The Harland Highway - Podcast 97

Episode Date: April 12, 2010

Spring mating and winter fat, Workout gizmos, street names, The Masters golf tournament, The BEST sport debate. Sun burnt teeth! 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

Hello, my friends. Welcome to the Dendori Kitchen. Okay, no, this is not an Indian restaurant. This is the Harland Highway. We're talking about springtime. We're talking about workout gizmos. We're talking about street names. The Masters Golf Tournament, Sport versus Sports, Miami.

It's all here on the Harland Highway. You just made a wrong turn. Would you kindly shut your mouth? On to the Harland Highway. Oh, it's lovely. It's just lovely. The Harland Highway. Hi, Harlan! I'm Teddy Rompspin, and I'm your friend. Writing down the Harland Highway.

I'm not your daddy. Hmm. This is Harland Williams, and you're listening to the Harlan highway. I want to remind you that spring is upon us. You know what that means. It's spring fever time. It's time to let the mating begin. It's time for the pollination process to start. Wherever you are, wherever you may be doing, wherever you're going, please remember to get it on. Okay? Just try and get it on as much as you can, as often as you can, wherever you can. If you're in a dark movie theater, if you're in an aisleway at the grocery store, and there's no one around, if you're in the frozen vegetable section, if you're in a parking lot, if you're on your neighbor's front lawn, if you're at IKEA, they've got all kinds of beds set up in there, they've got couches, they've got furniture, wherever you may be, spring is here.

So get it on. G-I-O. Get it on, people. Pair it up, players. Okay, just a friendly reminder. Be safe. You just made a wrong turn onto the Harland Highway. Yeah, you did, but isn't it true what I say about that spring fever thing, man? Do you not feel a little friskier in the spring?

I think it's a biological thing. It's a primal thing. It's like, look at all the animals in the animal kingdom that get it on in the spring. in the springtime, man. There's a lot. There's a lot of humping going on in the woods, in the condos and the townhouses. You know, you've been...

And is it a good time to be getting it on? Right? Because most people have, you know, they kind of spend the winter indoors. It's kind of boring. There's no outdoor activities. So most people put on that extra 10 pounds of flab. Right?

During the winter, and then all of a sudden there they are ripping their shirts off and their clothes off. And it's like, borg. Oh, sorry about the blubber. And then you, like, get it on with that spring blubber slapping all around. Hello. Like watching the Nature Channel, right, when the seals are mating on the beach, the big bull seals flopping down the beach, chasing the female seal right just all that jelly roll stuff so who knows maybe it's a good thing they coincide right maybe the uh the springtime all that springtime love making helps burn

the calories so that come summer you're fit as a fiddle and uh ready to do some summer loving so there you go happy spring humping one two three four and one two three four and five six seven eight every time i turn on the tv every month there's a new gizmo there's some guy who's invented a thing that's a crunch roller or an ab smasher or a buns of steel bender or a nostril inflator, or an ass cracker, I don't know, every single time. There's some guy who's got a bent piece of metal and a bicycle chain and an air pump. If you just do this seven times a day for 20 minutes, you'll feel great. You'll have a six-pack and abs of steel.

Your buns will be able to smash through a brick wall if you're running backwards with the new Abblaster, ass smasher, wall cracker, thunderballs, cruncher. I don't know, man. How about just cut back on the pound cakes, do a little walking, stay in shape, then maybe all these stupid commercials will go away. I mean, it really is ridiculous. You know, it's like some stupid workout device will come out that you hang from your ceiling, or the arch of a door, you know, you pull yourself up backwards or you slide it under your bed and you twirl to the side or you rotate to the left or you do push-ups and as you do the push-ups, you twirl the suction cups on the floor.

I mean, good Lord. Who's buying this crap? People, haven't you figured it out yet? None of this crap works, okay? I mean, it may technically work, but none of you, like, pull it out every night and use it. I don't think it's made from the sturdiest of materials, given the fact that, you know,

this giant apparatus, the size of your fridge, cost $1199. And, P.S., did it ever occur to you that hanging a chunk of metal over your doorframe and hanging off it might just pull your doorframe down? You morons? Okay, it's not like they build door frames out of steel anymore. They're like the cheapest particle board chunks of wood you can find at Home Depot.

I mean, these things are just an ongoing con job. It's like that old saying, you know, build a better mouse trap and you'll be a millionaire. well that's what these guys keep doing every six months they reinvent the ab cruncher and the uh you know the home workout kit and the gym in your garage and the rowing machine you slide under the bed and come on folks enough is enough man how long are we going to be duped and have you looked around america i mean some Somebody's buying a lot of this crap, and somebody's not using it. Because we are just getting fatter and fatter.

And somebody's wallet's getting fatter. Well, you keep buying their contraptions. You know what? You probably would be better off buying a mousetrap. Here's what you do. Buy, like, a bag of mousetraps for the same price you'd pay for one of these stupid things, okay? set the mousetraps in your fridge, in your cupboards, anywhere where you've got food stored.

Set them, so when you go to snack, fatty, psh, ah! Hey, where's my cheesies, man? Pch! Ah! Yeah, I think I'll get some ice cream out of the freezer. Pch! Ah!

Hey, where's those ribs? I think I left them in the fared. Pch, p, p, p, p, sh! Ah! Yeah, man. That's it. Build that better mouse trap and put them all over your food. Maybe then you'll lose weight.

A tradition unlike any other. The Masters. What an incredible Cinderella story. This unknown comes out of nowhere. To leave the pack. At Augusta, he's on his final hold. Okay, so it was the Masters Golf Tournament. I tried to watch it

I don't know golf on TV grown men whacking a ball along the nice grass trying to put it in a little hole there he goes he's lining up the shot

oh look at the ball fly through the air it's landed on the grass and it's rolling towards the little hole in the ground and it's rolled in the hole in the ground okay now what

he's been over he's picking the little ball up out of the hole and my goodness he's going to hit it again he's put it on some new grass and he's hit it again and now it's going towards another hole in the grass I just I just don't know I want to look at a golfer and go my god what an athlete you know I want to put a golfer up there with a Roman gladiator and a gymnast and a hockey player I don't know, a guy standing there and a golf shirt and a sun visor and dancing shoes

and pressed slacks and a sweater around his shoulders. Maybe if they had guys that, you know, came flying out of the woods and body check the golfers. Or the guys were allowed to shoot the balls at each other, you know, was kind of dangerous. Or even if there was like

golf cart fights you know just on the way to the hole they were allowed to ram each other like bumper cars or indie 500 something man just guys walking in nice clothes on nice grass to holes is just not doing it for me I guess I'm just bitter because I've tried golfing it's one of the hardest sports I know okay there I'm just venting I'm going to go put my ball in a hole, and you know how the rest of that works out here on the Harland Highway. Yeah, I know some of you golfers are probably going to freak out. Be like, hey, what the hell are you talking about, man? Golf is hard, dude. It's a sport, man. You ever get buddies like that, they get in a fight with you over what's harder?

You know, what kind of sport requires more athleticism? or skill or hand-eye coordination or finesse. I had a buddy of mine who was, you know, heavily into basketball, and I grew up playing hockey, and one day he out of nowhere goes, yeah, man, basketball is way harder than hockey. And I'm like, oh, really? Have you ever played hockey?

No, but it's basketball's harder. Okay, well, I play hockey and I've played basketball. So I think that qualifies me, Harland Zachary Williams, even though my middle name is not Zachary, I think that qualifies my opinion to take a precedent over your opinion, because half of this argument, you are foreign to it. You've never even attempted it. You've never been on skates.

You've never been on ice. But for the sake of the argument, let's break it down, okay? Both sports require you to run or skate up and down a surface rather quickly. Hey, everybody. Who wants to have better sex? No? Yes? Yes. The answer is yes. You always want to have better sex. That's what you want it to be better, not worse. Trust me. And Adam and Eve is offering 50% off just about any item plus free shipping. And more than that, Adam and Eve wants to make your life easy. They offer discrete shipping as your privacy is a priority. Plus 100% free shipping on your entire order, doesn't matter how much you spend or what you buy, all will be packaged

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Have fun. Don't throw your back out. At top speed, I would say, right? and both sports require you to put an object through a net at either end. Both sports require you to work with your teammates, run plays, pass the puck or the ball, as it may be. Both sports require incredible hand-eye coordination, speed, agility, stamina, athleticism, etc., etc. so those are the obvious things okay now let's break it down even further a basketball player runs up and down the court as fast as he can from end to end and if anyone as much as brushes up against him

or touches him a foul or a penalty is called okay you're not allowed to get the elbows up you're not allowed to knock him down you're not allowed to rub on them you're not allowed to trip them you're not allowed to do any of that, okay? So you're running as fast as you can, and pretty much it's a clean run. Okay, now let's cut to hockey where not only are you moving up and down the surface as fast as you can, you have razor blades on your feet. You are on a hard frozen water surface that we call ice, so if you do fall, it's going to hurt, and on top of that, you're going to slide and hit either the bottom.

boards or the net or another player and it's going to hurt more. So right there, it's way more hazardous, okay? On top of that, I would say that you can probably skate on ice maybe two to three times faster than you could run at full tilt because obviously the momentum of the blades on the slippery surface help you acquire much more speed. Okay? Now, on top of that, well, you're at that elevated speed on that harder surface as you're heading down to the other end unlike basketball you are allowed to be smashed into oblivion you can be checked you can be rammed into the boards you can be elbowed you can be hip checked body checked back checked poke checked i mean i can't even count the ways you can demolish your opponent

okay so there's that and on top of that okay with basketball you're sliding down this you're running down your playing surface and you have a giant object you've got a big round ball filled with air okay it's filled with air it's got leather on it it's a large object coming at you you know much easier to catch and grip and run around with and by the way if you get hit with it at the end of the day not that much damage because it's a big round kind of semi-hard leather object filled with air. Okay, on the other hand, you have got a almost something as hard as a rock that is, you know, about this, it's smaller than a pancake, okay? It's like the size of a Klondike bar or a peppermin patty. It weighs about a pound, and the thing can move. at 100 miles an hour or more and hit you anywhere in your body

and break a bone, knock your teeth out, take an eye out. Yes, kill you. I don't think anyone's ever been killed by a basketball hitting them anywhere in the body. I don't think anyone's broken a bone. I don't think anyone's lost any teeth

from getting hit with a basketball. Okay? So there's another factor. Now, when you're playing basketball, and you're running and you're waiting to receive a pass or you're waiting to shoot a pass or you're dribbling down the court. Usually you're running forward, maybe you zigzag a little, maybe you'll do a little twirl and you'll slam it in the net.

In hockey, you are perpetually going from forward motion to turning yourself around, skating backwards at top speed where again you can be checked and knocked onto your ass and slammed into the boards. So, not only are you moving at a faster speed, you're changing directions constantly, well, in the same motion, something you don't do in basketball, okay? And then, when you do get to your objective at the end of your playing surface, which is the net, in basketball, you've got a wide open hoop that the ball fits through. All you have to do is have good aim, get it up there, and it drops through, okay? A defensive player can guard against your shot,

but basically you can arc your shot if you have clearance up over the heads of everyone, and boom, it's in the net. Okay? With hockey, you have a small net filled with a six-and-a-half-foot man with really thick hockey equipment on that makes him about twice as wide as when he's not wearing the equipment. He fills the net.

He comes out of the net to cut down the angles. He's got lightning fast reflexes. He's got a stick. He's got a catcher's glove. He's got a blocker. He's got two giant goalie pads. He is doing everything in his power to keep that hockey puck out of the net. Okay?

So hockey players have learned to fine-tune their shots. They know how to pick the corners. They know how to raise the buck. They know how to keep it low. They know how to wrap it around. They know how to deflect it. you imagine a hundred mile an hour hockey puck coming at you and you have the wherewithal to find it in mid-air put your stick out know how to place your stick in mid-air knowing the puck

will hit it and change the direction of that puck and put it up in the top left corner over the goalie shoulder okay i'm running out of breath so again let me ask you which sport after all that sounds like a tougher sport to you. Oh, and did I mention in basketball, if you touch anyone, you're throwing out of the game, if you try to push them or slap them or poke them, you're thrown out of the game or you're benched, whereas in hockey you're allowed to punch the living crap out of a guy? That's just another part of the equation. So you tell me, man, what's a harder sport?

And I'm not just talking physically. I'm also talking technically. I'm talking hand-eye coordination. I'm talking speed. I'm talking gracefulness. I'm talking agility. I'm talking movement. I'm talking toughness.

And I'm talking stamina, okay? With basketball, there's a lot of breaks. You go from one end to the other. A guy gets a hoop. You take a little break. You reassemble. You run down to the other end. Hockey, you go back and,

forth and back and forth until play is stopped by a whistle and sometimes the play can go for two three four five six minutes now if you've never played hockey let me tell you going up and down pounding as hard as you can on those skates it's like running the 50 yard dash over and over and over you come to the the bench and you are gasping for air you're not just like you're like You're like, you're ready to grab your blade off your skate and cut a tracheotomy hole in your own throat. You cannot get air in there fast enough. So I'm sorry all you basketball players and baseball players

and anyone else who thinks they have a tough sport. Okay, unless you're in the ring doing UFC or your boxing, hockey is the sport on all levels. And I challenge any of you athletes, from other sports or any of you couch athletes who want to argue with me, I'll tell you what, go throw on your hockey equipment, put your skates on, let me see you go play a game,

and then step off the ice and tell me what you think is harder. Your Honor, I rest my case. I do believe I shoot, I score. Hello out there, we're on the air It's hockey night tonight Tension grows, the whistle blows And the puck goes down the ice The goalie jumps and the players bump

And the fans all go insane Someone roars, Bobby scores At the good old hockey game Oh, the good old hockey game Is the best game you can name And the best game you can name is the good old hockey game Second period

Where players dance with skates a flash The home team trails behind But they grab the puck and go bursting up And they're down across the line They storm the trees like bumblebees They travel like a burning flame We see them slide the puck inside It's a one-one hockey game

Oh the good old hockey game is the best game you can name And the best game you can name Is the good old hockey game Take me where Hockey players face off down the rink And the standing cup is all filled up For the champs who win the drink

Now the final flick of the hockey stick And the one gigantic scream The Buck is in, the Canadians win The good old hockey game Oh, the good old hockey game is the best game you can name And the best game you can name is the good old hockey game Oh, the good old hockey game is the best game you can name And the best game you can name is the good old hockey game

Oh, the good old hockey game is the best game you can name And the best game you can name is the good old hockey game Oh, yes, oh, yes, it must be the Canadian in me. Oh, it gets me every time. It's like our national pride right there. Hockey. And the opposite side of hockey, and I guess, interesting or not interesting,

interestingly enough, pardon my slur. You get all emotional when it gets to hockey in here. I'm going to be in Florida this weekend. I'm going to be at the Miami Improv, April 15th to the 18th. Please come out and see the kid. You can get tickets at Miami Improv.com, or you can go on my website at HarlanWilliams.com. Check my stand-up.

schedule for the info and in the meantime going to florida is always fun for me because everything down there is so nautical and everything's kind of got a seafood kind of connotation to it and the street names are are always named after creatures from the sea and uh i think you'll see what I mean. Take a listen to this. Oh, street names, man. I don't know if you've ever been to Florida, but, you know, all the street names are nautical. Okay? You don't want to get lost in Florida.

It's like you pull up to somebody. It's like, hey, man, I'm lost. Can you help me get to the mall? And they're like, oh, yeah, you just go down to parrot feather, take a left on Coral Key, go all the way up to Coconut Grove, pass seashell alley go right there to sea turtle and then take a right and go all the way around coral reef crescent and then you'll be right there the mall you can't miss it it's on sponge bob boulevard oh okay thanks and your name a sally flamingo thanks sally no problem the harland highway gonna go eat some shrimp okay thanks sally yeah so if you never see me again

Somebody just come and, you know, cut the belly open of a mako shark like they did in jaws and, you know, pull out an old inner tube and a license plate and an old Pepsi can and me. I'm probably in the belly of some giant shark because someone sent me off the end of the pier as I tried to get directions. Well, that is our show for today, my fine, fine friends. Spring is here, get out, have fun, run around, fly a kite, throw a rock at somebody's house, put your slippers on and run around in the daisies, get your tennis racket and smash butterflies out of the sky. Wait, what?

No, don't do that. That is cruel and mean and unusual punishment. But I'm excited. We're going into spring. The snow is finally melting on the Harland Highway, and that's a good thing, because we're going to pick up speed and keep on rolling with the podcast.

And I'm glad you can be here with me, your host, Harlem Williams. And until next time, my friends, a big warm spring bowl of chicken chow main, baby. Thank you.