The Harland Highway - PODCAST 138

Episode Date: July 14, 2010

Eggs, Elephant Man, leg hair, Harleys, and flat tires. Mumbo freaking jumbo!! 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

Billy, don't be a hero. Don't be a fool with your life. Billy, don't be a hero. Come back and make me a podcast. That makes no sense. You cannot make someone your podcast. You can only ask that they listen to your podcast. And hopefully that's what you're doing right here and a rat to now.

Okay? And we have a lot of ground to cover today. Interesting show. We're going to be talking about eggs. Okay? Right? Got to talk about eggs. Interesting perspective on eggs.

We're going to be talking about legs. Okay? Legs and eggs. That's two rhyming topics. This is bizarre, but a weird person is coming by the studio to sing karaoke. today i won't say anything else but yeah it's going to be interesting and then we're going to be talking about some automotive stuff we're going to be talking about motorcycles and we're going to be talking about your car do you know how to change a flat tire do you know what to do if you get a flat

many of you don't and we're going to be discussing why you should know how to change a flat tire because i got into some trouble and now you're in trouble because you're on the harland Highway. You just made a wrong turn. Would you kindly shut your mouth? On to the Harland Highway. Oh, it's lovely. It's just lovely.

The Harlan Highway. Hi, Harlan. I'm Teddy Ruckspin, and I'm your friend. Writing down the Harland Highway. I'm not your daddy. all right i just saw something really weird the other day and uh let's kick the show off with this um it just threw me off and here's what it was i was down at like a mall and uh you know it's warm weather time i live in cali people wear shorts all the year so i'm walking through this

kind of outdoor mall and uh i see this guy this young guy maybe 25 30 years old he's got the tousled hair and the uh you're not the full beard but that kind of in-between beard where it looks like you got the stubble looks kind of sexy looks kind of rugged and this this was a good looking guy a brunette and he had the total like tossled like uh kind of just rolled out of bed rock and roll hairstyle it wasn't long hair was just you know down to the back of his neck there but he totally looked like one of these guys like he'd just come off of uh he was in a sailing race or something you know he had the kind of the open neck uh little jacket and uh his hair was all blown around and it it looked good and I was like oh this guy looks kind of rugged and then

I panned down and the guy had these legs he was wearing shorts and he had hairless legs. He had muscular legs, but there was no hair on him, not a trace of hair. And it just threw me off. It looked like, remember when you were a kid, you had those flip books,

those little flip books where you could, it had three portions, and the head could be a clown, and the middle could be a girl in a dress, and then the bottom could be horses' feet, and then you flap the three flips over, and then all of a sudden you got a guy in flippers, and you got a guy in a tuxedo,

And then you got the head of a giraffe. You know what I mean. So this guy looked like one of those things. Like something was off. Like the top of him, it looks like he could, you know, take apart a chainsaw and put it back together. And then the lower half of him looked like he should be like, you know, giving oil massages at a ballet school or something.

It was just, it was creepy. like it just didn't match and he wasn't wearing socks he had like the loafers on and he just had these crazy you know girly legs man i was just like totally weirded out by the whole thing and i know it sounds like what are you doing checking out a guy dude well i wasn't checking out a guy it was right in front of me i'm a people person i observe people i watch people I'm watching you right now. So this guy just happened to be walking right towards me. And there's this tousled guy with like girly, hairless legs.

It's just weird. How do we feel, guys, about the hairless legs on guys? And ladies, how do you feel? I just always get weirded out when I see guys with no hair on their legs. I'm sorry. It just kind of something feels a little weird. Makes me wonder what else they're shaven, you know? Makes me wonder if they've got a vagina or a weaner.

It's just weird. It's weird seeing a guy with smooth legs. It just seems, it doesn't seem right. I don't know. Maybe I'm just being weird, but what do you think? If you want to call or email me, you can email me at harlorewilions.com, or you can always leave a message at 323-215-1486. And let me know your thoughts about men.

You can call them that with no hair on their legs. Yock! Hey, it's Harlan Williams here on the Harlan Highway. And I don't know about this, but sometimes my... My producers, my bosses, want me to interview people or do gimmicky things that they think will help the ratings. Got a guy here who wants to sing karaoke on the air, and it's the elephant man.

I don't know if you remember that old movie. There was a guy who was born with elephantitis, and he wore a bag on his head, and I guess he's trying to normalize himself, fit in with society, and he wanted to come in and say, in karaoke on my show. How are you doing today,

Elephant Man? I'm some good, Howard. Thank you very much. Okay, so you want to sing it looks like Bon Jovi's. I'm a cowboy.

That's probably like you. Okay, Raj, can we just, let's do this? Let's play. Here's the elephant. man singing i'm a cowboy roj hit the music okay i'm a cowboys but this i'm sorry but this i appreciate the effort i appreciate you being here i don't know that This is the avenue for you.

Why don't we just take the bag off? Maybe you're singing will be a little clearer. Okay, stop it. I'm taking the bag off your head. What the hell? Who's under here? It's Captain James Dick from the Starship Enterprise. What the hell is this, Kirk?

Coming in here pretending you're the elephant man. I was seeing how well the security. systems were on the Starship Enterprise. I was doing a security drill, seeing if I could penetrate the bridge. You're not on the bridge. You're in my radio. Get out of here. You always think this is

the Starship Enterprise. Activate Fulton torpedoes immediately. We're being attacked by the Klingon. Get out of here. Unreal. This place is a frecha. The elephant man singing, I'm a cowboy. Do you remember that, that movie?

The Elephant Man. I don't know if he saw it. It was actually quite good. Anthony Hopkins was in it, and it was actually directed by David Lynch, the guy who did like Blue Velvet and Mahaland Drive, and it's one of his more kind of normal movies, I guess, even though it's an obscure kind of topic.

The movie's quite good. I think it was actually nominated for Oscars back in its day. I think it came out in the 70s maybe. Pretty sure it was the 70s. some great performances and just kind of an odd character i guess this guy i think his name was john merrick and he was a real real life kind of freak and uh he was born with elephantitis these giant welts and and you know extra folds of meat and warts and growths it did cause these huge uh huge thick leathery skin

welts and I guess the bones grow thicker and wider and, you know, a lot of the kind of features of an elephant, you know, probably all the features that you don't want if you had something called elephantitis and probably none of the main feature you would want, if you see where I'm going here, if you had something called elephantitis. Seems to be you'd want to join Chippendale's dance crew if you had a good form of elephant Titus. But what a punishing ailment. Like, you know, we talk about God created us and God created us in his image and God's responsible for all things.

What was God thinking when he decided to throw elephantitis into the mix? You know what? Well, every, you know, every 1600,000 human, I'm going to make them kind of be part human, part elephant. I'm going to give them a giant head and wrinkled skin. I don't know, man. It's just weird. It's weird that some people are born with these incredible, you know, crazy extra folds of skin or flaps or. I don't really get the reason for it.

I mean, obviously, it comes from some kind of deviant gene or some kind of virus or some kind of infection or just some kind of birth defect. But it just seems odd that these things happen to us, that people have to suffer through this stuff that must be just so tough to live with. It's kind of like me living with my face. Have you seen my face lately? Good Lord. But anyways, nonetheless, at least we had the guy in here. At least we thought it was him. Turns out to be Kirk.

Why is that guy, Captain James T. Kirk's always coming into my studio. But he thinks it's the bridge of the USS Enterprise. The guy's twisted. um but that's what i have to deal with here at the harland highway so uh i hope you dig it and uh for god's sakes don't be sitting on any elephant toilets because i don't want you to contract elephantitis by blue harland welcome to the government doesn't want you to know doesn't want you to know that carrots grow underground, because if they grew the other way, they'd be sharp, pointy spike sticking out of the ground. People will be walking along and put their foot right through a sharp orange spike. So that's why carrots grow underground

for the safety of our feet. The government doesn't want you to know. I mean, come on, come on now, hey, hey, hey, come on now, hey, won't you come on now, hey? How many of you have been so selfish, so self-centered, that over the years, you've eaten eggs? How many eggs have you eaten people? 30 dozen, 40 dozen, 100 dozen, you fry them, you scramble them, you omelet them, whatever. But how many of you just once, you selfish people, how many of you have just once given back to the farming community and instead of frying or cooking an egg

you sat on it and you incubated it and you brought forth into this world a little baby fluffy chicky little baby chick so busy consuming and thinking about you your whole life that you've never sat on an egg and brought the baby bird that lies deep inside out think of it

How many baby birds have you eaten? You're like a Komodo dragon. You're like a lizard. You're an egg-stealing lizard eating all these baby birds. Why must you be so selfish? Why can't you just take one egg and get some paper towels and some twigs and some old pencils and some old handkerchiefs or socks

and make a little nest in your living room and take 20 days out of your life take work off for 20 days put an egg on your little homemade nest and just sit there and incubate it and watch Oprah and watch TV and watch movies and game shows and in 20 days you got a little baby chick is that too much to ask people

oh my god are we that selfish so there's the challenge I've got an egg here And I've made a little nest out of some old office supplies and some old wiring that we have laying around. I've got a little nest. I'm putting the egg right there. And here I go. I'm sitting down.

Hang on. This is delicately here. Okay. I'm officially incubating the egg. Pretty soon I'm going to have a little baby chick here. Little yellow fluffy chick. And I challenge you people to do the same. Stop being so selfish.

Stop eating everything. Give life, not omelet death. Hey everybody, who wants to have better sex? No? Yes? Yes. The answer is yes. You always want to have better sex. That's what you want it to be better, not worse. Trust me. And Adam and Eve is offering 50% off just about any item plus free shipping. And more than that, Adam and Eve wants to make your life easy. They offered 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. And speaking of death, is this any way to die? Have you ever seen the guys on the Harleys ripping down the highway?

And, you know, it's the big hog and it's making all the noise, you know? And instead of the motorcycle having the handlebars, you know, down at around waist level, every now and then you see the motorcycle where the handlebars show. straight up, literally about three feet in the air, right? And then go to the right. So it looks like two hockey sticks sticking up out of the front of the motorcycle coming up out of the forks. And what happens is the guy riding actually has to reach up. So his hands are grasping the handlebars up over, almost over his head.

up by his ears. Now, can you imagine driving 10, 20, 30, 50, 100 miles with your hands way up over your head? I mean, picture yourself in your car. If your steering wheel was up where your sun visor is, okay? Imagine driving across country with your arms up over your head. steer in the steering wheel up by your sun visor. First of all, you look like a dill weed. Okay, you look like a monkey hanging on a cage,

or you look like you're standing in the subway, putting your arm up and holding one of those railings they have up by the roof. And second of all, wouldn't you be incredibly uncomfortable and wouldn't your arms fall asleep? wouldn't the blood from your hands like slowly drip down into your butt like you can't leave your arms hanging up in the air like that for that long they're going to go numb your body can't keep pumping blood up like that forever or can they I don't know it just seems kind of ridiculous man what a great way to

trash right just driving along your arms go numb you don't really feel it you know when you're sleeping and you wake up and your arms are asleep and you go to grab them and it feels like you can get someone else's arms and you're like oh my god who is that uh it's just me del wade it's your own arm butt munch oh yeah yeah it's your own arm yeah yeah it's asleep yeah stupid butt munch your arm was asleep do wait yeah sleep yeah

right so um so you're just driving along and your arm's not off and your bike just starts steering itself i don't know it's like what's next hey man you want to buy a harley uh sure man but uh where's the handlebars Oh, they're behind you, man What? Yeah, it's the new thing

You just reach behind And like You know, you steer from behind your back Well, am I still sitting forward? Oh yeah, you're still sitting forward, man, yeah But you just reach back And like you, you know, you give it the gas And the clutch and you know

Okay, it sounds pretty good Yeah, man, it's really cool, yeah Okay, I guess Yeah, yeah, really cool I'll say it again, yeah I mean, good Lord, man. Who designed that thing? Like a Gibbon's ape or something?

Hey, Gibbon, we need you to design a motorcycle. Yeah, it sounds good to us. Yep, yours too. I don't know. Pretty stupid design, but for all you guys out there driving, I don't even know how cool it looks. I'm guessing maybe that was part of the cool factor. Yeah, let's give these bikers like these cool.

Let's put their arms up over their ears, man. That'll look really cool. Well, you know what? You don't look that cool. You look kind of stupid. You know, your legs are stretched forward. Your arms are stretched forward. It looks like you got hit in the gut with a bowling ball

or a cannon ball. someone shot a cannon in your stomach and you're like flying backwards and your arms and your legs are stretched out except you're sitting on a bike i don't know pretty stupid man but what do i know i'm just your host and i'm trying to steer you down the harland highway okay so put your helmet on Put your arms above your head. Let's keep going. Yeah. Pass me the ketchup there, Rod.

Ooh, a little more salt, a little more pepper here. You got that toast I asked you for? Oh, God, this is... What? We're on? Oh, this is Harlan Williams. I'm just I'm just having a little snack here

I'm eating a pork chop why would I put ketchup on a pork chop I'm eating all right it's a scrambled egg okay I'm going to be honest here I couldn't do it

I couldn't sit on the egg I couldn't incubate it I realized I'm not a pet friendly person I don't want a little baby chicken running around my house I know I told all you people to incubate your eggs but I damn they're good oh god this is delicious

let's open the rest of the eggs I'm sorry folks I tried to do a good thing tried to encourage everyone to stop eating eggs and sit on them and incubate them and give life to baby chicks, but damn it, they're so tasty. And yes, we are like hungry lizards. We raid the nest, we eat the eggs.

Tough titties. Sorry, chicks. You're going down, down my throat. Mmm. Come on, yeah, flip that one over. I like it sunny side. Yeah, get those feet out of there, those little chicken feet.

Pull them out. I don't want those. Okay, so let's talk about something. something else that involves the automotive world. How many of you know how to change a tire? It seems like a simple question. It seems like a simple task. But I was amazed at how many people I ask when it comes to change in a tire.

It was like a given to me. It's like, you know, well, yeah, you get a flat, you change a tire. But you'd be amazed at the amount of people, when you say, yeah, can you change your tire? Like, no way, what, no, what? How do you change a tire? I can't do that. I can't even do a Rubik's Cube.

How can I change a tire? Changing a tire isn't that tough, folks. All the tools are right there in your car. There's a jack and a wrench, and there's even a tire, a brand new tire for you, a spare tire. But, as you know, there's never, an opportune time for a flat tire. I had a run of flat tires recently. I had like three flat tires in the span of a month on my truck. I have a big black pickup truck, right? So the first

time I was at a gig, I was away doing a show somewhere, and I had parked my truck at the airport so that when I got out of the airport, I could jump in my truck and drive home. Right? I parked it right there at the garage. And I got out the airport. I ran across the thing to the garage. I get my truck. I start to back it up. And I'm like,

I'm like, what the hell is that noise? And why does my truck feel like it's driving through mud? Well, right away, I was like, great. Flat tire. And I'm in an underground garage at the airport. Not an underground garage, but one of those multi-layered garages where it's impossible to find a parking spot and blah, blah, blah.

So I found a little empty patch, and as much of a pain in an acid is to change your tire, especially on a truck, the tires are a lot bigger. They're a lot heavier. There's a little more work involved. I managed to do it. And I was like, okay, that should be it for the next two years. How often do you get a flat, right?

so that week I go to the tire shop I have them put on a newbie I put the spare back underneath and I'll be damned if about four days later I'm in my driveway I wake up I'm on my way to a meeting or I'm going down to the store or something and I start to back up

and I hear that sickening like sounds like two fat people rubbing together on a twister board. It's like, what the hell is it? I get out, I look on the opposite side of my truck. The front tire on my right side is flat.

And I'm like, what the hell? Like within four days, I have another flat. So right away, I was like, oh, those guys at the tire shop, they probably shived my front tire because, you know, when I went in to get the back one fixed, it was just a leak. so I didn't have to get a whole new tire I just got it patched for like 40 bucks they didn't have to sell me the $300 tire

right but that's just me being suspicious it wouldn't be so I go in and I get that one patched and thankfully that was just a patch that was another 30 bucks so cut to the next week I decide to go on a road trip

in my truck yeah that's right I went 3,000 miles And I'm going to tell you more about the road trip in some upcoming episodes because it was incredible. But I went almost 4,000 miles in my truck. And I'm a little bit of an explorer. I like to go off road. I like to find the old dirt roads that nobody goes down. I like to find the obscure way to get from A to B.

I like to be on the road where there's the least amount of traffic, the least amount of people so that I can experience the countryside. I'd experience nature and all that stuff. So if you want to know what one of the most vacuous and wide open and uninhabited states in the United States is it's Nevada. Okay, go look at a map of the entire country, and you'll see highways and roadways, crisscrossing, every state. But you look at Nevada and look at the size of that state, and you'll see it.

It looks like there's only about six highways, criss-crossing that state. And there's not a lot of little offshoots and little roads. And I can tell you from experience, when you do get on those highways, they are empty for hundreds of miles, hundreds of miles. Most highways, when you see, you're saying, oh, I was on a big empty stretch of highway. Well, you'll pass some farms in the distance or a gas station or something, right? You get on highways in Nevada. I promise you, people, there is nothing. nothing for hundreds of miles. There's no farmhouse in the distance.

There's no windmill. There's no silo. There's no light out in a field. There's nothing up in the hills. There's no fence post. There is nothing. It makes me even wonder why they put roads across Nevada. I'll tell you, if you ever want to be on a road

where you can just clear your mind and literally probably drive 100 miles an hour without ever seeing a cop. Go to Nevada. So anyways, I'm in Nevada, and I do find between two of the paved traditional highways, I locate a dirt road that goes for probably about 90 miles between these two highways.

So I'm in the middle of nowhere. This is a week after I got my second flat tire fixed. I'm driving down a dirt road in probably one of the most remote places in the United States because it's, like I said, it's a very empty state. Las Vegas is boom, and then Nevada turns into nothing. Which I love, by the way. I love wide open desert.

There's something beautiful about it to me. Most people are like, oh, how boring. Just rocks and tumbleweeds and sand. Who likes sand? It gets in your eye and in your shoesies. Hey, when you get out there and you get out of your vehicle and you just stand there and you can just hear crickets chirping and the wind's blowing and there's that dry heat going through your hair,

it's heaven, man. You're away from everything. Until you've been there, don't knock it. But anyways, I'm straying off course. So I'm on this dirt road in the middle of Nevada, driving along and all suddenly you're I'm like, wait, wait, wait, wait a minute. Are there some fat people behind a bush over there,

like slopping around on each other, covered with oil? Hell no, it's my tire that I just got fixed. I get out, boom. Flat tire. Third one in like three weeks, man. I've never experienced that before, right? So there I am, and I'm thinking, okay, no problem. I'm not going to panic.

Meanwhile, I'm in one of those situations. You ever see that show on the Discovery Channel? I shouldn't be alive. Okay, I am in the middle of an arid desert where you, I'm not that far from Death Valley. Okay? I'm in a location where you dehydrate very, very quickly. I'm in an arid desert.

I don't have much water. I've maybe got one bottle of water plus all the water in my windshield wiper fluid container under the hood, which I'm thinking that'll be a treat to dip into. And I'm like, no worries, man. I got this covered. I got my jack.

I got my wrench. I got everything. So here's what I do. I get the wrench out. And what you do is you, you, loosen the bolts before you lift your vehicle up onto the jack because you know you don't want to be pushing on the ranch and you knock your your vehicle off the jack so one bolt two bolt three bolt four bolt no problem they're a little tight but with a little elbow grease i was able to move

them and then that fifth bolt i'm like wait a minute this thing ain't budgeum and i am pushing on the wrench. I'm jumping up and down on it. I'm getting up on it, standing on it with my feet, quite literally. And this bolt won't move. And I'm like, you're kidding me, man. I'm not going to get this tire off because the guy at the tire station didn't use elbow grease. He had one of those manual, those hydraulic rivet guns. You know, when they take your tire off and put it on, it's like, you know that thing and so obviously a machine like that with high pressure air running through it is going to tighten your bolt tighter than you could probably humanly do it

so sure enough one of my bolts is so tight I can't get it off I'm stuck in the desert all I'm thinking is I shouldn't be alive on the Discovery Channel I'm pitching myself with a straw in my windshield wiper fluid. It's like I'm sucking a blue margarita from under my Dodge Ram. Oh, man, I'm getting drunk on this antifreeze, man. This is the best party I've ever been to. Where are we? A middle of nowhere. Oh, thank you. I shouldn't be alive.

You won't be for long. Oh, God. So here's what I did. You know, you get down to, when you get into trouble, your brain starts to, you can either go one way. You can panic and become like an idiot and just make things worse, or you can go into, you know, survival mode and you rationalize and you take educated guesses at how things work and what you need to do to help yourself survive. So basically I'm noticing that the way my tire is sitting on this flat piece of dirt road is that the final bolt that won't come loose is right down at ground level and it's at the point where the rim is hitting the road.

So in other words, all the pressure of my heavy vehicle is concentrated to that one point. All the weight is resting on what I'm assuming. is the last bolt that won't move. So what I do is I put my truck in gear and I pull forward about five, six inches. So now the stubber bolt that wouldn't move is now up in the air and it's over to the right

and there's no weight on that bolt. So I'm thinking by dispersing the weight, it might help. And so I put the wrench back on and I try to move. it with my hands and I'm pushing so hard my palms are hurting and I'm thinking wait a minute I'm not going to be able to push on this wrench much longer my palms are probably bruising I'm pushing so hard so one last time I get up there on my feet and I'm literally like bouncing up and down

and then I fall off the wrench and I'm thinking oh no either the wrench just popped off the nut or that nut finally budged well thankfully the nut budged and um i was able to remove the tire now the point of this whole thing being it might be worth your while to learn how to change a tire because not everywhere you go in life there's going to be a triple a okay and um you know what guys if you're with your girl i i hate to say this but I also get the impression, and I could be wrong, but I get the impression that I think that girls dig a guy

that can change his own tire. I think they think it's a little macho, a little tough. A little, you know, he's a man's man type of thing. And I don't want to be insulting, but I don't know how many ladies know how to change a tire. And I'm not trying to be sexist. just being real. I'm willing to put money on the table that, you know, a high percentage of women do not know how to change a tire and don't have any inclination to learn or want to know. Well, you should take the time to learn because at the end of the day, it's quite easy. It's not that hard. And it could save

your life or it could save you from being in a lot of trouble. And ladies, if you do change your own tire, it will make you a man's man. Yeah, it'll make you more manly, which I don't know if that's the desire and effect you want, but I said it. So there you go. Learn how to change your tire, and whatever you do, don't learn how to change your podcast. Because this is a place to be right here on the Harlan Highway with me. And I'm glad you made it safely with me here. Check your air pressure, take off because we've got to go.

But until next time, as always, Chick-chowlame, baby.