The Harland Highway - 476 Harland reviews the OSCAR'S, stupid 911 calls

Episode Date: March 14, 2013

Harland reviews the 2013 Oscar's, late, but still. More dumbass 911 calls, and the benefits to people driving with cell phones. Stank a blank!! 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

Jaloh, my friends. Jallo. Yeah, I said jello, sort of. It was like a silent juh. I said jello. Jello, my friends. A great show today, gang. Thanks for being here.

I'm Harlan Williams. You are on the Harland Highway podcast. I am your host. And today we are going to be talking about the benefits of cell phones and driving with cell phones. There is a way that this annoying, this annoying phenomenon, can work in your favor. I'm going to let you know how that works. Oscars, I know I'm a little late,

but I'm going to give you my Oscar review from the 2013 Oscars Academy Award show. And then we have another retarded 911 call coming in. I played one a few shows ago. This one's just as stupid. What is wrong with people? Oh, yeah, I know what it is. They listen to the Harland Highway.

Welcome to the Harland Highway All right, let's get this sucker going, huh? You're causing a major disturbance on my time. It's the Harland Highway. What's up, Brock? If I'm here and you're here, doesn't that make it our time? I have come here to chew bubble gum and kick ass. Am I hallucinating here?

Just what in the hell do you think you're doing? You just made a wrong turn. On to the Harland Highway. This is your fucking wake up. You're riding down the Harland Highway with Harland Williams. In 30 seconds, you'll be dead. I'll blow this place up and be home in time for cornflakes. Okay, okay.

I know I'm a few weeks late, but in case you didn't recognize it, that was the Oscar theme. And I just, you know, I've been processing or processing, however you pronounce it in your little world. The Oscars and, you know, Seth MacFarlane and, you know, all the actors and actresses and the awards and the presentations and the speeches. and what did you think of Seth McFarland? I don't know. I was mixed. I thought on one hand, it's good to have someone fresh and new and energetic, but on the other hand, I felt like, man, the Oscars is a classy affair.

It's like the last, like, black suit and tie and ballroom gown event. Probably in America. I mean, where else do you see people that decked out and that well-dressed and looking that classy and that elegant? Where else do you see it? Maybe at a wedding, maybe at a funeral. But outside of that, you know, it's pretty much the Oscars, man. And for that reason alone, I've always felt that there was an air of elegance about them, that they should be classy, that they should be respectable. and at the same time you want them to be funny and maybe a little bit edgy,

but I don't know if Seth MacFarlane found that balance. I found him to be a little bit crude. And, you know, from my podcast, I don't mind crude. I enjoy crude, but I think there's a time and a place for crude. And even some of his crude stuff I found funny, but I also went, does it really belong here? Because when you think about it, you know, the people, People who do movies, even though a lot of the content of movies is crude, when you get down to the Oscars, you usually get to the best of the best where the movies aren't traditionally crude.

They're usually like the artiste version of movies. They're the artistic version of movies. They're the crem de la creme of movies, where you have the A-list actors and the A-list directors and the A-list producers. and these people, whether you like it or not, are very intelligent and they're very skilled and they're very special people because they're very good at what they do. Not a lot of people can pull off what they pull off.

And they are the upper crust of the entertainment industry, which is a multi-billion dollar industry. Let's say if they were in the white, house they would be like the president and all the top advisors you know it'd be like the crem de la cram uh if you were running a corporation like apple or i bm you would be this these people would be the CEOs and the top executives and so for that reason i feel like they deserve or have earned a level of decorum a level of class a level of respect And I don't know, you know, Seth McFarlow was up there doing jokes about black people

and doing jokes about Jewish people and doing jokes about singing songs about seeing women's boobs. And he made a joke about, you know, Lincoln getting a bullet in the head. He made a joke about Chris Brown and Rihanna beating each other. And these are just the ones that I can remember. And I'm like, you know, you cut from Seth MacFarlane, who's kind of a smarmy, smart ass, and that's why they hired them. You cut from this kind of smart-ass kid on stage, and you cut to like an older-looking Steven Spielberg in the crowd

or some of the more distinguished actors. And also you had Seth making jokes about a lot of the distinguished people in attendance. And I don't know. I like the crude. I like, you know, I like Ricky Jervais when he does the Golden Globes because it's not the Oscars. Even though you got kind of the same people and the same kind of, you know, level of class, it ain't the Oscars. It's a notch below the Oscars. And so I don't mind a guy like Ricky Jervais, you know, taking the piss out of the crowd.

But it feels like the Oscars need to be a little more up there. They're like the Rolls-Royce of awards shows, and I feel like that instead of being a bird flying over the Rolls-Royce and shitting on it, you should be the guy with the white gloves spit-shining the exterior and making it sparkle. And it's tough because we are at a time in society, folks, where we have nurtured our children on being crissue. and brass, and our girls are raised on Girls Gone Wild. They've been raised to lift their tops up and flash their breasts

during drunken nights out and greasy nightclubs. We're in a society where, you know, boys are taught to grow up and be rappers and athletes and make their money that way. You know, let's go on and on. I don't want to start to sound like an old man. Probably too late, but it's a difficult task now to find the line of good taste and bad taste when you've got to make the older generation happy, like the Spielbergs and some of these more distinguished Hollywood players

versus the young kids coming up, like the Jonah Hills and the Russell, brands and uh you know even younger kids than that the crew from american pie and you know all these the harold and kumar guys and so suddenly you got a giant award show which over a billion people watch and you got to go how do we keep everybody interested how do we bring in the young how do we keep the old and i'm not saying it's easy but at the same time i just wish this one prestigious event could remain prestigious and have an air of elegance and class to it. And Seth MacFarlane to me just kind of dropped it down a notch

to like kind of that gutter humor, you know. It's almost like watching a raunchy stand-up comedian on a Saturday night at a smoky comedy club. but yet here he was in a tox and you know and also who is the guy you know there was a time when you had to be like an A-list celebrity

to host this gallant event and here's a guy that to be honest most of us most of the world has never even seen because the guy's real talent is writing cartoons for adults and doing the voices I'm willing to bet that over

three quarters of the viewing public, the worldwide public, had never physically seen this guy in their life. Who the hell is this guy? Seth, who? So kind of an odd choice. And you've got to wonder which way the Oscars is gone. Now that he's kind of done some of that off-color, like raunchy stuff, now do they have to top it? Do they have to keep digging into the well of degradation? and keep finding this base like sophomoric humor for the Oscars.

I mean, look at the crowd. People are in 50, 60, $100,000 suits. There's crystal and chandeliers and champagne and tuxedos and diamonds. Diamonds worth more than most of us all put together. And basically, you're, you're there to applaud the masterful work of some very talented people in a very, very, very difficult industry. And so, as much as I like edgy, kind of raunchy, cutting-edge humor, I just don't know if I like it there. I think you could get away with it without being too over the head with it.

So I'm mixed, man. I'm not drawing any conclusions. I've got to be honest, I'm a little bit torn because I don't want to sound like an old man, but I also think in society it's incumbent on us to reserve and save just a few things in our society, in our modern society, that symbolize elegance and class.

I mean, if everything kind of goes to the toilet humor level, what do we got left? And remember, this goes out to the whole world. One billion people watch the Oscars. There's 7 billion people on the planet. One billion of those watch the Oscars. And, you know, it's kind of representative of America and our talents and our people and our humor and our art. And you've got a guy that most people don't know who he is telling kind of off-color, you know, wife beating jokes.

assassination jokes and racist jokes and singing about ladies' boobs and I don't know, man. Maybe I got to be an old man on this one. I just think you could get just as many, if not more, laughs from a really talented comedian or some really talented writers. I mean, look at the Golden Globes with the Amy Fuller and, Tina Faye. They did a great job, and it didn't feel like they were kind of doing toilet humor. They came off as very clever and charismatic. And you'd think that the Oscars would strive to rise above

and present humor in a classy way that was still acceptable to the masses. So there you go. And my last comment about the Oscars, since I'm ranting here, what is with the outfits the women wear did you see uh that one girl jennifer skyfall or whatever her name is fall on her way up and you're thinking how could you fall walking up those stairs and then they pan down you go oh yeah her dress looks like she drove her car through a sheet factory or a toilet paper her factory and everything's just dragging off the back for half a mile like she got out of out of her chair got halfway up the stairs and the back half of her dress was still sitting in her seat

waiting to be towed man i mean you got to figure you're off balance you're crooked you're stepping on your own fabric how do you not fall man they should have like training wheels affixed to their ankles underneath that giant dress. And you've got to wonder, what happens when these gorgeous actresses and these nine mile long dresses have to go pinch a loaf or take a pee? I mean, you've got to figure somewhere in the bathrooms at the Oscars, they've hired like crappholders or something. I mean, I could just picture one of these chicks going into a stall, and there's

four other women in there who are there specifically to hold up the corners of the dress while the actress sits and squats and drops the kids off, if you know what I mean. Hey, everybody, who wants to have better sex? No? Yes, yes. The answer is yes. You always want to have better sex. That's what you want it to be better, not worse. Trust me. And Adam and Eve is offering 50% off just about any item plus. free shipping. And more than that, Adam and Eve wants to make your life easy. They offer discrete shipping as your privacy is a priority. Plus, 100% free shipping on your entire order. Doesn't matter how much you spend or what you buy. I will be packaged and sent discreetly for free and fast.

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and 100% free shipping, Code Harland. Have fun. Don't throw your back out. I mean, how do you get out of a dress like that? How do you lift it up to take a leak? Or maybe it's so big. Maybe there's like a porta potty right under the dress. Maybe everything's already equipped.

Maybe they're wearing a designer adult diaper. Maybe it's the whole package. They've got a, you know, the dresses are like Dulce and Gabana and all that. Maybe they got a Dolce and Gabana designer diaper. This is the spot for you to drop all your Oscar gold right here, the Dolce and Gabana diaper. Gross. So there you go. that's my Oscar wrap-up.

I know I'm a little bit late, but I needed time to process it. And there it is. I'm sure it's not more glowing. I was happy the Life of Pie won so many awards. Fantastic movie. And I was actually alerted to the fact that that Tiger and Life of Pie was 80-something percent CGI.

It even fooled me. And I've worked in the animation industry. for a while. I know a lot of these people and I always feel like I have a really good eye for what's real. And I've actually read some articles about it and it turns out that most of that tiger was CGI which blows my mind. I was telling people to go see the movie and one of the reasons I'd say go see is because the tiger is real. I mean some of the subtle movements they did with that tagger just led me to believe that it was totally real. Incredible, man. So I'm glad, uh, I'm glad that, uh, life of pie did so well. And, uh, who knows,

maybe next year I'll be on the stage receiving an award for the Harlan Highway best podcast in the universe. What? No? What? Hey, what? What? All right, switching gears. And when I say switching gears, I mean, and I'm talking about cars. Cars and cell phones. You know, you've heard me rant on here about how mad I get people on their cell phones, blah, blah, blah. Well, you know, for every dark side, there's a bright side. And I've realized, and this is kind of a bad thing, but.

you know, what the heck, take advantage of it. I've realized that people on their cell phones, when they're driving, have created many, many, many opportunities for other drivers. For example, here's what you need to do. The next time you are on a road, and it's a single lane road, and you're at a light, and it's red in your direction, it's red in the opposite direction, and there's a line of cars in the opposite direction,

you know the light's going to turn green, you know you have to turn left, and you're going to sit there and you're going to wait till all the cars go by, and then when the light turns yellow, you're going to take your left. Here's what I do now, and this has worked on many occasions. What I do is I look at the first car on the opposite side of the light to me, the one that's going to start the parade through so I can't make my left. I look at that person, and more often than not, my friends, that person in the lead car is looking down at their phone while the light is red.

And while the light is red, they are texting and reading messages and twittering and who knows what they're doing. But I look at their body language, and I can see that their heads are tilted down. They're looking at the floor, it looks like, but they're really looking at their phone. Voila, the light turns green. they don't know it's green because they're staring down at their phone and they're holding up a whole line of traffic they're not driving it gives you a window to make your left

how often do you get to do that you make your left before the other cars come the other way even though the light turned green at the exact same time for both of you so I'm inviting you to watch watch the other driver. And you will see a lot of the time they have their head down and look for that clue in other areas where you're driving. Someone's waiting to take a turn in front of you.

You're coming up to a light. You're coming up to a light and there's a car in front of you but there's an empty lane on the right side. So you can look and you can see people with their heads. been down looking at their phones. So what I'm saying is there are various openings for you to take advantage of thanks to people not paying attention to the road and looking at their phones, which makes driving all the more dangerous, by the way,

very dangerous because a lot of people do this stuff when they're in motion. So I think usually when we're driving, we look at a car, we look at the car, We look at the signal lights. We look at the position of the car, blah, blah, blah. We don't often look in the window at the driver. But that's all changing now, thanks to cell phones. Start looking in at the driver. And not just for ways that you can take advantage of it,

like I was saying about the left turn. Look at the driver for safety reasons, too. I find that I look at drivers a lot more now because I find a lot of erratic driving every time someone's like going slow or weaving or not paying attention in front of me. I pull up beside them and sure enough, they're looking at their cell phone. And that's damn dangerous. So look at body language. Body language is back.

I'm bringing body language back. Yep. Look at that body language and use it to your advantage. and use it for your safety. Roger, Roger, why are you playing the Oscar theme? We did that story. What? I know, but I just did a whole thing about driving.

There's nothing to do with the Oscars. What do you hold? People drive to the Oscars. Don't play the Oscar theme. Don't play old themes from I just did a bit on that We play the right music Yes the crazy news story music

Thank you The Harland Highway Crazy news story That's weird Wow That's strange stuff I make you crazy Okay

So we have another Wacking night 9-1-1 story here. We don't have the actual call this time, but we do have a 9-1 story. I played one a couple of shows back where some lady called the cops because she was out of cigarettes. Well, dig this. A 9-year-old kid. Okay?

How dumb are we getting? A 9-year-old kid, his mother told him it was bedtime. The kid didn't want to go to bed. So he called 911. called the cops because he didn't want to go to bed and take a listen this is a totally true story here it is it's a common story a 10-year-old boy doesn't want to go to bed but this boy gets creative and he's like i'm going to call the cops on you 911 he just pushes it into the phone this is 911 somebody just called from there yeah it was my son my 10-year-old son okay um no everything is fine he's

Yep, Danny called 911 to avoid bedtime. I told him to go to bed and he doesn't want to go to bed. He's like, I'm going to call the cops on you. I said, go ahead. Danny never actually spoke with anyone. He hung up this phone after dialing 911. But that was enough for police to not only call back, but to also send an officer here.

He was actually really scared when she found out that they were sitting the police. He was actually really scared because he didn't think that he was doing anything wrong. He was going to just leave without talking to my son. but I said to him, can you please speak with my son about the importance of this can be a learning lesson instead of it just being okay, the police came out, and that was it. I said, make this a learning experience for him, and he went and spoke with him. Smart lady. I'm glad she did that. That could be very scary.

When you were a kid, did you ever have a run in with a cop when you were a little kid? Like, I'm talking like 12 and under. You ever have any experience having to come face to face with an officer of the law? It's pretty intimidating, man. I remember once when I was a little kid, I found like a movie projector behind some bushes. As I was walking home to my house, my neighborhood, and I was like, oh, man, a movie projector. So I struggled to get at home. I mean, you know, back then movie projectors were all.

metal and they were heavy. They're full of tubes and metal. I was crazy. But I struggled to get this big thing home and I get it home and I'm thinking, yay, I got myself a movie projector. And my parents were like, well, we'll have to call the police. So they called the police and a big cop came to the door and believe me, when you're a kid and a full grown man in a police uniform with the gun and the hat and the handcuffs, The belt and the big black, shiny shoes, and the tie, and the police car on the driveway. Man, when that guy comes to the door and you're a little kid, I'm telling you what, it's like Paul Bunyan came to the door. It's like a giant.

You're just a kid looking up at the, I mean, these cops are bigger than life. You're like, wow, Paul Bunyan, Officer Bunyan at your service. and it's intimidating man I mean you know you don't understand the ways of the world yet you don't understand the law you just know that there's bad and there's good when you're a kid and cops are good and bad is bad so even though I found this thing

and the cop came to do a report and he ended up taking the thing away to take it and put it in stolen goods at the police station somehow I felt scared I felt guilty I was like I didn't mean to bring home the movie projector. Like, I was so intimidated. And, you know, we were in broad daylight. The cop was sitting in our living room with my parents.

But it's scary, man. So can you imagine me, a 10-year-old kid up in your little bed with your blankie and your little pilly-pooh? You're Winnie the Pooh doll in the bed with you. You're in your little jammies, your Star Wars jammies. And in walks Paul Bunyan the cops, it's down on your bed, creak. So, kid, why'd you call the cops? Ah, ah, ah, I just pissed the bed. I mean, that would be scary.

I think that mother was very smart. And probably taught that kid a little humility, taught that kid a little respect. Thought that kid, uh, you know, not to, not to muck around. be a dumbass So good for you Good for you

And hopefully it taught that kid Not to be You know Doing anything so stupid The guy doesn't want to go to bed So he calls the cops What's next? I don't want to brush my teeth

I'm calling the police I don't want to brush my hair Hello 911 help Maybe it worked the other way. Maybe now the kid's like, holy smokes, I can get out of anything now. I don't want to eat my peas. Help me, officer. 911, what's your emergency?

I don't want to eat my peas. We'll be right over. Thank you. Oh, boy. Well, hey, lesson learned. And good luck to that kid. And I guess we're, uh, Roger, we're kind of at the end of the show, aren't we? No, no, stop it.

Roger, turn off the Oscar music. Turn it off. Roger, turn it off. What's the matter with you? That's twice you've done it. Now, cut it out. That was a 911 story. Are we at the end of the podcast?

Yes, that's all you had to do was nod your head. No, no, stop it. Roger, Roger, stop it. Turn off the goddamn fucking Oscar music. Great, now everyone heard me blow up like that. What is wrong with you, man? Nutbag. Sorry about that, folks.

Anyways, we are at the end of the show. I hope you had a good time. I know I was a little late with the Oscar stuff. A thousand apologies. But anyways, let's move on to some announcements. If you want to see me live doing stand-up comedy live, guess what? I'm going to be at a place called The Parlor Live in Seattle, Washington. And that's going to be March 28th to the 30th, Thursday through Saturday.

The Parlor Live. Go online to Harlow Williams. com get your tickets it's an amazing club do some great shows up there man uh you're gonna love it come on out come on out and hang with the kid and uh we we're gonna lay down some funny player um you can write me at harloweems dot com you can call me at three two three seven three nine four three three zero uh when you're online check out the harland highway uh merchandise store for movies and CDs, music, t-shirts, videos, books, all kinds of paraphernalia on harlornwilliams.com at our store.

We have the free app, harlandapp.com. You can get into that. What else, man? My new special is out. It's for sale on Apple at iTunes, or you can get it at my store. Harlem Williams, a force of nature. my new hour-long stand-up comedy special shot in the middle of the desert with no audience in broad daylight.

It's crazy. I think he'll dig it. So check that out. And thanks for being here, man. You've been a great audience. And we hope we catch you here next time. And until then, a great big gold and Oscar bowl of chicken chau-main, baby. Thank you.