The Harland Highway - 445: Presidential election, new pizza!!!

Episode Date: November 5, 2012

Today we discuss the presidential election, new pizza surprises, the fun fall season, and a new announcement about my NEW comedy special. Blast my laser ray face!!! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Honk if you love Jesus, honk. How are you doing, folks? Honk if you love the Harlan Highway. Honk, honk, thank you. I'm Harlan Williams. You are on the Harlan Highway podcast, and what a show we have today. As you know, the election is tomorrow.

So I'm going to talk about that a little bit. I'm not going to be talking about politics per se in terms of who I'm voting for or want to vote. for as you'll find out i'm just going to be talking about the election in general and and you know my my thoughts on it the process um and then we're going to get into uh even more important stuff there's a new type of pizza on the market that needs to be talked about um i'm going to be talking about the uh the fall the season that we're in and all the wonderful things that come with the fall season and i'm also going to be talking about i'm very excited about this at the end of the show i'm

going to be giving you my first announcement about my new stand-up comedy special um i got to tell you this thing is going to be different beyond any comedy special you have ever watched or seen it's it's different stick around at the end of the show i'm going to tell you why it's different, and I'm excited. So put on your nostril hats, because here we go. This is the Harland Highway. Welcome to the Harland Highway. Relax.

Get ready to have fun. Wow. What we've got here is failure to communicate. One cheeseburger with everything coming up. You just made a wrong turn. On to the Harland Highway. Look at me, Damien. It's all for you.

This is Harland Williams. I'm a human being. God damn it. Oh, flush that toilet. Flush it. Uh, well, tomorrow is the big day, gang. Uh, erection day. Wait, what did I say? Election day.

Uh, that'd be, that'd be something if we had erection day. Um, wow. That would be, that would be a, tough day for people getting, you know, on and off the subway, getting in and out of elevators, going through turnstiles, climbing ladders might be difficult on erection day, you know, laying down on your stomach might be tough, just all kinds of problems. So let's not have an an erection day. Let's talk about election day. Are you going to vote? Have you decided who your guy is?

Are you ambivalent? Are you like, screw it? I don't care. I don't know. Where's your head at? Did you buy into Obama's campaign pitches? Did you buy into Mitt Romney's campaign pitches? Did you buy into Mitt Romney's campaign pitches? What do you think? Who do you think is going to do a better job? It's interesting. It's interesting.

And then the bigger question becomes, does the needle really move at all, depending on who you vote for? You know, I mean, you look at Obama and all the things he said before he got elected, how he was going to lower the job. deficit and cut it in half and and fix unemployment and do all this stuff and much of it's the same if not it's actually worse a lot of it's worse but all these all these claims all these proclamations

uh but what happens is any incoming president as we all know inherits the problems that are already there. So can Mitt Romney come in if he wins and just clean everything up in four years? I don't think it's likely. I would like to say the hazard, I guess, that he has a little bit more know-how when it comes to financial matters. I mean, that's in his wheelhouse. But, you know, you're talking about.

astronomical numbers you're talking about trillions of dollars can you get your head around a trillion can you really get your head around like one trillion that the meaning of a trillion it's huge it's just huge and let's put it in perspective trillion okay the word trillion in the US one trillion in the US one trillion is written as the number one followed by 12 zeros okay 12 zeros how big was your paycheck how big was your last paycheck how many zeros were in your last paycheck were there 11 were there 10 were there even three I mean 12 zeros that's a little bit huge that's a little bit huge that That is a huge number.

So I don't know. It's a big day, and I don't mean to be pessimistic, but you've got to wonder, does much really change? I guess it does, I guess incrementally. But each president seems to have to adopt the policy of the president before. them to a degree and uh you know it's a lot of a lot of campaign promises and a lot of uh fanfare but at the end of the day things don't really seem to fluctuate that much um so i don't know it'll be interesting to see what happens who do you think's going to do it i think it's interesting

that Romney is so close to Obama, that could be a telling sign. The fact that things are kind of tied, you know, that probably doesn't bode well for Obama that the race is so very close, it seems, all over the place. Have you been watching the polls? If you've been following the coverage, it seems like that could be an ominous sign. but who knows, man.

That's the beauty of it. You just don't know. In fact, I find it kind of annoying that these pollsters and these newscasters and all these places have the ability to break it all down. They break it down by region, by borough, by neighborhood, by street. They seem to know how people are going to vote and who they're going to vote for. and you know it's it's it's kind of disheartening you know i feel like an election should just be a big surprise it's like there's uh you know what is it uh 33 million people in the united state or what am i saying 33 million 300 million people in the united states

and you know shouldn't it just be like willy nilly like well i'm going to go out and vote today I like this guy I don't like it that they know these numbers I don't like it that they know what everyone's thinking what everyone's doing I don't like it that regions of the country copycat each other

I find it weird that a state goes well we've always been a democratic state and then there's another state that goes well we've always been for the Republicans I mean it just seems like such a flock mentality. You know, I just, I just wish people would vote based on what they see, what they feel,

what they hear, and we are in a situation where there's no way any poll or any survey or anything could figure out who was going to win. And by what percentage point and what number? I mean, I'd love to see a presidential raise where one guy won like 80 percent. to 20 percent or you know it was really close and nobody saw it coming but uh the fact that that they've figured out all this kind of polling science and demographic science it's it takes kind of the fun and the surprise out of out of the election I wish it was more like a sporting event like baseball where is it going to be 12 to 1 is it going to be

5-5 is it going to be 6 to 3 you know we just don't know what the margins are and uh i find it weird that certain parts of the country vote for a party or a candidate just because well that's what we've always done we're we're republicans that's how we vote that's how my neighbor votes that's how my sister votes so that's how we're all going to vote Well, we're Democrats, and this state's been democratic for the last four decades, and by God, we're going to keep it that way. It's like, what's that prove? What's that attitude all about?

It's like, vote for the person you like. Who cares what anyone else thinks? Are you missing the point here, folks? Do you remember it's United States of America where freedom reigns supreme? You're free to decide to vote whoever you want. You don't need to follow a pack or a trend or a popular opinion. Vote the way you want to vote, man. You know, God.

And you see it in Hollywood all the time. It's no secret. Everyone there is a Democrat, you know. It's all these actors and all these entertainment people. And I'm around them. You see it. You see it. They vote Democrat because all the other ones.

ones are voting that way, you know? Like, well, George Clooney says it loves Obama and Barbara Streisand loves Obama. Well, by golly, I love Obama too. And then you get people on the other side like Clint Eastwood who stands up for what he believes in, but that's what I like. It's like you shouldn't be going with what the popular crowd thinks. That's a, that's a dangerous mentality. That's a dangerous mindset. Follow your own instincts. Make your own choices. And, you know, think at at the very base, that's what elections are about. It's to elect a leader to preserve the sanctity of the freest country in the world, air quotes. Um, so there you go. It'll be interesting to see. Um,

And may the best man win. May your choice, your candidate do well. And we'll know. We'll know tomorrow. We'll know tomorrow what the score is. So get out there and vote. Unfortunately, I can't vote. I got kind of stuck in a pickle here.

I had to come up to Canada to do some work. and for some reason I was under the impression you could vote via the internet and I go online and I start looking around and it turns out that we're not that sophisticated yet we're not an online voting country yet and with just a few days left I found that out a little bit too late

and I'm going to be shut out of the process so that's a bummer but you know next year i'll uh i'll be more not next year in four years i'll be more prepared and i'll make sure i kind of do my research instead of waiting for four days before the election what the hell's wrong with me um so there you go it's exciting man um and we'll see what happens so get out there and vote while i'm sitting in a coffee shop having a hot chocolate and eating a donut i guess god the hell the harland highway so let's talk about things that are gross i'm not talking about picking your nose and stuff like that here here's something that never

ceases to amaze me every uh every few months every half year or so they find the geniuses is it in the pizza industry find something new to stuff in the crust of the pizza? Okay? As if pizza isn't greasy and gooey enough with cheese and toppings and all that crap, all of a sudden they figure, well, what else can we stuff in there? What else can we do to make this pizza even worse for you than it already is? I know, let's hollow out the crust and shove something in there, man. So for a while, it was a mozzarella cheese.

They would stick, you could get a pizza with mozzarella cheese in the crust, man. Okay? And it just, I don't think it really took off. I mean, it looked gross. It's like, personally, I don't even eat the crust. Okay, that's just too much dough for me I eat the triangle I start at the top of the triangle

Eat my way down to the base of the crust And then I leave the crust To me the pizza crust is like the crust on bread on a sandwich Who eats the crust? I don't want no I ain't want no crust player Step back player I ain't want no cross I ain't need no crust player

what's up step back with your cross player player don't need no cross so here's the new one here's the new one that's probably going to make you go and grab a glad garbage bag and fill it up with puk hey everybody who wants to have better sex no yes yes the answer is yes you always want to have

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That's 50% off. item and free shipping. Bring more pleasure and satisfaction into your bedroom. Just go to Adam and Eve.com and select any one item. It could be an adventurous new toy, or anything you desire. Just enter the offer code Harland to check out. That's Harland, H-A-R-L-A-N-D at Adam and Eve.com. This is an exclusive offer specific to this podcast. So be sure to use this code Harland so you get your discount and 100% free shipping code Harland. Have fun. Don't throw your back out. I just saw this brand new pizza commercial where they are now sticking a hot dog in the pizza crust. They shoved a wiener into the pizza crust, man. I mean,

What in the name of hell? You know, I'm hungry, man. I'm hungry. What can I eat? I don't feel like some junk food, but I'm torn, man. I'm torn between pizza and like hot dogs. Man, I wish there was a way I could have both, man. Wait a minute.

What if I stuffed this wiener into the pizza crust? Then I can eat it all at once. It's kind of like that old commercial for Reese's peanut butter cups. Right? You got chocolate in my peanut butter. You got peanut butter in my chocolate. What a wonderful taste. So now somebody's stuck a weener.

You got weiner in my pepperoni pizza. You've got pepperoni pizza on my weiner. That sounded wrong. Um, three, four. Uh, so, so there you go. America, I hope. you're happy. You know, it always is amazing. It's always amazing to me. I always think we've come to the end of the junk food line. Years ago, I saw something called a deep fried twinkie, where they actually deep fry

a twinkie, for God's sakes. And you think, okay, that's it. With the end of the junk line, there's not much more you can do after you deep fry a twinkie. Hello. Here we go. Shove your wiener up my pizza slice. Hello. Sounds disgusting, looks disgusting, tastes disgusting Man, you just shove your wheat in my cross Yeah, that's right What you're gonna do about it, player I'm gonna eat it, that's what I'm gonna do

You shove a ween in my cross I'm go eat that cross Player I gotta tell you I don't know if any of you have tried it if you're planning on trying it I know you I know my listeners I know some of you are going to order it now

just because I brought it up and you're like no way man I got to try the cross I got to try the hot dog cross I know one of you or two of you will do it just as a goof and I want you to write me at harloweems.com and tell us about the experience

we'll put it in the we'll put it in the letter listener the what is it the listener mailbag the letter mailbag or if you want to call you can call gotta know what it's like to eat the hot dog crust um and speaking which i should just go order one right now what the hell am i doing talking to you guys i got to order me some cross player oh this is so exciting you know what else is exciting the fall Yeah, that's right. We're in the middle of the fall.

And wherever you are, I'm sure all the leaves have turned colors or they're changing colors. Unless you live in California where the trees stay the same color all year. Boring! But if you live anywhere else pretty much, you're probably in for just a show. Nature puts on a show when the colors of the leaves start to change, man. it is awesome that they turn knob they turn colors you almost don't think exist in nature but these brilliant yellows and crimson reds and purples and oranges and just amazing it's like a bouquet of beauty kind of like my face what um and then the leaves turn colors beautiful bright

bouncy colors and then they fall from the trees and they just lay on the road and get run over by cars how sad but at least when they go out when they die they're beautiful right and wouldn't be nice if when we fell down us human beings we turned colors because falling down is embarrassing we've all tripped we've all tripped over a step or a dormat or something like that right And you're just laying on the ground like an idiot. Oh, I did that on purpose, man. I didn't mean, um, yeah, uh, what? I didn't, nothing happened, what?

And the only color we turn is maybe from embarrassment we turn red. Right? Maybe you got a little blushed cheeks or whatever, but I just wish we'd turn a really bright color like a leave. You know, a leave turns a beautiful color and falls. We should do the same thing. And instead of people pointing, Look at the idiot.

He fell. Dumbass, clumsy, butterfingers. Instead of that, you know, people are just like, oh, my God, look how beautiful that person is. Look at, look at their glowing, they're radiant. Oh, my God, look at they're just, someone get a camera, get a picture of them. They're just beautiful laying on the ground. Oh, a truck just ran over them, like a leave. ooh, oh, oh, oh, okay, not buying it, right.

Okay, moving on. But fall is a cool time of year, man. Fall is the time of year. I don't know if you young men out there feel it, and maybe you young women, but I always feel this kind of invigoration in the fall. And I don't know if it's a thing that's built into our DNA, kind of the way a lot of animals in the fall go through their mating rituals or they get aggressive

before they go into hibernation or they get all bulked up. A lot of animals get bulked up on food before the snows come. And I wonder if that's a chemical reaction in humans where when the fall comes, the cold crisp air starts to make its way into our system, penetrate our lungs, go down our throat, whistle through our skin, right? You got to wonder if there's some kind of instinctive reaction

where humans get friscier and get kind of on a punch a tree, you know? I don't know, am I the only one that feels that way? I get all invigorated. Get invigorated. You ever see a dog when you throw a dog in a lake or a pool or a dog goes in swimming or even if you give your dog a bath? They hate it while they're in the water, not all dogs, but a lot of dogs hate it when they're in the bath.

But the minute you let them out and dry them off, they just get this thing where they're really invigorated. They start running around in circles and playing and they roll on their backs on the carpet and they just go nuts. And I think that's the same feeling we get, us humans get when the fall comes around. In the spring, it's a little more like of a sexy, like, frisky feeling, right? Like you want to, you want to get it on. Let's get it on, right? But the fall is more of a spunky, like, kind of aggressive, like, ah, mm-gah, type of thing.

Whatever that means. That's kind of like tribal, lank. language. So there you go. Fall, beautiful time of year, beautiful leaves, leaves falling down, changing color, humans falling down, not changing color. But I hope you have a nice frisky fall. And we're coming up on the new year. And I want to tell you, I got to tell you, speaking of nature, okay, I've been chomping

at the bit to tell you about this little treat um my last comedy special was probably god i don't know maybe three years ago at a comedy special out called what a treat and since then i've been working on all new material and uh and uh you know getting getting ready for my next special and uh my producers these producers came to me and said uh harlan let's go let's shoot another one hour comedy and I'm like, okay, let's do it. And they're like, anything you want, Harland, any theater in the country. You pick it, you can pick it in New York, you can pick it in Atlanta, you can pick it in a small little town in the middle of the prairies.

You pick it, we're going to fly there, we're going to set it up, we'll put up neon signs, this, that, you know, it's going to be beautiful. And I went away and I was excited about doing a special. But then after I thought about it for a while, I realized I wasn't excited about doing a special. And I thought to myself, why? Why aren't I excited? I just had these guys make me this great offer. I could do a special wherever I want.

You know, they're going to pay for everything. It's going to be great. And I realized Lurdies and Fnerdle Nurdens that I've already done like 10 of those. I've done like 10 specials in theaters with the curtain and the velvet backdrop and the goofy backdrop and the spotlight and the crowd and the people clapping and the thing and the thing and the wang ding. And folks, I'll tell you what, I was feeling uninspired. And I don't like that because, you know, comedy's my thing. Stand-up's my thing. Last thing I want to do is feel uninspired about.

my comedy and it wasn't the comedy I was uninspired about it was it was the venue it was like I you know I want to I want to do something fresh I want to do something that has meaning to me I want to do something that inspires me right I what's the point of doing it in another theater I've seen it I know what's going to happen everyone knows the net result does the world really need another Harland Williams special in a theater does the world really need any special in a theater and I thought I'm going to write a new routine

about nature I'm going to write a routine about the real world why should my comedy be bottled up in a theater where only a thousand people can hear it and see it and there's walls around me and there's ceilings around me and it's dark

I can't see anything it's in a dark depressing room there's a spotlight on me and there's a curtain hanging behind me. And I was like, I thought to myself, you know, stand-up specials have been the same way since I've been alive. Every special I've ever seen has been in a theater. Nothing's changed. That's a long time, man.

That's a long time. The stand-up comedy specials have always been the same for all these years. And I thought, what do I want to do? Where do I want to do my stand-up comedy special? And I said, I want to be in a place where there's no walls, there's no ceilings, there's no restrictions. I want my comedy to just flow out across the land to the people, to whoever hears it. Let the whole world enjoy my comedy, right?

And I don't want an audience. I don't want a crowd of a thousand people or 400 people sitting there. And I don't want the camera cutting back and forth from, Me, to the people laughing and clapping, and we've seen that. What, do people need that to help them know when to laugh? People can't just laugh on their own, on their own sense of humor, their own triggers, their own inclination. So here's what I did.

And I know this is getting long-winded, but I'm excited. Here's my new special. My new special is called Harlan Williams, A Force of Nature. And I went to the producers and I said, guys, here's what I want to do. I want to shoot my special on top of a giant hill in the middle of the desert, in the middle of the day, no darkness, sunlight, with no audience. And they were like, uh-huh, what? Huh?

But after they got over that, the producer said to me, he says, you know, I think this is the best phone call I've had all year. And I can tell he was intrigued. And I said, before you sign off on it, I said, I want you to come and see the place. I'd already picked out the place. I said, let's go look at it. And then you decide because that's where I want to do it. So we all, that weekend, we all got in a truck in our different truck.

We had producers and cameramen and directors, and it was crazy. So I led them on this convoy out into the middle of the desert on a weekend. And I led them to this hill, and we climbed to the top of the hill. And I could tell right away they were like they were kind of confused, a little engrossed, maybe, intrigued, curious. they didn't say a lot. Each person started walking around the top of this hill. You know, the director was holding up his fingers, framing up shots, and the producer was looking at the geography,

and the main producer was just standing there, kind of taking in the view. This hill has a view that goes all the way around. It just looks like you're in the middle of nothing, right? and I just kind of stood back because I'd been there already and I knew what I wanted and I just stood back and watched them reacting and it was beautiful right because they were all like I could see the wheels were turning they were intrigued here they were faced for the first time in their careers dealing with stand-up comedy and someone had thrown them a curve

ball here was this unrealistic impractical scenario that had dropped in their laps And I wasn't sure if they were going to say no or call me crazy or what. So I just stood there and after about 10, 15 minutes, I could see they were all having a good time. And then the main producer was the only guy that didn't say anything. He was just standing there, silhouetted against this guy, his hand on his chin, right? And finally, he spoke and he says, you know what we need here? We need a helicopter. And I just went, wait, what?

He goes, we need a helicopter. If we're going to do this, I want some shots from the air and a helicopter. And I just went, yes, because that was one aspect I didn't think of, a helicopter. I had mapped out all the rest in my mind, but not a helicopter. This told me we're on board. And so here we go. So that's the history of it. Now, let's get to what it is.

I shot my new special. It's called Harlan Williams, a force. of nature, just as I said, in the middle of the day, on the top of a giant hill, in the middle of the empty desert, and it is different. No audience. I didn't want an audience because I didn't want to have to cater to an audience. I didn't want people watching to have to rely on the laughter of an audience. I think my fans, my audience is smarter than that, and I just wanted my audience to watch it and find their own funny they don't need anyone to indicate for them or they don't need anyone to uh help them figure it out my belief is that people will

laugh at what they want to laugh at and they don't need a laugh track as a guide so anyways needless to say all of this is a but giant risk i went out we went out we shot this damn thing i love it i'm very proud of it i can't wait for everyone to see it and so I'm starting to roll out the you know the PR on it now because it's coming out January 15th um of 2013 right after Christmas mid-January and it's going to be available digitally it's going to be available in stores and we're not even putting it on TV. We're doing it. We're doing it the new way that people are doing this stuff, which is digital downloads and, you know, the old DVD if you can't digitally download. So I'm excited.

I won't tell you anymore. I will let you know in the next few days, I'm going to be posting some pictures from the special. I'm going to be posting a video teaser clip of the special. and I'm super jazzed. I'm super jazzed to tell you about this. Harlan Williams, a force of nature, unlike any special you have ever seen. And I don't even know what to expect. It could bite it, it could eat it, you could love it,

I don't know. I'm just glad I did it. And, you know, I think comedy like any art form should be pushed. The art form should be pushed. And so that's what I did, because why it inspired me to do so and I like coming up with stuff that's different for people out there in the universe

including you so that's my little teaser that's my little buildup and I'll be talking about it more as we get closer but this is the first mention of it that I've made to anybody out there and I'll let you know when those pictures go up you can see them on my Twitter you can see them on my Facebook and you're going to be able to see them on the new comedy podcast site, All Things Comedy.

And it's going to be great, man. So I hope you dig it, and that's it. I'm going to sign off there with that little story about my new special, Harle Williams, A Force of Nature, January 15th. And that's all we got. Be sure to join on my Twitter site at Harlan Williams, or Harlow Williams official Facebook page. And there you go.

We're going to wrap it up right here. Look forward to seeing who wins the erection. And that's it. Until next time, my funny little fuzzy friends, this is Harlow Williams saying chicken. Chau-Main. Bab, baby. Thank you.