The Harland Highway - PODCAST 118

Episode Date: May 31, 2010

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Okay, okay, okay, space cadets. Welcome to the Harlan Highway, and today is a show, well, a lot of the show is all about you. Today we dip into the Harland Highway mailbag, and we go through a lot of the letters that you have emailed me at Harlan Williams.com. And then later in the show, we're going to be talking about Rebels. reality type TV shows. We're going to be talking about what it was like to be a baby. We're even going to be talking about what it's like when you get old. Can you imagine if you live to be 100 years old or more?

So let's stop wasting time. It's the Harlan Highway. You just made a wrong turn. Would you kindly shut some out? On to the Harland Highway. Oh, it's lovely. It's just lovely. The Harland Highway. Hi, Harlan! I'm Teddy Rapspin, and I'm your friend.

Writing down the Harland Highway. I'm not your daddy. Mmm. Letters. Oh, we get letters. Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes. I do get letters from you folks. And here's one. This came in from Isaac Keith Martinez,

and he says, Harlan, you kick ass at everything you've tried. I love you. What about photography? I bet you'd be great with a camera. Perhaps you could do photographs of grade yards or how about hot dogs, maybe a sandwich. Here's the deal. Anything you put out, I buy.

A book of photography is the next step. I'm telling you, pancakes will do just fine. Well, as much as I would love to do that, I think to maybe take a shortcut to all of this. You know, the sandwiches and the hot dogs and the pancakes. Dude, without disappointing you, just go to Denny's and steal a menu. They got all the nice colored pictures right there, man. I'm sorry.

I just don't have time to compete with a Denny's menu. Who else we got here? Okay, let's see. We got Anthony Coppula wrote me a letter at harlemwilums.com. Hey, Harland, I love the podcast. And you asked me who we'd like to hear on the podcast, and he said, I want to hear more of Eddie calling. You know, Eddie, the guy who wants to party with people,

and everyone hangs up on the guy. Anthony says that he would say yes if Eddie called him wanting to party. So there you go. He says, you're funny as always, man. Keep it going, man. Chicken chow main. Well, thank you.

I appreciate that, Anthony. And definitely summer is just around the corner. So you know you're going to be hearing a lot from Eddie who's going to be calling everybody. to see if they'll party with them. So keep your ears peeled for our old friend Eddie. Okay, here's one, and I'm hoping it's a girl, this next email. It's from Chattara, which is a cool name.

Now, keep in mind, these might be email names. You know, some people don't leave their whole name or their real name. It's like a web name. So this is from Chetara. just wanted to say thank you for making me laugh I will never tire of sorority boys or rocket man I hope I see you live someday I'm so going to flash you if I do

well hey man if you're a girl you know what I hope you find me too if you're a guy I'm not so interested I'm not sure what a flash from you would be all about so thank you and I always appreciate letters where there's a promise of nudity somehow. Let's see what else we got here in the old mailbag.

Okay, here is a letter to harlemwilliams.com from Brian. He's asking me about something I did on television. There's this one stand-up show Harlem was doing, possibly for HBO, where he made a joke about a boy and his father walking on the beach, and the father yelling at his son for picking up a shell. I thought this show was hilarious and I'm wondering what it was called or maybe where I could buy it. I think you're talking about my HBO stand-up comedy special.

It's the one where I'm wearing the hat and the cut-up vests, corduroy vest. And a lot of people have requested that stand-up special over the years. Unfortunately, it was shot. I hate to sound old, but I think it was about 10 years ago. But it definitely resonated with people because I really get a lot of letters about that one. So I'm glad you liked it.

You probably have to contact HBO. I don't know if they have it out on DVD or online, but that was HBO. And there is another special online that you can access that was a pilot that I shot for Comedy Central that never got picked up. Somehow it got leaked onto the internet. It's kind of fun.

It's about a half hour long. It's called Harlan Williams Nature Boy. And the premise of the pilot was me kind of doing like a nature hunting, fishing type show. And we shot a pilot. I thought it came out quite good. It was kind of fun. and I enjoyed it, but, you know, ultimately Comedy Central passed on it for whatever reason.

But if you want to check that out online, I think it's in two parts. It's called Harlan Williams Nature Boy, and you can find it on YouTube. So maybe that'll fill in for the HBO special you're missing. Let's see what else we got here in the Harland Highway Mailbag. Okay, this comes from Jacob Brown, and I think he's in Pittsburgh. Jacob was at a screening I did, and here's his letter. I went to see Fudgy-Wudgy-Fudge face some months ago. Let me just say I laughed my face off.

I also did my computer project on you, and if I can get it off my computer teacher, I'll send it. Okay. So the backstory on that is I have an independent film that I did called Fudgy Wudgey Fudge Face. It's a ridiculous movie about a guy who meets an alien that crashed on planet Earth. I'm hoping to stream it online starting in the summer, like in July or August. I have done a few sneak screenings of it here and there, and I guess Jacob Brown was one of the Wild Tats that was able to see it. Jacob, I thank you for your feedback.

And just so you know, I look forward to getting fudgy wudgy fudge face out to the world over the internet very soon. So stay tuned for that. Let's see what else we got. Okay, let's see here. Here is a letter from Patrick. There was a TV show that you starred in. I know it was not on for long, but I was wanting to know what the name of the show was and where I can find it. I remember the premise was that your sister went off to college and you went to join her for some reason. I can't remember why. I just remember that to me that was the funniest show of its time to me, and I was sad to see it go off the air. I hate to pop your bubble, buddy, but not me.

I did not do a show about a guy going off to college to visit his sister. But sounds like a great premise. Wow. the networks have done it again um the only old tv shows that you might know me from was a few years back i did a sitcom called the gina davis show with actress gina davis i played her sidekick and then going way back into the 90s good lord uh kind of the mid to late 90s i did a sitcom called Simon, it was me playing the role of Simon, and Jason Bateman, the actor, played my brother, Carl. And we did that for a season.

So neither of those shows deals with me going off to find my sister in college. So you might be thinking of someone else. Don't know who, but it ain't me, man. So there you go. Patrick, let's see what else we got here. here. Okay, here we go. This one is from Jared McCahey, Makagi. I know I'm not saying it right. McCoggy. I don't know. Sorry, Jared, but you probably know who you are. He has a show suggestion, and he said he's been listening to the podcast, and he goes, here's my idea for a podcast. Would you be able to dedicate a show to toys? Maybe new toys coming out on the market that you think. think are cool old toys that you enjoy it etc i think many of your listeners would enjoy it

and i have to complain that there are absolutely no shows dedicated to toys please fill the gap if you may thank you for listening and keep up the good work chicken chowmane jared mcoggi hartford iowa well you know what buddy that is a good topic i don't think i ever have talked about toys um and uh i i love toys man. When I was a kid, I think one of my big toys was the hot wheel set. I had the little hot wheel set, the little orange track. It was a plastic track. You actually had to put it together with your hands, boys and girls. There were no computers, okay? We had to build things and put things together with our hands. Can you believe it? Oh my God. What were we pioneers?

What did I live in a log cabin? Yeah, man, I don't think kids do that. They slide a disc into their computer and their toys appear on a screen. So I had the orange Hot Wheels track, and then it was really cool. You could get this special piece that caused a loop. So your Hot Wheels car would go whaling down the track, and it would do like an upside down loop, like a donut, and then fly back out the other side. and I had one of these little

it looked like a little racing garage and you attached your hot wheels tracks to that and inside were like two spinning like turbines kind of like when you go through a car watch and you see the two spinning buffers come in from each side and do the sides of your car well these things were spinning and your car would get pushed through them

and it would spit your car around and your car would go all the way around the track, and then just as it was losing steam, it would go through the garage, and the garage would spit it through again. So you could sit there for hours, just watching your toy hot wheels go around and around on a track. In a way, it was kind of, you didn't really get to participate.

You were kind of like a cat watching a fish in a bowl. But it was exciting to put your own toys together and stuff. What was another one, man? I used to have a little... This is the most bizarre toy. You might want to look for this one on the internet. I had like... It was called Billy Blastoff.

And I always love the name. Sometimes I call people that when I'm on stage. I'll call them Billy Blastoff. But this was just like some kind of weird little... It looked like a kid in an astronaut scene. and you'd put them in like a metal like spaceship and you'd kind of press buttons and lights would go off and noises and again it didn't really do much

you just kind of sat there and watched this mental looking kid Billy Blast off sitting in his rocket you know what maybe I do need to get a computer these toys are kind of like I just sit there and watch them what else did I have I guess I had, like, a big tonka trucks. Like, you know, like a big dump truck and had tonka truck kind of toys. I ended up playing with my sister's toys a lot.

They had little, like, Fisher Price villages. One of my little sisters had this little Fisher Price Village with a fire station, and it had a mail station and a store and a restaurant. They had all the different trucks and the different characters and I would pretend I was God and I was running the village and I'd move everyone around. But again, that gets boring after a while. You're just kind of moving things around. So again, maybe I need some video games. What else?

I had a scooter, which is kind of a toy, I guess. But I would scoot all around the neighborhood. This was before, you know, the little metal. ones they have nowadays. This was like an old school, like wooden scooter, whale all around. And then, uh, what else? Maybe one of my, my other favorite toys was just a stick. I used to love to pull sticks off of trees and smash things. That was probably the best toy of all. It came from nature. It was 100% pure wood. It was strong. It was resilient. You can smash things. I conquered my neighborhood with that toy so screw the video game screw billy blast off go outside and pull a

branch off a tree and have fun with your free toy thanks for the topic Jared and uh let's keep moving along here okay here is a letter from someone named bison boy wow I bet he's a hairy dude His letter is this, and I guess it was based off a topic I did on one of the podcasts. I was talking about truck tires, how you're driving down the highway and you see like these strips of rubber all the way down the road. Looks like someone's bacon sandwich blew apart. Well, his comment on that topic was, howdy big fella. Big rig tires are so expensive to run. replace that they take the old worn-out tire and slap a new layer of tread around it which

peels off sometimes it's called a retread i think i'm going to give my old ribbed condom a re-ribbing oh god oh i don't want to see that rolling down the middle of the highway your reused condom god that'd be like running over a snake that drank too much So there you go. There's some of your letters here to the Harlan Highway. You can write your letters to Harlan Williams.com. Just go to the website and you'll see the link. And you can send me your comments, your stories, your jokes, your letters, whatever's on your mind.

I do appreciate it. It's great to hear from you listeners out there. keep them short don't make your letters too long but uh look forward to hearing from you let's close it up and uh that's it for letters we've got letters letters oh we get letters 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.

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Adam and Eve.com and select any one item. It could be an adventurous new toy, or anything you desire. Just enter the offer code Harland to check out. That's Harland, H-A-R-L-A-N-D at Adam and Eve.com. This is an exclusive offer specific to this podcast. So be sure to use this code Harland so you get your discount and 100% free shipping, Code Harland. Have fun. Don't throw your back out. I got a letter that I would love to write to...

Here we go. Yeah, that's angry letter opening. I want to write a letter to National Geographic, the Discovery Channel, the Animal Planet, all these shows. all these these cable networks or any network at all that keep producing these shows okay it started with the world's dirtiest jobs okay this was a show about a guy who uh you know would find horrible jobs like cleaning sewers or cleaning uh metal or you know shoveling a stable

so they did a show now they got a show called the world's deadliest repairs it's a show about a guy who runs around and if there's like a big tall building or a precarious ledge or radio tower that needs maintenance this guy lands on it and a helicopter i mean it's just show after show it's like they're fine in anything uh world's deadliest paper cuts with your host johnny paperboy and world's biggest dog craps with your host billy mcgee we're spanning the globe looking for the biggest piles of dog crap on the sidewalk and we're going to investigate them you know it's just like world's biggest biggest helicopter blades uh worst uh paint jobs on a house this premiering this week on Nat Geo. Right, enough.

It's like any simple little topic, and suddenly it's a show, man. Good Lord. It's not that interesting, is it? Maybe it's just me. I don't know. It's okay for, like, a one or two, but to build a series around it.

What are you doing this week, Paul? Well, I guess there's an old rickety barn that needs to be fixed over there in Vermont, so we're going to take the whole camera crew, and we're going to go do an hour show while I straighten a barn. Oh, yeah, mind if I put a bullet through my head so I don't have to sit through that crap? Yeah, why don't you do that? And then later we'll see if we can repair your skull. We'll make a show out of it. You son of a bitch.

Hey, that's what I do. I fix things. Yeah, so there's the letter I want to send. What about you? Who's someone you'd like to send a letter to? You can let me know. 323, 215, 1486. Get all your anger out in a letter.

Chico, chico, chico, chico, co, co, co, little baby. I love little baby's facial expressions. Because they're so little, their minds are so new. Little babies, next time you see one, watch its face. They don't know when to end or start a facial expression. Like you or I, you know, we'll start laughing. We're like, ah, ha, ha, ha. Then the laughter dies.

and we're just kind of normal or we can look angry or we can shoot someone a look but we can look surprised or sad or scowl or grimace but watch a baby's face man it's hilarious they crack me up they don't know when to start

or stop anything they could be like giggling and then their face just goes right from the giggle into a frown and then they just sit there and they look all confused they're like what's going on and then all of a sudden their eyes go wide and they're like, ah! And then from that, right into a crying fit,

and then maybe right into sleeping. It's so funny to watch their faces are like continually in motion. There's no pauses in their expressions. I know, just a weird observation. You'll be thanking me, man. Next time you see a baby, just watch its face. And for any babies listening to my show, uh, let me just say this. Go, go, go, yeah, don't you miss being a baby?

Isn't it hard to believe that you really were a baby at one point? I mean, look at yourself right now. Look at yourself. Look and see the hair on your arms, your polished fingernails, your long, slender legs, your giant beer got. your beard feel the texture of your skin is it rough is it getting old is it bumpy look how tall you are you're like probably well over four five six feet right and then think that at one point in time you were just this little bundle of like ivory white or nice dark brown or whatever color or race you are you were just this little bundle of of like a pound

and a half well not that light but maybe as a baby you were like six seven eight nine ten pounds imagine yourself ten pounds man can you imagine if you could get back to that weight all the dieting and all the pills and all the jenny crags You get back to your baby weight. Man, Jim, have you been, uh, Jenny Craigan, man? Yeah, dude, I'm back to my baby weight. How much do you weigh, man? Like, you got to be under a hundred.

Yeah, I'm 10 pounds, man. Excuse me? I'm, I'm down to 10. Feeling really good, too. I can do tons of push-ups and, oh, man, you should see, I can chin up. I can do chin-ups for hours and breastfeeding. I can do that forever now. What?

Nothing. But just that you were at one point in time, this delicate little, tiny, soft little fluffy ball of humanity. Then we kind of grow when our skin gets older and harder and coarser. Lines start to form on our once pristine faces that were like as smooth as a Ming Voss. now they're kind of weather-beaten and you can see the laugh lines and the cracks

and it's like you've been a sailor out on a sponge ship you're out collecting coral and sea urchins out on the open sea or seaworthy, sea-weary face. God. Oh, remember your eyes when you were a baby that used to be big? Your eyes were huge and, you were huge, cute you look like a Disney character and for some reason as we got older our eyes like

got i don't know they closed a bit and they they got meat around them and they i don't know they just they don't they didn't stay big and wide and crazy like a baby oh boy well i guess the good news is we're not all running around uh pooping our pants and throwing up baby food all over the place, right? Right, people? I hope you're not. Oh, there goes somebody. I'm 100 years old.

Yes, indeed. Where am I? Who am I? Where? Who out there wants to live to be a hundred years? old. I mean, how do you get there? How do you do it? Eat yogurt and cottage cheese for the rest of your life? You just lay in bed most of the day? Don't stress your body or your mind. Maybe if I lay on the couch here all day, I'll live to be 100 years old. I guess that would be most of us here

in America, right? How many of you spend hours and hours a day laying on the couch, watching the telly maybe we found the fountain of youth with a lazy lifestyle how'd you live to be a hundred man well i laid in the backyard and got a sun tan and then i went in the house and drank some lemonade and laid on the couch and then that pretty much wiped me out so i went to bed wow what'd you do when you woke up oh i just sat in the backyard on the patio and then I laid on the couch and watched 17 hours of William Shatner movies. Oh, yes, I guess that's the other end of the spectrum, huh? When you live to be a hundred, when you live to be a century, man.

Can you imagine saying that, adding that to your resume? I lived for a century. That's a long time, man, a hundred years. Tortoises, like tortoises live 100 years and more, you know? I don't know that that much else lives to be 100. You know, trees, some trees, but I don't know, man. I guess we become a lot like tortoises once we hit 100, right? We just kind of move around real slow, and it looks like we don't have any teeth left,

and our skin gets kind of old and scaly, and we kind of walk bow-legged, barely moving at all. We just mostly eat lettuce and leaves. We wander out into the garden because we're half insane, and we just start eating leaves off the trees and the bushes in our yard. Hey, where's Grandpa? Oh, there he is outside. He's eating pine needles.

that's okay man that tree needed a trim anyhow that'll that'll save us some bucks yeah you're right um wow a hundred years old interesting i wonder if you or i will get to the century mark that is pretty wicked man a hundred years old i wonder i this is ridiculous that i'm even going to ask this, okay? I can't believe I'm about to ask this question, but, and I don't really want to know the answer, but what, what is a hundred-year-old, I can't believe it. What I'm about to ask is what, what would a hundred-year-old fart be like? Okay, what the hell?

Some guy that's a hundred years old blasts a fart, okay? Wow. What the hell would that be all about? Disgusting, man. I mean, just, I mean, I just picture a guy standing there and it's like, and like dust flies out of his butt. You know, just like a little mini dust storm. Oh, it's got to be wicked. Okay, maybe we don't want to live to be a century-year-old. Hey, Grandpa, what's it feel like to be a hundred years old? A whole century, what's it feel like? Ah!

Yeah. Oh, such a deep thinker here on the Harlan Highway. Hey, that's it for today. We're going to leave you with the thoughts of a hundred-year-old fart floating around your head. would I do anything less for you folks um hope you had a good time hope you do live to be a hundred um so we can just keep on listening to the harland highway for a century god um and until next time uh you know what chicken chow maid baby it's the harland highway wait a minute how am I gonna scratch my oh my god