If I Were You - 426: Corona Calls (w/Geoff, Marty, & Ben Schwartz!)

Episode Date: March 16, 2020

In this episode we call each other to discuss this crazy new world... then we call some friends and ask them how they're holding up. Stay safe and stay home, everybody!See omny.fm/listener for privacy information.

That's right, no theme song, no good microphones. There's no time. The world's coming to a close. This is coronavirus part two and little did we know what we had in store for ourselves when we recorded last week, which feels like seven years ago. I'd love to go back in time and tell quaint little old me that I would be homebound for, I guess, the center. I guess a year.

All of the plans I had, they've all gone out the window. Do you remember what you were doing a week ago? We're recording this, we should say, Sunday, March 15th, Sunday night at like 5.30. The timeline and perspective, the CDC just said no mass gatherings of more than 50 people for the next eight weeks. Somebody is going to be picking up an iPhone out of the rubble in 10 years from now listening to this podcast before the collapse of society. A robot throws it into a trash can.

A robot with a dry cough. So we are not in our office, I figured. Maybe we can record a phone call, sort of test out what it would be like to be able to record a podcast on the go. That's why we sound like this. This is the last medium that's going to survive. It's podcasting, and that's it. All of the shows that you like, they've all gone out of production.

They're not being filmed anymore. You won't get Netflix. Do you guys understand that? That's not happening. They'll get it. They'll get Netflix, but it'll be old shit. Okay? No.

Witcher season two is off. Fast and the Furious is not happening anymore. You have the first seven movies, and you have Hobbes versus Shaw, but that's it. Look who comes crawling back. Podcasting is the medium that will outlive us all. So, yeah, a week ago, I was at my buddy Jesse's house watching a basketball game wondering if we should go to a fucking poker room later that day, and I'm like, you know what, let's play it safe.

There's 700 people there exchanging chips, and I think we've even talked about it last week. I'm like, you kind of made fun of me, but he's like, all right, ultimately I understand, and talking to you, you're like, yeah, I'll probably get it, but what can I do about it? That's right. Then I would say the biggest deal was Wednesday. That felt like the tipping point. Wednesday felt like the beginning.

That was the beginning of the end, for sure. Yeah. As a basketball fan, it felt very NBA-centric, but I don't know if it felt that way for you, someone who's not as deeply engrossed in the NBA. Yeah, I don't care that much about the NBA, but I definitely take it as a constant, a way of life that I wouldn't have ever thought would be interrupted. I think the NBA and Tom Hanks at the same time really put it on America's doorstep. Yeah.

I remember I was watching an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, and then I'm like, all right, that was a fun 30 minutes. Let's see what's new in the world. Oh, Tom Hanks says coronavirus, the NBA suspended, and no one can go out. Oh, gosh. Yeah. Now I'm just wondering, I mean, I've accepted that it's very bad. It's very bad.

I'm just wondering, I don't know, it really makes me realize how much I liked my life two weeks ago. Sure, I had problems, but when everything just comes to a, it just grinds to a stop, and all I can think about is like, all right, when will it get better? When will it be normal again? Yeah, and it's definitely, you don't know what you got till it's gone, because we had complaints in the previous world, but now I'm like, oh, God, I would take four more years of Trump if it meant I can go to fucking Whole Foods again.

That would be fine. I was fucking with it, all right? Let me go to a restaurant. Yeah, I can't go to a bar without feeling sad, without feeling guilty. Well, let's see what's happened since then, like, it feels like the rate of change is happening so fast. I assume bars in New York City are closed down. I don't think, at least as of right now, they have not officially been closed down.

It seems like that's what's happening. I know what just happened in California, right? Yeah, earlier today, bars in California have completely closed down, because, you know, when I'm reading tweets that say, do not go anywhere, because you might have coronavirus and no symptoms, and by going to a bar, you might infect 50 people who will infect 250, who will infect 2,000, and I'm like, all right, I'll stay at home, Twitterer guy. I promise to you, but then I also look on Twitter, I'm like, yeah, Bourbon Street still packed, Times Square is still packed.

People aren't doing a restaurant. No. Like, I think on Tuesday or Monday this week, I went to a party, like a big event, and that seems wildly irresponsible now. Yeah, what was kind of a slight risk at the time, but like, it's okay, I won't shake hands one day, becomes like an insane proposition just six days later. There's 100 people, like, laughing and doing the elbow thing. I'm like, no, that's not funny.

I'm not even fucking bumping my elbow. I'm dead now. What do you think your chances are that you've been exposed to it? I don't know. I mean, I'm reading things that say like, within the next 12 to 18 months, 75% of Americans will have it in some way, shape, or form, so I don't know if I've gotten it already. I've, you know, for the first, the Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, I'm like, I'll go to the supermarket and like, that's it.

And then like, since Friday, I'm like, maybe I shouldn't even go to Starbucks, maybe I shouldn't go to Whole Foods and touch anything. Like, I haven't, I've left my house, but I haven't gone anywhere in 48 hours. Yeah. And this is the part that's interesting to me, because like, Snow Day is kind of fun. Karen, today, it's a little, it's like the first day, it's a little interesting. You're like, you're joking around on social media with your friend. Like, this is what social distancing looks like, yada, yada.

Two days of that, that's fine. Four weeks of that, that's a little maddening. That's going to fuck you up. Yeah, the psychological implications, which are being vastly underreported because more people are rightfully so concerned with the actual health and business implications. We're also not even four weeks, we don't know what the timeline will be, which is also like, insane, insane at creating. Yeah, but it could, I mean, I was seeing charts that are like, maybe like the peak is over

the summer, it comes down in October, but then also maybe it comes down in the summer because of the warm weather and then it spikes in the, in the fall, like the Spanish flu in 1918 or whatever. Right. So does that mean we're indoors for the next 12 months? The next year we're not traveling, we're not even like going to any restaurant, bar, party, wedding, funeral that could possibly come up, hospital, God forbid. Yeah, I don't, I truly, I truly don't know.

What's your biggest fear? Like, is your fear, do you fear for your health, for your parents' health, for the world's health, do you feel just for the sake of normalcy, the stock market, the, our, our careers and our job industry, all of the above, none of the above? Literally everything, everything is under attack. Like it's not just your current status, your health, which is, you know, dangerous. It's also your parents' health, like you said, 65-year-olds are supposed to isolate themselves in California.

Okay, that's my parents. And then every business that either I am associated with or friends are associated with is under attack because nobody can go to work. So, you know, friends are friends that run restaurants, cafes, small businesses. For the next, they're close for how long? Can they come back ever? I mean, that's the weirdest thing to me, but like, that the way to, the best way to help right now is to do nothing and kind of like stay in, keep yourself at a distance.

But then we also don't know for how long. Yeah, no, we have no idea. And there are guesstimates that can last, you know, a year and we don't know if that will be a year, if it'll be four weeks or somewhere in between. And then while this is happening, people are, you know, a bunch of people think that individuals like myself and maybe you are overreacting or something or like also getting trolled. Yeah.

And you definitely don't want to be right to be like, oh, no, I was speaking out and I was correct. Now the world doesn't. It's not, I guess I hope I'm wrong. I want to rub those people in their faces like, see, our hospitals are now overcrowded and thousands of people are dying. You were wrong, but I don't want that happening. Laughing.

Told you. Or we're like, everything does get shut down, which I like starting to feel is completely inevitable. Like the fact that we're taking these baby steps towards Italy when we know exactly what's going on there, we know that it's going to be shut down soon enough, that if that does happen and then it becomes in check and those same people that were at the St. Patrick's Day like fucking barcrawls two days ago are like, see, it was no big deal. And then, I mean, they just closed public schools in New York, I think like up until

April or something. But people are saying like, oh yeah, there's like a good chance that they won't reopen until September. Like this will just, it's this until summer, which is, I mean, that's, that's in pain to me. That is, and then while we're indoors, a bunch of our escapes are also not available to us on like at home, watching basketball games or baseball games or football games or going to movies, like that's not available either.

Yeah, everything is on a hard pause for an indeterminate amount of time. And I just wonder like how long society itself can, can stay at rest with like doing nothing, just like frozen in time. Like, yeah, it's so weird doing anything like sending an email, talking to somebody that's not talking to someone about something that's not the fucking virus. Yeah, I mean, we could have recorded a podcast on like Monday or Tuesday and like gone up and like, yeah, answer people's questions about what to do when their crush tweets at them and thinks it was a DM or something like that.

But like, when do we go back to that? Yeah, I, back to the small problems. It does feel a little bit like 9 11 E where like everything has changed. And we don't know for how long, except the tweets that I'm reading of like returning to normalcy are also really dangerous. So it's like, I'm walking around the streets of Austin and we're finally returned to normal. This is incredibly dangerous.

Everybody continue going home. Don't act that nothing is happening. Nobody can be outside. It's not because this fucking invisible killer is still out to get us. One thing that is very funny to me is seeing, and I know that it's important, but like the social distancing, social media shaming people that are outside, which is, I was equating it to that. Like the best thing we can do is, is stay at home.

Yes. So like people doing that are like feeling like small heroes. And they're like really going off on people that are like at a bar. Yeah. Bar is the worst people right now. I've, I've not gone to a bar. I want the public to know that I have not gone to a bar. Yeah.

Mr. Flushy, you'll start getting them next to me. I didn't cause this. They'll cover me with a flu shot thing. You were patient with zero in America. Are you reading about what's going on abroad? Just like sort of prepare yourself mentally about like how South Korea, how Italy is dealing with this stuff.

I don't think I, I was, I listened to like the Daily and some podcasts about it. Like the draconian measures that China took and was like, that sounds pretty solid. Like if that's what it takes, that seems okay to me. Like I don't know, I don't like that. Yeah, I don't want that in general. But yeah, like when I see a hundred people like gathered outside of five leads for brunch this morning, I'm like, so much, so much to round them up and take all their temperatures.

That doesn't seem fine. All right. I mean, do they know what's going on? Like how in Italy, that's where, like we are where they were 10 days ago. And now they are, their hospitals are overcrowded and they have to like, decide whose lives to save. Like, do they think about that or do they not even care? And they also like just today log, like their, their most severe death day,

like 300 people died today. Yeah. And that's not like, oh, it's 300 people in a shooting and that won't happen tomorrow. It's like, no, those numbers go up every day. And we are on a boat headed right towards there. And unless we do something about it, there's nothing we can do. It is also, I think it's kind of fascinating and sad that, like, as dumb and bad as Trump has been, there hasn't really been anything that, like, we,

we really needed to rely on the president for and tell us right now. So, like, almost the whole entire time, we almost avoided the whole entire time. But now we probably have the worst guy at the helm. Yeah. A guy who's literally, I mean, have you seen these press conferences where this actual smart sound just comes on afterwards and has to basically say that Trump is lying out of his ass? Yeah, it's crazy.

It is insane. Like everything he said, he just keeps on pretending. He wants to pretend that it didn't happen. He would fucking kill for it to have happened during Obama's presidency. Yeah, basically. He basically comes on and is like, you know, if you're young or if you're relatively healthy, it's fine. It's really dangerous if you're old.

This is, by the way, backtracking off his stance of this entire thing was a hoax two weeks ago. So he's, at the very least, moving to the point where he's admitting that it's dangerous for old and sick people. And then the doctor Fauci, who's, like, been around since the AIDS epidemic, has to come on and live. Right. So basically, even if you're young, it's still really dangerous because the

symptoms don't necessarily show for five to 14 days and you can still transfer it on to people. So I just wanted to get that out there. So you guys know you shouldn't be going to work, was it? You fucking idiot. Oh, Jesus Christ. It seems like LA is a comfortable place to be quarantined. Like, are you worried about spending the foreseeable future at your house or do

you feel pretty comfortable there? I mean, I'm as comfortable as possible. I'm like, I'm in part of the, I'm probably like the most fortunate 1% of people who are being quarantined because one, like, I don't have two kids that I also have to entertain or a baby on the way or I'm not sick right now, or I'm not, you know, having to go to work at a place that needs me or in need of money in some way or in an apartment that's too small. So like, I have every, like, box that I could possibly have checked off and it's

still only like three days in and I'm still like starting to get it. It's still nervous. Uh, yeah, I've been thinking about going, uh, like getting a place upstate now. Yeah, which is great luxury. Yeah. Like, but I just like getting a nice little Airbnb, great luxury 1% of course. Yeah. I'm like, I think about doing that and I'm like, Oh yeah, I would do that for

like a week, but you can't like, this won't be over in a week. I'm sorry. You'll come back to a place that by every statistic will have gotten, you know, exponentially worse. Yeah. So then I guess, yeah, maybe I'm going to start, it's too late now. I wish I had been a doomsday prepper. Yeah.

What did you do for, uh, like first round of groceries, second round of groceries? Are you going to the mall or are you going to a store you ordering online? Um, we were lucky that like a couple of things I feel like you'd need to do. I had just done anyway. Like I just, before all of the panic buying, I'd like just Amazon ordered a bunch of toilet paper and I just filled my truck up with gas. Uh, so like that I was like kind of sat there and then I went to the grocery store. I got a bunch of frozen, uh, meat, face meat, frozen vegetables.

Uh, I got a bunch of fresh fruit, vegetables. Um, yeah, I started up. I went, I went twice to the grocery store and then Jill and I also placed an Amazon order. Right. And now you would just say you're absolutely for a week, two weeks, four weeks. I think we have food probably for a month, but not like it wouldn't be good the whole time. But yeah, I would not, I wouldn't, I wouldn't starve. We have a lot of, we have a ton of food.

Would you go to a bodega right now and like buy some soup if you wanted to? Or are you like, no, I'm not going in. I'm not stepping foot into one of those stores. Um, yeah, I would, I think I, yeah, I'd go into a bodega if I needed something, but I don't, I don't need anything. But I like, I drove my car today. Oh, wow. Where'd you go?

Uh, I dropped a plant off at my brother's. Okay. So he's infected at this point. You can no longer sensitive to yourself socially isolated in the countdown. I couldn't do that now. It's another 14 days. Social distance things. Had you, you can see your, your family, it's like small groups, isn't it?

Yeah. Well, one thing that I read was like, you have to quarantine yourself completely for 14 days to make sure you don't have it. Cause at that point it's been, you know, like you would probably show signs. So if you literally don't touch anything from the outside world or yourself or anybody else for 14 days, then you can start introducing new people to your ecosystem, only if they have also done this 14 K isolation. Yeah.

I mean, that's, that's obviously not going to happen. I don't understand. Like I, I really, I don't, I, I don't get what the plan is. You, you quarantine yourself for 14 days. Great. That's the most responsible thing you could do. Then as soon as you walk outside, you're, you're potentially infected again. Right.

As soon as you do any walk outside, you go back into quarantine eases. Yeah. So like, I know Starbucks are not letting people stay inside their restaurants anymore. Can I order one and just scoop the cup on the way out? Did you go to Starbucks today? I went on Thursday and have a constant. What are you going to do for coffee? Do you need coffee in the morning?

Yeah. Fortunately, I'll be telling us like this instant coffee that I'm able to like rig, but you know, now we're running low on almond milk. Do I go to Whole Foods to pick it up? Do I like try to order one on Amazon Fresh? Is what's more, what's more safe is going to Whole Foods and just walking in with a fucking motorcycle helmet on and latex gloves and taking a carton of milk out more safe or having an Amazon delivery man drop it off at my door and then

spraying it down for 20. Yeah, is that better? Is that none of the fires? The Amazon delivery man actually has to come into your house so you can quarantine with him for 14 days. Just to make sure you're both good. On Tuesday, my male lady like rang the door because we had a package and she like, pet my dog.

I'm like, well, I have to murder my pet. I am like Luke is getting quarantined in the garage. He's in a box for 36 hours to make sure that nothing has touched him because I guess, you know, surfaces can hold the virus for 24 hours. Yeah, that's, I mean, we're all, we're all fucked. What's, what's worst case scenario for you? I guess worst case, worst case scenario, I decided that I need to escape the city, go to Connecticut to stay with my parents, but I bring home the virus, infect my

mother and kill her. Okay. Yeah. I guess you're thinking of it, you know, like a very internal worst case, rather than like the higher, I mean, yes. Well, because if that happened, I'd have to kill myself. So that, and then in addition to that, uh, two million Americans died because there's not enough ventilators in America to treat everybody.

Yeah. But if my mom died at the beginning of the world, no one else is, no one else is my family, do you know what I mean? Does that make sense? Yeah. What about your wife or her family? Does that count or is that like still half the degree removed? It counts, but it's removed.

Yeah. No, it's all, it's all, I think Jill is, uh, Jill is probably freaking out as much as you are, I think. Oh, that's good. So she's reading the doomsday warning. She's seeing what's going on in Italy, the decisions the doctors have to make, realizing that we are headed straight towards there, unless there's a full lockdown and instead of that full bars and restaurants are still open.

Yeah. Plus Jill also thinks she has it. Oh yeah. That's another thing. Like once you start to cough, it's like, uh-oh, this is, this is how freaked out we are when I feel fine. Yeah. Yeah.

Like if you, if you just like clear your throat, you're like, well, there it is. It's finally comforting. Yeah. I mean, especially in New York, it does seem like every time you have a dry throat, you're like, well, I guess maybe because I didn't walk like through the park today and I touched the door to get into the building. Uh, right now this is like the best it will be in two for two months. Cause like right now we don't know a lot of people that say the hospitals

aren't overrun yet. This is just like we're now just panic slash preparing for the bad situation, which will start coming this week. So like as bad as, as bad as it is now, it's, this will feel like the good old days in a month. What God, which is that's fucking scary. Cause last week, I don't know. Last week it didn't feel that serious.

It does now. I also remember like, did I tell you about this? Like that a few months ago, I was like, I was in a hotel. I like saw like the first cases were being, uh, talked about outside of Wuhan or something. And, uh, and I was, and I just like archived the New York Times alert and I was like, yeah, you know, that seems serious, but I'm going to watch Downton Abbey. Yeah.

Well, there'll be Downton Abbey watching when there are reports of like, uh, tens of thousands of people rioting at a hospital to get their loved one on a ventilator. I think that's what scares me the most, like more so than like, or I mean, not more so, but like as much as people getting sick is like everyone in New York city losing their cool. And like, yeah, I've had like two weird, like fever daydreams about like needing to know where my car is so we can get out of here.

Yeah. And it seems like as soon as we have the slightest idea of like, maybe we should get out or maybe we should shut this down. It seems like shouldn't we just jump to worst, like next case scenario and like move to Idaho for the time being. Well, that's what I, that's why I wanted to go and get a place upstate. But I also don't know because it does seem by the, like by the time you panic, it's, it's too late.

Like nobody's ever doing something at the optimal time. Like it's smarter for me to have panicked a month than a half ago. And then I could have stocked up on toilet paper and there would have been no line. I could have gotten all the frozen food I needed and it would have been, and everyone would have told me I was overreacting. Yeah, you would have been the crazy person. Like, why are you buying 148 rolls of toilet paper and filling up your car?

And you're like, well, there's this fucking COVID-19 in Wuhan, China right now. And you just say it won't hop over to America. I'm wearing a tinfoil hat. What is, what's your, what is your worst case scenario? Yeah, that is the overcrowded hospitals. It's a million people who need urgent care and we don't have enough ER. And like then the facade of society starts wearing down and people just like start going crazy.

Like when there literally is no whole foods anymore, when there's no Amazon to order from and you're out of food, what do you start doing? I don't know, is it going to be like the fucking purge in May? Yeah, I think that things like this and like, uh, I remember Hurricane Sandy too. Like it just, it makes you realize how much of a, like we're all hanging by a thread. It's just, I, like society itself is a house of cards that everybody just like plays by the same rules that we all accept as normal. But then when those things get rocked, when like the foundation is shaking just a

little bit, it all, it all goes to shit. Like a house of cards. And again, like the best case scenario is that we go back to, you know, the Trump America that we didn't really like that much anyway. Let's take a break. And then I thought it would be fun to call some of our friends and see how they're doing, maybe they're fine. Thank you to Aura Frames for sponsoring this headgum podcast.

You know, Aura Frames is sponsoring not just this episode, but the entire headgum 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, uh, 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, yeah, uh, 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, uh, in our family right now, but they're, 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 frame. This is actually how we, 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, uh, this is how I told my grandma she was pregnant. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of like a, 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, 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.

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So don't wait. Terms and conditions apply. That's Aura Frames A U R A Frames dot com. OK, 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.

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That's betterhelp.com slash if I were you. Check him out. Thanks, BetterHelp. All right. You want to call kind of conference in Jeffrey James. Yeah. All right. So I'll call him, then I'll try to merge us.

Okay. This is like a Transylvania thing. I've been working on this character. Yeah. Dracula. You've been working on Dracula. Who? For my idea.

What's going on in the world? Well, it's been raining a bit. L.A. Ram. All right. Yeah. We didn't even talk about that in addition to all this. It's been raining in L.A. nonstop for the first week ever.

The sky is literally falling. What are you guys? Uh, how's Corona treating you? Self quarantine or? Yeah. What's the, we were talking about it. How we, we've sort of isolated ourselves for the last few days, but we're wondering at what point can we start reintroducing ourselves to new friends.

I thought we'd reach out to some. Have you been, have you touched anything in the outside world since Wednesday? Have you touched anyone? I wish, man. Um, I went on a walk yesterday, but other than that. So you're dead. You're, well, you're laughing when you have to carry her. So, uh, I was just trying to get some fresh air, but yeah, I've probably come, you

know, sent it on. How are you doing your shopping? So I, I, I do, I did one big, it's the cart order from Gelsen, right? Added a bunch of dry goods, canned soups, everything I would need for the two weeks that people were saying we need to prepare for. Uh, maybe an eighth of that stuff was in stock and came. So I basically just have bags of chips, cereal, and, uh, ground beef.

So I've been having burgers the last three nights. You're a college freshman. Of course. Um, yeah, I'm a kid. I'm home alone. That's really what this whole whole pizza, just for me. Two weird guys and half have been trying to break into my apartment. I've been kind of getting them with sharp jacks on the floor.

Yeah. Yeah. You got to try to blow torching them. Well, oh yeah. No, that was what I was going to do tomorrow night. Uh, do you have plans to leave your apartment or do anything socially for the next however long? I've been FaceTiming friends.

I've been, uh, I've been, I'm watching the debates right now. Um, but no, not to leave. Yeah. And what are you going to do about food? Would you, would you lock into a Trader Joe's right now and break the press? I don't know if I would do a big store like that. I mean, there's a lasting by my house that's medium sized.

So I might go there. It's necessary. Uh, there's also this tiny little market, like a block away from me. Right now. So I'm, I've gone there once. I read, uh, what about the other day that Ohio, somebody in Ohio speculated that 1% of the state has it. Was that like an actual thing that Ohioans believed in?

Or is that just, uh, somebody doomsdaying it? Uh, that was just, I think to get people to take it seriously. I mean, she might, that might be the estimate. It was what a hundred thousand people. Um, so that, you know, that's an estimate, but I think you could say that about literally any state right now that has it, like the estimates, obviously higher than the confirmed cases, like LA only has 54, but I feel like I've just heard of like, you know, 10 people or something within my own

circles that have it. So, all right. It has to, it has to be a family in Ohio. Right. Yeah. My, my parents are, um, you know, socialized, social distancing and we'll see how they're socialized, right? Well, the socialites, they're, uh, they kind of walk down grand

staircases and furs often, so they haven't been in that in a while. But, uh, if my dad is, you know, immunosuppressed because he has to take the psoriasis medication and he also has had this cough for like a few months. So if he, if he gets this, I might go home to see him. So we'll see. Jesus Christ. And this is the comedy podcast. Anyway, let's answer some dude has a crush on his librarian from four years ago.

You better keep that one quiet. Um, can you try my hand at close up magic? Actually, we'd love to, you know, do a bit on the video podcast sometime. Yeah. Yeah. Like I said, we don't really know. Like we're recording this over the phone. I'm not really sure what we're going to do with regard to this is one of

like a, this is a, this is a Corona podcast. Now it's not, it's just pull the rabbit out of a hat. All right. I'm coming over. Um, are you guys scared? Jake, you're in New York still or are you in Connecticut? I'm in New York still, uh, just right up until they, uh, they turned the power grid off and let us all spend for ourselves.

But I, we've got a go box, a 12 gauge and I'm going to, I'll hook it out to CT. That, so you're waiting until there's 10 times the obstacles in front of you. That's right. Cause that's when I'm the fucking proof myself. Holy shit. Wolverine claws glued to your fucking knuckles. Party city Wolverine costume. You bought it yesterday.

You left your apartment to go there. All right. Let's start. Let's, let's call somebody else. Let's see what they're doing. Thanks for calling. You have a thanks for talking to us. Yeah.

Cheers. Stay, um, stay, stay cool. All right. Cause that's what shout out to the, uh, shout out to the review review. Yeah. We, um, we also have a podcast. I don't know how we're going to record remote. Uh, maybe I'll just call one of you later and see how you're doing this, but it

sounds great. It's definitely not hard, but we don't know if it's good. Well, it's definitely still. So I can't wait to listen to it. You know, our, our other show is also bad. All right. Yeah. Bye.

All right. Let's, uh, I thought we should call Marty cause he was on a flight last week. I had to. It's good. Uh, let me find Marty and my phone. The head gum triumphant. Hello, Marty. What do you think of the head of gum as a title, a job title?

I like that. Yeah. It's not bad. Um, I'll stick with CEO, but feel free to take it. Okay. I'll go, I'll go ahead. No, I want to be the head of gum. All right.

I guess I'll, I'll continue being president. No. You, I thought you were a treasurer. Yeah. No, no, no, no, no, no, is your dad that said that, yeah. You said the note taker. Secretary. We have more pressing things to discuss.

How's your self isolation spot quarantine going? Uh, I have, like, very much highs and lows. Uh, I didn't expect this to be so turbulent. Oh, how's that? I mean, like, I feel sometimes, like, I'm fine, and then other times, like, oh, I'm dying, and there's gonna be no hospital beds for me. Do you think you have COVID?

You have COVID? I mean, I don't think I have it, but I did fly recently twice in the last week. And I have, like, a little bit of a light cough every now and then, but I'm not sure if I have a cough or if I'm just, like, maybe in my head I have a cough. Well, the crazy thing is right now, like, if you think you have, even if you think you have it,

you're supposed to stay home. Right. Yeah. So, like, if you don't have it, stay home. If you might have it, stay home. If you're pretty convinced you have it, you stay home. The only reason you go to the hospital is if you're, like, actively dying. Correct.

And I just read, and also I think I'm panicking myself because I just read on Twitter that was talking about how in Seattle, if you're over 40, you're basically, they don't have a bed for you right now. Great. Yeah, perfect. And that's close to home for you. That's close to your hometown of Portland. That's the Pacific Northwest.

It's at PNW. Have you made any decisions in your head to, like, get out of dodge or something? Like, where are you thinking two, three, four weeks from now? What's your doomed future? If I have to? I guess I'd get in the car and drive somewhere. But I mean, Portland is where the family is. Although my mom, crazy enough because they don't have school,

she's going to fly out to see my sister in Virginia and spend some time with her and try and help her fly out. I know. How were the flights when you took them? Well, empty. I mean, I told you, I think the set, I didn't really look back on the first flight, but on the second one, there was probably one person per aisle on each side and nobody else.

And I was back from New York to LA, which I assume is probably one of the more popular flights that exist. That's crazy. Yeah. And I felt good. I felt good. I was, like, wiping down my area. I had my lifestyle wipes.

I didn't have anything next to me. So I felt good about it. I still feel pretty good, but, you know, it's kind of a weird apocalyptic situation. Everywhere you go, I mean, you're like, I took the bus to get to Uber and there's like nobody on the bus. There's nobody on the Uber line. You're on a fucking bus, Marty. Well, no, you have to get the, you know, LAX thing.

I didn't touch anything. I just thought Marty also went to Rich. He went to Rich shopping today. He took a bus to a Salvation Army to look for a new flannel. That's right. Didn't find anything. But I did find some really old retainers. That's cool.

You try those on. And I think when you paid, you punched in your debit key code with your tongue, right? That's right. I also like to smell my cash real close before I give it away. What have you done for food? So I guess like four days ago, I jumped on the bandwagon of ordering food. And so I did Amazon grocery to the office, which I picked up yesterday. But what's crazy is I mean, I haven't looked today, but when I did it, you know,

normally you get three, two hour delivery window. And the first time I could get it was three days out. And that was four days ago. I can only imagine how it's getting worse and worse. Do you have food? Yeah, I have, I have food, but it's like, it's all just frozen meals and dry soup and stuff that I can make easily. It's not good.

I'm like, basically, I mean, it's like a lot of those. Oh, I got to be stronger. It's really perfect because you've been living, you've been living with Bachelor. Bachelor lifestyle is exactly, your Bachelor lifestyle is going to, you have, all you have is frozen food. All you do is garbage. It's true. It's true.

I'm basically, I'm like prime for this type of event. I know how to deal with myself. Your apartment is basically a bunker. Is it a dry soup? Yeah, it's dry soup. It's a dry soup, dude. It's last forever. The worst thing you can, the worst way to describe it, dude.

It's just granola. Marty also has, like, an Xbox. I was talking to Carnelly yesterday and he was telling me that, like, the thing I should get is an Xbox. You know, how to start gaming. Xbox Live went down for an hour and I literally had no idea what to do with myself. It was like, I went on Twitter to see and, like, everyone was tweeting, like, first coronavirus now this.

Marty ate a cup of dry soup in the shower. Gamers have such an advantage right now. Like, you guys have days and days to just game. Like, I wish I had the desire to do any of that. I mean, you could just start to pick it up. I've seen you play, what, across the road for four days straight without putting your phone down. Thank God they didn't have screen time back then.

And then I've also seen you do the same with even worse. Swing jump, swing jump. No, with the stupid text ping of beer pong thing. That's what you're doing. Oh, you're doing the text thread. Cup pong. Yeah, yeah. And it's not the same.

I wish I could just fucking 12 hour marathon sesh at fortnight. You can. There's nothing stopping you. I just, I don't find joy in that. It wouldn't pass the time for me. That's why you have to have a squad like I do. So you can get on with your boys and just kind of knock out some games. You blame them.

Yeah. Four hours later and then you're having a little dry soup and then you do the same thing. And six hours later, it's time for bed. All you have fun friends know that you live by yourself in Los Angeles because they all live at home. They're 16 years old. Well, I don't play with anybody under the age of 18, first of all.

I like to keep it at least above 18. And some of the people I play with are friends in real life, like Tall Dave. Artie, are you up to date on the coronavirus stuff or are you sort of keeping yourself ignorant and in the dark? Well, that was the thing is like I was trying to keep myself ignorant and then I went on Twitter today and I almost had a panic attack. I was like, I'm trying to get back off. Yeah.

Jake, are you limiting what you learned because you're afraid or like, is it more comforting to know everything or are you trying to take yourself off? I guess I think there's nothing, I don't know. I'm not smart enough to know everything, but also I don't think there's really a benefit to knowing everything because there's so much that's uncertain and like it's potentially disastrous and there's nothing we can do about it if it gets disastrous. So, I don't know.

I have like a little bit of nihilism, a little bit of like blissful ignorance and a little bit of a dry cough. Yeah. And then the dry cough, of course, and a dry suit. Which leads to which? That's the question at this point. Yeah, I don't know. It's hard to tell at this point.

Can you guys both give me the update of what you think is going on in the world so that I can get a proxy? Yeah. Amir thinks it's more disastrous than I do, I think. Yeah. We talked about it. That's not good. But we know...

He's a brother. Yeah. Our numbers line up with Italy, but we're 10 or 11 days behind. So, I'm just tracking that to see at which point we will have too many sick people for the hospitals, too many people who need emergency help that can't get it at the time. At a certain point, restaurants will have to shut down. Bars will have to shut down nationwide. We're starting to see that in California, but restaurants are at 50 percent capacity.

It feels like we are just tiptoeing ourselves too. If you look at what's happening in South Korea, or China, or Italy, but we're not taking like the crazy measures, because I guess, you know, one, we don't want our businesses to collapse, and two, we don't want to create panic or overreact, because we only have 35 cases, 3,500 cases, and they have 25,000 cases. But, you know, we're not slowing down. 3,500 is just the start.

Right. And Jake... I'm just sort of... I'm mourning the loss of regular life. I haven't really thought about the number of hospital beds, but I just feel a little sad that things aren't business as usual. I missed the world as it was. Let's all take a guess of how long until we have people going back to the office.

Okay. I've got my guess. All right. I have a guess as well. I'll guess August 1st. August 1st? Yes. Okay.

You've got to say what your guess was, Marty. You don't adjust it. I was two weeks. I was April 15th. What was it? I've got to get back on the video game. Okay. Mine's April 15th, but it's 2028, and it's not on.

Okay. Often times, a different meaning in our dystopia. We are in a virtual reality cube in Cameroon, the lap country without a confirmed case. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. This is dire. We won't see the peak of this disease in America for another two months. So this is the lowest amount we'll have.

Right now, it's the lowest amount of panic we'll have for once a month. No, I don't agree. It's not in LA. Isn't the virus not too well on the heat? Here we go. I'm a heater, dude. Sorry. He's talking right now to somebody who's playing Gears of War with him.

What are you talking about? He's right behind you. He's right behind you. He's right behind you. He's right behind you. He's right behind you. He's right behind you. The numbers are only going to go up until we shut everything down.

You see that, like bars and restaurants, even like near Jake, are still overcrowded and overpopulated and, you know, lines are out the door. Yes. There's people that are not social distancing in New York City for sure. You've got to imagine with 14 million people that a few of them probably will still go to the bar. I think, and also, like, so often when things are looking grim, people want to go to the bar and just, like, say, fuck it. I think that's what's happening, too. Yeah. I was at, I actually went like three days ago.

I was at a bar in New York. I was actually leading a rally of people to the bar. There weren't a lot of people. It was, like, pretty slow. Yeah. But I don't know. Restaurants have to stay open. Like, what about people who didn't order food or couldn't order food?

Like, they have to have access to food, right? Yeah, I think food is going to be, well, people, they're not going to let people sit in restaurants anymore. I think that, like, takeout delivery is going to be allowed. But I think that they're already limiting restaurants to 50% capacity. Right. And I saw that Seamless is giving back their service charge or something to restaurants. Yeah. They're kicking their service charge to the restaurant so they can get more money.

Would you guys go to the restaurant this week? I have a podiatry appointment on Tuesday. Is the doctor open? The foot doctor, yeah. I mean, I don't even know what my dad's doing. I think he's skiing. Long story. That's the safest place to date.

Might be. I was in Montana this week. I think skiing. Actually, yeah. You guys got that. You guys got the Mount Hood cabin. I know. Keep that thing open.

I'm going to, if Jill and I have to drive across the country, we'll all meet at the cabin in Mount Hood. Yeah. It's called bugging out. I watch a lot of those survival shows in between gaming. And you actually, it's called the verb is bug out. And that's how you get to your getaway place. Cool.

Cool. Yeah. I'm going to have to bug out. All right. Thanks for talking to us, Marty. Hopefully we'll see you soon either behind a hazmat suit or in a video call or something. Yeah. I'll see you on the Zoom link, baby.

Yeah. That's great. All right, guys. Stay safe. All right. We did it. All right. You want to try to call Ben Schwartz?

One last one. Sure. Ben Schwartz, how is the stealth isolation going? Good. Is it happening already? Because your voice sounds like you're on a podcast. I love that. How are you doing?

Where are you at? Ew. God. Take it down on us, man. We're all just trying to get through this. We got to go, but we'll take another call. And if you have your own suggestions about who we should talk to, please tweet at us. All right.

Take it. Wait, wait. I was doing a bit. I think he actually hung up. It's a great bit. He committed to the bit. What a bit. What a bit.

Oh my God. One second. Okay. Hello, Ben. Hello. I don't know. Hey, how are you doing? Tell me everything.

Hey, I'm sorry. I was listening to what you were saying. I was going by your step-by-step instruction. What was my step-by-step instruction? You said we'll find someone else. Thanks for joining us. Hey, am I the 100th caller or no? I'm better.

I can't believe we called. You're the third caller. We called fucking Marty before. I wasn't more than my idea. I'm your direct with everybody. I felt like he, I felt like he just hadn't back channeled with you or that he did. Say it's my fucking face.

Amir, say it's my fucking face right now. Did you call fucking Marty before me? Think of like a comedy show. You don't fucking start with a headliner, bro. It's going to be extra fun for me to edit this part. Okay. Hello? Hi.

Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi.

Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi.

Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hey, we're onto Ben. You can apologize now. Hey, Ben, how's it going? Tell me everything.

What do you need to know? All I know is that, in the span of like who you want to talk to and who has any meaning in your life, Marty comes first. I don't even want to know who was second. Thomas? Marty was second. He was actually Jeffrey James was first. Jeffrey James was put in the work.

Yeah, that's true. He's a part of the company. Marty's behind the scenes differently. Yeah The column the head of the gun How are you guys doing what do you work across it Jakey are you okay? Yeah, I've self-isolated. I've social distance Jill and I are just hanging out in our apartment It's a lot smaller than I realized

Things are good and you're fine. I'm good. How are you? Everything is pretty good All the food all the food in the world. I just I feel That we're we haven't even scratched on what's about to happen I feel like in the next couple days New York is special in New York and LA I think you're figure out or we're gonna get a series of guidelines or something I think don't you think what do you feel? Things feel things feel bad. They feel uncertain and it feels like it's definitely gonna get worse That's how I feel to me. I'll tell you now

There have been vultures that keep going around the roof of the place that I'm in right now And they just keep going around and around they keep looking at me. I don't know what's going on Are they coughing? Yeah, they're coughing and they're not wearing masks, which is killing me right now Part of why they have like they can't get into straps on they don't have like thumbs to help them out They have more fly things. You know what I mean? They should really self-isolate Yeah Anyway, I'm like inches away from starting a podcast. I don't know what to do. Really. Oh, yeah

Yeah, we'll send you a we'll send you a mic. Oh, yeah, please cough all over it. That's the last thing I need One of those her with germ Mike her with jelly Mike Then I have a question Yeah, can't wait When was the last time you left your house and what did you what did you do? I Grocery shopping this morning right when it right when they opened by the way Wow, we're tonight with the credit

Was it crazy? No, we went there was there's lines on both sides going into the grocery store before I think 655 and There was a little line on both sides and we got in there and they had already reached out a bunch of stuff They didn't have eggs a couple days ago now they had eggs Um, but I'm buying stuff that I haven't touched in like any means Donuts a dream frozen. Yeah, frickin. Yeah pepperoni frozen pepperoni pizzas. Sure. Why not eggos? I got like two things a whole grain eggos

Unbelievable. Oh, we got the we have syrup as well. That's just there. There's something else that I got that I was really Oh, I got I got a mac and cheese the crack blue box mac and cheese Which was one of three things I was allowed to make when I was a kid like in the stove on the stove We got that It's kind of it's it's it's like The first time I went to the supermarket. It was very it was there I ran into some people that I knew it was very like people are doing bit and stuff like that It was right after like people like because of Tom Hanks. Yeah

Yeah, yeah every like erase awareness now everybody's being responsible and everybody's like pointing to doing bit and the last time I was that was all business It was all business Yeah, I think people are slowly starting to realize this is the new normal This wasn't like a hurricane weekend or a blackout situation. This is like. Oh, this might be the entire summer Well, when is this getting released? Are you doing is this your new corona pod? This is gonna come out in in October. I think we're I

Feel like that's really not gonna make any sense. Oh, okay good They can't spoil what happens in all the episodes of like space force and what happens in our comedy special Yeah, that'd be great. Yeah, because everybody by this time they've all been out if it's coming back over We're recording it Sunday night March 15th releasing it Monday morning March 16th Which is so funny because by the time this comes out there may be more information that comes out I'm a dick. Oh, I'm a dick. What was that? Do you just cough? Have a little I will tickle in the back of my throat. Yeah, I Tickle

Yeah, it's dry Yeah Oh Bolton just landed on the balcony Yeah, there it is. This is so insane I think I must be hallucinating because any time the vulture opens its mouth. It's mouth. I hear your voice It's like you guys are right in front of me Then I got another question. I got another caller. I gotta let you go Ben Marty's on the phone

The person who handles our Distribution for those pillows that never sold the jake and your pills are on the other line I got to get a proof Those told it actually I remember going in that closet for months and finding out that they were they were on a deep discount We took an L but they're all gone This is a huge dream for Jake by the way Shoot me for Jake because you get to stay in New York and continue doing his job

Honestly not having to fly back and forth to LA is fine with me. Yeah, I'm finally I'm finally feeling healthy Yeah, being inside has helped me that I've been playing video games. It's our chrono trigger and on SNES mini And by the way, if you have a switch we can play online old Nintendo and Super Nintendo games and then tomorrow I have to get back to work. I always script and it's like the one thing I can I can do from home You really can't all right. Here's my question Yeah Are you is your would you say your iPhone screen time? I've like gone up 4x this week, or are you actually finding your 18% just got just got the numbers 18%

We are hours hours and hours a day. I'm on this Yeah, it's hard to put it down And Twitter too, and it's funny. It's not even posting. It's like just seeing what's going on There's and all much new ones all the time All the time and then people are texting us different things also that people are like like I think you some text that I that I've received And I was on LA type text and I was like, oh people are like sending different things and you're like, oh, I hope it's not I hope everything is okay. And it's just a very and so things are we're like figuring it all out a little bit Which is a little nerve-racking

It's rare that we have a global thing like literally every country is in on this thing together It's not like yes tragedy that happens to like a specific people or area of the world like China and Italy and America are all going through the same shit But it's also you that means for us for America We could look at different countries because it may have hit them a little bit earlier than us and see exactly what's happening to get Some idea of what might happen here Yeah, we're fortunate in that we're like 11 days behind some European countries that are suffering a lot There's like over 1800 deaths in Italy right now That's insane

That's crazy. It's very scary. It's I think you know podcasts like this that you know It's a dramatic podcast. What do you guys do? Yeah, it's dramatic. Well, when we talked to Marty with it was a pretty dramatic Can't believe we're gonna go. Oh, I thought it was a great joke. You guys ready? Yeah, okay knock knock Armageddon Armageddon, you know Armageddon tired of people going to large social gatherings Because we're indoors that you can't stop this brain, you know what I mean Why can I treat that can I treat that I've already I've already tweeted it I'm like 10 minutes away from starting to tick-tock. I

You know what? I downloaded tick-tock. I downloaded tick-tock on Friday. Can you send me what you're gonna post? I can't I don't know what the hell but I I have no idea how to post on it But I went through the speed it's a solid app. I don't hate it Do you remember when you were like the height of what's happening in like digital content and now you said hey? I downloaded tick-tock No, but I'll never forget when you said that because it really cut me to the core Yeah, I feel like yeah, I'm here to bring all you guys down a little bit. By the way, I'm here I know you told me if the end of days ever happened. There's some stuff you want to tell Jake

Do you think now's the time just in case things get worse and you won't be able to tell it? Now I think I'll wait until the mortality rate takes 5% or until the 1 millionth person infected in in America Okay, well, I I do I got a run because I got to eat dinner, but I'm gonna say just to get the little ball good for shit Then you mean a lot to me. Oh, I love God. I love you like a brother. Yeah, it's been a long We've had a long long history, but you know, I wouldn't I Don't think I I don't know anybody But uh, that's shaped me more than more than you have and I really don't know anybody Jake

I can't tell you I honestly can't tell you much. I mean to me and if I could say something I'll tell you something about the first person. It'll be to Jake Jake sincerely like this stuff. This is scary for me. This is scary You don't exactly know what's going on and you have to be safe Even if you don't have any symptoms you should stay inside and one one of the things that I remember because you kind of reflect on your life and moments and people Yeah, is you man because throughout my entire life you kind of in there We've been friends and time it's uh, and it's crazy because it's not even the idea that we get to make people laugh together

But I feel like you and I have really grown close enough together that we like we're in each other's life We're in we're intertwined in each other's lives. So I Truly love you. I'm rooting you on. I know we moved to New York I was the first person to send you a letter there because I wanted to make sure I was a part of your life over there as well It's a train between the moment. I appreciate it. I love you, but I love you I truly I truly love you and it makes me scared and I'm it really These times make you really Realize and think about the people and things that mean a lot to you and it made me realize how much you mean to me in my life

Love you too, man. I fucking love you man. Yeah, I love you and I'm psyched I'm psyched and I've got to This podcast actually made me realize it because talking to you now made me realize what you meant hearing your voice Yeah, I was gonna say this feels like a lemon party Sorry, I don't know what that means. What does that mean? What's that here? What does that mean? Oh, what is it? Oh, what is a lemon party? No, I feel like it feels like three guys in a room But what each other all right, I'll see you guys later. All right. Thank you. Love you to talk to you. I love you, buddy

Bye guys That was a hit gun podcast