The Harland Highway - 662 - Dangers of morning Facebook. Conference call HELL!!

Episode Date: April 6, 2015

Can looking at Facebook too early in the day cause depression. Conference calls can be hell. When do allergies start and stop? Wheeze some cheese!! 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

Oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God. What an action-packed podcast we have today. And you are on a podcast. This is the Harlan Highway, and I'm your host, Harlan Williams, and this is my podcast. Did I hope you like it? I really hope you like it a lot, so much so that you eat it and then, no, I'm going to stop right there. We are going to be talking about all kinds of things today. You ever get allergies?

You ever get allergies when you didn't know you had allergies? They just kind of popped up and your body starts acting weird. Yeah, we're going to talk about that. Suddenly, I got allergies from something that's everywhere, and I'm not thrilled about it. Also, I'm going to talk about something that you should never, ever do in the morning. You should never go on Facebook when you first wake up. Well, you're still laying in bed.

You grab your phone. You go to Facebook. Just don't do it. I'm going to tell you why. It'll ruin your day. Okay. What else are we going to talk? Conference calls.

Have you ever been on a conference call and you're the guy that's not there and you have to go on speakerphone? Yeah, it never works out. I'm going to run through the pros and cons of the conference call. And then lastly, at the end of the show, I'm going to teach you guys something. Okay, I'm going to give you a lesson on how to do something really fun with your mouth. I'm not even kidding. So get your braces on.

This is the Harlan Highway. Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to introduce The Harland Highway I promise you, I will please you all, believe me What is he like? What's he like anyway? Oh, he's an angel. He's an angel strength from nothing.

You're going to need a bigger pose. You're listening to Harlan Williams. Why don't you give me a name and a face and a reason why? Oh man, what do you expect the guy to jiggle-law, man? It's over, Jenny. It's over. Nothing is over! You just don't turn it off.

You just made a wrong turn. On to the Harland Highway. Weird. Just plain weird. You're not me. I'm still alive. I'll tell you what I won't give you, you muckers. I won't give you the satisfaction of saying that I'm sorry.

Welcome to the Harland Highway. Oh, you get your money's worth. Believe me. Oh, you hear the bird singing. Isn't that how most of us start our morning? Just the sun coming up, it's quiet. The birds are singing, the world's coming to life. We slowly roll out of bed, our hair messy, we wipe the sleep from our eyes.

Look out the window. See the sun? get a little coffee. Oh, just a nice slow roll into a nice long day of going to the office and sitting in our cubicle or at our desk, sitting in rush hour traffic for two hours. Oh, it's wonderful. Okay, it's not so wonderful. But most of us wake up, and it's not super.

eventful you know it's kind of like your brains you kind of firing up your body's getting moving you don't want anything too radical to happen when you first wake up right just want to take it slow so here's what you can't do because you know regardless of whether you're groggy or you don't really want to go to work usually you wake up and you're like oh it's another day you feel good if you want to feel like a useless piece of crap stop the bird okay just just a loafy useless

worthless piece of crap do not open your Facebook first thing in the morning when you're still laying in bed okay I made the mistake of doing that the other day and I got this video where

and it's one of many when you scroll through Facebook I saw videos that instead of bird singing kind of sounded more like this Okay, there were kids jumping off of giant cliffs

and their bikes There were people parachuting out of planes upside down There are people diving off a cliffs, people wrestling with wild lions, there are people tightrope walking over mountains, people bungee jumping from hot air balloons, there are people ski jumping over giant mountains and hills and it just keeps going it just keeps going there's people on skadoos there's people speeding in boats there's people in race cars there's people running and jumping off the buildings and rolling downstairs there's people

skateboarding to the moon good lord and here I go off to my cubicle good morning good morning What'd you do today? Well, I, you know, I jumped my snowmobile over a frozen lake. I punched a moose in the face. I drove backwards down a mountain on a motorcycle. I took a flaming 18-wheeler and smashed it through a building and walked on my hands across fire. And then dove off a cliff and landed in a swamp full of alligators.

What'd you do? Um, I went to Starbucks. Um, you know what? I'm just going to walk over here and step into traffic and comb myself, okay? Yeah, you should. Shame on you. It's the matter with you. You couldn't ski jump over a train, you lazy ass?

I know. I'm sorry. I'll take my latte, uh, vanilla frappuccino, I smoke. and just terminate my life. Yeah, you better. Do you mind if I jump over you with a speedboat? Will you kill yourself? Do you mind?

No, and if you could just film it with your GoPro, maybe that'll give me a little something to take the edge off. You got it. I mean, holy God, man. Have you seen these videos of people doing these crazy things? And then sometimes you'll get a monster, montage of people.

And I don't want to get out of bed. I'm like, God, I'm useless. What am I doing today? I'm going to Chipotle. Oh, maybe I'll curl 60 pounds at the gym. If there's a puddle in the parking lot, I might leap over it. Oh, a good foot and a half. I mean, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Good night, Nellie Frittato. Wow. It really does. It just reduces you to like, I've just, I've never done anything. Why haven't I jumped off a cliff? Why haven't I lit my hair on fire? Why don't I put my hand in a blender? Why haven't I stuck my head in an alligator's mouth covered with bacon?

I mean, you just feel so small. And at first when you're watching it, you watch these videos and like, oh my God, this is amazing. Look what human beings are capable of. Is there no end to the creativity and the levels of danger that humans are willing to put themselves in just to say they did it? And then you get up and start your Prius. Roll up to the gate at the underground parking lot in your building.

Take the elevator up to your desk. Sit down and start taking phone calls. Yeah, right. So just a helpful tip. Do not go on your Facebook page and start looking at these adrenaline-filled stunt videos. Because you will literally just think of yourself as useless and want to jump off a building without a bungee rope. So there you go. Just a friendly tip.

Just get up. Wipe the gunk from your mouth, from your eyes. Straighten your hair. Go get your damn Starbucks. Don't go on Facebook till at least four in the afternoon. Life itself seems lunatic. Who knows where madness lies? Perhaps to be too practical as madness.

To surrender dreams, this may be madness. To seek treasure where there is only trash. Too much sanity may be madness. and maddest of all to see life as it is and not as it should be Hello Hello

Hey Harlan This is Jeff from Tucson First let me say You're I was just looking up your podcast It's number 159 Now I don't know why it's way down there You should be in the top of

Top 10 in the comedy section, hands down. I don't know why it's that far down. I mean, you have the most entertaining podcast to listen to out of anybody who's up there. There's a couple up there that I don't even know what's going on. Who listens to that stuff? It's ridiculous. Adam Carolla, of course, you should be up there and a couple others. But you should be up there as well.

So I don't know why you're not up there. It's beyond me. You're the funniest guy doing comedy on the podcast. So I don't know what's going on there. Well, Jeff, first of all, let me say, wow, thank you for the high, high compliments you laid on me. That is very, very kind of you, sir. and you know what I'm I don't know either I don't know uh you know how the how the podcasting uh ratings go or how you get the numbers or you know i you know i could probably

be more proactive in trying to get my podcast out there and maybe uh that's something i've got to do but i've always been a i've always been a a guy who believes And just do the work and let people find it. And if they like it, they like it. And if they don't, they don't. But don't push it on people. Don't ram it down their throats. But, you know, maybe I have to amp up the publicity a little more or something.

I'm not sure. But, hey, you know, as long as people like you and the other pavement pounders that are listening, love what they're hearing and get a laugh out of it, that's good for me. okay but that being said I'm not sitting around just waiting for you know people to knock on the door

I am I am trying to get the podcast heard and moved around out there in the podcast world so thank you for your support and one way you guys can help is you know you could always text or email

or Twitter the link to the latest podcasts or you could even just tell your friends about it or where they could find it, where to listen to it, you know, that kind of thing. So any help you guys can give to spread the word is always well received on my end.

But again, I do appreciate the kind words. I try to do a show that kind of stands out a little from the pack and keep it funny and silly and keep you guys entertained and keep myself entertained. And thank you so much for the call. I appreciate it. And speaking of calls, let me go right into the next little topic here

because this is very appropriate. Have you ever been on a conference call? I don't know what kind of work you do. I'm guessing if you work at Subway, you might not have been on a conference call. But if you work in an office or maybe you've done this with family or friends, you get on a conference call and everyone else on the call is physically in the same room. But you're the one lone wolf that had to be out of the country or out of the city

or for whatever reason you couldn't make the meeting. And so you're the individual that's got a call in and put your speaker phone on and hear everyone else on speakerphone. And it's very difficult because the speaker phones in one part of the room and different people are spread out at the boardroom table or at different parts of the room. So you're getting some people coming in really loud. You're getting some people coming in. You can barely hear them. And then when you jumble them all together, you almost get the, you know, if there's, if there's

three or more people on the conference call, you kind of get just this jumbled noise, these voices, these sounds, you're not sure who's saying what. You can't recognize voices. It sounds something like this. 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 show. 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, all will be packaged and sent discreetly for free and fast.

Don't wait. Better Sex is just a click away. That's 50% off, one 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. Um, hello. Hi, Ireland. It's Karen. How are you? Oh, I'm doing good.

Hi, Karen. How are you? Can you hear me okay? Yes, you're coming in good. Okay, how about now? Can you hear me now? Hello? Can you hear me now?

I'm sorry, Karen. Hello? Hi, Holland, how are you? Can you hear me? Oh, there you are, yeah. Okay, Holland, say hi to Bill and Steve, David, Clarice, Janet, Margaret, Betty, Laurel, and Tanya are here. Oh, hi, everyone. So, let's just jump right in, Holland.

Okay, let's do this. Sure, I'm ready. Okay, here we go. In their direction. What do you think, Harlan? Yes, absolutely. Oh, great. Well, everybody there.

Get the contracts out. Right, Arland? Yeah, absolutely. That's what I was going to get Chinese food. What was that last part? Chinese food. Did you say Chinese food? What?

No, I said we're going to Cincinnati for the conference. Oh, okay. I thought I heard Chinese food. Oh, no, that was your own phone. okay um okay so i think we're clear right harland uh yes yes okay we can't wait until you get back thanks for calling in okay thank you uh goodbye everyone wow wow yeah it's just it's not easy it's just like you you think you caught little pieces here there what people are saying you just got to kind of nod you

your head, and just sit there and listen, and then when it's over, you say goodbye. So, there you go. Conference call hell. What we've got here is failure to communicate. The Harland Highway, question of the day. Okay, the question of the day today is, have you ever discovered that you're allergic to something because a lot of people

they have no idea they're allergic or have an allergy to something until it actually happens and I'm one of these kids that when I was a little boy I had to get all these like allergy tests done

right? I had to get all these needles in my arm and they had to test you know tomatoes and willow trees and cats and you know all this crazy stuff and they found out I was like allergic to like cats. I'm allergic to like

tomatoes. Not tomatoes. Hazelnuts. I don't know how I mix those two up. Hazelnuts, pine nuts. You know, a few little things. Dust, pollen. Kind of the typical stuff. But then the question is, have you ever

just kind of figured out you're allergic to something as life went on? So I'm a guy who's like rolled around in the forest and worked in the woods and I love gardening and I'm You know, I'm always kind of doing that kind of outdoorsy stuff. And I don't know if allergies just develop over time or they, you know,

I think they kind of come and go with some people. And so one thing I discovered with me, I was out doing some like some gardening the other day and I'm trimming some bushes and I have to lay down on the grass in my yard to get to get at these low hanging like fronds that are kind of growing out of the out of the bush i have to get down low and kind of put my arms in the grass and uh literally within about about two two three minutes my arms my my four arms and my elbows it felt like i had poison ivy it was like oh my god i just wanted to itch them and it was a burning itch but uh i know that you know i've never had poison iv but i know that the biggest mistake you can make is when you get some kind of plant reaction on your skin.

You don't want to start scratching it because that just spreads it. So I had to kind of suffer through it. I felt like that guy from the Fantastic Four, you know, Johnny Blaze or the guy that lights on fire. I just felt like my skin was burning. And I was like, oh, man, I want to turn into Johnny Blaze here. And I realized the only thing that really came into contact with my skin was, the grass. I was like, oh, great. Grass is everywhere. Like grass is in every country. It's,

you know, you can't get away from grass. Like probably three quarters of the earth is covered with grass. There's an ocean. There's a little bit of forest, a little bit of desert, some mountains, and then grass. It's all grass. My ass is grass. It's brutal. So, so my arm I first I feel the itching and then like you know about an hour later I see like little welts and bumps it looks like I got like 4,000 little mosquito bites on my arms and I'm like I'm starting to look like the elephant man I feel like you ever see that movie the blob where people that that big blob comes from outer space and it starts growing on people and they get sucked into the blob that's what I felt like I'm like oh it's got me

I'm getting attacked. I'm getting consumed by the blob. My skin's turning into a blob. I'm a big red and white pussy. My skin's turning into like, it looks like pizza that's been thrown in a helicopter propeller. Yeah, it's kind of creepy. It's kind of like a mess that keeps getting bigger and bigger. Come on, Steve makes sense. I know, I know. Look, Dave, you've got to see this thing to believe what I'm telling you. Maybe the thing you saw was a monster.

And then I wake up in the morning and there's little like, little pussy, pussicules or whatever the hell they're called. Pustacules. I don't even know if that's a word, but somewhere in my head, I'm hearing something that sounds like pusticule. It looks like zits, you know, you got little pussie zits, and it's like, what the hell? Someone rubbed french fries on my arm? What am I, a 14-year-old teenager? If I got teenager skin on my arms? How do you get pimply pussie pimples on your friggin forearms?

So I've had it happen before in the last few years, and I just, you know, I realize I just got to wade it out. So basically, that's what's so amazing about the human body, the immune system, man, where immune system just kind of takes over things and finds a way to combat them. And so the burning slowly subsides and it slowly goes away. But it's just weird that you go through life and everything's fine. You could roll in grass or you could eat peanut butter or whatever it is.

And then one day you can't. And on the opposite end of that spectrum, you know, as I said, I was allergic to cats. And then for a while, that went away. I actually had to adopt a cat when I was in my 20. I had a situation where I had to take on somebody's cat because they were leaving town. And for the first, like, few months, I was really, like, allergic. And then eventually, like, I was able to cuddle with the cat and rub my forehead on his face. And we were very loving.

We were little buddies. And I wasn't allergic to the cat. You know, every now and then it would flare up. But, uh, so it's interesting. So that, that's the question, the Harland Highway question of the day. Do we have allergies? Do we not have allergies? Are they coming?

Are they going? What the hell is going on with allergies? The Harland Highway. Question of the day. Beware of the blob. It creeps and leaps and glides and slides across the floor. Fight through the door and all around the wall. A splotch.

A blotch. Be careful on the block. Wow, I like that noise. Can you do that? A lot of people can't do that. You ever do that? You stick your finger in your cheek. And you kind of puff up your mouth, fill it with air, and just go,

a lot of people can't do it. You just take, you know your middle finger, the one you use to flip off my podcast every day? Yeah, you know the one, you little monkeys. I ought to come over there and smash you in the temple. apples with a coconut. Woo, woo,

ah, yeah, it's real easy to do. You just, you kind of purse your lips, you pop your cheeks out a bit. And you stick your, you stick your middle finger

in behind your left or right cheek. Kind of make sure it's firm and tight, and then just kind of flip your finger out. And it makes a popping noise. Okay, everybody together. Are you ready? Everybody, we're going to do this together. This is like a yoga class, okay? It's like a yoga class except this is a mouth-popping class, okay? Okay, everybody. Okay, first of all, curl your four fingers into a ball so that your middle finger is sticking up. Okay, has everybody got their middle finger up? Hello, you in the back? Hello? That's right, middle finger up. Okay. Now, turn it so that your fingernail is facing your lips, okay? You turn the finger, put your finger sideways, so the fingernail is right in front of your lips. Your finger is now sideways, your middle finger.

Now shove it in past your, not behind your teeth, but in front of your teeth. Stick your finger into your cheek and seal the hole. and then just flip that middle finger out. That's it. Flip it out. Ready? Three, two, one. There. There, you've just made it through your first mouth-popping class.

Congratulations. Go and suck a fire hydrant. What? No. I can't believe I just, you know, gave you guys a mouth-popping lesson. Oh, well, you know, you learn something new every day. Maybe you didn't know how to do it. Maybe you do. I don't know. Maybe some of you

that have never ever done it before are excited and want to share the experience. And I'd like to hear you do it. For those of you, for those of you that have done it before, I don't want to hear from you. No offense, but I don't want to hear from you. But if you're a first timer and my lesson taught you how to pop your mouth like a champagne cork coming out I want you to phone me the 323-739-4-3-3-0

and we want to hear you do it because we want to hear the excitement in your voice we want to hear the elation in your voice we want to know just how happy you are to be alive because you learn something new yes

something new who says you don't learn anything on the Harlan Highway. Uh-huh. Gotcha. So call in 323-739-4330. Not only do your mouth pop for us, but tell us how exciting and how much fun it is for you. And maybe relay it to us in a scenario where you were at a social function. Or you were at work or you were waiting in line for your coffee and you're like, you popped one.

You popped and dropped. Yeah, I know some of you are newbies to the mouth pop. So let's hear it. Okay? Okay. Can we hear it, please? I think it'll be real, real fun. Hold on, Jim.

Now, what is this, Steve? A little while ago, it was driving backwards. Now it's monsters. Oh, and I think that's a really, really sweet place to end the show. Right there, man. How often do we end the show where you learn something? Not often. In fact, it's usually the other way,

where you spend the rest of the week trying to deprogram your brain from the crap you've heard. You try to erase everything you heard because you know it's detrimental to your mental health and stability. But not today. Not today. You learn something today. Something major.

Yeah. So be sure to call in 323739-4-3-3-0. want to write to me, you can go to harlandwilliams.com, and you can use the contact form on the website to reach me. Also, while you're there, check up my stand-up comedy schedule. I will be in Cleveland, Ohio, April 9th through the 11th, at Hilarities in Cleveland, the Pickwick and Frawlick. And then April 22nd, one night only, I'll be in Halifax, Nova Scotia for the Halifax Comedy Festival. It's going to be a great time.

The next night, I'll be at Comics with an X Comics in Connecticut, April 23rd to the 25th. Get your tickets online at Harlowelliams.com. And then the end of April, I'll be a yuck-yucks in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. That goes April 30th to May 2nd. And then in May, I'll be in Buffalo. May 7th to 10th at Helium. And then at the end of the month, I'll be in San Diego at the American Comedy Co from May 21st to the 24th. So that's it.

That's all we've got for today. As I said, again, thanks for that wonderful phone call I got earlier in the show. Please help spread the word. Get the word out to everyone so they can laugh with us and joy. in the fun here at the Harland Highway tweet or email or Facebook, your friends, send them the links

make them aware of the Harland Highway podcast. The more the merrier, we want to create a traffic jam on this highway. So there you go. Thanks for being here, everyone. Great to have you. And until next time,

Chicken! Chaumain, baby! Creeps and leaps and glides and slides across the floor right through the door and all around the wall. A splotch, a blotch, be careful of the blob. Beware of the blob.