The Harland Highway - 924 - 1st show of 2018! Harland talks about the NEW YEAR!

Episode Date: January 1, 2018

1st show of 2018! Harland talks about the NEW YEAR! Health, happiness, goals, and FUN! 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

Hey, hey, hey, hey, pavement pounders, happy new year. Happy new year, too. I love that song. Welcome, everybody. It's a new year. This is the first podcast of the Harland Highway in 2018. I am your host, Harlan Williams. And we're going to have a good one.

Now, today's podcast, it's not as sparkly and splashy. and filled with bells and whistles as normal because today I just wanted to take the time to talk about the new year, talk about setting goals, talking about, you know, 2018 and all that's looming within it. And so just kind of a time to chit-chat

and reminisce and talk about moving forward in the new year. And I think it's good. I think we'll have a good little talk. I'm going to be talking about a little gizmo that I bought that was quite entertainment and kind of a sneaky hidden camera type of setup. I'm going to be talking about health objectives for the new year, things we can do to be healthy. I'm going to be talking about some of my ambitions and goals

that I'm setting for myself in the new year. All kinds of stuff. It's all about the new year, 2018, okay? So let's do it. Put your 2018 helmet on. This is the Harlan Highway. Put on your seatbelt. It's about to get bumpy.

Oh, how perfectly awful. I get my kids above the waistline, suction. When will they take the bandages off? We don't know who we are. We don't know where we are. You're riding down the Harland Highway. Let us out of here. Please!

Let me tell you, you're starting something here that that's what you should be frightened of. Fuck yeah, bud. Just leave us alone. Sit down, strap in, and shut up. What's going on? What's the matter? I thought maybe if I could kill him, I could make him stop. My mother never breastfed me. She told me she liked me. He's a friend.

Who are we? This is the Harland Highway. What? It's the Harlan Highway. It's a cookbook. Happy New Year 2. Happy, oh God. Oh, happy New Year.

Uh, hello? It's the first day of the year. It's the first day of 2.81. No, wait. That's 2081. man. First day of the year and I'm mixed up. 201A is what I meant to say. 2018, player.

Yeah, what's up? Oh, yeah. This is exciting. This is the dawn of a new era, a new day, a new year, a new, whatever you want to call it, see. You can make it whatever you want, see. It could be the year of Charles. Oh, Nelson, Role, oh, oh, oh, say. Why am I talking like a gangster?

I don't know, say. Okay. Anyways, hey, happy New Year is what I'm trying to say to everybody. 2018 is here. It's the beginning of a fresh new year and all the magic and wonderment and fun and surprising. that it holds.

I hope it brings you all nothing but good, positive things, happy things, things that add to your life that make you grow and thrive and prosper. All these good things. Even Charles

Nelson Riley. First day of the year and I got to get the Charles Nelson Riley in there, gang. Are you kidding me? So anyways, here it is. Have you made any predictions? Have you made any resolutions?

Here's where I'm at. I want to try and get more healthy. That should be the top one, I think. Healthy comes before almost anything else. If you're not healthy, then you can't really do anything else. You know, if you've got a ton of money, if you're wealthy, but you're not healthy, then what good is wealthy if you're not healthy? Right?

And if you're dating, if you have a girlfriend or boyfriend or a boyfriend or a husband and wife or kids, if you're not healthy, then, you know, it puts a kink in everything else. So healthy is at the top of the personal totem pole. Now, I try to be healthy. I go to the gym. I play sports. I do this and that, but I think I could do better. I think I'm going to try and get to the gym more.

I think I'm going to try and eat a little better. I mean, we all say this, right? Every year. Oh, this is the year. It's the start starting on day one, January 1st. I'm getting my ass to the gym. I'm going every day for the whole year. And by January 4th,

Hi, welcome to McDonald's Drive-Thru. How can we help you, please? Um, should I be here? Should I be at the gym? Uh, what can we get you? And I'll like a number two with extra supersized fries and a Coke? Um, okay, you got me. It's your fault.

I'm not going to the gym. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. But I joke, but, you know, without sounding like your drill instructor, do it, man. Go to the gym. Go to the gym and, and kick ass, man. And even if you can go three times a week, you don't have to do it every day. Don't punish yourself, but let's do this together. I'm going to make a commitment and maybe you pavement pounders will jump on board.

Let's try to go three days of the week. Here's what we're going to do. I've talked about this before, but I fell off my own regimen a little bit. So I'm kind of bringing it back and I want to bring you guys with me. Go to your computer. Okay. Here's your homework. Here's your first assignment of the new year.

Go to your computer, go on Google and type in calendar January 2018. And what will pop up in Google Images is a picture, a photo of January, the month of January from a calendar. It'll be from the first to the last day of January. Just print it up black and white. It's very simple. it's got big squares in it it's the size of a piece of typing paper print it up

tape it on your fridge and try for three days a week Monday Wednesday and Friday for whatever you can whatever your three days are within the seven day confine and right there on your fridge

and put an X through every day that you make it to the gym put an X and in a way you're going to put pressure on yourself to go to the gym and fill in that X but also here's the upside every time you go to that fridge you're going to see that X

and you're going to go oh damn it I went to the gym look at me I did it oh golly look at me in 2018 and what happens is those days start to build up

and the Xs start to build up and you feel good about yourself, you feel proud, and you don't have to get it in your head like, oh, I'm going to be Miss America or Mr. Universe. Don't put any expectations about getting ripped or having bulging muscles or even looking slimmer. Just know that if you go to the gym and you put in a half hour, an hour on the treadmill

and lift weights for 45 minutes, you are doing your body good. You are moving the blood. expanding the muscle, you are circulating, you are stretching, you are, you are strengthening, you are doing all these things, you don't have to go to the gym and feel like you got to look like a model in seven weeks. In fact, don't even think anything. Don't, don't even think that you're going to lose your spare tire, your jelly roll, your men boobs. Don't even put that. I say, I don't care if they're still there. Just know that if you're going to the gym,

that is positive, positive time spent and positive energy and great for your body. And also, if you didn't know this, going to the gym is also great for improving sleep. It's great for improving your sex drive and your sexual areas, especially if you're a boy. It's great for, it's the most natural way to reduce any depression you might have. without taking pills and all these pharmaceuticals, you can severely reduce your depression by going to the gym on a regular basis. That's scientific. And as a guy who every now and then, like all of us,

have moments where we're not quite as up as we might want to be if we're going through a rough time or a depressing patch, I've got to tell you, man, it works. Keeping your body charged and activated and moving, it must release some kind of whatever it is into your bloodstream, into your brain that helps you feel better. So it's all positive stuff. And don't do this.

Don't overdo this, okay? You know how many guys I have? I have guy friends that are in their 40s, maybe even in their 50s, maybe even in their 50s and I'll bump into them and they'll be like oh man I tweaked my back I threw my shoulder out oh my neck's half broken

and I'm like oh my god did you get in a car crash and they're like no man I was at the gym and I was like you're at the gym you hurt yourself getting healthy and they're like yeah I go what were you doing oh man I was deadlifting

and I just look at them like what are you a Russian Olympian Do you know what dead lifting is? That's when you get large amounts of weight on a barbell. You bend down with your back and almost do a dead lift and pull it up into the air. Now, for anyone in their 40s and over who are not normally active, and even if they are, lifting dead weight, extreme dead weight, is never a good idea. And the idea that, you know, you think you go to the gym for an hour a month and lift these giant weights with your back muscles, you know, you do five reps and think you, all of a sudden you're going to enter the Olympics, don't be an idiot.

Go to the gym, use the machines, the nautilus machines or the gym machines that are calibrated to move fluidly with your body, set the weight at a moment. moderate weight where there's a moderate amount of resistance if you want to build up to more resistance you can do that but don't go to the gym thinking you're like a lukege power man or or the incredible thor whatever his name is the mighty thor you're just a guy and most of the people listening probably go to work and sit in their car a lot and sit at their desk and watch TV on Netflix, you don't have the back unless you're intentionally training for something or your goal is to be a dead weight lifter or you're planning to get back into wrestling professionally or something, then do it, but do it smartly.

Just don't be a weekend armchair. I'm going to go lift some dead weight because I've met too many dudes who have ruined their backs, ruin their, you know, then they can't do anything. They can barely walk, they can barely turn their head, and then you can't go to the gym at all. And then when you're sitting there recovering for months, you get fatter and more lethargic and unhealthy, so be smart. So anyways, there you go.

I propose we all get to the gym. We all eat a little better if we can. Try and get some fruits and veggies and citrus and pomegranates, and, you know, blueberries and things like that, juices, fruit juices, get good things in your body. I'm not going to say eliminate all the stuff we love, like fries and cheeseburgers and, you know what, that's not fun. Life ain't fun if you're just like a food zombie.

It's like, you know, you're checking every calorie and every ingredient. Look, if all this stuff was so bad, we'd all be dying, like, on the street as we walk around and no one would live to be 70, okay? So do it in moderation. Treat yourself here and there. If you don't, your life will be miserable. That's the way I do it, man. It's called balance, baby.

So there you go. That's going to be Plan A, health. Okay, gang? The Harland Highway Health Connection. I wanted to say connection, but it didn't have an H. So I added an H, and instead of connection, I said, Connection. Harland Highway Health Initiative.

Instead of initiative, I put an H so it all flowed. The Harland Highway Health Initiative. There you go. Okay, so good luck. I hope this motivates you as you start the new year on day one. You know, if you can do it immediately, don't go, yeah, I think I'll jump into that next week. Because if you wait, you're late, and it ain't great. Try and just force yourself to do it.

And once you start to get into the routine, it will feel good. It'll feel nice and you'll look forward to going to the gym. You won't want to miss a day without it or an odd day without it. So there you go. Hey, everybody, who wants to have better sex? No? Yes. Yes.

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so you get your discount and 100% free shipping code Harland. Have fun. Don't throw your back out. Let's move on to something else that's kind of wild and exciting. So

I live here in California and there's a lot of critters. There's a lot of critters everywhere. I think there's more critters out there in the world than we really know. And this is something you might want to try in 2018. I'm just throwing ideas at you, gang.

2018 ideas. So I live in California, and I decided to buy one of these hunters' motion-activated cameras. Have you heard of these things? So basically they're like camouflaged, like an animal cares if the things camouflaged or painted silver. but anyways the way they come their cameras camouflaged in a little housing a little casing uh they're about the size of a pop tart and about as as thick as uh i don't know like uh they're probably about four or five inches thick and about the circumference of a pop tart and inside the housing of this contraption is a is a digital camera that you can uh to either take pictures, consecutive pictures, or video, or both.

It's got an infrared sensor, and it shoots at night as well as in the day. And basically what happened is researchers and hunters put these things in obscure places, like out in the forest and the jungle, on a glacier, on Rosie O'Donnell's forehead. I don't know where you want to put one. and they're able to leave these cameras there, walk away, and the cameras are triggered anytime there's movement. Anytime an animal or something gets in front of the infrared, it causes the camera to click automatically.

And so I just got this thing. I'm having a blast with it. I put it out for two weeks. And the stuff I've seen already on my front lawn, okay? I put it on my front lawn. On. Here's what I've caught. I've got skunks, raccoons, a couple of coyotes, some house cats. One of them looks like it caught a rat and it's playing with it or something in the video. I've got some birds, squirrels, some hawks and crows flying by. It even caught them flying in the sky. And then I think it might have caught a bobcat I got a cat with a little chopped off tail

But I can't see the full body But it certainly looks like the tail of a bobcat So it's really fun It's like I'll get home from a trip Or I'll leave it sitting out there for a few days And you don't know what happens when you're asleep And little that I know My front lawn is like

It looks like the animals walking to Noah's Ark, for Christ's sake. It's just like a parade of animals going by. I'm waiting for drafts to go by in pairs. I'm waiting for hippos to walk by in pairs. A couple of lions. Maybe a couple of lesbians, a couple of gay guys, a couple of straight people, a couple of trans genders, a couple of Asians, African Americans, whites.

Everybody's walking by. Someone in a wheelchair going by. I don't know what I'm going to capture. It's fun, man. Now, this is a camera I ordered on Amazon. It was not very expensive. I think it was like $112 or something or $89. You know, you order on Amazon.

There's like 20 of them. You can pick the one you want, and they ship it to you. It's there two days later. And boom, you're ready to film. It's pretty cool, man. So I'm starting to build this little library of oddities and creatures walking on my lawn. And here's my big goal. I mean, ultimately, I'd like to catch a big foot.

You know, I want to see a big foot. Doesn't everybody? That's why I really got it. I want to see a big foot walk across my lawn, eating a banana or a, you know, a subway sandwich or something. But in all seriousness, what I really want to catch because they are present in Los Angeles, Angeles. And it's a little bit scary, but mountain lions. Yeah, you know, I joked earlier about a lion, but it is a definite reality that I could catch a shot of a living, full-grown mountain lion walking across my yard. They are apex predators. I mean, these are animals that have on

occasion taken out human beings. They certainly have the power and the strength and agility to kill a human. easily and I wouldn't be surprised if Mountain Lions have walked across my property many times. And I've never seen it because they're very smart. They're very aloof. They're very alert. But I've heard and seen other evidence of Mount Lions in the surrounding areas of Los Angeles. And so I'm hopeful and a little bit. nervous that I catch a wild mountain lion on my property right next to my swimming pool and the lounge chairs and in the shadow of my barbecue. How about that? Yeah, it's a little, a little scary. But this is the world that we're creating. You know, nature is starting to

acclimate instead of nature doing what it used to be and just like, all right, we're going to roll over and die. The humans are encroaching on our environment. They're taking over our territory. They're paving over our forests. And you know what? We'll just let them have it. We're going to go extinct. But it feels like nature, like it always does,

is gaining intelligence and getting smarter. And the animals are adapting and going, you know what? Instead of rolling over and dying, we're just going to live in the shadows of this urban sprawl that you've created. And in doing so, we've kind of made life easier for ourselves because, you know, humans leave a lot of garbage around, which many animals will eat. Humans have a lot of domestic animals, chickens, cats, dogs, etc.

And guess what? mountain lions and bobcats and owls and hawks and who knows what else coyotes do you know how many of these domestic pets they take every year and make their dinner lunch and breakfast a lot so the animals are starting to go hey man i don't have to go hunting through the jungle i don't have to prowl through the trees for four days and and tackle a moose that can you know gorge me with his antlers or kick me with its hooves and kill me or maim me. How about that French poodle sitting over there on that lawn chair? How much of a fight can that fluffy little thing be?

And I know that sounds mean, but it happens, especially in California here all the time, right in Hollywood. People living in Hollywood, people living in the valley, people living in the mountains in Malibu. Oh, yeah, you go online. There's story after story of, of a little fluffy and jinxie the cat getting gobbled down as a main course, man. So these animals are adapting.

And so I know that that's happening in other areas of the country too. You know, I know that they're starting to find mountain lions and wolverines and wolves and all kinds of critters in areas that they thought they didn't have it anymore. Grizzly bears, black bears, you know, that the animals are on the move, man. They're not taking it anymore. So it might be a fun investment for 2018 to get one of these little, I think they call them, trail cameras. And they're real easy to use. You just put batteries in them and tie them to a tree or just stand them on a rock or a log and let them click away.

And then the fun thing is when you go look at it, it's like opening a Christmas present. You kind of get in there and you browse through and you look and you're like, oh, what am I going to find? It's like a mystery. So I'll keep you posted if I end up finding Johnny the Mountain Lion, okay? So that's another fun thing for 2018. What else? What else is going on in 2018? One of the things I want to do in 2018, a personal.

goal is for a couple of years I've been talking about the short stories that I write, and I've been kind of teasing with those. So in 2018, I'm really trying to make an effort to get them assembled and edited properly and put up on the internet so that I can sell them. I want to do audiobooks. I want people to read them if they like them. And so that's kind of my creation. goal in 2018 is to get my writings, my short stories assembled and put them out there for

people to be stimulated by, hopefully. It's a little scary when you're not known as a writer, a fiction writer, or whatever kind of writer of books and novels and things like that, because, you know, it's uncharted territory for me, and it's like, you know, a little intimidating, because you don't know if you're any good or if people will respond to your material. But I've learned in life you just got to throw stuff out there and let it happen. And so that's what I'm doing. And then the other thing before I close out is my new comedy special,

which I shot in 2017 and have been working on vigorously throughout 2017. While 2018's the year, I'm going to put it out. I don't have the release date yet, but it's my new stand. up special called Carmelcorn the Pug and I did my whole stand-up set dressed as a dog with a dog mask and everything. It looks ridiculous. It's kind of silly and fun and just something

for you to laugh at. So I'll keep you posted on how we go with that and so much more to come. Oh my goodness. So there you go, guys. Let's rock and roll. Let's get 2018 motor in here and I want to wish you all the best happy new year and uh let's uh let's try and get some get some stuff done kick some butt baby and that's it uh we'll leave the show there with kind of like a positive push a positive vibe to start our year and uh and then hopefully we have a whole year of fun and frivolity here on the harland highway

uh bringing you stories and ideas and thoughts and comedy and characters and all the all the goofy stuff that i like to do to hopefully keep you guys uh laughing and entertained and informed and uh here we go 2018 so if you want to write to me uh you can do that at harlowe williams dot com if you want to uh call me uh you can always call us on the harland highway hotline. It's 323-739-4330. And as always, we will post some of your phone calls throughout the year. Always love to hear from you guys. Obviously, I can't get to all of them. I listen to all of them, but I can't post all of them. There's too many. But don't be discouraged. Yours might make the cut. I just try to, you know, find ones that are interesting and fun. And, you know, that's how that works.

don't forget to get our free app at your app store, the Harland Highway app. You can listen to the show wherever you go. Also, what else? You can become a premium member if you want to hear every show we've ever done, which is almost a thousand episodes. It is $20 a year. And you get all the Harland Highway episodes. And I post special material for premium members from time to

time when I have free time to produce extra stuff, I throw that up. And it's just for premium members. It's special stand-up comedy clips, special interviews, special moments. So I sprinkle that out throughout the year for premium members as well. 20 bucks a year. You can sign up for that at harloweems.com. Just go to the podcast page and follow the instructions. Also, just so you know, for those of you who are fans,

of my Disney show, Puppy Dog Pals. We had an incredible first season. The show was a big hit. Disney's loving it. Kids are loving it. Families are loving it. I'm loving it. We're getting tons and tons of viewers.

People are loving the toys and the plush toys and the clothes and the slippers and the pajamas and the games and the books. It's just touching so many lives. I couldn't be prouder and happier of puppy dog pals on Disney, Junior. It's a cartoon for the youngens about two little puppies and excited, as you know, that we have a second season. And that's going to roll out in 2018 too. So another whole year of puppy dog pals. And who knows, God willing, if it does well for year two, maybe we'll be blessed and have a year three. Who knows? So make sure you're watching, tell your friends to watch.

If they have kids, everybody watch the puppy dog pals. And, of course, there's so much more coming down the road. But that's it for now. I don't want to overwhelm you or me. I hope all your objectives and predictions and all the things you want to get done. Get done and work hard, play hard, be healthy, be happy, be wise. And happy 2018, happy New Year. and until our second show of the year.

Chicken. Chaumain, baby.