The Harland Highway - PODCAST 262

Episode Date: April 29, 2011

Babies at the movies, bugs and lights, interview with actor/comedian Andy Dick, a sad bird story. Fluffy flutty nutty's!!! 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

Yippie I-Oh, yippie-I-A, Ghost Riders in the sky. Hello, Ghost Riders. Here we go. Welcome to the Harlan Highway. It's me, Harlan Williams. Who else would it be? It's the Harlan Highway. So it's me, Harlan Williams, on the highway with you.

Great show today. more of our conversations with actor-comedian Andy Dick. We're going to be touching on some very sensitive topics today with Andy. Should be a great, great time. We're going to be talking about babies today. We're going to be talking about human babies and how annoying they can be in certain situations. But then I'm also going to tell you about a story,

a sad story, I hate to say, where I became kind of a surrogate father to some baby birds. And I won't give it all away, but not the happiest story in the world. But nonetheless, I'm going to share it with you. And also a phone call from my mother. And we're going to talk about bugs, all kinds of flying topics today. And speaking of which, we better get flying. right now flying right down

the Harland Highway Welcome to the Harland Highway You fellas been doing a bit of booze and have you sucking back on grandpa's old cough medicine There's an element of uncontrolled chaos The Harland Highway

Serving everyone from presidents and kings to the scum of the earth What a treat Oh wait Was you a great big fat person You just made a wrong turn On to the Harland Highway. You need many years of therapy.

Hey, Harlan, it's Stephanie from Bedford. Just do me. You might want to think twice before seeking your penis in there. Just do me. You're riding down the Harland Highway with Harlan Williams. That's two adults. Okay, that'll be $375, and your theater is upstairs to the left. Enjoy the show.

And I hope you enjoy the seven crying children that I just sold tickets to. Well, you're at the Restricted Movie. Yeah, you know what I'm talking about, right? People, you go to a movie. You even go to the late movie, just because you want to avoid kids. You want to avoid kids being in the movie. And I'm not talking like teenagers. They're okay.

They get it for the most part. When the movie starts, you shut your pie hole. but how about these people that are too cheap ass to spring for a babysitter so they're like you know what I really think we should bring our nine-month-old infant to see Ghost Rider I mean children love movies about satanic motorcycle riders whose heads burst into flaming skulls are you kidding me man I went to see Ghost Rider

and there was at least four kids in there And I'm talking little kids with their families. And you're just like, come on, man. I've had a long week. I worked hard. It costs a fortune to go to the movies. I spend $90 on parking. $250 on popcorn and drinks.

$30 on the admission. I want two hours to escape from reality. And I got baby Huey beside me. Thanks a lot. Gee, nothing I like. like more than a good love story and the stink of baby caca permeating the air. You're right at the climax of the movie, you know, it's a showdown. The bad guy's just about to shoot the good guy, and everything's quiet on screen,

and you can hear a fly buzzing and that just everyone's on the edge of their seat. Oh, my God, our hero's going to get it. And all of a sudden from the back row, you hear, Oh, you're just hoping that the bad guy on screen turns around from the movie screen. The actual actor in the film turns around from the movie screen and start shooting at the crowd to try and knock off that baby. And I know that sounds mean, but keep them out of the theaters, will you? Don't you realize you're probably dementing their minds?

Their young programmable minds are watching Ghost Rider, or at least leave your kid in the snack bar throw them in the popcorn machine that's nice and warm it's heated it's nice and soft let your kid's incubating there for two hours pick them up on the way out

and get yourself a box of goobers while you're at it and a soft drink it's almost like having your kid all over again but with treats or bring them down the Harland Highway and I'll watch them for you oh I'm such a softie Maybe I'll go bike riding down the Harland Highway with the ghost rider and your kids.

Oh, what are you going to do? What are you going to do about the babies? And speaking of babies, any of you out there listening adopted? Well, I'm going to get back into my conversation, my interview with the actor-comedian Andy Dick, and you're going to hear a few surprising things about Andy growing up and where he came from as a baby. So here we go, as promised,

let's jump back into my continuing conversation with funny man, Andy Dick. What causes you the most pain in life? Lawsuits. Really? Are you in some lawsuits? I told you I didn't want to talk about that. Okay, then we won't talk. What causes you emotionally the most pain in life?

What hurts? When I am, I have abandonment issues because I was adopted. But supposedly the textbooks and the doctors, the therapist, they say it's a result of being adopted. You know, I was adopted. And so they say that people that were adopted oftentimes or every time have issues with abandonment. And, you know, it makes sense because you're inside of your mother for nine months. Yeah. You get close.

I mean, you can't be any closer. You can't be any closer. You're eating her, really. I mean, you're eating her fluids. And she's like your buffet. She is. She's a just delicious buffet. She's like your food pump, right?

you're eating her vitriolic fluids. And the other thing is that you're urinating in her. She's your toilet. She's your toilet. She's your kitchen. She's your everything. It's not weird that you can just, you just, as a baby, inside your mother, you're just crapping and urinating and just swimming in it.

Yeah. And then she kind of filters it through her body and it comes back around and you eat it. It's kind of like being on the space shuttle. They just recycle everything. So after nine months of being that close to somebody, You're gone. You pop out, they cut the cord, and in my case, I luckily found my biological mother. You did.

I did. And she told me that they covered her eyes. They covered her eyes when I came out, and they rushed me out. And she didn't know they were going to cover her eyes. She said to this day, if anybody ever tries to cover her eyes, she goes into a panic, and she'll hit them and scream because it was that hardcore for her. And so it was hardcore for both of us.

But I think with me and these abandonment issues, like if you left the room right now, I'd have this slight panic. I'm not kidding. I understand. And it's stack on top of that that you moved like 12 times as a boy.

All the time, yeah. So you've, it's that stability. It was really, I'm just kind of. of a wreck i mean i just so you know i've i've i've had tons and tons of of therapy and and all kinds of different i've tried everything from scientology to buddism to transcendental meditation really everything you can have you tried dr ascot he's the guy i see he's not good no but you know where is he is he at the flarm puff institute but dude you know what i think the answer answer with you is your, your therapy

is nature. We talked about that. It really is. When I'm in nature you need. That grounds you. What I need is what you showed me earlier. Yeah. Yeah. I really do. I need something like that. Because living in a shed, you know, it has its perks. I can't think of any right now.

But, you know, actually, you know what? Like right before I left here to come see you, the fire that I had started, I have this one of those those um it stands it's on a stand and barbecue in your shed it's outside because we have three acres i mean i'm like far away from the main house i'm like i live in nature i basically live in nature but i have one of those safe uh fires that has a lid on it you take the lid off it's a big big fire

and and it was no it's a fire it's a fire's actual flames crack away yeah you have to put a log A fireplace. It's a fireplace, but it's made of metal and you can move it around. You can get it at Home Depot. Last night when I had the screening of that movie, I should talk about that. I did a football movie called D3. I play the head coach. Just look for it.

I don't know. It will come out sometimes. But anyhow, we had a screening of that movie, and I made a fire outside. And one of the logs at the end of the night was so big and thick that it was still going today right now when I came to see you. And so on my way out, I think. threw in a bunch of of the pie of we had a Christmas tree and I I ripped off a bunch of branches through them in and threw some more wood in and there's a fire going right now waiting for me for when I get back wait an unsupervised fire it has a lid you know okay

okay there's a lid okay it's totally safe totally safe um well let's get let's skip back to your meeting your biological mother for a minute was that a good experience or was that a awkward experience because I can only imagine you know going back and meeting your mother how many years later was it? 30 years

because you know my mom who raised me my mom and my dad they died but there was one time when I was a teenager I said to my mom you know I'm kind of curious to find my biological parents and she just burst out crying

so I just never brought it up again. I never did anything and I never tried. But after they died, I didn't just run out and try to find her. It took me another five or ten years to even say, you know, I still am curious. There's this like empty hole

in my heart, in my soul. Who are these people and why and what? There's million questions that after I met my mom and my biological dad, they weren't going out. She was long story short. She was

17 in high school. He was just this amateur boxer, and he was also a bricklayer, knocked her up, denied it, said, no, it's not mine. They shipped her off. My grandfather, you know, her dad shipped her, because it was 1965. It was a scandalous high school student pregnant. Shipped her off to South Carolina, had me, and then came back. Put me up for adoption and came back.

um that's the that's the the short version of that but meeting them really didn't answer any questions or make me feel any better it just created more questions and since meeting them i had this great relationship at first with both of them yeah and then it it fizzled out and i almost felt guilty that um that i was trying to start up and father's son or mother son relationship when really the people that raised me were my mom and my dad and I really miss them a lot. Yeah, that's what a, what a weird. So I don't really talk to them, the biological ones.

Which I got to ask the question, which one did you look like more? The mom or the dad. It was really was split down the middle. Is that right? Yeah, and, and, you know, neither of them were that attractive. Oh, ha, ha, ha, ha. But the thing is, is they're both alive. They're very healthy.

They're both alive and kicking. I asked my biological dad, I said, were you a drinker? He said, oh, hell, yes. Is that right? He drank a lot. I said, when did you stop drinking? He said when he was 47. And I think I had met him when I was about 40.

And I said, wow, I've got seven more good years to go. Wow. What's the heritage? What's the heritage of your biological parents? I think she told me it was. 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

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After all, you're in your small space era. It's time to own it. Shop now at IKEA.ca. It was just that common, like, German, French, English, just mix. Yeah. Like, who cares? Yeah, yeah. Wow, that's heavy, man. I always thought that would be one of the wildest.

things in life to be adopted. To not be adopted, but to go back and track down the biological parents. Unbelievable that I found them. Unbelievable. Was it just a fluke? It took a while. What happened is somebody in South Carolina, my lawyer at the time knew somebody in South Carolina. And the lawyer that did my adoption was now a retirement.

hired judge. He became a judge. Then he retired. But he happened to have all the paperwork from all his stuff he ever did in his garage. And there was some intern that I really should find out who that person is and meet them and thank them. They went through every single paper till they found my adoption papers. Why did he have? He sounds like a hoarder, this guy. Why why would he have all that? Must be. That's great. That's good for you.

It helps solve the mystery. Yeah, but once again, it just created more questions, really. Yeah. So you've just kind of, you did what you had to do, you've kind of made peace with it, you let it go,

and your parents are still out there, and you're dealing with your own family. Well, that's an incredible story. Yeah, that's, okay. it's your mother calling. I just wanted to call and let you know that I made some lasagna for dinner tonight. And if you want, I can just scoop it out

with a spatula and slap it all over your bed. I know you don't live here anymore, but we still have your bedroom set up from when you're a little boy, and I can go up there and slap it. your bed with my fresh lasagna. Hobo dad, Ireland. You little bastard.

I don't know why I had you anyhow. I wanted to go, you little bastard. Wow. Okay. I hate it when my mother calls. Obviously, she's been into the NyQuil or something. Yikes. Well, there's another segment.

of the Andy Dick interview we'll be doing some more of that you know as we keep going here and we'll be getting into Andy said that in some of his early interviews he's a nature guy so as

always when I have a guest I throw the old Harland Highway nature quiz at them so that's coming up you know very soon in one of our next one or two interviews together. We'll see how Andy does and that should be

really cool. And speaking of nature, I got a sad story here. I hate to even tell this story, but it breaks my heart, and I thought I'd share it with you. Maybe some of you have been through this. I hope not. Maybe you can relate to it. So I'm out my yard

the other day, and I'm chopping around. I'm trimming bushes. I'm trimming hedges. And living in Cali, we've got a lot of palm trees, right? So I've got some palm trees on my property. And some of them are still, you know, they're the ones with the big, long branches, but they're stumpy. So these palm trees, they're about, you know, five feet high. And about the five foot level, the fronds start growing out.

Okay? Now, keep in mind, palm trees grow about 80 feet high. But basically, they kind of stay the same dimension almost. In other words, the palm fronds at the bottom, when a palm tree is very young, are still just as long as when a palm tree hits full maturity and stands 80 feet in the air, the fronds are usually just the same length. Okay? I hope you're following me in this palm fron mystery.

So anyways, I'm cutting off some of the... the older palm fronds at the bottom. You know, I've got a saw and I'm standing up in the branches like I said about five feet high and I'm cutting them and I've got to pick them up and throw them in a pile

and I look down in the pile and I see this little blob and I'm like, wait a minute, what is that? And I jump down and I look and it is two little baby birds. Okay? Now, it's a

pretty, one of the most common birds in America, it's called a morning dove. It's a beautiful little bird. It's kind of a pale brownish gray. You've seen them, you've heard them. In fact, they can be quite annoying early in the morning if they get outside your bedroom window. But they like to sit on the telephone wires. They like to perch. And early in the morning, you can hear them.

They almost sound like an owl, a soft version of an owl. They're kind of like, whew. And I guess that's the morning dove. I don't know if it means it's morning or to me I think it means they're morning. And I'll tell you what, I'm morning because I can't get any sleep. But anyways, I chopped this little branch down, this palm fron. I look two morning dove chicks sitting there. and I've chopped the whole branch off

and morning doves in case you don't know they don't make much of a nest I guess they're lazy asses because they're morning people, they get tired and they just lay down a few pine needles and you know if the birds left and you found this little pile you would have just thought the wind blew

a bunch of debris onto a branch it's not the customary nest that's a cup shape with the solid sides and the interwoven twigs it really is kind of a makeshift nest. So I go down, I go, oh, great. I've cut down the branch with the bird nest on it, and I got two little baby birds.

And they're not babies to the point where they're bald and their eyes aren't open. They're actually like kind of that in-between where they got, they're covered with feathers, but they're kind of the downy feathers. They're not really the feathers haven't grown out that much. So these guys are gray and their heads a little, like it looks like they have messy hair.

But they're a little more mature than babies, but they still can't fly. And I'm like, there's no way. I can't put these guys back up in the tree because there's no more nest. And even if I could take the nest, they could sit in their nest, but these birds don't really make a nest.

So now I'm facing this dilemma where, you know, in L.A. It's warm all year. there's a lot of critters. There's rats. There's snakes. There's crows. There's birds of prey. There's raccoons. There's, you know, all manner of beastie that without hesitation are going to eat these things. So I can't leave them sitting down on the ground. I can't put them back in the tree. And I'm like, all right, I guess I'm their mommy. I'm their daddy. I got to try and help these things. and I had every intention to nurture these things

and bring them back, you know, help them grow and help them blossom and blah, blah, blah. So I find a little box, a little cage. I put them in and I put some water in and I went on the internet and I found out what they eat. They eat like seeds. And I'm like, okay, but I'm a little nervous

because they're babies and they might not know how to eat. They might not know how to eat seeds. So I keep looking on the Internet and says that the mother morning dove feeds these little guys like a milk, like some kind of a seed milk or a morning dove milk. I don't know. I've never milked a morning dove. So I'm like, God, I had trouble trying to feed them seeds. I could see they weren't eating the seeds because they're babies.

They probably don't know how. And it's very frustrating because here they are sitting. In this box, all the food that they require all around them, all the water they could drink, and they're just kind of sitting there. So I'm starting to worry after like two days. They're not eating. They're not drinking. So I pick them up and I get a little eyedropper and I smush up some sunflower seeds and I smush up some seeds.

And I make like a watery pulp, like a milk. And I got the eyedropper and I'm like kind of pushing it on the tip of their bee. and I'm squeezing in and I'm I can see them drinking it a little bit and I'm thinking okay I'm making progress and sadly the next morning I wake up and one of the birds is dead and the other one

had like hours left and it died like two hours later and I'm just like ugh I was just so bummed out man you know you're sitting there and like I said here's all the food if they were in the wild, they'd gobble this stuff up. They were just so young, they didn't know how to.

And I stayed up late. I stayed up till 2 in the morning, and I just kept trying to feed them, and then I'd put them back down, and then I'd try to pick them up again, and I'd feed them again. And I kind of, you know, stimulated their beak with the tip of this thing, so maybe they thought it was their mother pecking at them, and then I tried to imitate the sounds. I was like, ooh.

while I was feeding them, you know. They're probably like, what is this retard doing? I'm going to starve just to get away from this idiot. So I tried everything in the book outside of rushing them over to an animal shelter, which in retrospect I felt guilty that I didn't do, but I don't know that animal shelters take baby birds that fall out of trees. So here's me trying to be the compassionate, guy, and I'm like, look, they fell out of the tree, I cut them out of the tree, they are not going to survive out here on the ground. The mother's not going to fly to the ground and sit on them and nurture them. And they're too young to fly up into the tree, so they're stuck in this middle world. The best chance they have is a human being to try and feed them, take care of them, at least give them a safe shelter, some warmth. And I did all that, and they still died.

And I failed. I failed those little birds, and I feel horrible about it. Little tiny birds. And it's just awful. So I don't know if any of you have had a run-in with trying to take over as Mother Nature. And maybe you found a little baby squirrel or a baby raccoon, or maybe you found a bird. I don't know, but I hope you had better success than I did.

If you want to share any of your stories like that, you know where to call me. 888, 52090. And maybe you want a phone and console me and tell me it's going to be okay. Or maybe you want a phone and scold me for not doing things right. I don't know.

I tried my best. I really did. And the poor little guys passed away. And what's really hard is, you know, you don't always think of animals in a life and death scenario. You know, I think you do if you have a cat or a dog or a horse or a pet, but when you see a wild animal, when you see a coyote run across the road or a raccoon or you don't realize how hard they have it out in nature.

You don't think about them passing away lonely and cold and tired and hungry the way your pets do or the way we do. And so, yeah, I felt really. bad about it and uh you know i wish i could have been better i wish i could have kept those things alive and sent them off into the world defend for themselves but it's not easy um so there you go i i'm just laying out there one of my experiences if you have something similar uh you can call me and let me know i'd like to hear maybe that will comfort me maybe that will help me through this difficult moment

and I'm not trying to take any of the oh pity is me two baby birds are dead pity the birds but I just gotta say by association I feel really bad why am I bringing you people down with this story I don't know maybe I need to talk about it maybe I need to share

okay maybe I need to get it out of my system maybe I need to release I don't know. I'm not making right of it, but it is sad. Life is fleeting, and poor little guys. So there you go. Let's get into something a little more fun,

a little funny to end the show. Interesting show today. We're talking about adoptions and things dying and animals. Oh. But, hey, it's all part of life. It's all part of the experience of rolling down the Harland Highway. But let's end the show on an upnote. Let's end with a little something to laugh at

before we shut the doors on this episode. Okay, you're going to hear it first. Right here on the Harland Highway. I'm Harlan Williams and News Flash. Okay, bugs are stupid. Bugs are dumb ass. Hello. The dumb ass has just come out of the dark.

What they're doing up so late, I don't know. The birds and the bees and the animals, everything else is in bed. And they go into the light, like Carol Ann from Poultergeist. Go into the light, Moth. Go into the light, ladybug. Go into the light, baby. And they either, like, get fried on the light bulb, or they just sit there all night.

Pretty light. Pretty light. What is their fascination? What do when the sun come up, man? They must go berserk. They must think they're like at a Pink Floyd concert. Look at the pretty light in the sky. Flap, flop, flop, flop, flop.

Maybe us humans should try that at night. Just all go stand somewhere and stare into a light. I'm sure the police force would be happy. Got any calls tonight, Ed? No, everything's quiet. Everyone's just staring into the light. Okay, I'll see you tomorrow. All right.

Put your high beams on. You're motoring right down the Harland Highway. Yes, you are. See, I told you we'd end this show with a giggle. Once again, it was about animals dying. Oh, God. But hey, you know, every show seems to have a theme, a running, underlying topic. And, you know, today that's what we got.

So there you go. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you enjoyed the stories. I don't forget, you can call me 888-529. you can write me at the harland williams.com and don't forget if you want to see me physically see me standing in the light yes that's right I will be actually standing in the light tonight and tomorrow night in New Brunswick, New Jersey

okay at the at the Stress Factory Comedy Club great club i'm doing two shows tonight two shows tomorrow night go to harlowe williams dot com click on my stand-up schedule and you can reserve your tickets uh do it quickly because uh we are selling tickets like fresh onion rings at a ring toss festival no meaning um don't forget you go to harlo williams dot com to the web store and pick up merch comedy albums DVDs CDs, T-shirts, my book, The Things You Don't Know, You Don't Know. A very fun and entertaining read.

And that's it, man. That is all I have for you today. I'm going to close up the bird nest. I'm going to turn off the bug light. I'm going to slam the door on Andy Dick. I'm going to squish the babies at the movies. That's it. We're done.

Thanks for joining. and tell your friends to uh jump on the harland highway so they can have some fun with us too and until next time my fine feathered feline friends chicken chow maine baby