Stop Podcasting Yourself - Episode 661 - Jess Salomon

Episode Date: November 17, 2020

Comedian Jess Salomon joins us to talk human rights law, The Silence of the Lambs, and Graham’s new glasses.

Hi, he's Dave Shumka and he's Graham Clark and together we host Stop Podcasting Yourself. Woo! Hello everybody and welcome to episode number 661 of Stop Podcasting Yourself. My name is Graham Clark and with me as always is a man who's a fall guy, but he's also a winter guy, a spring guy, not a summer guy. Mr. Dave Shumka. I like girls who wear Abercrombie and Fitch. Those summer girls? Maybe, yeah, those are summer girls i think i'm on the record that these are my seasons uh but i do every season is too long

yeah uh are you done with fall already no but yeah actually the spring fall and spring can go as long as they want winter and summer are too long cut them off after like you know 90 days i guess that's how long they are cut them off after 60 days yes yes like uh laurie laughlin's prison sentence nice and short when i'm in charge of the seasons and uh the sentences of former Full House stars. They will all be very short. Our guest today is a first-time guest here to the podcast. She and her wife can be heard on a show called Comedians vs. the News on BBC. It's Jess Solomon.

Hello. Hi. Hello. Hi, guys. Thank you for being our guest. It's a pleasure. This is also my season yeah love it yeah you're a fall yeah uh fall and winter um i just i i sweat i have my dad's sweat glands i don't

do well in the heat and uh i'm someone who doesn't i sunburn um but in the winter i just get i get rosy you know where it's like people who are like more olive skin. This is me commenting on my wife's. They get more kind of green. Right. It's not winter. Winter's not for them. They need to be in the sun.

They get brown. Yeah, they can own the summer. They can have the summer. Okay. I don't think that we need to divide up who gets what season by race. Personally, I don't know that we need to like divide up who gets what season by race. Personally, I don't know that we need to do that. But it is Dave and I were sweaty people. We also have the huge sweat glands.

I didn't I never thought to attribute it to the size of my sweat glands. But I guess they're pretty big now that I think of it. Yeah, I don't know who I inherited mine from. Oh, I got it from my grandfather. He was a sweaty it. Yeah, I don't know who I inherited mine from. Oh, I got it from my grandfather. He was a sweaty guy. Yeah. You said you were a fall. Is that also,

I know that's a thing with makeup colors. Are you also a fall with that? Yeah, I mean, I have, I know this is a podcast, but so in people that don't know what I look like, I have like a fall complexion, you know, I have freckles and red hair and stuff. So these kinds of earth tones are really good for me. I actually I was going to maybe change my my screen handle name to DJ Earth Tone.

Oh, change it. That's good. That's good. Okay. So, yeah, very strong color season for me and, and, and temperature as well. Um, what's your,

what's your summertime coping? I'm feeling, I'm feeling bad that I, that I said a whole race of people can't have winter and that they turn green like a monster, but I was really talking about my wife. I think I like, I maybe,

uh, started off too, too raw and, uh raw and edgy. This is what we brought you on for. Is your raw edginess. Does it help? I'm drinking Palestinian beer. I don't know.

Yes. Yes. Okay. What is, I don't know anything about Palestinian beer. Before we get into that. Sorry. Yes.

Do you want to get to know us? Oh, sure. Yes. Do you want to get to know us? Oh, sure. Yes. Get to know us. Tell me more about this Palestinian beer. Is it light? Is it hoppy?

This one is a blonde, so it's pretty light. It's called Shepherds, Beer of Palestine. There's a shepherd with like a keffiyeh scarf over his head if you can see the picture that checks out it's all i'm allowed to drink um as far as beers go i have to my wife is palestinian and so i need to constantly make up for the the jews um no that's not no the truth is we went to uh we went to a palestinian restaurant um and they and so you know i do always if i go you know if i go to a chinese restaurant i like to i get chinese beer whatever and so yeah so we they had palestinian beer and it's really good and then this place

also has a store attached so you can buy some of their products and bring them home nice yeah that's um that's i like the idea of going to a different place and getting whatever drink is associated with that place i don't feel like i do that enough i feel like i should do that more you know where i don't do that is i don't do that in canada with like wine when they're like it's from the niagara region you're like no thank you uh it It's got Wayne Gretzky's number on it. No. What do you have from France? Yeah, the one that I don't go crazy for is Greek.

Greek beverages are pretty. I don't know if there's a good alcohol in the Greek tradition. What is there? There's, you know, like an ouzo. Oh, he drinks an ouzo drink. And then there's like this, what is the wine called a you know like a ouzo he drinks an ouzo drink and then there's like this what is the wine called it's like grappa wine or something i was gonna say grappa must be greek right or is it italian oh maybe it's italian there's one wine that's a greek wine and it is a wild ride it's like i don't know what to compare it to but it is not pleasant

it sounds like absinthe like that's what i'm picturing that you're like this is a weird wine and it's absent yeah yeah they light a thing on fire and they put it in it's like a sugar cube on a crack spoon have you ever had absinthe i have but i don't know if it there was a couple of bars in montreal that definitely had absinthe um but i don't know if it was the real deal you know the ones that were from the paintings and and you know i i didn't hallucinate no one no one can know that like yeah that's true but like what it was it like van gogh drank it or yeah yeah exactly and i don't i don't years ago i was so scared because i'm like oh i'm gonna go i'm gonna like trip

something's gonna happen i want to cut off my ear or whatever but um you know what if that was every it was like one night yeah everyone take away any knife don't let me hear if you see me going for my ear please cut me off don't cut me off. Don't cut me off. That was good. Wow. But the, so yeah, I have no idea if it was like the real, the real thing or not.

It was kind of like, you know, a cool experience in the way that they pour it for you with, yeah, the sugar and the, and all that.

And it, I felt drunk, but nothing out of the ordinary. Did it, did it feel terrible or like, did it taste terrible? It's,

it is also that kind of sweet black licoricey in that family of stuff which i don't love either no um but yeah i don't know i mean it's like i feel like it's like how coke used to have coke in it and now it doesn't like i feel like absent doesn't have whatever the stuff was that. I wonder what it tastes like if you put Coke in Coke at this point. Like cocaine? Yeah, cocaine. If you put a little cocaine in Coke. What happens if you put Coke Zero in regular Coke?

You get one Coke. Yeah, you do the math. What a crazy mixed drink that is coke when i went when i used to get slurpees all the time i would never just get one flavor of slurpee no i would always mix i loved i loved coke and uh cream soda together were my favorites but if like if there were a bunch of flavors and like in the summer they get too run. Cause like the machine can't keep up with how many people are trying to drink them. And you would,

you know, have a machine with eight flavors, but only two of them would be, you know, viable, viable. And so I would like, I remember once being like,

all right, I guess I'll mix Coke and Pepsi. The cup just disappears when you do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, Jess, you grew up in Montreal, is that correct? Yeah. Did they? Was 7-Eleven?

I got to drink an absinthe. I put a little in your bottle when you grew up in Quebec, my day. Was 7-Eleven a big thing, was it Couche Tard or what was the yeah what was your slurpy depot yeah what was your day panner yeah Couche Tard uh was definitely one and um I mean in my neighborhood it was uh Max did you guys have Max yeah yeah they weren't all over but they were in that was the one in our area. Yeah, Macs is like trans Canada. Like it's everywhere, I think. But I remember visiting Montreal and the same logo for Macs was called Couchetard.

So I was confused about that. But now all the Macs here are Circle Ks. Yeah, we've lost that part of our heritage. Like within the last six months. Where's the, where's the minute about that? We don't, I don't think I've ever been to a circle K,

but we have, um, but most of our depths weren't like, didn't have a name. Really? Like they were, like they were just like a, like a owned by a family or something.

And they had like a, yeah, like the, they don't have very many of them here anymore but the old corner stores that would just have like a light up seven up sign outside or some you know like orange crush sign outside yeah plus with uh like something about like lotto quebec and cigarettes like something about the lottery lit up and also yeah like that's where you get the lotto stuff and obviously beer and cigarettes and uh and like may west's or joe louis so you would get beer we didn't we couldn't get beer there it was the corner store was a cigarette and lottery store only venture you wanted to get drunk you had to go to a whole separate store we're so behind wait wait did you guys you guys are in bc is it like the beer you have a beer store situation like

ontario oh my god well we don't have a beer store we just have um liquor stores yeah we have liquor stores but we don't like we're not like ontario where they have only the beer store or whatever that is or yeah or like where they have to like you make an order and they go get it for you yeah we don't have that. That's insane. That's like way too big a deal for beer. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah.

Calm down. I mean, I feel like, yeah, we have, yeah, beer and wine. You can get it anywhere. And you're, now you're living in New York, correct? Yes. Yeah. And so what's the corner store situation in your neighborhood now? Well, here it's, you know, the bodega is what they call it.

And the thing with that is I don't notice lottery stuff. One thing that's classic is the cat. Do you guys know about the bodega cat? No. So, yeah. So all bodegas have cats. They should anyways. And they're there for the rats so they and usually the fatter they are the more rats they have taken care of so is that good to

have a fat cat or you're like man this place has so many rats this can't slim down you know you would think it would be bad but people here talk about it like it's good. So I'm just going with what they say, but I truly, I've been too afraid to ask why that would be a good thing. Cause I think like you do, like that seems bad. But I want to be. If you saw a skinny cat, you'd be like, there's no rats for this cat to eat. If you saw a starving cat. Well, but then you might be like, but then you see a rat outside and it's got like, you

see a very fat rat. Yeah. You're like, where's the cat? It's got like, you see a very fat rat. Yeah. Yeah. You're like, where's the cat? It's got like a handkerchief around its neck. Poor eating disorder cat. With his like skinny jeans. No.

Yeah. And then, so the bodega cat is a big thing. And the other thing about the bodega is that they sell food. Like they make sandwiches and they have uh sometimes these like table like buffet style uh areas with all kinds of salads i mean now it sounds disgusting as i say it especially in the age of covid because you don't know how long that like egg salad's been there to scoop um but a lot of but but definitely they have a counter with

like like a deli counter where you get sandwiches um yeah they also because i've seen uh and i have friends that they'll swear by these things uh sandwiches that are made behind the counter on like a tiny little grill have you seen that oh yeah yeah they have grills uh they have it's like a tiny space but they have like all the cleaning products like all all the groceries produce the buffet you know and then they have like a full grill like restaurant scenario and um and also beer um and wine and ice cream and like and cigarettes and some magazines even probably i don't know and it's all in a very small area um and they're open like all the time so yeah when when covid hit here and it was really bad i mean before i before i abandoned ship i was like well what am i like i didn't feel that anyone was

getting in a car and and hoarding toilet paper or you know that wasn't really happening here because no one has cars so it's just like whatever you carry back to your apartment and these places i'd hire a cab they have everything you don't clean it out with it get your uber yeah exactly don't drive away i gotta load more in the back i gotta get everything in this bodega that's like clorox brand yeah i gotta get this egg salad i don't know how old it is or how many people have touched it or like breathed on it I feel like 7-Eleven was for a while like growing up it was just uh you know slurpees and magazines and whatever candy and then they uh like they had hot dogs on rollers but they've really expanded

their like prepared food yeah and so much so that they stink now like walking into a 7-eleven is uh like an atrocity but wait here's my question though was there a demand for them to expand their menu? Because I don't remember anything ever looking good. No, but it must be the 2 a.m. crowd. And also, if you're anywhere near a high school, you could sell that stuff every single day of the week because teenagers will eat whatever garbage there is. We ate chicken that came from the 7-Eleven when I was a teenager. Chicken. Chicken of the 7-eleven when i was teenage chicken chicken of the sev like wings or yeah like wings and kind of like but not just wings like also just like

fried chicken yeah fried chicken that had been there for under a lamp for god knows how long i remember pretty much every day i once uh walked over to 7-eleleven on lunch and, you know, had my $5 in high school. And I bought this sandwich and I, you know, started walking back to school, opened it up, and there was a dead ant in the sandwich. Just like the Pink Panther theme. And then I, but I was like, I don't have time to go back i don't i'm not gonna be able to get my five dollars back anyway no i can't buy something else now i have no money so you know i ate it yeah kick the ant off and now it's your territory again yeah you showed him who's boss i wonder if the ant was like trying to carry a tomato and then it got do you remember do you remember what kind of sandwich it was dude

yeah it was uh let's see it was an ant sandwich oh there's my problem no it was like probably like ham and cheese or something it was it had i i remember it was in the tomato though right man um jess um this show that we we set off the top that you're uh co-host of yeah tell us a little bit about it what because it's a news it's a weekly daily how does it work so um it's a weekly podcast that and it it airs on the radio so it's a bbc on the bbc world it, it airs on the radio. So it's a BBC on the BBC world service. So it airs on radio, like in different, uh,

parts of the world at different times. Okay. They're like partner radio station. So I think it's even on CBC radio at some point. Um, and, uh, and then it comes out Friday evenings on wherever you get podcasts,

comedians versus the VS the news. And we just sort of wrapped our first season, but check it out. We have the cool thing is, well, there's a lot of cool things. One thing is that we talk to list the cool things, list the cool things in order.

Cool thing. Number one, cool thing. Number one, cool thing. Number one is we talk to comedians that are from all over the world. And most of whom we have never met or we don't even really know and so they're zooming in and speaking to us like through London

from India or like South Africa or you know Europe and and so we chat with them about what's going on in their part of the world they bring us a of news stories and we have two people on, two comedians on with us, with me and my wife, Iman. Every episode, we also run through some international headlines. And then in the lead up to the American election, we spent a chunk of time on an American election related story. And otherwise, yeah, it sort of of hits there's a lot of you know it was cool because we got to take a bit of a break uh and and look at news from other parts

of the world where i feel like i've been so consumed with all things trump um yeah what the hell's going on elsewhere in the world i mean i'm sure lots of stuff i mean well one major story is obviously covid and like how people are handling it differently i've been kind of like sweden you know they decided to not lock down at all right that's right and it hasn't gone great okay i feel like emails are i'm on my wife's computer because she anyway i thought i quit the emails but anyway so well no let's let's see if there's anything juicy in the email. What are the discount codes she got today? Could you guys imagine if there was like something,

like something flirtatious in here with somebody else? And I just found out on this podcast. Who flirts over email? Well, I don't know. Your coworkers are putting a lot of exclamation marks in their email. Well, that's how you communicate with coworkers. I know. I've been really email focused. Okay.

I swear I do use other forms of communication. Oh, yeah. So anyway, so Sweden, you know, they decided to just kind of let whatever happened happen. And so now and in Europe now there's like everything's spiking and um covid wise and so they're going back like into second lockdowns in france and england and whatever and sweden was like no we're gonna we're gonna really we're really taking this seriously you know we're imposing all kinds of restrictions and the restriction was maximum eight people at the same table inside restaurants and cafes eight people at a table that's like a big birthday for me like that

pandemic yeah yeah the fact that somebody would struggle to be like, well, I can't get it down to eight. Speed dating events will be limited to a hundred people. Have you always been a newshound? I've always really, yeah, I guess I've always, I guess I've always called myself a newshound specifically. DJ newshound. Sniffing it out. Yeah. Yeah.

I've always been interested in interested in politics and international relations. That's what I did in undergrad. Human rights work. I've always loved traveling and working with people from different places. So yeah, I think that's always been part of it. But I always sort of thought I had a kind of a broad picture on as far as North America goes on other parts of the world and would read like the international section but the last four years especially because I moved to the U.S. from

Montreal like right before Trump was elected I've been completely like just subsumed in um every just only things I almost like to the point where i i feel tuned out of what's going on sometimes politically in canada which i was always you know uh here's what the big story in canada is that the macs have now turned into circle k's yeah that's a big yeah and uh you know our prime minister has decided to have a beard which which I think is neat. Yeah. I don't think that's happened for a long time. I feel like Jack Layton wasn't elected because of his mustache. And now we're a whole beard prime minister. Yeah, he's a little devil-y, but he's a little rascally.

Yeah, he's a little rascally. Yeah. He's been a little rascal for a couple of years. We want to be mad at him, but we can't. Yeah. It's hard. It's hard to be mad at a rascal for a couple of years we want to be mad at him but we can't yeah it's hard it's hard to be mad at a rascal yeah he's always sticking his finger in the pie or whatever you want to say hand in the cookie jar yeah canary in the coal mine the uh now you you worked in human

rights you worked as a lawyer for some time is that correct yeah that's right. So I went to law school and then I object. Yeah. Perfect. Thank you. So we're the same. Sustained. at the department of justice in ottawa for a year and then i worked at the un um in the hague at one of the the war crimes tribunals the one that was specifically set up for the former yugoslavia and rwanda wow so yeah can i ask this were you there when the guy drank the poison well that was my tribunal thank you for knowing that most people don't um that was very much the vibe though which is pretty much why i got into comedy honestly because i was like i need to write a show about this place and then i like left and quit my whole job and realized i didn't know anything about comedy but i i you know before when you don't know about comedy you're just like oh yeah like for sure i'll give myself two years and then like, if I don't have an HBO special in my own sitcom about this war crimes

tribunal, I'll quit. And I guess it's not for me and I'll just go back to law. No harm, no foul, you know? Anyway, that's not how it goes.

But I, but yeah, I was, so I, I was there when Milosevic died. Slobodan? Slobodan. Slobo. Yeah. And um yeah and that was but that was the that was the last uh hurrah was what you're describing i was already here that guy was another slobodan yes definitely also i'm probably a serb yeah i'm assuming but um he uh yeah slobodan i

mean it was like a question about like how he died um because he was it was a kind of a poisoning because he was messing with his medication because he wanted to like he had heart issues and stuff and i think i mean i'm trying to remember if this is exactly what the actual investigation his lawyers won't come after you at this point you know what i mean um yeah no yeah i went in the truth is is i went in i murdered him uh myself and that's why i had to leave and go to get out yeah it's been uh and i just wanted to reveal that on this podcast um okay cool yeah we're like a safe place a lot of people drop their stories here on the podcast, and we're the first look at these news stories. We consider ourselves kind of comedians versus the news.

Yeah. Except here, the comedians win, and on our show, according to some of our comments on Twitter, the news wins often. Okay, well. Well, you shouldn't have put yourself up as such a huge ally. according to some of our comments on twitter the news wins okay well well you shouldn't have put yourself up as such a huge ally we definitely set ourselves up with the title that we didn't come up with but yes yes um did you like were you fine with that you'd

spent so much time as a lawyer but you really wanted to be a comedian or did being a comedian just pop out of nowhere so i'm really uh like a very all or nothing person and i could never have been someone who was like had dreams of doing comedy but was pursuing this like crazy intense other career too or really any job like i'm i just i kind of like get into something and then i'm just like in it and like when i was in law that's it i was in it and i was pursuing like what was my dream job which was where i ended up um and it was just like at a certain point while i was there that i um i don't know i just even though it was like in the best like coolest for me kind of law it was at it was still law at the end of the day so it's not like law is just law you know even though this was like connected to politics and history and there

were some aspects of the job that um weren't legal you know like there were some political or diplomatic aspects the um at the end of the day it's still like the law and when i when i went to leave people were like like my family you know they're like well what about what about entertainment law have you what about what about that what about patent law I know they're like entertainment law like I'm like no like so so I can be closer to the thing that I want to do but doing like a worse version of law like I just what like it seems so but you know they're just trying to avoid you becoming an artist and um or maybe that was like pretentious to call it

that at that point but um i think of us as artists of the highest degree no yes us and fluffy uh drink an absinthe but in year one you know what i mean it was yes yes but the um so i i didn't really i just was like looking at the the like the jobs above me and like where i could go next in that world and i wasn't really that excited by it and at the same time and this is going to sound like truly the worst reason to get into comedy but and i'm sure there are plenty worse reasons than what you're about to say and so i was playing a game of pool and my friends dared me like if you don't sink this ball you're gonna have to go up and get on the mic no i don't feel like so many people got into it on a dare of some kind yeah i hate those stories yeah but at least it seems like more no so this is uh but at the same time

like this is not going to surprise any, anybody. But I was watching a lot of the daily show with John Stewart when I was in the, in the Hague. Sure. And I was like, wow,

this guy's really making a difference. Maybe like law isn't the best form of advocacy. Maybe, maybe comedy is. Cause he was like, you know, he had gotten Tucker Carlsonlson fired he ended crossfire i don't know if you remember that show i do remember in america and like he and they got

now i mean of course fast forward it seems so stupid now well number one because like the you shouldn't be necessarily become a comedian because like you want to make a difference and that like or like i could write jokes that'll like really change people's mind about like you want to make a difference and that like, or like, I could write jokes that are like really change people's mind about stuff. Like, you know, but that's like the mentality I was coming at. Now I have like a comedian mindset. So I just declare the air. Like I I've unlearned a lot of that, but although I don't know, judge for yourselves if you've heard my comedy and and, and meanwhile, John Stewart, you know, which I don't want to blame him for leaving law.

But he like, he's like living upstate with a bunch of animals, you know, which I don't want to blame him for leaving law, but he like, he's like living upstate with a bunch of animals, you know, and Tucker Carlson's like living his best white nationalist life. So now then everything, you know, now it was like very clear that satire wasn't going to save any Republic, definitely not America. And that like really who is most needed really are lawyers. And especially the kind that I was, you know what I mean? So it's like things took a turn. Oh man. Yeah.

Yeah. Cause it's a, that I don't think wanting to change the world is even in the top 20 of bad reasons to want to become a comedian. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean,

that's probably up there that's one of the best i would say i know but not if you're like like a pure you know like if you're thinking about the the art form right like like you're like the first thing i think you know when you write a joke should be trying to make people laugh like finding what's funny and then hopefully you make them think or whatever as an offshoot but it feels a little bit this is a very law analogy but when um which is what you're not supposed to do in law especially if you're a judge is to like reason back from the conclusion that you want you know you're like you know what i think this guy's guilty now let me figure out how to write a judgment that supports that you know

so that's what they do they say okay i figure this is the way i'm gonna go and then they back they back sell it no they're not you shouldn't do that you should just like do they do that probably some people do i don't know if you're familiar with the justice system but it's very much of a very much of a rascal situation in the criminal justice system uh some uh offenses are considered particularly heinous or whatever yeah ladies and gentlemen richard belzer i love that opening when you were when you were like when you were a kid did you want to be uh like social change or a lawyer or

like what when did that come in so um when i was a kid i think i was always uh very aware of like inequality and like bothered by injustice just in my earliest my mom so this is really not obvious by how i look like or sound like or any my name but my mom is from Peru um so my mom's whole side of the family lives in in Peru so for not when I was really little we used to go every year to Lima and it was just so that I saw very early on what like a developing world country looks like what extreme poverty looks like and how different it looked from you know canada or what you know any other you were you influenced by the dastardly thief carmen san diego who put the miss in mr mino when she stole the beans from lima i didn't watch enough carmen san diego to know that that's something that she did i just

know that people were always looking for her right right? Yes. Yeah. Well, she went from Nashville to Norway, Bahrain to Zimbabwe, Chicago to Czechoslovakia and back. There you go. Then she ransacked Pakistan and ran a scam in Scandinavia. She stuck them up, down, under and pickpocketed Perth.

Wow. That is... Well, guys, please. Incredible. That's incredible. ladies and gentlemen richard belzer well they should really try to find her on the law and order i mean yeah that's true yeah make sure that there's a proper crossover work between law and order and carmen san diego absolutely yeah um but i will say so one of the things that i my first thing that i wanted to be as a kid was uh i wanted to be a garbage uh person garbage woman i wanted to be a garbage man when i was a kid so obsessed were you it's just like i were you i was at the window you know whenever

the truck came yeah i or i'd repeat sometimes they let me run outside and i i know on your birthday special day they let me outdoors they let you wrap yourself in a garbage bag and get thrown in the back of the truck oh my god i wish they i would have if you had told me that was an option i would have been like throw me in there because i was worried like what it goes on in there because the way that well it was the way that they jumped on and off the truck was so cool yes right super cool because everything we're told it's like you got to sit down you got to put on your seat belt blah blah blah and these guys are hanging by one hand you know and that's true right jumping out it's not even it's just slowing down it's not even stopping and then the the way that the truck like like has these teeth you know that eat yeah what goes on in there i was so curious and i

now they have here anyway it's just the like automatic machine the truck picks up the thing and trucks it in the top it's not nearly as fun yeah there's no there's no garbage people anymore just the person driving the truck wow i know i know i also was obsessed with the milkman when i was a kid i thought that that was your dad and he kept changing every couple of months so it gave me a real identity crisis yeah why was that a thing that the milkman is like going around impregnating all these housewives because they had big penises everybody knows that but why not the mailman or like mailman mailman's a guy that wants to strangle you he talks to you oh yeah they go postal yeah yeah dave thank you for i was like i was saying son of sam grasping at straws i feel like his postal

workers also feel like they have to go, like they have to move on. Right. Like they seem like kind of more busy. A milkman, like who knows? They have like what? Three houses to hit it in an afternoon. Hit it and quit it.

But back then they were like delivering a lot. I'm sure. Yeah. Like my parents still get milk delivered. What? Yeah. I think cause my mom wants to stay in touch with my dad. The milkman.

Is there even a milk truck? Or does somebody from the dairy have to drive it in their own car? It's like Uber. It's Uber milk. It's like the... Well, because if you look at the newspaper, it's not a paper boy anymore. It's a man in a honda civic hatchback who comes at three in the morning what if it went the other way for

milkman there's no men anymore it's all just kids delivering milk you're just throwing milk at your house oh boy um so then at what age did you decide okay i'm over the garbage thing or did you always in the back of your head be like i kind of still want to do that oh yeah well i mean okay well i should just say that the justice thing that's related to the garbage woman thing is i didn't see any women garbage men and so that was part of it which is why I said I wanted to be the first. I wanted to break that garbage ceiling or whatever. And like when I started comedy, I had a show that I did in the Montreal Fringe about all of my about the being like all or nothing with things. And it was called Obsession. So it's all about my obsessions.

and it was called obsession so it's all about my obsessions and um and so i in the lead up to it to do a little promo i i wrote like a a little piece about wanting to be a garbage woman and i went and i don't know how somebody connected me with a garbage woman and i went uh to meet her in her truck and like where the depot is and i got some pictures taken with her in the like i got to go in her truck and like this is put on her stuff and everything so i i did like not that long ago um get to you know explore that a little bit so it's kind of always been there yeah um oh i'll send you if i can find a pic maybe somewhere if you guys want to use that for the podcast promo i don't know i'm like telling you how to promote my ass no but this is what people want this is the content people crave

is that what you guys do i don't know maybe you just have a logo anyway but um sorry but yeah i uh i i don't know at what point um i got i at some point i stopped thinking about like what i wanted to do it was like garbage person and then or woman and then i don't think there was anything else i just got into whatever i was doing but i wasn't thinking career stuff until um i got to college and then i got interested in human rights stuff and then i realized that if i wanted to human rights i should probably become a lawyer because in my mind there were like two options as a human rights person. There was like, or doing something to better the world.

Like I knew I couldn't like do math or science. So there was like engineering, building wells, like helping build the house, like was out of the question. No good. Medicine out of the question. So like advocating for people, like something with writing, you know, like law seemed okay. Like this is something I could maybe do. Right. So like advocating for people, like something with writing, you know, like law seemed okay. Like they,

this is something I could maybe do. And, um, and all, as far as I knew with human rights work, it was either be a lawyer or be a human rights investigator, which is like basically like forensic stuff and which is like mass, mass graves.

And I was like, I can't like, there's probably other jobs, but like, to me it was like, those were the two options law or like spy human rights spy you know what i i could be a good spy because nobody ever remembers me or notices me which is not great as a comedian do you can just kind of like

slink in and out of places i i have that jason born identity i have the born identity but like uh do you by the fact that people don't recognize you you could just slip in places that uh you're more recognizable people wouldn't be able to yeah i think i just like kind of look like a lot of people um i i think I don't attract a lot of attention. The thing that I'm not good at is I don't everything. I can't hide anything with my face. Like my face is like gives me away immediately. That would be my Achilles heel.

Like every time. Yeah. Every time that you give your fake name, you start giggling. Yeah. My name is uh horny bush i mean uh i mean oh uh yep that's it anyways he's richard belzer um i have that thing where i i'm very forgettable and then like and, and when I, you know, when I see someone I've met like three times, I'm like, okay,

this time I'll be brave and I will go up to them and I'll say hello. And they, they'll remember me and they don't. And then sometimes it's like someone, people think I snubbed them because I just assume they don't remember me. Oh, I, I have the,

I'm the other end of that. No, there's, yeah, there's yeah you're yeah you're very recognizable i can't remember people's faces and like almost to a detriment where somebody said well if the person was important enough you'd remember their face i'd be like yeah but that isn't true because several times i've been like who's that and they're like that guy's like the head of cps you don't remember les moonves's face brad pitt has that right yeah because he only has one face for it's his own face is the only face

my wife thought i was a spy though when um because I when I showed up on the comedy scene in Montreal. So she's Palestinian. I show up on the comedy scene. She's been in doing comedy for like two, two and a half years. Oh, no. Can you guys hear anything in the background here? Hold on.

Yeah, something. Iman. Yeah. She has a show now. It's a disaster around here. COVID. Am I right? Quarantine.

We couldn't hear it. We couldn't hear it. I couldn't hear it. Okay, she just turned on the IG live on her phone. We were just sorting things out because I'm on her computer with the garage band. She's now closed the bedroom door. The dog's going to be like, what's going on? What's the email situation? This is a thoroughly modern problem

you're having right now. Her email is pretty boring. I'm assuming there must be a secret account. It's all just, yeah, news and stuff from our building about the board. Anyway, it doesn't matter. But yeah, there's nothing good. And I took a quick peek. It wasn't, there was nothing juicy.

I would have shared it with you guys for sure. What's going on in the building this week? What's the scuttlebutt? So there's a meeting about the roof. So they charged everybody money to fix the roof, but then nobody could fix the roof because of COVID. And then they started letting people to go up there, but there's all kinds of rules.

It's just that the gym's been closed the whole time. the gym is already like quite pathetic here it's not a building with like a lot of amenities and you know we don't have a lot of places to go so people wanted to like work out and then it was like could we work out on the roof and then it's like no no animals up there kids but no running around anyway you cannot work out with your animal on the roof in november i just i it's like i don't know it's a mad lib yeah that's it exactly um yeah i mean basically the roof is the main thing and the gym and covid and um i think that's the main those are the main issues um that i'm aware of i mean i like other gossip now we have And, um, and so I'm a little bit more like, I didn't know anybody in the building until we got a dog because now everyone, everyone

has dogs. So like, I've gotten to know some people and there's one, um, girl that we become friends with, uh, friendly with who has a dog and she recommended a couple of dog walkers, but she told us one dog walk, walk, not, not, it is is good but don't have her dog sit not that this would ever happen to us in your apartment for your dog when you have to go away um because one time um somebody caught her having sex in their apartment on the couch with someone i don't know if that's a big at least it wasn't the bed i think it was a couch no i guess that's i mean i guess she invited someone back and i mean and decided to yeah i mean it's not like she like stole something or whatever but so that was maybe she did maybe and distracted

them with the sex and then uh look over there look over. I'm stealing the hope diamond. We're only just getting a little window into, into anything in our building. We're we've always been like on the road, you know, and like not home. And now we're kind of like, do we have a dog and we're just here all the time. And I'm like,

well, so what, who is everybody, you know, suddenly. Yeah. What kind of dog we dealing with here? Yeah.

Tell me about this dog. So, okay. So her name is Esther Honey L. Hussaini. Her Instagram is Esther L. Hussaini. So Honey is a name that she came with. Esther, we wanted to give her a Jewish first name. We said if we ever had kids that they would have my last name, Solomon, so they'd have an easier life. But we figured with a dog, it's they'd have an easier life but we figure with

the dog it's going to have an easy life no matter what so we could call it we could give it el husseini as a last name and no issues in the airport um so then she gets the jewish first name so it's yeah so there you go and then um we so we got her before the pandemic which is crazy time like a month before the pandemic honestly it felt like we had bought zoom stock in january after a closed door cdc briefing we never do things with that kind of timing it's funny when we had a dog it didn't lead to us meeting any people it meant to it led to us meeting a lot of dogs like i don't remember any people any dog owners names or faces but i remember the dog i don't know any of the people's names but i

do see them you know in the dog park and i'm like you know that's teddy's mother that's um kulfi's mother there's a lot of also yeah like you know the old like us we have esther there's a lot of you know rupert's and harry's and louis like these like old you know henrietta's anyway um her birthday is coming up so she's going to turn one um december 3rd so we're planning her first birthday and i've been looking up like what a dog birthday party is and um as you can imagine no more than eight people if you're in sweden yeah yeah yeah indoors at one table one table that's right the sacrifice how will they how will their mental health be you know after this um no what do we do with this fondue why don't we eat fondue between two people that's insane they're all sharing one fork.

Yeah, I was looking up, and as you can imagine, in Brooklyn, it's like, anyway, there's all these pictures of cute dog things. One of the things I saw that I kind of want to have, though, is it was a kissing booth. The dog had a kissing booth at its birthday party. There aren't enough of those in covid times but the thing is that's why her social life is insane like she's out all the time with other dogs she goes with a dog walker and a gang of dogs you know we walk her to the park there's people there that you know she's she's been living it up in these times um when we don't really like see or talk to anybody so much um but i neither of us have had a pet before and it's been it's been really cool i i have i mean you you've got her from from a puppy we got her from a puppy she was three months yeah

um and iman's been really great at training her she's like really dedicated a lot of time uh and she's been the she's been the she's been the disciplinarian i i'm like very much the good cop which is weird because in our relationship i discipline iman all the time but oh bad cop the bad cop good cop good cop bad cop yeah with the dog i i just there's no i don't know i'm like i'm helpless i can't it's a bad cop good cop swap it is i mean obviously defund the police and abolish prisons but you know abolish them good and bad these cops yeah yeah yeah they're all they're all bad apples um dave what's going on with you man well uh the uh last week on the show you were talking

about my leaf blower yes yes indeed um We are in leaf blowing times here in Vancouver. Oh, my goodness. Earlier than ever. Our block is just ginormous trees and they're so big and so tall and full of leaves. And it's a straight month of leaves falling, basically. Yeah. A straight month of leaves falling, basically. Yeah.

And last, or this spring, I got a weed whacker, and it came with a leaf blower. And I've been just leaf blowing. Like, two weeks ago, I had to blow all the leaves off and then, you know, put them in the,, whatever the green bin for the garbage man. Yes. The green bin man. And so I made a big pile of leaves and the kids played in it for two minutes. I have a three and a six year old and they, and then I started putting, you know,

raking them up and putting them in the, the bin. And my daughter was like, what are you doing? You're not, you're not leaving it out all week for us to play in and so this this time this like because i knew more leaves were coming gonna gonna fall uh this weekend i just made a giant leaf pile uh it was even bigger than the week before and the

girls just like ran in it like crazy jumped jumped in it, threw them up in the air and had so much fun for 10 minutes. And that was about it. They just, they needed eight more minutes with it, I guess. Yeah, that was basically it. And then like, I was like, okay, well, I'll leave it out here, you know, until tomorrow. And then tomorrow I'll put it away.

And they were like, great. Never went out there again. And while while they were playing in it i was like you know what i'd like to jump in the leaves and i like so i made a big pile for me to fall in and i like tipped over and fell all the way down and oh my god it it was like falling on concrete my my back my neck my crack my pussy yeah yeah yeah yeah because you're when you're a kid there's no leaves can support you you're so tiny yeah yeah yeah that can support a fully grown human well it's like playing in the snow as well it's like so much fun when you're a kid and then it it's just you know the source of aches and pains as a grown up yes i i remember i remember jumping from we had like a a kind of like terrace and then the the garden lower down and when i was a kid i'd jump into this like it was very snowy i jumped

down land in the snow it was great and there was like that one year where i jumped and it was very snowy. I jumped down, landed in the snow. It was great. And there was like that one year where I jumped and it was just like, Oh, like this was not like I did it. Am I paralyzed? And that's what I was like. I think I'm too old. I guess I'm too old to do this. When I was a kid,

the big thing with, uh, leaf piles, I would jump in the leaf pile. I was allergic to everything. Cause, uh, after like 30 seconds in the leaf pile,

I'd be like, so it was not... I don't have any nice associations with leaves or jumping in a pile or anything like that. It was always bad and continues to this day. If I jumped into a pile, now it would still suck as much. Yeah. So, I'm... Yeah, sorry to say, leaves are done.

We're not doing that anymore. But you did post a picture or a video of yourself blowing your wind blower on your kids and them going nuts for it. Oh yeah. They loved it. It was, I mean, we didn't have, my parents didn't have one growing up.

It was all just raking. Uh, and the, yeah, so it's, it is the greatest machine. Like, have you ever watched a video of a dog being

blown with a leaf blower and they're like barking at it and their lips are blowing yeah all open and stuff yeah that rules that does rule that's probably the best thing you can do with a with a leaf yeah they just call some dog blowers sell them in the veterinarian veterinarian stories um the other thing that's been going on is uh i recently watched i've been trying to watch movies i've never seen before that are like very famous movies that i've managed to avoid somehow and i finally watched the silence of the lambs yes have you seen it jess i mean when it came out but i haven't seen it in a long time but i mean it was so scary yeah yeah and i just recently watched it myself so what were your what were your takeaways my takeaways were it wasn't like super scary because it's like uh it's pretty

famous like you know what happens yeah yeah i should also point out i've seen hannibal so i had already seen the sequel so it was that kind of i knew he was like he well can i spoil it yeah i think if you haven't if you haven't seen it and if you haven't paused it at this point and now we said spoilers so that now it's on you. Yeah. If you keep listening, I'll fast forward a minute. Uh, he gets away at the end. Yes.

Uh, the, the Hannibal Lecter does, but there's so many scenes that I'm like, oh yeah, I've, I had seen the scenes like the, all these iconic moments of,

you know, he bites the, the policeman's face and, or like or like she the her first time going to see him and it's uh and you know the fava beans yes yes something about fava beans that before that believe it or not didn't know what a fava bean was i don't think i've ever had them i know that uh still do not still do not know what a fava bean is yeah i know that lima the beans from lima were stolen from san diego we covered this yeah have we uh but yeah i it's it's i do feel a little bit like it's like you know if you've seen the trailer for a movie that gives away too much of it i feel

like a lot of the impact was kind of stolen from the fact that I waited 30 years to watch it and have seen it spoofed a million times. The thing that's so scary, I mean, and I did see it at the time, is when like something like the worst horror, most horrific thing you can imagine, like when a movie introduces you to like a thought that is so horrible that you like you couldn't even it's nothing you've ever even contemplated or thought about and that guy who makes clothes out of women's skin like that right that's like that's in that movie right yeah yeah to me i was like i could not get over that and like i mean i i just didn't think that that was even like you think like oh it's like this person's evil and they're creepy and they've done like they'll do this or that but like i just didn't that idea had never entered into my head it's like even within the realm of like horror that i'd even contemplated yeah that's true i was so fucked up i do feel like things have gotten grislier over the last 30 years and that that like that event was it's a true thing it was based on a real guy ed gein buffalo bill okay okay or

some yeah buffalo bill was based on him psycho was based on him the texas massacre was based on him and he was a real guy who he would dig graves putting your wiener between your legs so it looks like a vagina was based on him that's right that was based on him he should be getting royalties for that because i know because he hasn't tried it money doing that yeah also it's um fairly transphobic at this point i think well yeah now that we're i forgot about that part now that you're saying... I just was, like, thinking of skin and clothing, but, yeah, no, it's true. It probably doesn't

hold up. No, no, that's problematic. Well... I think the whole character is problematic. Well, not him. Of course he is. Well, whatever. I'm not defending Buffalo Bill Slobodan Bill so yeah that's me

I blew some leaves and watched some lambs nice can you use the leaf blower on the snow to blow the snow in the off the i mean it's possible we don't really get a lot of snow here so oh yeah right i'm the wrong guy to ask okay but if we do get a dusting make sure you get out there and enjoy it if it's yeah if it's light i bet i could not not not the wet stuff you're the only guy I know with a leaf blower at home. So, I had to ask.

You definitely, like, don't be shy about asking me in the future. If any more leaf blower questions come up. I can email you. Yeah. Yes, we know you love email. Yeah, do it from your wife's account. Because I'm not sure you have an account. What's going on with you, Graham?ham well this week uh for the first time

in my entire life i went to the eye doctor ah never been to the eye doctor my whole life both of you have spectacles so you've been more than once i assume um but uh i've never i've never been never had any problems uh vision wise and uh and i just recently got some insurance that allowed me to go so i was like hey you know what i got a day to kill i'll go go to the eye doctor see what they have to say about things yeah and in in this environment i would love to have someone touching my face and getting very up close to it. Touching my face, blowing things in my eyes. It was pretty good. They had all sorts of partitions.

I didn't want them. I said, let's take these down. Let's get to know us. I think a good name for that store would be Unprotected Specs. Yes. This is very good. That's fun. We were talking a couple of weeks ago on the podcast that eye doctors seem to want to have punny or silly names.

So I went to the place I went to was called iPod. Spelled I-Y-E. Pod. E-Y-E. Pod. Sorry. Okay i this is why i went to go to the eye doctor i can't say things properly i was reading that off a script and i couldn't say it properly um but yeah i'd never been before did would you guys go when you were kids or when did you start going to the eye doctor yeah as a as a kid. Imagine, these glasses are fake. I just wear them so that people remember me.

Nice. No, I actually had laser eye surgery years ago and then had perfect vision and then it kind of deteriorated back again. And now I have still way better than I did, but I started needing glasses like pretty young. I started wearing contacts as like as a teen. I a bad bad history of eyes in my family so I was they were taking me early on yeah I had a as a kid I was very bad at school and my mom was like oh maybe he can't see

well oh and I got migraines all the time and so they thought that might be related to it uh but uh the the i went to the eye doctor and they gave me glasses but they the prescription was nothing it was like my vision was like pretty perfect even then and then yeah uh i remember it was like i got glasses when i was about 30, but I never wore them. And then I visited New York with Graham. Yeah. And Graham was like, oh, we got to go here. He was pointing out signs to me.

And I was like, I can't. How are you? How are you seeing this? I thought I could see fine. And then once I put my glasses on, I was like, oh, I am. I do need glasses. Yeah. Yeah.

That's kind of the weird zone i'm in now because the doctor she said you've got good vision but i think they just want to sell you glasses i think that seems to be the the end goal of the appointment is to somehow put glasses on your face so i said you know i said she said you might want glasses for working on a computer that block out blue light or something like that. And just for reading gives your eyes a rest. And I'm like, well, I don't read. So that's one reason not to. But I am on the computer a lot.

And then they tried to sell me frames. I was like, no way, man. I brought my own frames just on this possibility that they were going to try and sell me glasses. So I brought a pair of frames that I have. Oh, is there going to try and sell me glasses so i brought a pair of frames that i have oh is there going to be a reveal at the end of this where you wear glasses oh i guess i could get them i guess i could put them on but i mean how could you not that's true that's true that's uh that's really uh yeah i will i'll find them and i'll put them on okay but uh the when i put them on the prescription's crazy it's like it seems way too powerful for

you know reading glasses or whatever it's like all the world's bent around on the side is that normal is that what glasses are supposed to look like that sounds wrong yeah it's wrong right but they do sometimes when they when your eyes aren't used to glasses and you've sort of been working them i think it's like a muscle so then you get the glasses and then you know your eyes kind of get dependent on them in a way and they stop working it's hard and then they kind of you kind of need to always get stronger and stronger ones yeah i think the first couple days of wearing new glasses is weird but it shouldn't be like world altering no but it's like i i don't know when I'm supposed to wear them. Cause she didn't say like, okay, you just have to wear glasses now.

She just said might want to for, for occasional things. Is it for far or for near? Sorry. I don't hear that at all. What is it? That's Esther who like is 10 pounds. what is it? Is that, that Esther? That's Esther, who like,

is 10 pounds, and is like, I think she's, one second. Esther! Esther, honey, shh!

Oh, good cop. She doesn't pay attention to me. Yeah, she doesn't respect me at all. you're stuck, because you're not the disciplinarian, so what are you going to do now? And Iman is like,

in doing her show, it was a disaster. Esther, come here. Come, come, come, come. Maybe they want to see you. I feel like we're going to meet Esther. Are we going to meet Esther? Esther, come here.

You're really embarrassing me right now. You have to make me look good here. Yeah, you're blowing this, Esther. She's just going back up on me. Esther! Okay, sorry. We're like staring straight at each other. But at the end of this show, we need to see this dog.

That's the only fair thing. I will. I want to see Graham's glasses. I want to see Esther's face. We'll do show and tell. But the main thing with glass is that most people dave i think will back me up on this is that when you when you realize that you need them you put them on if this is for distance you look at a tree and suddenly you can see the leaves not you don't

just see green you see each individual leaf that tends to be the first thing when you look outside and you put glasses on that are the right prescription you're like oh and also everyone is uglier than you and older including yourself it's like when it's like when hdtv took over yeah yeah oh yeah that was a hard adjustment for a lot of people um the uh i the other day i was i'm considering getting contact lenses uh which i've never had because my prescription really isn't that strong but i i do need glasses i especially driving i don't feel safe not having glasses driving um and so i uh went to the website where you buy contact lenses and I discovered you need a completely different prescription

for your contact lenses. Oh, really? Well, I don't have it. It's a little bit different because it's like right on your eyeball. Yeah. And also, I was like, I don't know if you guys know prescriptions, but before I had laser eye surgery in my 20s, which was like early days of laser surgery, I only did it because I was wearing contacts

so much because I wore contacts as a teen and I would like party and I would pass out with them. And then eventually my eyes were like, no more contacts. They just dried out. And I didn't want to have to wear these minus, I was like minus seven or minus eight, you know, Coke bottle glasses. I wanted to, you know to do sports and whatever. And anyway, so I got laser eye surgery

and then that gave me astigmatism or whatever the hell astigmatism is, I don't know. But now that's part of my whole contact. Now I'm like at minus 1.75 or something. So it's still so much better. And I had a few years of like perfect but that did you guys that you knew you've never had laser eye surgery it's really such a it's so gross it's really like it's like a clockwork orange like speaking of movies that

are classics they like open your eyes up like that and then they like do you want to know it's even yeah i want to know okay so they open your eye up like that okay fast forward one minute clockwork orange and then they take a like a um they take a laser thing and they um they cut like they slice your eye and then they flip it back and then they like like your eyeball like part of your eyeball and then they like in there right and it smells like burnt hair and then they pull they pull and then they take the flap back down and they you see in there right and it smells like burnt hair and then they pull they pull and then they take the flap back down and they you see them like gluing it back oh oh my gosh and then they're like okay next eye and you're like oh let me out of here and i mean i'm assuming it's still the same but this was like no there no, there's a, there's a no, there's a no cut one.

I know that. I was, I was in the early days of the, yeah, you may have been, that may have been a bris. It was weirdly done by a moil. I don't know how to explain it. He said he was a doctor also. Oh boy. Um, yeah, no no i don't uh so i'm not sure if these glasses is it possible that they did the wrong glasses are they for close are they for reading or are they for far they're for

like reading and being on the computer oh so like when i looked through them it doesn't look any different and but i felt like on the sides it felt like whoop like like things were bending might have been the whatever wacky frames you had in mind it's true i got some elton john glittery frames i said this is the only glasses i'll wear do they have a comical nose and mustache attached to them you just bring like your new year's glasses with a tooth pass. Yeah. I just throw something in there. This is what I have. This is what I want to wear.

And then they did, they put drops in my eyes for some reason, and then I couldn't see anything. Oh, that's, yeah. You couldn't see anything? No, well, that's what they, they're dilating your pupil to get a better look inside your eyeball. Oh, okay. But you can still see. But it's fucked up. Yeah, it's all, everything was out of focus and I went to a coffee shop. It like paralyzes your eyes, doesn't it?

It makes it weird. Or numbs it or something? Yeah, well, it's just like when I went next door to a coffee shop to get coffee and then they handed me the machine and I was like i can't fucking i can't see what this is it's completely blurry i'm like did they fuck up my vision now that i need glasses is that the whole mafia so kind of situation you really went in there like they were trying to screw you like you've been holding out your protection money now um do you i think that would be cool if like you know how yeah people experiment with like

uh psychedelics i think people should experiment with whatever they those eye drops are i widening that would be like you know get some of those eye drops and go see the grateful dead yeah yeah yeah see you can see more with bigger eyes yeah i mean you guys have light eyes, right? I might, whenever, I mean, in the past, whenever I did psychedelic drugs, I was a big deadhead and into fish. Were you really? Yeah, yeah. That was another one of my, besides law and comedy, phases. And I mean, my pupils, because my eyes are pretty light blue,

would just take over my whole eye. And it was just so obvious. Whereas, you know, people with brown eyes, eyes it was like it wasn't as clear but i would look crazy this is a black holes and be like that you know like did you follow them on tour um well not the dead because uh jerry garcia died before i kind of had a chance but i did get to see him a couple times but i wouldn't say that i ever went on tour he died like when i just had started undergrad and um so basically they would always play the i don't know if you guys care about the way for that but anyway he would always play the dead would play the boston garden every fall and i was going esther strikes again

she's this isn't this is a new a new thing that barks esther honey esther esther esther no esther esther listen to me i'm talking about the dead oh yes yester to esther i say yes she's oh she's gonna be huge she's gonna be like 80 pounds um so they the dead would play at the boston garden fall. They do like a run of like six shows on seven nights. And the Boston Garden, so just the, like Jerry Garcia died like in August. And they were supposed to play like in September when school started. And the Boston, it was the last year before they were going to tear down the Boston Garden. And so the whole, and they hadn't played St. Stephen where there's a line of in and out of the garden he goes in many, many years.

And so the rumor was that they were going to play it because it was like the last time that they'd be in the Boston Garden. And that was supposed to happen in September. And in August, he died. So it never happened. So that was like the, because I went to college in Boston. Oh, okay. Undergrad. Sorryoston undergrad sorry undergrad yeah at that time but i did uh follow fish around i was gonna ask did you follow fish around oh yeah yeah i i saw them like i don't know in like in those four years i well not even i started before that in montreal so like I would go see them in Montreal like in Montreal it was like a very small thing we were like 200 it was like Tertre Saint Denis or like

all you know metropolis general admission when I was in like CEGEP grade 11 and um they weren't really like known in in Montreal and then I saw them a couple times in Vermont and then when I went to college in Boston my freshman year I had a fish baseball hat and I thought like I didn't realize how big they were in America and then like I got like that freshman orientation that's when I met all my friends because I was wearing that hat and and I was like oh wow they're like there's a lot of people that like them here but I was used to seeing them in ottawa i saw them in a place like where there was it was like almost like a like a convention it was like almost

like a bar mitzvah type of or like a conference type room right where it was like a carpet and they'd be like you could have tables there there were like a couple of random round tables with like the chairs from like a some kind of conference for you know a non-governmental organization there was like a stage and and the room was like tonight fish tomorrow orthodontist court conference yeah yeah fish is opening for the orthodontist yeah and so it was just like we were and a lot of the room was empty you know except for you know so it was yeah and that was in them in the 90s. Anyway, it was like, yeah. So I think I saw them 40 times.

Oh! Maybe total. That's insane. In those years. And then that was it, right? I didn't see them again after college. I don't know. I just like, I kind of, and they also stopped for a while. And then they came back.

And last, was it last year? Around New Year's, they would, you know, and I saw a lot of New Year's shows here in Madison Square Garden. Like there were four years of New Year's that I did like Worcester, Massachusetts. And then a girl who I know in comedy here was like saying that she had an extra ticket.

We started talking about them at a party and I said that I like used to go see them, but I hadn't seen them like since then, you know? And so she's like, I have an extra ticket i said that i like used to go see them but i hadn't seen them like since then you know and so she she's like i have an extra ticket and i was like worried to go because i'm like i don't know it's like this capsule of time that i like i didn't i listen i was intense and then i like didn't anymore and i thought i'd get so nostalgic so i didn't do any like psychedelics i'm like i'm gonna be this is gonna be too weird you're gonna do this completely not high yeah no i know but I'm like because you know what I think I'm just gonna get two in my head about like the passage of time and it's gonna

like bring up all these like memories and like and so I went to the show and I mean I just like smoked some weed or whatever and it was so crazy because I it was if I'd seen them the whole time it would have been one thing but I hadn't seen them in 20 years and so I also hadn't seen the audience in 20 years and everyone was 20 years older. And no one was wearing the clothes that we used to wear, right? Everyone just looked like it was mostly guys. And they all had a night. It was like their college band.

And they had kids and a wife and a mortgage. And they had the night off to go see the band that they used to see. Right. And it was just all these. The fish was kind of the same like they were still good like they were good you know like they were they were on their game the the light show was amazing as it always was but now it's like all these like lights just you know popping off of all these bald spots you know what i mean it's like i no white dreads no like patchwork corduroys and i was like dancing and like a little bit in like the in the aisle and everyone was like what are you doing you know

like you're get back in your seat and i was like yeah we paid a lot of money for these tickets i mean i was like what is going on you know it was so it was such a weird like it was good but it was also such it was just weird. Yeah. As a lawyer, do you have to disclose before you work on somebody's case that you're a fan of fish and went to 40 other concerts? Is that something you need to tell whoever you're representing? I mean,

it's only fair because, uh, if you don't disclose that you could lose your license for sure. Oh man. Uh, well, do we want to move on to some uh to some overheards how about a bit of business oh how about a bit of business sure oh buddy it's business time and that means we've got uh jumbotron yeah i'm ready for it you ready for it this one it's short i love a short jumbo. Yeah. If you're into oxymorons.

Yeah, like a tiny jumbo. This is a message for Brad Payne from your wife, Kristen Payne. The message is, happy 40th birthday. This was on November 10th. We forgot to do it last week. Yeah, and we only missed it by a day this week. So, not too shabby. And all the pronunciation for Brad Payne. Brad as in rad, Payne as in rain.

So, happy birthday, Brad. Happy birthday, Rad Brad. Rain Payne. so happy birthday brad happy birthday rad brad um rain pain if you want a jumbotron on the show go to maximumfun.org slash jumbotron all right well let's move on to some overheards i i can remember as as a child thinking it was odd that here was this can full of meat. I'm Jesse Thorne. This week on my show, Bullseye, David Letterman on shame, regret, and canned hams. Is this the best delivery version of pork? That's this week on Bullseye for MaximumFun.org and NPR.

Congratulations, you've won a ticket to attend an exclusive opportunity in a relaxing environment with two lovers. Wow. Well, this sounds like a sort of proposition of sorts, but really it's an ad for our podcast. Wonderful. It's a show we do here on Maximum Fun where we talk about things that we like and things that we're into.

I'm Rachel McElroy and you just heard Griffin McElroy and we are excited for you to join us as we talk about things that we're into. I'm Rachel McElroy, and you just heard Griffin McElroy, and we are excited for you to join us as we talk about movies and music and books. Things like sneezing or the idea of rain. Can you get news or information you can use? I don't think so. Absolutely you cannot, because we're here to talk

to you about pumpernickel bread. You can find new episodes on Wednesdays. So catch the wave. Overheard. Overheard's a segment where even these times, if you're able to get out there and hear something great, don't hold it to yourself, share it. And we like to start with the guest.

Jess, do you have something funny you've overheard? I do, and it is these times, so it's only just something that my wife said. I live in New York, and one of the greatest things about New York is everything that you overhear. People say very personal things, go through major life events,

yelling into their cell phones while they're walking, but these days days not so much so um my my wife has um it really sounds like my wife it's i had gotten out of my head but then borat came back and forget it you know it's back um so she has engaged a speech therapist because in her mind she thinks she has a problem with saying words uh she's you know english wasn't her first language so i don't think it's a problem but she feels like it is i believe she's paying someone to listen to her material like just to like get laughs from and it's really expensive so i overheard her talking to the speech therapist, doing some of her material, which is one thing.

Okay. And she was getting a big reaction. So we know there's going to be more sessions, but speech therapy is the speech therapist. Like make sure to pause before that punchline. You really want to make sure. He's like listening to our podcast to like to give her feedback and her material to like because she thinks that she isn't good at saying words um yeah the comedians lose the news wins exactly he's our biggest troll

online um but i overheard her saying to him when he was i guess asking her what she wants to get out of this session and she couldn't say your laughter for my self-esteem that i don't i don't get to do jokes anymore for people she said i you know sometimes i i want to say the word autumn because i want to sound eloquent but then i get nervous and I say fall can you help me with this is the very specific problem I'm just there because we're in one room and I'm like yeah listening to her talk to this guy and she's like well I guess you know sometimes i want to say autumn but then i get nervous and i just say fall she's lucky there's another word you know because some people are not so lucky you know how are you going to tell somebody that it's volleyball without just saying volleyball you know it's um yeah it's like when when uh you're talking about vietnam Vietnamese soup and you say, I want to get some pho, you know, pho.

You have to kind of be like, I know it's pronounced pho, do you? Dave, do you have an over here? Mine is also from my wife. So on. Say it right. Boy. My wife. Yeah. Pronounce it right boy my wife yeah pronounce it right very nice uh we we had a movie night with the kids on friday where we like brought a mattress into the living room and put uh had popcorn and and you know put all the blankets down and And we watched Disney's Tangled,

which they've seen a million times. I thought they might want to see something new. No. But so it's about Rapunzel. And Rapunzel in the movie has this little lizard, chameleon guy named Pascal, who's her little friend. And Poppy says to Abby, and Abby's like half listening. And Poppy says, how does rapunzel

get the lizard and abby says comes out her mom's vagina and i started laughing because i realized what the miscommunication was my daughter said how does rapunzel get the lizard but my wife thought she said how does rapunzel get delivered oh comes out her mom's vagina i thought she was making a hilarious joke uh but that's i can also hear the miscommunication it was a yeah it did sound like a total mama joke yeah yeah yeah so good um my overheard is courtesy of being on a ferry boat and uh did you go on a ferry boat i did i'll talk all about it next week okay i have to portion out these stories because so little happens to me

but there was a girl talking to her parents in the food court and she said you know what movie I think I'm old enough to see? Footloose okay can I? yeah the parents were like well you can watch footloose when you're old enough

did they remake that they did yeah with julianne huff julianne huff and uh the guy from whiplash oh whatever his name is uh jk simmons yeah yeah that's right it was jk simmons juliana huff and uh let's say jason bateman i love it is feluce dirty isn't no no right no it's about it came out when flash dance came out is my memory and that was the one that that was dirty to see it It wasn't dirty, but it was a lot more sexual, kind of heated up, whereas Footloose was literally about a tan that banned dancing. And somebody wants to dance

so bad. Yeah. There was a lot of, I think there have always been dance movies, but there's like in the 80s, there's a chunk of them that are just like super iconic. Dirty Dancing.

Yeah. Fame. Yes. Dance Masters. Yes, Dance Masters. I ran out of examples, so I made one up. I watched one. I have this like movie cable channel and there was a Canadian dance movie

called heavenly bodies. And it started, um, Oh, what's her name from Cynthia Dale. She was married to Peter Mansbridge. Yeah. Yeah.

Cynthia Dale. She's the lead. Have you seen it? No, I saw it on, I saw that it was on TV though. Oh man, I watched it.

It was the best goddamn movie. I think it's the best thing I've seen this year. It was, they literally do a, an aerobics marathon to save the building. It's got everything that I want in a film. Now, in addition to

our overheards, we have overheards sent into us from parks all over. If you want to send one into us, you can send it to spy at maximumfun.org. This first one comes from Siobhan in Murphys, California In 2002 I was marching and drumming

in an Iraq war protest in San Francisco with a percussion group. Near us, I saw three people walking together and one of them was carrying a sign that said Latinos for the metric system This is a very specific cause i like yeah that's not what the the march was about but yeah okay yeah exactly you already

had a sign made up and uh and it was pretty accurate looking sign because you guys use the metric system instead of that imperial monster um why do you think that's a why do you think that's a group is you think that because everywhere other than like someplace other than as far as i know everywhere other than america has basically adopted the metric system although we use both yeah but i mean you think it's maybe some people who are trying to change from inside from inside america oh yeah oh sure yeah of course i i haven't worked this out but i have a theory that the reason that america is so sort of off on understanding like what socialism is versus capitalism like on the scale of right to, they seem like quite not in the same place as everyone else,

is due to their non-acceptance of the metric system. You know what I mean? There's like some issue with them and understanding, and having the same reference for even what constitutes right and left on the political scale yeah yeah i mean like i mean you're i almost yeah it's not it's you need to get you need to get me from a to b but i i can there's a seedling there yeah yeah yeah it's not it's very a very rough theory and that has not been worked out. There's an A and a B, but there's no connective tissue yet. Yeah. But I'm willing to believe.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a theory that's going to blossom. Just give it time. Yeah. This next one comes from Michael from St. John's. I was just in a coffee shop in my neighborhood. While I was waiting in line, I heard a man and a woman who were sitting at a table talking the guy asked if he could read a short story he wrote and the woman said yes of course the first line was when i was a young boy my dream was to live in the house from

the tv show new heart oh boy that's a rocky start to the short story yeah can i read a short story i wrote yeah not out loud yeah yeah and not to me bye oh man what would you do if somebody asked you if they could read a short story to you and they weren't family if it was just somebody that you were having coffee with would you just get up and leave would you pretend that you're having a heart attack what would you do um i would i'm you know what i'm i'm i'm would if i was brave enough in the moment i would say this isn't gonna go well uh like you're not gonna like my reaction so i would say don't yeah yeah yeah i'm gonna give you an out and uh you know what just read it to yourself. Yeah.

Email it to me and I'll never read it. What about you, Jess? If somebody read a short story or wanted to read a short story to you, what would you, what's your reaction? Out loud. My immediate reaction is that I prefer that over them singing a song with an acoustic guitar to me or like like doing a joke or something yeah because i feel like i could it wouldn't require reaction so much right you can just sit there and be spaced out go somewhere else in my own mind go back to a fish concert yeah bounce around the room in my own head.

This last one comes from Aaron in Arizona. This is a short and sweet one. At a coffee shop, I heard a hip-looking dad say to a toddler in a stroller, do you want me to read you the book about the graphic designer again oh my god that kid rules and the dad rules it's hilarious that that book exists but it rules my kid's really into helvetica oh boy yeah it's so cute on so many levels in addition to overheards that are written in we also accept your phone calls if you want to call us our phone number is 1-844-779-7631 that's one spy pod one like these people have.

Hi, this is Adelaide from Baltimore, Maryland. So we were in the store at Lowe's, and I overheard a guy at the cash out saying, do you know how trashy I am? I almost ate my cereal out of my Halloween bowl. But I realized I couldn't because there was a light at the bottom. And then the other guy he was talking to said, well, I put my protein

shake in my cereal. The other guy asked, wait, you exercise after that, right? That's all. Thanks. Bye. I like having kids call in. I want them to call in about their favorite graphic designer book. Yes, that's true.

If any kids want to call into the show about a graphic designer book or whoever you're following in the design world, we're very interested. Yeah, if there's anything you want to tell us about kerning. Yeah. All right. Here's your next phone call. Hi, this is the dad of Adelaide who just called in. And I was walking by a restaurant the other day in Baltimore, Maryland.

And there was a, like a seven-year-old and his dad sitting there. And the seven-year-old asked, Dad, can food be racist? And Dad goes, no, no. And the kid just looks at his pasta and he's like, this spaghetti is racist. Alright, bye! Off we go! I hate to inform you, Dad, but this spaghetti is racist.

Survey says. Do you think that kid knows what racist means, or do they have it confused with tasty in their head yeah close enough in their mental dictionary yeah this is some really racist food i love it what would be the most racist food don't answer this question but think about it yeah let's all think about it and we'll meet back here in a hundred years alright here's your final overheard hey Dave and Graham this is Malcolm calling in from Colorado

pretty excited because it's the first time I'm calling into a podcast and I'm calling in with an overheard I work at a brewery and sometimes we get some interesting things from the customers and i had a person there say no i don't wear hats but if i did i'd take my hat off for him thanks love the show nice

i'm not a gentleman but if i was i would do that thing. Yeah. That's pretty good. I don't wear skirts, but if I did, I would curtsy for him. Yes, absolutely. Neither of you are really hat people? Do I have that right? I like hats. Yeah? Okay. Yeah.

I mean, people don't like when I wear them in my life. Uh-huh. Because apparently it changes who I am as a person. I would like to know the specific hat that somebody accused you with. Well, apparently when I wear a cowboy hat, I get a real attitude. That's a bold hat. That's a bold hat. And it requires some bold uh decision making and uh

maybe a drawl who knows you know yeah it's i guess i get a like a lot of comp it's not so much like cowboy as much as like um i get like a lot of like just confidence and in an annoying way a bit more like madonna ray of light than you know like on a bit more like Madonna ray of light than, you know, like on a wrench, more like a girl wearing a cowboy hat to a club. Nice. Yeah. In a bad,

in a bad way. Apparently, allegedly. Yeah. Um, well that, uh, brings us to the end of this here podcast.

Uh, Jess, this was a delight. Thank you so much for joining us. I had a great time um i'm glad we both wanted to be garbage people yes that was a nice thing to connect on and um i i appreciated the uh having my glasses friend here and dave yes yeah we really bonded over that together yeah yeah um now your uh your show it's on hiatus for a bit is that correct yes uh i think probably

yeah come back early 2021 but okay because a lot of people don't know international news a lot of those jokes and stories will be new and kind of timeless probably in a lot of parts of the world so yeah if you want to check out Comedians vs. the News. And then, oh, I would say, because I don't know when this comes out. It comes out on Monday. Okay, so Iman and I are going to be doing a show in Vancouver. Oh, get out. Yeah, we're headlining, closing something called the Chutzpah Festival.

Of course, the Chutzpah Festival, yeah. And that means that you're so brave in yiddish i believe and um and so yeah that's november 28th and it's like chutzpahfestival.com and you can get tickets where there's a lot of people in it and uh you can watch it at home uh i think there's a small number of people going to be in a theater where we're going to be beaming in from brooklyn uh on a screen I think in the theater for like, I don't know what the rules are there, if it's changing,

but maybe like, it's like a hybrid thing was originally the plan. And maybe it's going to have to change, but 25% of the people in the theaters, like capacity of the theater in the theater, the local acts opening in the theater. And then unless they're Swedish, if they're Swedish,

eight of them can be in a seat at the same time. Exactly. Exactly'll be in you'll be in brooklyn doing this yeah so we're going to be doing it from our apartment here and um can i offer one bit of advice so esther's gotta take care of esther we're gonna take care of esther we're gonna she's gonna go to the neighbor's apartment or something not the neighbor that has sex in front of dogs though be very careful no no you're that's not the you you missed a step in that story that stays over at people's houses and invites guys yeah guys over oh boy um the neighbor who has sex in front of dogs i I mean, that's another story. Well, you gotta assume the dog was there, right? I mean, sure, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And thank you, listeners, for listening to the show. We hope that you stay safe and take care of one another and come on back next week for another episode of stop podcasting yourself. Maximum fun.org comedy and culture artist owned audience supported.