Sad Boyz - We Forced A Chef To Watch Horny Cooking TikToks | Sad Boyz (w/ Josh Scherer)

Episode Date: March 21, 2025

Survive the Mythical Kitchen LIVE: The Mythical Kitcheneers (Nicole, Trevor, Vee, & Lily) are about to enter the most intense cooking competition of their lives — with the ultimate prize on the line. Get your tickets now at https://mythicalkitchenlive.com & tune in LIVE on April 3rd. Sad Boyz Nightz #105 Check out 100+ bonus episodes at: https://patreon.com/sadboyz 00:00:00 Welcome, Josh Scherer! 00:01:58 Mythical Kitchen Live! 00:05:11 Checking In On Donut Daddy 00:11:27 Making Content For Attention 00:15:43 The Meet Is Important 00:19:01 Cedrik Lorenzen 00:23:23 Meat Couple 00:26:01 Embracing Strengths, Accepting Praise, Challenging Negativity 00:32:00 Gamedle 00:42:54 TimeGuessr 00:46:46 FoodGuessr 00:53:53 Parkour 00:56:17 Sports 00:58:46 Health & FItness Motivation 01:03:24 Sleep 01:05:36 Athlete Mentality 01:08:29 On Camera Anxiety 01:16:56 Working On A Team, Knowing Your Strengths 01:21:00 Processing vs. Avoiding Negative Feelings 01:26:26 Insecurity In Youth 01:33:01 Don't Jump Too Hard 01:36:43 Christian Scientists 01:38:19 Dealing with Death 🎬 CREW 🎬 Hosted by Jarvis Johnson and Jordan Adika Produced & Edited by Jacob Skoda Produced by Anastasia Vigo Outro music by @prod.typhoon & @ysoblank

Welcome to sad boys a podcast about feelings and other things also. I'm Jarvis. I'm Jordan introduce yourself No, I'll introduce him introduce him. I don't let a man speak unless I get permission sit down and listen, okay? We're joined by the very very special guest Josh share of mythical kitchen. Wait a minute I feel like I can't speak until Jordan gives me express permission Jordan may I speak? I feel like I can't speak until Jordan gives me express permission. Jordan, may I speak? Hold on. Pfft. Ha ha ha ha. Go ahead.

Shut up! Ha ha ha. I didn't say nothing, man! Okay, now you're allowed to talk, man. The vibes before we recorded were so good and now it's so aggressive. Well, that was when we respected you, but now performatively we don't respect you. Now explain why you said drunk driving should be okay. I didn't say that. What I did say-

Cut the mic. No, hear me out. If you, I said non-alcoholic beer, I should be able to drink one athletic light, 0.5% alcohol on my way home from work. That's it. Non-alcoholic beer has alcohol? I think a small percentage. A lot of-

It's like decaf coffee has like a small, yeah. At some point they stopped carting to buy kombucha though, which I appreciate. The early days of kombucha. They would card you I was tricked. I was told by my friend. It was a non hard kombucha You know trace alcohol essentially and I was given like four by my friend or like wig and we're getting twisted All right. This tastes really bad. It must be 5% right this must be I must be getting something else out of this

This must be healthy or getting me which then my 21 year old asses, they go like, oh no, it's the probiotic. You got tricked into good gut health. Suck it nerd. I don't need it. I super did. Josh, how are you doing? I'm doing great, man.

I mean, what do you have? You have a wonderful home. I'm obsessed with your dog. I'm stealing dinner. The dog's obsessed with you. I know we were match made in heaven. He is down to play after this, you know, so. He is an enthusiastic, friendly, jacked dog.

You two align up pretty well, actually. That is the type of person that I try to seek out in my life. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you so much. Friendly and jacked, yes. That actually means so much. Up top, I want to say that you've got a live show coming up. Maybe the people know you from your beautiful concoctions,

your brilliant foodie mind on Mythical Kitchen, last meals, et cetera, and you guys have a live show. We do, we do. It is called Survive the Mythical Kitchen, April 3rd, 7 p.m. Go to mythicalkitchenlive.com to get tickets. The idea is that I have been put through the ringer over the last five, six years,

shooting everything in Mythical Kitchen, seeing if I can break the world record for most baby food eaten in a minute, trying to cook a hundred Japanese omelets in a row. And I did get it for a bit, and then it got taken away from me. The Japanese omelets are the ones where you have to keep, you can't stop whipping.

Omelet rice? Like omelet rice, yeah. And then you slice it and then. We had the brilliant idea to see if I could become like an expert in that just by doing it 100 times in a row and it sounded super cool, but then it's like, you know, a 10 hour shoot day and I'm like sweating and there's like arthritis developing in my wrist.

So anyways, I am now taking that abuse and I'm sort of putting that on the shoulders of all four of my onscreen compatriots and culinary producers and Mythical Kitcheners. And so I'm running them putting that on the shoulders of all four of my onscreen compatriots and culinary producers and mythical kitcheneers. And so I'm running them through their hardest test ever to try and crown the ultimate mythical kitcheneer. At the end, we have a grand prize. It's actually a really sick grand prize.

An HR manager comes out and chooses who to fire. Exactly. It's you. Basically. But no, it's gonna be really sick. And I'm really excited. We've never done anything like this before. That's, I think it'll be so fun. What was the genesis of this?

Was it just a on the maybe the 98th Omar eyes? I'm you were like thinking which is my which of my co-workers do I want to eliminate big time? Yeah, you present man watch squid games once and just like oh, so that's mr. Beast effect Like maybe we should be him This is I love the other maybe everything happens at the end of the season. You didn't finish the season, you were like, I love the outfits. Maybe everything happens at the end of the season. I think he's the best at it. I think what we learned is that Squid Game is good.

It's epic actually. I stopped Fight Club halfway through and was like, guys we gotta start something now. Rick, I'll tell you what it is. American Psycho, Rick and Morty, all things where I didn't get the gist. I got the gist and all I got was that there was a cool guy. Yeah, I should shave my head. And now his posters on my wall. Speaking of American Psycho, there is now an elite restaurant reservation app called Dorsia.

You guys know this? Weird. Yeah. And I was like, it's either the worst name or the best name. Would you like the cat shoved into an ATM? I got into beef with a guy who would use a bot to like messages matches on Tinder and he would use lines from American Psycho. And I said it was creepy and then he approached me at a party and said that he disagreed with me.

What is with, I get it. And you can find out about that on our Patreon. I guess you have limited time or like and it's the cringiest phrase at this point, but poor media literacy or more accurately, a bias towards wanting a Patrick Bateman style mindset to be a good thing. It's like a fight club was called me and my Nazi friends. It's called American Psycho.

American bad guy. But I want to be a bad guy American restaurant goer. Yeah So there's an art the this guy's mentioned in the article that your friends have been sending you but we Have that we actually did a episode about him last year What is this guy? Yeah, the donut daddy. So I don't know if you've checked in on the donut daddy lately. No, I haven't. I feel like it was a period maybe a year and a half ago. Like my wife would just

send me videos of his just being like you should do this too. Well, that's the thing. It's like when I watch these guys, I feel like you are maybe better suited to do it than even they are. To what end though, Travis?

You're always licking your lips when you're on the show. I'm just trying to lure you into making content that I want. Okay, wait, Jacob, we have a list. It would be funny to do a bad job. Like be doing it and like, oh. It's kinda, oh. He makes really beautiful food, especially pastry.

That's what I wanted to get your opinion on because it did he he's definitely exhibiting skill Yeah, a hundred percent Josh. Do you have any anything drawing your eye that we should? Yeah, there's there's that like like a meal foie Jacob just click on For the meal. Sorry that the Napoleon right? Three the three layers got 3.6 million views. Yeah, like that's a very technical, tough pastry to pull off. Oh yeah. I'm curious to watch.

Yeah, let's see it. To watch him do this. ["I'm In My Food"] Taring stuff. He's got a good pump going on. Using a French rolling pin, laminating the dough. This is all very tough. Even there's some burpees before the camera goes on.

I have dumbbells in my office that I'll get a bump on before I shoot sometimes. Oh yeah. When he starts fingering the eggs. Make him a little creme pat. Is that a culinary technique? Does that help? Yeah. No, no. No, I mean, this is all... Oh, dude, are you guys ever making out with someone and then you scrape them with a big metal comb thing?

So do you know where the term food porn comes from? No, this like the bit like, no, this is a beautiful example of food porn. Food porn is defined as the erasure of process of ultimately domestic labor. It was a second, I believe, second wave feminist term coined in the mid 80s and like an academic paper. But it was describing at the time these like women's life magazines that would have these beautiful spreads of crazy dinners that would probably take 16 hours to cook. Right. And then saying, look at how easy this recipe is by this magazine.

Right. The term erasure of process, lamin, uh, they, they call this like Viennoiserie is making laminated pastry dough. So croissants, Queen Amon, all that stuff, rough pastry. That is such a difficult skill and technique that people take years and years and years to master and he is doing an incredible job of a baker, a thousands-year-old profession, doing a beautiful job at it. But this erases it down to, what, 32 seconds, and then sexualizes it in... would you call this playing to the female gaze, or no? Is this still male gaze?

ALICE I think it's... JUSTIN I think it's... ALICE The craft of the male gaze is so much more established. JUSTIN I think it's the idea of the female gaze? I think it's like, what, it's the perceived female gaze? ALICE Yeah, I think the female gaze often is a term that's misapplied to the female demographic. I think that's like, really, we just don't have a hundred years of cinematic language for not boys.

Most women I know are responding like Soph here, who says, Mom, I'm scared. Yeah, no, that's a fair point. But it is like, I think the... Don't get me wrong, I think there are tons and tons and tons of people like this, and I think it's just that a lot of the time if somebody's commenting on anything, that's a fair point. But it is like, I think the, don't get me wrong, I think there are tons and tons and tons of people that like this and I think it's just that like a lot of the time if somebody's commenting on anything, it's going to default to a position of what gets me the most likes, usually going to be something critical or engaged in that way. Most people that are like looking who like it are going like, this is great.

And then scrolling? I think the presentation to, wild swings on something I'm interested in, but not heavily educated on. That's a good film school though. The presentation of this in all female gays would probably lean into authenticity. That's the presentation that I think because the exhaustion, like what can be so exhausting for some people about male gays default is that it's dull. It's familiar. It's like, it's constantly draining away that authenticity.

And I think, what was the term you used? Erasure of process. I think process and like meticulous focus is something you don't get a lot. And that might be closer to at least how you can cynically do the female gaze. What did you say this was called? Cause he hashtagged it. Me me for you or something. Oh, yeah. Milford. Yeah, Milford.

Yeah, it's hashtag Milford. Why don't we do that? There's can we watch one more video? Jacob, we can watch one more. We can watch. We're going to watch. Jacob, please don't delete all the videos. Stop it.

No, Jacob, there's another. Oh, that one. Two point nine million views. It's called a crocomboosh. All the way to the left. It's like a far left. Like a Mayan pyramid that one. Yeah We just like a vampire Yeah, so he's making what's called Pata shoe right there. Well, there is ejaculating

Yeah, what's what's this technique called does have a fancy French name Yeah, so so this is called Pata shoe, but it's name? Yeah, well, so this is called pâte à choux, but it's the same dough that you use to make like churros, actually. Oh, OK. But yeah, so he's making cream puffs. What's the French word for cream puff? That was probably isomalt, which is a type of sugar that's liquid at a really low temp.

And then you're supposed to create this isomalt sugar cage and spun sugar around this. This is maybe the notoriously hardest like French pastry to pull off in certain regards. I could do it, but yeah. So this guy's like technically very, uh, like skilled. A hundred percent. And I would venture a guess. I mean, y'all know this. When you start making content, you sort of, it tends towards extremes, right?

From both the consumption and, and you know know the production of it yeah I would bet if you went back to this dude's first videos he was like hey guys today I'm gonna do a really complicated French pastry yes I was wearing like a t-shirt that was a little tight and then they were like oh nipple daddy and then he was like oh hold on then he wears her shirt through where the nipples are cut out and now he's the nipple daddy right I think it does get like sometimes, it's very easy to, some people will default to begrudging this kind of content for the same reason, like silently for, he's kind of trying, is he trying a bit much?

Does he seem to care an awful lot about that thing? And that's like, you know, something that a lot of guys get criticized for, a lot of people get criticized for. A lot of people get criticized for. I... It's funny how I guarantee a good handful of people that you can't deny how good he is at this. And so you kind of have to go like, well, but I don't like his hair. From a food safety standpoint, are we upset at all that he's like not wearing a shirt?

No, man. Oh my God, have either of you worked in a restaurant kitchen? No. Jesus Christ. Anytime. I won't wear gloves in a video or something because one, wearing gloves isn't even safer because you're more likely to get cross contamination

because you'll touch one raw ingredient with the glove and you don't wash your gloves with soap. So anyways, but I'll do something on camera that people will be like, that's not food safe. And I'll be like, I'm cooking it for me and my friends and they're all watching. I worked in like a catering company where we had a code red where if we saw the health inspector drive up in the security cameras, we said code red and we'd hide all of our violations in a closet and have someone keep guard.

Right. Like if you've ever eaten in a restaurant, you have eaten some sort of horribly mishandled food. Right. And I don't care about your own plausible deniability that you didn't know what's going on. And suddenly you see a TikTok of me, you know, cutting vegetables that are going to get cooked

on the same cutting board as chicken. And then you feel the need to comment on it. Right, right, right. Yeah, make sense. I think it's like It sucks not having agency in things it like sucks to not feel like you Have some expertise in the things you're doing half the time. It feels like people just want to comment about something Yeah, yeah, nice job cooking which yeah You have to run that filter through the the most interesting comment that you'll get a bit donut daddy gets this a lot But even on some of my own stuff where someone goes you just did this for attention like yes

It's the only way I know how to make money now entire industry of content the attention economy commenting on the severance season finale Me me watching Good Mythical Morning like you guys are talking a lot. Yeah. Wow. I can't believe you guys think someone wants to look at your faces on camera.

But yeah, I will say it has been really soul-fulfilling for me to do things not for attention now. Yeah. Like just cook for myself. Yeah. And my friends and not take a single photo of it. Oh, it's the best. Not post it.

Ah. There's always a tiny part of me that's like, okay, I love video games, love game design. And I do, at one point I did enjoy streaming. What if I just got into that and I go like, wait, no, this has to be for me. Yeah, keep it inside. I can't give that away because then all of a sudden,

like our friend Keenan, he streams every single day, and he does game streams, and he goes long, and he puts a lot of work into the prep for these streams. And I'm playing through the same game he's playing right now, and we're having a great time, we're texting about it, and I mention a part of it, and he's like, I'll have to try that out tomorrow. Because he can't do it right now.

He's not straight. He has to wait for the thing. That's the funny thing, like, I feel like most of my hobbies now are things that I don't show, and then sometimes people who are peers of ours will be like, oh, would you ever make content out of that? I'm like, absolutely not.

Because this is for me. I get, for example, I have a lot of Pokemon cards, and I do a lot of Pokemon collecting and stuff. And there is a huge, I would somewhat say too big, emphasis now on opening packs on camera and making a whole thing out of that. And people are selling the pack, they're opening boxes and selling the packs

before they open them and doing live streaming on whatnot and TikTok Live and stuff like that. And I have absolutely no interest in any of that because if I were to do it for work, it would take away. For me, it's about the connection to my childhood and just things that just genuinely bring me joy and happy memories and things like that. And to turn it into something I could dread.

I'm doing wrong. I'm doing my hobby wrong. It's like no matter how fun your job is, you're gonna wake up some days and be like, ugh. It's more fulfilling to cook for other people though, right? Oh, 100%. Do you have a compromise when you're kind of cooking for yourself that's like less of a... Big time. Yeah, when I'm cooking for myself, I cook like healthy nutrient dense spicy slot bowls in ways that I still put a certain amount of effort in to make it taste good, but like cooking for other people and actually like, it's such a beautiful, tangible thing. This weird mantra that keeps running around in my head

and this increasingly digital weird hellscape that we live in, I read a lot of cyberpunk growing up. It's just like the meat is important. Being here with your physical bodies is important. Reading people's body language, like the meat is important. Yeah, absolutely. And being able to actually like watch somebody eat and consume your food, feel that gratitude, right, exist within that presence.

It's like it's beautiful. And it's something that I that I miss even, you know, cooking on on camera. Eating alone. Oh, actually, I guess more accurately, like, I never grew up with like a, everyone sits at the dinner table for dinner time, sorry, it doesn't sound like any of us did, but I've been doing that here and there lately. And the dynamic of now if I eat, and a bunch of, if we're all planning to like sit at the coffee table, a lot of time we'll stop and go like, no, let's just eat at the dining

table. Sitting at the coffee table feels A lot of time we'll stop and go like, no, let's just sit at the dining table. Sitting at the coffee table feels like, um, cyber psychosis. That feels like you, you did, you took too many mods and it has like taken over your brain. What goes in a spicy slot bowl? I must ask. I'm trying to think. Okay. So yesterday I made a spicy slot bowl.

Um, I, I did a ton of like kind of meal prep stuff on Sunday where I just made like four different sauces from scratch. I made like an avocado srog. I made a more it's a more it's like a Yemeni hot sauce. Super herby. I made a like a more it's a chili harissa and North African hot sauce. And then I did like a satsuki and then a almost like a muto ball. So like an eggplant thing. I love spicy Middle Eastern food, Mexican food, Southeast Asian food, whatever. And so I had all of that. And so then I, yesterday I was pressed for time,

so I took a half pound of ground chicken, I threw in a pan with like a quarter of a head of cabbage for nutrients, and then just like a half a cup of rice, cooked it in a pan till it was done, and then I could add all of my delicious spicy condiments that I made on Sunday know spice up the slop. Yeah, yeah. You were your own like prep chef.

Literally. You're like, oh thank you me. And so I had a ton of research to do for Last Meals Guests and so I just like plugged in you know podcasts that they did seven years ago and for like four or five hours just cooked a bunch of food and then I generally cook. My wife was out of town for work and I cook for her every night and so that's what keeps me like making presentable. Right. And also connected to like the feeling of cooking for leisure and for someone that you

care about. Yeah. You know, that's really sweet. What did you think? That tricky thing about like when someone cooks for you though or vice versa and both parties want to be effusive Thank you so much for the well. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you It's really good. Thank you for having it like no things for having me here and Iran they call it Taro thing

What's that group around a lot of Persian Jews this idea of just like oh, thank you. No. Thank you. No, thank you No, I insist no now I insist Let me put your kids through college What okay? What are we looking at here? Cedric Lorenzen. Much more chef-y. Okay, so talking about, though, there's a reason they're making pastries

and they're not, I mean, I know they get into savory food sometimes, but like, there's a gender split on YouTube of like, savory chefs and pastry chefs. And even in kitchens, there's a gender segregation. They call the pastry kitchen the pink ghetto because women get relegated there all the time. Whoa.

They're like, hey, get off the line. You can't handle the heat. Go decorate cakes. You have a genetic instinct for this thing over here. It's more delicate. Yeah. I mean, you guys seen Giro Dreams of Sushi? Yeah.

He, Giro got canceled. Oh no. Oh no. Yeah, you know I mean using zero dreams of sushi. Yeah, yeah he Chiro got cancelled. Oh, no No, he said that women can't be sushi chefs because their menstrual cycle heats their hands up which will ruin the texture of the fish No, I don't agree, but he's also a 95 year old Japanese man who spent his entire life trying to make the best octopus I don't really think he has progressive gender He just saw a Facebook minion meme It's like actually so true I think there is a reason that these these sexy dude chefs are primarily making pastry and not just like hammering out smash burgers This is right very aesthetic very yeah, let's thumbnail. Let's let's pick one like Josh

What what guys are you talking? There's a beautiful pasta there. Let's see a savory one. Let's see what that pasta dish. These are recorded inside a house. Is that a pasta dish or is that a... Yeah, click it. See what he's working with. See what he's working with. He'll show you. Whoa, way too big. Way too big. Alright, too much time on that. Oh, is it the super long pasta though? Oh, maybe.

Is he going like what? Travel. Oh, is it the super long pasta though? Oh, maybe it's actually so We go in like what trouble? Oh, I? Yeah, I don't like the technique. He's gone with or morels Morels are great. I'll see another one. Those are even like mushroom pasta is like a like a sexy dish interesting Yeah, I like this guy set up though very industrial of that like scary boy Hey, you have the other guys in a dungeon. Why did he spit the wine? I know I spit the wine

Yes, so he's using that super long spaghetti don't break it you buy the long spaghetti so you don't break it brother I mean, how you cooking that though what you just gotta let it like gradually Hold in the water. Ooh. Okay. That looks like a really proper dish out of a Michelin star restaurant circa like 2006. And that's not a dig, that's just a very moment frozen time, like the ISI parmesan foam. That kind of looks like the result, cause I get very like, that's actually cool to cook, I'm, hey I'm just a guy making steak, get a handful of those and there's one really recently I've been

getting and it's like a real actual kitchen it's just a guy that owns it and it's shot wait very few edits can you go back to that I wanted to point out a comment the here we have why he cleans my favorite part is when he cleans every woman's dream yeah dude I did literally as soon as he did that, I'm like, oh, authentic, authentic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You film schooled it, bro. That's so funny. I think it also helps that even though, you know, it's clearly a very nice house, but it is, it's lit organically by the house. Like it feels literally like, oh my, I'm married to the

sexiest man in the world and I've walked in and he's cooking. And that's what it must be like for your wife every day. Oh, do you love her? Yes or no? I really do. Oh, he's shaking his head. I do, I do. I think I, uh, yeah, I do cook shirtless most often just to save shirts and also gets very hot in the kitchen Okay, that's and she has bird bones. So she gets very cold easily. You know what I mean? Yeah, and so I can't just women Am I ladies? Just kidding by joking about Jira, yeah

No, but I think she enjoys it and for me it's nice to feel like I can take care of somebody in yeah And one of my hyper focus ways. Yeah, no, that's where I can't book a plane ticket though, right? Was there another person that we had a sexy chef what is meat couple let's see meat couple so this is Jacobs obsession Jacob said you well, I just have an opinion on it. Oh Love to watch this is like a couple. Well, how would you describe this, Jacob? It's a couple that really is passionate about cuts of meat. Interesting. Are they grilled meats? This couple kind of like stirred, stirred some people's feelings on

on TikTok because of this specific video, I think. I'm so curious. What does it say the text? Oh, my God. People are hard. And they're OK. OK, guys. All right. Oh, my God. Thanks. Have a word. Cheers. Cheers. You can call me.

Wait, what were you saying? Oh, my God. That's funny. He doesn't even need anything. I'm full already. Do they have anything else? Such an aggressive knife for that. He's got a machete.

This is literally all meat right here. Also it's a very thick. This is literally all meat right here. Also it's a very... This is literally all meat. Right there. That part. The shimmy. Tell the lion...

What in the world? Is she doing discus? It's actually more similar to Hammer. She has a lot of videos on her account like this. I mean there's lots of them. What's your first reaction to that? Okay, my first reaction was like, they seem just very sweet, like a couple in love,

feeding each other, eating a pretty casual meal. And then my second reaction is, it's the observer effect. You're acting. Right. You're acting. We're all acting. Anyone you see is acting. They've set up the camera to be that.

And you can't just act natural when you know that someone's watching. We've made our own, and then you go outside and everyone's filming everything all the time now. Then you act. And we've made our own social police state in the name of content. You know? The claim of authenticity is eerie. There's something kind of, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, you know, it's

like, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, you know, it's like,

you know, it's like, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, you know, it filming everything all the time now, can you act? And we've made our own social police state in the name of content. The claim of authenticity is eerie. There's something kind of, this is maybe too, there's something demonic about it where somebody says like, you know what it is? It's a, waitstaff being too friendly. Yes. Someone being like, hi, oh, I'm happy. I actually had called Spectrum yesterday and the guy was very helpful,

but he opened up, he sounded way too voice actor the whole time. He's like, Hey, what's up? My name's David and I am from Wisconsin. What's going on today? You getting some match beads? And I was like, this, I know you want to go home. So I don't want to do work. Okay. So where you want to get into like your background Josh, but first Jordan I've had a bit of an obsession recently so We're gonna play a little game Are you a video gamer? I am NOT a video gamer that is okay because I am also gonna be bad at this

But Jordan before the show is telling me about game though, which is like wordle for identifying game box art. I Think that's perfect for me having no context for any of them. And I don't think, like Jordan showed me one and I was like, well I couldn't in a million years tell you what that is. Oh no, but under pressure this is where it all falls away. But, but, but, so that and then the thing that I got into recently was just, um, uh, Time Guesser. What is Time Guesser. What is Time Guesser? Oh, and like a description. Time Guesser, it's like it shows you a photo

in a place and time, and you have to use the context clues kinda like GeoGuessr to like guess about it. And I've played it three times, and that's it, and I was like, this is the most fun game I've ever played because I'm not good at anything, but I'm decent at like deductive reasoning and knowing a little bit about a lot of stuff Oh, how do you do you have a cuz you have your you you well actually maybe this answer the question I believe that you have mastercraft Which is fucking sucks, dude, how comfortable

You don't even have my podcast Do you how do you feel about like, outwardly, unironically just saying like, yes, I am very good at this thing. Is it something you mitigate? Ooh. You're like a humble guy, I feel. How do you deal with praise? I used to always like defer and demure praise,

but then I started trying to like put myself in the other person's shoes. And realizing that I'm then negating what, I'm negating a gift that somebody's trying to give me. It is a gift. And instead I should just like receive that and say thank you so much. However, when you start doing that,

when you do that face to face with one person, it's awesome, right? They've given you something to face with one person, it's awesome, right? They've given you something, you've received it, it's beautiful, there's no quid pro quo. On the internet though, if you just say something like, yes, this is something I've worked very hard at and I am very good at it, and I think it's one of the reasons that millions of people do watch me do it,

but if you're to say that out loud, I understand the irony of me saying this on the internet right now, if you say that out loud, then people are just like, you arrogant piece of crap, how dare you? Yeah. And so- Yeah, I'm watching you do it.

Yeah. But it's because it's better than I could do it. But how dare you identify that? Because it makes me feel inadequate. Shaking my head at the Olympics. Again, it's this weird paradox and also I'm always generally mindful of when I use the phrase people as in people say, because what I actually mean are like 15 comments out of a million people the 1% of the one like the Fraction of a percent who leaves a YouTube comment. Mm-hmm

The fraction of that percent that leaves a negative comment. Yeah occupy a disproportionate amount of space My perception of the world. Yes people feels about me Speaking can't meet like just numbers wise. I. People have a lot of feels about me. Statistically speaking, can't meet. Like just numbers wise, I couldn't find a person that feels that way. I'm like, I can't even go to the gallery. That's a great way to think about it. Statistically, it would be very difficult

to go out in the real world and find that person because of how rare they are. And then find one of them willing to say it in person. Like the chance of that, it's literally like if I was just like, I saw the comment, I'm like, I don't know about Jordan's hairline. I'm like, I can't even go to the chance of that. It's literally like if I was just like, I saw the comment like, I don't know about Jordan's hairline. I'm like, I can't even go to the Americana anymore. What if they see me? I don't know. I feel like, all right, well, I don't know.

Your hairline's great. I like your hairline. I think I encountered one person in real life. This could be me projecting, but I was in Austin, Texas, waiting for food from a food truck. And this guy next to me just goes, hey, you Josh from Mythical Kitchen? I go, yeah, hey, how you doing? He has his arms crossed and he goes, yeah, I've seen your stuff. Owned.

And I was like, oh my God, that might be the one guy. Either that or he was just a little bit socially awkward and that was his attempt at like a cool interaction. Yeah, yeah. But in the back of my mind, I was like, I felt no type of way about it, but I was like, I think I may have. Don't worry, I'm not into what you do.

I get a lot of, so this is something I've started reflecting on. I get a surprising amount of my girlfriend is a big fan. Oh. So step off pal. Right and so like part of me is like, but that's also what I would say if I was a fan and didn't want to seem like I was too much of a fan. Hey my brother loves your stuff. Dude I met someone who likes you. He showed me it.

Not my shit, obviously. Right, I would never earnestly enjoy something publicly. Oh my God, dude, I wouldn't be enthusiastic. Are you crazy? No, I'm not a girl. That's interesting, because I feel like both of you are so earnest insofar as you develop an audience based on sort of what you put out,

and I think that's fairly true. I would think that your fans would be into the idea of earnestness, or is that not, is that also the plan? I would say that's absolutely true, and everyone's really polite. I just think that, I think that there's a certain insecurity that everyone's shot, a lot of our fans are shot. Which is like, I kind of get that,

because I won't say a friend of mine likes your stuff, but I will kind of, if I, either I go, I don't want to bother them, or I say, hey, big fan of your stuff. Or in the case of Seth Rogen, who I saw at that chain event that we were at, my friend Linus had just done a shoot with him, like he's a film photographer, and in his house and he had posted the

photos and I was like, okay, I could say, hey, my friend worked with you recently and he really enjoyed working with you. Yeah. And, and it's nice to meet you or something like that. And so like I went for that angle and he was very nice. Nice. But I couldn't have just been like Seth Rogen, I like you from the stuff. Hey, we all the stuff. I've seen you Remember Judd Apatow Yeah waiting for him to try to hold his hand. No you hit me. I said remembered come back come on man for your 40 Wasn't that yeah, that's right smashing the fluorescent light bulbs yeah So first I do want to try this game doll thing

Let's just pull it up. We won't we'll time box it. Well, it's been very long on this. Oh, no the pressure Hey, I'm gonna help I'm not putting you on the spot Do games even come in boxes anymore cuz used to buy I sound like such an old man You know, there's no copy. No you yes You're right in that while they may be sold in physical copies still to this day it is becoming less and less likely that that's how people buy it because Because hard drive sizes have become large enough that the easiest thing to do is just download it Yeah, but the official box art or the official I guess you just call it artwork

I don't know what the term yeah like the the cover art the cover art thumbnail thumbnail Everything's a thumbnail. I mean thumbnail to play Modern Warfare. Great thumbnail. Hit me with... Yeah, normal difficulty. Normal difficulty, we got this. I do, I did used to really be into bar trivia

and then I was in a relationship for like five and a half years and she, thanks man. And then she broke up with me because I got a trivia question wrong and I haven't been back to Bar Trivia since. I'm now married to a different person. This is like seven years ago. Also congrats.

I was gonna say congrats on that, but what was the question? So it was- Who do you love the most? No, I remember exactly what it was. It was one of those where they would dole out hints and if you like wagered early on, they're like, oh, I know what after hint one you get a higher point total.

Right. And the subject was journalism. I was like a working journalist at the time. And it was this publication founded in 1883 started as an explicitly pro labor publication. And I was like, I know it. I'm positive. And she was like, no, you always take risks. I play it safe in life. And this has been building over the last five years. Right. And this is coming out in this trivia question.

Correct. Yeah. And I was like, life is for taking risks. It's bar trivia. It's such a high reward and such a low risk. And anyways, I was pretty sure it was the magazine Mother Jones. It's like a very like leftist publication. It was like Mother Jones is a folk labor leader turned it in. And then the next one is just like known as the gray lady It's the official paper of record for New York City, and I was like uh-oh. It's the New York Times

And that's where you lock in and you make it their fault you go up to the trivia monster you say hey You're ruining my relationship. I'm gonna. I'm gonna fucking destroy the place Call this back. I don't want to I am Not being paid. I might just have a breakdown trying to play this game We can montage all right, do we need to know how to play or Jordan were you it's a just the You start with the fully blurred image with like a little square revealed and then it continues to reveal as you do four guesses. Yeah, I know this is a pretty much only me bullshit. Now could you? Oh, I know what this is. Oh, super autopath. Yes. What is it?

All right, let's do it again. Sorry, is this the game you've played yeah, okay It's a it's a auto battler kind of simple auto battler. Okay, pretty fun strategy game, you know asynchronous multiplayer So both of you play video games. Yeah, very cool. Um, I Jordan's more of the gamer though Yeah, but like in a cool way. Jordan's like who I think of as a gamer. Yeah. I'm like a guy who hyper focuses on one video game.

It becomes really good at it. And then I won't play games for like a long period of time. And then I come back. To it, and it's just like another thing I can become hyper focused on, like anything else we if we're going to do this, we should go unlimited mode. I know that sounds crazy, but this one's like, where you are going back for the daily. Whereas, uh, cool.

Uh, classic. I had a good four year, four year run on Rocket League. See, that's what. Oh, I saw this. Then my Xbox stopped working and I just didn't get a new one and I think my life's been better because of it I think that's probably for the best. Yeah, it was Tomodachi life, but Fuck skip It's not Tomodachi life. No, I remember I tried. It's not like the Wii music game

Oh, it this is a Wii party. Wii party rock Does it tell you? It gives you the suggestions? Yeah, what you doing? Good training. Okay. Oh, I mean we're next. Yeah, I was like I was sorry. It's always nice to be older public one Oh, man, you hold on you guys gotta give me first crack Just from the just from the fonts. Yeah, okay. Okay. Hold on. Let me I think I'm gonna know the next one I can do impossible, but maybe on normal This is this is settlers of katan the official mobile game Don't think you should type in my head no

So I want you to work all the way through this one I want to see you do it did they reveal more after you do incorrect? Yes, you get all Guesses total Take a just skip this is all we're giving this all to Josh. Oh, this is all me. Oh, no He looks more of a face. What's going on? He's got like a little a little chapeau on has he kidnapped her It looks yeah, he looks like what's kidnapping simulator Little chapeau on has he kidnapped her it looks yeah, he looks like that's kidnapping simulator

Is oh there seems to be some sort of portal in the background I'm guessing portal for Do you guys know this I know it's possibly Something begins with a V. I actually don't but bald Balders Balders Gate you said B or V be it might be broken sword. Yeah, this one. I don't know Shadow the Templars if it's either of them it looks like Templars would be Man the Anna Jones game started with Harrison Ford's face? It's not great circle. It's not any of the Lego ones I don't think it's it's either desktop adventures or fate of Atlantis try fate of Atlantis Phew okay, wow interesting. I know great circle doesn't work because I'm trying to write it by PC and becoming resentful that it doesn't

Wow 1992 yeah, that's a little random. Oh, dude. 92. That's the oldest thing I've ever heard of. Oh, that. Can we zoom into that? Are you both 92? Yeah. You're 92. 92.

I'm born in 2005. Such a full mustache. What about that feels unbelievable to you? What are you saying about the way they look? It's only the mustache. It's only the beautiful full mustache. You know what this is? That's Hob with two B's.

Unless I'm wrong. The hell is that? It might not be Hob. Oh, is it just one B? The hell is that? Please be right. Oh, uh- Wait, zoom into that?

Wait, this isn't Hob. The hell? This is so embarrassing. It's the pressure on it. It's not, because I have no clue what this is. Wait, this isn't Hob. The hell? This is so embarrassing. It's not because I have no clue what this is. It's a survival game based in space, like a fantastical world. I never played it.

Can we skip again and get another reveal? 2020, honestly. Eww. What the hell is this? Oh, it's. Possibly something from the Savage Planet, I mean, one more skip unless it comes over. Journey to Savage Planet.

No, that's an H, but let's try it. Why not? No. Hi, my. Justin Royland. The Justin. Oh, no, I was going to say the eyeball looked very Rick and Morty. I should have said that out loud. It was uh, oh My god, I should have known that yeah, okay. Oh, I know exactly what that is Don't Josh we cut it out, but Josh guest brown man adventure. I think that's really problematic

Wait hold on is he even is he a brown man? Well if you play Detroit become human, I think you I didn't I I didn't even racialize this cupids bow I Didn't know that that's what the art for that was Human yeah to true become human. Oh, this is yeah, Josh We think I could get it. Yeah, we think you can get it. Think about your previous guesses. My previous guess? Oh, I don't remember at all. You guessed a sequel that didn't exist of a game. Oh, Portal! Portal I've only played Portal 2 and so I'm gonna guess that one

We did it! Did you play it multiplayer? You won the game Yes, were you long or little guy? You won the game. Yes. Were you long or little guy? Well, I don't wait you can you choose? You can be the long boy or you can be the circle? I didn't know this is I played it with the same with the same ex And we tried to bond over shared interests and she liked portal 2 and then I couldn't get it right And then she got mad at me. This is I'm noticing a trend. Yeah

I can't the trivia ones It was crazy to me. Like, what was the, if you don't mind asking, what was the conversation and when was the conversation after that event that made it so clear that that was the catalyst for it? So we didn't talk. We shared a bed and I slept in that bed for the next two days. We did not exchange a single word with each other until she walked into the living room and just said, something's obviously not working.

And I said, you're right. And then she said, we can either go to couples therapy or call it quits. And I just went, I didn't even have the ability to speak words in that moment. And then I, yeah, I took the the I took the TV in the Xbox and Hell yeah and skateboarded that we shared a car so I skateboarded to the Nissan Universal City Nissan dealership and I said I'm in a very emotionally vulnerable place right now and I don't have any other transportation I need a car And they were like we found this beater for nine billion dollars would you like a loan?

No it's that they kept up selling me to a nice 2017 Ultima. And I was just like, I just need to go to find a Craigslist apartment and give it to me. I cannot think of a funnier image. And I'm sorry, but the idea of a man looking sad after a breakup, but rolling on a skateboard. Sadly.

Rolling down the side, rolling downhill, just like, forget it. Actually a snapshot of me like seven years ago. Rolling to a Nissan dealership trying to trade the skateboard for a new car. Just treating every like 24 year old junior salesman like a therapist. You know, sir, could I please have one of the cars? Yeah, when they're like, and if you have anything, I'm here to help. And they're like, promise? Actually, the fact that you asked that, it says a lot. When they're like and if you have anything I'm here to help and they're like promise

Actually the fact that you asked that I know we're setting up my business bank account, but what are your thoughts on relationship? Can you co-sign this? I don't trust you at all. Okay, so time guesser is we're gonna get shown a photo We so now we've got a picture and it's our job to guess We'll just normally you go through five, but we can just go through one unless we have a lot of fun So now if you roll over anything or I think you can zoom into this photo And we want to guess the time period and the place who and the place okay? So there's some text up atop if you scroll up to the top can we zoom into that text? Okay, fast. Oh welcome Welcome to Chow Cafe.

Hang on though. Interesting. Go to the, go to the right, Jacob. There's a little sign, a yellow sign. Ooh. Now I will say Chow Cafe, C-I-A-O. So like, there's a fast food place where I'm from called USA Chicken.

Yeah. The novelty of it being a relatively bigger thing where I'm from called USA chicken. Yeah novel Don't know to do anything. I feel like we're in Vietnam. This is Vietnam for sure. Yeah This phone know if you've been to chow kitchen Any chance I have not no no but like you said like Chow is is it's probably one of the most recognized words in the World I'd say but it would not be something you would call a place in the place where that language is spoken. Correct. Yeah. Hello Cafe. 100%. The other thing I would say is let's zoom out and look at the cars. I like to look at the cars. The Nissan if I will. Check the skateboard. And if I knew things about bikes I would look at those. P-H-A-O-N-G is like a common Vietnamese surname. Yeah. Also I grew up in the largest Vietnamese community outside of Asia.

Really? By the way, yeah. Shout out to Westminster Garden Grove, Fountain Valley, Little Saigon, and Orange County. Wow. That was at all like getting more specific because it sounded like you were describing, you were describing.

The address. The address. No, no, no, so the neighborhood's called Little Saigon, but it encompasses like multiple sovereign cities within Orange County. Oh, okay. Yeah. And you're from OC.

Yeah. But you just you're part of your family's part of the community? Oh, perfect. My stepmom's Vietnamese and she had like a shop there. I mean, I feel like I feel like starting at Ho Chi Minh City doesn't seem bad, but year. So Ho Chi Minh City. Yeah, gonna be. Also Ho Chi Minh City. Yeah, going to be.

Oh, it was a good thing. It's a range. Yeah, we pulled a slider to decide the year. But like nine, like 90 97. I would say at least because those cars look 90s. I'm looking at like a Kodak Kodak moment. I'd say we send it. Why not? Does it give us a

Really is 97 too early a No, I think it's fine. I feel like that was kind of an a bell curve of photo quality Well, I'll tell camera. It's got a chance to it then it was really bad for a while and Like when you first go camera phone and then it go good sometimes just pre I will say though I've seen a 2017 photo that they put in black and white for some reason guys Okay, just submit it because this will give us a Okay, we were six years off, okay, but still pretty close and then Hanoi oh it's not always in the north, okay, yeah And so that's that's the game my favorite my favorite dish is from Hanoi. It's called bun cha

What's that bun cha? It's like this like ground seasoned pork patty served in this like fish sauce Can we Google it do you know how to spell it? Yeah, just like bu n space Ch a and then sometimes they'll add Hanoi after it. What have you guys played food? Guesser? Is that a thing? That's a thing. I just remember what is happening right now Serendipity we got a photo. I just remember what is happening right now. We're serendipity We got a photo. We got a photo from Vietnam. We learn about Josh's history I got a Quan ha you got a Quan hop in Westminster get yourself some bun cha. Ha no way Yeah, and then now look at us Are you guys going to VidCon this year? I always forget it's happening. I don't know if you are we should go get Vietnamese food

Okay I always forget it's happening. I don't know if you are we should go get Vietnamese food. Oh, okay Lock-in put your glasses is this okay? So this is where I'm completely useless by the way all right We got some sort of braised sliced pork belly on top of can't tell what that is, but there's rice underneath I would say this is northern. I'd say northern Chinese. I'd say this is like me not northern Chinese. Maybe like Guangdong and it gives the description of how to make it. Oh, really? Pork belly, soybean,

star anise, soy sauce, sugar. Some sugar spices. Yeah, so there's a lot of, the anise would indicate, like I mean it's using Chinese cooking a lot, but also Vietnamese cooking, there's a dish really similar called tit cao in Vietnam, but that has more of a sauce on it.

Are you supposed to name the dish? don't guess a place yes China for sure not for sure but oh was Vietnam or is it no I think yeah no China's one of them yeah yeah damn 5,000, that's a perfect score. Specifically influenced by Haka Chinese cuisine. Interesting. Ooh, this is, wait, they have a semolina milk. I thought it was seared scallops. That person, then I realized it's cheese. Is that, that's ghee?

Is that ghee? No, this is semolina. So it's somewhat similar to like a, what's the corn, polenta, but made of semolina, which is like a coarse ground durum wheat. Bake results in a criss-cross with creamy tender. There's Parmesan cheese, numeg. So this is probably northern Italian. I like a Piedmontese dish or my yeah, go ahead.

Oh, I was gonna say my my time guest or skills are saying we can see Italian on the menu right there. That's the real multi but that also be a killer or a man. Oh, yeah. But sometimes you'll see dishes like that that are also like Croatian, right, because it's like so close. And it's like almost like there's something a little bit off about like an Italian dish.

You know, that's that's Albanian style spaghetti. Do you OK? So question for you. When I've been to Japan, one of the most interesting things to me is the Japanese take, it's like not Japanese fusion. It will be like Japanese doing German restaurant. Yeah, yeah. And it's like.

Like Yoshoku cuisine. Yeah, it's like very odd, not odd, I don't wanna say it's odd because culturally I think it's very interesting. And the food's good, but then also you go and you look in the menu, at the back of the menu, the hostesses are listed like idol girls with their like blood type and stuff.

This is like a real thing. I can't believe they have that blood type on it. This is uniquely for German restaurants in Japan? No, not for, uniquely for German. I think it's in just like borrowed cuisine. Yeah. Where it's almost like, kind of how we have themed restaurants. It almost feels like it's a German themed restaurant. Rather than like-

Oh, okay. Yeah. Like the bratwurst and maybe some of those- And they're all in the- yeah, yeah. How funny. Which is fun. I don't know. I feel like there is something specifically to like the more outfit oriented

cuisine, the better kind of gimmick restaurant. 100 percent. You get it just like hits you like a wave. There's that spot. What is it in? I think it's in Old Vegas. There's that, you know, the big dining hall type space and they're doing Oktoberfest all year round and they spank you with a giant paddle that they also serve shots on.

Oh yeah. We went there. We went there. Or did I go there? Where was this? Vegas. Vegas. Well I've definitely, if we didn't go there together, we before we met were in Vegas for

our birthday. We had shared birthday. Love it. For the show. Yeah. And we were both in Vegas for our birthday, but like didn't really hang out that trip. We were like, saw each other in passing, I think. Yeah. We locked eyes for a second and soul bonded. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then someone stopped me and said, we said podcast.

We can't cross the dimensions. It's too dangerous. I'm going to get addicted to this. This, I know. What's it called? Foodle? Food. Gesser. Gesser. Foodle is way better. You guys talk among yourselves. I'm gonna get addicted this this I know what's it called food all food guesser much better food Oh, wait, we run some more you guys talk among yourselves. I got work. We gotta play For me right race with freshwater shrimp in a jar. Okay, so freshwater shrimp is interesting So probably a landlocked country. It also says the name of it below Burong hipon, um, I would maybe say

one on keep home I would maybe say What are you po? I prefer Philippines Philippines probably that I would say Philippines as well based on the language But it could also be like Myanmar or something where I'm not too familiar with the language But I'm gonna say Philippines. I I'm not too familiar with the language, but I'm decent at the shape Philippines lock it in final answer Have you? I used to be part of, this is a bit bizarre, I don't know why I'm saying it like that, ex-partner of mine, Filipino, and I was exposed to a lot of the more exciting food from first gen of their family. Hell yeah. And something of an Indiana Jones even.

That's what you said. I did? Yes. Well you're kind of an Indiana Jones in his desktop adventures. Yes. Where you like don't leave the house. And in a, I live in Detroit and I became human. I just couldn't have a balut.

I just couldn't do it. I just- But you cracked it open and you saw the balut. Her dad did. But you didn't stare in the... Because when you see it, it's here. It's here, Jordan. It's here.

It's begging you to eat the balloon. Free me! Please kill me! I can't die! I want to be in your belly! So in the epicenter of Little Saigon, the neighborhood that I grew up in, there's something called Asian Garden Mall that's just like sort of one person it, and then a ton of local businesses moved in. My stepmom had a shop there.

There's like a steam table Vietnamese restaurant that at the end of the line in like Panda Express, they'd have the egg rolls and the wontons. They just had an open bowl of balut, but the Vietnamese version of it, which is pretty much the same thing. And you can just like crack one open, eat as a snack, walk around the mall.

It was great. So I love balut. It's not my favorite dish in the world. What does it taste like? Chicken and egg, because it's a chicken and egg. Makes sense. Herb duck. But no, the most interesting thing is

some will be very young and you eat the whole thing, and then some will actually be older and they'll have more developed feathers and bones. It's hatched, it's walking around. Yeah, Get back in there. I just can't, like, I- And it's my limitation culturally. I was going to say, like, I can never knock another culture's delicacy because, you know, but at the same time, it's like, you're allowed to have your preferences, but I think that there's a difference between when someone goes, that's disgusting.

Correct. You know what I mean? Like, I think that that's really to deny a culture's delicacy. I think is very like immature very childish It's a sad way to live in general. It's like that's like the well What adventures are left for you if the things you've done are the good ones and the things you have not bad? Yeah The difference between like that is not my preference and that is disgusting one is objective and one is subjective right exactly and the whole Thing behind cultural tastes is that it is very Subjective is that a leak tattoo you had is do you know about?

Pokemon do you know anything about Pokemon? I know there's one that carries a leak and I know how I'd cook many of them. Are you a leak fan? That's damn. I'm a big leak fan. This was more of like a metaphor if we really want to get down some proper SB sad boy stuff. Get the heck out. You have a giant leak plushie? It's a giant far fetched leak plushie. Do you know about the fact that this is like a Japanese idiom?

Yes. I know it's a it's like a pun thing and it's a reference to a idiom. What? I think it's the other Peeps is the other pokey. Do you know it's a it's like a pun thing and it's a reference to a idiom. Well, I think the other peeps is the other poke Do you know it? Cuz his name is not far-fetched and that's like the I think one thing that's interesting is the localization of Pokemon names Cuz let me let's look up far-fetched Japanese name. Oh, uh, come on. Hey Kamonegi, maybe that's a risky one for me. Maybe is this yeah. So yeah, it makes sense duck leak

It's literally okay. It's common. I guess so. I don't know my vocab is very bad in Japanese I'm shout outs to the first person Yeah, cuz they are true. I tell you what I guess you can The chain came bearing the seasoning for it I thought it more met like somebody who's who's kind of like gullible and stupid. That's what I thought too. You're like a duck walking around with its own leak. No, this is actually fun.

I see a duck with a leak, I'm like, I kinda want duck now. No, I think that makes, that kinda makes Farfetch'd as a localization. Makes a sense, right? Cause it's like, it's a, it's like, it's a little on the nose. It's far-fetched.

Oh yeah, like this scenario would never, you would never be so lucky as to see. Exactly, exactly. Wow, interesting. In the guy. Basic reading, which is sick. I can't remember his name. Why would a duck have that?

Oh, the guy who localized the early Pokemon, his name is on the tip of my tongue, but he has done a bunch of interviews recently, and it's super cool to like like get into the mind of like, okay, here's what this is, and here's the motivation for this name, and then how do you localize that for an American audience? And then also, a lot of the Pokemon,

especially the early ones have been localized in so many different languages, and so that's like someone's unique job to try to like Translations let me take a swing at it you Bulgarian nerd This is my call I've been called it's like being called up to the NBA from your couch He didn't know you liked basketball Well that does kind of happen like they saw like some NBA sc scouts saw like Yanis onto the Kumpo, like in in Greece, like like playing basketball with his brothers or something.

And they were like, hang on, he's rougher on the edges, but that's a big boy. That's got to stay. The Olympic long jump champion, also Greek meat meat, liadis and dog. He was just doing parkour in Athens and the Greek national track and field coach was just like, what if you just did that on a track and not like onto, you know, a balance beam 15 feet in the air and parking garage and he did it.

And I beam swinging above an orphanage. He probably made way less money winning an Olympic gold medal than he would have starting a parkour YouTube channel. It's the... that's true. Yeah. Why is there a direct correlation between the more European you are, the more likely you are to do parkour? It's like a one... if you are wearing a tracksuit, you live on a rooftop sprinting. Like, I don't like walkable cities, like housing density.

Like, there might be a real answer there. I don't need the car. Yeah, I hop on the tube. I head downtown. I climb up Big Ben. I realize there's no adjacent buildings. Oh no, I climbed too high. No one moves a Spider-Man slide down. I would. It would do. The thing is, is, you know, one thing we want, we all want more than anything is a legacy, right? Sure. Now I'm not encouraging anyone to do this. You said that very confidently. But if I were doing parkour on Big Ben at somewhere around midday and I fell off and I was speared by one of the big clock, everyone would remember me.

That seems like that's like an Evangelion type thing. In slow motion, it like goes black and white and you just see the like, as soon as it's 4pm, I slide off all into the terms. People forget my name. I was actually, this one thing related to this I did kind of want to throw to you is like, I don't know what your relationship to fitness was prior or post, right? It's probably, I'm sure people pep you about it because you're yoked, you're jacked. You're yoked like a balut in some respect, but you got out of the shell and lived a life, I don't know.

The metaphor tracks. Someone was gonna eat you and you grabbed them by the throat and said, not today. No, I ain't got no leeks, pal. And then you climbed out of the shell and made your own man of it. There's something, you know. You know. Edit it to make sense.

There's a Pokemon named after this entire scenario. Jacked guy. It's Machoke. I was gonna say, that is my body in spell, it's just Machoke. I was going to ask, so I feel as though, dedicating yourself to, obviously there's the diet component, but also just the regularity of it, the planning, the pre-production of it, like the maintaining your fitness and wellness. It feels very closely correlated to cooking, Yeah learning a craft getting all a little like music where the theory really helps sometimes you can just intuit a lot of it, but

Once you know the theory and the science you are you're gonna learn quicker and do better What's the? Forgive me chicken and egg of that scenario was it literally? What it came out of school? But you also happen to be cooking. I'm curious what came first. Sure. So, you know, I started cooking when I was probably like 10, 11 years

old, just watching Food Network at home, divorced parents, total lachy kid. Both parents were my mom was just like super mentally ill, so wasn't really in the picture. My dad worked like 15 hour days. Classic story. And so if I wanted

any good food, I had to cook it myself. Except for circumstances, but same result. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But just started doing that. But I was also always really into sports. And so I was playing basketball and doing track and field and playing football since I was like 10, 11 years old. So they've always gone really hand in hand for me.

And then when I started taking sports more seriously, I just knew that I wasn't going to get into a good school academically because I could just never focus on school. All I ever wanted to do was play sports and cook. And so I was like, that sounds like a movie by the way. Yeah. It's like, I just want to, it's like, you can't, you can't play sports and cook. Eddie's million dollar cook off Disney channel, dude. Massive inspiration to me.

That's all money. Does he get a million dollars? I, is that the implication of that? I don't know. Yeah, I can't remember the thought of that. I did see that. Was Kyle Massey in that? Kyle Massey.

If I had a competition with Orlando. It was Orlando Brown. Yeah. If I go on who wants to be a millionaire and I win, they give me 80 bucks. You said, what the hell is this? But no, so so I at some point Learned I was throwing shot put and they were kind of like hey if you throw like 55 feet

My best friend is the Greek national record over in the shop On the hill Somos in Greece last year. This is all real. I went to school on a shot put and disc scholarship. Cause they were, it's so simple. They're just like, you talk about like obsessing over one thing. There's like, Hey, here's a line at 55 feet. If you can throw this metal ball over that line, you'll get a scholarship. My sister, uh, went to university on a shot put scholarship. Yeah. University or Illinois

state actually. Oh no way. Yeah, a university or Illinois State actually. Oh, no way. Yeah, yeah. I know that like such specific disciplines, I'm just curious, shot put and discus wise, any crossover in the training or are they like- Big time. They spin, I don't, I'm not a spinner.

No, both of them, so both of them, if you're rotational, big time and the training's almost the same, but then I switched over to hammer throw in college. You love spinning around, huh? I really do, I really do. But no, it's like, it's such a, it's so simple. There's a seven foot ring, you have a heavy ball,

and it's just how far can you throw it, and you can focus on that every single day. But then the nutrition is also a big part of that, because you're lifting weights constantly, just trying to get as strong as possible. Yeah, presumably you're just extremely hungry. Yes. Like just the amount you are.

And so it's probably eating like 6000 calories a day. Also my coach would threaten to like cut my scholarship if I was less than 260 pounds. And so I was just, you're working out constantly, you're eating constantly. And so I was cooking constantly. And so, you know, you just make like a 12 pound pork roast and just eat that throughout the week, just taking sacks of wet pork, you know, out of your bag. But I was cooking so constantly. Oh, I always had that, but I never knew what to do with it. It's like, what do I do with these sacks of wet pork, you know, out of your bag. But I was cooking so constantly. Oh, I always had that, but I never knew what to do with it.

It's like, what do I do with these sacks of wet pork? You're treating them like, because the college makes you buy your own. It's a scam. You have to buy the pork itself. It seems so obvious now in retrospect. You have to read it over the summer. I know. Belly, belly, belly.

But yeah, so that always went hand in hand for me. And then now, honestly, part of like my, because I was always strong and I was always fit, but I was always like pretty overweight because that was part of the discipline. And then it wasn't until the threat of me being on camera where I was literally just like maybe I should start taking this more seriously.

And a lot of it was vanity, is vanity. And I think a lot of people don't want to admit that. I was just talking with a friend about like all these 50 year old podcasters and people on supplemental testosterone and like it's for the mental health and it's not gender confirmation. Yeah. Yeah. I got hair plugs for science or something. Definitely. I want to go to Turkey. And so no, a lot of it was, you know, uh, now I'm very, it's so much a part of my emotional regulation Is that like I have to get up and I'm in the gym for like two two and a half hours every morning

A lot of you get up five thirty five thirty one of those when you go to bed Eleven thirty in your chill with that. Are you one of those people? Remember when you offered me a coffee. Yes, right, right, right. I said I've already had too much caffeine today and I need to ration it out. Yeah, that's not normal. You've gone blind a couple of times. I've gone blind from caffeine temporarily. We can see. Thank you. I once had someone try to tell me that it was a scam like needing eight hours of sleep a day and I was like, no, there are like people who genetically need less, but those people are rarer than you think.

Yeah. Yeah. And I'm like, that's a real superpower and I'm jealous for all the people who have that. Specifically, I stopped drinking beer, specifically because that was like my habitual drink, which means I've been drinking way less than usual. And I've been less British, I guess. Less, it's like going to church every Sunday, having beer early, too early.

I, as a result, even with, I've always had sleep issues, but even with those sleep issues, I am sleeping a lot better. And it, now, anytime I hear, you're like, I'm just kind of a night owl. I just don't sleep great. I'm like, hey, hey, it's okay. I'm doing copes too.

It's sleeping, but it just is really good. You wake up and it's like, oh, I feel less tired than before when I wasn't asleep. Did I stayed up till five last Thursday and it has ruined the week in between then and now and I've been trying desperately to fix my sleep. And every night I would go to bed at midnight and then wake up at 11.30. The other day I was sitting on the toilet and I have a smart speaker

and I didn't look at the clock when I woke up. And so I asked the smart speaker what time it was and it said 11.30 and I said, Jesus Christ. And it was, and it said 11.30, and I said, Jesus Christ, and it says, is everything okay? No, no, it's not! And now I'm scared. Wow, that's so fucked up, a computer became self-aware. How do you guys deal with the general anxiety

of being on camera? Because that was never something that I wanted to do. I love doing what I do now, to be clear, and I made the active choice to sound like somebody put a gun to my head, but I thought I was gonna be that I wanted to do. I love doing what I do now to be clear and I made the active choice to sound like somebody put a gun to my head. But like I thought I was gonna be a writer my whole life. Right, and you were a journalist. I was a journalist, yeah.

I wrote for magazines and I had a weekly column at Maxim for a long time. That's cool. In my early 20s, just writing about food which was really cool. But I never thought that like I would be judged for my physical appearance at all. Sure.

And then suddenly going onto YouTube, part of me launching Mythical Kitchen was like, I need to have everything in place to make me feel as confident as possible. And literally part of that was like, well, let's spend a summer just getting as jacked and lean as possible. And it's like your wedding is coming up.

It's like the pressure, the external pressures of how you feel like you're supposed to be in this special moment or whatever. Yeah. Sounds like regulation and discipline has been like very, very kind to you, right? And you've been made sure it's maintained. So that does make sense. It's all medicinal, right? Like that, that's like such an important, that regulation is like very important. I think a very pragmatic way to approach that concern is like, well, what can I do with the tools that I know?

And that is like, that's sports in a nutshell, which is why I like, for me, I owe so much to all of the discipline that I got from athletics growing up because it's such a simple input output relationship, especially in track and field where it's not like if you play basketball, right? You have four other people on the floor, you got a coach, you have all this stuff. If you train hard in basketball, you can increase your vertical jump through a pragmatic set of steps. That doesn't mean you're gonna win more games, doesn't mean you're gonna shoot better. Track and field, it's so simple. It's just if I get stronger, ball go farther. Everything's isolated. 100%.

Yeah. And so for me, it just, it developed this very simple input-output relationship of just if X, then Y. And I was like, what if I applied that everywhere in my life? And then you'll also find a lot of chefs are, I once worked for a chef who refused to hire kids from culinary school and only hired athletes. Huh. Because it's a lot. Because they chop onions so fast. Well like kind of, yeah though. But like actually if you give like an athlete like 50 onions and you say, by the end of this bag,

see how fast you can chop it, there's going to be an inherent drive that's going to let them do that versus- Couple fingers gone, but speed was. Yeah, sure, 100. But like, that's a kitchen though. A couple fingers are going to be gone or gashed and you need to bandage it up and get back on the line.

Yeah, the injury is in the end kind of like- Yeah, like it's, it's being in a professional kitchen is so much more similar to being on a sports team than being in culinary school. Right, that makes sense just like from what I've heard from- It's hot, it's uncomfortable, it's hierarchical, it's generally abusive. And high pressure.

And high pressure, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that does make a lot of sense cause it's like you're being asked to perform. 100%. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That does make a lot of sense, because it's like you're being asked to perform. 100%. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And yeah, so to answer your question, so before I did anything on YouTube, I did improv. And so I used to perform, and that's how I met

one of our producers, Anastasia, who's not here today. But maybe you've met just in the Mythical office. Yeah, I think I have before. That long curly hair. Name's Anastasia. Name's Anastasia. That was my first clue. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Shall I put hair Names as you names Anastasia That was my first clue. Yeah, yeah, yeah master. So so we used to do improv and I think that like being on Stage I think I had like the normal like stage fright and stuff like that But then you know you do all these shows and then it would you kind of like work

I I would like work through that anxiety from from that. And so YouTube, I don't think I had any anxiety until I started getting views. And then there was anxiety of like comments on, you know, the way that I looked, et cetera, et cetera. And I think that that got to me for a while. And even if it wasn't looks, it could be the content of my character Other commentary that's not nearly as bad as being judged right exactly exactly and so and I still think that there's a thing

You can't change. I still have a lot of like kind of insecurities and anxieties about The way that I present. But I, through therapy and through exposure over the years and like a good support system, I've learned that a lot of those things are like in my own head and don't really matter, even though they definitely like feel like they do.

You know, like to the point of I don't like to feel seen. If I'm observed in a way that I would have preferred, if I'm, let's see, I can tell myself no one's looking at me or no one's really thinking about it, but then if someone comments on my body, then I'm made painfully aware that that's happening. And that's kind of a psychic damage. That kind of thing's like a shock because it's hitting you, but you're also like, you don't have the fucking right to this is creepy. It's rude and weird.

And even when it's a compliment, it's like if it's a compliment on something I'm personally self-conscious about, then it's like, oh, Especially now, because I had a really rough time post-COVID because I put on a bunch of weight during COVID. And I haven't really lost that weight. And it's like something I try not to shame myself, and I try to focus on the habits and trying to just keep healthy habits and things like that. But there is this like dissonance between

like what I felt was my like body that I was comfortable in and like where I'm at now and finding that comfort took some work and trying to like detangle the toxic identity of like your physical form and how that affects my mental health, like not being as fit as I want to be, but then also putting in the work. I think for me, the biggest struggle with all of this

is just like ADHD and executive function with like staying on top of like habits and things like that. Like I don't, I don't feel, and this is not true, but I don't feel like I have very much discipline. Like I feel like I have the ability to leverage a hyper focus of mine to results, but when it comes to putting in grit and hard work,

that wasn't something that I learned when I was young because I could kind of just fly by without trying very hard. And it kind of allowed me to get to a certain point where I was in college and I realized I didn't really care about anything. I didn't have a sense of identity. And so I think that that is something I still grapple with,

but thankfully I've had the right support and at least have a framework for addressing it in a healthy way, even though it's easier said than done. And it can be very difficult at times. The comment about discipline versus leveraging-focus for certain results, are those not one and the same? Because I don't know if I come off as a disciplined person, but like I wake up at 5.30 and I go in the gym

for two and a half hours because that's been my hyper-focus since I was 11 years old. I cook myself healthy dinners, still tasty and cool and worldly. I think I'm making like a Turkish version of Musa Kada night, you know, because that's my hyper focus. I don't register my car on time, like I don't, you know, I can't do any of those things. If my job were to like, make spreadsheets and answer emails, I would just be out on

the street fully. I I think the in my mind discipline is the is pulling the cord on a motor and Then the maintenance of it is kind of the hyper focus Like as soon as I'm moving in a thing that I can hyper focus on then it's it's seamless, right? Is you're already back? Okay, once you've kind of reached escape velocity and And learning to do it. And hit the activation energy. But to answer your question, I feel like I've been able to leverage those,

my own hyper focuses, which, you know, at the, always was like creating things and like making stuff. And that kind of blended with, okay, I need to go to school and like study something that's, you know, productive. And so I studied computer science and then I got really into that. But it was almost like a game to me

where it was like, I need to like, learn how to do this the best. And then there were just varying, it was a thing that had a lot of tight feedback cycles where I could try something, I could write a piece of code, it could fail, I could try it again, kind of keep running things over and over. In contrast to something that had more delayed gratification,

I considered majoring in psychology and I didn't do that because I knew I wouldn't be able to do the work. I knew that I would struggle all the time with doing the work. Like just actually doing would struggle all the time with doing the work, like, like just actually doing it, not like understanding it, not anything like that, just like actually knew it. So I wanted to put myself in a position to succeed. And and then my hyper focus became YouTube. But I think that the grit that I speak of is kind of when

I don't have that hyper focus, because I'm able to channel it in some things like, for example, like I got really into personal finance in my early 20s, when I was like trying to pay off my student loans and things like that. But now, with like fitness and eating healthy, I just started a meal plan that I'm trying to be diligent on, and I know that I have issues with, I don't know if I've talked about it very much,

but I think I have, I guess also trigger warning for binge eating stuff, but I think I have some sort of binge eating disorder or behavior because my entire life I've like felt like I could like go to the pantry and like blackout and consume like a ton of calories and stuff like that and trying to like balance around all of these things and also deal with the guilt immediately after engaging in some of that behavior. Like I've never kind of gone to the extremes of anything like that.

Like I've never engaged in, again, trigger warning for any eating disorder stuff. Like I've never purged or anything like that. But it certainly crossed my mind. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where I'm like, I wish I could undo, hit the undo button in this like blackout. It's like almost like you blackout and you do something embarrassing and you wish you could like, hit undo.

And there's, yeah, you've talked before about the dilemma of like, well, how much guilt and focus is there to feel, and how much grit has to be put into just not doing that, versus finding the source of doing that. Right, and finding also just like, a structure. I think this is something that we dealt with, and I don't know how it was for you, because working as a journalist does seem like it can be fairly structureless from a traditional like nine to five, but I really benefited from working in the structure of a nine to five.

Because that is like, that's like working on a team, like, or in a sport where I'm like, I have my little area and I can excel in that, but when I became in charge of everything, my systems mind can build systems. And I can think, okay, we need to hire a producer and Jacob and I can collaborate on what production workflow looks like. But when it comes to actively running the system every day, that is like where that because it requires

continued energy, the system requires energy to keep functioning. That is often where I feel like I don't have that strength and I almost wish I was a role player again, like Yes, and you get the parameters to exceed. You can, you, oh, I got a B. Now I can get an A. Now I can, you know, the TLS, whereas without it, uh, in, in our case, nine to five was a nice part of it, but in any kind of structure, it's kind of like if you were in college writing an essay and it had no word count and no grade and they were just like, it's good.

I'm like, good. That good three words sent in. This is as much as I expected. I was I I like need to work on a team to function. So even when I was a journalist, I was mostly like nine to five as a full time editor, so I had, you know, deadlines and I had to write deadlines. There was always the threat of a person right next to you just going like, what the fuck if you didn't do something?

Huge, that matters so bad, social pressure. Yeah. It's almost everything for me. Yeah. And then though, then I signed a contract to write my first book when I was like 23. I was fresh out of college, had a literary agent, all this. And they were kind of just like, great,

turn in a hundred thousand word manuscript for a cookbook in nine months. And I said, all like, great, turn in a 100,000 word manuscript for a cookbook in nine months. And I said, all right, Josh, remember all that great determination that you learned from sports that you just talked about with Jarvis and Jordan? You should write yourself a full schedule and every weekend you're gonna write this amount. And so I procrastinated for eight and a half months

and I wrote zero words of a book. And then suddenly I had to, yeah, turn in a 100,000 word manuscript or they'd just sue me for the money back because they give you the advance. And I'd already paid off a lot of my student loans with that. Right. And so then I did what anyone logically would

and I hopped on a Greyhound bus to Reno, Nevada and I took a collection of study drugs from all my friends and I stayed up for three straight days and wrote 85, 90% of a a book Miriam Webster defines food Yeah, it's a good thing you didn't have chat GBT. Oh my god I wouldn't have known how to use it and I would have said screw it I can write it myself I got a bro down cookbook what a moment in time Culinary bro down the name of the college blog that started at all. I like that. What are we was that 20?

Bro down. That's the name of the college blog that started it all. I like that. What year was that? 25th, 13th? Probably 2014, 2014 was the year. Yeah, that was the era. That's when bro got a little bump. Well it was like, it was meant to be kind of like

an ironic, almost like, do you guys remember Tucker Maxx? Oh absolutely dude. Strangle hold on my high school. There's a certain type of guy in my high school that was like, this is my dude. Yeah, Yeah. And so it was like that, like post like when Barstool. Yeah, correct. When Barstool was just doing like smoke show of the week. So it was like, I was kind of doing a caricature of that, but very obviously like budding young male feminist who had just

you know, moved from a red part of the world to a university. And so it was really farcical. So it'd be like the paleo diet was really big among that type of crowd. And so I wrote this farcical piece about the Veloci diet. We're like, hey, if you thought the Paleolithic man had like super huge boners and was really virile, let me introduce you to the velociraptor.

So here's what you knew you're only gonna eat sides of raw meat. And then I would just take it to its like logical end. But I was just writing these like absurdist humor pieces from this kind of like bro perspective that was obviously farcical and then yeah put it into a whole cookbook and then it's also stories like this I could be really red yeah you are what you mean and it's red I guess a quick quick, because on the camera stuff, weirdly I was talking to peeps the other day about this, I had never even thought about the...

Because pragmatically it's much more successful if we are on camera. YouTube is the space to publish the thing, because purely on audio, not as much of a growth factor. We don't have a platform in that space like we did YouTube before doing this kind of stuff. I was just chatting to people and I was like, would I prefer a version where I'm just not on camera? Like what is the... When I have no self-consciousness about the way that I'm positioning or whatever.

And there's a tiny bit of me that I think could do more episodes, was that the case? Like the psychological calories I'm burning on thinking about my physicality and my voice and the just performance and thinking and stuff is a little bit more intensive than like, you know, if I did an episode every day or something, just audio would be so much like it, just putting that through because also chant and riffing and thinking and, and, and trying to say pseudo pseudo insightful things on a microphone is a craft I'm very comfortable with and everything else is something that's still growing. I'm very comfortable with and everything else is something that's still growing.

I, the, I, and I don't think it, my nuclear option for the things I've been insecure about has, and I think this is a pragmatic but ultimately unhealthy solution that I don't think I learned it from my mom. It was just me and her, and I don't really know where it came from, but she was very, her whole life, she was very like direct. She's in, like couldn't cook, bad at cooking, but has a son, got to figure out how to eat. Still not good at cooking, but we make our meals and we like, I was also very latchkey, but she would get home like

8pm and it's like, all right, what are we doing? We're cooking, we're eating something. You're already good? You had a chicken burger? All right, sorted. You know, Linda Bacontenis oven only veggie lasagna, sold. And I, the habit for getting rid of the things I really don't like has been a dangerous amount of exposure.

Over-exposure therapy was always a thing. I was always very self-conscious about my teeth. I got Invisalign, I'm a lot less self-conscious about it now. But something I used to do every single day for a decade is before I leave the house, I do a big smile at the mirror. I just go like, like, just like really fucking get in it. So I feel, you know, I'm a pretty smiley guy. And sometimes even to this day, if I do like a big laugh or a big smile, a tiny part of my brain is like, ah, that's Ian, the fucking monkey. And so I would do it and I'd be like, okay, that's what I look like. If I'm laughing and I feel self-conscious for a minute, I just think, I'm like, well,

I look like that. This makes me sound like a sociopath. No, no, no, it doesn't. It doesn't, too smile or whatever. But yeah, that was that. This makes me sound like a sociopath. No, no, no. Learning to smile or whatever. But yeah, that was, that, um, I don't do this anymore, but I had like, if there was something just like a major upsetting event, or something really negative, or a family member passes or something like that, I used to change my phone background to something that reminded me of it.

And have that for a year until I kind of nullified it. Wow. Now this kind of reaches into, and I actually did more of this after we, when we were both in tech. And I think part of that is that pragmatism is, simple pragmatic actions for complicated feelings is a very tech thing. Oh, I mean, to its credit, that's why I got into therapy.

It does help. And why I got diagnosed with ADHD, because I was like, I need to improve my productivity. I need to increase shareholder value. You got diagnosed and then I was like, that does sound optimal. And I'm tired and sad all the time, and there's gotta be a way to, and that's not good for shareholders. It's not good for the OKRs. Yeah. My KPIs are not, I'm not contributing. They're getting dinged. And it's, I'm not saying this in retrospect like it's another thing I do now.

It's, it's absolutely something I still do. But the ones I mentioned are the ones that I'm kind of done with. And so I'm more comfortable saying out loud. We've always done, I think at least this, the modern era of sad boys, in these exact seats, and this exact way. But, I, you know, at any time I could have asked to change it, because this is the side of my face I'm not as confident about. This is the uncomfortable one, and if you've watched the videos on my channel... Uuugh, yuck! Yeah, you're right.

It's a chat on one side, it looks like French troll on the other. Yeah, well, personally I blame Batman, he burned. He was the one from Half-Life, he's burning. And now, except making all my dark decisions with the two of you. Harvey Dent, is that his name? Stop, I used to be a lawyer. But now I... for a while, I was uncomfortable with it, but then I just did it to the point where I forgot that that's how it worked.

If you watch my, when I still did YouTube videos a few years ago, whatever, if you watch any of those, it's good luck seeing the right side of my face. But you did it more convincingly than Dream did on his face reveal, where he was like, hey everybody. Hey guys, what's going on? You did it more convincingly than Dream did on his face reveal, where he was like, hey everybody. Hey guys, what's going on? I forgot to mention two things related to gender affirming care and also anxiety on camera.

I got, I had gynecomastia surgery, so I had like man boobs, but it was like I had thick tissue like under my breast. Not that you you work off. I lost a bunch of weight. I was like, I lost a ton of weight when I was like 21, I lost like 60 pounds and I only gained that back like in the pandemic. So bummer. And that was like why it was emotionally like difficult for me to deal with.

But anyway, I'd lost all this weight, but then I still had these like bulbous like things like poking out of my chest. And it was like really like, I felt so uncomfortable wearing t-shirts and I was like pull my t-shirt against my chest and things like that. And so then I got that surgery and it was like so huge for my confidence and like I haven't ever looked back. Like it was like maybe one of the best things I did for myself because it was a thing where I felt

like I wasn't in control. It was some hormonal thing from when I was much, when I was very young, is when it happens and it's like you just can't undo it. And so I was like, okay, I'm gonna do this for myself. And it was like before I started YouTube and like that gave me a lot of confidence. The other thing was getting braces.

I got like braces when I was like 26. And I, and I, in that moment I was like, okay, I'll have no social life the next two years, everyone's gonna look at me and they're gonna think I'm a child and all this stuff, and no one even noticed, for the most part. Or if they did, they didn't say anything. So it's like these kind of stories that we tell ourselves. ALICE The way that is like, the older you get, so the thing you are not allowed to do as a

Teen boy, I feel like we can all relate to this is probably is try like trying and caring about something too much I think what actually like the possible exception of anything physical like like fitness or activity something like being very like physically Taking up a lot of physical space. I blame South Park for this whole, uh, Oh for the whole like, oh my God, you caring about anything? But the enthusiasm like, like clothing and accessorizing, like you thought about that because it's, uh, instead of being an indicator of like ambition, like, Oh, I want to feel better, look better. So and so instead it's like this acknowledgement

of fear. I'm scared that I don't look good enough or something like that. And it's not real, but that was always the like, yeah, the boys are going to make fun of me if I try and be myself. No, it's a heavily gendered component too. Like half of, not half, 90% of my childhood was just trying to avoid being called gay. Or much worse slurs than that. Right. But everything you did, it was just, there's a whole essay about this in the culinary bro down cookbook. Check it out.

There was a moment in my life when I realized that like, Oh, this is all so stupid. And it was when I got called a homophobic slur for bringing the wrong brand of light beer to a party. And I was just like, Oh, it was really Bush. It was really Bush light. And then they just called me the F slur. And I was like like oh, it was really Bush like it was really Bush light And then they just called me the F slur and I was like for Bush light What do we think about this so much that if I had brought Miller light?

You know our bud light you just be like well that is a straight man, and that's good Right and the most absurd shit, but half like everything we did growing up I mean I can't speak for everybody here, but our like rough generation so much it was just trying to avoid being. Oh my god. Which could have been any arbitrary thing. I remember as soon as I went to it, like even just like, uh, like, I don't know, like 16, 17, when you're exposed to like the world, the little wall, like once I was actually seeing things and meeting different people, I remember people getting made fun of for calling someone gay. I was like, what are you, a child? What

are you doing? That's ridiculous. Because really it's homophobia and it's usually passed on from like parents a lot of the time, at least the terminology. But the application is like, I went to a very white school and there was never anyone that was like, oh, Jordan's brown, he must be more aggressive. It was like Jordan's brown. I can say something mean. It was like the broader implications of like the N word. They didn't know what it was from. The utility was just like, Oh, this guy's look, he was shoes. Yeah. Those years in school are so rough. Cause I would even have like, my friends, like grab my man boob.

Oh yeah, same. And it'd be like, okay, well, I need to find some way of like, coping with this, or else it's gonna go to a very dark place very quick. You'd get scooped. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cause I got, I'd like still have like a little bit of gyno. Like I've just worked out so much that it kind of,

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Covers it. But no, I grew up like that a hundred percent. Yeah. I'd like still have like a little bit of gyno like I've just worked out so much that it kind of yeah Covers it but no I grew up like that a hundred percent. Yeah, and it would oh my god the psychological damage of somebody Just come in and go scoop and then you know you would retaliate Out of you know just like fear and self-hatred and then we're just even like it has to be your fault Also, it's like someone said something. It must be right. It's so weird, like, cause I also think that there's, before I did that surgery, I had to like convince myself that I loved myself unconditionally, even outside of this, if I weren't to do this. And obviously I struggle with that on a day-to-day basis,

but like, I think I end with braces as well. I needed to make sure that I was doing it for me, rather than for like someone else, because that is a always moving target that you can never completely achieve. I wouldn't get braces as a kid, because I'm just like, what am I, a loser that thinks about things?

I don't think about stuff, okay? You're so well accessorized now though. Actually, much more inspired by him. I go through phases. I'm not always accessorized. But I think a lot of my style, like this is a jacket of Jordan, so we share. It's a very brotherly exchange. We're doing a lateral hand-me-downs. Hand-me-rounds. It's kind of like it's rugby.

You would have a roundabout you British son I'll give it a rest you want to spin around throw a disc Like a little I just immediately revert I still don't drink with straws Sorry there is nothing more embarrassing, but not for homophobic reasons, but just aesthetically, than someone trying to catch a straw and drink that. To avoid it. Yeah, you should have these.

Don't put a wet straw on the board. You might find this funny. Do you know the enzyme that releases in your blood when you like Overwork your body like muscle deterioration you work your body to like muscle damage potentially Well, you there's the rhabdomyolysis. That's the thing I have I have the name of it and like lactic acid right it's creatine kinase creatine kinase. I'm in this medical study right now I don't want to go to too many deals with that but I have to get my blood taken a lot and so I got a call this is very scary I got a call from the doctor that said like hey your blood tested for like very high levels of like creatine kinase or whatever, like way above the normal range.

Have you been doing any like heavy like weightlifting or things like that? And I was like, no, like any super strenuous exercise, because like it's talked about, like muscle damage and like it releases in your blood when your muscles damage or whatever. And I was like, no, I did go skateboarding for the first time in like two years. And I was teaching a breakup. I had to go get a Nissan. I was helping our friend, John, our friend Spook. He was also a very fit man.

Do you rolling ollies on a skateboard? And I hadn't done so much jumping so long. And I just kept doing it because I was doing so much demonstrating. I was like, no, you want to do it like this. And I just kept jumping up and down and just propelling my body into the air, like lifting my arms.

The next day I woke up, my entire body, including my arms for sure, just from lifting them up as I jumped. And it turned out that that's what caused the spike. Because I had done like a squat jump. I had done a ton of like squat jumps essentially. Cause like, that's what you need to do in order to like, to do an ollie. That's how that that's where the Navy seals have it.

Yeah. And so for, for about, for like a couple of days, I was like, Oh, maybe I have some sort of kidney disease or something. Cause if you look, if you just never Google your symptoms, right. But it's like, if you have that excess levels of that in your blood, it can mean so many bad things if it's not caused directly from like strenuous physical activity. And so I got kind of spooked. Cause I didn't even see a doctor. I have to mention my tissue disease.

And I'm like, I, if it's a list of analysts, you probably know about it. Someone they're like, Oh yeah if it's Taylor's Danlos, you probably know about it. Someone they're like, oh yeah, yeah, but we just go through it. EDS. That's the EDS squad. The zebras out there and there's Danlos syndrome. People keep telling me I have that because of what I complain about. And I'm like, we don't need to have any more overlapping conditions.

Don't have it. Yeah. That's against the rules. They keep telling me I'm from Florida. No, no more. I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy. But I, um, I mentioned that there's like a subset of EDS for a certain condition where it like can genuinely threaten your life expectancy. It's not what I have.

It's relatively rare, but it's something you have to keep an eye on it. And it could affect things like, um, like organ performance. And, uh, I mentioned it to a doctor and on my third appointment with them, they offhand were like, are you doing everything to kind of prevent because right now your life expectancy could be 40 to 50 based on their own. Sorry, what happened? And they're like, well, we did the blood test and you know, you got your heart scan. I'm like, yeah, I got my, you mentioned heart scan. Was this the check if I'm already dead? What were you scanning? And they were just like, oh, no, what was your, I was like, not that one. It's the other one. They're like, no, Jesus Christ. What were you doing with

the blood test in the meantime? Were you, okay. That's why I'm actually going to the doctors. And that's the lesson here on Sad Boys. You're a Christian scientist, right? Yeah, and listen, man, my dad dated a Christian scientist for a little bit, wasn't allowed to go to hospitals, then I'm just repeating it. I didn't know that Christian science was like a whole thing.

Like, it's like an ideology. Invaded by God? Invaded by Mary Baker Eddy, actually is the founder of Christian science. I had to learn a lot for my dad's three month relationship. It's like he was a nurse, mind you. So, Christian Science Monitor is a publication that is, I guess, owned by the Christian scientists. I always assumed.

That's what I assumed, right? I've seen driving around places called the Christian Science Reading Room. Yep. Huh. The Bible. Wow. The Jews for Jesus have a couple of those, too. It's weird when the Christians keep writing new stuff, because I'm like, you only got that one book that's kind of like supposed to cover a lot of it.

That was our book, that was the Jews book first, and then the Christians added more to that. That's true, they did that sequel. Yeah, they added a battle pass. Yeah. And his DLC. At least like Mormonism did like a fan-made trailer, and they were just like, oh we should just take this. We should make this for real.

The Mormons did one of those AI covers was like, Ooh, I robot too. And it's, it's Jesus in Kansas. Whoa, dude. And you found what on the plate? Josh, what a pleasure to have you here today. Is there anything that we haven't learned about you that we should know before we attend your live show April 4th? No, when is it? No, yeah, it is. It's April 3rd, April 4th, no when is it?

No, yeah it is, it's April 3rd. April 3rd at 730pm. 730pm. Not much more that you should learn about me. Do you have any other questions for me? Any follow ups? We almost talked about how the leaked tattoo is an homage to my dead dad.

Ooh. That was close. Wait, let's talk about that. That was close, we can talk about that if we have time. No, so I got this when my dad passed away That's kind of the impetus of the show last meals as I've just dealt with Oh death in my own life mom passed away To when I was 24, but I'd been a strange rumor for 10 years This is a whole thing, but basically by the time I was 19. Hey, we've got we've got some we got a lot of death Over here, too. So hell yeah, which ones my mom never knew my dad

My mom passed away and then one of my when I was 12 who is my not my biological mother But like my character adoptive mother basically. Yeah, and then my Kind of next adoptive mother also passed But when I was a little bit older, so when I was 12 and then when I was like 21. Damn. But no dads, no men. So that's why I'm such a soy cuck. Yeah. Soy boys. My big John roaming around Kenya. Ain't seen him. Heard about him there. Visited him once I think in Amsterdam for some reason. I don't know. I was very young. I do. Oh, maybe my, my half brother maybe listens to the podcast. No, you were great. You've seen it cool. Also, um, shout out to Ruth. Give it Ruth and teach it.

I'm giving too much data. Uh, but I, uh, my mom died about 18 months ago, 20 months ago, something like that. And she, I got tattooed, funny enough. Also, I found the last... The leek. Because she had it. Come to think of it, this is your dad. It's like they go together, you guys fuse.

The living sons. The most executively dysfunctional man on the planet. Yeah, and with a tissue disease. They said it couldn't be done. But you know the whole thing behind the leek. Leeks are the hardest vegetable Yeah, and with a tissue disease. They said it couldn't be done. But no, the whole thing behind the leak, leaks are the hardest vegetable to clean and prep. And when my dad passed away, like the only thing that would calm me down

is just cooking for hours and hours and hours at a time. I was just making my roommates so many freaking dishes and it was the basic stuff, just like doing vegetable prep. And so for me, it's kind of like, you know, idle hands of the devil's playground, just like kind of, you know, keep working. Right, yeah, keep yourself busy, give yourself a, it's kind of like a, you know, idle hands of the devil's playground. Just like kind of, you know, keep working. Right, yeah, keep yourself busy. Give yourself a... it's like something to chew on, right?

Like it's like a task that keeps you engaged. Yeah, I think that's kind of a somewhat... I mean, people talk about like memorializing, but even memorializing and visiting a grave is a little like the exposure therapy thing. Yeah. You're showing yourself the reality as much as possible you and you're grieving and you're appreciating it but at the same time it is like well, I'm whether it's a tattoo or even just like

Looking at old family photos or something like that or just thinking about them. It is It feels like I think to some people it's like a worship, to some people it's a process and a method. I think especially if you have a faith to some degree, it is like more practiced, like there's scripture guiding you to do it and stuff like that. But I don't know, I got the tattoo I got, I made visible. I didn't want to get it on my arms because it was kind of a private one, but I got it. Your dad's face. I got a private one that I still see every day.

That was part of it. I wanted to keep track of it. I found, she had a stroke and she lost use of her right arm for a long time. So she couldn't write. But I found one of the last things she wrote in a journal while we were clearing out stuff. And so I found this, she wrote a four journal while we were clearing out stuff. And so I found this, like, she wrote like a four line little poem. And then I got like a whippet with it, because we always had whippets. And, uh, cause I matched my build.

That's fast. You're like the whippet of people. I am kind of a whippet of people because I'm not- But also the drug. But I'm not fast like a greyhound. I'm just the aesthetics of like a fast person, but I'm quite- I'm not that fast. You're like a whippet dog with EDS Yeah, you can't run too fast. I sit weird

Thanks for sharing yeah, yeah, it's like extended lore, you know, we don't talk about it too too much But thank you for sharing as well. Yeah Spork too many white guys had yinin yang tattoos and they mean the same thing. Oh shit, you're right. Duality. That's why they got the idea for yin yang. We had a coworker who was a Latino man who went by Spork. That's sick.

I was like gonna say more things about grieving, but I think it would just be a whole nother podcast So we'll have to have you back to talk about all that stuff would love well also I'll say it So I don't like watch whatever shit you do, but like Last last meals you like kill him afterward. Yeah 100% Only Corbin blue is the only one who killed dude I love Corbin Blue so much. He's like literally the best guy.

I was a big Haikusu musical guy, so he was very formative. And I'm just happy to see him thriving. Too bad he's dead. Too bad he's dead. Not your fault, but here we are, we're here to forgive you. I say leak is hard as a clean, I would say human bones probably is like a little harder to get you just need to sharpen your boning knife It'll be fine. Just get it like a can French it if you can French trim a lamb chop you can French Corbin blue does sound like a like a degree or like a you know like the court on blue

If you know if you know culinary well enough, you're able to prepare Le Cordon Bleu. My high school, I forgot to tell you this, my high school had one of the top ranked culinary programs in the country for a high school. Oh, crazy. And then, so a lot of people like went to, I like was friends with all of the culinary kids because they would run a little cafe in the morning. So when I was 14, I would go and get like coffee made and like chat with them because they would just like earn a little extra income like for the program and stuff like that. And they were all great.

And a lot of them went on to like become chefs and stuff. Yeah, I wish I had that in my school. Yeah, it was so cool. We are very unironically fans of you though. It is like a very- Yeah, it's always a pleasure. We say that like we didn't already know each other. We see each other relatively often, but it's... I'm often not super equipped to watch friends' content because it is like a...

It's a little bit of a dissonance, right? And often I'll get around to it, but I have to like do a deep breath or something. But a lot of the time you'll just have someone on like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just straight to it. Oh yeah. I... You had on Sholo Mariduña. Yeah, Sholo. In Sh yeah, I am you had on sholo, Maria. Yeah, yeah

In sholo, I he wouldn't remember me, but we sat next to each other at a Magic the Gathering pre-release that's up and and played some plates of magic and That's how I that's how I meet cool people They have to get into magic and then I'll sit next to them at some point I think he's hosting an MTG thing with Becky Lynch now also a veteran of the last meal Hell yeah, yeah, yeah Thanks to you, I guess look at me should get points in the back into those show Well, uh Josh is there anything you want to plug before we kick you out mythical kitchen live April 3rd 7 p.m

Buy a ticket if you want or like, I don't know, donate to charity, get outside, dig grass, start doing things that feel actually fulfilling and don't confuse self care for just laying in bed scrolling through TikTok. That's not self care you're rotting. True. That's you plugging that. Yeah.

But also it's like, okay to rot a little bit. Just identify it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What it is. Yeah, 100%. No, that's the bad thing that you're doing. Yeah. I think we need, I'm gonna start shaming your audience

We got to do a carrot in the stick situation We end every episode of sad boys with a particular phrase. We love you, and we're sorry boom This is it's definitely a four. I think it is it must be civilization for Maybe she's called for Copy oh Maybe it's just called 4. Copy. Oh, oh, it's Europa something. The fuck? Europa, Universalis 4. The hell is this?

I know. That's great. What kind of game is that? That's like that Netflix meme where it's like my Netflix algorithm and all the games are like floor Netflix algorithm. All the games are like, floorball. Gucci girl, Gucci girl, how you doing? How you moving, girl? Moving, girl, how you doing?

Can that future girl, future girl, yeah, we on now? Take my money, go away, are you wanting? Girl, you're too rich for me.