The Flop House - FH Mini 147 - Mental Health Day

Episode Date: March 7, 2026

The world is, how do you say, "un feu de poubelle." So Dan took this mini as a chance to do a little check-in with his pals. How's everyone doing? Subscribe to our NEWSLETTER, “Flop Secrets! It’s the best way to keep up on all things Flop House!

Hey everyone, welcome to the Flop House. I'm Dan McCoy. I'm Stuart Wellington. Ellie, Kailen, not quite ready for how goofy that Stuart Wellington name is. Oh, yuk. Of course. Ooh, hoo. This, of course, is the Flop House podcast. It sure is.

Every other week, we, of course, I don't know why I keep saying, of course. As if you all know, I mean, probably. Probably you do. you do if you're listening. We watch a bad movie, then we talk about it. But then in the alternate weeks, we have what we call the flop house mini,

which is a more freestyle thing, led by one of us. And there's an alternate universe where we host the Glop House where we're just glorifying the interstellar conqueror Glop who has taken control of Earth and we are just trying to stay on his good side

so you don't get put into the fluoroglizer. Of course, the worst punishment of all. Yeah. Uh-huh. How are you aware of what's going on in this alternate universe? Do you... Oh, I have a pen pal there. Okay.

I don't know. I'm part of the cult that believes that being put inside the floor. Pfizer is the ultimate form of worship of glor, but that's me. Yeah, that's very popular. It's not how any of that is pronounced, but you did a great... But it's true that the perspective does exist, yeah. Hey, so this is my many. The thing I just made up, that's not how...

That's not the correct way of saying it, but... This is my many, and, uh, this is my many. I'm... I'll just roll right into it. I'll say this. Dan, don't be apologetic about the many we haven't even heard yet. Yeah.

Well, maybe when you hear it. Things have been pretty bad in the world recently. Like, maybe when you hear it, there's a lot of shit on it, a lot of shitty movies. What about shit in movies? Let's talk about defecate in on screen. Dan, this is not a good idea. Anyway, you're saying, continue.

Let's get fecal with it. No. things have been pretty bad. In this game entitled Girls on Filth, and then you play the Duran Duran song, Girls on Film, but you've added the word filth. Just go golf. Things have been pretty bad in the world lately.

I don't think I'm breaking new ground and pointing this out. So I wanted to take this many to do a little mental health check-in with my friends. Now, before we start, I do want to say... Dangerous thing to suggest. I do want to say that while I'm being a little silly by making this the premise of our mini and I hope that we will have some laughs like we always do. I'm in no way making fun of the idea of a mental health check-in

or anyone struggling. I take middle health seriously. I hope that you're hearing us talk will be helpful and make people feel less alone. And if anyone, of course, is really wrestling with sadness about the world, reach out to loved ones. But just because I think it's easily misunderstood that I'm taking this lightly.

But I'm not trying to do that. I've got a few questions here. And while there will be some comedy, I hope there'll be truth. It'll be nice to go through them together. I found these 10 suggested check-in questions online at Mental Health America. And so, number one... Wait, Dan, I just want to double check.

I suddenly surged with hope. These are check-in questions, or could they be chicken questions? Because I'd love to answer me. It makes them into a chicken question. I think that one of them probably might involve chicken. I don't know. Oh, that sounds great. What is Camilla?

I know this one. I know this one. No, the first question is, how are you feeling today? The queen consort of England, I think. Yeah, she's, right? And Gonzo's the other is the king consort, right? Something like that. I'm king consort.

I'm going to rampage through New York Or we could talk about the promise consort Rodon of course But we'll talk about him Rodan? Don't even know what that Yeah, Rodan, I'm familiar with both the sculptor And the monster, yeah

Question number one What might have been the same But how did he sculpt with those little claws on his wings? That's why he's so good Yeah I've told the story before right about When I was a kid I loved that movie Rodan and the one time

I wanted my parents to get it for me from the video store as they usually did and it was not in stock and so my dad brought me back instead Condor Man the movie about the guy

who was trying to be a superhero because he's like well it's about a flying thing and it did not scratch the same it as Rodan how did you like Rodan to perdition I thought it was a little too grim

a little too gray and a little bit of bright colors you know there were very few very few characters that were eaten by giant bugs So, you know, that was a problem. Yeah.

But that Conrad Hall cinematography, Muwa. Oh, beautiful. Oh, yeah. Question. Number one. Captain Cook. And I'll jump.

We're, uh, I'll jump in on some of these. Well, how are you feeling today, really? Physically and mentally. How are you feeling today, really? Um, well, uh, physically, I twisted my ankle two days ago, walking, uh, stepping in a pothole because I couldn't, uh, go directly to the street when I parked because there was a wall of snow and that I was on my way to the gym already and I was doing an upper body day so I'm like, I'm just going to do it anyway. But then I could feel the adrenaline

wearing off and my ankle started to swell in my high top. So I'm like, fuck this. And since it's my birthday month, I've been like working out a little bit more than normal because, you know, I'm trying to find. Yeah, I'm trying to find some way to stem the inevitable oncoming tide of time. And, um, and, um, I'm trying to find, And so let's see. So that makes me... So I've had to skip some of my workouts this weekend, but I should be okay.

It's starting to feel better. I took it easy. I listen to my body. But I don't know. So I'm feeling a little depressed. Probably a little more than normal. Also, yesterday was Valentine's Day, and I feel like that kind of...

Those holidays, I find always a little bit depressing. I think I associate them with a feeling that I should have, with a lot of big holidays. I feel like I've been sold a feeling. feeling that I should experience or aspire to that I don't quite reach and I feel the holiday is somewhat alienating. Elliot. Doing good. Can't complain. Okay.

No, just kidding. I have my ups and downs. Yeah. But this weekend, when we're recording this, I happen to be in a better place than I have been at other times. So, yeah, so it could be worse. I mean, my job requires me to sit in front of a computer for long periods of time, and so I can feel my body turning into into like an amorphous blob.

But at the same time, my younger son is forcing me to get on the trampoline with him a lot. And so that's been giving me some activity. So that's good. Yeah, you should start doing some like tramp tricks. Well, I do tramp tricks. I trick tramps. Like hobos will come by.

Oh, tone. I'll give you a pie if you paint my fence. And then when they come to get the pie, I'll just lock the door and I say, sorry, thanks for painting my fence. Yeah. Yeah. But you give them a lot.

You give them. a book of stamps and you're like, here, here's some tramp stamps. You go, ha, ha, ha, that's my little joke. And then you close the door. Then I close the door. And so they'll write, me and man lives here on the post,

but it's just a chalk. You can erase that. Yeah, it's hobo code. Yeah. The Ho-Bro code. Actually, it's the Ho-Bro code, which is like the hobo code went for bros, you know.

So it's like Monster Energy drink available here. Yeah. But, you know, you got, you got to, you know, you got to, you know, and me, My physical and mental, I think, are tied in together. I woke up very tired today and just had a hard time getting going. And I was not for that reason looking forward to doing the podcast just because it was a thing to do.

I was in the mood where like, I don't want to do a thing. But now, as always, once I see you guys, it cheers me up. You know, I'm doing okay. on Friday I had to go out to do a bunch of like I had to go to a doctor's appointment I had to go right I had to meet someone and like just being out in the world filled me with rage like in a senseless way where I was just like mad at people that you know we're just living their lives. Dan you're going to make such a great elderly shut in someday. Yeah. It's just going to feel so natural. It's going to feel so good.

Yeah. Hey number two. What's taking up most of your head space right now? work on my part and I feel conflicted by that because I am very busy with work and I'm been working a lot of late nights and it means that I often have to figure out how to balance time with my family with time trying to get the work I have done. But at the same time, I feel guilty about feeling unhappy about that because so many of my friends and colleagues are out of work right now. And it certainly feels churlish to complain about having something that provides a regular income when, so many people I know are not fortunate enough to be in that situation. So I have the worst of both worlds, which is the stress of one thing and the guilt of having that stress. But I'm trying to be less emotionally connected to my work in some ways. And I think that's been helping me somewhat.

But it still takes up far more of my mental space than I'd like it to be. And then the rest is just assorted family things, fear of the world that we live in, that kind of stuff. You know, dread. And not the cool dread who's judge jury and executioner, like the bad dread. He is pretty cool. The bad dread, which I guess would be Judge Death. Yeah, Judge Death, yeah. Not Judge Doom, though, he's cool.

Oh, no, he's great. Yeah, he's finally... Because, you know, he's finally getting rid of those damn tunes so we can build that freeway. I hate to tell you guys... Well, you take the streetcar for a nickel. I hate to tell you guys, he's also a tune. Wait, what?

I know, it's crazy, right? No, no, but he's one of the good ones. I thought he just had an eye infection. Yeah, turns his eyes into daggers. So... That represents the sharp pain of the infection, yeah. Yeah, so what's been taking up most of my headspace? Just Warhammer stuff.

I'm like, which guy's the best battler guy? No, I would say one of the things is one of the things as a small business owner. I don't really have... No, you're a business owner of normal size. You're not a small man. Oh, thank you. Well, I've been trying to trim down L.A. my birthday.

No, but running a couple of businesses, I don't have a boss, and I very rarely have, while I have a lot of things scheduled, I rarely have like long periods of time. I don't usually work shifts places, so I'm usually not required to be in a space for a very, you know, from one time to another time. So I have a lot of different things in my calendar that can all be shifted around, but they all still need to be done. and it takes a weird amount of time to keep all those balls in the air

and to keep all those things in the forefront of my head and I should be using a scheduling thing more often but I find that that is a habit that I'm not very good at maintaining even though I've done it consistently in the past just not kind of since I've had a much more loose life schedule so I find that a lot of my time is spent coordinating and also doing a lot of maintenance and support for my wife who has been working extra hard

since she has an even newer, more complicated business to run with Jiggle Studio, her gym, which is a completely new business for her, and it is requiring more energy in different ways than we were expecting because we are coming from a background of running bars. You know, you talk about the difficulty sometimes of being your own boss. It's like some of that goes into what's occupying my headspace. Because look, I've had a boss and I've had no boss. And, you know, overall, I do think I would prefer no boss.

But there's a beauty in having a boss who tells you what your priorities are, especially as someone who has a hard time organizing his priorities. and one thing that was occupying my headspace a lot was writing this comedy script I was trying to write and in the absence of a boss I actually asked Elliot to be my fake boss and to sign me a deadline which I did and you met it just barely.

It was a psychological process to trick myself into doing a thing I wanted to do and now that that's out of my head I actually signed up for this flash screenwriting competition where like you get not to make the next flash movie Ellie I can see the idea of formulating in your brain no it's like

you get like a week to write the first script and it's like a 10 page it's like for a short you know based on some randomized suggestions and then if you you know are in the finalists or whatever you go on to do scripts in a couple of shorter different spans of time

and it's just a thing like I don't think anything will come of it like career-wise. It's a thing that Audrey saw that I signed up for for like a challenge, just a thing to like work a different muscle. Yeah. So that's what's going to come up. But right now I'm just here with you guys. I'm present, man.

Yeah. Oh, that's nice. That's real nice. I'm all about working muscles. Now your cat muscles? Is that what you're? Yeah, my cat muscles. I like working him.

He doesn't, he doesn't always get a lot. long and he doesn't take direction very well. Now, to call back, here's where chicken may enter the chat. Oh. The question is, what was your last full meal? Buck, Buck, Buck, Buck, Buck. Oh, chicken has entered the chat. What was your last full meal and have you been drinking enough water?

I'm sure I have not been drinking enough water. I know this because I recently experienced a very painful kidney stone that I did not enjoy at all. I don't. Oh, I usually hear they're like super fun. This one in particular. Usually they're pretty great. It's like a little roller coaster ride. This is what I give zero stars to.

So I need to drink more water. I've been trying to, but not enough. I can tell from the dryness of my lips as I speak that I have not had enough water today. My last full meal, though, we're reporting this the day after Valentine's Day. And of course, my wife cooked one of our, my favorite thing for her to make, which is a roast chicken. And so that was my last four was roast chicken. She does the best. My wife makes, she cooks.

She roast the best chicken that ever existed. and Camille is pointing to herself on the television right now because the chicken was mentioned. Yeah. And that's great. That was the perfect thing exactly what I wanted. Exactly how she, one of the ways that she shows her love for me

is by taking a chicken's corpse and just, and it's subjecting it to intense heat. Grizzly love language. Yeah, exactly. Stuart, what was your last meal and have you been having enough water? I think I drink enough water. I do drink a lot of water. I probably drink too much coffee, but that's something else entirely.

I, let's see. I mean, we're recording this at like we started at noon, so my last full meal was breakfast. I had what I always have, what I make every day for myself, which is a big old mess of scrambled eggs with hot sauce, toast, sliced pineapple, and coffee with oat milk. Now unless I'm getting my Unless I'm getting my guesses wrong

Those eggs Probably came from a chicken, am I right? That's true Probably Probably Yeah, he wasn't having quail's eggs this morning No, you didn't go out to Some platypus eggs

And roast them up, yeah Scrammed them up Yeah I wonder what those taste like Platapus eggs I don't know, I don't know They're pretty small I don't know that there's a lot in them

Let's find I'm gonna look it up Well you talk Dan I'm gonna look up platypus egg taste. Taste good question mark? I had... They're described as having an oily, slightly salty taste,

reminiscent of a mix between red herring and wild duck. Oh, okay, couldn't be. Essentially, okay. Turned it around at the end there. Ooh, they always contain an embryo. Oh, okay. That's a deal breaker, I think. No, I'm down. I'll try it. I had some leftovers of this sort of a

Middle Eastern spice lentil sort of mush that got put into some petas and fried it's more tasty than it sounds and asked to the water question my doctor actually told me that some of the small things that had been bothering me

might be just dehydration, electrolyte imbalance and so I've just started getting some low sodium electrolyte powder that I'm drinking with water I hope that might... Why don't you just drink a bunch of Gatorade?

I think the answer to your question is embedded in the question. Here's a question. In fact, it's question number four. How have you been sleeping? How have you been sleeping? I'm guessing L.A. doesn't sleep at all. I don't sleep as much as I would like. I don't sleep great.

My children have a habit of... I live in a house of people who don't sleep well, and my children have a habit of getting up in the middle of the night just to tell us they're not sleeping well, and there's nothing we can do about it. But it does wake us up, so there's that. I usually get not enough sleep, and the sleep quality is not great.

So I am constantly living on the edge of exhaustion, which is not wonderful, which is not a great way to live. So I would call that. I'll agree with you. I would say the only thing that really is making, Dan, is it time for me to segue into the ad for this mini? Not, well, I mean, you can, I guess, if you want to,

but we haven't fully answered this question as I go around. finish it and then because the ad is sleep related and it is the one it is the one saving grace of my sleep we'll get to that yeah uh stuart what have you been sleeping uh i've been sleeping okay i uh pretty regularly have a uh low dosage uh weed gummy before bed or a weed chocolate uh and that helps me kind of drift off um and i guess the it also helps that my wife has recently started uh muting her phone turning notifications off or whatever, which is great. She has it set on Do Not Disturb so that like if somebody calls twice, it'll actually go off. But otherwise it won't go off. And all of our staff know to call twice. Because she was getting like our, the bar staff group chats would be like somebody would find a fucking butt plug or something. And then everybody would be making jokes about the butt plug they found.

and then that would just keep us up all night because she'd stick the phone under her pillow because she's like listening to her book on tape while she drifts off to sleep so the phone's right there. So it's like going bonkers and waking me up. And then the other thing is I've been getting stricter about locking my cat muscles out of the bedroom

because starting at like 6 a.m., he climbs on my chest and he hammers his face into my chin and he meows until I get up to feed him. And then at 8 o'clock, and then after he's done, done eating, he'll do it again because I'm in the bed and he wants me to get out of the bed so he can be in the bed. And it's just a real mess. Yeah. I was having a really, really bad sleep for a while.

But part, like I was getting these muscle aches from joint stress. But as I've had more yoga, you know, stretching and building muscle at the same time. And as I've dropped a few pounds recently, it's my sleep's been getting better. Although my, my sleep window is shifting to old person window, like going to bed earlier and then being awake, you know, often as early as 5.30. That's crazy. You know, sometimes I'm, you know, I usually make it to like seven. But like I have taken to sort of enjoying being up and awake before the house is up and awake.

I mean, it's just Audrey and the cat. but I get that time then to like go out and read for a while, which starts my day off on a more peaceful note than otherwise, especially because I've like made it as hard as possible to read any social media because if I see anything online these days, it ruins my whole day. Yeah, first thing I do when I wake up in addition to stretching, and I usually get up before Charlene does. I'll get up and I'll stretch and drink my green juice,

and I'll do the New York Times crossword for the day, and then I'll share my score with the podcaster Puzz Club group chat that we got going for the podcast nerds who are also doing the New York Times crossword. I am not the fastest in that group. But as Elliot teased before, let's take a brief ad break because one of the things that helps my mental health is knowing that I can pay my bills. So, Elliot, I believe we have a sponsor.

We do have a sponsor. And I should mention, I mentioned that I have some sleep issues. My kids have trouble sleeping through the night off and awake me. up and I don't get enough sleep just because I don't go to bed early enough, you know, and I have to wake up early in the morning. But one thing that is not getting in the way of my sleep is my mattress. Why? Because I've got a Lisa mattress. That's right. I think I've told a little bit of the story of the Lisa mattress that we had before. It was brought. My kids both wanted on their beds, and I said, no, eventually, no, I'm going to use it. And I'll tell you what, it's a great

mattress. And if I had the hours to actually sleep out the way I should, I would be sleeping in sleepful bliss like floating on a cloud. Because sleeping on a Lisa mattress, it's like you're sleeping on a mattress that was designed exactly for you. It moves the way I move. It's like I have my own Yeager partner or whatever they're called in the Pacific Rim. That's what they call them. Yeah, it's like the mattress and I are merging and melting in a way that is not gross and Kronenbergi, but instead really comfortable and really relaxing to sleep. Lisa is just a good mattress. It has a lineup of beautifully crafted mattresses tailored to how you sleep.

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and I mean that not in the way of physically like it's too solid. What I mean is that solid in terms of like high quality, high class, good mattress. go to Lisa.com, that's L-E-E-E-S-A-D-com, for 20% off, plus get an extra $50 off with promo code flop. That's exclusive for our listeners. If you don't listen to our podcast, you do not get that promo code. It's just not going to happen. That's L-E-E-E-S-A-com promo code flop for 20% off, plus an extra $50 off.

Support our show. Let the know we sent you after checkout, Lisa.com, promo code flop. And I'll just tell you again, genuinely, it's a really good mattress. It's just like they are paying us to put this ad on, but it is a good mattress. I'm very happy with it. Hi there. Sorry to interrupt your podcast listening time. I know you're doing the dishes right now.

That's okay. I don't worry about it. You might not know me, but I'm Brenda, and I'm here to tell you about the podcast I host with my good friend Austin. It's called Secret Histories of Nerd Mysteries and we cover all kinds of pop culture topics. Like, did you know that there was a real-life replica of the Simpsons House in Las Vegas, Nevada? Or that Flint, Michigan was once home to an indoor amusement park themed around the automobile. If those things sound interesting, you should definitely check us out every Tuesday on maximum fun or wherever you get podcasts. Goodbye.

You can get back to your dishes now. It's fine. The wizard's answer eight by eight. The cornclaves call to demonstrate their arcane gift, their single spell. They number 64. until a conflagration. 63 and 62 they soon shall be. As one by one the wizards die till one remains to rain on high.

Join us for Taz Royale, an oops-all wizard's battle royale season of the Adventure Zone every other Thursday on maximum fun.org or wherever you get your podcast. Now, back to the questions. Question five. This is a... Stuart will enjoy this.

Uh-oh. What have you been doing for exercise? Who's the strongest Warhammer Battler? No, that's a complicated question. It's probably a rebutte Gullimon. Robert Guillem. I never know, when you're answering Warhammer stuff, I never know if you're just making it up off the top of your head or if it's real stuff.

It might be Angron. No, the question is, what have you been doing for exercise? Oh. In my case, unfortunately, very little. Again, like I said, I have very little time to do it. So if I, if there's a day where I can walk around the block twice, that's a solid day. And lately my, like I said, my younger son has been making me go on the trampoline with him. That's been better for me, but I really need to get more exercise in. I bought a stationary bicycle. I was using that for a while. Then one of the pedals fell off and I have not been able to reattach it properly. And so that it really got in the way of my using it regularly. So I'm either going to have to cut off one of my own legs to make it easier or find something else to do. Stuart, you seem like a guy who works out. What do you do? Oh, yeah, I do sometimes. So for exercise, I obviously stretch for at least 30 minutes every morning.

And four days a week. 30 minutes of stretching? Yeah. It's a lot of stretching. Oh. Okay. I mean, you should be doing that too. And I do, I go to the gym and do weight training four days a week.

I do a upper lower split. So two days a week, I'm doing upper push pole, upper body exercises. The other two days I do lower body with some like compound core strengthening stuff. And then I also try up until my recent ankle injury, I was doing 30 minutes a day on the treadmill as well. Which also doubles is a good time for me to watch some TV because we have a treadmill in the bedroom and I can get through my stories while. on the treadmill. And you know what went well with treadmill time? Heeded rivalry.

Very propulsive. And, you know, I mentioned yoga. I do that twice a week for an hour. But I also just recently bought, I realized I needed some cardio exercise. And I bought these ropedless jump rope things. Jump rope's fucking brutal. Well, like, I, you know, I was,

I'm very easily influenced when it kind of to things that might improve my life but would require me to have a lot of self-discipline, so we'll see if I keep at it. But, like, I think I read some article about how good jump roping was for you. But, you know, like, I live here in New York. Like, there's not room, like, within my house to jump rope, really,

without hitting something. And if I went outside right now, I'd fall down on the ice. So what I got were these ropless jump ropes that looked like basically a morning. Star, like a Nerf Morning Star without spikes on it. Pretty cool. Like, there's one for each hand. Because the ball at the end of like the like short cord is to give it weight so it will like

swivel around in your hand like a jump rope. And so you use it like a jump rope, but you're not jumping anything. You're sort of just imagining where the rope would be. Yeah. As it swings around. I guess that makes like double Dutch pretty easy. Yeah. I mean, it's all pretty easy.

I did not fall over the rope once. You'd be proud of me. The fact that there's no rope only slightly decreases being impressed at that. Years ago, I borrowed a jump rope from a friend, and I was doing it in my kitchen because I had high ceilings. This was a much different apartment. But it also helped that I was on the ground floor, so I wasn't annoying the shit out of the person below me.

Yeah, I specifically was like, okay, where can I do this where I am going to be quiet and I leap with the smallest amount of thumping. but anyway. So question six, what did you do today that made you feel good? I've recorded this podcast with you guys. Oh, fuck you stole mine, you bitch.

Wow. In the game of friendship, I just won. Can I, I'm actually, I'm going to cheat slightly because I'm going to do, so on Friday, I was having a rough day. I, you know, I twisted my ankle and that kind of made me reevaluate what I was going to be spending my weekend doing.

And I had to spend a lot of my time like icing it or seated or keeping it elevated. And I did do my hobby stream, which was nice. But the thing that I had to make a point to not only take a shower layer that day, but also to, you know, like make sure I shave, do a full skin care routine, put on a mud, blood mask, do all the things that are self-care elements that I know, I don't know about you guys, but when I'm feeling down, it's really easy to fall into a state of disrepaired so that your exterior matches, your interior,

and you're like scruffy and look like shit. And I'm like, how can I, if I show myself the same level of care, maybe that will brighten my spirits a little bit. I think it helped a little. I guess that, I guess I have that. I don't do it to the same extent. For me, it's like, you know, during lockdown, I showered and I put on actual clothes rather than, you know,

wandering around the house in my bed clothes because I knew that would make me feel better. Whereas what made Audrey feel better is like, cool, a chance to wander around my house and my bed clothes all the time. So, you know, everyone in life is different. What did I do, you know, I feel. like between ADHD and having a lot of internal shame, I often feel like if I'm not getting all of the things I could do in a day done that might be helpful or like feel like work or chores or you know something that's, if I don't get to it all, I feel bad about myself for reasons that are entirely self-imposed. So this morning what I did for myself was I was, I was, I

was tired and I'm like, hey, you know what? Like, nothing I have to do before taping is particularly important. I don't have to get to it right now. What I feel like is sitting around. So I did that instead. How do you feel about that, Elliot? Dan got to sit around. I mean, I certainly have been, I've been trying to do that more myself, to be honest.

Like, my go-to feeling in my head, if I have any moment where I'm not actively doing something, is to be like, well, what work can I be getting done right now? Yeah. And every now and then, I go, like, no, maybe I'll just read a, couple pages of a book. That'll be good. I mean, I don't do what Dan does was just literally just sit and stare into space, drool falling out of my mouth. I mean, sit around was like

just kind of a, like a general blanket term for... You're right, I'm sorry, but Dan, it's more like, what Italian exploitation film can I watch right now? Here's a question. What's something you could do today that would be good for you? Stopping these guys.

Yeah, I don't know. Stump Central. I mean, I'll say, I'll give you a little time and say that like, keep thinking like, oh, I should get back to one of these books I'm reading because I've taken, you know, I've returned to reading in a big way after like, I think lockdown kind of screwed my head for a while and I couldn't concentrate on it. And now I've been tearing through the books. And it's making me feel better to have like a single thing to concentrate on rather than being distracted by all the millions of things in life. I actually found that I started

reading more when I accepted that I needed reading classes because I was like not enjoying reading because it hurt or I like had trouble focusing on the words. I'm like maybe it's just too dark in here or something and then I realize oh no I need reading classes.

I feel like in a what I would like to do is get do a little bit of shoveling in the backyard of the bar because it's finally snow's finally starting to melt and on Friday somebody had just,

the back door of the bar had been kind of like frozen shut. There was like a big block of snow and ice that had kind of formed there. And some guy just kind of shoved the door open, which knocked the closing device loose. And I feel like it's kind of treacherous back there and it will make me feel better to know that it's less treacherous. A big part of owning a bar is knowing that you have a thing that people are going to be inside and getting drunk in

and that at any one time somebody could do something could do the dumbest possible thing and you would have to worry about it and that's a so there's always this like low-level stress simmering I think I should take a walk today yeah do it yeah let's do it we'll see if I get to it you know give it a shot and I'm walking in Memphis no no you live in LA yeah yeah but I can walk in

Memphis if I needed to. You're saying I can't? What, I'm not good enough to walk in Memphis? You should get one of those VR headsets so you can go walking in Memphis. Finally. Why did you create this realistic VR? What was your impetus? I really want to go walking in Memphis.

I believe, Stuart, could you say it the right way? And I'm walking at Memphis. What's something you're looking forward to in the next few days? You guys got to have something. Come on. Yeah, I do. I'm going to forward to the next few days. You guys are making me sad. No, no, no, I got this.

What's going on in life? On Thursday night, I think I'm going to a screening of American Cyborg Steel Warrior at the Ridiculous Sublime. I haven't gotten a ticket, but there were plenty of tickets left. Okay, cool. Because, like, that was actually one of the two things I was going to mention, that there's a new Ridiculous Sublime, the series that we've talked about a lot here that happened. at Nighthawk, and yeah, it's always a good time. Yep.

Doing that on Thursday, going out to dinner with Audrey on Wednesday. That's what I got on the calendar. I'm going to go on where, next weekend, I'm going out with my wife to the theater and to dinner. So, yeah, to a legitimate theater. Not to a movie. Oh, wow. Not the burlicue.

Burlesque. Oh, yeah, we're going to the burlesque, yeah, no. We did have a burlesque. We had a burles show at our bar minis a couple weeks ago to celebrate the end of wet January, which was a promotion we did where we encouraged people to drink. And they would get these little punch cards and they would get stickers every time they attended somebody's shift and spent a minimum amount of money. Kind of like the old book it event where if you got enough stickers, you'd get like a personal pan pizza if you read enough books. Well, instead of reading books, you're getting drunk.

And the winner This sounds dangerous Just as good for you, right? Yeah. And yeah, we auctioned off a We raffled off a Nintendo Switch 2. It's pretty exciting. But to go along with the party,

we were playing Guitar Hero at the bar while the last chance dancers Burlese Troop would do burlese dance and kind of mess with you trying to play Guitar Hero, which is pretty fun. Sounds fun. Here's a question number nine.

It's something we could do together this week, even if we're apart. Well, Dan, you and I have been meaning to talk on the telephone. That's true. So, then we do. Also, Dan, as mentioned, do you send me a script to read? So I'll read that and I'll give you notes on it. It'll be like we're together. You don't feel like we're together and I'm telling you things that.

I won't like them initially, but I will resist my knee-jerk defensive reaction. because I'm aware of it and I will wait a while and I'll come around to do like oh these notes make sense well hopefully you'll look at the note behind the note because often in the past and I'm saying this not only in the

tone of gentle ribbing not as a grievance there have been times in the past where you've sent me something and I've given you notes and you're like well here's why I didn't do it that way and I'm like okay cool but that'll feel like we're working together

which will be really nice you know like back in the old days Exactly. When you were office buddies. Yeah. We never had the same office. Where you guys would share, you would accidentally in each other's lunch or whatever. We worked in the same office building on the same project and I was your supervisor.

Boy, would you give me trouble? Oh boy. Before that, you would. Daniel, I'd say he can't keep saying those things to the interns. That's not true. No, no. He was known as a real hellraiser around the office. In that he would show people the thin line between pleasure and pay.

Yeah. And then I stuck pins in my head. It's the first step. First step for that. That's really the first step barrier that keeps a lot of people from becoming Hellraiser's is when they find out about the sticking the pins in your head. You're like, any chance I could swap out the pins for CDs? No, one guy did that.

It was okay. There will certainly be a podcast maintenance work I will need to do during the week. That'll be sort of like being with you guys. might involve some texting. I might text you a picture that baffles you. That baffles me where I'm like, what is this? I don't understand it. It'll really throw me for a loop. I feel like might is unfair.

Yeah, I think this is a prophecy that's almost necessarily bound to come true. Especially since I'm in control of it. Yeah, that's true. This is just continuing that Halraiser talk. Has there ever been an online quiz called Which Centobite are you? You can find out of your chatterbox or ball. I'm lady Santaviby. Yeah.

Stuart, I'm just giving you space in case you have an answer. Oh, in case I came up with something I could do with my boys. I don't know, it's tough. I feel like a lot of our hangouts have been texting about movies or me saying how much Saturday Night Live sucks. And Dan being like, I think it sucks too. And now it's like, what's Saturday Night Live? Here's a BuzzFeed quiz. Yeah, I'm not even aware that exists.

Oh, there is one. What's Send a By Day of You? All right. Which one are you, Dan? Well, I haven't. I haven't taken the whole quiz. I haven't taken a while. The funny thing is none of the questions are even pleasure or pain related.

It's all like ice cream and other things. Yeah. No, he's taking it, he's taking it fast. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's hammering it. You know, like the faster you do it, you know, the more it's like... Yeah, yeah, the more accurate. More true, more...

Yeah, certainly, yeah, yeah. You're not trying to game the system. You're just going with what you're... You can't overthink it, you know? You can't overthink it, you know? You can't overthink it. Oh, if I answer this, is it going to make me seem like more of a C.

A butterball, yeah. Or a butterball or, yeah. Or that doctor from part two. I got a butterball. Well, you know, on butterbox. Yeah, I mean, that's actually... It says, you are gluttonous, not for simple pleasures such as food or drink,

but for pain and punishment. There are no limits to the amount of suffering you can endure or inflict. Yeah, it's pretty, I don't know, except for the inflict by... That actually sounds pretty accurate. Yeah. Okay.

And finally, the final question in my chicken mini, what are you grateful for right now? Chicken mini? Yeah, your chicken mini. Yeah. Chicken minis are just nuggets. Yeah. What am I grateful for right now? Yeah.

I've got a lot to be grateful for. I have a wonderful family. I love them very much. I am grateful that I have work that allows me to support them. I'm grateful that that work is doing the kind of craft that I want to be doing, which is writing and especially joke writing. I'm grateful that as terrible as modern times are, that I, by virtue of so many different advantages that I have from before my birth to now and just the random choices and ways that life can go,

that I live in a space that has a certain protective shell around it where I am not receiving the worst of the things that are happening in the world right now, although that makes me feel guilty for not, for, for being unaffected in a real physical reality sense and only an emotional sense by those things. But I'm quite a lot to be grateful for. All the time I think to myself, I don't have to take it for granted

that I will go to sleep under a roof tonight. I don't have to take it for granted that when I'm hungry I can eat something that my children will be, you know, as healthy as modern science can make them, you know. So I have a lot to be grateful for, especially compared to so many others and to my ancestors

who could not take those things necessarily for granted. so much of the time. So I got a lot to be grateful for pretty much everything, you know. Well, Elliot went like crazy macro vision on that, crazy big picture. I'm going to go simpler. While there's many big picture things, obviously, that I'm grateful for. I think immediately I'm grateful for comfortable sweatshirts and soup and a nice piece of bread. So except for the sweatshirts, you would be pretty happy living in like 17th century France. Yeah. Man, that's such a, I apologize.

It's like an old man answer. Yeah. Yeah, it's fine. Yeah, I'm turning 46 this month, guys. That's an old man answer time. Yeah, it is. I mean, I guess I'll go wide too. Like, you know, like for all that any of these things could change at any moment because that's the uncertain world we live in.

I have a roof over my head. I do not want for the basics of survival. I have a loving wife and two affectionate cats. And I get to work with my friends who mostly don't get mad at me and when they do have an incentive to make up with me. That's true. That's true. We do have an incentive, a financial incentive for making up with you. Yeah.

No. But I've been had a number of different occasions recently to be reached out to by people who feel that this podcast in particular does something for them that they need, you know, makes a difference in their existence and just in making it, even if it's just making it a little more bearable. And I feel very grateful that this thing that we do that is dumb and is fun to do,

that it is at least a slightly helpful for other people as well, you know. So I think that's a thing to be grateful to. We could easily be doing this in a way that is hurtful to other people or in a way that nobody gets a shit. See several other podcasts. Wow.

See many, many other podcasts. Yeah. So that's a thing too. I'm grateful that we've been doing this for a long time. I mentioned to someone recently they're like, oh yeah, you do a podcast, right? And I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, we've been doing it for about 18 years now. And they went, what?

They flipped out of the frame. Yeah, exactly. All I saw was the souls of their feet. Yeah. Well, that's the end of this many, guys. Thank you for taking this trip. I thought it was going to be real dumb and a real waste of my time. It turned out to be really affirming and really wonderful.

So thank you doing it. Thank you for doing it. Thanks. No, I'm just kidding. I did not think that. Hey, it's a mini, so let's keep the end of the show mini-sized as well. Thank you to our network, Maximum Fun. Go to maximum fun.org for other shows.

Thank you to our producer, Alex Smith. He goes by the name Howell Dottie for his own creative enterprises. Look him up. I have been Dan McCoy. I'm Stuart Wellington. And I'm grateful to be Elliot Kaelin, or am I? Yeah, I guess so. Yeah.

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