The Harland Highway - PODCAST 139

Episode Date: July 16, 2010

Seatbelts, road trips, Mt. Rushmore, lightning, Ice cream parlors, gas prices, and Dr. Ascot. Watery wonder wheels!! 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

Sometimes I feel I've got to run away. I've got to go away. Oh, you're not going to get away. I'm not letting you get away. For the next half hour, you are right here with me, Harland Williams, on the Harland Highway podcast. So put your seat belt on, put a brace on your face, put your ski boots on, whatever you have to do.

Do not move because we have a killer show for you today. We're going to be talking about all kinds of interesting topics that probably relate to your life. And here's one for sure that does. Seatbelt beeps. We're going to be talking about the annoying seatbelts on the theme of cars and driving. We're going to be talking about road trips. I'm going to be telling you about my road trip to Mount Rushmore. if you've ever been there. Amazing place. We're going to be talking about something that's a little

dangerous to all of us. Lightning. Look out. It's all around us. Lightning. We're going to be putting a new slant on a swear word that we commonly hear. We found new meaning in the swear word. We're going to be talking about gas prices. The cost of fueling your car. And of course, it's Friday, so I've got to sit with my on-air therapist, Dr. Ascot, who knows what he's going to have me do today. It doesn't matter. We'll make it through. We always do. Right here on the Harland Highway.

You just made a wrong turn. Would you kindly shut your mouth? On to the Harlan 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. Hmm. Good afternoon, everybody. It's Harland Williams. Are you going dingbat crazy? Dingbat. All right, have you got one of those cars

where the seatbelt's a communist and it won't let you think for yourself. You know what I mean? You're driving along. You just got in the car. You just were at the gas station and you just got back in the car. And you've gone about 500 feet and all of a sudden you get that seatbelt dinging sound. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. It's telling you to put on the seatbelt.

And you're like, you know what, seatbelt? I'm still fidgeting with my wallet. I got to put it in my back pocket or I got some stuff in my hands. Or I just didn't happen to have the time to put you on right just this second, Mr. Pushy. It doesn't care, does it? Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Shut up. Like a rabid bellboy.

Ding, ding, ding, ding. All right, I'm putting my seatbelt on. Take it easy, man. Have a coffee. Quit telling me what to do. Your door is a jar. Oh, now you're chiming in. You've left your lights on.

Oh, I haven't. It's not even... Shut up, car. Stupid talking car, man. You want to talk? Okay, watch this. I'm going to get going 100 miles an hour and ram you right into a wall.

Why? Because I want to hear you scream. Yeah, that's right. We're going into the wall, sucker. Oh, you can scream all you want. We're going into the wall. My door's a jar. My seatbelt's dinging.

My lights are on. Scream, sucker, scream. Scream. Bang! Yeah, that's right, technology. I'm still in charge car. Nice. Try.

Your trunk is open. Ah, shut up. I am the voice of night industry 2000s, micro-processer, K-I-T-T for easy reference. A kit if you prefer. Now, as far as the upside of driving goes, let me tell you about a road trip I did quite recently that I highly recommend. Oh, my gosh. A, I recommend you drive through the lower portion of Utah. Okay, you go from the west side of Utah across to the east side of Utah.

You end up in like Moab. Moab is on the east side of the state. And anywhere along that lower portion is just some of the most stunning scenery you're ever going to see in your life. I can't even put into words how incredible it is. It's the type of scenery that no word of a lie. About every four or five miles, the topography changes, the colors change, the shapes change, the textures change, the magnitude of the rocks and the hills and the mountains change, the plant life changes. It's just like around every corner, it just becomes more and more stunning.

And you're like, yeah, whatever, we've seen nice stuff. No, this is really unique shapes, unique landscape, unique forms left behind by the glaciers and through years and centuries and millions of centuries of erosion. and just, I can barely put it into words. It's a breathtaking drive to go across the lower portion of the state of Utah. Just take my words for it because nothing I can say can sell it. I've done it. I've seen it. I've been all over the world, and it's definitely one of the most stunning places I've ever seen.

And on top of everything else, it's kind of out in the middle of nowhere. lot there you will find hotels along the way in some of the little towns but it's not built up it's not overkill there's not too many national parks i'm talking about just taking some of the back highways through the lower portion of that state and nobody really knows about them there's no traffic there's nobody there and uh it's just a mindblower and then another place um i would urge you to go which was a place I'd kind of been familiar with my whole life. I'd always wanted to kind of make it a mission to see this place. But it's a little out of the way.

It's in one of the more obscure states. No offense if you're from there, but it's not a state that's commonly on anyone's radar. It's the state of South Dakota. It's kind of a hard state to get to because it's in the middle of the country. It's not near any real big, cities but what is there which I urge you to go and see is Mount Rushmore we all know

what Mount Rushmore is it's the four heads of the presidents it's Washington it's Jefferson it's Franklin it's Lincoln and what an amazing accomplishment what an amazing just piece of art I mean when you think about the all art of sculpturing Okay, what was the last time you saw a nice piece of sculpture in a museum and you're just like, wow, look at the accuracy, look at the detail, look at the workmanship that went into this, right? Okay, so that's like in a museum on a piece of bronze or clay or porcelain. Now imagine a bunch of people carving their work into the side of a giant, mountain imagine a piece of sculpture jutting up out of mother earth and a piece of artwork that's proportions are monster proportions that outscale anything you could ever dream of seeing

in a museum um and then you know take away just the uh the artistic value of Mount Rush and put it to the side for one second. Look at the historical value of such a place. The four presidents, the history of the four presidents, the timeline of the four presidents. And then take that and put it to the side and think about the setting of Mount Rushmore. It is in the middle of nature.

I mean, you are literally walking through mountains. You walk on a nature trail to access Mount Rushmore. You pull into a parking lot, but from there you go on this stunning, beautiful nature walk through pine trees and rocks. And there's turkey vultures and hawks and eagles circling around George Washington's head and landing on Lincoln's eyebrows and it is something else. You know, and like I said, I've been all over the world. I've seen the pyramids. I've seen Angor Watt in Cambodia.

I've seen the castles growing out of the cliffs in Edinburgh, Scotland. I've seen the great pyramids of Egypt. I've seen the Spinks. I've seen the Empire State Building. I've been on the Eiffel Tower. I've been to Machu Picchu. I've seen the heads of Easter Island, the giant heads carved in Easter Island.

I've been to the Taj Mahal. I mean, I've been to the CN Tower. I mean, you name it. I've been to a lot of places, okay? They're all amazing in their own way. But I got to tell you, I was really taken aback. I was really moved and overwhelmed by something right here in the US of A,

and that was Mount Rushmore. it is a stunning piece of artwork and as time goes on and history plays out and this country which is a young country gets older and older and older the significance of Mount Rushmore will grow and grow and grow one time in history if we're still around

if us humans are still around it will be as old as the pyramids I mean it won't keep pace with the pyramids but it will age hundreds, thousands of years, and it will be a rich part, a deep part of American history. So really just a great all-round experience I had at Mount Rushmore. It really hit me harder than I thought it would, and it made me feel like that here in America,

even though we're a young country and most of our history is represented in our architecture. And I'm talking about from log cabins all the way up to the Empire State Building to the arch in St. Louis to, you know, whatever. We don't have things like Stonehenge and the pyramids and the spinks and all that stuff. I mean, we have cave paintings here and there.

We do have old things, but nothing on the scale of, like, let's say, the pyramids. But I'll tell you what, we do in Mount Rushmore. It is really a captivating experience. At least it was for me. Maybe I'm overselling it. Maybe you're like, whatever, dude. You know what? If I want to see that, I'll look on the back of my $5 bill.

Great. There's Lincoln. Great. Just save myself a lot. Long trip to where South Dakota? You know? But here's the reasons for going to South Dakota and sing Rushmore. If you're an art lover, I think you will be dazzled by how well this thing was constructed and carved.

And when you learn the history of how they did it, how these giant crews of guys were hanging on the side of a mountain with air pressure jackhammer. and how many people did it and oh it's just incredible um so you know i would just say check it out a funny story i'll before i get off this topic i'm probably going on a bit long about mount rushmore but here's a funny thing i learned that i did not know is these guys um they were uh using electricity to run their generators to run the uh the jackhammers and they realized over time that every Monday they were having a lack of power in their jackhammers for some reason they were having problem getting the power needed to continue the work and they thought there was something wrong with the line they thought maybe

some squirrels were doing it or there was some blockage or they couldn't figure it out and then finally it all came together it turns out that monday was the day that all the women in the surrounding area did the laundry and so because they were all using their laundry machines at the same time it was hampering the efforts of completing mount rushmore i thought that was kind of funny um you know there was a time and an arrow when i guess uh you know there was a certain day that was laundry day, and all the housewives, that's when they did the laundry. And so thanks to, you know, some guy's skin marks, Mount Rushmore almost wasn't built. Hey, everybody. Who wants to have better sex? No? Yes. Yes. The answer is yes. You always want to have

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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. Because Madge had to put his undies through the wash cycle about seven times in a row. All right, that's not true. But the rest of it is, the whole laundry story was true and quite interesting to me. So there you go. Get to Moab and then get up to, which is in Utah, lower portion of Utah, and then get your buns up to Mount Rushmore, man. Incredible.

All right, I hate to laugh at other people's suffering. We all kind of get a laugh when someone trips or hits their head or gets whacked in the yellows. You know, that's why we all watch America's funniest home videos, right? Yeah, we love watching a guy fall off a roof or smash through a ladder. get charged by a goat. But what about when a dork gets hit by lightning?

Yeah, every year people get zapped by lightning. What the hell's that all about, man? At that point, do we laugh? Like, if that was on America's funniest videos when we start laughing. And here's Daddy out in the rain

fixing the pole, and I'll... Ah! Ha! ha! I don't know. Some guy getting zapped? Is there a fine line between America's funniest home videos and the world's most shocking videos? If the world's most shocking videos was on America's funniest home videos, would we still laugh? I don't know.

But lightning, man. You got to be a bit of a loser to get hit by lightning. I mean, what are the odds? Right? You could win a lottery before you got hit by lightning. Imagine if you were the guy who won the lottery and you had the winning lottery ticket on the way to claim your prize, you got hit by lightning.

Does that make you the luckiest person on Earth or the unluckiest person on Earth or both? I don't know. I guess if you're going to buy a lottery ticket, put on a football helmet, and some rubber slippers. I don't know. Be careful out there, people. Don't get hit by lightning.

Don't get hit by anything as you run across the Harland Highway. You ever hear this swear word or this kind of, I don't know if it's two words or one word or it's kind of like a dirty swear word, like descriptive thing. Have you ever heard the term cluster fuck?

And pardon my French, if you're offended by that, but I do need to talk about it, cluster fuck. Because part of me feels like, okay, it sounds like a really dirty bad word. Like, oh man, what a cluster fuck. But at the same time, for me, somehow it sounds like the perfect name for an old-fashioned style ice cream parlor. Hey there, laddie, welcome to Cluster Fox. Can I get you a mint chocolate chip butter, scotch, crackle?

Okay. Doesn't it, though? Cluster Fox? Cluster Fox. Dairy fresh ice cream. Take a bucket home for your family. Take a cluster fucking bucket home to your cluster fucking family.

I don't know. Am I wrong there when I say that? Can you just picture driving down the street through some town out in the country? There's like the hardware store and the feed mill, the grocery store, maybe a charming little hotel or motel, a coffee shop, and they're right in the middle of it all, cluster fox ice cream. Daddy, can we stop for ice cream? Where, where?

Right there, cluster fucks. What did you say? Cluster fox. Psh! Ah! I just wanted an ice cream. Um, yeah, so there you go. Sometimes, you know, words, just the sound of words.

They feel like they can be something more than what they are. So, you know, ponder that. And if you come up with an answer for me, why don't you meet me down at Cluster Fox? And we'll have a double scoop of strawberry ripple and figure it all out together. Cluster Fox. Hey, Harlan Williams here on the Harlan Highway, and just wanted to let you know, you know, no biggie. You know, sometimes I get breaking news, and I just want to chirp in and give it to you here. So nothing big, nothing we didn't expect.

Gas prices are now at $27 a gallon. That's for regular unleaded, and for the Supreme, for all you people driving the, you know, high-performance vehicles, gas is $49 a gallon. What? What, you don't believe me? Okay, you know what? I made a mistake. Okay, I just, oh boy, gas prices just went up. Okay, regular gas, $67 a gallon.

and Supreme Gas is $112 a gallon. Oh, it's just changed again. We are at $86 a gallon and $2,000 a gallon for diesel super fine, unleaded blend. Oh, God. Yeah, I'm just yanking it, you know, but can you see it getting to that, man? We're like living in Mad Max World or something. What do you want to do, baby? You want to buy that new house,

or would you like to go get the car filled up with gas? Well, we can't go get to the new house if we don't have gas in the car. Yeah, that's true, baby. Well, what do we do? Well, why don't we screw the house, fill the car with gas, and live in the car? That makes perfect economic. sense for our family? Yeah, it does. I get the back seat to sleep in first. No, I get the back seat.

No, I do. Yeah, pretty soon your car's going to be your whole world, people. You ain't going to be able afford anything else, man. I might just, you know, buy property at the gas station. I wonder how much that wheelchair parking spot's going for. I'll pay a good half. I'll pay a good half million to own that rectangle at least I'm near the gas I don't have to drive anywhere

keep your eyes open in your rear view mirror that's probably mad max driving up behind you trying to get your gas I'll tell you something that does give me gas yeah something that gets my stomach upset makes my gut churn is

every Friday I have to visit with my on-air therapist, Dr. Ascot, because the powers that be think I have a nut lose, so it's like their way to determine that I'm doing okay and I'm not going to fly off the handle. So sadly, it's time, it's Friday. Here we go with my on-air therapy. With Dr. Ascott. Hello, Alan.

Oh, God. Hello, Dr. Ascott. How are you today, All right? Do you really care how I am? Yes, Arlen, you're my patient. Okay, I'm doing pretty good. Excellent, Arlen. Excellent.

Okay, do you have to say it that long? Excellent, Arlen. Oh, God. What are we doing today, Ascot? Holland, today we are doing an exercise called Wood. association word association great what's that all about another waste of my time what what is it arland i will say a word and then i want you to say the first thing that pops into your mind okay what's the point of that all it's to stimulate your inner thoughts my inner thoughts

Wow, that sounds really necessary. Oh, okay, so you say a word, then I say the first word that pops into my head. Correct, Arland. And there are no right or wrong answers, Arlen. So just feel free to say whatever comes to your mind. Okay, there's no right or wrong answers.

Good, can we just get this over with? Holland. Just start. Okay, Arland. The first word is fish. Uh, water. Wrong. Pardon me?

The second word is tomato. Garden. Wrong. What? The next word is puppy dog. Um, park. Wrong. What do you keep saying there?

Nothing, all, and keep going. There are no right or not. wrong answers, Arland. Let's continue, shall we? Yeah, let's continue. Let's get it over with. Light bulb. Um, reading. Wrong.

What? Next word, Arland. Forest. Um, dear. Wrong. What do you keep saying there? I keep hearing it. Nothing, Holland. Just keep going. There are no right or wrong answers.

Oh, I swear I keep and you say wrong after everything I say. That's not true, All right, or wrong answers. All right, how much more of this? Just a little more, All right? Okay. Here we go, Allent. Piano.

Uh, concert hall. Wrong. What? Telephone. Um, living room? Incorrect. I heard that. I heard you say incorrect.

I thought you said there's no right or wrong answers. Correct. You just... Why do you... You're saying wrong after everything, aren't you asked God? No. I swear... I'm doing two more words and that's it.

Okay, Holland, here we go. There are no right or wrong answers. It's just free association. Yeah, that's what you keep telling me. All right, here we go, Arland. Farm yard. Cows. Wrong.

I heard that! I heard you say wrong. Holland, you're hearing things. Get to the last word. Hot dog. I don't know. Carnival? Wrong. I heard that, you said wrong.

You tell me you said wrong. No. You said it. No. Get out of here. I've had enough for this. Arlen, would you like me to leave from the door? Yeah, leave through the door. No, you can only answer with a word, Arland.

What do you mean? I said the word door, and you said I'd like you to leave through the door. I thought the word association thing is over. Arland, would you like me to leave through the door? Yes, I would like it. Wrong. Get out of here. Out, out, out!

Wrong. Get out! Unbelievable. Idiot. Wrong. Get out! Oh, yes, words. Have you ever called someone a word?

And then regretted it, rate at the last second. You're like in a fight or it's the heat of the moment or it's a passionate moment or it's a passionate moment. you're like yeah well you're a beep you're like in your head you're like oh my god what did I just say or are you like oh my god I'm so glad I said that that loser had it coming it's amazing if you pick the right word it can have a lot of impact just one word like you could just say to someone you know you could just be mad at someone and say In grade. Wrong.

What are you doing here? Wrong. Get out of here. Wrong. Get out! Guy walks back in in the middle of a bit. Anyway, speaking of bits, I want you folks to do your bit and come out and see yours truly, me, Harlan Williams, do his live stand-up comedy at the Hartford, Connecticut Improv.

Hartford on the east coast of the United States. I will be there Thursday, July 22nd through the 25th. It is going to be a killer time, killer shows. So please come on out and enjoy the festivities. You can get your tickets at Improv.com. And if you don't live in the area, don't hesitate to tell your friends on the East Coast that I will be in Hartford, Connecticut at the improv, Thursday, July 22nd through Sunday, July 25th. And if you need more information, go to Harlan Williams.com.

Check out my comedy schedule. And you'll get all the information for online tickets and phone numbers and all that fun stuff. So that's it for today, my friends. Wrong. Stop it. we are done I hope you had a great time loved having you here

riding along the highway have a great weekend and we will catch you next time right here with me yours truly uh harlone Williams and until then chicken chau-may baby

wrong get out