If I Were You - 93: Labor Day of Love

Episode Date: September 1, 2025

In this episode we discuss the highlights and lowlights of our decade podcasting.🌎 Get an exclusive 15% discount on your first Saily data plans! Use code segments at checkout. Download Saily app or go to https://saily.com/segments ⛵Advertise on Segments via Gumball.fm.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is a headgum original. Jake and a mere two Jews that you can't forget. In 2010, they were big on the internet. And all things considered, their success is more than fair. Now here's one more effort for only positive motivations, they swear! Another podcast Each app different from the last It's the Swiss army knife of shows

Each your two emphatic hosts Yeah Where are your two emphatic hosts For two more episodes Not including this one September 1st is today That's Labor Day Yeah

Yeah We almost could have taken this episode off. We almost should have taken it off. But these are the real, the biggest fans of all who are listening to this podcast on a holiday weekend. If you're listening to this on Labor Day, on a holiday. Congratulations. Move to the front of the line. You're the number one fan. You rule. You absolutely rule. You own for that. You're a day one for that. If you're listening to this on a Tuesday or later, we want you to politely ask you to decline listening to the last two episodes. You won't make the cut. You haven't made it to the final round.

They honestly won't make sense to you because there's a lot of inside jokes from Monday that were just for the Monday listeners that we have edited out and put in new audio for Tuesday. This one, we should say, is special for the Tuesday listeners. If you're listening to this on a Monday, it's a special audio experience. If this is Tuesday or later, I should say September 2nd, 2025 or later, we will see you. We will see you later this is a this is a dummy episode this is a bunk yeah clip this is filler yes this is vamping yeah you missed what happened for the monday crowd and it was insane the guestless should we even talk about the guess list or should we just be like sorry you guys don't even want to

you don't you don't get to hear them obviously but you don't even get to know their fucking names because you're listening to this on a t i'll say baron t was one of them yeah i'll say right that's trump baron d was another one that's baron d was another one that's Aaron Davis, he's a basketball player, and one last person who was a male porn star in the 90s, and that's all I'll say. Yeah. Okay. So it was the robber baron episode. We did a series of like kind of interesting improv games, but also like political commentary that I thought brought us all to the verge of tears, but we decided to reach a moral playing higher than that.

So we didn't even cry about it. We were just so serious and funny. And you 69ed Peter North. So we are going to say it. So the audio, yeah. Okay. Well, I feel like people were right curious. But the audio for that segment of the show was just us.

It was just a throat fucking extravaganza. Yeah. And that was pretty. I thought we were going to sort of cheekily nod and wink to what happened in that segment, but not necessarily go into the audio. of the um the details yeah the nitty gritty in all of its glory whole uh all right we are coming to you live i'm in a supply closet at headgum jakes at um an undisclosed location in brooklyn yep that's correct just like we started recording this podcast from our house

we're getting pushed further and further home yeah it was always a DIY we uh then we have a podcast network but it got so big that we became irrelevant and we have been cast aside. I'm an intern which I guess was always the dream I have to be fair. Move my car and apologize to the talent

oh sorry am I in your way can I use this office? No what do you need the office for? I'm still recording my show for another. I'm going to interview Baron Trump well do it in the supply closet. No I will I'm sorry I just I don't want to get in the way as all.

So we're getting in the way. And remember when we started this in 2013 with If I Were You, also recorded out of our house. So, you know, the more things change, the more they stay the same. It's always been homespun. Yes. Maybe we can go back to, do you remember where that was in Williamsburg where we were recorded episode one? Yeah, it's just up the street. It's up the street from where I am now.

It was your apartment at 34 Barry. Exactly. So that should be on the head. I'm walking tour. Yes. Now that we don't live in any of these places, we can disclose all of the locations. Yes. Of what, you know, we recorded on Vanderbilt at Rec Room.

Mm-hmm. We recorded at 34 Barry. We recorded at my place at 128 White. Yeah. Or your new place at 57, 5117 North Metropolitan. Shut up. Shut up. I'm just saying the walking tour.

Shut up. walking tour wise people should know what it is um yeah or your current address Siri was activated for no specific reason uh okay so we went from recording the first episode in 34 barry which is on barry in like 11th street in williamsburg i say last episode we get back to that fucking apartment i can't imagine somebody so important lives there that won't let us record i mean this is history. They probably don't even realize their living in the apartment that launched

our podcast career. Yeah. I'm curious. I'm curious. I'm curious. Probably just like in finance or something. Let me see if it's, there is, there's a studio for rent. Yeah. At 34 Barry. Okay. Um, which is pretty cool. Okay.

Um, we could rent it for a month. Basically the price of a small office. Yeah. We could rent it again. Mine was 1800. Go back to our rooms. When I moved there. What's that?

When I moved there in 2008 or something, it was 1800 a month. 1800. Yeah. So that is not the rent anymore. You care to guess. A studio in that apartment. 3,100. That is close.

Now, I'll take a guess. You see the 38. You see the price. 38.10. You see the price. And yeah, it is. So I was right. 3810. It's nearly $4,000 a month to rent a studio. Yeah, $3,810. That's obviously not a sustainable sum.

You remember how small this studio was, too. Like this is... Yes, it was a room. It is... It was not not unlike the supply closet. It's not like a large studio. The bed in the in the photo, like they can't even cheat it. The bed is literally the kitchen. It is, there are, Stools next to the sink, and it's not overhung. This is not a counter. They are falsifying that. And you can't split it with a roommate. Yeah. It is just you.

And it is $50,000 a year after taxes to just live there in a cube. Yeah. What apartment number? Were you 3M? I thought that was yours in the East Village. Yeah. I was 2M. I was in the third floor, then I was in the fourth floor.

You were on, oh, you went up to four. something. Yeah. But that was a one bedroom for 2,800, which I can only imagine is $11,000 a month at this point for a full apartment with a room. Are you kidding me? Yeah. Those are 5,000. Those are 5,000. So if somebody's, if they're charging that, that means somebody's willing to pay $4,000 for a cube. Yeah, $5,000 for a room. Yeah. But or a podcast studio, because that's what this became. It was a live work situation. Yeah, I mean, when we started HeadGum, it was an Airbnb, so it wasn't too dissimilar. We just Airbnb'd a full four-bedroom house for $10,000 and recorded out of the den. Was that where we started, HeadGum? We launched it when we were at... No, we launched it when we had moved into the place on Commonwealth. Oh, before the...

No, that is the place. The $10,000 Airbnb, wasn't that on Commonwealth? $10,000? Wasn't it? No. No. You're talking about Moe's House? Yeah.

No, Moe's House was 7,000. $1,000. Wow. It's all coming out. This is our tell-all. $7,000 a month for a three-bedroom with a den that we recorded and started headgum out of. Yeah, but to be fair, this was not a three. It was a mansion. We bawled out. We lived in a ginormous Spanish casita. Yeah. I remember the first drama was the fact that one of the bedrooms was 700 square feet and had an onsuit bathroom and a balcony. Yeah, two balconies. Another one was a nice bedroom with two balconies as well. And then the third one we called the Kekle, which is the... Right.

The master, the mini master, and the Kekle. We've told the Kekle story before. Yeah, which is a small supply closet off the kitchen that someone probably in the 1920s had to live in semi-legally. It was a servant's quarters, to be sure. Yeah. So we had to figure out that equal distribution of... of rent to the point where the equal key cool yeah we used to we used to we had to figure out a way to divide the price to the point where everyone was equally happy or unhappy with their lot yeah

right but we did get to um use headgum money to pay for the difference i think like we counted that as a fourth roommate yeah i think that was the that was the right we wrote off some of it so some of the but at the time no podcast except ours were making any money so technically you and I paid for the house. Right. But I guess, yeah, Marty was like selling, wait, was he selling the ads at that point? I think he was. Yeah, for us, I would think.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the show was supporting part of the house. Yes. I got the master. I don't remember how much. I don't think I paid very much for it. Maybe $2,500.

Yeah, I think it was like $2,500. And then I paid like $1,800. and then Marty paid like $800 or something like that. No, I think he paid $1,000. Maybe he got to under $1,000. Yeah, because it was a really bad room. Right, because at a certain point, he can go low enough that we're like, actually, we will take the Kekle for that price.

Yeah, it was a reverse auction of sorts. Yeah. What's the lowest anyone is willing to go? Yeah. But my room had the, it was so big. It had the Japanese soaking tub in the bathroom, which was a very, bathtub that you can only squat in yeah it was a bathtub that you couldn't really sit in it was almost like it looks like one of those cold plunges that yeah

you could kind of squat in it I think I took a I think I took a bath in it once did you I think so but it had the double vanity and then it had a walk-in closet that was the entire length of this like massive room it was like probably bigger than Marty's Kiegel I think it was like a 20 foot long walk-in closet that was like, I had eight shirts. It was so big. It was Kiegel-sized. We could have had the studio there.

Yeah, and it was very soft and dampening. Yeah, noise dampening. Marty should have lived in the den that we recorded headcomb out of. Yeah, yeah. And we could have record. But I mean, I think that it helped to have that, like, cool recording studio. Yeah. It was like every time we met with anybody that was going to record,

they would, like, show up at a mansion and we would, like tour them around our house rather than like here's our um here's our weird little office in a strip mall which was another type of thing we're looking at it was very like um mark Zuckerberg renting a beach house or a pool house in palo alto style where we're just like young kids even though we were 30 in over our heads renting a place that we don't belong in and just like acting like rich adults for a year yeah just making blue apron meals in the kitchen. Yeah, they would send us the stuff and we would actually use it back then. That's how long ago it was. Holy shit, a loot box? Dude, look at these toys. That's awesome. It's a flask.

Oh my God, these are fucking whiskey stones. Pop them in the freezer, dude. We got these for free. We really did use the whiskey stones. Or the sphere ice, the ice spheres. Yeah, we'd love the sphere ice. Yeah. Actually, it's a really good gift for your 40th.

I'm sorry, I totally forgot. It's for Gemma's first day of school. Give her a fucking bunch of ice spheres. Are you kidding me? How did that even work?

She actually would love that. I already forget. Like, you pour it in. There's like a little thing at the top that you can pour the water in and then you peel it open and like can peel in half or something.

Yeah, it looks like the Death Star. It's like a rubber bolt. It's like you feel like. it in halfway and then you cover it and there's a tiny little hole, but you can go in the rest. Shit. I was like making fun of it earlier, but I really, really want an ice sphere now. At least for my coffees in the morning.

I actually wouldn't be bad for the coffee. I mean... Cold brew, rocks, me at an intelligentsia. They should be doing that. They should, ice and coffee should improve. It doesn't have to be chip ice, everybody. Oh, let's switch it up a little bit. all right this is segments we should say again thank you for listening to our pen pen ultimate episode

which is the episode before the final episode before the final episode still that's right two more to go after this one but again if you're not listening to this on monday september 1st we don't necessarily need you to stop keep listening for september 8th or the 15th yeah yeah have a good life um all right let's take a break and continue strolling down memory lane more stories to be told thank you to sayley for sponsoring this episode episode of our show. Thanks, Saly. What is Saly? It's a new ESIM service app brought to you by the creators of NordVPN. Ooh, I do love Nord. So if you've ever been lost abroad or badly needed an internet connection with no Wi-Fi spot in sight, that could be pretty stressful when

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That's 15% off your first purchase. You'll love to see that. Use code segments at checkout. Again, that app is S-A-I-L-Y. Saly. All right. Thank you. And we are back.

Yo, yo, yo. All right. If that mansion was the highlight of our. our L.A. Headgum experience. What would you say is the highlight of our overall international? If you can choose any part of the globe, whether it be New York or one of our trips, highlight of our If I Were You Slash Segments Experience. Hard to beat coming out on stage at the Sydney Metro for me. Right. Which was our biggest show and in Australia and the first time we had been to Australia.

Yeah. I think it was like our biggest show. by a lot, like more than double the biggest show previously, like 1,200 people and the way that venue works, it just like looked like a bit like a mass, like a wall of humanity. Yeah. And they were so loud when we came out. I remember being like, like, my God, like shaken. And that was the episode you got pretty wasted during, right? I ultimately, because I was, I mean, I was.

I mean, I fucking either have it or get it. I drank at every show, which is, I mean, for such a long time. And I still might even have like a little glass of whiskey on stage to calm my nerves. It's like, but I've recently started doing like non-alcoholics, but it doesn't quite like help obviously. It doesn't quite dull the nerves, yeah, because it's not real poison. It just sort of convinces. yourself that you're drinking poison when I'm on stage now it's like the weirdest feel

because like I'm I don't really drink at all but it's a lot easier to abstain just from like if you know I'm going out socially I'm like I don't care if I'm if I have a drink or not I feel the same but on stage I'm like I literally need to relax yeah I guess there's other ways to do it but what am I going to fucking meditate at the yeah the Philadelphia Helium Club no But yeah, I guess that's also one of the reasons that you shouldn't drink, but who cares? Anyhow, I was drinking and I was drinking extra in Australia because we were just living it up. That's also sort of like the vibe of Australia. It's got an Ireland vibe where like drinking is half the battle.

Yeah. And I feel like now I also am like I'm way more like regimented like, okay, well, I'm not going to drink anything until right before I go out. Then I'll have like three sips of whiskey through a show and like that's. That's good. Back then, I was like, oh, yeah, I'll have like two whiskeys before I go out, another whiskey during the show on stage. And then we'll do like a shot at half after one of the bits was like, you fill my glass to the top with whiskey and you chug whiskey. And everybody yells for you to skull it. Yeah.

And then at a certain point, you were putting whiskey in a shoe and drinking it out of a shoe. Yeah. Right. So I think I did. For sure, I blacked out. I don't, I remember the first half of that show really well and I have no recollection of the rest of it. Right. In that Australia tour video, there's a video of me chugging my cup while everybody is chanting to chug.

And then I drop kick the cup into the audience. You hit a seven-year-old girl with your sandal, which flew off when you tried to kick the cup. And then before we left, I think everyone was telling us to do shooies and we poured the rest of my, we, I, I, like, had a new glass of whiskey. I poured it all in there, and I did a shooey, which was awesome. All right. Because at that point, you were just wasted to the point where the whiskey might as well have been apple juice.

It didn't feel like anything because you were so blackout. Yeah. But I think that was the night of our lives. I don't remember anything. I think there was also those, like, crowd barriers. I, like, jumped onto one of them. And then we also have to do a, we had to do a meet and greet afterwards. So, like, it's like, there's rock and roll.

style. Yeah, fuck yeah, Australia. We're out. Okay, if you paid for a $75 extra, we'll take a picture with you. Line up over here. We'll be taking pictures next to the poster. Yeah, but I remember those meet and greets. I actually, I came back to, I think, during the Sydney one, I remember like me, you and Streeter, we would like, I mean, we were drunk for sure, but we were like freestyle about everybody that came up to meet us and stuff. That's cool. So it was extra friendly. We should watch that Australia tour video for Patreon, because I bet it has a floodgate of emotions and memories and stories that we've completely forgotten. That's true. There's two men out there that have tattoos of our faces.

Yeah. But that was, those weren't fans. Those were just the people. But how often do you talk to Josh and Steve? The free shit men. Because I have a weekly Zoom canasta game with them. They're both Buddhist monks at this point. They've completely pivoted.

I've kept in touch with them. I follow them on Instagram. Do you? Oh, really? No, I do not. Yeah. Yeah, we DM every once in a while. What are they up to?

They were sort of, they were the people like the tour managers that brought us there, but then they also like owned venues. They were just sort of movers and shakers in Australia. They also were like we're comedians in their own right. Yeah. They're just, they do it all. Yeah. They were kind of like us except more energy and more like party.

Yeah. Like they have restaurants. venues. They still, I mean, they own and operate like two, or a bunch of clubs in Melbourne and Sydney. Still. Yeah. Looks like they're doing really well. Josh has a son. I wonder what they were doing during lockdown. Were they sheltering in place? Because they seemed like they didn't have the energy to sort of stay at home until the curve gets flattened. Yeah. I think Steve was a big golfer. I bet he got some nice golf in.

Yeah. And that's the one that got a tattoo of you on his thigh. Yeah. And I have a, I feel like I have a kinship with him. We're forever connected for that. Yeah. Well, you didn't get a tattoo of him. But I would at this point.

I'll go to the opposite end of the earth. The London shows, which were awesome. And that Ben came out for. It was like a London tour, but also we were in Dublin, some comedy festival there, too, as well. Yeah, that's a good shout. Ben in Dublin. Do you remember the way we introduced him? Yeah, because nobody thought he'd be there, and he was just like randomly there shooting a movie in London and then flew out to Ireland to do these shows with us. Yeah. And like these shows were awesome. It was a couple hundred people

inside a tent. So it like felt again really like Woodstock. Intimate but high energy. Everybody there was at like a comedy festival. They were amped. Yeah. And we had teased that there was a special guest and we were like it's not I think we like said that it wasn't Ben that we like don't get your hopes up yeah yeah so people were like not really expecting it um and then the way we introduced him we like went off about how we found a local Irish comedian and where he was born in Ireland and that he's one of their own and then we said Ben Schwartz and they we blasted the listen up everybody this is the guy that sucked my dick song and he ran out yeah my favorites when we had to explain to these, like, tech support people at the venues.

One, who we are, because they were traditional, like, music people. They're like, do you need this? Do you need this? Like, no, we sort of just need this CD with a suck your dick song and two stools. Yeah. Oh. It's like grizzled roadie guys. Like, what time is loaded?

Like, it's just us. Sound check. Can we order a burrito? No, we really just need two microphones and then the song about sucking a dick. Uh-huh. And you guys sold out this venue? I think so, yeah. So that'll be kind of neat.

In two minutes, yeah. Yeah. Because Guns and Roses did that in 1988. And now these two Jews in their early 30s did so for their advice podcast. I don't know. Maybe we should keep this going like now that I think about it. Like how else are we going to create these memories if we don't fucking record and hit the road? We just did this semi recently in Philadelphia and New York.

Yeah, yeah. Well, we have to just bring back if I were you. Oh, shit, really? Because the questions got a little repetitive now that I think about it. Yeah, but now it's been two years and I miss them. Oh, right. Your substack, you're getting new advice questions. Are they repetitive like the if I were you?

Are they new ones? Have they aged up? And now they're questions about like family planning and taxes. Yeah, they've aged up. But there's definitely recurring themes. I'm sensing that people feel creatively unfulfilled. There's a lot of like, how do I do this? I want to do this or what should I do with my life

or I don't know what I want to do with my life but then there's also the classic relationship ones there's a lot of like am I happy in this space would I be happier in another one you know chasing dreams that's what it's all about it's interesting that like as a artist whether it's like all the us all the way to like rock and roll stars it seems like the fans you had

within the first like three years are your core fans and then they just like age up with you like if you go to like a Fleetwood Mac concert everybody's 58 years old. And if you go to like a Justin Bieber show, they're all like 29 years old. And now like there's like nostalgia tours of like, I went to a sublime cover band. My friend's onto a counting crow concert.

Everyone's like 40 years old. Like it's hard to get new fans and it's hard to have fans that are older than you. Everybody was just like, who was 18 when we were 24? That's their age currently right now. They're all like six to eight years younger than us. Right, right. Which is why we should bring back if I were you. because we don't need new fans.

We just need to go back to the ones that existed and be like, hey, your favorite podcast has returned. Yeah, but how do we actually access them? That's the question. How did people sell out shows before podcasts like Jerry Seinfeld, 1998? He's going to Santa Barbara to make a show. How is he getting the word out about that? Radio, celestial radio, marquise, newspapers.

Magazine ads. I guess people used to live. listen to the radio, buy newspapers, and buy magazines, and they don't do that anymore. Yeah. You know what I did recently? This is a little off topic of memory lane, but I was home in my hometown, and there's a video rental store. I think it's like one of the last ones that exists. Like a Blockbuster? Yeah. It's, it has always been in Hampton. It's like the independent video rental store. It was like used to compete with Blockbuster and Tommy Kay. It's called Best Video

And they They just have a fuck ton of DVDs And they I think the neighborhood Do you even have a DVD player? No We don't We did

But so here's what we did It's also Everybody can just click a few buttons On their smart TV And watch this stuff instantly Yes, exactly But I'm trying I think for our daughter

I'm trying to live a more analog life a mantra that I keep on kind of repeating as I'm walking around in my head is I don't have a phone so I'm just pretending that I don't have a phone it's like you don't have a phone I don't have a phone I don't have a phone yeah you don't have a phone yeah I was for example I was I took dingo out when I was home in Connecticut we went to this like big soccer field nobody was there at seven in the morning the sun is rising oh is that when you were twitch streaming yeah I saw you fuzzling with the white you were complaining that the park Wi-Fi was sort of on the fritz and that you couldn't quite figure it out and it was choppy couldn't set it up I yeah my headset the Bluetooth couldn't connect

to my phone somebody started kidnapping dingo and you took you five minutes to realize it but I was like sometimes I'll like throw the ball to him but I like look at soccer scores or course you know refresh Instagram who's awake at 615 right because he's running really far across the field and he might get distracted so I'm just going to look at my phone that's 30 seconds I was like you don't have a phone like what did what would people do before that and we also went to we went to best video and I was like this is such a nice family activity like we walked to a video store we walk around you look at all of the titles you hold them in your hands yeah it sounds like such a boomer yeah but then you like then you walk home and you know love it or hate you

this is the movie for the night right you can turn it off but there's no other options i think it is just like it's it's so it's so much better than three people sitting on the on the couch endlessly like scrolling through the different streaming options while other people are on their phones and distracted it's like yeah okay of every movie ever created or television show ever which one do you want to watch uh yeah like family guy or shindler's list or I can sort of, we're nine seconds away from either. So I just think I want to go back to some technology has made some things better, but something's worse.

So I just want to have like more of, what's the word, almost like an intentional lo-fi life where I leave it behind sometimes. Yeah, which is sort of what we've been trying to do for the last decade in some way, shape, or form. I mean, remember when you were toying with the idea. have a dumb phone or something. Yeah, yeah. But now I can't do that because I like taking the kid too much.

It's just not worth it. It's just not worth it. No, you have to. You need it. They fucking got us to the point where we feel like we need this shit. And then they're like, they make it so addictive to have it that it's like nearly impossible to never use it. I find myself just like walking around the house with my phone and my hand.

I'm not even like using it. I'm like, this is just the way I walk now. I have a phone exposed because it's like so annoying to put in my pocket and take it out every 19 seconds. Yeah. That's what I'm trying to stop, like just going on a walk. But like as you're walking, you remember something. You're like, oh, wait, I have to look this up for later.

Oh, wait, I'd have to do this really quick. Oh, I can knock this out. Oh, I'll just look at my messages. And then you just like 10 blocks have evaporated and you've been in a hole the entire time. Yeah. So that's why I say, you don't have a phone. And I end up trying to, I like try to use it when I sit down somewhere. I'm like, okay, here, this is where your phone is.

Right. In line at a store. In line at a coffee store. Everybody's on their phone. No, I don't even want to, no, not in line on the phone. You're never online when you're in line. I hate being on my phone in a line. That's like the, because you're not paying attention.

Yeah, it's just like, I don't know. I feel like that's what you want, you kind of want to, that's when life slows down and you want to feel that. I want to refresh slack and see if anybody's pinged me about an appointment. me yet. I can't, I literally cannot think of something good that's happened on my phone during the day in my whole life. I want to, when I'm at a bar mitzvah, be generating AI content in the back instead of listening to my friend's son get bar mitzvad. Yeah, nice half Torah. But this is better. And I'm going to let you finish. But I'd rather be playing clash of clans and doing the wordle,

and doing the mini and doing the it's too late we're too in but yeah let me know if that works the mantra thing sounds interesting I don't have a phone it's worked a little bit it has worked a little bit

yeah but ultimately we still need the internet to survive we can't go full analog yet no and I think that's I almost I think that's the point I'm like I don't want I can't leave it behind but I'm just trying to like designate

very specific times in my life when it can and should exist. Yeah. Because I don't like it being an escape from boredom for me because it never makes me feel unbored. It makes me feel bad. So it's like you're bored. How'd you like to feel kind of stressed?

Look at your phone. What are you missing out on slash what tragic event is unfolding? Right. I'm bored. And then it's like, well, why are you bored? It's a beautiful day. You're throwing a ball to your dog. He doesn't have a long time on this earth.

Do you need to know if the Wickham Wanderers beat Sheffield United? I don't think so. You're going to find out eventually. Also, this is actually a conversation you're having with Chat GPT at the time. Do you really need to know this? I guess you're right. Ding. Yeah.

Thanks for asking. Have you actually asked Chat GPT because shout out to Allison Williams on landlines. I think she mentioned how one time she asked ChatGPT what it thought of her to describe her based on their history together. And I asked mine yesterday. What did it say? I don't use ChatGPD because it's bad for the environment and it's making us all dumb. And I'm just trying not to support AI in general, but what did it say to you? I'm curious what it said to you.

Because I deleted all the app and I also declined using Google Gemini. So I've been using this sort of lofi duck, duck, go searching. engine, which doesn't actually use a lot of energy at all. And it takes a lot longer because it actually sends you the search results in the mail. But you're a hot, jacked dude with a hog, cock, and a great sense of humor and sense of self. You have a ton of cash and love, and you still deserve more. You're the man, Hurwitz, and I suck. That was the prompt.

And so does your writing partner, Blumenfeld. It knows about me. That's awesome. And I don't think it's that nice to everybody. No, because it's designed to sort of neg you, I think, so that you use it less because they feel bad. If they just complimented everybody, then everybody would use it. And it would just sort of win the attention economy on our phones, which it doesn't want to do. No, no, not at all.

Okay, let's take another break. Come back and wax slightly more about our highs and lows. Maybe there are some lows we could talk about, too, just so we don't get so nostalgic and regret our decision to end this thing. That's nice. And we're back. Yo, yo. All right. The highlights were the beginnings of things, the origins, the big crowds, the travel.

But it's obviously not all highs. It's unsustainable. Otherwise, we would keep this fucking ride going forever. So what's been the, not low lights, but I'll say the most difficult and challenging parts. Huh. That's a good question. That's a good question. I'm wearing rose-colored glasses.

I have two that come to mind. All right, let's hear them. One, I guess these are all wrapped up into one big one. But like, when things aren't going well, either globally or locally, like dog is sick or COVID or fires, we sort of still have to record. So it's like, I'm not in the. mood to chat and be funny, but, like, I sort of have to do that at least once a week. So, like, there's no, there's no designated time or schedule that you can sort of decompress for a month or two if you need it. Yeah, yeah. Actually, my paternity leave felt like that for me.

And that is almost like proving your point. Like, it felt so nice to just not have a standing obligation. Yeah. You were semi-retired for three months. Yeah. It's a fun job and it's not a hard job. No. But it's a repetitive job and it's still a job. So always there are things that you're just like, man, I don't feel like it this week. I don't feel like it right now. But you have to because like I said, it's a job. It makes me respect like these late night hosts that not only have to do this more often like every single week night, like a Colbert or Seth Myers, but they also have to be on and funny and laughing. I'm like, what if one of them was going through a divorce? What if you have a cold? Yeah, or a cold or a sick dad or a sick child or a dead dog. Like, are you just supposed to like turn that off and be like, all right, we're here with Kristen Chenoweth. Tell me about that wacky thing that happened on set. Yeah, that does seem hard. But they also have like such a big ecosystem around them.

I wonder if that helps like or maybe it's even more isolating. Right. They definitely have a lot more help. But they also make a lot more money. So it's probably worth it for them. That helps for sure. Yeah. Yeah. If you're making a million dollars a month, I'll also sort of turn it off and not be bummed for an hour.

Yeah. I mean, COVID's kind of obvious. That was just a bad time generally for everybody. Yeah. I wanted to listen to that episode again of like us, we didn't even know how to use Zoom so we would call people and I would like try to record my phone conversations. Yeah, I'm sure the audio is really bad. Yeah. I remember talking to people about like what they experienced.

experienced and how long they thought it would last. So I'm sure that would be pretty funny to revisit. Yeah. I still remember thinking it was going to be gone before the summer. Oh, yeah, at least for the summer. Maybe two weeks. If we all stayed at home for two weeks, we'll just blow by this thing already. That was bad when Trump got elected in 2016.

That was also a weird time to podcast. It was like next, I mean, we recorded the day after. We've done it twice now. Yeah. And we did the morning after Biden. We did the morning after Trump, Biden, and Trump. We've spanned three presidencies. We did the morning after Biden?

I think so, yeah, because it was like the inverse of the morning after Trump. Where we were happy. Yeah. I mean, maybe like, I don't know, would you consider like managing podcasts and people a hard or stressful part of the job? Do we do that? Do we manage podcasts? At a certain point we did I remember like

I remember us like writing emails to try and like lure podcasts or save them or or cut them Oh you mean back in the day yeah Yeah those were those were tougher Yeah Because we had to cut shows from headgum And we're usually the ones that do that

Or we had to like fire employees That was also very uncomfortable We were just like we're usually the silly artists Who are either getting hired and fired Not like all right Can you sit down I need to call you and talk to you like have a difficult conversation.

Well, thank God that wouldn't happen anymore. No. It was the wrong size for a little bit where you and I were in charge, but there weren't enough people to help us be in charge. That was an uncomfortable situation for everybody. Yeah. Nobody wants to have a serious conversation with us. At least of all us.

Oh, yeah. I barely even want to have a serious conversation with myself. Yeah, I can't. Other low lights, other low lights, there were there was the crazy guy that came by and yelled at everybody and when we're in the arts district that was fun that was your uncle he I guess thinks he owns part of head gum or something you gave him 5% well technically he does sandwich and you didn't ever he has a lean against me so he owns what I own yeah and he does lean against you so that explains

guy. Lean on me. Yeah. I don't know if anything else comes up because, as you said, it is ultimately a few hours a week. I remember the editing really, really early on was stressful because I didn't know how microphones worked or editing software and like things would be echoy or like you would be too soft and I would be too loud and it was hard to make it sound really good.

I remember that. It's so funny because like we would listen and we would know how it sounds. but we'd always like put it up and like if the comments told us it was echoy we'd be like damn it's echoy yeah they heard you really soft shit yeah let's see if they noticed yeah or like we were recording in the same room and like your audio was bleeding into my microphone or my microphone wasn't working oh remember when we were recorded with alison williams and we were very excited and her like microphone cord just wasn't working and i'm like i don't know what to do i'm sorry It's just me, and I don't know anything, and your chord isn't working. And did we fix it eventually? I think we just ended up sharing. Me and you shared a microphone, and she, like, used a microphone or something. That sounds about right.

That sounds like what we do. I wasn't going to figure out why a chord. It's like some, it's not even growing pains. Like, there have just been times where audio just gets, like, lost, too. It's such a, it is kind of a stressful medium. Like, especially when I'm recording like campaign episodes of NADPOT, I'm just like, I have like a tick where I'm just like constantly looking to see if the thing's recording. Oh, you had the, uh, the audio issues. There have been times when it's not.

Or the audio issues at the like the office where it's like there's a static and you don't know until it's after you recorded for an hour. Yeah. Yeah. Like I would listen. I would listen. No static, no static. And then we record and you play it back and it's like, oh, no, here's just 20 minutes where it's. it's hissing. Oh, sorry, I can't produce and engineer and host at the same time. Yeah. If I'm

listening to you, I can't listen to me. Yeah. Audio's finicky. That's another one. But what are you going to do? Pay somebody to engineer every single time you record? There's no, there's no way you can have somebody on, on that payroll. God, no. Okay. So that was a nice little Labor Day Memory Lane, highs and lows, Rosent Thorn. Yeah, where we talked about our labor. And our labor of love. That's really good. Thank you. For the last two episodes, let's try to come up with some banger segments.

I think I want to write a poem. We got to go out with a poetry or not. Yeah, I think I did a poetry or not when we announced the show was ending. So it is your turn. Yeah, I have to write a good one. I got one in. Yeah. And I think I got you.

You did. And are there any other classics we can think about to revisit or new ones that we can end with? A mystery guest would be pretty good. That'd be iconic. Yeah, those were classic at the beginning. I'll try to think of a good one. See if Baron is available or even that. Yeah.

The guy that you said, we 69ed. We could do a hogwash, Peter North, hogwasher Haune with Peter North. Because he has a hog. Yeah. And if you want more of us, you can always watch us on Patreon. Patreon. We've been doing bonus segments there on video so you can watch that. All right.

That's correct. And I think that coupon code segment or segments works for 50% off your first. month of Patreon. Hell yeah. So if you're always jonesing for more, we got a lot more content, and it's only $2.50 for the first month with coupon code segment. That's right. This show was ending, but our Patreon is not.

There's still time. Congratulations to everybody who's walking in there for the first time and noticing you have 500 episodes worth of shit to go through. Enjoy it. Amazing. And we'll be back, of course, next Monday. Yeah. Happy Labor Day, y'all.

Chao. That was a Hidgum original. What's up, everybody? I'm Kyle Mooney. And what's up, everybody? I'm Beck Baun. And, man, we got something to tell. Yeah, we definitely do.

Yes, it's a brand new podcast on HeadGum. That's right. And it's called What's Our Podcast? Yep. And that's because we don't have a single idea what our podcast you'd be about. Yeah, we don't. So we actually have a guest. come on and they tell us what they think our podcast should be about and then we try it.

Yep. Guests like Mark Maren, Jack Black, Brittany Brosky, Caper Lan, Bobby Moynihan, Meg Stalter, and Tim Balls, Landon Axler, Jolie, Joni McGreeze, and Dender. And Dender. New episodes release every Wednesday. So subscribe to what's our podcast. On YouTube or any of your favorite podcast platforms.

Yeah. I'm going to go do it right now.