The Harland Highway - PODCAST 173

Episode Date: October 4, 2010

Sea creatures, Laughing at AIDS, Curious George, Life on earth, Rosa Louisa drops by. Corny cheese sauce! 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

Whoa, whoa, whoa, it's podcast, you know. Don't ever say it's not so. It's podcast, you know. Yeah, you know it is podcast, and you are on the hottest, sexiest podcast in town. It's the Harlan Highway. What a show. We got some special guests dropping by today. We're going to be making a call to a bookstore.

We're going to talk about laughing at AIDS. What? We're going to be talking about sea creatures, life on earth. It's all here. It's full of life. It's the Harlan 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 Harland Highway. Hi, Arlen. I'm Teddy Romp Spinning. I'm your friend. Writing down the Harland Highway.

I'm not your daddy. Hey, Harlan. This is Andy from Traverse City, Michigan. Northern Michigan. Loving the show. Loving the podcast, man. You're cracking me up every day. I listen to it.

Just wondering when you're going to finally record your little footage with your cleaning lady there. She sounds pretty hot. I'd like to hear some actions, Harlan. Thanks, Buck. Hey, this is Harlan Williams, and you are listening to the Harland Highway. You're here with me, and a really cool topic today. I've always been wondering, what it would be like? Excuse me?

Hello? Hi. Oh, Rosa Louisa. Hi. I was just popping in to say hello. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, I guess it's kind of late. The cleaning ladies here, folks.

I'm in the middle of a podcast, though. Can I say hi to everyone? Yeah, why don't you do that? And then, you know, I got to get back to it. So this is Rosa Louisa, the cleaning lady here at the studio. Hi, Harlan's fans. Okay. Okay, well, thank you.

I am working a little late later than usual, so I'll be out of here in about an hour. Oh, okay. Well, I'm going to be here for another hour, too. So I just, I don't know if you wanted to come downstairs right after you're finished or even before you're finished. I'm going to be down in the cafeteria. What do you mean?

Well, everyone else is gone, so I kind of got stuck with the dirty stuff tonight. So I'm going to be down, like, just washing the tables. Okay. I'm doing a podcast, Rosa. Um, okay, well... Why would I come down to the cafeteria? I'm kind of busy here. Well, there's no one else here.

I just thought that I could use some company while I'm like, you know... I don't know. I mean, there's kind of some fun stuff I have to do. I could always use some company. What do you mean? I have to sponge off the tables and I get all wet and just, I don't know. Sometimes it can be fun if you have company doing that kind of stuff. I have to squeegee and wash off the doorknobs.

Excuse me, you're what? You're doing what? I have to wash the doorknobs. Is that a new uniform they've given you? It's actually the old uniform. I just, you know, I like design and stuff, so I just cut mine. Like, I cut mine in half, like the shirt. No one seemed to mind.

And I'm, you know, I've been walking around like this for, like, a week now. And I've actually gotten lots of compliments because the skirt, like, it cuts off right at my thigh. And I just thought it was much more fashionable. And I thought that maybe, you know, everyone could, like, all those cleaning girls could dress like this. Is that a belly button ring you've got there? Yeah, and I got a little belly, like, like, belt to go around it. This little, like, zirconia silver hoop thing. You like it?

Yeah. Yes, it's very nice, but I got to do a podcast here, so I don't think I can be going down to the... Can I just, can I ask you one more thing? Yes. They have some popsicles down at the buffet. It's a special popsicle extravaganza, and I was thinking that we could, I don't know, just like sit down there and suck on some popsicles. Suck on some popsicles. I guess I could

No I've really got work to do But thank you Thank you What are you getting at What is it you want to do down there I don't know I just thought that we could have some fun together Like what do you mean by fun

I thought we could just fuck Rosa if you could I got to Why you don't want to fuck me i got a i got to finish the podcast here um we're uh we're gonna actually take a little break here folks uh we'll be we'll be back another shout out to harland's fans just a few minutes here uh wow what floor is that cafeteria on again Hey everybody

Harland Williams here And we live in a day And an age of technology And nobody ever reads anymore Myself included Guilty as charged officer Spread them So here's what I'm going to do

I'm going to get myself Some good old-fashioned reading I'm going to curl up by the fireplace with my Rottweiler and my hot cup of eggnog and read some damn book. So let's go ahead and call the bookstore and see if I can find myself some good reading material. Nick speaking, may I help you? Hi, Nick, this is Charles. Hi.

Hi, how are you today? I'm well. How are you doing? Excellent, thanks. I was wondering, do you have any curious George books? Yeah, sure, we must. What are some of the titles? I'm looking for Curious George.

Oh, hold on here. Who's the author, Ray? The author, I'm not sure. I think it's Ray, R-A-Y. It's Ray, R-E-Y, and yes, we've got Curious George. What are? It's George and the bunny. Curious George, well, we're out of the rocket book.

Curious George and the kite, we have on order. Do you have Curious George goes to the zoo? To the zoo? No, no. We have Curious George gets a medal. Hmm. Curious George takes a job. Takes a what?

Job. Oh, I thought you said something else. Do you have any buy Curious George? No, Curious George didn't read or write. I mean buy curious. As in, you know. So, do you want to come in and buy some Curious George? books? I sure would. What time you open till?

9.30. And your name? My name is Nick. Look for Charles at 8 o'clock in the kids section. Hey, Harlan, it's me again. Listen, you said that you're interested in making me laugh, but honestly, I just found out that my friend has eight, and I've been laughing at it like non-stop, and I'm not sure that you can top that. But I don't know why it's funny. Like, it shouldn't be funny. You're, oh, I have AIDS.

What the fuck? Is that bad or wrong? Anyway, I figured if anybody would know, it would be you. And I'm, like, constantly listening to, you know, what you have to say anyway. So, anyways, let me know. Call me back. Okay, bye. Did you say AIDS?

Ah! Oh, wow. Okay, dude, listen. Not funny that your friend has AIDS. There's no humor to be had in AIDS. Although I got to say it would probably be a happy it would probably be a happier world if we could just laugh at horrible ailments if maybe the human emotion center went to a place that was happy instead of sad you know it's like mr jackson you have terminal cancer oh my god yes i'm afraid you only have four months to live oh can you give me five right imagine if it was like uh mrs johnson I'm afraid you have leukemia. What? Leukemia.

Oh, my God, that's a good one. Tell me again. You have leukemia? But that's not the way it works. But I'm not a psychologist. I'm not a psychiatrist. I'm not a psycho. I'm not anything that starts with P.S.

P-H-Y-H or whatever they have. I don't have a degree in P-S-A-ha-ha. But I think sometimes when there's trauma, there's bad news, there's painful events, sad events, sometimes I think the human mind goes into reverse psychology mode. and maybe the human mind doesn't want to accept the inevitable. They don't want to accept the pain and the suffering and the death that can, you know, come part and parcel with a terminal illness.

And my only guess here is, and I'm not a professional, but my guess here, sir, son, young fella, is that, you know, the mind reverses it. And in order to cope with the trauma, instead of grieving, instead of being sad, you laugh. You find comfort, you find relief from the pain, you find a way to not have to deal with that immediate reality. And so the mind laughs. Maybe it's out of nervousness. Maybe it's out of a lack of knowing what to do or how to respond.

Maybe it's some kind of protective device, psychological mechanism. But it happens, man. Listen, I'm sure you're not laughing at your friend having AIDS. You're just laughing because your mind can't get around the enormity of someone having AIDS. I remember I was at a funeral once and it was obviously of a loved one it was a relative and I was sitting there and there was so much grieving around me

there was people crying and it was depressing and there was a casket laying up at the front of the church with a there was the body of my uncle and it was just so like seeing everyone so down and upset and I actually started, like, cracking jokes and laughing. And I kind of went what you're going through. And in my mind, I'm like, is this inappropriate?

But then I was almost like, I'm not going to let death win here. Death doesn't get the last laugh on my great uncle. I remember my uncle. I remember my uncle laughing and singing and telling stories. I'll be damned if death is going to spoil the memories of me with my uncle. Okay, he's gone. I accept that. Sad.

But somehow I had to inject levity and laughter into a dire situation in order to cope. You see what I'm saying? And so the announcement of your friend having AIDS maybe sent you into that mode, and it was your way of coping. It was your coping mechanism because your mind probably scrambled the minute you heard it. Your mind probably fizzled.

Your mind couldn't compute. Wait, wait a minute. This is my friend. My friend doesn't get AIDS. My friend's not going to die. My friend's not going to go through the painful horrible death that AIDS is. Ha, ha, no way.

Right? Right? And, you know, don't take it as being insensitive or not caring. But I think maybe the laughter is a coping mechanism. And, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if there's a lot of other people out there with a similar story. 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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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. They go to that place in order to deal because they don't want to look at the alternative to laughter, which is sadness, depression, glim. Grim, you know. So there, there's my hip pocket explanation.

I do not have a degree, okay? That's the best I can do for you. I hope it gives you, for what it's worth, if you value my opinion, I hope it gives you some solace, I hope it gives you maybe some comprehension, some understanding, if I'm right.

I don't know. This is my theory. Now, if there's any specialists out there or professionals who can explain why we sometimes laugh at tragedy better than what I'm doing, please call in 323-215-1486, or how about if you've been in a situation where something horrible has happened or been announced or declared and you went into humor mode.

You went into laughter mode. Kind of like our AIDS friend here or me with my dead uncle. I bet it's happened to others. We'd like to hear your story. If you want to share, please let us know and maybe somehow tell us why you were laughing

and maybe it will give some creed in, some validation to what I just said to Mr. AIDS giggle over. here. I just found out that my friend has aid and I've been laughing at it like non-stop. So there you go. Give us a call 323-215-1486

and if while you're dialing your phone your finger breaks and it snaps in half and blood starts spurting out all over the place and you die well then Hey, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, he he he he he, he, he, he, he. I just got to tell you, I saw something really weird the other day. I don't even know if I should tell you. I don't want you to think I'm weird, but I was over at Staples, you know, the office supply store,

and I went into the pen aisle. You know, they got a whole aisle just filled with dozens and dozens and hundreds and thousands of pens. And I saw a bunch of squid and a bunch of octopi sucking on the pans. Sucking the ink right out of the pans. Is that legal? Is that considered choplifting? Do they have a problem? Do they have a drinking problem?

I went to say something and they squirted it, Inko, I mean, disappeared. Maybe I shouldn't have said anything. I don't know why I'm talking like this, but it feels good. Ah, the Critters of the Deep, right? Have you ever watched one of those shows? shows about underwater stuff like fish and sharks and then they just kind of go deeper and deeper into the ocean and the deeper they get the more kind of weird and eerie it gets everything gets dark and then they go like really really deep like you know 28 miles down and and and you get to the

bottom and it's just barren and weird fish kind of swimming in out of the light like albino fish they're all white and eels and white crabs and then they get right to the bottom where there's still like heat extreme heat oozing out from the earth's crust and then it's full of sulfur and chemicals and who knows what else I mean, it's the most uninhabitable place you could ever imagine. There's no way you could imagine life exists. Two miles beneath the ocean, pitch black, cold. I mean, it's almost like being on the moon.

It's like being on another planet. And yet down in the murky depths of the ocean, sure is crap. There's like little crabs and these things. They call tube worms. These kind of weird, elongated. They look like long tubes with like flowery kind of tentacles coming out of the top. And it turns out these things are alive. And there's little shrimp swimming around them.

And it's just amazing. The areas of the planet that you can find life. You know, I mean, think of. about the Antarctic, right? Think about seals and polar bears and critters living in places where there should be nothing there. Okay, seal, so you're fat, you're blubbery, we get it, but are you really having a good time sitting on the ice at minus 75 degrees? Is that really what kills me you ever watch the nature shows they just lay there right they just lay out on the ice it's like a person laying on a beach they couldn't look more content they're just rolling on

their back they just popped out of the ocean which is floating with icebergs it's like 29 zillion degrees below zero they're just like pop pop out roll on your back Get out of the freezing water and lay on ice. And yet they make it look like they couldn't be happier. Like they're at a resort or something. It's incredible. Everywhere you go, there's life. You ever, when you were a kid?

And I always found this fascinating. You're beach combing, maybe your first time ever at a beach. And you're walking along the beach and you come to a little tidal pool. There's a little, you know, a little place where the, at one point the tide was in and the water was crashing over the rocks. But then when the tide goes out, all that water gets trapped in a little pool and the rocks. And you think, oh, great, a puddle. And then you walk up and you look in the so-called puddle and there's like starfish and sea urchins and fish and CQ. and sea enemies and it's just this thing's bristling with life this little tidal pool

and you just like good god there's life everywhere everywhere you go there's something living out in the desert you ever watched those uh documentaries on tv you know it's like 7 million degrees and you're like no way nothing lives here and then all of a sudden like a beetle runs across or a lizard or some ants there's something there's always something there you know i don't think there's a place on earth you can go and just go oh oh no life oh excellent this is what now this is a vacation just scorched earth no life love it there's always something

whether it's a bug or an ant or a bird a reptile an amphibian I remember I was out on a road trip not too long ago and I went out I saw this old windmill sitting in a farmer's field okay and I thought that'd be a nice thing to photograph

you don't see the old windmills much anymore and I was like oh how nostalgic the old west so I jump out of the truck and me and my friend and we go running up to this old windmill and at the bottom of the windmill is an old like a tank of water not a tank but a tub you know they leave an open tub for the cows to drink out of uh you know the cattle that's that's actually the purpose of those windmills I always wondered what the hell a windmill was for. And what I realize is that the windmill has a kind of a pipe going into the earth. And when the wind blows, the pipe goes up and down and it's kind of like an oil, Derek.

And it siphons water out of the ground and trickles it into this tub so the cows can drink. There you go. You just learn something from the kid. So anyways, I'm taking pictures of this windmill. And I look down into the water of this, you know, this tub. This thing's got a circumference of about, I don't know, maybe it's in a circle and it's maybe like eight feet around. And the thing's about maybe three and a half feet deep. And it's been there forever.

You know, it's kind of an abandoned farmyard. And there's like, you know, some grass growing in the bottom and some water plants. and I look down into the bottom of this old thing, which is still, you know, leveled off with water, and I see something moving. And I look down and in the bottom of this thing in the middle of nowhere is probably about a six-inch newt. Now, I don't know if all of you know what a newt is,

but it looks like a salamander, but it's kind of an aquatic salamander. And I'm like, wait a minute, how the hell did this thing get here because you know the walls of this tub like I said three and a half four feet high I don't know that a newt can crawl up the side of a metal tub how does that happen

I mean this this this is an aquatic like an amphibian it looks like a salamander I can't imagine the thing crawling across the prairie to find this tub of water in the middle of nowhere. And I'm like, what the? How did it get here? It made me wonder if it just evolved in that environment.

Like life just took its course and it was just water and somehow a critter evolved. Because it obviously could have burled through the metal because if it did, there'd be a hole in the tub and there'd be no water in the tub. So somehow this thing must have climbed up the side. I don't know. It was a mystery, but it's just like anywhere you look, there's life. You ever been in a river or in your backyard and you flip over a rock or an old piece of wood? Do you know how much life is under there?

It's like there's spiders, there's worms, there's bugs, there's beetles, there's ants, there's ticks. It's just amazing. life life life so where's this conversation going well it makes me believe there's got to be life somewhere else in that galaxy out there do you believe do you believe there's life out there i don't know i just don't know there's life here on the harland highway and uh you know what let me let me tell you about some really fun life we have finally got to a website up for the Harland Highway

get yourself to Harland William Harlandhighway.com Harlandhighway.com where we've got a website up dedicated to the podcast here we've got some clips

we've got some photos of our cast that hang out here on the show we've got all kinds of stuff the website's new we're just building it but if you visit it you you can check it out see what we got going there and we also have another website for my indie movie called fudgy wudgy fudge face um and that website is fudgefilm.com fudgefilm and you can go and learn all about my independent movie

Fudgy Wudgy Fudge Face you can look at the cast you can look at the crew you can look at some I actually have some footage of a UFO up on there that I filmed or is it a UFO you decide

got some deleted scenes from the movie all kinds of stuff so two cool new websites harlandhighway.com and fudge Fudgy film What is it? Fudgefilm.com.

God, I've got so many websites. I'm going berserk. Do dot com, dot com. The dot com. Dot com. Dot com. Everything's dot com. Good Lord.

Indian people should put the word calm beside the little dot in the middle of their forehead. Huh? Wouldn't that be fun? Hello, my name is ginderbondander.com. Right? That'd be a fun little gimmick, a little graphic for the front of your face. I think those little dots on their foreheads are called bindies or something like that.

They're cute as hell. I actually had an Indian friend who let me put one on once. Kind of fun. But wouldn't that be funny? if it's just a little red dot and then it said dot com beside it? I don't know. Could be fun, could be insulting. I don't know.

It's just a visual, folks. So there you go. I think we're kind of at the end of our show for today. I know it's sad. If you want to listen to it on your phone, go to Stitcher.com. You can download the app. or the app, as the hipsters are saying, for free. And, yeah, you can listen to the Harlan Highway for free on your cell phone,

on your Blackberry, on your iPhone, on your old can of soup with a string sticking out of it. Hope you had a good time here today. We had a blast. I had a blast. Love bringing the show to you guys. Keep the calls coming. You know, we had some calls earlier in the show. We got them on the air.

Please feel free to call and leave a message or a story or a stupid comment. Whatever you want. The numbers 323-215-1486. And until next time, my friends, keep on laughing, but only at the funny stuff. Chicken, chow-main, maybe. Thank you.