Segments - 93: Labor Day of Love

Episode Date: September 1, 2025

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

This is a headgum original. Your first great love story is free when you sign up for a free 30-day trial at audible.ca.ca. That's audible.ca. slash wondery. Jake and a mere two Jews that you can't forget. In 2010, they were big on the internet. And all things considered, their success is more. more than there. Now here's one more effort

for only positive motivations, they swear! Seconds! Another podcast. Each app different from the last. It's the Swiss army knife of shows. Now let's your two emphatic hosts. Yeah. Yeah.

We're a sympathetic host for two more episodes, not including this one. September 1st is today. That's Labor Day. Yeah. Yeah. We almost could have taken this episode off. We almost should have taken it off. But these are the biggest fans of all who are listening to this podcast on a holiday weekend.

If you're listening to this on Labor Day, on a holiday. Congratulations. Move to the front of the line. You're the number one fan. You rule. You absolutely rule. You own for that. You're a day one.

for that. If you're listening to this on a Tuesday or later, we want you to politely ask you to decline listening to the last two episodes. You won't make the cut. You haven't made it to the final round. They honestly won't make sense to you because there's a lot of inside jokes from Monday that were just for the Monday listeners that we have edited out and put in new audio for Tuesday. This one, we should say, is special for the Tuesday listeners. If you're listening to this on a Monday. It's a special audio experience. Yeah. If this is Tuesday or later, I should say September 2nd, 2025 or later, you, we will see you later. This is a dummy episode. This is a bunk. Yeah. Clip. This is filler. Yes. This is us vamping. Yeah. You missed what happened for the Monday crowd and it was insane. The guest list. Should we even talk about the guest list or should we just be like, sorry you guys don't even want to. You don't get to hear them obviously, but you don't even get to. to know their fucking names because you're listening to this on a Tuesday. I'll say Barron T was one of them.

Yeah. I'll say, that's Trump. Baron D. Yeah. Was another one that's Baron Davis. He's a basketball player. And one last person who was a male porn star in the 90s. And that's all I'll say.

Right. Yeah. Okay. So it was the robber baron episode. We did a series of like kind of interesting improv games, but also like political commentary that I thought brought us all to the verge of tears, but we decided to reach a moral plane higher than that. So we didn't even cry about it. We were just so serious and funny. And you 69ed Peter North. So we are going to say it. So the audio, yeah. Okay. Well, I feel like people were accurate. But the audio for that segment of the show

was just us. It was a throat fucking extravaganza. Yeah. So. and that was pretty I thought we were going to sort of cheekily nod and wink to what happened in that segment but not necessarily go into the audio of the the details the nitty gritty in all of its glory whole

all right we are coming to you live I'm in a supply closet at headgum Jake's at an undisclosed location in Brooklyn yep that's correct just like we started recording this podcast from our house we're getting pushed further and further home. Yeah, it was always a DIY.

Then we have a podcast network, but it got so big that we became irrelevant and we have been cast aside. I'm an intern, which I guess was always the dream. I have to be fair. Move my car and apologize to the talent. Oh, sorry, am I in your way? Can I use this office? No, what do you need the office for? I'm still recording my show for another.

I'm going to interview Baron Trump. We'll do it in the supply closet. No, I will. I'm sorry. I just, I don't want to get in the way as all. So we're getting in the way. And remember when we started this in 2013,

if I were you, also recorded out of our house. So, you know, the more things change, the more they stay the same. It's always been homespun. Yes.

Maybe we can go back to, do you remember where that was in Williamsburg where we were recorded episode one? Uh, yeah, it's just up the street. It's up the street from where I am now. It was your apartment at 34 Barry. Exactly. So that should be on the head gum walking tour. Now that we don't live in any of these places, we can disclose all of the locations. Yes. Of what, you know, we recorded on Vanderbilt at rec room. Uh, we recorded at 34 Barry. We recorded at my place at 128 White. Yeah. Or your new place at 57. 51-17 north metropos. Shut up! Shut up! I'm just saying the walking tour.

Walking tour-wise, people should know what it is. Yeah. Or your current address. Siri was activated for no specific reason. Okay, so we went from recording the first episode in 34 Barry, which is on Barry in like 11th Street in Williamsburg. I say last episode, we get back to that fucking apartment i can't imagine somebody so important lives there that

won't let us record i mean this is history they probably don't even realize they're living in the apartment that launched our podcast career yeah like this person's probably just like in finance or something let me see if it's there is there's a studio for rent yeah at 34 barry okay um which is pretty cool okay um um we could rent it for a month basically the price of a small office yeah we could rent it again mine was 1800 go back to our when i when i moved there what's that when i moved there in 2008 or something it was 1800 a month 1800 yeah so that is not the rent anymore you care to guess a studio in that apartment 3100 that is close um now i'll take a guess you see this

38. You see the price. You see the price. And yeah, it is. So I was right, 3810. It's nearly $4,000 a month to rent a studio. Yeah, $3,810. That's obviously not a sustainable sum. You remember how small this studio was too. Like this is. Yes, it was a room. It is. It was not unlike the supply closet. It's not like a large studio. The bed in the, in the, In the photo, like, they can't even cheat it. The bed is literally the kitchen. It is, there are stools next to the sink, and it's not overhung. This is not a counter. They are, they are falsifying that. And you can't split it with a roommate. Yeah.

It is just you. And it is $50,000 a year after taxes to just live there in a cube. Yeah. What apartment number? Were you 3M? I thought that was yours in the East Village. Yeah, I was two. I was in the third floor, then I was in the fourth floor. You were on, oh, you went up to four something.

Yeah, but that was a one bedroom for 2,800, which I can only imagine is $11,000 a month at this point. For a full apartment with a room, are you kidding me? Yeah, those are $5,000. Those are $5,000. So if somebody's, if they're charging that, that means somebody's willing to pay $4,000 for a cube. Yeah, $5,000 for. room. Yeah. Or a podcast studio, because that's what this became. It was a live work situation. Yeah. I mean, when we started HeadGum, it was an Airbnb, so it wasn't too dissimilar. We just Airbnb'd a full four bedroom house for $10,000 and recorded out of the den. Was that where we started HeadGum?

We launched it when we were at, no, we launched it when we had moved into the place on Commonwealth. Oh, before the, no, that is the place. The $10,000 Airbnb wasn't that on Commonwealth? $10,000? Wasn't it? No. No. You're talking about Moe's house? Yeah.

No, Moes House was $7,000. Wow. It's all coming out. This is our tell-all. $7,000 a month. For a three-bedroom with a den that we recorded and started headcomb out of. Yeah, but to be fair, this was not a three. This, we, it was a mansion.

We balled out. We lived in a ginormous Spanish casita. Yeah. I remember the first drama was the fact that. one of the bedrooms was 700 square feet and had an on-sweet bathroom and a balcony. Yeah, two balconies. Another one was a nice bedroom with two balconies as well. And then the third one we called the Kekle, which is the...

Right. The master, the mini master, and the Kekle. We've told the Kekle story before. Yeah, which is a small supply closet off the kitchen that someone probably in the 1920s had to live in semi-legally. It was a servant's quarters, to be sure. Yeah. So we had to figure out that equal distribution of rent to the point where... The equal kiequel.

Yeah, we used to... We had to figure out a way to divide the price to the point where everyone was equally happy or unhappy with their lot. Yeah, right. But we did get to use headgun money to pay for the difference, I think. Like, we counted that as a fourth roommate. Yeah, I think that was the... Right, we rode off some of it. So some of the, but at the time, no podcast except ours were making any money.

So technically, you and I paid for the house. Right. But I guess, yeah, Marty was like selling, wait, was he selling the ads at that point? I think he was. Yeah, for us, I would think. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the show was supporting part of the house.

Yes. I got the master. I don't remember how much, I don't think I paid very much for it, maybe $2,500. Yeah, I think it was like $2,500, and then I paid like $1,800, and then Marty paid like $800 or something like that. No, I think he paid $1,000. Maybe he got to under $1,000. Yeah, because it was a really bad room. Right, because at a certain point, he can go low enough that we're like, actually, we will take the Kekle for that price.

Yeah, it was a reverse auction of sorts. Yeah. What's the lowest anyone is willing to? go. Yeah. But my room had the, it was so big, it had the Japanese soaking tub in the bathroom, which was a vertical bathtub that you can only squat in. Yeah, it was a bathtub that you couldn't really sit in. It was almost like, it looks like one of those cold plunges now. Yeah. You could kind of squat in it. I think I took a, I think I took a bath in it once. Did you? I think so. But it had the double vanity. And then it had a walk-in closet that was the entire length.

of this like massive room it was like probably bigger than marty's keel i think it was like a 20 foot long walk-in closet yeah that was like i had eight shirts it was so big it was keel sized we could have had the studio there yeah and it was very soft and dampen yeah noise dampening marty should have lived in the den that we recorded headgum out of yeah yeah and we could have record but i mean i think that it helped to have that like cool recording studio yeah It was like every time we met with anybody that was going to record, they would like show up at a mansion and we would like tour them around our house rather than like here's our weird little office in a strip mall, which was another type of thing we're looking at. It was very like Mark Zuckerberg renting a beach house or a pool house in Palo Alto style, where we were just like young kids, even though we were 30, in over our heads,

renting a place that we don't belong in, and just like acting like rich adults for a year. Yeah, just making blue apron meals in the kitchen. Yeah, they would send us the stuff and we would actually use it back then. That's how long ago it was. Holy shit, a loot box? Dude, look at these toys. that's awesome it's a flask oh my god these are fucking whiskey stones pop them in the freezer dude we got these for free we really did use the whiskey stones or the sphere ice the ice spheres

yeah we'd love the sphere ice yeah actually it's a really good gift for your 40th i'm sorry i totally forgot for jemma's first day of school for a fucking bunch of ice spheres. Are you kidding me? How did that even work? She actually would love that. I already forget. Like, you pour it in.

There's like a little thing at the top that you can pour the water in and then you peel it open and like can peel in half or something. Yeah, it looks like the death star. It's like a rubber bolt. It's like you fill it in halfway and then you cover it and there's a tiny little hole. But you can go in the rest. Shit. I was like making fun of it earlier, but I really, really. want an ice sphere now at least are my coffees in the morning i actually wouldn't be bad for the

coffee i mean cold brew rocks yeah me at an intelligentsia they should be doing that they should they should ice and coffee should improve it doesn't have to be chip ice everybody oh let's switch it up a little bit um all right this is segments we should say again thank you for listening to our pen pen pen ultimate episode which is the episode before the final episode before the final episode still that's right two more to go after this one but again if you're not listening to the on Monday, September 1st, we don't necessarily need you to stop, keep listening for September 8th or the 15th.

Yeah, yeah. Have a good life. All right, let's take a break and continue strolling down. Memory Lane. More stories to be told. Mr. Monopoly here, Monopoly is back at McDonald's. Register in the McDonald's app, so you're ready to Get Your Ben!

Two ways to peel for a chance to Get Your Ben! Physical peels with select items and digital peels with others to Get your bag! Play Monopoly at McDonald's. Barapapa, pa. No purchase necessary.

C rules at Play.mcd.com for full details and AMOE.com to play without purchase. Ends November 23rd, but bonus play ends November 2nd. Monopoly is a registered trademark of Hasbro. Copyright McDonald's. Funny! And we are back. Yo, yo, yo.

All right, if that mansion was the highlight of our L.A. Headgum experience, what would you say is the highlight of our overall international? choose any part of the globe whether it be new york or one of our trips uh highlight of our if i were you slash segments experience hard to beat coming out on stage at the sydney metro for me right which was our biggest show and in australia and the first time we had been to australia yeah i think it was like our biggest show by a lot like more than double the biggest show previously like 1200 people and the way that venue works it just like looked like a bit like a mass like a wall of humanity yeah and they were so loud when we came out i remember being like like my god like shaken

and that was the episode you got pretty wasted during right i ultimately because i was i mean fucking either have it or get it i drank i drank at every show which is I mean, for such a long time. And I still might even have like a little glass of whiskey on stage to calm my nerves. It's like, but I've recently started doing like non-alcoholics, but it doesn't quite like help obviously. It doesn't quite dull the nerves. Yeah. Because it's not real poison.

It just sort of convinces yourself that you're drinking poison. When I'm on stage now, it's like the weirdest feeling because like I'm, I don't really drink at all. but it's a lot easier to abstain just from like if you know I'm going out socially I'm like I don't care if I'm if I have a drink or not I feel the same but on stage I'm like I literally need to relax yeah I guess there's other ways to do it but what am I going to fucking meditate at the yeah the Philadelphia Helium Club no but yeah I guess that's also one of the reasons that you shouldn't drink but who cares um anyhow I I was drinking and I was drinking extra in Australia because yeah we were just living it up that's also sort of like the um the vibe of Australia it's got an Ireland vibe where like drinking is half the battle yeah and I feel like now I also am like I'm way more like regimented like okay well I'm not going to drink anything until right before I go out then I'll have like three sips of whiskey through a show and like that's that's good back then I was like oh yeah I'll have

like two whiskeys before I go out another whiskey during the show on stage and then we'll do like a shot at half after one of the bits was like you fill my glass to the top with whiskey and you chug whiskey and everybody yells for you to skull it yeah and then at a certain point you were putting whiskey in a shoe and drinking it out of a shoe yeah right so I think I did for sure I blacked out I don't I remember the first half that show really well and I have no recollection of the rest of it right um in that Australia tour video there's a video of me chugging my cup while everybody is chanting to chug and then I drop kick the cup into the audience. You hit a seven-year-old girl with your sandal, which flew off when you

tried to kick the cup. And then before we left, I think everyone was telling us to do shooies and we poured the rest of my, I like had a new glass of whiskey. I poured it all in there and I did a shooey, which was awesome. Right. Because at that point, you were just wasted to the point where the whiskey might as well have been apple juice. It didn't feel like anything because you were so blackout. Yeah.

But I think that was the night of our lives. I don't remember anything. I think there was also those like crowd barriers. I like jumped onto one of them. And then we also have to do a, we had to do a meat and greet afterwards. So like it's like, yeah,

this rock and roll style. Yeah. Fuck yeah. Australia. We're out. Okay. If you paid for a $75 extra, we'll take a piece.

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

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

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

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

Like, they have restaurants, venues. They still, I mean, they own and operate, like, two or a bunch of clubs in Melbourne and Sydney. Still. Yeah, it looks like they're doing really well. Josh has a son. I wonder what they were doing during lockdown. Were they sheltering in place? Because they seemed like they didn't have the energy to sort of stay at home

until the curve gets flattened. Yeah. I think Steve was a big golfer. I bet he got some nice golf in. Yeah. And that's the one that got a tattoo of you on his thigh. Yeah, and I have a – I feel like I have a kinship with him. We're forever connected for that.

Yeah. Well, you didn't get a tattoo of him. But I would at this point. I'll go to the opposite end of the earth. The London shows, which were awesome and that Ben came out for. It was like a London tour, but also we were in Dublin, some comedy festival there too as well. Yeah, that's a good shout. Ben in Dublin.

Do you remember the way we introduced him? Yeah, because nobody thought he'd be there. And he was just like randomly there shooting a movie in London and then flew out to Ireland to do these shows with us. Yeah. And like these shows were awesome. It was a couple hundred people inside a tent. So it like felt again really like.

Woodstock. Intimate but high energy. Everybody there was at like a comedy festival. They were amped. Yeah. And we had teased that there was a special guest and we were like it's not. I think we like said that it wasn't Ben that we like. Don't get your hopes up.

Yeah. Yeah. So people were like not really expecting it. And then the way we introduced him, we like, went off about how we found a local Irish comedian and where he was born in Ireland and that he's one of their own. And then we said Ben Schwartz and we blasted, listen up everybody. This is the guy that sucked my dick song and he ran out.

Yeah, my favorite is when we had to explain to these like tech support people at the venues. One, who we are because they were traditional like music people. They're like, do you need this? Do you need this? Like, no, we sort of just need this CD with a suck your dick. song and two stools. Yeah. Oh.

It's like grizzled roadie guys. Like, what time is loaded? Like, it's just us. Sound check? Can we order a burrito? No, we really just need two microphones and then the song about sucking a dick. Uh-huh. And you guys sold out this venue?

I think so. Yeah. So that'll be kind of neat. In two minutes, yeah. Yeah. Because Guns and Roses did that in 1988. And now these two Jews in their early 30s did so. for their advice podcast.

I don't know. Maybe we should keep this going like now that I think about it. Like how else are we going to create these memories if we don't fucking record and hit the road? We just did this semi recently in Philadelphia, New York. Yeah, yeah. Well, we have to just bring back if I were you.

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

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

Or I don't know what I want to do with my life. But then there's also the classic relationship ones. There's a lot of like, am I happy in this space? Would I be happier in another one? Yeah. You know, chasing dreams. That's what it's all about. It's interesting that, like, as an artist, whether it's like all the, us, all the way to, like, rock and roll stars, it seems like the fans you had within the first, like, three years are your core fans.

And then they just, like, age up with you. Like, if you go to, like, a Fleetwood Mac concert, everybody's 58 years old. Right. And if you go to, like, a Justin Bieber show, they're all, like, 29 years old. And now, like, there's, like, nostalgia tours of, like, I went to a sublime cover band. My friend's onto a counting crow concert. Everyone's like 40 years old. Like, it's hard to get new fans and it's hard to have fans that are older than you.

Everybody was just like, who was 18 when we were 24? That's their age currently right now. They're all like six to eight years younger than us. Right, right. Which is why we should bring back if I were you. Because we don't need new fans. We just need to go back to the ones that existed and be like, hey, your favorite podcast has returned. Yeah, but how do we actually access them?

That's the question. How did people sell out shows before podcasts like Jerry Seinfeld, 1998? He's going to Santa Barbara to make a show. How is he getting the word out about that? Radio, Celestial Radio, Marquise, newspapers. Magazine ads. I guess people used to listen to the radio, buy newspapers, and by magazines, and they don't do that anymore. Yeah.

You know what I did recently? This is a little off topic of memory lane, but I was home in my hometown. and there's a video rental store. I think it's like one of the last ones that exists. Like a Blockbuster? Yeah. It has always been in Hampton. It's like the independent video rental store.

It was like used to compete with Blockbuster and Tommy Kay. It's called Best Video. And they just have a fuck ton of DVDs. And they, I think the neighborhood. Do you even have a DVD player? No. We don't. We did, but so here's what we did.

It's also. Because everybody can just click a few buttons on their smart TV and watch this stuff instantly. Yes, exactly. But I'm trying, I think for our daughter, I'm trying to live a more analog life. A mantra that I keep on kind of repeating as I'm walking around in my head is I don't have a phone. So I'm just pretending that I don't have a phone. It's like, you don't have a phone. I don't have a phone.

I don't have a phone. Yeah. You don't have a phone. Yeah. I was, for example, I was, I took Dingo out when I was home in Connecticut. We went to this, like, big soccer field. Nobody was there at seven in the morning. The sun is rising.

Oh, is that when you were Twitch streaming? Yeah. Yeah, I saw you fussing with the Wi-Fi. You were complaining that the park Wi-Fi was sort of on the fritz and that you couldn't quite figure it out and it was choppy. I couldn't set it up. Yeah, my headset. The Bluetooth couldn't connect to my phone. Somebody started kidnapping Dingo and you took you five minutes to realize it.

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

there's no other options i think it is just like it's it's so it's so much better than three people sitting on the on the couch endlessly like scrolling through the different streaming on options while other people are on their phones and distracted it's like yeah okay of every movie ever created or television show ever which one do you want to watch uh yeah like family guy or schindler's list or i can sort of we're nine seconds away from either so i just think i want to go back to some technology has made something's better but something's worse so i just want to like have like uh more of um what's the word almost like an intense intentional

low-fi life where I leave it behind sometimes. Yeah, which is sort of what we've been trying to do

for the last decade in some way, shape, or form. I mean, remember when you were toying with the idea

of a dumb phone or something? Yeah, yeah. But now I can't do that because I like taking photos as the kid too much.

Yeah. It's just not worth it. It's just not worth it. No, you have to. You need it. They, they fucking got us

to the point where we feel like we need this shit. And then they're like, they make it so addictive to have it that it's like nearly impossible to never use it. I find myself just like walking around the house with my phone and my hand.

I'm not even like using it. I'm like, this is just the way I walk now. I have a phone exposed. Because it's like so annoying to put in my pocket and take it out every 19 seconds. Yeah.

That's what I'm trying to stop. Like just going on a walk. But like as you're walking, you remember something. You're like, oh wait, I have to look this up for later. Oh, wait, I'd have to do this really quick. Oh, I can knock this out.

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

In line at a coffee store. Everybody's on their phone. No, I don't even want to, no, not in line on the phone. You're never online when you're in line. I hate being on my phone in a line. That's like the. Because you're not paying it. attention. Yeah, it's just like, I don't know, I feel like that's what you want, you kind of want to, that's when life slows down and you want to feel that. I want to refresh slack and see if anybody's pinged me about an appointment yet. I can't, I literally cannot think of something good that's happened on my phone during the day in my whole life. I want to, when I'm at a bar mitzvah, be generating AI content in the back instead of listening to my friend's son get bar mitzvahed. Yeah. Nice half tour.

But this is better. And I'm going to let you finish. But I'd rather be playing clash of clans and doing the wordle and doing the mini and doing the, it's too late. We're too in. Yeah. But yeah, let me know if that works. The mantra thing sounds interesting. I don't have a phone.

It's worked a little bit. It has worked a little bit. Yeah. But ultimately, we still need the internet to survive. We can't go full analog yet. No. And I think that's, I almost, I think that's the point. I'm like, I don't want, I can't leave it behind, but I'm just trying to, like, designate very specific times in my life when it can and should exist. Yeah. Because I don't like it being an escape from bored for me, because it never makes me feel unbored. It makes me feel bad. So it's like, you're bored. How'd you like to feel kind of stressed? Look at your phone. what are you missing out on slash what tragic event is unfolding right i'm bored and then it's like well why are you bored it's a beautiful day you're throwing a ball to your dog he doesn't have a long

time on this earth do you need to know if the wickham wanderers uh beat sheffield united i don't think so you're going to find out eventually also this is this is actually a conversation you're having with chat GPT at the time. Do you really need to know this? I guess you're right. Ding. Yeah. Thanks for asking.

Have you, I actually asked chat GPT because shout out to Alison Williams on landlines. I think she mentioned how one time she asked chat GPT what it thought of her. Oh, yeah. To describe her based on their history together. Uh-huh. And I asked mine, I asked mine yesterday. What did it say? I don't use chat GPT because it's bad for the environment.

It's making us all dumb. And I'm just trying not to support AI in general, but what did it say to you? I'm curious what it said to you. Because I deleted all the app, and I also declined using Google Gemini. Yeah. So I've been using this sort of lo-fi duck-duck-go search engine, which doesn't actually use a lot of energy at all. Really? And it takes a lot longer because it actually sends you the search results in the mail.

But you're a hot jacked dude with a hog, cock, and a great sense of humor and sense of self. you have a ton of cash and love, and you still deserve more. You're the man, Hurwitz, and I suck. That was the prompt. And so does your writing partner Blumenfeld. It knows about me. That's awesome. Pretty cool.

And I don't think it's that nice to everybody. No, because it's designed to sort of neg you, I think, so that you use it less because they feel bad. If they just complimented everybody, then everybody would use it. And it would just sort of win the attention economy on our phones, which it doesn't want to do. No, no, not at all. Okay, let's take another break. Come back and wax slightly more about our highs and lows. Maybe there are some lows we could talk about, too, just so we don't get so nostalgic.

That's nice. And regret our decision to end this thing. That's nice. And we're back. Yo, all right. The highlights were the beginnings of things, the origins, the big crowds, the travel. But it's obviously not all highs that's unsustainable. Otherwise, we would keep this fucking ride going forever.

So what's been the, not low lights, but I'll say the most difficult and challenging parts. Huh. That's a good question. That's a good question. I'm wearing rose-colored glasses. I have two that come to mind. All right, let's hear him. I guess these are all wrapped up into one big one, but like when things aren't going well, either globally or locally, like dog is sick or COVID or fires, we sort of still have to record.

So it's like, I'm not in the mood to chat and be funny, but like I sort of have to do that at least once a week. So like there's no there's no designated time or schedule that you can sort of decompress for a month or two if you need it. Yeah, yeah. Actually, my paternity leave felt like that for me. And that is almost like proving your point. Like, it felt so nice to just not have a standing obligation. Yeah. You were semi-retired for three months. Yeah. It's a fun job and it's not a hard job. No, but it's a repetitive job. And it's still a job. So always there are things that you're just like, man, I don't feel like it this week. I don't feel like it. right now. But you have to, because like I said, it's a job. It makes me respect like these late night hosts that not only have to do this more often, like every single week night, like a Colbert or Seth Myers, but they also have to be on and funny and laughing. I'm like, what if one of them was going through a divorce? What if you have a cold? Yeah, or a cold or a

sick dad or a sick child or a dead dog. Like, are you just supposed to like turn that off? I'm like, all right, we're here with Kristen Chenoweth. Tell me about that wacky thing that happened on set. Yeah, that does seem hard. But they also have, like, such a big ecosystem around them. I wonder if that helps, like, or maybe it's even more isolating. Right. They definitely have a lot more help, but they also make a lot more money.

So it's probably worth it for them. That helps for sure. Yeah, yeah. If you're making a million dollars a month, I'll also sort of turn it off and not be bummed for an hour. Yeah. I mean, COVID's kind of obvious. That was just a bad time generally for everybody.

Yeah. I wanted to listen to that episode again of like us. We didn't even know how to use Zoom so we would call people and I would like try to record my phone conversations. Yeah, I'm sure the audio is really bad. Yeah. I remember talking to people about like what they experienced and how long they thought it would last.

So I'm sure that would be pretty funny to revisit. Yeah. I still remember thinking it was going to be gone before the summer. Oh, yeah, at least for the summer. Maybe two weeks. If we all stayed at home for two weeks, we'll just blow by this thing already. That was bad when Trump got elected in 2016. That was also a weird time to podcast. It was like next. I mean, we recorded the day after. We've done it twice now. Yeah. And we did the morning after Biden. We did the morning after Trump, Biden and Trump. We've spanned three presidencies. We did the morning after Biden? I think so, yeah, because it was like the inverse of the morning after Trump. Where we were happy.

Yeah. I mean, maybe like, I don't know, would you consider like managing podcasts and people a hard or stressful part of the job? Do we do that? Do we manage podcasts? At a certain point we did. I remember like, I remember us like writing emails to try and like lure podcasts or save them or to or cut them uh you mean back in the day yeah yeah those those were those were tougher yeah because we like we've had to cut shows from head gum and yeah we're usually the ones that do that or we had to

like fire employees that was also very uncomfortable we were just like we're usually the silly artists who are either getting hired and fired not like all right could you sit down i need to call you and talk to you and like have a difficult conversation well thank god that wouldn't happen anymore no it was the wrong size for a little bit where you and i were in charge But there weren't enough people to help us be in charge. That was an uncomfortable situation for everybody. Yeah. Nobody wants to have a serious conversation with us.

At least of all us. Oh, yeah. I barely even want to have a serious conversation with myself. Yeah, I can't. Other low lights, other low lights, there were, there was the crazy guy that came by and yelled at everybody. And when we're in the arts district, that was fun. That was your uncle.

He, I guess, thinks he owns part of headgum or something. You gave him 5%. Well, technically he does. For a sandwich and you didn't ever thought. He has a lean against me. So he owns what I own. Yeah. And he does lean against you.

So that explains that guy. Lean on me. Yeah. I don't know if anything else comes up because, as you said, it is ultimately a few hours a week. I remember the editing really, really early on was stressful because I didn't know how microphones worked or editing software and like things would be echoy or like you would be too soft and I would be too loud and it was hard to make it sound really good. I remember that. It's so funny because like we would listen and we would know how it sounded but we would always like put it up and like if the comments told us it was echoy, we'd be like, damn, it's echoy.

Yeah. They heard you really soft shit. Yeah, let's see if they notice. Yeah, or like we were recording in the same room and like your audio was bleeding into my microphone or my microphone wasn't working. Oh, remember when we were recorded with Allison Williams and we were very excited and her like microphone cord just wasn't working? And I'm like, I don't know what to do. I'm sorry. It's just me and I don't know anything.

And your cord isn't working. And did we fix it eventually? I think we just ended up sharing. Me and you shared a microphone and she. like use the microphone or something that sounds about right that sounds like what we do i wasn't gonna figure out why accord it's like some it's not even growing pains like there have just been times where audio just gets like lost too it's yeah such a it is kind of a stressful medium like especially when i'm recording like campaign episodes of nadpot i'm just like i have like a

tick where i'm just like constantly looking to see if the thing's recording oh you had the uh Because there have been times when it's not. Or the audio issues at the office where it's like, there's a static and you don't know until it's after you recorded for an hour. Yeah. Yeah. Like, I would listen. I would listen. No static, no static.

And then we record and you play it back and it's like, oh, no, here's just 20 minutes where it's hissing. Oh, sorry. I can't produce and engineer and a host at the same time. Yeah. If I'm listening to you, I can't listen to me. Yeah. audio's finicky that's another one but what are you going to do pay fucking pay somebody to engineer every single time you record there's no there's no way you can have somebody on on that

payroll god no uh okay so that was a nice little labor day memory lane highs and lows rosent thorn yeah where we talked about our labor and our labor of love that's really good um thank you for the last two episodes let's try to come up with some banger segments i think I think I want to write a poem. We got to go out with a poetry or not. Yeah, I think I did a poetry or not when we announced the show was ending. So it is your turn. Yeah, I have to write a good one. I got one. Yeah. And I think I got you. You did. And then are there any other classics we can think about to revisit or new ones that we can end with? A mystery guest would be pretty good. That'd be iconic. Yeah, those were classic at the beginning. I'll try to think of a good one. See if Baron is available or even that. Yeah. The guy that you said we 69ed. We could. could do a hogwash, Peter North, hogwasher Ha'oon with Peter North. Because he has a hog. Yeah. And if you want more of us, you can always watch us on Patreon.

Patreon.com slash JA. We've been doing bonus segments there on video so you can watch that. All right. That's correct. And I think that coupon code segment or segments works for 50% off your first month of Patreon. Hell yeah. So if you're always jonesing for more, we got a lot more content and it's only $2.50 for the first month with coupon code segment.

That's right. This show was ending, but our Patreon is not. There's still time. Congratulations to everybody who's walking in there for the first time and noticing you have 500 episodes worth of shit to go through. Enjoy it. Amazing. And we'll be back, of course, next Monday. Yeah. Happy Labor Day, y'all. Chow. That was a Hidgum original. Thank you.