The Harland Highway - Podcast 116 - Brian Palermo 2

Episode Date: May 26, 2010

My buddy Brian Palermo drops by for chats about life, love and fun! WHAT A CHEESE TREAT! 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

It's just now and then my line gets cast into these time passages. I hate that song. Oh, golly. Good golly, Miss Molly. Hey, welcome, my friends. My dear, sweet, wonderful friends, I welcome you to the country estate. No, I don't have a country estate, but I do welcome you to the Harley. in the highway podcast extraordinaire and the reason i say extraordinary is because this whole show today and you've heard them on my podcast before my my good buddy brian palermo

yes that's italian uh the whole show he's here visiting drop in guest and we just talk about all kinds of topics i won't even tell you what they are i'll surprise you um We are going to do another animal quiz where I quiz both Brian and you, the listener, on incredible animal facts and statistics and see if you can beat Brian to the answer to these incredible questions. And then, of course, as always, as I do with Brian, because he's a master improver, towards the end of the show, we will attempt an on-air iPod podcast improv.

An iProv. That's what we're going to have. An iProv on the podcast. How about that? And what we do is we just create a world, a situation, and we become characters, and we just improvise. All right. I sound like a mother at a kid's birthday party trying to get them all excited.

Come on, kids. We're going to fight, bend the tail on the donkey. Come on, you little bastards. All right, I'm not trying to talk you into anything. It's going to be fun. He's a great guest. He's a great guy. And I hope you enjoy today's podcast.

But enough of me talking. Let's get right to it. You have landed, ladies and gentlemen, as if you are a paratroopers who have just dropped out of the sky, your feet are about to touch down on the Harland Highway. You just made a wrong turn On to the Harland Highway Oh, it's lovely, it's just lovely

The Harlan Highway I'm Teddy Rapspin and I'm your friend Riding down the Harland Highway I'm not your daddy Hello, everybody. This is Harlan Williams here on the Harlan Highway, and very special guest today. I love having this gentleman here. Brian Palermo is here. And, uh, what can I say? He's my buddy from movies, from, uh, groundlings. He invites me down to his improv theater now and then to, uh, have a little improv fun with him. love having them here always full of wisdom and chuckles and who knows what's going to come out of them today nonetheless here he is Brian how are you buddy fantastic pal thanks for having me good oh it's a tree are you kidding me thank you thank you thank you there's three now is that

enough for you yeah i feel compensated happily compensated wisdom and chuckles by the way name my twins I'm going to name Oh, really? Yeah, I'm going to name them Wisdom and Truccles. Wow. And if you give birth to them in Wonderland... Yeah, then it'll be perfect. Like, they could hang out with Tweedledum and Tweedle D.

Yes. Oh, I love it. ...other famous pairings. Oscar and Felix, you know, where else? Wait, wait. Weren't those the odd couple? Yeah, I'm just going by famous pairings at this. Romeo and Juliet.

Yeah. Yeah. Let's do another thing. theme that was fun I'll sit right back and you'll hear a tale a tail of it well that's yeah but I don't know the music Gilligan's Island okay you sing I'll do the music

okay now sit right back in a tail tail of a city pool trip on seven's band and castaways here on Gilligan's lip I don't know the word of it Gilligan's lip it turns out I don't really know any of it how about why don't we do the all in the family

do you don't do Archie or Edith I'll do Edith Boy, the way Glenn Miller played. Guys like us, we had the day. Guys like us, we had it made. I don't think either of us know these. No, well, we tried. We gave it a shot.

We tried to entertain the folks, and we failed. So let's just try talking to the folks. Okay. And I think we'll be good at that. It'll be better, at least. Brian, who do you not trust? Is there someone in your life you don't trust? A personal person that I don't trust?

A person. Who's a person? And it could be someone from the professional field. It could be an acquaintance. It could be a family member. Who's someone you don't trust? That's a good question. There's not, no one springs to mind, first off, because people.

I'm actually glad to hear that. People in my life that I don't trust I've cut out of my life. Good. Excellent answer. I don't need that kind of headache. There's probably acquaintances in. especially in the business and in acting and talent world and and uh you know movie world there's there's definitely some some suits some agents there's like they'll people say nice

things to you or they'll just you know say oh yeah well we'll bring you in for this audition and just never ever hear from them or something so there's some levels of those kind of acquaintances that i would not trust right got yeah okay just thought i'd saw i was thinking you know what if there's like uh you know a bad uncle or uh yeah some guy like even a contractor that screwed you over, who knows, but... Right. I've definitely had, you know, distrustful relationships in the past. I just don't keep them.

But there's no one now, which I'm glad to hear. That's the best answer ever. Do you have that? Do you have any of those problems with that kind of stuff? You know what? There's probably a few people in my life at some capacity that I don't trust. But, you know, it's a, it's a, it's, I'm at a level where I know who they are. Right.

And I know what to trust and not what to trust within the, a relationship. Yeah, I hear you. So sometimes I go, okay, there's benefits to having this person, this friendship, because I get a lot out of the good times, but sometimes I go, but I got to be on my toes around this, this friend or this person. So there's a little bit of that, but I'm like you. I try to keep clean.

I try to keep people that I don't trust out of my life, but sometimes a little bit of it sneaks in. Is wishing upon a star gay? Absolutely not. Okay, good. is if you're wearing a tutu and have a dildo in your anus. That makes it gay. But just the

act of wishing upon a star not so much, not to gay. You know, I just had the most horrible vision of Jimny Cricket. You're not supposed to do that. I mean, he's so small. He is. The idea of what you just described happening to him. Right. That would be horrible.

When you wish upon a... Ouch! My conscience just went up my guide. Of course it's not gay. Okay, I just wanted to check. Everybody should wish on a star.

Have you wished on a star before? Absolutely. Now, they say you're not allowed to tell, but if it was an old one, can you tell us what one of the wishes were? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wish that I would be on a podcast. Wait a minute. What? What?

I was ruined it. Did it just go blank? No, when I was a kid, certainly I would wish for things. I'd be probably like new bikes and things. I mean, I was a pretty soft-hearted romantic. but I never really sat around at night hoping to meet my true love or anything like that. Oh, really? No, no, I never did that.

But definitely, definitely I would wish you'll start. Maybe I'll have to start doing it more. But have you ever done it where you're out camping or whatever and you see like a shooting star? Oh, yeah. And that's the star you wished on? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I do, I do like to camp. I love to star watch, stargaze.

Okay. I went out in October for the meteor shower, which I was. the Perseids or Leonids or whichever one it was. Oh, really? I'll make an effort to go see shooting stars if I can. Wow. And, yeah, so I certainly wish on shooting stars. Wow, the meteor shower, huh?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow, did you wear a bathing cap? You have to. Wow. You can't eat for a half an hour. Oh, boy. Speaking of nighttime, when the stars are out, most of us are sleeping. Good segue.

Thank you. Thank you. Do you have a recurrence of... recurring nightmare that has coming gone in your life or is still present? I do have one. From decades ago, I was about to just say no, but that's not true.

When I was much, much, much younger. Yes. I had some kind of nightmare, it happened at least three or four times. It wasn't that something that gave me terrors that I never was able to sleep again. But it happened more than a couple of times where I was on the street where I grew up on. and just like three houses down from my house trying to run away from an alligator, like a giant alligator on the sidewalk.

So it was very, very specific because it was in front of Miss Betty's house. It was my house, Mr. Childress, and then Miss Betty. And I love them both. They were these old people, but they were just like the nice old people. Are they real or are they in your dream? No, no, these are all real things.

Okay, Mr. Childers and Miss Betty sound out. Mr. Childress. We're getting real close to Peewee's playhouse here. No, no, this is real. was real and he lived to be 99 or 100 Miss Betty was like 80 what what was what did Mr. Childress do I don't know because he was long retired before I was born I mean this is when I was a kid so what miss Betty do she had some kind of office job but that was also pretty much before I was around did she put hot apple pies on her window let's no no it wasn't that idyllic I wish okay certainly sound miss Betty seems like she'd do that at Christmas they would they would the neighbors would give us gifts which I thought was

nice for old people to, you know, because I was just some snot riding around on a bicycle. And I remember Halloween, they always gave us, like, special bags of candy because we were the next door neighbor as opposed to just a regular kid. So they were really sweet. So my point being, this is not like a scary block. Okay. It was a very happy. But in front of those two, I'm desperately trying to run away from an alley, a very big alligator.

And I can't get any progress. Like, I'm always like two or three steps in front of him. But I can't just, like, leave them in the dirt. I can't just, like, run home and shut the door. I'm always outside on the sidewalk, basically right in front of this thing. A street gator. I guess. Wow.

Sidewalk gator. Yeah. Yikes. Maybe came up out of the sewer or something. Maybe. This is Louisiana. I grew up in New Orleans, so it could have just come out of, you know, the ditch. You could have come out of the sewage canal, the drainage canal.

There's so much water there. Wow. Wow. I used to have one that involved being out in the street. I used to have a recurring nightmare that I'd be crossing a busy intersection. Right. A green light and a red light. And I'd get halfway across, and there'd be a black poodle standing up on two legs.

Is this true? This is true. This was my nightmare. And he would walk past me, and then I'd look back at him. And you know how animals, horses, and even fish and stuff, or bulls, they roll. their eyes back in their head. Yeah. You know, they kind of look backwards and you can see half their eye and then the other half's

kind of that white part. Yeah. And I'd be halfway across this intersection and I'd look back and the black poodle was rolling his eye back looking at me. And it terrified me. That is a creepy image. It's just creepy. It's really interesting to me, though, that we both had animals and like sidewalks or streets

involved. They were, but were exterior. Interesting. Now, yours is overtly racist. And I'm very embarrassed because it was a black poodle. Exactly. Yeah. That is true.

Yeah. But while you're Canadian, you probably didn't have any black friends. Although Miss Betty, is that a black name? That sounds like it could be a black woman. Hi, Miss Betty. It could be any woman. It just betty. But something about it, it just feels kind of like,

Miss Betty lives down on the corner. It's that southern. Louisiana. That informal formality. Like, she was an adult, so I had to give her the title of Ms. or Mrs. She was Misses, I guess. But it was informal because she was a neighbor, a close neighbor. So you could say Mrs. Betty, as opposed to Mrs. Childress, like the next-door neighbor.

So it was a Mrs. title, but a first name. So children were allowed to call adults likewise. Got it. So you could use their first name if you use the title. And that's a very southern thing because out here, people don't do it. If children address adults at all, it's either by a first name, which I find kind of weirdly California. or it's, you know, Mr. Williams or Mr. Palermo. Next time I have my poodle nightmare, I'm going to go,

why are you looking at me, Mr. Poodle? Exactly. See what happens. And see if the poodle talks to you in the voice of like a Morgan Freeman or a Richard Drown Tree, the original shaft. I'm looking at you because. That's like an illusion Sean Connery. Yeah, I don't know what.

I tried. I tried. Well, that is kind of neat when you said you had a nightmare of an animal chasing in the street. In a concretized exterior. I had a similar thing. Cool. And speaking of dogs and alligators, guess what time it is?

It's segue time. It's time for your quiz. Animal quiz, buddy. Now, last time you were on the show. I did pretty well. You nailed it. You got four and a half out of five. Yeah, that's good.

Really good. Okay. Like, there were some pretty obscure animal quiz questions. Okay. And what I do is I ask these. questions of Brian and I try to layer in little clues that helps him get to the answers but they're not that easy maybe you'll find them easy it's like jeopardy you won't sort of clues in the in the answer you're yeah you're this is like a harland highway jeopardy yeah thank you thank you here we go

the first animal quiz involves an insect okay i am the fastest flying insect but afraid to do any night flying oh gosh all right so it's a day it's some kind of diurnal thing that is fast insects could be gosh it's a day thing it's a a sunlight thing is it a oh you're not going to tell me well no it could be it could you know don't get it is a clue but don't uh the clues can lead anywhere okay so i am the fastest flying insect but afraid to do any night flying Okay, so it's a night Not a night hawk, is a dragonfly Is it a mosquito hawk?

What are you, what are normal people call dragonflies? They call them Dragonflies Oh, mosquito hawk is what I'm thinking of it. I don't know, I don't know, I don't even have a guess for this one. Is it, oh, shoot, it's got to be something See, it's bothering me that I can't even come up with a guess for this. Yeah.

Day, day, day, day, day, day, day, dandelion. It's, I don't know, it's a mosquito. Afraid to do any night fly. I know. I get it. He's afraid of the night. He's a phobic. He's afraid of the night. You're on to it. He's afraid of the night. So he's a day thing. Is he a day thing? Yeah, because he's afraid of the night. He's afraid of the night. Who's afraid of the night?

Me? No. I don't know. Children. Children are afraid. The children bugs. It's a child bug. Who's really afraid of the night? Vampire bats. No, they love the night. Who gets slayed by the night? The day. The morning. morning glory i don't know i don't know this one the dragon the dragon fly oh the night so it was dragon fly was you got it but you didn't confirm it you

you glazed over it was that was a complete i got it just by spitting out a bunch of words right but of course you know i was thinking of night with an end not what i know if this were really jeopardy and i could see the clue i would see the k okay but still i gave you a lot of You did. You did. No, no. It's a fair game. Your mind went to night and day as opposed to a night in shining armor, which slays dragon, so it's afraid to do. I think I should get 0.24 points for coming up with Dragonfly. You did say it. You did say it. So I'll give you half. Not even half. A third. I'll take seven-eighths of a point.

Seven-eighths. I'll give you seven-ninths and called me in the morning, so. Okay, Dragonfly. All right. Here's the next one. Don't hate me for being the fastest land insect. Oh, wow. Hey, everybody. Who wants to have better sex? No?

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Have fun. Don't throw your back out. Oh, okay, so beautiful. Beautiful, beautiful, butterfly. Beautiful. don't hate me don't hate me for being beautiful that's the that's where i'm going with that because that's the commercial thing all right it's a land insect it's a fast insect it's not a flying insect is a land insect yeah all right so it's a beautiful dreamer it's a beautiful it's a beautiful it's not

a caterpillar they're incredibly slow it's a fastest ant is it an ant beautiful um i don't know this in either it's some kind of beautiful ants don't hate me so love bug it's a love bug No. It's a love bug. It's a lady bug. No. It's a love.

If you don't hate, then you love. But what if you do hate? Then you're a hate bug, a stink bug. What's the most hated? Roach. Bingo. Oh, he got it. A cockroach.

Okay. Is the fastest lamb in sick? There's some beetle that lives in the desert in, like, in Saudi Arabia or something. I think it's a tiger beetle or something. They say that could be it. but it's up in the air, and I don't have my timer with me. Gotcha. You know, in New Orleans, cockroaches fly.

They are flying roaches. Good Lord. Yeah, they're pulmetal bugs, but they're flying roaches basically. Wow. Yeah, scary, crazy. Wow. I love it. All right, here's your next one.

I don't pee in the water, but you could say iPod in the water. What am I? I pod, P-O-D? Yes. P-O-D. Yes. I pod in the water. Is it an insect?

No. Okay. I don't pee in the water, but you could say I pod in the water. Dolphins. Yes. A pot of dolphins. A pot of whales. Is that right?

I was thinking of orcas, killer whales, but dolphins swim in a pod as well. There you go. Here's another one. This is the last one. Big one, another, I'll give you a hint. This is an aquatic creature. Okay. I'm from Portugal

but I should have been from Vietnam, Germany, or Afghanistan. Boy, wow. Portuguese, you see you always heat up. You start off. Yeah, give me another one. You start off slow. I know.

Last time you got hung up on the first one. You're right. But then you just motored through them. That's all I got. That was your last one. That's good. But that was too much of a clue. What you said it was aquatic creature.

Really? And I knew it was not a fish because you didn't say fish and I knew it wasn't a mammal because you said creature. Oh, darn. I kind of gave it away. That one was too easy. Because Portuguese, what else could it be?

Well, yeah. I guess it could have been a little guy in a hat, but that would be human. Yeah, exactly. Okay. You know, I never have known. This is strangely fun for me to play these quizzes. Do the listeners care to hear a quiz? Oh, they love this because, see, they're listening along.

They're trying to figure it. it out as you slowly, methodically, they get it immediately, and they're waiting for you. And they feel much smarter. And, yeah, they sit there and they wait for this long, brawn out process. You're right. No, I have to say, I bet you've got these quicker than a lot of listeners. These are kind of tough. All right.

And it's not like, you know, you're not the type of guy. Would you call yourself an overly, like an animal guy? Not really, I don't know. I like them. You like them, but you don't know. strike me as a guy that that's kind of your passion, your hobby, but you've kind of nailed these. Good.

What's your favorite movie? Oh, Mr. Smith goes to Washington. Oh, really? Princess Brian. Huh. When Harry Mitt Sally. Wait, wait, why Mr. Smith goes to Washington? What is it?

I love Jimmy Stewart. I love Frank Capra. I love the story of just the little guy, the underdog, beaten the big, bad villain. It harkens back to a nostalgic America that may never have ever actually existed. Yeah. The idea of just the courage of one man standing up against the evil corporate nonsense. That can't happen today, can I? I really don't think it could, sadly.

But that's why I love that movie. And Gene Arthur is the woman in it. She's got that crazy squeaky voice. I can't do it bad. She's wonderful. That sounded a lot like the Edith you did earlier in the show. All my women's downings. Yeah.

But, yeah, that goes through my favorite. I can never delineate between the time. Why can't people stand up to the system these days? The system is too well-funded. It's too non-human. You know, in that, in Mr. Smith goes to, have you seen it? Yeah, oh, yeah. Mr. Smith goes to Washington, Jimmy Stewart,

faces off against the big, evil, bad guy through his partner senator, who is a human that's both good and bad. And because that partner senator accesses his humanity and admits to the bad doing he was doing, that brings down the evil bad guy. And now there's not enough human people to, yeah, there's no accountability. There's no not of humans to even deal with. I mean, if you were going up against a giant bank or Wall Street and, you know, these billion-dollar bailouts and stuff, there's not one guy that's accountable. It's hundreds, if not thousands of rich guys who are trying to defend themselves. and even if one guy does admit to some wrongdoing,

he won't take down these giant corporations. It can't. Sad. It's sad. And what he did, was that called a filibuster? He did, yeah. It was like a long filibuster. Exactly.

I don't know my Robert's Rules of Order, but in those kind of judicial or political arenas, once someone gets the floor, they do not have to surrender the floor. As long as they can keep talking, they don't have to give up the right to keep talking. and that is a filibuster. So he just goes on and on and on,

and his point is he's not going to stop until these other guys admit they're bad doing. Now, I just learned this last week. To do a filibuster in the Senate today, in the American Senate, you don't actually have to speak. You could just say, okay, I'm filibuster. Yeah, right. And they allow that.

And you don't even have to show up, I don't think. Oh, really? So there's no drama behind it. There's no heroic effort behind it. It's just, you know, I'm going to say no. I'm going to filibuster, and I'm going to prevent your idea. It sounds like a dairy treat to me.

I'd like to be in Congress just so someone could yell. I demand a filibuster, and I'd stand up and go, I'll take one too with nuts. Chocolate. Yeah, give me some fudge on my filibuster, please. Exactly. I want a double buster. Yeah.

With peanut butter. Dairy queen, man. We always go back to dairy queen. They should have a filibuster parfe at dairy queen. Again, you're angling for some kind of product placement. You want Eric Queen to be in. I guess I do. Yeah.

The Harlan Highway. And lastly, speaking of snack foods, yes. Guess what time it is now? It's improv time, my friend. Okay, all right. Brian and I do a lot of improv. And, you know, we do it from time to time on the podcast. Sometimes it's good.

Sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's great. We don't know. We don't know. What we're doing here is we're going out on a limb and we're going to try and do improv. Today I thought it would be fun if me and you, you were at a 7-Eleven, and one of us was the guy working there. Okay.

And the other guy was the customer. Which guy would you like to be since you're the guest? I never like to decide. Oh, you don't? So we'll just start. We'll just start. Okay. Hey, man, you got any slim jims, man?

Oh, yeah. We have a whole selection of slim jims. Here we have the beef flavor. We have chicken. We have anything you would like. You have like an armadillo flavor, man? Yeah, we have an armadillo flavor. It's called our Tex-Mex Slim Jim.

But you've had that before. I recognize you. What? Yeah, you're Justin. Justin, I see you almost every day. You come in here. Whoa, I forgot. I thought this is my first time into this place, man.

No, no, not this one, Justin. You come in very often. Wow. Yeah, and we have Tex-Mexit gym. We also have the Connecticut Slim Gym, which is made just of ice. Oh, man. I forget stuff. Hey, you don't happen to know my last name, do you?

You're, uh, Justin Wanamaker. Oh, okay. All right. Let me have a couple of Tex-Mex Slim Jim. You got it. Okay, would you like to try a Hawaiian Slim Jim? It's made of pineapple. Oh, man.

Is that like, uh, does that like taste like a pine tree and like an apple? Kind of like that combination, yes. It's a, it's a pine tree and an apple and it's in a pineapple. What if I just like went home and like ate a pine cone for free, man, like a squirrel? Well, you could do that, but you would not have the benefit of the plastic wrapping. Nor would it be, nor would it be pushed into a little cylinder that looks like a lot of fun to eat. I do like plastic wrapping, man. Yeah, and it supports the plastic industry,

which is, you know, you're supporting a lot of people by buying one, San Jim. You know what's funny, man? When I was a kid, my parents used to wrap my head in plastic wrapping at night. That explains so much. What? It explains a lot about the way you speak

and how you think if you do. Oh. Hey, are these ding-dongs, man? What's a ding-dong? Yeah, they are ding-dongs. They're made by hostess Twinkie Company. What's in them? They're very good.

They're chocolate. outside and they have white filling inside and there's a little stripe and they're basically a, a, uh, a, uh, a, uh, a fancy muffin. Whoa, man. It's a muffin that's all blinged out. It's like a bling muffin, dude. It's a bling muffin, yes. Oh, man, I'll say, I will say you two packages of bling muffin.

I'll tell you what, they look a lot like hockey pucks, man. How about I put one on the counter? I go to the back of the store. I open my mouth. I give you my hockey stick and you shoot one right into my mouth. Keep walking back. Walk back right now. Okay.

Okay. Way back here. I'm like Wayne Gretzky, right up, poof! Oh, oh, amazing shot, amazing shot. I'm better than Sidney Crosby. I hit you right in the mouth. You shoot, you scored, dude. That was wonderful.

That was very, very fun. Hey, man, are you like British? You got like a weird accent, man. You know what? I am actually from Zanzibar, which is an African... That's my favorite strip club, man. He's also a strip club, yes, but I was raised both in Oman and Kentucky. My accent is very, very international.

I'll never forget the first time I went to, oh, man. I remember I was driving up the road, I saw it, and I was like, oh, man. No, no, no, Oman is the country. It's near Saudi Arabia. It's by Yemen. It's by the Gulf of Arabia. I love golf. I was playing this morning, dude.

Got a sunburn. Yeah, this goes back to your parents wrapping you in plastic. You see, you're mishearing what I'm saying. Oh, sorry, man. You're taking them all as homophones. They're a thing that sound the same, but they're very different. I'm not a homophobe, man. No, no, no, no, no. You're who?

My brother. Oh, yeah, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Jared, he comes in very often as well. He never buys any of the foods you buy. Is that the dude I saw leaving with the bubble wrap around his head? Jared, you should recognize your own brother. Yes, it was Jared. I kind of forget stuff.

He gets an issue of Marie Claire, and he leaves. Mary Claire, what's that? It's a fashion magazine. He likes very much the fashion magazines. Wow, man. All right, well, what do I owe you for all this stuff, man? This is the Thim Jim's and this is $7 and $19. Oh, wow, man, I only have $0.19.

Okay, well, I'll put you $7 on a tab for you, Justin, because I like you very much. I love tab. That's my favorite diet drink, man. You're hearing things I'm not meaning to say. All right, well, I'll give you the seven bucks next time I'm in, man. You will, and bring another hockey stick because that was very fun to play. Okay, dude. Thanks a lot, man.

Goodbye, Justin. you yeah oh man well yeah oh man yeah that's where i live for a short time that's very Kentucky Kentucky yeah thanks dude yes it works better for you see you next time goodbye Justin I like that one that was a stretch yeah that was good it's not often I get to dust out the old yeah the whatever accent the oh man accent that was Omani well and then I justify by saying that old man accent just keep Keeps on rolling. That old man,

Austin. Oh, dude. Well, we are at the end of the show. No, we can't be. The last one we did was a lot longer. This can't be the end of the show already. Here's what we'll do, okay? Because I feel it in your voice.

You have more to say. I always have more. And here's what I want to do. You can pick the final topic. Okay, that's a great idea. But you can't ask me the question. You just pick the topic. And I'll ask the question

And then once we get rolling You can ask me But the challenge here is You pick the topic And I ask you the question Okay Okay great And it's not a control thing

It's just I want to see how it plays out Because I want you to pick the question And then I will The topic And then I will surprise you With what I ask you about it I see it's just a game Although it's interesting

For your analyst To talk about why you thought It was a control issue Yeah I know Let's deal with Let's deal with love. Big positive, broad subject of love. I'm into positivity, man.

All right. Here it is. Here it is. Yes. Do you remember the first time you ever said, I love you to a girl? Oh, yes, because it was very embarrassing. Uh-oh. It was mortifying.

It was in college, and I was crazy in love with this chick. How old were you? 19. And what were you studying in college? Communications. I was a communication. I'm sorry, what? Communications.

Pardon? I get that joke. The look on your face. It's like, you got it to me. You're just like, don't go there, Harlan. With your pod. I get your iPod in the water. All right.

So you're 19. You're a handsome college buck. You're crazy about a girl. She's a name Donna Lane. She was a real petite little thing, but she had huge hair. She was like crazy. I thought you were going to say something else. Huge, huge hair.

Huge hairy boots. No, no, no, she was petite, so she was not a huge guy at all. Okay. But I was just such an infatuated with her, and it was lovely. And we only went out for like two months or so, and by the end of it, I so desperately wanted to say it. But I couldn't. I was afraid. I was petrified.

So I wound up singing her a song, like this old, like, 70s love song, which basically. It wasn't the theme from all in the family. No, it was not. It was not. It was something like, I think I love you from the Parkers family. Wow, ba, pa, pa, pa, ba, ba, ba, pa, this morning, I woke up with this feeling. This is the late 80s, so that's already, shut up. It was already like a 20-year-old reference when I was doing it, but I was just, you know, just mortified.

Oh, buddy, where were you? Give me the physical setup. The foyer of her house or the porch of her house. We weren't in it, not inside, but, you know, outside, but at the front. Nighttime? Yeah, yeah, yeah, after a date. Hot summer night, moon in the street. The sky, crickets?

Moon of the sky, not so hot. I don't know when it was, but sure, there's crickets there, and there was a lot of, what, dragonflies and dung beetles and Portuguese men all over the place. And, you know, we were just making out for a long time in the car, and she's going back inside. And I wanted to tell her so bad, but I couldn't. I was petrified. I was afraid. Oh, yeah.

Well, okay. Did you say it? Yeah, eventually I did. But, I mean, it was all this ring and more roll and all this bullshit around that that really would have, you know, killed the moment. The bigger thing that killed the moment is that she didn't. didn't love me so you know what'd she say um i don't remember it was definitely it was definitely not it was definitely not and i love you too it was something that was clear to me that she did not love me too so then i just didn't hear anything then my brain shut off and i had an aneurysm she didn't like knee you in

the balls no no no no no no no i love you it was some kind of easy letdown you know i think sorry no i shouldn't be making light of that's a tremendous moment. No, you've got to deal with it, man. But I'm the one of brought up the subject, so I should have known you could have gone... Well, that's why I didn't want you to ask the question, but now you are open to ask a question

about love. I just wanted to get the element of surprise. Let's ask you the same question. When was the first time you said, I love you? To a girl, not to a mom or something. First time was... Wow. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. I think it was. You know what it was?

It was, there was a beautiful Japanese girl named Judy Nishikawa. Yeah, that's a good name. Catholic school, she sat beside me in school, in high school, grade 13, which we had in Canada. Okay. And she just drove me nuts. Like, every thing she did, every little look, every nuance, every word, every little flutter of the eyelashes. Every little flutter of eyelashes. Here we go.

I can do the same shit in you. No, I like it. I like it. And I was nuts about her and ended up asking her to our prom. Right. And, but I can kind of sense she was, you know, she really liked me, but I didn't sense that there was a romantic thing there. And it was driving me nuts.

It was I couldn't sleep. I couldn't stop thinking about it. It was literally at the point where this is insane. Right. And I said, I've got to. tell this girl whether she accepts it or rejects it right i can't get peace of mind until i tell this girl i love her and so one night i said can we just go for a drive where did you did you wind up dating so much or you just went to like the prom we went to the prom we were we were

buddies we never we never really dated all right and one night it was a sunday night or a week night or some quiet night i said can we just go for a drive out into the country right she's like sure so we drove like 30 miles out into the country north of Toronto. That's great. I swear to God, I found an old country road, an old rickety church with a graveyard in the back. Right. And it was some rate of a norm... No, no, no, maybe.

She thought you were taking her out to kill her. No, I hope not. But it was like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting, and we sat on the stoop of this church. Norman Bates, more like... No mother. You can't make me kill her. but we sat in under the moonlight in the stars and I just looked at her I said Judy I don't know how you feel I don't know what you think of me I said I just have to tell you this right it's driving me

nuts I love you and what's you say and there was a little pause and she goes you know Harland I really like you a lot but I don't feel the same thing and I couldn't have you should have seen my elation I was so happy. I said, you know what? I'm sad you said that, but I am so happy that I got this energy out of my system. I'm so happy that I expressed to you what I had to express. I feel like a million bucks. I know I'm probably going to feel sad later, but right now I'm just so alive and I got it out. That's very aware for what must have been an 18 year old boy or something that you were aware that at least it was the release of it. I'm not sure you were looking forward

to the idea that she had to walk 30 miles back to town. Yeah, that, that, I don't know if I ever saw her again after that. But here's the kicker. Here's where I feel like I might have dodged a bullet. Okay? I bumped into her and one of her girlfriends about two years later. I was in college now.

I came back to Toronto for a Christmas party. And one of her best friends was there and I go, man, you know, I love Judy so much. And her best friend looks at me and she goes, you know what, Harlan? I talked to Judy about that. And she said she would have

gone out with you if you were into drugs. Oh. And I just went, wow, was I wrong about her? Yeah, different road there. Because I was just like, all this stuff, all this stuff I thought I knew about her, all the adoration and all the things I had imagined. And her big kicker is that I'm into drugs. Yeah. So. What a good lesson for how, you know,

love or infatuation can blind you to what's going on out there, you know. But what's weird is I was never led to. to believe that was her M.O. Like, she didn't seem like a druggy girl, but to think that that was her criteria, to have a guy that sincerely loved her, that really worshipped her, she was looking for a guy that did drugs versus just a guy that could probably give her a lot of fulfillment in her life. But nonetheless, all that said, all the failure, it was a very romantic moment being alone out at that church in the country.

Right. And, you know, how often in your life is love that pure, that simple, that innocent? Never. Rarely. And even though the love failed at that moment, you know, even when you get older, when you fall in love as an adult, you're like, well, what's her economic snack bracket? And will she fit into my work? And does she travel? And there's all these prerequisites.

But back then when I told that girl, I loved her on the steps of that church, it was just blind. pure love. And I'm just glad I had that moment in life. And my answer is getting way longer than yours, which isn't fair. So I'm shutting out. It's Harlan's Highway, baby. I'm just riding on it. No, you're on it with me. And great topic.

Yeah, it's fun. I love talking about that stuff. You love talking about love. Yeah, I do. Wow. The world needs more of it, man. And people need to admit it. I couldn't even have this conversation 20 years ago.

I was so embarrassed about stuff like that. And I couldn't talk about my real feelings and vulnerable stuff. So people need more of it. You've got to talk about that, John. It's good. Good, good. Okay. I'm glad you love love.

Love. I do love love. My baby loves love. My baby loves love. She got what it takes. Knows how to use it. Who is that? Mac Davis and the Portuguese.

Okay. I love it. I love right now that you just stopped singing that song. I liked your earlier one. The police? Sure. Give me a little more of that as we go out. Ladies and gentlemen, Brian Pomerow serenading us as we leave the Harland Highway,

and we're both sending you lots of love. Thank you, buddy. Thank you, man. Keep singing. Ask her if she'll marry me. Very romantic, very intimate. I'm going to take you to a church. Thanks for joining us, folks.

Until next time, a big. bowl of love-filled chicken chow-may, baby.