The Harland Highway - PODCAST 288

Episode Date: June 29, 2011

Celebrity sighting, death defying moments, traffic, cockroaches. Lord love an onion bun!!! 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

Heavens to Murgatroyd, Haven. Yeah, that's right. Whatever Murgatroyd is, heavens to that. And heavens to the Harland Highway, because you are on it. You are on it with me, your host, Harland, Murgatroyd Williams. Haven. And what a show we have for you today. I hope you're nestled in.

I hope you have your leather slippers on and your snut. wrap yourself up and you're snuggy because today we're talking about a celebrity sighting that I had yeah a celebrity citing that triggers a whole conversation into a moment my life where my life was in danger okay so way to you hear this how I segue from a major celebrity citing into a life-threatening situation that I was in fascinating We're going to be doing some conversation stuff about cockroaches. Yeah, I don't know what that meant, conversation stuff. Yeah, that's what I do.

I do conversation stuff. We're going to have some little drop-in visitors here on the show today. It's just a pop-pery of madness, mayhem, and monkey meat. So put your tonsils in. Let's go. It's 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 sticking your penis in there. Just do me. You're riding down the Harland Highway with Harlan Williams. I'm not crazy, you know. I'm not crazy, you know.

What's the matter? The ice is going to break. If you put your kid out on that ice, it's going to break. All right, that was my best Christopher walking. I know. It's terrible. Everybody does a walking, right? You could do a nursery rhyme.

Mary had. A little lamb. Her fleece was white as snow. But everywhere that Mary went. Sheep was shit to go. I don't know. I'm trying. I don't do walk.

But why am I talking about Christopher walking? Here's why I was at the airport the other day. And I was just leaning on a garbage can, talking on the phone to a buddy. and my eye line is kind of down this long hallway at this busy airport and almost like one of those kind of slow motion astronaut shots. You know when the astronauts walk out of the fog and slow motion and they're holding their helmet and they're trucking down the hall? Well, that's what this felt like when all of a sudden,

from around the corner and from the end of the hall, this guy appears. He's wearing a long black coat And he's holding a briefcase And he's just kind of got that strut Like that astronaut strut Like he's not going to get on a plane He's going on to get a shuttle And I looked at this guy

And I go, that guy looks familiar somehow And then he started getting closer And I'm like, that guy looks like Christopher Walking And then he got closer And I'm like, my God, it is Christopher walking and I was just I just went into one of those zoned out

like uh what reality am I in what what is Christopher walking doing walking through a busy airport all by himself nobody's bugging him no one's around him nobody's with him I thought is he lost

because he is a weird guy you know he probably was going out to dinner to hit a restaurant and ended up wandering through an airport I can picture him doing that just wandering through a term for a few hours and then going, Wait a minute. This isn't a restaurant.

I'm supposed to be at a restaurant. Where's all the waiters? Where's the waitresses? When can I order an appetizer? Again, with the bad impression, but let's hear you do better. So anyways, he walks right by me and actually looks at me. Our eyes lock just for a few seconds. And I cracked him a little smile, and he just kind of rolled his lizard-like eyes at me and kept going.

And I realized maybe he is heading to a space shuttle, because that guy's kind of weird. He is kind of always out there on another planet. And I was like, yes, yes, Christopher Walkin is going to Planet Walken. He's going to Gate 23, where the space shuttle lifts off, and he can go out there and be in his own weird world. And then I thought, wait a minute. Look who's calling the kettle black. Yeah. I guess it was the meeting of two freaks at a busy airport.

Kind of like the way you freaks always come and hang with me every day on the busy Harland Highway. You want to kill your own son? I'm scared, Dad. The ice is going to break. Oh, yeah, the ice is going to break. Have any of you ever been out on the ice? Have you walked along the ice? Of course, I'm talking about a frozen lake or a frozen pond.

Many of you might not have had that sensation. It's an eerie sensation walking on ice. You'd be amazed at how thick ice gets on a lake or a pond when you are in a winter climate north of the Canadian border or even south. I mean, you know, you go to New York, Minnesota, Montana. The surface of a lake, the ice on a lake can be, you know, three, four, five, six feet deep. I mean, you've seen the show on TV where the ice truckers where these guys drive big rigs across the ice. There's areas in the country where come wintertime, the road becomes the ice across the lake.

And every year, inevitably, vehicles crack through the surface and gone. People die. People on snowmobiles. People driving their cars and trucks across. It's kind of a creepy thing. And for those of you that haven't been out on the ice, it's very interesting because it's deceptive it's very uh it feels very strong it feels you know it's like concrete man you go out on a thick piece of ice on a lake and you just try and you

know punch through it with your heel or anything you can it's it's it's like a solid wall but there are times when you just never know here's here's something that happened to me a little story way back when when I was about, oh, I don't know, I guess it was about maybe 12 or 13. I'm going to boarding school. I'm in this little northern town in Canada, and I was a little troublemaker, and I was always exploring and always looking around, and close to the boarding school, there was a lake. And it got damn cold up there in the winter, and what would happen is there was lots of ducks and geese and swans that would swim on the lake all year.

And as winter would come, the ice would set in. And in a way, these ducks and geese were kind of smart. What they'd do is the ice would close all the way in. And then in the middle of the lake, about the circumference of the average swimming pool, in your backyard, the ducks and geese would continually kind of swim around in circles to ensure that the water was moving and it couldn't freeze. And they would play this out for as long as they could, and they'd have a little spot to swim around.

Meanwhile, the entire rest of the surface of that lake would be frozen solid, okay? But what would happen is eventually the geese or the ducks would get too cold, or maybe some of them would fly south, and then there was just a couple of them, and slowly but surely that hole got smaller and smaller and smaller until it was like the size of like a manhole cover. And then even that was gone. So what would happen is you'd have this one big crop of ice

that was the size of a swimming pool or even bigger maybe and it would form later than the other ice. So while the other ice was kind of cloudy and murky because it was so thick, the ice created by the duck swirl, I'll call it, was kind of more translucent, and you could kind of see through it a little bit, and it was like a kind of a dark aquamarine green.

So naturally, me and my boarding school buddies, honk, afflac, we would see this kind of shape, this darker kind of shape, this clear-looking shape out in the middle of the lake. And we'd be like, oh, man, that ice looks cooler than this ice. Let's go to that ice. You know, because the rest of the ice would have snow on it.

But this one patch, because it formed later, was clear, right? So here we go, running into the middle of the lake, three or four of us. And we're like, yay, let's stand on the clear ice. Yay! Right? I'll never forget it, man. we were standing on that thing and of course we all converge in the middle

we're like yay clear eyes and we're all standing on it and all of a sudden you just hear that crack it was just like a jolt of electricity went through under our feet and you ever see that scene there was a scene in Jurassic Park 2 where Jeff Goldblum

and the gang are hanging upside down in a bus and the T-Rexes are coming and they're standing on a glass, a big pane of glass, and all of a sudden the glass starts cracking and you just see it's, you know, first there's one crack, then there's another crack, then it splinters, right? And it just starts going, well, that's what happened to us.

And you're perpetually feared. You're just full of fear. You're like, it locks you up. You're like, wait, what was that? And because it's such a thick mass, because you're on a body of water. Not only does it crack, but it's almost like a jolt. I don't know if you've ever been in an earthquake

when the ground just shakes. But here we were standing on this frozen lake, middle of winter, like a bunch of retard penguins. And also, crack. Like this jolt, and we froze. And we're like, what the hell was that? And we look down, and we can see the line of crack. like moving along the ice to the perimeter of this kind of clear patch we were on.

And then you hear another crack, and we're like, holy God, this is how idiots die in the winter. The ice is going to break. And all of a sudden you go into like, it's the middle of the night, and I'm sneaking downstairs to get a cookie mode. Right? You got a house full of squeaky floorboards, and you don't want anyone else to know your eyes. to you're creeping through the hall with the big tiptoe. And that's exactly what we did. We were just like, we all just froze. We looked at each other.

And for some reason, I don't know why, it's just instinct. We thought it would help if we just started tiptoeing off the ice. And I got to tell you, it was scary because even at that idiotic age, you realize the impending doom. Like, if you go through, you're done. I mean, there was, we probably would have been seen by someone eventually, but who knows? And so we started tiptoeing

off the ice very slowly, and as you get, the further you get, the more you pick up the pace, and by the time we'd take it about five steps, we were whaling off of that thing, man. We couldn't wait to get back on the thick ice. And, uh, you know, just

it was, it was a, it was a freak out. It was a real freak out. So, you know, with Winter coming up just around the corner. You know, be careful. Don't walk out onto the ice. Don't drive onto the ice. Don't make love on the ice.

Well, that could be fun making love on the ice. So be safe. And don't become a human snow cone man. Don't become a human snow cone. The ice is going to break. 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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So be sure to use this code Harland so you get your discount and 100% free shipping code Harlan. Have fun. Don't throw your back out. So pretty crazy story, right? Huh? Who knows if I had gone through? You might not...

Hold on. Wait a second. Okay, what's that? We've got a traffic situation. We've got an accident? A huge accident. Okay, we've got a huge accident, folks. On the highways, we're going to Sandy Chopper and the Harland Highway Traffic Copter.

Sandy, Sandy, are you there? Oh, well, hello, Hyland. How are you? I'm good. Well, we're better yet, what's going on out there? Well, Hyland, we have a huge, terrific traffic accident. There are four cars piled up. There is flames blowing everywhere, black smoke coming up.

You definitely want to avoid this region. Okay, and where exactly are you, Sandy? Well, I'm hovering right over, and you can't miss it. There are cars stacked up, and traffic looks like it's backed up, about four miles, Ireland. Okay, and where exactly is it? Because I'm guessing it will take people a while to get home. Oh, yes. There's no getting around this one. You'll be back up for five to six hours if you come into this area. Okay, and where should they avoid?

Well, I'm right over an area where there's a whole bunch of roads, Harlan. Okay, which roads are they? They're long black, gray roads. I see some yellow stripes down the middle of them, Harlan. Okay, we get it. but what are the names of the roads? Well, why don't we just call road number one, road number two, and why don't we say long, windy road? Let's name for that, Harlan.

Okay, where the hell are you, Chopper? Well, I can see some rooftops where I am, and the smoke just keeps on billowing. You've got to stay away from this area where there's rooftops, and I'm seeing some trees, and there's a windy road, that curves all the way back towards a mall, and it looks like a school ground. Okay, Chopper, we need to know exactly where you are. I'm telling you, well, you can't miss the place.

There's some houses in the vicinity, and not to mention. Okay, thank you very much. I wasn't finished, Charlotte. Okay, Sandy Chopper, the Harlan Highway Traffic Chopper. And you want to watch out for it. It looks like there's a car wash over there. on one of those straight. Okay, thank you.

Idiot. God. Seriously, when am I going to get some competent people working here at the Harland Highway? Unbelievable. I should put out a, you know, I should put out like some kind of an application for qualified people to come and work at the Harland Highway.

You know what I mean? Qualified, like, 5'9, thin, blonde hair, blue eyes, female, model-like, perfect, big bread. You know what I mean? Like, qualified people helping me. I got a traffic guy that doesn't know streets. I got just a bundle full of doorknobs here. Why can't I get good qualified people? tall, beautiful, pouty-lipped,

blonde-haired, blue-eyed, big bosomed, sweet-assed helpers. That's what I want. I want a whole building full of blonde models. It'd be like the children of the damned all grown up. Just gorgeous blonde models. And yes, guess what? On the job flirting.

and, you know, having relations would be permitted, okay? And yes, I'd be the only male. I'd be the only male employee, but who cares? I don't. I mean, come on, picture this. I'm in my office. I'm in my studio, working away, bringing you the highway. Let me paint the picture.

I'm in the middle of doing a bit, okay? Maybe just like this. I'm talking to you. and all of a sudden the door creaks open. And maybe three of my uber gorgeous employees come in, and as I turn around, they slowly start unbuttoning there. We interrupt our program to bring you this important message. Hi, this is Harlan Williams, asking for your vote to become the next message.

president of the United States of America. Hi folks, I'm Harlan Williams, a Canadian with American citizenship, and I'm looking to be the first Canadian president of the United States of America. If elected, Mount Rushmore will now include sculptures of Cindy Crawford, David Lee Roth, and Flavor Flav. Churches will only be open once a year. Drilling for oil will commence immediately in Willie Nelson's underpants. I'm Harlan Williams and I approve this message. Harlan Williams for president. Now let's go boil some ass. Now back to our show.

We all get up off the floor, put our clothes back on and I say to them, hey, great job, girls. By the way, no Christmas bonus. And they're like, we don't care. See you tomorrow. Wow. And I hope that wasn't too graphic for you, people. I mean, look, it was very sexual. It was very, you know, I guess what I do on this show is paint pictures with my words.

And that might have been really over the top for you people to hear about that. But that's how I roll here on the Harlan Highway. I saw a cockroach in my bedroom last night. I don't know how it got there. I don't leave loafs of bread laying around or cookie crumbs. I don't have girlfriends who eat crackers and bad. I don't have garbage or banana peels. Just somehow a cockroach made its way into my home.

What is it about them, man? It's like we could watch the worst horror movie. We could see the ugliest animal. You can see someone get cut open or their face smashed up in a car accident. But when you see a cockroach, man, that is a different kind of chill that goes through your body, right? They just come crawling out and they're wiggling their little antennas and you're just like, oh, look at that thing. Oh, there's just something. They just make your skin crawl.

What is it? They don't look that different from crickets or beetles or ladybugs. You know, they're just insects, but I don't know, man. Somehow they got this stigma attached to them. They just creep us out. Oh, God, they're creepy. It's kind of like after Burt Reynolds just gets another face left, right?

Or Kenny G. wears blue jeans that are too tight. You're just like... It's the Harland Highway. Oh, yeah. They are... And I was down in Florida recently. man and there is a difference okay there is a difference between a like a kitchen cockroach okay where it's colder versus a Florida cockroach and I'm going to tell you the Florida

cockroaches are way bigger they're like I don't know they're they're about maybe two inches long and they're just I don't know they're they're hard to kill Like, I've literally chased a cockroach along the ground, like with my feet. I'm chasing. I'll stomp on it. I'm like, gotcha. Lift my foot and off he goes. And I'm like, wait a minute.

I'm like 200 pounds. I just crunched my foot down on you and you're still going. And then you got to chase him again and get him again. And they're pretty wily. They're pretty good. They've got like, it's if they know they're coming after you, right? And they do all the maneuvering, and it's like a car chase. They, like, weave to the left, and they cut to the right, and they bubble inside and out.

It's like when you see a cheetah chasing a gazelle, and the gazelles's twisting and turn, and knowing that it's life's in jeopardy, and that's what they do with you. And what sucks is they force you, those little crunchy critters, They force you, you realize, to ensure they're dead, you have to just bring your foot down with maximum force. And the end result is, instead of a nice, like, crunchy, like, oh, crunch, you're dead. No, you are forced to go, crunch, splat, right? So basically, they're so resilient, you have to splatter them out to make. make sure they're dead.

So instead of just having like a crunchy bug, you can like scoop up with the, with the dust bin and the broom, now you've got like a splattered, flattened cockroach. It looks like it'd heat your windshield at 50 miles an hour. Right? And then to make it worse, they're kind of like chickens with their heads cut off. You ever seen a chicken with its head cut off? It keeps running around for like five minutes. It's creepy, so what cockroaches do, you splatter them,

and they're laying there, and their little legs are still gone. They're twitching, and their antennae are wiggling back and forth, as if they're sending out reinforcements. Just been crushed under Nike running shoe. Stop. gut splattered all over, brand new hardwood floor. Green stuff spewing all over. Send reinforcements.

Quickly, we are under attack. Bebe, beep, beep, beep. Then you have to splatter them again. It is a process, man. Sometimes you're just like, you know what? Go, go, go. I don't want to deal with it. Go crawl around.

Go crawl on the loaf of bread. Go crawl through the raisin bread. go crawl around the toilet go lay eggs on my toothbrush do what you got to do i don't want to deal with crunching you and wiping you up because then what do you got to do you got to go get the uh the the Kleenex and you got to kind of scoop them up and you can feel even through the Kleenex you're weirded out aren't you you're like oh god i can feel its shape i can feel its crunchiness i don't want to be tet like you feel like you're going to get rabies from a cockroach no other bug does that oh i don't want to touch it i'm going to get rabies sars and aids oh oh it's a disease on six

legs oh bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo it's just crazy and creepy so hint to the cockroaches uh get a life go build your own place don't don't you have enough places out in nature Look at ants. They build a big ant nest and hornets build a hornet nest. You've got the whole world out there. There's billions of acres of jungle and forest. Go build a cockroach nest, you idiot. There's not enough food out in the billions of acres of forest.

You've got to come into my house and get an English muffin? You got to break into my pad and help yourself to, uh, you know, some, a score bar or something? Some chips-ahoy cookies? When would you ever find that out in the wild cockroach? Why do you get to come in mind? Help yourself to that dollop of ketchup on the counter. Yeah, that's in your primary food source, isn't it?

Weirdos. Oh, well. Maybe I should just end the show so I can go on a killing spray. For those of you that I've always wanted to go on a killing spree, go get some cockroaches and mow them down. Creepy. All right, well, enough of that. Let's get to some other good stuff.

Speaking of good stuff, how about this? Next month, July, 8, 9, and 10. That's a Friday, a Saturday, and Sunday. yours truly will be in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, at the Improv. This is a new announcement. This is a new booking that just came through the pipeline. This is the first announcement right here. It's not even up on my website yet.

I will get it up there. Don't worry. And, yeah, here we go, man. Pittsburgh Improv, July 8, 9, and 10. Come on out. Have some fun. And don't forget you can pick up. the Harland Highway at Stitcher. Stitcher.com.

There's a free app for your phone. Get us on iTunes, harlo-Williams.com. Send your letters. Send your voicemails, 1-888-52090. If you have any thoughts you want to share, don't go on too long if you can help it. I certainly enjoy your messages, but, you know, if they go on too long,

I kind of, I don't have time to put them in the show and I mean if you really want to go for it you know but try and keep it you know tight as they say that's what she said yeah shut up up yours um uh so that's one 888 52090 and don't forget you can check out the harland uh williams.com merchandise store we have some great merchandise in there for your amusement We ship it out to you, and you receive it and enjoy it. That's the way it works. And what also works is time.

We are out of time, and so time is not working for us right now. But I want to thank you for being here. It's always great knowing you're out there listening. I enjoy bringing this sucker to you. Having a blast here on the Harlan Highway, and until next time, my friends, chicken. chow me maybe the ice is gonna break