You like asked me about this fake musical that I was producing. Oh, yeah, that's right. The house, the garage, the Pixar movie. The moon's like, in your sky, in your eye, and I'm the tree. And I'm the guy, and in your eye, it's a tree. It's me. The moon is also the tree. No.

Sounded like the moon was the bad guy in that song. The clicker's the bad guy. I know who plays the clicker. I mean, there's the dream casting role, and then there's the person who we're probably going to settle for. Let's hear both. James Earl Jones. Yep.

And you settle for? My cousin. Yeah, exactly. So like, you almost have to ask me questions like I'm pitching you a movie. That's, see, this is, this is all rolls up into podcast pitch, podcast pilot. Yeah. Podcast. 10 minute end of our show where we just try out like, all right, that was if I

were you, that was pretty good. Now here is another show that we could do. Let us know if you guys like it better. And this is just an example of one segment or a bunch of segments that we can do. This is the segment that is constantly changing because it's, it's always the same, but it's always different. Podcast pilot, two truths and a lie, you know, then we play. That's good.

All right. Podcast pilot, what should I drive? And we talked about me, uh, my, um, leasing a car, which I still haven't done. Yeah. Oh, oh, how about I give an update on my, uh, garbage disposal situation. Oh yeah. Tell us, please. So as many of you know, if you listen to the last episode, there was a quarter

stuck at the bottom of my garbage disposal that prevented the blades from spinning and effectively ruined the garbage disposal. Correct. I was ruined. Well, not ruined, but it was stuck to the point where I couldn't use it anymore. Right. It was in ruin. That's right.

So I went, like I said, I was going to do, I went to baller hardware and they gave me two tools. The guy looked at it and he's like, this is what you want to do. Try this Allen wrench, which is that little S shaped wrench where you stick it into a hole at the bottom of the garbage disposal from like a cupboard underneath your sink and rotate the blades as hard as you can in the opposite direction, hoping that, hoping that the coin would be jarred loose. And if that doesn't work, here's this other tool called the, like the garbage

disposal unclogger, which looks like just this thick wine bottle opener, a corker that you jam inside your garbage disposal and just fucking jack hammer until something breaks or jars loose. Jesus. I was very skeptical about that second one. Fortunately, tried the first one, used the Allen wrench, rotated it, blades moved in the opposite direction. Coin came out, picked it up with scissors, cleaned it off, sent you a photo,

posted it online. So I didn't have to use the garbage disposal. Easy peasy, worked right away enough that like no hit. At first I didn't know which direction was clockwise versus counterclockwise. So I tried really hard in one direction. That didn't work. I tried really hard in the other. I'm like, huh, should I just try extra hard and hope to God that I'm not like

smushing the coin or breaking the blade. And then I did that in the counterclockwise direction and eventually like loosened up, rotated the blades, removed the, removed the coin with scissors. Perfect. Home improvement show. That's another segment. Oh, yes, we should definitely do that. Did we talk about this when you were talking about your, your garbage disposal?

I would, I just want to reboot this old house and have it be me and you. All right. Cause we don't actually know how shit works. Like what if we had to build a wall from scratch? Yeah. It's, it's a good, it's a good premise for us. Well, I don't know how you grew up, but like my parents were often like, don't do it yourself, hire somebody smarter and more professional to do it.

Like you can't install that. You shouldn't do it because you don't know how. Don't learn just hire a professional. That's different than I, I mean, I grew up, I'm, I'm in the same position as you are that like I'm, I, I'm inept. Um, but it's not because my parents were like hire somebody. It was just cause my, my dad was just like, I'll do it. I'll just move.

I'll do it. Yeah. Both our parents didn't want us to learn the shit the hard way. Yeah. I think my parents didn't have time to teach anyone anything because there were six of us and they just needed to keep us alive. Yeah. It's not like here, uh, this weekend I'm going to teach Amir how to change a tire.

It's like, I signed you up for AAA. Now go take a tennis lesson. Which I mean, like, especially now with the gig economy, like it is kind of true that you can just, it's almost, it's, I think it's still really valuable to know all this stuff and one should, and I'm slowly learning as I become a homeowner and stuff, but it's also worth like just teaching somebody how to like be smart when it comes to like hiring the right person and price comparing and asking the right questions.

Cause those are adult things. Yeah. It's like, why, why learn how to cook when I can click a button and have pads see you deliver to me for $11. Yeah. And, and it's worth, uh, instilling in your children, uh, the idea that sometimes the delivery fee plus the tip plus the baked in service charges, the $11 pad tie $24.

And at that point it really is worth it to go make a bunch of pad tie. Yeah. But then you make the pad tie and it takes six and a half hours and there's grease all over your kitchen. You make enough for the whole week. All right. I'll make the fucking pad tie. Jesus Christ.

Just never taste that good. That reminds me we should do a cooking show. Yeah. It's like, uh, how much money do you spend on a fancy, smoothie or a soluble that you can make for 98 cents at home? I just made, I went through this exact same thing. I just made an soluble for, for lunch here. Yeah.

And then how does it taste versus the one you can get for $14 at backyard bowls? Well, I mean, backyard bowls is the goat that I would, I would do that in a heartbeat if backyard bowls were in New York city. There is not a good acai place in Brooklyn. They don't fucking exist. I wonder why that is. I, I mean, I would kill.

I want to franchise backyard bowls and open one at the bottom of my building. That's my fucking. Also, like you look at the, you look at the ingredients of backyard bowls and it seems pretty easy. It's like fruit and peanut butter. How do, how can we not make that shit? I don't know. It's crazy.

Like the backyard bowls makes the perfect blend of everything and everywhere else. Every other acai and smoothie place I go to, I'm just trying to create the, the backyard bowl. That's what I'm trying to do in a perfect world. They're all backyard bowls. Can you take this out? Add this. There's, I don't need that.

I don't need that. Actually, this instead of this, can I just pull up the menu of a place called backyard? You're in Hawaii. There's this place in Hollywood. It's perfect. All right. So that's a bunch of options for you guys just to get you started.

Indeed. Yeah. Feel free to send us, so send us your, your theme songs, your questions. And now your segment pitches. Keep your segments coming. Uh, all right. That's it. Enough, enough dwelling in the past, thinking about the future.

Uh, that was episode 400 of If I Were You, the only advice podcast on the internet hosted by us. I'm Jake and I was Amir. Um, yeah, send your questions, your theme songs, everything to If I Were You Show at gmail.com. We'll be back, of course, next week, and then the week after, and the week after, and so on and so forth until we're all dead. Yes.

Bye everybody. We feel like, I feel like a lot of people will listen to the first podcast and then it'll slowly dwindle and then plateau at the amount of people that will actually be listening to the podcast. So until it's zero and we're just killing ourselves in a Starbucks. And that's, that'll be our last episode. All right. Remember to write in If I Were You Show at gmail.com, that's right.

All right. Play us out. If I were you, if I were you, if I were you, the show. Yeah. What happened there? Dot com. Oh, we do have a website. If I were you show.com.

That's perfect. The show. Dot com. See everyone. That was a hate gum podcast.