Stop Podcasting Yourself - Episode 968 - Nick Flanagan

Episode Date: October 6, 2026

Comedian Nick Flanagan joins us to talk Mr. Sub, birthday parties, and driving to the suburbs. Follow us: Instagram, Facebook, Bluesky. Join our Discord. Become a MaxFun member to get all our bonus content.

Hi, he's Dave Shumka. And he's Graham Clark. And together we host Stop Podcasting Yourself. Hello, everybody, and welcome to episode number 9.68 of Stop Podcasting Yourself. My name's Graham Clark. And with me, as always, he's a man who has a real spiffy new hairdo. Mr. Dave Shumka. Yeah, I guess...

Describe it to the audience. It's long and... It's a cunty little bob. You got highlights. It looks really sharp. Yeah, I'm going to have little hair stuck to my scalp. and neck the whole show. I don't feel them

because I have, I take a big a pill. Oh, that allows you to not feel. Like a horse tranquilizer. Oh, okay. Did they give you that at the hairdresser to cut you down like a horse? And the horse-sized one.

You have to like, you see it go down my throat. Do they have to disguise it in some hay? They do. Yeah. Just eat this hay and relax before you cut your hair. Oh, Dave, your jaw's going crazy. Why the long face and what are not?

Our guest today, first time guest here on the podcast, very funny comedian, hailing out of Toronto, Ontario. He has a brand new album out called Mortal Comedy. It's Nick Flanagan. Hello, Nick. Hey, guys. How are you? Hello. Oh, you know, I'm good.

Yeah? I've been in Vancouver for since, what day, today is Tuesday. So I got here on Sunday. So you've, you've had a day. I love it. How should I have felt that day? Oh, Vancouver Monday is like a Toronto Thursday. I honestly loved the Vancouver Monday.

I'll be honest. Yeah? Yeah, we went to this like Pacific something forest woods thing. Yeah. And we had the greatest walk ever with an cute, beautiful dog. And then there was of that we were supposed to have. You were allowed to have. The dog was of, you know, of age.

She didn't find a dog and then make it come to the forest. And then, you know, someone on Facebook is like, where's Curly? Yeah. Although that's the dream, isn't it? To go out on a long walk and just have a dog join you for the walk. Curly is a good name for a bald dog. A ironic name for like a Mexican hairless. I mean, it was close to that that we did where our friend borrows a dog, you know, takes care of a dog sometimes.

Oh, just for like a walk. He was like, here's the dog we've been sending you pictures of. Let's go for a walk. Nice. And he's like, I'm going to put the dog back now. Yeah. Yeah. You've had your dog time.

But I got to see the beautiful, what's the beautiful trees of British Columbia? Cedar. Yeah. We've got cedar. We've got, boy, that's the big one. I guess. Balsam. We got pine.

We got pine everywhere you look. Yeah, we've got cypress. Yeah, we've got birch. We've got birch. We got one birch. One birch. Yeah. We're willing to trade it to another country.

We use it to make root beer. Do we want to get to know us? Yes. Get to know us. Nick, you have a fascinating career path because you're not just, you were not just straight away a stand-up comedian. Before you got into that, I think before you were like a musician.

Technically, yes. Yeah. Technically, in one way, technically. In the way that I was like doing music from, you know, professionally is such a strange word. Yeah. But from maybe I was in my first band, and it's funny, I even view it this way when I was like maybe 15, 16. And then one where I was 17 was more where you were doing the thing that bands do where it's like, you play some shows and then you're not the first done the bill anymore.

And then you do your album released thing. Yeah, yeah. They want you on more shows. So that was like when I was 17 until about 20. And I had some other bands. But by the time I was, I really hate to say it, but you know how it is. is by the time it was 20. So like a long, long time ago.

Yeah. Now, how many bands by the time you're 20 have you been in? Three, I guess. Three different bands. Yeah. And that was... Any fun names? What are the names of these bands? First band was my friend Andrew, who later were going to be in this band,

The Deadly Snakes and all these other bands and is currently in wrong hole with me. Okay. Do you have a band right now? We never play. Okay. Okay. Well, I'm in a band. Our last album was in 2014.

It was called 2012. And I think our last show was like three years ago. But it was called Head Cleaner, this first band. Head Cleaner is good. And named after the thing you would get for a VHS takes. Yes, pretty much. And then the next band was called Teen Crud combo. Wow.

That was a more serious one where it was with people who were like new friends. And we were playing in. One time we went to Youngstown, Ohio to play. Ooh. Buffalo and Buffalo folks. Yeah. Great city. Yeah.

What's the, well, you go to Buffalo. What type of music are they coming out to say? What type of wings do they have? I think they mostly do like the Vietnamese style. Yeah. Wings. Because it's like, when you're there, that's ghosty, your buffalo wings. Like, the locals eat something.

Yeah. They're like, oh, God. No. would never eat titular wins here. We're not. In Chicago, they don't really do deep dish. They're kind of like a good stuff. But they feed the tourists.

I don't do deep dish. It's too alliterative. Sure. Yeah, so Buffalo was awesome. There were these punk scenes because it was all basically punk music. Yeah. That was the band where we kind of got to see, oh, there's punk bands in Buffalo. and they'll invite you to do a basement show,

similar to how in Toronto, they would invite you to do a basement show. You can't do it in California, no basements. No basements. They do outdoor shows, backyard shows. Yeah, they all have outdoor lockers at their high schools. Yes, yes. And then the third band was called The Killer Elite,

which was named after the Sam Peck and Paw film, The Killer Elite, James Kahn. And these... Did you know about that? No, I was immediately... When you said Killer Elite, I was like, yes. The one with Al Pacito and Robert De Niro. No, that's a righteous kill.

I thought you're going to say killer heat. It was like a... Righteous kill is a good name for a band. I was in when I was 16? Yes. Silver chair. Silver chair. He's like, you've lost your accent over time, but...

Wow. It comes back when I'm listening to Frogstomp. Frogstump. That was probably my favorite of Silver Chair's album that I know of. Yeah. Well, they had that one after. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. That's bush.

It's like I shine. Wait, no, that's the doughboys. I didn't even mean to go that far back. I don't mean even mention the doughboys in the same. Now, what were you in these bands? What instrument were you talking here? None instrument. Singer?

Singer. Your voice is an instrument. My voice was the instrument. And because of this, I never really properly knew how to play anything. So I still don't. Yeah. But what's your favorite note to say? It's probably, well, I've purchased pitch.

You got purchased pitch? That's something you can't buy. And I torrented it. But it's like, oh. Yeah, that's nice. That is a good note. Sometimes that one. It's a little different.

Did you, as a punk rocker, what was your opinion on G.G. Allen. Oh, as a kid? Yeah, as a upcoming quadroger. I was like, this is wild. This is crazy because I was reading this magazine Maxim Rock and Roll all the time, which was like a newsprint magazine

that was pressed in the Bay Area of California. It was like attached to this venue called 924 Gilman Street, which was where bands like Operation Ivy and, I guess, Flipper even Like all these different I remember Operation Ivy Yes definitely

But Operation Ivy was like Later in the Gilman game Like there's all of these bands And it started in the 1980s And essentially There it was a place where all these punk bands Started it was a place where The magazine allowed for

International Kind of Parlaying between bands Like they'd say different So it had this massive Review And you could really be part of it. Like if you interviewed someone, you could almost contact someone at maximum rock and roll and say,

hey, do you want to publish my interview with like Sparkmarker, for instance. Yeah, Sparkle horse for instance. Horse girl, for instance. We're talking. Run a lot of different ways. But yeah, so we, why did I bring a maximum wrong roll in? That's a good reason. Oh, GD Allen.

Oh, yeah. There was a book I found out about Gigi basically from Max Mark and Roll because they were kind of chronicling him. Like a tabloid would chronicle, you know, Princess Dye or Perman Faye Baker, the two most, the eyes of Gigi Allen, the two most controversial figures of pop culture. These were kind of the Gigi Allens of their own, of their respective. And I know, but actually the first time I found out of a Gigi Allen was, Jerry Springer show.

I stayed home from school when I was like 12 or 13. And I don't know if it was the first Jerry Springer show I saw, but it was one of them. And, you know, when you first discover Jerry Springer as a teen, you're just like, why is this on in the day? Yeah, that's true. Why was it on

in the day? It's very good question. And why are they, it was wrestling. Like, it really was wrestling. They were like, we're going to put a guy who's racist one way. Yeah. And a guy who's racist the complete other way. And then same building. And,

because it was before they even did the, like, you gave my son a baby. Right. Why did you give my son a baby? Now what's he supposed to do? Give them diapers, too. He's got, he,

and it was this episode with like controversial rockers, rockers. Rockers. So it was Peter Steele from typo negative, I think was on it. And then, uh, who's the other one?

It was Gwar. and then... So funny to think of them as controversial. Right? And then G.G. Allen. And G.G. Allen was just like, you know, crazy. The things he was saying. You didn't...

You discover this by accident? Totally by accident. I was not into punk rock or anything. It wasn't like, oh, I gotta pretend I'm sick tomorrow. G.G. Allen's gonna be on. No, no. It was total accident. And then a year or two later, it was like,

maximum rock and roll was, like, focusing on them. So I read, like, prison correspondences he had when he was in jail. Yeah. And I... What for? He seemed like such a straight and narrow kind of... He was in it for a while. I don't know if it was just assault or, you know, assault or if it was just for, you know, maybe protesting.

Public indecency. Yeah. Yeah. Chained himself to an oil rig. Yes. Yeah. Something's really like noble. And I was not sure how to feel about him, but I would pay attention, which was a thing in the 90s we did.

Yeah. It's true. It was like, you'd be like, this is weird, and I don't know if I like this person or if I even, I definitely don't love what they're saying, but I'm kind of interested. Yeah. So, and then I bought a CD when I was like 20 or 19 called Dirty Love Songs, and I was like, I kind of like some of these songs. It was confusing to me because musicians I liked were on in some of his bands.

Man, this is been a confusing journey for you. You don't know how to feel about them. I lived through the indie sleaze. Not me, man. I died. I lived through Yeah, no A lot of people who are still

Like present Died Yeah I mean like a part of them died Yeah right Like not the whole I died I was killed in a

Polaroid The cobra snakes Stole my soul I was a vice don't Were you? No I'm saying I died I died from being

Oh no Okay We're just doing that This is fun Dave and I were both bowled over by that. What? I was never a vice don't. But yeah, it was just Gigi out.

And then in the early 2000s, I was really making, writing ridiculous lyrics, telling ridiculous jokes once I started doing comedy. And like, the whole idea of edginess for me at that time was, well,

we are all in agreement that the world needs to change, that anything really horrible I'm saying is the exact opposite of how I feel, right? And so if I'm, and you can all tell hyperbole, right? You can all tell I'm being sarcastic. The audience can always tell. Yeah.

And then it turns out. That's the great thing about comedy audiences. Even if you could tell that, you might still go, well, you know, none of this shit ever happened to you. So I don't really know. That's always when I think of, like, somebody singing a song from the point of view of the character in the song. And Johnny Cash, for example, shot a man in Reno just to watch him back. How is he still in, how's he singing this to us? He just admitted to his crimes, Mr. Police.

Mr. Police, Mr. Police, Mr. Police, I just bought this final slap. And I think that I must report a crime to you. Just to watch him die, he said. Yeah, not even if you get money or anything. Please, look for a man in Reno. Did the man in Reno die? I guess. Great question.

Yeah, that is a really good one. I shot him in Rio to watch him die. But he lived. Yeah, exactly. They just shot him through the hand. He was fine. Fuck. I saw the original draft.

Like shot a man in Reno just to watch him die. I had to go. I'm not sure what happened. Yeah, I had to work later that day and he seemed okay. And we always, or at least I do when I picture it, it's just him and the guy that he shot. But what if there was a big crowd around like, shoot him, yeah. We all want to see him die. I'm picturing him, yeah, sitting against like a tree.

Yeah. Get over here. Right. Yeah. One of those classic kind of like, just hand me my canteen. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And let me, let me see my last regards.

Just to me, the guy who shot you? Yeah. I don't even want to watch you die. Just start dying already. The old days of being killed were all about staring at the guy who just killed you and they go, I didn't want to do that. And you go, that's okay. Just bury me somewhere where they can't smell me. Also, the prime days of having a cigarette lit for you and having that last puff.

Not a lot of people Have cigarettes is like they used to You know? I did get to see Give me a puff of that jewel A non-death related version of that Where one time outside of Clinton's Bar in Toronto

The former home of Catch 23 Improfit many other historical shows There was I saw like a worker guy A city worker You know Who I'd He like came in to get some fries to go And then he walks out

And then we walk out like a couple minutes later. And this poor guy's been hit by like a car or something. Oh, shit. He's like, okay. He's cognizant. And he seems like he's all right. But maybe his leg was hurt.

And the guy just like lights, puts a cigarette and it lights a smoke for him. And he's smoking. He's all injured. And I'm like, I spill my fries everywhere. Give me a smoke. What's that Rolling Stone song, Salt of the Earth that started playing on my head? I felt like I'd been a construction worker. Yeah.

Who orders just, just an order of fries. That's a real... One order of fries. I'll provide the saltiness. Yeah. Somebody handed him a cigarette that was lit or he took a cigarette. They started burning him because they had beef. No, someone was like, here, bro, have a smoke.

Yeah, suck on this. Smoke your way through the pain. Yeah. I feel like if you're like an air traffic controller or something like that, I think you should be able to smoke indoors still. A air traffic controller? Because it's so stressful. Because it's so stressful.

Like, let's not make people go on their break, go smoke outside. So you think Breaking Bad? Spoiler. There's a part with an air traffic controller who does a lot of. She'd been smoking. If he'd been smoking, he would have been like, yeah. That's terrible news. That's terrible news.

I got to do. I watched, this weekend I watched Big. Okay. Oh, nice. Classic Tom Hanks vehicle. Yeah. Perverted. Probably a little.

It's perverted because. Yeah, a little bit. Yeah. He's a little boy. He's got a little boys. brain in a man's body. He does. I think that's most men, actually.

That's true. I'm always like, wah-wa. Give me my boat boat. And they do have sex. She's always trying to. Oh, they do? Yeah. Oh, I thought that.

I don't even remember that. Yeah. Does she, I thought she ran out before. Well, at one time, okay, she is Elizabeth Perkins. I bring this up because she, She's smoking in every scene. Yes. I'm thinking, I looked it up later, and she's younger than Tom Hanks.

So I wonder if they did that to make her seem older. Right. But she, they go back to his place. And she's like, can I spend the night? And he says, what, like a sleepover? Oh, yeah. That's a classic. Only if I can be on top.

And then he goes to the top bunk. Great line. And then she's like, I still want to have sex with this guy. This guy's so weird. I'm getting them of green flags over here. And I, well, I'm not. Not going to tonight, but I am going to sleep over still. And then later there's a scene where she's like in a bra and he's like figuring it out.

Yeah. It's a, and then doesn't she the one that like drops him off at home when he's a kid again? So when he becomes big, it's overnight. Yeah. For some reason he shares a room with his like six month. old sister. How old is, is he 10? He's 13.

Oh, that's creepy. Yeah, 13. That's creepy age. He's a 13 year old. If you're like, why don't I get to touch a bra? Those rules. I'm staying as an adult for the rest of my life. You're 13 and you're just like,

there's my baby sister right there. I'm trying to organize my magic cards and this baby is here. And granted my style. And so he turns. to an adult overnight. And then on the way back, he turns back to a kid literally in the walk from her car to his house. And he's like wearing a big suit at the end.

That's pretty good. Yeah. Big suit. That's always, you want that, the part where someone is suddenly in tiny and in a jazz suit. I want to get a gigantic, like, big and tall store suit. And like for Halloween, be the kid from big. That was cool. And yet there, yeah, I think we should, there's never.

that many, thankfully, there's not that many movies that reverse the genders on like the big thing where it's kind of like a guy is like, and then she slept. The baby. Oh, wait, poor things, I guess is a little like that as a modern movie. Yeah, that's true. She's got a baby brain. But she's not really, it's a bit more confusing than if she's just a baby. Yeah. I think that movie poor things.

I think they're like, they kind of pull the plug on those movies. There were so many of them. 18 again? 18 again. 17 again. What was the one with 13, John Ryan, old, and Fred's.

Yeah, yeah, like father, like son. Like father like son. Yeah. What's the Zach Efron one? That was a bit later, but I think that was a remake. Oh. I think that might have been

an 18 again. Oh, yeah, maybe that's 17 again. I think that's it. Like, which is like, I watched 18 again a lot. Yeah. Is that?

George Burns. That was the George Burns one. I don't know which. Oh, what was the kid? Who did he switch with? I mean, is this one of those podcasts? Is that Kirk Cameron? Call up Jamie and Jamie goes.

Yeah, Jamie. Kirk Cameron. Kirk Cameron was a different one, I think. Oh, wow. I think the Kirk Cameron one was one a different one. Was there one with Dudley Moore? Yes, there was one with Dudley Moore. Was that Kirk Cameron and Dougley Moore?

Or was that the Fred Savage in Dudley Moore? No, Fred Savage was with Judge Reinhold. You ever see that clip of Judge Reinhold after he was arrested for freaking out on like an airport security guy? No. It's so horrific because he's just like in handcuffs in a parking lot. And he's, he's like some guy from a TMZ type thing is like filming it and goes, Oh, hey.

It's, Hey guys. It's Charlie Schlatter and George Burns. Yeah, but I remember it didn't come to mind. This logo being on like a VHS tape. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

That font and color. We had first choice to movie network was like, Then it became TMN, the movie network. That was an Ontario era, that sort of pay TV thing. And I was 18 again was always on TV. And I loved watching it. Yeah. Yeah.

With George Burns. With George. You were 13, so. Yeah. I was not, I wish I were 13. Um, the, uh, because he was part, George Burns was part of a double act. Crazy and Alan. Burns and Allen.

Crazy and Alan. Crazy and Alan. Crazy and she passed away and didn't he live for like another like, 45 years or something like that. Yeah, it was one of those kinds of situations. Sort of, I mean, almost like Mel Brooks now and Bancroft because she's been. Oh, yeah. Quite a while.

They were never a double act. No, they weren't. She was in one of his movies and now I don't remember which one. Spaceballs. Baseball. She was a piece of the hut. New movie space balls coming out this year, next year? Oh, yeah.

I'm always scared. Of course. They're all good, though. Every time they grew up. It's always good. But my question is, are they going to try and tackle the modern Star Wars? Are we being transported back to original Star Wars? I don't know.

I think it has to be with, I think the prequels have to be the end of it and you could get away with it. No, but as long as they do, like, if they do little sidesteps into Kylo Ren and such. Yeah, because they can do it. The plot of Spaceballs isn't the plot of Star Wars. isn't the plot of Star Wars. Not at all. No. In fact, it's like, there's,

there's only a few things that are exactly, like one to one, which is like Darth Helmet. But the joke with Darth Helmut is really that I am the, your, the son of your brother's,

uncles, whatever. And, it's, it's a combination of, of things. I think I probably saw Spaceball before I saw Star Wars. I,

well, that's interesting. I don't believe I did. I think I, I, before I saw 18 again. Yes, I saw it before 18 again. I thought maybe around the same time I saw Mr. Boogety and...

Mr. Boogany? Mr. Boogany. This is who stars in Mr. Bugety. That is something I don't remember. But it was one of those things that I thought was a movie as I thought Bride of Boogity was a movie, but they were actually our... They were actually hallucinations based on now recalled drugs that my mother was on at the time.

before I was born. But they were Magic World of Disney hour long. Oh, many films. And they were... I had a couple of those

that I would watch and rewatch. Yeah. Yeah. Which ones? I think there was one called... It was like, I can't remember. It's a rock star

switches places with an ordinary kid. That classic, you know. But it's PG-L. Yeah. Yeah. He said, The guy's got to learn to poo on stage. See, now if we're a baby switching with GGL and they wouldn't even notice, you know, they're just like naps, throwing poop, screaming, crying.

Yeah. Brother with a Hitler mustache. Well, yeah, I was never a big Disney anything. I had older siblings, so they never wanted to watch any of that stuff. But I do, yeah, and it was like Sunday nights at 5 o'clock. Right after Street Sense? Yeah, it was, I think, in our... Love Street Sense.

It's an outfit for the pet. That show ruled. No, that show, right now, Street Sense has been replaced by about 10,000 YouTubers making anti-scam videos that have scammy advertiser. This show is sponsored by just stealing from you. Just straight, taking money. It's why you like that. Non-Canadians of our generation Street Sense was a consumer affairs show for kids with no advertising.

That's right. During when it was on, which was a great aspect. And there was a, uh, there were the hosts were always trying to foil the evil Ken Pompadour. Yes, Ken Pompadon. Who always trying to sneak an ad on the show. Yes. Oh, my, I forgot about that aspect. And I just, uh, and Jonathan Torrance was on it.

And, uh, I guess later on, Andrew Bush was on it from Picnic Faye. Oh, sure. Wasn't he on it at some point? I already was. Oh, I know. Anna Dersen, Benita Ha. I remember all the hosts. Amazing.

And the big thing that, or like the iconic thing was they would test out a product. If it sucked, they said it's fit for the pit. They throw it into a sewer. And then it would explode. Oh, yeah. And they had a segment called What's Your Beef, where they would send a camera to a kid and be like, I think that they, when a pack of hockey cards comes with gum, the gum should be distilled. chewable.

Like little Andy Rooney. Yeah, it was definitely maybe bad for like really continuing the complainy Canadian psyche. Yeah. You know, we're just like, hey, I wish the subway was better. You know,

subway's good, but there's still ways. Subway is still really good though. I want to make it clear. Somebody's great and I love somebody. I wish you had more subway. My parents Get me Subway again. Why can't we have more parents?

Yeah. Why can I have another set of parents to buy us with Subway on the off night? My parents get to have two sets of parents. Are you from Toronto originally? Yeah. Graham famously, the first time we went to Toronto together,

we drove past to Mr. Sub. And Graham said, ah, it's Mr. Subcountry. Yeah, Toronto's Mr. Sub country. I was just in touch with my friend, like Dave, who we always, So not you, but my other friend, I know, my new friend. And, uh, it was like, we were, we were texting all about Mr.

Sub and how odd it was as a, there was a Mr. Sub uptown. I like that. That was like in the north, north, they were mid, it was actually in what we now call mid down Toronto. Okay. It was called Mr. Sub uptown. Oh, nice. Okay.

And it was originally Mr. Submarine. Yeah. Until 1990 when they just went. Mr. Sub. And they've. we've never had a compelling ad campaign. No.

They basically have kept afloat because they're one of those early, early bidders to be hospital. Yeah. Franchises and similar things. Yeah. College. So that's why we get to have Mr. Sub. I think there's one that I know of in Vancouver.

And then I think that's the only one I've ever seen. Oh, is it on like, when Broadway becomes Grandview Highway. Yeah, yes, yeah. Impossible to turn into, unless you, I want to do a U-turn to get in there. I'll do it. Skirt! Oh, that's the sound of a customer.

What do they do? What's new there? Do you think they have, like, flavors of the month the way that Subway does? I think Scotty Barnes. Scotty Vaughn. Has his bread bowls, as his sub bowls. The, uh, I remember Mr. Sub, they had toppings that Subway would not. Controversial topics.

Mushrooms. You get mushrooms. Controversial topics. You can get pineapple. Right, right. Yeah, they had kind of, and they, I remember them being a tasty sub. But, uh, you know, I, I think at the time I would have said any sub was pretty tasty. I would even maybe say now that any sub is fine.

Yeah. I mean, what's, like, I probably wouldn't get, hmm, cold cut. The thing about back then was it was just cold cut sub. Yeah, that's true. It wasn't the hot meatball. Yeah. Yeah. Just need to customize my cookies before I go to them.

Yes. That one's called steak and beef. So they do have an alvecourt tuna. Seafood. Seafood looks. It looks. Tasted it's on a deeper level. That's chopped seafood.

Chopped seafood. Mayanays, lettuce, and your choice of fresh veggies. I would say, though, the sub is swimming with flavor. Chopped seafood should have brackets next to it. Detailing said seafood. Yeah. In specific terms. Well, why is it steak and beef?

What's the, why is it one and the other? Well, steak is a kind of beef. My meatball sub isn't the steak. No, that's true. Oh, this is a whole section. This is their section. I thought it was one sandwich. They have five under the steak and beef.

Got it. They've got. Oh, I like that. Garden and Seaside. Yeah. Salads and Seasides. Seasides. So there's some sandy ones, too.

Yeah, one with, what do you call that, uh, saltwater taff? Fired up favorites. These are their hot ones, I guess. Okay. The Cubano. The chicken parm. The Mr. Caso and Bacon cheese stick.

They have a cookie called a smack, which looks to be like kind of an ice cream cookie or a sandwich. It's a fire-up of two chocolate chip cookies, sandwiching toasty marshmallows. Smack. Yeah. Irresistible, it says. Can you imagine?

Swimming with flavor. Like, do you think Mr. Sub is a. A real guy? Well, yeah, first of all. Jonathan Sub. His name was Jonathan Submarine. He changed it for show business.

It was too ethnic, sound. But like, were they, it's this a franchise or is there, you know, corporate headquarters for Mr. Sub? Oh, yeah. There's definitely, what happened was, I mean, I really just went over the Wikipedia for Mr. Sub like two days ago. So I'll see what I remember. But essentially they were bought by, I believe, not.

the same parent, basically Mr. Donut? No, country style donuts was like, we're thinking of buying Mr. Sub. Really? Yeah, in the 1990s. And then the Southern company was like, we're buying Countryshot donuts. Oh, shit. And then they got bought. And then this company, Country Style Donuts is like, please also buy Mr. Sub.

We want to be with in the same family. We were trying to buy them before. And then this Unilever type. Supercompany goes. Oh, okay. Because we will also buy Mr. Sub. Okay, yeah. Throw in Mr. Sub for an order.

Yeah. Yeah. Do you know the history of Yogan fruits? No. I want to. Yogan fruze, boy, did it used to be ICBY? I don't believe it's my yogurt. Well, that's where they got you.

Oh. In the States, they had TCBY. In Canada, we had ICBY, which is, I can't believe it's yogurt. and then then T-CB-Y stood for it this can't be yogurt but they sued them and so now it's the

country's best yogurt but this yogurt have to get such a bad but also ICBY stole it from I can't believe it's not butter and no one sued them they don't have very deep pockets of those butter guys can't believe they're can't believers the note believers you know a jazz musician

Keith Jarrett once sued Steely Dan because they used one of his melodies and a song on the album, Goucho. Okay. Found that out yesterday. I wish I could.

We're talking about lawsuits, guys. This guy's like, Mr. Wikipedia. Yeah. I am. Oh, my God. It's the best. There's an app apparently.

I haven't gotten. The Wikipedia app? There's a Wikipedia app. Yeah. It's not that different from the website. My friend the other day was like, I downloaded the Wikipedia app. Yeah.

Does your friend donate? I just got the appeal for donation. Your annual re-up? Yeah. I don't know. Like, I don't, I've donated, but I do it irregularly. It's. No, they rely on it monthly, so you need to get back on that.

I should, you're right, because, but I don't have a Wikipedia entry. Oh, but brutal nights, one of my bands does. But then it has your name without a link. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Humiliating. Are any of the other band members linked?

No. But, you know, that would be even more humiliated. Doesn't it kind of feel like we're in an. era where you almost don't want a Wikipedia entry as an individual. You don't want people to be able to be like. To know everything about you? Everything is out there now. Yeah.

Everything's out there. Everybody, we've been doing this show for almost 20 years. Yeah, it's known. I wish I could remember the name of that movie where the kid rock star and the kid Switch place because that would be the final piece of things to know about me. It was that I love that movie. Yeah. But, so you, when did you start, when did you leave the world of punk rock and start the world of stand-up comedy?

Well, I mean, I've still always liking music. And it was really, it was, they were very closely. That's good. His favorite note. You know, Mike Bullard once said he didn't like music? Well, I mean, I didn't know that, but like in my heart. I knew that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He seemed like a troubled man. He had a talk show with bands and or an Isaacs was a bandwagon. He was on to crowdwork before crowdwork became crowdwork. He was definitely one of the major Canadian crowdwork people. Oddly enough, so was how he meant Dell, if I recall. He did specials where he'd be like, Bebele, you, ooh, ooh. That's pretty good.

That's all crowdwork is. It sounds like Matt Ripe. But Mike Bullard was definitely the one who's like, who's like, you're sir, where are you from? Yeah. But it gets very tiring. The problem was having a crowdwork comic host a daily talk show, nightly talk show is like. It was the only choice. They only had like one writer on the show.

And it's like, okay, tomorrow he's also going to ask someone what they do. And then the third thing. And our guest tonight is Spirit of the West. And this person is also from Mississauga. Yeah, exactly. Where are you from? You're also, okay. You used to be recorded in the back of Wayne Gradsky's restaurant.

Yeah, I went to a taping, I believe. My friends band, yeah, the one I mentioned, deadly snakes, they were on it. Someone I knew was actually the music booker. Really? Yeah, I knew a couple of people worked on that show, which was why sometimes their musical guests were pretty good. But I think probably Sloan did it. I think the Sadies might have done it as well. Yeah, Sloan famously did it on Halloween and wore costumes.

Makes sense, those guys. You know, if they're going to play a show on Halloween, those guys are going to wear costumes. Yeah. Yeah. I think if you do have a show on Halloween, you owe it to your fan base. I once opened for The Unicorns, the band The Unicorns years ago, and it was on Halloween, and I dressed as weird Al Yankovic. Nice. Yeah.

And someone from The Unicorns jumped in the stage and thought a man. Okay. That's like in your travels, where there are a lot of fistfights at these shows or were they mostly? I mean, I, just saying it,

like, I was doing comedy, I was working at a record distribution warehouse, outside music in, in the early 2000s. And my friend was, Danko Jones was also working. Oh,

yeah. Which I co-hosted his podcast for a long time. And he encouraged, he was, like let's go to let's you should you should do like rough like really weird kind of maybe intentionally poor a comedy and so i've known to blame by him freak everyone out at that time i was very pliable then we went he would go to these sets and he would just like tape my sets and i would just write like the most

extreme and sort of offensive one-liners, but also I'd been writing funny lyrics. Like, all of the bands were sort of straightforward, serious bands, but I'd be singing in a straightforward way, ludicrous lyrics, you know? So, so I was never... Ludicrous lyrics. You wear. Yeah. Oh, better than ludicrous lyrics. Okay, yeah, all right. Call up the loony bit. well um and and i started doing comedy and it wasn't and i was just like this comedy scene then it is so weird comedy's so weird and i'm just doing a weird like a fun version of it because i like neil hamburger when i was kid i like famous comedians and then neil hamburger was more like me loving like indie yeah yeah or garage rock punk music and he was putting out singles and albums on uh planet pimp records at the time, which was a Bay Area thing.

And I'd find out later, he's a total music person who kind of just through his enjoyment of stuff. Like he, you know, he did a wacky prank calls album. That was the debut of Neil Hamburger. He should have done that, man. It was the debut of Neil Hamburger, but that was just

because apparently in, like, San Francisco where he lived, he was on Fridays, him and his friends would hang out and make these really silly calls. It's something I never did, but I feel like I might have been good at it. Oh, I'm too shy. I'm too scared. I don't even like making regular phone calls. Yeah, I was always like half in, half out.

With my friends, I made a few. Definitely on chat rooms a couple of times. I remember really well going to a Yahoo chat room in like 2000 with my friend and being like, hey guys, I'm Danny Fields, teen Egyptologist. I'll be on the learning network on Saturday. Any questions? And I was like Yeah, okay

Who built the pyramid? Whose face launched a thousand chips? Then I'd be like, watch on Saturday And I'll answer that question in many more You're going to answer that question? Yeah, it's a pretty farm-to-table show Wait, are you making it right now? Yeah, this is the show.

This is the show. Yeah, when we're broadcasting on Saturday. Will I be compensated for asking that question? The information is the compensation. Now, that's a slow-com. CNN, the information is the compensation. Reality TV. The information is the compensation.

So, like, can I give everyone an update on Mr. Sub? Yes, please do. So there's 20 locations in the Toronto area, and when you're on their website looking for locations, it won't let you leave the Toronto area. God, story of my life. You move across the country, and it just pulls you right back to Toronto. Oh, man.

This is like, the Internet is, trying to make the rest of Canada hate us. You know? But check it out. They've got, um, they've got like breads and meats. Yeah, they've, their slogan is legend deli. You don't have to advertise Mr.

Sub. I feel like they've caught you in a web here where now you're promoting them. They're not even sending you. Well, check out their marble ride double stack. We've been big, uh, this show's been a big supporter of The hot dogs at New York fries. Yeah.

New York were big New York fry heads. Yeah. Why New York again did they decide to call? Oh, because it's the biggest city. Yeah. You can get fries. You can get anything in New York. Oh, boy.

But boy, when that popped up as a store, I was like, yeah, New York fries, that sounds great. That's a famous type of fry. Yeah, yeah. Try these fries. And then, like, they were in a cup. And they're in a cup. I've never seen this.

A cup of fries. And you know what? They rock. They rock. I'm sure. Yeah. They're putteen? Possible.

very, and it's, you know, It's the greatest mall Poutine. Yeah. How is the British Columbian Poutine? The Poutine scene? There's a pretty decent teen scene here. There's a really good one on Davy Street called La Belle Patat. Oh, that's a cute name.

Yeah, and it's the most authentic, I think. And then, you know, you got your mooses off of gravel. Do we still have a smokes? We don't have a smokes anymore. Smokes. Smokes was like really the hot, hot bed of people. people trying to get in to use the bathroom on a Saturday night. Smokes was one of those ones where I think they were just like,

when we, the very beginning of smokes was probably decently tasty. And then they were like, here's what we're doing. We're opening 70,000. Yeah. Unilever has bought a big portion of these. And then the smokes guy also died. The guy also died.

The guy was the picture of the guy outside. That guy died, yeah. When I was a kid. I do a lot of that guy died. Yeah. In my comedy podcast. You'll never guess what happened. That guy died.

That guy died. Yeah, it's a, I feel like there's a compulsion sometimes of people that own a business to make themselves the mascot of that business. Like, like Colonel Sanders or Daryl's deals from whatever. Save on foods. Yeah. I don't know that. It's a local. It's a local.

He's a guy. He's not uncharming, but like, is there in Toronto, like a. Honestead. Honestead was like, we had a huge history. I mean, Mel Lastman took it to, uh, oh yeah, he basically took it to like the mayor's office, I think, because the bad boy, we had bad boy furniture. No, he didn't have anything. But it was sort of like a contemporary, the bad, the bad boy furniture brand, which was him and his son. What a funny name for him?

I've never heard that before. Yeah, his son would wear, uh, prison stuff. Yeah. And later on, he went to prison. Oh, for real? Yeah. But then... For being a bad boy.

Well, and he was in jail clothes already. They were like, hey, that's one of our guys. Get him back to... He sold a man a sofa just to watch him die. So Mel Lastman's whole thing was it would go, no bad boy. Nobody's better than us. There are prices. And then Mel Last...

It would cut to Mel Lastman and he'd kind of like wink and hold his... Do the like anti-Semitic okay symbol. Which at the time was not anti-Semitic, which is why I was doing it was just like an A-O-K. Yeah. And he goes, nobody. And then he's like, he became the mayor of North York. And then when the greater Toronto area merged or into the megacity or when Toronto merged into the great Toronto area of the mega city. And North York had no mayor anymore.

He was like, well, I got to be the mayor of Toronto then. And then he was. And then he. Is he dead too? Oh, he's dead. Oh, man. That guy died. Yeah, that guy died.

There's another guy that died. He had a few controversies, but. Did you, you also have a guy that out there that buys gold or sells gold. Oliver jewelry, another one. There's a mini documentary on him on YouTube. I do love that like municipal politics will have like a store owner will just like, well, I'm famous from my commercial. So I'm going to run for mayor. I mean, it goes way back, I think.

Like it would probably go to like radio. Oh, yeah. We had a guy here. the captain who was a big fat guy with a captain's hat who sold used

stereo equipment and he would end every commercial with Ii and goodbye he would have a million commercials that would air overnight and then he lost a bunch of weight

and found God and then all his commercials were about I lost all this weight from a raw diet and finding God by your stereo receiver

at my store right and I think he probably ran for mayor I still need the store, but I kind of want to focus on the stuff. You know, very strange. Like a raw diet. I want to sell you a raw diet.

There was a deal. He was the original. Steve Jobs. Yeah. Used to wear a turtleneck every day. That guy died. Yeah. That guy died too.

There was a guy when I was growing up in Calgary, ran for mayor that had like a weekly column in the, the Calgary Herald. Rick the Digger Bell was his name. Rick the Dinger Bell. Yeah. And he ran for mayor. He was like, he's like, you know what? I've had enough of this municipal politics. I'm going to run for mayor.

I mean, I mean, you're a cowboy hat. Toronto popularity is like a lot of it is that. A lot of the stuff in that city is based on who is making the most weird, annoying, their presence felt. Yeah. Yeah. if it's super annoying. Like, we had that guy,

Zanta, who was terrifying. He was a shirtless, super muscle-bound guy. Yeah. Who wore a Santa hat. But he was, he would just be really aggressive on the subway.

Oh, he was walking around, doing push-ups and pull-ups. He wasn't even dressed much like Santa. He had like a Santa hat. Right. But they called him Zanta. I don't think he called himself.

Because he was a Zaddy. Yeah, he was a Zaddy. And I mean, but it's depressing because he'd had like a workplace brain injury or something. And so he'd become this sort of a... So he thought he was Santa Claus? Yeah, he thought he was Santa Claus. He thought the subway.

Santa him switched bodies. He thought the subway was his octagon. And then people would be like, I missed Santa. But he was, he was banned from the subway. Is he dead? No, I don't think he's dead. That guy lived. He lived. He lived. And then there was you know the, um, you know, you know, all the famous. There's a Spider-Man.

Who ran the Garfield restaurant. Oh, yeah. The Garfield restaurant guy is terrible. People don't really like him. But there's, what was... There was a Spider-Man. You're right. The Spider-Man, Toronto Spider-Man,

is like a pickup artist who whines for you to give him money, apparently, and is always rollerblading around. Like, anytime anyone interacts with him is the worst thing in the world, believe it or not, the guy who wants to be noticed, and for dressing like Spider-Man is not pleasant to be around. It's hard to believe. But, yeah. And there also used to be a duty, so I stopped you and go.

Yo, you like conscious hip hop? Oh, I bet he's got an album. He's trying to sell. Yeah, he had us. No, I don't like the gangster stuff. I like my rappers sleeping. Um, uh, what was I got to say? There's a local.

Oh, boy. We have a local Spider-Man. Do we? Yeah. What does he do? He rescues people. He's a real, look, good guy. He's a real good guy.

He saved a lot of people. Is that true? No. Oh. Um, I have been really hoping for the, you know, You know, the world to actually have superheroes. But whenever I look into it, the guys doing that are not, it's not quite right. You remind me of Mr. Glass from Unbreakable.

I've been trying to find a real superhero. I've been causing all these train accidents. My favorite thing, video style online, is a video of guys dressed up for a kid's party as Spider-Man or Captain America. one guy's dressed up as the Hulk and he falls over and he can't get up. Oh, he's one where his pants fall down and he can't get his pants back up. Never seen those. You know, oh, they're the best. And kids are running away scared.

Yeah, once they're down, they are not getting fired up. Or Spider-Man who thinks he can do a flip. How's your algorithms? Oh, brother. Specifically for like, mine rocks. Facebook reels and YouTube shorts because I, and Instagram reels. Like, those to me are the weirdest algorithm, the one. That's like this white side stuff.

What is it showing you? What do you get? Well, the golden era, because I find it's always shifting. The golden era was when I was getting clip after clip of James Spader as Raymond Reddington from the show The Blacklist. The Blacklist, okay. Because every clip would be like, would be like, excuse me, sir, but can I see your watch for a moment? Yes, I thought that belongs to an associate of mine. And if I don't happen to have that watch back from you in about one second, I'm

going to have to explode your entire existence, and I don't think you'd like that very much. So I suggest you just hand me the watch, and then we say bid our goodbyes. This is pretty good. It's not a bad James Spader. It's just the tone. I don't have the thing, but the tone, you know, it's like, and I just love them all. And then I saw clips of Age of Ultron, which I had never seen the Avengers Age of Ultron. It's just Raymond Reddington.

He's just being like, Captain of him. America. I understand. He's Ultron in it. Yeah, he's the big... But it's really the same. I like him in Seinfeld when he's scooping ice. Yeah.

He's great. He's a very interesting actor for sure. We have a, um, uh, our shared Instagram for the podcast is a, uh, the algorithm for that, because we, we, we just follow random. We don't use it for serve. No. So we get served up the most, um, bizarre collection of like, independent musicians.

Oh, yeah. Like, yeah, you can be punk rock and vote for Trump. Yeah. That's something they've been trying to really make a thing for, what, 10 years now? It's like, the real punk rock is supporting all the things that punk rock said were bad except for the people. I guess that's true, you know, punk rock's got to be against itself at some point. But the term punk rock, the idea that we all need to be punk rock is also a, it's true. strange thing.

If we were all punk rock, nothing would get done. Exactly. Everyone's like, everyone's like, you want to be punk rock, don't you? And it's like, well, not about, you know, food safety. Anarchy in the deli guys. Not about the dimensions of furniture. Yeah, punk brand of furniture. The mayor's a punk.

It needs to fit my domicile. Airline pilots are punk. Yeah, exactly. It would be a little punk rock about my baby's sleep schedule. That's right. Yeah. Well, maybe I need know. I'm near the X.

Babies are the original punks. That's true. Yeah. The original Gigi's. Do you know anybody who's still a punk at that stage? Oh, sure. Yeah, sure. I mean, because I'm also working at a lot of rock shows now with these promoters not dead yet.

and there's tons of older punk people. They still look like punks? Yeah, the ones who look the most like it are more kind of boy kind of people, like street punk people, because they don't have to wear. They're not wearing spikes, you know, in their hair or that kind of thing. They just have like crisp Fred Perry shirts and, uh, yeah, I wonder like, maybe one, a bone in their nose.

Like, you'd have to. Or two. Yeah, maybe a bone in their nose. See a lot of punk rock parents bringing their punk rock kids to show. That's cute. Punk rock babies, their Ramones' onesies. Yeah,

I had a joke about that. I forgot. I wrote something about the, you want to get your kids, you want to put the Ramon shirt on your baby because then they'll rebel against you by hating the Ramon's when you get older. And you won't have to worry about all the drugs. Yeah,

I feel like if you're a full-time, punk and or heavy metal guy. You've got to work like in a guitar store. You've got to work at a bar. Yeah. Maybe you can cut hair. I don't know how many jobs you can have as a classic punk. You can work at a startup.

You can work at a startup. Yeah. Work at KFC. You got a bone for your nose. Yeah. You get a fresh bone every day. You work at the bone yard. You work at the bone yard.

Lumberjack. Lumberjack. Lumberjack. I sure. Bowling alley employee. But I think people a lot of time, especially since hardcore happened in the 90s, a lot more of that.

Well, I wear a button-up shirt. And then after 5 p.m., I go home and I listen to mustard plug until... Yeah, nobody knows. Yeah, and nobody knows. But who am I saying this to? Mirror. Saying this to the mirror.

What I just did for the day. Yeah. But yeah, I don't know. The whole thing with, like, the idea of punk is... It's very vague now, too. I'm obsessed with Reddit, unfortunately. Oh, I love, love Reddit. Controlled by Reddit and R-Punk, R-slash punk is always funny because there's all these

sort of entry-level punk bands, you know, that have names. Like, the whole thing is, if a punk band name is, like, obviously a punk band, then that's going to be one of the entry-level punk bands. Right. So a lot of them are like, just discovered anti-flag. and then everyone will soon find out that the singer of, but I don't know if you guys know this, but the singer of anti-flag was completely like canceled

due to horrendous of allegations. And so a lot, basically every few days someone was posting, just found out of anti-flagged, depressing about what I found out next about anti-flag. And actually someone in my band, Tinkrad combo, toured on base, Jamie Towns or bassist, she toured. in like the late 90s with this band Antiflag, and we all stayed in the same home once. Oh, yeah.

After a party and the singer guy, Just insane. Good name. Just insane. Was so annoying because everyone got really wasted. Was he canceled for being annoying? I mean, you could call it annoying, I guess,

transporting miners over straight lines is annoying. I got it. Yeah. He, It was a big party at my friend's house, and all these bands were sleeping at her house. I stayed over because I got really drunk. It was one of the first, one of the last times I ever had like a 40 of malt liquor. Oh, we got to get you one tonight.

Well, an interesting combination of people. It was like this band of Space Shits that was King Con and Barbecue. These are great names. All these people who went on being the Sexerinos and all the Red Mats and all these great Montreal bands. Sex arenas, that's great. It was not skank and pickle, but like the planet smashers, one of these type of, like, scobans was staying there. And then Anti-Flagg was also staying there.

And we all got so drunk. And then I guess at like six in the morning, suddenly by the room where a bunch of us were sleeping, we just, this guy's just in the bathroom, he just screaming, hope you guys had a good time last night. Hope you all had a great time. Like he's like waking us all up. Right.

Sort of give us grief for getting so wasted. And my friend Max, we were like leaving the house. And he's just like, God, what a stupid band. What kind of a name is that? What kind of a name is Andy? We hate flags. It's like, yeah. It's like.

I hate semaphore. I know, right? Like, a flag can have anything. Oh, sure. Yeah. I mean, uh, smokes puteen probably had a flag hanging out of them. I like the big, uh, I like the Jolly Roger.

They hate the Jolly Roger, ain't you flying? Absolutely. They hate all of it. Dave, what's going on you, my friend? Oh, my God. Well, my daughter just turned 12. She asked for a punk rock party. Oh, cool.

Amazing. So what did that entail? Just kidding. She wanted to go to the trampoline place. What's the difference? That's true. A lot of bouncing around it. Yeah, yeah.

Bogoing. Yeah, yeah. Disorienting. Dangerous. dangerous, yeah. It's very... Weird older people running the thing. It really is weird older people running.

And I was trying to figure out, like we've gone many times at this trampoline place, and someone died there once. Oh, no. Thank you, though. I'll put that in my back pocket. Yeah, that guy died. But I was looking up, because I couldn't see, like, you need to fill out a waiver to jump. Yeah. And I was like, am I allowed to sign for the party guest?

So do their parents have to do it? Right. I was like looking online and all the posts were like, don't go here. A guy died here. Don't go. No one knows how, no knows first aid.

Oh, sure. I bet that's true. There's like a pool across the street. So if you get injured, get someone to go to the pool and get a lifeguard. I mean, you would think that they would have at least one person on shift. No,

it's who you'd expect. A lot of perfectly nice, helpful older people who know what to do and then like one old person knows what to do and like 20 kids 20 like teenagers who are hey do don't climb on that

or do I don't care whatever on my phone although I've like I've noticed in general when I've gone to like bars or restaurants now when this the staff there looks like they're like they're in junior high Like it's just like now teenagers look like little kids and it's like you can't have a job. And 25 reals look like teenagers.

Yeah, it's true. Yeah. I do think what they do there, they should do it at every business where suddenly they turn out all the lights. Do they do that? So everybody goes crazy. Yeah. Do that and you know, play the Mortal Kombat music. That's awesome.

And then we afterwards. you go to the sad room you can you can bring your own pizza Is that what you call your house? I like this place. I like it here. You can bring your own pizza and cake

but you have to pay a $30 fee. Oh God. There was a video of a guy. It's like a corkage fee. There's a video of a guy fighting with the employee there over it. I've watched like, I think I watched a drama video about that

video. Oh, really? Yes. You talk about like, algorithm problems. My, I'm now watching videos where people, people like,

okay, it's a YouTube video where a person is talking about two people on TikTok who had a problem. Right. You know, and I just,

um, very, in my 40s. There's a, there's a, but so yeah, like, uh,

we just got their package of two pizzas and eight pops and, uh, pretty good. A cake where they write your daughter's name on a name tag. I put it up. Sad. But it's very funny now that like when the kids were small, the parents come to the party and the parents will step in, oh, you can't eat that.

Your lactose intolerant. Right. You can't eat that. It's got peanuts. This time, seeing 12-year-olds like advocate for themselves. It's very. Right. I can't have that.

Or one kid being like, I don't think you can have that. I can have it. It's fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't worry about it. It's got lactose in it. I'm not worried about it. That's not keto.

Yeah. No, it's fine. Don't worry about it. Yeah, do you think the language of the youth has become a bit more sophisticated than it once was? No. There's still, everything's skippity this. Everything wasn't skippity this when we were kids. Yeah, exactly.

That's true. They do have different words, different exciting words. We'd just be like, did you play Ninja Garden? And the other one would be like, did you play the donkey Kong country? in Australia. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bubble, bubble. When you, when your kids are 12,

is it only one person that kind of has to shop around everything? Or do all the parents still come? No. You just drop them off. You got one parent. I'll take care of it. I'll take care of it. It sounds like a nightmare.

And we don't even have to do any. Like, no, it's like they can take care of themselves. We're in a trampoline place. That's true. You can come to us if you have to pay. So you get these soft. To use the trampolines? Diabetic socks?

Yeah. I got to roll them all the way up to the knee. You have to wear special socks that have like a silicone grippers on the bottom. Okay. Do you have to buy these socks? They come included. Okay. But if you lose them, you have to buy a new one.

I see. And one of my daughter's friends came over and said, I lost one of my socks. And we said, it's fine. It's fine. She was on the verge of tears. Then in your head, you're doing the math. And you're like, oh, no supper tomorrow. Okay, well, let's see.

When your birthday rolls around, we'll subtract $5 from the present we give you. And then, yeah, it's the best. The, um, uh, I went and did laser tag a couple months ago with my no way. And afterwards, they also had a crazy jungle team. Did you ever figure out where that was? Uh, North Van.

It was in North Vancouver. Uh, there was a jungle gym thing and then just an unsupervised climbing wall and I was like, what did you? How high can you go? Very high. Like enough to, if you fell for it,

you break your leg. But I was like, shouldn't this have at least a person looking at it? Yeah. Careful. What would they do? But. I guess not.

If you think about it, we had in our, in Toronto, we had a couple of, we had a few, the birthday situation in the 1980s and early 1990s. It was a dream.

Yeah. You know, we had, but we had some places that were absolute hazard. Oh, for sure. Just, like, we had a place called Adventure Playground that was literally a job site. That was just kind of like a museum piece that kids could come in and just pick up a hammer and start hammering a nail into like a pipe. That sounds pretty good. It was amazing. But it felt very dangerous being there.

And then there was a really sort of infamous, famous, famous birthday place. called Mad Hatters. That's a good name. Yeah, the writer Sheila Heddy did. It's sort of an oral history of it. But I think there's a lot more to Mad Hatters to learn. And actually, the guy...

100% for me. I'm just learning about you. Starting from zero. There's like an eccentric condo developer who recently declared bankruptcy and lives in a in, like, is like living in an empty condo

skeleton in Hamilton, Ontario. And he was the guy who made madhatters and what it was as a hearse would pick up your party of children this is awesome take you to an undisclosed location at least to the kids you like don't know where you're going the whole idea is I don't I don't think you were blindfolded but it was like I don't the windows might have been blacked out like there was like and they have like yeah it's nice usually the back of a hearse you don't have a lot of yeah as you know it's herses are convertibles right so

you can see everything and that then there's like one of those, it's probably, I remember going to the party at the same time that there was an Ed Grimley cartoon. Oh yeah. I'm talking 1988 or something. And, uh, there's like one of those closed circuit, those TVs in a car. It's like about three inches by three inches, but it feels like the height of luck. Yeah. Feels like you're watching, you know, the snorks on. And our nurse. Nice fault. And then you go to this undisclosed location, Mad Hatters. And there's all these different rooms with different recreational activities in them. And they're barely supervised.

One of them was they give you like a bunch of popcorn and like shaving cream and you just throw it at each other. It's not bad. That sounds pretty good. There was a one where I swear to God it was like laundry on the rollers. What are those calls? Like laundry carts. Yeah. You put your friend in a laundry cart and you just play bummed like.

bump into each other with laundry cars. There was one where it was a strobe light room, completely dark with the strobe lights going the whole time, and they'd give you these really heavy pillows. You just attack each other with the pillows. And it was, and then you'd go home. And you're telling me this guy went bankrupt. And then 20 years later,

everybody who went to this is like, that was odd. Yeah. I got smile damage. So not only did it. I go to one or two birthdays there, I'm pretty sure I had a birthday there. The, um,

you were hosting. I was hosting. You say that, I was liable. The guy who, uh, ran it, um, declared bankruptcy and lives in a skeleton of building. I feel like that building should be converted. Yeah. I'm here. Dude, mad hatters Hamilton. Or just like, amazing. You know where people in Toronto

move because they have kids and then they can only afford to buy in Hamilton. So it would be perfect. You know when you go to. like someone's you you have a friend who's like hey our uh our landlord told us we're tearing down this house so we're gonna have one big party yeah yes house destruction party that should be a yeah that's what he called yeah that should be a uh like a kids party yeah or the theme of like a kid's place wow that's awesome that is like that would be great if we convince

this guy because he he was also an early condo developer in in Toronto but he did like you remember like early condos like even probably here him sure you had it where you're like, well, that's kind of a neat looking building because it was made in 1982 and it was right. It's got a lot of glass bricks. Oh, God, I love that architecture in this city. It's the best. We just went to the place where the biodome is, the park with the Queen Elizabeth.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The biodome is just so beautiful there, the outside. I didn't come. Well, yeah, there's. Oh, it's racist. Well, no. Yeah, it's been canceled. Holly Shore and Steve Ballroom are running around in there.

Yeah. I'm not supporting those guys. Sorry. But yes. So this guy, I would love to revitalize this guy's career. And maybe we could do a go-fummy form under the condition that he does recreate the madhatters in his own domicile. Yeah. Oh, I love you at his own house.

The bathroom's not part of the fun kids. Stay away from that. The other thing that's going on is Abby's parents were cleaning up some, my wife, Abby. We're cleaning up some old stuff. Yeah. And they found, they went to South Africa in 1998. That has nothing to do with. Sketchy.

With it. But they, they, when they were there, they bought one of those, like, um, dinosaur sponge pills.

Oh, yeah. Awesome. Dinosaur beans. Yes. And we were going to show the kids, uh, this thing.

And so we put it in a cup of water. And, uh, it, uh, and we're like, leave it alone. Yeah,

yeah. We just have to. Give it a couple. couple minutes, it'll open up and you'll see what it is. The kids were like, okay. And we sat it there in a cup of warm water and it, uh, the, like, coating came off of it. And then we were like, okay, well, it's been 25 years. Let's just give it a few more minutes.

It stayed in the bean shape, the little capsule shape, for days. And then we eventually just threw it away. We never discovered what it was. was. It is funny. It's a funny toy for a kid because you, in your brain, you think it's going to be automatic. Like you think you put it in, wait for two minutes.

It's going to get huge. But really, you need like a solid 12 hours for it. And also, once it's unfolded, it's not, it can't even, it's not even a sponge. It's a sponge, but it can't even do that. It was exactly on my mind that, that fact. Like, you get, it's big, it's not an action figure. It's not poseable. It's just wet.

It's wet. And you can't really, it feels weird to take it out of the water. Yeah, it does. So you kind of have this, like, thing that's just going to become like a stagnant. Yeah. I mean, maybe it would become a real dinosaur. Yeah, we always did it in like the movie big. You get Zoltar in the mix.

The kid, uh, the, we got Zoltar in the mix. You got Zoltar in the mix. We got DJing tonight. DJ Zoltar. What are your wishes to hear? What? You got three I take three requests.

I want to hear some new order? Say you wish to hear new order. We always did it in a cup, but the container, the package said you should do it in the bath. Oh, another totally point listening where it's like, okay, you can't take a bath for a few days. Sorry, guys, I watched the bean down the... I thought I would.

take a shower and it would be okay, but it fell down the drain. Yeah, and it's slowly expanding in the drain. Like, your pipes are blocked by a... Like a giant lobster? It looks to be some kind of Stegosaurus guy. It's a diplodocus or they don't exist? But... Well, we didn't know that at the time.

Yeah, but I've definitely given one of those away to somebody's friends that have kids. Like, you have like a little... ongoing cache of, you know, dollar store crap, dollar store crap, things that are fun for about an hour, an hour and a half, and then are done,

you know, like a whoopee cushion or something like that. Do you flip? What's that? You mean, the little, little skateboard guys? No, I mean,

do you buy any random junk you see? Oh. And then you hit eBay and you throw it up. No, no. No, the only reason is because I don't like, I don't like the idea of having to go ship all the stuff. Otherwise, I do it all the time. I'll tell you all about after,

but let's just say, you a flipper I did not get the cancom grant a couple years ago and ever since then I've been going gung-hole into flipping Oh wow I know my girlfriend and I love

just flipping stuff Yeah and so I'm not doing it in a kind of You know the YouTube The kind of thing where people are like This is our business we love doing this I'm just like I'll see a weird thing and I'll say

That's weird I kind of want to have it but not for a long time. Yeah. And then I'll put it on eBay. And they've made shipping weirdly easier on eBay. Oh, because I remember, I sold some things on eBay a long time.

It used to be the shipping would just make the whole thing. Well, especially in Canada, like an American buys a thing and they're like, try again. Give me a different shipping price. Yeah, yeah. And then,

but now it's like, they reward it for you doing it more and more and learning what is the, you know, how to, what the price point should be for something like shipping. But they've really got some sort of, sort of weird deal with Canada Post where when you get a label through eBay, it's like,

it's frighteningly cheap. Okay. And so, and that is for the, the US too, although it's all screwed up because of the last year, yeah, of stuff. But, and, but more interestingly, flipping things is really fun. And sometimes I buy old PC games and I put them online. So I sold a copy of SimCopter. Okay.

Okay. yesterday or the day before. This is you make your own helicopter, I'm hoping? It was, yeah. Do you incorporate it into SimCity and fly around? It's called Simhapter. It's like, yeah, Simha. I don't know what joke I'm trying to make, but happy,

did everyone atone for Yom Kippur? Also, I'm still working on it. Yeah. Oh, congratulations. Me too. I was trying to think the other day, and I'm like, I don't think I got nothing to atone for it. Good for you.

No, that's so much. Oh, my God. The 2000s indie sleeper. I thought it was Rosh Hashanah. It was Rosh Hashanah. And then I think Yom Kippur happened. I used to think it was,

I mean, this shows how religious I am. Yeah, Yom Kippur, I believe, was this past weekend. Oh my God. Like, this is the time. Yeah, I didn't send out cards to anybody. Well, you got something to atone for now.

I'm so sorry. I had a thing with eBay, just like a week ago where I won a thing and I forgot about it. And then they sent an email to me and I just never paid attention to it. And then it got canceled. And they were like, you can never do that again. You're like, they said, if you ever do that again, your whole account is going to be canceled.

Yeah, yeah. It was, yeah, it was just, it's just slipped my mind. You bought something but didn't pay for it. Yeah, because what happens if the other person is selling the thing and all these people wanted it? And then the person who won it, mm, didn't buy it. Yeah. So they're like, oh, no. They haven't figured that out yet.

Yeah. Well, eBay only recently, they, they would have figured it out, but they tried to be so. buyer friendly that they just were like, you know, yeah, we'll let it go. Even the idea that like, okay, you won the thing, when are you going to pay for it? Or just like how to make you automatically pay for it. Yeah. And instead of that, it's kind of like, are you going to? Yeah.

You better. Yeah. So on chance. Who owns eBay? Is it evil? I think it is. Yeah. Okay, good.

I think it was Peter Thiel at a time. Oh, were they, I believe, because eBay and PayPal were kind of connected. PayPal. PayPal, Patine. You know, PayPal Patine and PayPal Antire are some of the most forward. I love, I've been thinking a lot about the terminology of the age, too, and how so many times with food now,

everyone talks about forward, like, oh, yeah, putteen is really cheese forward. Like, I like cheese forward food, like poutine and pizza. I like, you know, a lot of flavor forward food. Yeah, that's my favorite. I'm curd maxing. I'm curd maxing. Curd Mac.

Anyway, what's going on with you, Graham? Well, speaking of buying things online, I, uh, so, my wife is a very active on a site called Max sold. Oh, yeah. Like, uh, estate sales and things like that. And you bid, similar to eBay, but, uh, it's local. So you don't, like, you don't buy something from, you know,

somewhere in the greater Vancouver area, but. And you're bidding, she's bidding you out of house at home. Yes, she's, I mean, but she'll find, something, then she'll bid on it. It'll be like three bucks, and then she wins it, and then it's a trip out to Richmond. That's the one thing is it's never close by. Never. Yeah.

It's always somewhere in the suburbs, because they're who have the stuff. These days have the stuff. So, Sally won something on Maxwell, and I also bought something off of Facebook marketplace.

So I'm like, I'm going to go do the whole thing. I'm going to pick those up. We're going to pick out the thing for a Facebook marketplace. And then I was, well, I'll tell you in a minute. As I was getting ready to go, I was like, huh, where's the, where's the spare car key? And I looked around and I couldn't find it and I just texted Sally.

He's like, well, do you know where it is? She's like, it's on my key chain. I was like, why do you have to do car keys? So I had to hotwire it. So you guys got a spare car? Yeah, we all got a spare car. We, uh, so I had to get an Evo. I had to get an EVO.

Oh. This was just a disaster from Nick got dropped off at a Modo. Oh, yeah. You a Moto guy? Well, my friend Jamie is, and he's been kind enough to be, he took me here. Oh, that's nice. Yes, I am a Moto guy because I think it's great. Yeah.

He has it. This is the Evo, same kind of thing. And it sounds like these are co-ops or something, some of these businesses, so they're a little more ethical than what we got on in Ontario right now, I think. Evo's great. The only downside that I discovered is when you stop to go into a max-sold area to pick up your things, it signs you out. Oh, and then you're stuck out there. Then I had to call. Where was it?

It was in Burnaby. Okay. We're in Burnaby. We were right by Playland. Me and the Evo. Oh, me in the car. I was like, well, it wasn't Sally. Me and Kit.

Me and Kit. Yeah, it's me in the car. And so then I tried to... I go to that soda fountain they have out there. I don't even know about that. What's that all about? It's right near the P&E on the Burnaby side. It's like an old-timey soda fountain.

I should have got to that. Get yourself a lime rickie. Sounds awesome. It does sound awesome. Damn it. You guys have all kinds of cool stuff like that. Well, you guys have the hog down. There's some...

Yeah, we're closed. It's just actually... Oh, no. But, you know, I mean, I'm just jealous of certain aspects. It's visiting. You're visiting. Yeah.

No, I, certain aspects. I haven't been here for 20 years. They've done a lot of research. And do your own research. That's the one thing if I've learned from New York Columbia. Do your own research. So I got out of the car. It locked up in.

I was like, oh, I'll just book the car back again and get in. And it said, you have to pay the amount for the ride you just took. And I was like, oh, okay, no problem. They're like, your credit card is out of date. I was like, oh, this is becoming such a nightmare. Yeah, yeah. And then if you do this again, if you are banned for it. That's what it felt like.

They had to call customer service. I'm noticing a trend, this is Graham. And I understand. You know what? Wear one of those sunflower lanyards. That's all I can say. I'll ask about the sunflower lanyard in a little bit. Okay.

So I got to, I had to call customer service. They were like, this one time, I'll reverse the charge so you can get into the car and then you'll have to pay the charge later. And I was like, yeah, fine, fine, fine. Suckers. Yeah.

I crashed the Evo and put you in a tour of bean. Domain, Louis, and then when they call me out and I'd be like, that's who it was when I got it. It was in a swamp. Oh, yeah. Isn't this the spot? So the things you got was a thing. It's like a Japanese.

The cool thing is you get to go and if you don't like it, you can be like, that's my wife. It's my wife. Right. You say that to the car. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is my wife. Is this what you're looking for?

I don't know. Some dumb thing my wife wanted. I don't see a ring on your finger. Oh, it doesn't matter. We don't do that. I retain a lot of water in my digits. And so she got I'm not a ring guy

Not a big ring guy We wear necklaces you can't see What do I look like Mark Marin here? I'm not a ring guy Is he a little ring guy Oh he's a major ring guy Who are your ring guys Who are your ring guy?

Oh god Next time you post a guitar playing clip I want to post that comment Hey you know what You can have it Bless So she got these plates For me, it's Johnny Depp.

Oh, yeah. I guess for me it's... Oh, damn it! Mr. T. Mr. T is, yeah, one on each finger. Yeah. It was this plate that's shaped like a cow, and it's specifically for hamburgers.

It's got circles for the bottom bun, the top bun, and then little divvets for... Like the McKeatshawrilla fries. And it's really, they're really fun, and then she got a bunch of Calgary Stampede drinking glasses. Oh, that's from... Pedro Canada? I don't know where they're from.

Old ones. Yeah, yeah, yeah. God, that must have made you so stoked. No, I thought the things she got were great. He's from Calgary. That's what I know. Childhood glasses. Those are my childhood glasses.

I don't know where they're going to go, but I was, so I got that. I got that figure. It's the classic getting a vintage, any kind of thing. It's a new thing. How cool. I don't know where it's going to go. Yeah. Did you, I feel like I interrupted you and you were saying something was Japanese.

Was the cow plate Japanese? Yes. Okay. That's great. man, and it's cool. Kobe beef. That's right. Wagyu.

They got the Wagyu. Ask me about the waggo. The, so, and I was almost too late. Like, I was like, what happens if I get there past the time? Are they just going to show her? It's over. Yeah. So, yeah, luckily they were still there.

I don't think anybody had shown up on time. It seemed like a lot of stuff was still sitting there. Evo's piled up at the boundary road. So then I'm already out there. I'm already in Burnaby. I bought something off a Facebook marketplace. Time to pick that up. What they bought for Halloween is a giant Dracula head.

What does that mean? I'll show you a picture of it. He's a Dracula. What's the vintage of it? I don't think it's that old. Is it from Transylvania? Sounds awesome. It is from Transylvania.

And it looks like that. Oh, that's great. It's sort of like the count. No, it's like the count. and Count Chocula a little bit both. It's kind of like a cookie jar. There's like a Playmobile vampire aspect to it too to me. But it's like big.

It's like this thing. It's just the way the design kind of makes it made of ceramic. It's not ceramic. It's kind of like a bone. Yeah, I think it's a bone. Ivory? Whale? It could be whale.

Yeah. Scrimshaw. Teak. Teak, it's teak. Yeah. I don't know what it is some sort of plastic. When you said Dracula had I pictured a mask, but this is like, Something to put on your mantle or in your window?

Yeah, yeah, to put like a candle in or whatever for Halloween. And so I said I was going to meet the guy in the McDonald's parking lot in wherever on East Tastings. And while I was driving there, one of the instructions was do a U-turn to get to the restaurant. I was like, what the hell, man? Where were you two moves ago? And then I got there, supposed to meet at noon. This is the Facebook marketplace? Yeah, this is me in the parking lot.

McDonald's and he's saying I'm in a Ford and I'm an older guy and so I'm scanning. I'm scanning for Ford's everywhere scanning for Ford. Because I think of Ford is like young people cars. So he should have said, I'm in a Ford, but I'm an older. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, he did say that. He said I'm an older guy. Yeah.

And I've got this. It's a very important. No end. And so everybody that came in that in a Ford, I was like, this guy kind of looks kind of old. This is one of the worst Facebook marketplace moments. I know what you're talking about. Yeah, because I said to a guy, I was like, do you have a giant drag on the head? No, just a medium one.

Exactly. Are you an older guy? Excuse me, are you an older guy? Yeah, you see like you're kind of an older guy. And then, how do you describe yourself? Do you do that? No, I just, I'm sort of a younger guy. I'll be the guy there with $25.

Actually, it turned out that I only old him 20, but I gave him 25 and he immediately texted me. He'd been like, I charge you too much. She'd come back and I'm like, I'm not. You have to do you turn to get into this. Can you give five dollars to my friend Dave for the socks he had to buy? Extra socks. You just got to pay it forward. But yeah, the guy, uh, sweet, sweet old guy's name is Ron and him is always are.

He's 80, I don't know, yeah, 85 because he is an older guy. Yeah, because he said, yeah, my daughter right now is on vacation. She's 60. I was like, okay. Yeah. Sure. I mean, your daughter is old. You're old.

That's fine. That's fine. Give me the head. I'm not grossed out by that. How old is your daughter's kid? 40. Okay. That's more my style.

And so he was telling me that they, every year they do a big, you know, scene on their lawn for, they have 150, like she makes up, like, gift, bags with a bunch of different chocolate bars in it. They do 150 of those. Wow. He says we've got a pumpkin waiting pool kind of thing. It goes in there. And this Dracula is just not making the cut.

Yeah. He said it just doesn't fit with the theme anymore. He said, I've got a bunch of other stuff. He sent me a thing. He's got like a full-size cut out of Han Solo. I was like, I can't use that for anything. Well, maybe if I'm trying to prove to some robbers that I'm not home alone. Oh, sure.

Maybe he's getting a few wookies trying to get a few wookie kids to check the place out. I can see why that would be, you know, they'd at least try it, but it's not, it doesn't scream Halloween to me. And when he was telling you all this, where you're like, all right, got to go.

This fucking Evo won't start. I was very, uh, while I was waiting at this, this fucking thing closes on me again. I've got to call the same lady again. Um, but I got it. And, uh,

what's your credit card number? Um, it ends in, what, is it, and didn't. It's okay. Can you just hit the tap on my hand right here? Yeah.

Well, he's not... What that even meant? He didn't have tap. He had his only cash. And he said, be very careful with it. And I was like, yeah, no problem. And then I opened up the Evo and the door slammed on it immediately. I was like, oh, Ron's not still here.

I don't mind if it breaks. I just don't know. A run to see me destroy this. I mean, I love Oops. Oh shit. Sorry, Ron. I mean, yeah, it's always, you don't want to embarrass yourself in front of the people, the Facebook marketplace.

Because there are less than us. No, but I mean, you could be them. They're you, you know, like, you're supposed to have this very equal. Yeah. Equal, collegial kind of take. I've never really never had a particularly bad experience on Facebook marketplace, but you always hear about them. But that's because they're items, right?

That are the ones that bring out weirdness, which is like phones, laptops, probably, anything related to the brand supreme. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I've never bought anything more than $100. So I'm not like worried that I'm going to get. I bought a laptop on Facebook Marketplace. Oh, yeah.

Would you get a Lenovo think pad? Yeah, I got Asloos. Oh, I got an Azus. No, I got like a MacB. pro from 2015 from someone in like 2019 or 20. And four years later. I met up with them at Fairview Mall. Was this pre-pandemic?

Good question. I cannot. Everything's all scrambled time-wise. I can't even believe I've lived back in the city or back in the U.S. for like the U.S. In Canada, from the U.S. It's been like eight years. Oh, yeah.

And then I go, oh, God, I haven't done anything. And then I look, think about some of the things I've done. I'm like, well, that's stuff. Yeah. I'm not proud of this, but there's, A lot of things I did start a solo podcast. I shot a man in a Topico just to watch him die. I shot a wedding in Mississauga.

For $100. I really, really undersold myself. Yeah. But yeah, I do like, I bought, I bought a really, I bought a vintage Valentine's card for my girlfriend once. That was a really fun one. It was like a vintage Valentine's card that was movable, you know, where it had like a, you like, pull it. was kind of like a kick a horse kicking up its legs or something.

Love you, honey. Love you love you. Let's horse around. Let's horse around. Saddle up for ten more years. That's what it was. The clock is ticking. I've got Facebook Marketplace in Vancouver.

I've changed the location. I was checking it out. And one of my favorite ones that I saw was someone was selling a saddle. But the photo was the saddle on a golden retriever. so it's just this poor horse golden retriever just like smushed to the floor with like a saddle on it.

That's the number one comment they get. Someone wants to message me. I sold a shirt on Facebook Marketplace and this person I knew she like posed that they wore the shirt for a picture. Someone message me.

Does the girl come with the shirt? I'm just like, oh God, women. Yeah, I'm traveling. Women really have to deal with a lot of blood. They do. It's so crazy.

You know, like, ladies are attractive. Okay, good to meet you. Good to meet you. I'm glad you took the... Good chat. Thanks. Remember to rate and review.

Should we move on to some overheard? Yeah, let's do that. Hey, guess what? Sue the subway train. No, not that gross. I'm just trying to tell you I realized what Dr. Game Show is about. You know that part of any game show?

where you meet the contestants, and it's only a 30-second conversation. At our podcast, it turns into two hours of small talk with listeners from around the world. Also, the games we play are the ones that they submitted. We have to play them no matter what. Oh, and Alex is here to help keep the pod running. Hey, I'm here, too. Anyway, I like talking to silly billies and playing their weird games. Find it on maximum fun.org.

Dr. Game Show. Wonderful is a podcast where we talk about things we like. That's hard to sell in a promo like this, so we've enlisted the help of piano rock superstar Billy Joel to tell you about some of the topics we've covered. Take it away, real Billy Joel. Did he rocks, been on legs on, whirles and shy of circle time, Sega, dreamcast, he's a salad tower of annoy. Keep me up eight time capsules, wanes, world, cheese, bulls, Wallace Stevens, stonking on, fun size, almond joy. They didn't stop the podcast, except that's not true. They didn't.

Start the podcast. No, they actually did. That was an active bib. Listen to Wonderful every Wednesday on maximum fun.org or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks, real Billy Joel. No problem, Griffin. Overheard. Overheard's a segment where we hear things out in the world and then we report them right to you.

And we always like to start with the guest. Nick, do you have an overheard? Yes. I went back into my overheard. memory bank. Yeah. Computing. I was once on the subway.

And I overheard someone say, I clearly, I clearly opened a can of Pandora's box. Time to open a can of Pandora's box on your ass. Yeah, like a can of Pandora's box

would be the packaging. Yeah. For a box. The box would be in the can. And then, Whenever you think of that can, do you think of like a soup can when it's a can of a beer can? Or do you think of a peanut brittle snake can?

Yeah, like I think of that. That was the first thing I thought of was peanut brittle snake can. With a Pandora's box. I mean, if you want a can of Pandora's box, if you're going to list it on eBay, you're going to want to say it's brand new with tags. Open box. Yeah. BNWG. So open box, Pandora's box.

Dave, do you have an overheard? Not really. Very slim pickings this week, but I was on R slash Cineplex. Nice. Which is the subreddit for Canada's national movie theater chain. And you ever go to the VIP screenings with like the where they have the guy who serves you? Not recently. Boy, do I.

And it's going to factor into my overheard. Oh, really? In a big way. I don't, I've been once. And I don't. I feel too much pressure to spend extra money on like a Moscow mule. Yeah, and it's also like, now they figure it out a way to make you tip on concession. Yeah.

Yeah. Anyway, so I don't, I don't, I've only done that once. But this person says, Cineplex, please add gigantic, chewy chocolate chip cookies to your VIP dessert menu. I like to eat light while watching a movie and would really be happy if I could have a cookie alongside my hot coffee. Drink a coffee at a movie. Come on.

Yeah, that's, I've done it once or twice by accident, and I never felt good. Yeah, it's, that's soda country. Although we went and saw the Odyssey the other week. And, uh, was it the Odyssey? No, we saw Coyote versus Acme that this happened. And then for some reason, at the Cineplex, there was a like thing of free coffee, right outside of the Coyote versus Acme. Serve yourself?

Yeah. And was it like a track for Wiley Coyote? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sending you up. He's addicted to chaffeed. Yeah. And that's why he's so nerve. He's got the nerves.

Yeah, he's chasing after that guy that's so fast. Mm-hmm. Need a little energy boost. Meep. My, okay, I have one. It's all part of the same trip. I went to. How was it?

It was good. I went to Resident Evil. Is it good? Is it good? Is it, uh, zombie movie? No, it's... Good, because you're off zombie movies. I'm off zombie movies.

It kind of starts zombie-ish, but then it's more of a monster movie. Oh, okay. I know. And, uh... Oh, is it going to be on Ron's, uh, Halloween display? I don't know what he's cooking up this year. We got no room for Dracula anymore. Did you play the games at all?

Uh, no, we just, uh, so it's the place called the Amazing Brentwood, which is a redone mall that's like walking into some kind of thing in Disneyland, like in Orlando. movies there? Yeah. Huh. Where is it? It's in Burnaby.

It's in Burnaby. Okay. Because they're all the time. But it's this weird all kind of chain restaurants. Yeah. I've been, it's weird. It's like it's a mall, but like, even underground, there's stores even in the underground parking.

Yeah. And there's a lot of it's outside. You have to go from place to place. And the thing that I saw that we all thought was hilarious was there was a gym and the, people on the treadmill were just staring out into the ball. So it just looked like something from Black Mirror, like, this is what you have to do.

But when we were in, we were in the VIP thing, because all the theaters are VIP. You can get regular theaters. And I said something that somebody else overheard was, you know, has like a little table that folds out so that you can put your stuff on it. And I said, look at this. Just like a baby.

And the lady next to me laugh really hard. Because it is like, eating like a baby. It doesn't feel like... It is... I like the seats. I like the big recliners. The seats are nice. The woman next to me ordered a burger. And I was like smelling her burger. How long was the movie? Like two hours or so. Maybe short of that. Because when I saw the Irishman we did bring basically, you know, lunch. Brought lunch. Went to Mr. Sub. Yeah. Got yourself a cold cut combo. I'm sorry. I don't support the patriarchy.

We went to Mississa. Mizzub. Did you say you have another one? Well, you don't have to if you don't want it. I mean, if we're talking about overseen,

God, the amount of things I screenshot, just I could be here all day. I did like this overheard that I found that I'd written down before this. I don't know if it's going to like translate well, but it was just, I was on the subway and I overheard someone say,

I'm worried about this tattoo. The one you're getting or the one you're getting? Yeah. The one that my skin seems to be rejected. It looks a lot like Pete Hegseth's tattooed. And you're getting a lot of flack lately. So I might. Now, we also have overheard sent into us by people all over the world.

If you want to send one in, send it in to sb.Y at maximumafon.org. My wife and I went to a local farm to do a corn maze. On the same day, there was some event at the farm featuring local authors. Several of these authors had tables with their book on display. One of these authors appeared to be an erotic fantasy genre, with all their books featuring illustrations of scantily clad women. The only title I could see was Remy and the Sex Monsters. What event is this?

I don't know. It's just not even the erotic thing, just like, yeah, we had a bunch of writers signing books at our corn maze. Like, essentially, you get to the end of the maze, and it's like, you're a word. Yeah, the maze is actually just a really long line to meet, you know, Dave Barry. Yeah. If Barry would be on something like that. Father's son, the Holy Ghost, Dave Barry, Linwood Barkley, and who had the third one? Irma Bomba, Bomb Beck.

Back from the grave. Oh, she dead? She's someone who died. She probably is dead. Yeah. I mean, she was old. Wasn't her books like, I'm so old, but I got style. Weren't those her books?

Yeah, one of hers was called, if life is a bowl of cherries, how come I've got the pits? Right. That was. Kathy type of stuff. Yeah, it was Kathy. Kathy-esque. That was a Kathy app book. This next one comes from Krista M from Farmington, Minerickon.

I was attending my nephew's show choir competition where hundreds of high schools were visiting from neighboring states. It's a long day and a late night, so the outer towners stay at a local hotel, and I head home the next day. We were packed into the noisy auditorium waiting for the final awards to begin. When the teenage boy, to my right, turned to his friend, excitedly declared, we have four boxes of mac and cheese, four and like six ramen and popcorn, bro. We're going to eat so good tonight. I mean, those are all the dream things. Oh, I love craft dinner. Craft dinner.

Raman. Yeah. That's the, those are the, that's the, I mean, I want to say Holy Trinity, but there's just two of like, you get to your first time using the stove. Oh, yeah. As a young Canadian boy growing up, the idea that instant ramen could be eaten not in water. Mm-hmm. I would never have thought. Served as a crunchy snack.

My parents were giving me the Ishin and the Sapporo. Yeah, at Sapporo, yeah. I'm a Mr. Noodle family. Yeah. Mr. Noodle is Japanese for Mr. Sub. This last one is not an overheard, but a boring dream. This is from Bailey from Auburn, Alabama. I dreamed I was reading a historical fiction novel and realized one of the characters was based on a young Winston.

Churchill. So boring. Based on you're reading your dream. Oh, inane dreams are just, you wake up and you go like, have you ever had like really boring

dream? Oh, definitely. Yeah. I can't, I can't recall right now the exact things, but there's lots of ones where it's just like you get up and you're like, did that really happen?

It's so boring. Maybe it actually happened. Yeah. Just for, you know, It's like that Seinfeld where they're pitching the sitcom and talking about how it's about nothing. You eat, you go out, you read. You read? I'm looking for a Mr. Sub thing.

This is a very random fact about Mr. Sub. Okay. Now, do you have the Wikipedia app on that thing? No, I should have because it took me longer than I was. Before, like, when I first got my iPhone, whatever, in 2009, there was no Wikipedia app. You had to use Wicapanian. Oh, I loved that when there was, like, so many just third-party things for, because. Oh, yeah, words with friends that somehow got around the copyright.

The first Mr. Sub opened in 1968 in the Yorkville neighborhood. So, like, all these hippies were, would be, think. It was a counter-culture statement. Yeah. At the Yorkville, Mr. Sun. Tared a dream. Yeah. I mean, that's incredible.

And then they- Ian and Sylvia sang over a footlong meatball. One in Dubai. Really? So you're just like at a mall in Dubai going like, oh, I don't feel like going luxurious today. Yeah. Let's slum and get ourselves a Mr. Sub. I bet it's like a $600 Mr. Sub.

So when I was talking about how like their attempted marketing have just seemed so subpar. Nice. Pun intended. Yeah. Well done. Well done. honestly, it feels like it may be snuck up on you. It did.

It was like a bit of IBS, IPS. IBS. IPS. Irritable pun syndrome. Irritating pun syndrome. One of their slogans was, oh, Canada, oh, Mr. Sub, exclamation. That's good.

That is good. We wanted to highlight the personality of our Canadian company. Oh, Canada. Oh, Mr. Suf. That's how they explained it. The following slogans in chronological order have been used by Mr. Sub. The first one being the worst one.

Love my sub. Oh, love my sub. Fresh. Fresh thinking is what we are. Press thinking is what we are. Taste the Canadian tradition. Because normally you can't. No, that's right.

You have to go smokes, usually, to taste a Canadian tradition. It's not a sandwich. It's a sub. There's always something good going down at Mr. Sub. Oh, shit. I like that because it makes you think about how your, you know, digestion is a temporary process. Yeah. Yeah, that's going further and further down.

The business's current slogan is, take a guess, guys. Legend Deli. Legendelli. Marble Rye double stuff? I guess they haven't updated the wiki because clearly Legendelli is on the website. Well, that's a limited time only. Okay. Legendelli.

What is it? What's the current one? Yours since 1968. Oh, that's nice. Yeah. Well, in addition to overheards that are written in, we also accept your phone calls and voice memos. Send us a voice memo. SPI at maximum fun.org.

Or leave us a voicemail at 1.844-779-7631. That's one. Ugh. SpyPod 1. Like, these people have. Hey, Dave Graham and guest. This is Zach from Minneapolis, calling in with a boring dream. Yes.

So I'm just grocery shopping, and I see a giant pack of batteries. And I pick it up, throw it in the cart, and I head over, ready to check out, unload the cart. And as I pick it up and look at it, I just think, shoot, I better check if I have any batteries at home before I buy this giant pack. and I give it back to the cashier and that's it. That's the end of the dream. I should see if I got batteries at home. Oh, you know,

and even if you do, just buy those batteries. Yeah, you're going to need them eventually. Yeah. The perfect dream doesn't exist. Wait. All right. Here's your next one.

Hey, Dave, Graham and guest. This is Shane from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It's about 9 p.m. I just went down to a target because I needed some medicine. And I walked past this mom with two little kids, like a 6-year-old and an 8-year-old. And the little boy, he's holding a package of air fresheners, like for your house. And he goes, ah, hey, mom, pine. Now that's what I'm talking about.

Oh, freaking way. All right, Bub, boy, bye. That's a great moment. That's what I'm talking about. Man, that's what I'm talking about. Mom, can we buy these? Yeah, I think I was pretty obsessed with air fresheners when I was a youth, just smelling everything, you know?

But there was mostly only, like, pine. Yeah. It weren't a lot of, you know, maybe bubble gum or something like that on a rare one. Yeah. Candles weren't really a thing. No. Not for kids. Well, but like being encouraged.

And, like, my parents had candles, but they were like to, eat dinner at the table. In your in your, on, your, your, your, your,

your, your, your, like a special occasion. Yeah. Count Dracula style. Yeah. Yeah.

Halloween. Uh, but yeah, no smell, like, I also remember, like, the ones hanging down from,

uh, oh, that's the one I'm thinking of, rear of remire, but my parents never had, like, I would be like, we got to get those.

We, I want fuzzy dice. Yes. I had those, too. And fuzzy dice, and I also had, you had,

your parents, No, when I got a car. Oh, I guess, yeah, yeah. Like one of those little cars for baby? Yeah, a little tight, like, you know. Those things can all ask you guys. You're going to, you got a toy's or us. And if you're a me, you'd go, how could any child, that is the richest child's toy?

I mean, well, there's the ones that are, you just kick along. And then there's the power wheel. Yeah, the power wheels. That I can't imagine. Yeah. That person's going to have a lot of friends that are just friends to get in that. And yet the irony is like so many of. the children who probably drove those

and so had really early driving experiences, DUIs later. Yeah. Often with fatalities. They've done no jail time. They've done studies. No jail. Most of the time. The straight line from power wheels to DUIs. And your final phone call.

Hi, Dave and Graham and guest. This is Steve from Pennsylvania. I don't know if this works this way in Canada, but in the U.S., if you go see a movie in an AMC, you will see a 20-30-second clip of Nicole Kidman talking about how great movie theaters are and how proud she is of all of us coming back to see movie theaters or seeing movies and theaters after COVID.

They're still playing it for some reason, but it's become kind of a meme. But I just went and saw a movie this afternoon with my friends. and the Nicole Kidman thing came on and a guy in a row stood up, placed his hand over his heart like it was the national handbook held it there the entire time

until the Nicole Kidman bit was over and then sat back in his seat no fucking way I mean shake up your hat she's worth yeah I mean she deserved that They did Tom Holland, like, he was before Spider-Man. He's like, I know this is a character all you guys love,

and we really put a lot of hard work into this. You already got our money, Tom. Yeah. That's weird. I went to Thailand, and we went to, it was like the first time seeing a movie in those, like, recliner seats. And before the movie, they play the national anthem, and you have to stand up.

Oh, really? And then you watch it, and then you sit back down, and you watch the transporter two. You know what's weird is I actually think I really think I, read that in a Wikipedia about Thailand. And they show a video of their king and queen. Yeah. Wow. But you don't have, I think you're not fully expected to stand up.

Well, if everyone else does. Yeah, you don't want to be the one person sitting. It's very interesting when you go, because Thailand, I was there, it was in a commercial that shot in Thailand, and like, I thought they were just, it was just the nicest people I'd ever met in my life. In Thailand? Oh, yeah, they were so kind. What was a commercial for?

It was a Dell commercial for the Dell tablet. Oh, yeah, that's one of the good tablet. Is that a good tablet? No, I don't know. I didn't get one, but it was with me and this guy, Andrew Rodriguez, who's a Canadian musician, and they wanted to get, like, rocker types. And they also, it was non-union, so they filmed it, like, in, and they wanted big set pieces. So they filmed it in Cape Town, South Africa, and Bangkok. Oh, wow.

Because they had a scene. So weird, they're like, well, we can save. all this money by getting around the union, but also fly everyone around the world. Well, I think they were like, if it's going to be an expensive ad, let's get like, but I also made more money even as a non-union person than I had from, well, I guess than I have from union projects since. Yeah, fair enough.

But it was really strange because they didn't even film in Cape Town to get Cape Town. They were pretending to be Manhattan. So like the cost of doing an outdoor, like, traffic jam scene in Cape Town versus the cost. of doing that in even Toronto pretending to be Manhattan was, you know, so much so they could go to Cape Town where we have our armed guards. I thought Metropolis was Cape Town.

Anyway. Thanks, everyone. I thought you meant the movie first. It was like the Fritz-Ling. Yeah. Nick, this brings us to the end of this year episode. You've got a new album about called Mortal Comedy. You get it on

Band Camp. Yeah, and I think it's streaming a bit, but if you go on bandcamp and buy it. I would love it. Yeah, yeah. And where it's streaming a bit? I don't know. I don't think it's on Spotify. It's not on Spotify. I'm kind of cool with that. It's on YouTube music.

Okay. And I'll see if I can get it up elsewhere. I don't know. I tried, I did it all myself. So sometimes you try to plug in all that stuff. Just listen to the album. Nixagan.com.com. And then two of my other records on there and my LP, it's on LP as well. Cool. Yeah, vinyl.

Which you gave me a copy of And I can't wait to go home and listen Very proud of the record Yeah At the Monarch Tavern Taped Taped No film live to tape

Well thank you so much for being our guest Thank you And thank you everybody out there for listening If you're going to buy anything off A Facebook marketplace Make sure you'd be it in some kind of parking lot Be at McDonald's Valley Village Or

you know mall parking lot Up to you And come on back to Xx for another episode Or Stop Park as of yourself Maximum Fun A worker-owned network Of artist-owned shows Supported directly

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