The Kristian Harloff Show - Deodorant, Ball Trimming and Sparkling Water; Ken Napzok Returns! | The Big Thing

Episode Date: September 24, 2021

Star Wars Visions, Marcia Lucas takes some shots at Kathleen Kennedy and JJ. Beaver Nuggets, Baseball Talk, TV talk, Stand up comedy and creating your own board game. Well ALL of this is talked about as Kristian Harloff welcomes back Ken Napzok to the show! Follow on Twitter Kristian Harloff https://bit.ly/31PePMD Mark Ellis https://bit.ly/2U1wKPa Brett Sheridan https://bit.ly/2HBltii Steph Sabraw https://bit.ly/3m0ud0z Kate Mulligan https://bit.ly/3owBneT Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, everybody, happy Friday. It is Friday, and I am excited. And I'm sure you guys are excited. Pit Boss is back. Ken Napsock is back, and man, he's back within a couple of weeks. It took me forever to get this son of a bitch on the show the first time. But now he's promoting something. No, I'm kidding.

It's good to have him back. I'm excited. We're going to talk about visions a little bit. We're going to talk about some other stuff going on, stuff he's watching, stuff I'm watching, and a lot of stand-up comedy talk, and how he survived Las Vegas with Mark Ellis. We're going to talk about all of it. I'm excited to have him back.

I know you're excited to have him back. Ladies and gentlemen, it is. Ken Napsog. This is the big thing. We'll see you in a second. Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to Big thing. Christian Harlow up here. And look at this guy.

Look, just like that. I got you addicted, huh? You're not lying. I'm here to promote something. But also, you gave me these caramel shrimp. Are they ridiculous? what? So they sent me that for the purge thing. I had Steph

and Brett on them the other day. What a, beaver nuggets? Is that what they're called? I mean, it's not something... Call them beaver balls. I don't care. They're so good. It's not something that right away you think, okay, but I was slamming down those things, watching visions.

Ooh, good stuff. How you doing, bud? I'm good, man. Good to be here. It's good to be back. So, yeah, it's so funny because I know that and we call it like it is, you and I. Like when it was Descien Live. It was like, I don't know if I want to have a conversation

to have you interrupted by robot. That was how you felt. $50. Yeah. And I got why he did it, by the way. I get why. It's a business. Yeah.

And well, but also. Hot at the time. But interactive. It works on Twitch. It does. It works on Twitch and interactive for fans who want to get involved. I think it's very. But what you and I do this, it doesn't work.

So that's why I knew I had to give you a taste last time. Because you had to take a look and say, All right, all right. Well, it's just me and my buddy talking shit. Yeah, yeah. And then you gave me that. And I gave you the beer. That's how I'm going to keep you having back.

It's supposed to be eating better, but caramel flavor trim. I got a fucking bowl of oatmeal and beaver nuggets. That's how I lost weight. How's that weight loss thing going? It's great for them. You're not doing it? I mean, I just said go for go crazy. I'm in it.

Because I want to continue to lose weight. But I also like. Those people who don't know, the good people association, which is Ken, Mark. and Josh McCook is show they're doing a weight loss. Yeah, with Ikechia. Our tech kid, tech kid, he's like 92. I'm 114.

Yeah. Yeah, long story, sure. I've been in my own, I have a gym, full gym in my house, and I've been eating better and everything. So I lost about 12 pounds prior to it. How much did you gain back in Vegas? Not a lot because you do a lot of walking, and Grace and I maintain most of our vegan veggie kind of...

Did Grace go with you? Yeah, she was great. Yeah, we had a big crew that kind of went. But the drinking gets here, right? Right? I mean, come on. I had a rum and coke in my hand every hour of the day. Not diet? Rum and diet. Rum and diet.

But I like the taste. I like that. I probably have more chemicals to me. I can clean a carbon. 100%. That's the only reason I'll tell you what, though, this Diet Coke thing. Like, I drank Diet Coke like my dad does, right? I remember. Yep. But my wife got me hooked on the sparkling water. Never went back. See, Grace got me hooked on Zivia, which is. Yeah, I know what it is. Yeah. And that's good. I don't like the sparkling water. She loves it. I can't make the full transition. But yeah, and everyone used to poke fun of the.

The Croix stuff, but Got me from that. Because you're like me. It's, it's, it's, I was addicted to that. The bubbles. Yeah. It's the bubble. It's the bubbles.

You've tried the bubbly? Try bubbly. I'm going to try it. It's good. Okay. It's really, it's, it's, it. What do you got like a cran raz or a raz? One that I like, I like the blackberry myself.

Oh, I like them. There's too many. I remember you slam the cherry. You used to slam the cherry La Croy's. Oh, you'd give me the little cherry La Croy's. Yeah. But these, these are the, the crore. LeCroyd now.

No, not so much. I can't do it. Bubbly, it's good stuff. They first through the breach, but now we have advancements in bubble technology. It's delicious, this bubbly stuff. Anyway, we're not talking about Bubby the whole entire time. Even though I touched on it a little bit with

Staff and Brett, and I did my own review of it. You and I briefly talked about it when you came in, Visions. Yeah, yeah. Star Wars Visions. This episode, but I think when this episode airs, I have seen them all. I've only seen the first four at the time of the recording.

We kind of broke it up on Force Center. Yeah, really enjoying it. I am, I'm not a huge, like, I'm not knowledgeable in, and, and, and, and, and, and, even the Curiselle films. Is it an anime? I've been calling an anime. I think, technically. You're probably, you're probably definitely right. Let's ask Andres Cabrera, you know, MFF, those folks. But I'm really enjoying it because it, it allows you to, especially because it's not connected to canon, it allows you to break down the core principles of Star Wars and find out the emotion, that kind of stuff.

And then it's kind of crazy. So far, my favorite one, they're all, I've. enjoyed them all. The Tattooine Rhapsody, which is the crazy band one, is for, that's my favorite one. You had such a great point to that when we talked about it off air, because I, because I had said in my review that I, that one, the bunny rabbit one, or the, like, my least favorite ones, right?

Not because they're not good. It just didn't speak to me the way the other ones were, but you had a great point. You said, you said the fact that the other stuff, the Sith stuff, it's stuff that you would kind of like want to see. Yeah. And so this other stuff is just the one you're talking about, the Tatooine Rhapsody. Yeah. It's just kind of

a fun throwaway one. And it definitely, Joseph Gordon Levitt doing that voice. Yeah, yeah, no. Look, it's a powerful thing about, hey, who you are is enough. You know, there's a line

that Shelby Young's droid character like, ultimately we're just a band. It's like, what you are is what you need to be. And I love that. It's powerful. But there's something about, you know, seeing that I really want

action figures from that episode. Yeah. Like you want a little Boba Fett with the oversight, little head. Yeah, it's true. And Tomor Morrison coming back to do the voice.

Yeah. Bobby Moynihan on the English cast doing Geyser. A hut bass playing hut. I didn't think I'd ever want to see it. So, but I had fun because it's not attached to, I really enjoy this. It's not attached to canon. I really, and I don't think they could have done it any other way. But, you know, it just, it doesn't, it's not asking those questions of, well, what does it mean to the big story?

I'm just like, oh, okay, Star Wars on a different. So it's so funny because it's exactly why I had my initial, I don't know if I'm going to watch this, because it wasn't tied in. But I agree with you 100%. The reason I think I enjoyed it as much as I did is because it wasn't tied in. And like, I love the idea and the, and the, What I referenced in my review was that the line that I have been quoting to death is the Favro stuff about how they, for Mandalorian, were not making an homage to Star Wars. They're making an homage to the stuff that inspired Star Wars. This is the stuff that inspired Star Wars.

Yeah, it's just the circle is complete, we keep saying. A hundred percent. Yeah. And to be able to go back and it's been fun. Yeah. You know, and it's like, you know, I don't know how much I'll revisit them. Right. Unless we get like, I really want to see.

I know the Ronan novel is going to continue. you kind of that Ronan story, which was really interesting to me. So there's a lot of things I love. But it's just kind of fun. And it's also Star Wars has to hit, you know, has to hit the audience that's watching it.

It's a big galaxy of fans. And I love that they're doing this and maybe they'll do this in other ways as well. So it's a lot of fun. I would, I feel the same. I wouldn't go back and watch it again. Not like something.

It's just you, if I'm working out, I want to put on solo. I'm not going to put it on visions. But yeah. But I would watch a season two. Okay, but that's the thing. It's like with the Twitter.

Twins episode with Allison Brie And I forget who does Neil Patrick Harris Yeah, yes And on the American Voice cast Like if I don't know if I've watched twins again But twins too

I'm like oh yeah I want to find it Right so that that's that would be That's what I am interested in right Like if so if all of the Because they do set up a lot of what happens next And a lot of these but they don't revisit them It's like kind of one and done

Nobody comes back There were a couple of those stories The Tattoing Rhapsody was one The other one was Toby It was It's basically Pinocchio with a droid is what it is. Oh, okay. And then there's the bunny rabbit one.

Those are the three ones. Those are the three that I was like, I could deal without style. Yeah, yeah. And like I said, I can't wait to finish them. I unfortunately just time. I only watched the first four at the time of this recording. So I'm excited to see. Because I didn't know, I didn't know what to expect.

And, you know, for Center, we're going to review them. We're going to dig into them. Right. So it's never a chore, but it's just kind of like, okay, okay, let's see what we got. And I was moved by them more than I thought. Yeah. Anyway, so that's on, at the time this comes out on Friday, it'll be up on Disney Plus.

So if you have a chance to check it out, I would say for people who are not anime fans, give it a shot, because I'm certainly not an anime or anime. I'm not a fan. Anime Me. Yeah, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not a, I'm not a, someone who watches a lot of it. I just, I just don't. But I really enjoyed the stories and the emotion inside a lot of these characters.

And there were some, there was some fun stuff. The Sith mythology and the Jedi mythology is very clear. Because a lot of chybrocrystals in this series. Oh, yeah, that Ronan episode was great. That one, you know, you ain't seen nothing yet. I ain't seen nothing yet, kid. You know, speaking of Vegas, did you think, so what was the expectations going to Vegas just to hang out,

or do you think you might get up? I thought it might get up. Ellis was doing almost, he did, what, nine shows or something out there, the Brad Garrett's Comedy Club. And so there was a chance of, hey, may have me get you a little stage time. And he wore me, he goes, look,

it'll be short, and two, you'll probably bomb because it's a weird crowd. And I was like, great, let's figure this out. And then fortunately, because not for, you know, COVID, they took some precautions. Poppins weren't really well. Sure, sure. You had to get certain protests and everything before that I couldn't get upon arriving.

So it was fine. And Alice is like, sorry, but I'm like, come on, I had rum and coke. You knew you were going. It was like going to Vegas. You're prepared to gamble. You're either going to lose at the table. You might win it. I love Vegas.

And it was Grace, Christian Ruvicaba, Brian, Laura's girlfriend, Jennifer Murrow, Roger Craig Smith, and Alice. It was a weird all-star, like different people who don't only hang out. So how is that set up? Is that set up where it's like, hey, Ellis is going to be performing. We all want to take a Vegas trip together? Well, literally, he told a bunch of people.

At one point, there was like, he's like, I think he got like 30 people going to show up. And I was like, okay, great. He's like, so we have little pockets, little bubbles. And at the end of the day, it was us, you know, losers. Like, we got time. Let's do it. Let's do it. Which we actually don't.

You vacation. It's amazing how vacation. Well, you work triple time to cover because you're pre-taping shows and then you come back and you're behind, but you know, you don't focus on. Oh, you don't got to tell me, dude. If I do it, commiserate. Yes. If I do a digital match, here from my place, if I do a digital match, it sets me back like two days. Yeah.

Like, you know, even right now, I got to see, I taping two shows today. Yeah. Then I got to just spend the rest of the day fucking answer and emails. Life's hard. It's a pain in the ball bag. No, that was literally impetus. And I was like, I love Vegas. And, you know, we had always concerned about what's going on health-wise and everything.

But I don't say this jokingly. I felt safer in Vegas in my own grocery store. Oh, that's good. And with the mask when you wear and they have mandates and everything, like I didn't even catch a sniffle, normally get the Vegas flu. I came back completely healthy. Good. It's only a lot of fun.

Are you, when are you going up again? Gosh, I'm trying to get back up. I'm trying to, like you are. I'm trying to get more irregular. I don't want to just rely on old Uncle Mark book of me on shows. But I'm going to be doing one of the nights in New York with you. And then I think. What are you doing Thursday?

Thursday. You're not doing Friday also? I might pop in, but, you know, there's a lot of, when he's, Ellis is in York, there's a lot of people are like, oh, great, hey, I'm out here. You're out here. So it's like, I'm not going to hog the state. But I'll be there. And there's a chance I'll get up. But, yeah, then I think Ellis and I, sometimes I have to confirm with him, so I don't want to over speak.

I think I'm going to San Francisco with him. And I think I'm going to D.C. with him. Okay. I'm trying to get some other stuff around here. Just, you know, back in the rhythm. Back in the rhythm. And get in there. And I did that.

I did a show with Daniel Bridge Gad. He came out from Arizona and put me on. It was at the ha-ha. And that's why I was texting you. It was like, man, I felt like I was back because it was 16 people who did not like any of us. Yes. And at 10 o'clock on a Tuesday. I was like, oh, that's right.

You got to work. Yeah, we're back, baby. Hey, Shmodam fans going, I remember you in a match. Was there a Shmowdown fan? No, no. Well, there was one person. But like, you know what I mean? Not saying that it's easy.

But like when we do these shows sometimes, it's like people are like, oh, good. Harloff, Ellis. I want to go see them. These are people like, who the F is this guy? Right, right. So this is not that. Well, look, we never had the benefit of that back in the day. We didn't.

We did not. And that's it. So I never had that benefit. I used it. So the first time I ever felt it was when I got back out to stage two years ago in New York, right? Yeah, yeah. It was this kind of a surprise thing. We didn't bill it that I was going to be on there.

And the crowd was very nice to me, you know, when I showed up. They were very nice. And it put me at ease for any nerves that I had had over 10 years not being on. See, I needed that when I started co-hosting, you know, when Ellis would bring McCougan and I on. And I just needed to get back in and feel like it's okay to do it. And I, but I know you, you know, not that, you know, you went up and you dissing crowd and people probably yelled, you know, you want some cookies and catchphrases and stuff. And it was like, you're never going to be happy with that. You want to go up and make, you want to get in the roll up your sleeves.

I want to just make it. I want to make it. Yeah, like I called you. Do your material. And I came up with a bunch of stuff. I'm doing, like I'm, I was talking to Brett and stuff about this too. but like I'm, there's a bunch of stuff that I used to do that I want to retool because I have the benefit.

I have the benefit of that none of the people who have been watching me on Shmose or that had ever seen any of the shit that I've done. Right, right, right. It's not like when I used to go to the improv and I invite my friends from fucking silver pictures who've seen the shit a thousand times. These are people who have not seen that.

But now I get to retool that stuff. And I get to rework that stuff. And then I have like, I think like 60, 65% is new. That's awesome. And it's just, I've been, I've been writing for the last, oh, you look at that. I didn't even do that on purpose. I saw that.

I didn't even do that purpose. We're going to talk about Ken's here today. I'm so excited to talk about. I'm not going to lie. That's, you can promote. 100% you should be. This is, I'm very excited to talk about this. But I do want to talk to you about the stand-up,

and then we're going to jump into this. Yeah, yeah, whatever you do mean. But yeah, yeah. So just be able to write the stuff. I've been writing for about a year, you know, but I haven't been able to get up anywhere, right, right. But what I want to do is, I want to, if this thing works,

out of flapper or something. I want to start putting on, like, you know, our shows. Yeah, it'd be fun to do that kind of stuff. Yeah. I think it's tough. Look, it's tougher for us to find our supporters in L.A. Yes. They're there.

But, you know, you know, when you do the live schmodounds, it's harder to sell out here than other places. Absolutely. So it'll be a good mix, good balance. But yeah, just to get a get up, get up there and really do it regularly. You know, it's possible. I just, I just got to, you know, you got two kids. You know, that's hard.

And that's the choices, you know, pals like Kayla and Brian Irwin for you. years that, you know, I've had to do comedy and kids in marriages at the same time. It's hard. I don't have that. But, like, you know, I'm working until 10 o'clock at night. So it's like, can I rush out to do a set? We'll see. I don't know. But I'm getting more and more excited. Yeah. I'm very excited for it. I'm excited to try. And look, it could be an absolute fucking disaster. And I could wind up not deciding never to do this ever again. But if you- That's not going to happen. Well, September 26th, which, shit, it's this Sunday. This Sunday.

This Sunday. If you guys are around, come to... I'll be in the crowd. I'm going to watch and get some of those chocolate chip cookies they serve there. I need you to take a piece of electrical tape and tie it around Bonnie's head if she's there. Because Bonnie said she might come. And if she shows up, then you got to make sure she's... She said, no, I don't heckle anymore.

I'm like... Because she went up on stage when we were doing that Room 5 show back in the day. Right. And she heckled Rick Ingram. And Ingraham took her to town. Stroider. Took her to town. Oh, that was the

Oh, yeah, I remember that night. He can't, oh, yeah. Called her the dumper for the rest of the night. He was screaming and yelling at him And then she went to the bathroom, he came back And he was just talking about how she took a dump the whole time And it was like she just, he just fucking destroyed it. He's got a new show and new podcast.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ingram talks to strangers. If you guys haven't checked it out, please do it. But I'll get him on. He can promote his own show. We're here today to talk about Ken Napsock. Ken, tell me about the, what's the Kickstarter all about? Yeah, so futility, the actual game of living is an actual board game.

And we've been playing over the GPA since we launched. It was the brainchild of one Josh McCougar who just had this dream of creating a board game. And we went, good luck with that. Then we actually all sat down and, oh, okay, this would be kind of fun. And it's take like those raunchy card games and mash it with a classic Friday night family board game. You pull cards and it gives you, you know, what goes on in your life and your rewards or what you're hit with, based on that. So it's kind of a simple concept.

The rules are like one page, which is key. And then we wanted to sell it. We literally were like, all right, let's sell this game. How do you do that? Do you go to Mr. Board Game, any options it? And we discovered talking to a lot of people we know, Jeff Kanata, Brittany Wallach, who's over there at Critical Role and everything. The way to do it, it's Kickstarter, crowd fund.

Yep. Skybun does that. Yep. And Hasbro, that's what they do. It's like pre-selling. They know the odds. We see with Hasbro with the bigger Star Wars ones, like the Java and the raises crest. So once we got over that,

is that weird, I think we're so old school sometimes our generation where you forget like, wait, wait, wait, crowdfunding, like, that's legit, it's like, yeah, Hasbro, Parkin Brothers, they do it. So that's what we do at the time of this report. How do people get involved?

You just go to Kickstarter, search futility, the actual game of living. We can drop a link if you need it in the descriptions or wherever you got, but it's pretty simple. You just search that and support. There's different tiers. Fun things, get a copy of the game.

Like, we are legitimately. trying to make it. The games will be, if we hit the goal, mailed out, because we have to produce them mailed out in the spring of 2022. And it takes a bit to do that. I mean, we, we have a great team, Sebastian Files, is a long-time listener of like a lot of our shows. And he and his buddies in Uruguay, they do this. And so they reached out when we were kind of on air going, I wonder if we should do a Kickstarter. And he reached out, he's like, hey, we do this. This is what our company does. So they put together all the graphics and mockups and worked with. We've got distributors. We've got manufacturers, we have to have meetings, you know, hate meetings.

I know you hate meetings. God bless it. But it's worth it though. The meetings are worth it. Yeah, no, it's something if this happens and we believe it's going to happen, we're close to at the time of this recording where we're probably 50% at the air. So yeah, we're going to hit it. And then you have a board game on the shelf somewhere.

I love that. And I'm with you. I don't know who hates meetings more. You or I. I really don't because I remember a Collider, they always just try to get me in the meetings. And I hate the meetings. I think you and I react differently. We both don't like them.

I go internal and just sit there and stew, you would throw your chicken lunch and storm out. Well, I never stormed out of a meeting. You've never stormed out of a meeting? No. That's a lie. Which one mean? You've stormed out of me.

When? Give me example. I can't pick 50. You're a stormer out of meetings. I've never stormed out of meetings. I'm going to say. Give me a meeting. I'm trying to remember it.

There's so many of them. I said to my daughter. I said to my daughter that she, give an example. I go, give me an example. And you couldn't come with it. Give me an example. I can't remember. There's so many of them. Oh, shit. You, I'll have other people. I'll have other people come forward. Your honor. I'm going to get Dagnino to represent me.

Stormed out of a mean? I've said, I've said this is getting ridiculous now. Accounts. But, but like, uh, uh, I would just sit there and go internally. But yeah, you, I don't want to. I hate meetings. Okay. There, meetings are the time that we all stall on things that get you to the email that solves the problems. 100%. And it's just like, can you be in the meeting that sometimes

something to be like, hey, we need you in this meeting. And then people are just talking about shit, they literally just could have asked me through a text or email. It's like, why not just summarize,

it's a culture, just summarize what you guys talked about. Ask me the bullet questions. Yeah. And I'll answer it. I'm with you on that. It's like, look,

sometimes, like we've had to be on phone calls with manufacturers. That I get. Yeah, and you get it too. There's certain meanings you have to be a part of. I'm just saying there's so many tedious.

Get to it. So you open up, oh, what did you do with your kids over the weekend? That's one where you go to lunch. I don't like you. I'm not friends with you on Facebook for a reason. Yeah. Let's just get the business. Just let's do it.

Yeah. We're in agreement of that. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway. So is it what? I know that you for you, you're more of a TV guy these days, right? Or more.

Yeah. Yeah. What are you been watching? Nothing. Nothing. No. No. No, I don't watch.

You're still watching The Bachelor or you stop? No, I stopped all that. No, here's what, yeah, eat those things. No, well, right now, Grace and I are watching. What we're watching together is only murders in the building. What's that? It's Steve Martin, Martin, Martin, Shorts, Salome Gomez. My brother loves that show.

He said it's really funny. Because, you know, I'm a Steve Martin fan and a Martin Shepan fan. She's a true crime podcast fan and likes those old guys. So we really love that show. We love what we do in the shadows. It's, they all live in a New York, a kind of expensive New York kind of apartment, you know, you live in New York, you get it. Like a Dakota. And they're all fans of a true crime podcast, so you think it's going to start, they connect over that.

They've never really known each other. And then a murder happens in the building. So they decide to launch a podcast about the murder. But then some real great character stuff, there's some fun quirky stuff, some sweet sentimental stuff, and then some intrigue as well. So it's just fun. I think it's cool. Yeah, it's a little. It's hard to say these days.

I was the scenes from a marriage on HBO Max. If you watch that? I have not. Grace should watch that. You talk about, you talk about just. She probably has. Dude, quality. I mean, the acting in this show,

it's Jessica Chastain and Oscar Isaac. I mean, she loves, she loves both those people. Does I do I, but she, yeah. Really good. I actually think you like it a lot. Yeah. Yeah, she watches, you know,

we're also watching what we do in the shadows and while as paranormal. It's a raving about that show. It's really good, huh? What we do in the shadows? Yeah. Have you ever seen the movies, though? I don't think you necessarily have to. That's what they said.

Yeah, you don't have to do. Because it's Tycho Waititi, and I was a big fan of Fly to the Concord. I mean, I still am. So it's that type of humor. Okay. But it's, no, it's really good. But, yeah, I know the joke and the character of me is, ah, grumpy, I don't watch it. I just, I don't like to sit and invest anymore like I used to.

Even things that I love. Like, I stopped watching. It's always sunny in Philadelphia four or five years ago. Not because it was like my favorite show. I just one day missed it, and then I never watched it again. So what are you been doing for? For time wise. If I'm not working, I'm just relaxing playing MLB show or a video game or something like that.

So that's my thing now. A lot of baseballs. Are you watching baseball in general? I have the app and this year because I'd launched a baseball podcast last year like a network. And I just didn't have the time. I should have done it. You know, you take a shot and you're just like, this is like now six more hours in the morning broadcasting that I don't have anymore. So box score heroes that still exists.

Brian Ward, some of my favorite art, Brian Ward every day was for a channel. So it's still there. I hope the one to get back to it. But, yeah, I wanted to make a concert effort to get back into baseball because it was such my thing for a long time. I remember. Yeah, Yankees, you and a Yankee fans. And then just life. Quite frankly, start.

That's weird season they've been having, huh? Yeah, I don't. It's like they won like 12 or 13 games in a row. Yes, I tied the record from the 61 yanks. And then they started eating shit, like right afterwards. I put a bet on them in Vegas. I'm going to lose. It's like, dude, it's like you can't win.

It's like they just won 12 or 13. Now they just lost. Okay, they'll pick it back up. And it's like, no, now we're going to decide to lose a whole bunch. This team reminds me a lot. of the mid-2000 yanks. Yeah. A little less big...

Yeah, but a little less of the big contracts and fading stars like Randy Johnson and stuff like that. I like the squad. I think it has hard. Pitching. Pitching. Bullpen. I don't know.

I don't know. Brut. Anyways, I'm trying to have the MLB app, but I'll watch the highlights more than anything. Yeah, so that's what I, again, I know, I know sometimes my on-air character is a little I don't watch. I just, when it's all said in Don, dude, I just like to sit on the couch. Grace will watch.

She watches a lot of, like, foreign language, heist stories or, you know, this to that. Do you ever find yourself tuning into them? Like, I've heard, I've heard most of her shows. You've heard most. I've heard most of them. So you can tune in on both. Yeah, see, the only one that I'll, that I'll watch with my, well, no, my wife wants to

start watching impeachment. Oh, is that the, Lewinsky. Yeah, yeah. Because it's, I think it's the same. Ryan Murphy, yeah. Yeah, same ones who did OJ and all that stuff too. So that's, that's why I'm intrigued on it. Because even this morning, she said, well, you know, maybe we don't need to watch it because

we know the story. I'm like, yeah, but we knew the OJ story. I'm like, and then there's also details that we don't know. Yeah, yeah. And also, I'm very curious of how they're going to portray certain people. They're going to portray Clinton. They're going to portray her. So I'm actually really intrigued for it.

I think Grace is going to watch. That OJ series is like, the Ryan Murphy ones are wonderful favorite things. Yeah, we do. But I, and if I'm watching anything, because I do like to just turn on some, it's docks. It's documentaries. And rock docs or something like that. I love, I love. It's your show, right?

What's that? I thought you son of a bitch. We both thought that one of the stones died and didn't. Oh, I know. Bill Wyman. You know, Brian Jones was the one who died in the 60s. Sorry. No, we both.

We both were, because when you said it, I was like, I think he's right. I don't know. But yeah, it's like, one of them died. Brian Jones did.

Yeah. I thought, yeah. And you text me later. I was like, yeah, now everyone in the internet's going to tag us. But they didn't. Yeah, rock docs and stuff. The,

I'm only, apparently it's only half of it's on ESPN Plus, which I subscribe to. is the Mets. Oh, yeah. Have you started that? The first two episodes. You started the first two.

And? It's really good. Yeah, because that's one I, even though I'm a big Yankee fan, that's one of my favorite teams of all time. Yeah, and Gary Carter's my favorite player. Okay. And it's really good.

I'm so familiar with it. You're probably so familiar with it. It wasn't anything you didn't know? Not much I didn't know. Just a little more scandal, a little more in depth. Because I've read Jeff Pearlman's book, The Bad Guys One's one of my favorite baseball books of all time. Yeah.

And Perlman's a talking head in it. But like, I'm a Gary Carter fan. I knew he was never fully loved in the locker rooms. And this one, and he died. He passed away in 2012 of cancer. And there's some people, Hernandez, and they take some... Hernandez not like him? They took some shots at him.

I thought him and Hernandez were tight. Well, he said, we got along. Yeah, I thought there was a moment, like, talking about like, Gary thought he was the leader of the team. He wasn't. He always seemed to carry himself like it. And he'd walk to the mound and tell, you know, Sid Fernandez to throw a fastball or throw a curve ball and then walk back.

And then I come up and say, F it, throw a fastball. And there's a clip. of it. And you see Fernandez kind of, Carter walks away on Fernandez just like, basketball. And I'm like, I was like,

that kind of suck. Like, Gary can't defend himself. And, and he's, but he was a goody two shoes, right? He was a Jesus guy in an era where team,

they're literally doing coke and the, you know, Darrell Strawberry is admitting to getting female fans out to the crowd and having sex with them in the clubhouse

between it bats. That team was fucking nuts. That team was, and you have Gary Carter who's like, oh, jolly geek, oh man, son of a gun

You got Ray Knight punch and Eric Davis on the side of the face in the middle of a match. I think you're right. I think the 96 Yanks and the 86 Mets are my two favorite baseballs. Same. So it's great. You should check out. It's definitely great. Well,

did you remember I sent you that thing on the 86 Mets? I watched it. It was great, wasn't it? Yeah, I remember watching that as a kid. I got that video. There's something about it was like the amazing season. I can remember with the name of it. I mean, whatever it was about the amazing Mets.

Yeah. And it's like official, right? It's a kind of official thing. And it came out, it came out in, I think, the year that they won it. I remember watching my late great friend Brian Cashio was a massive Mets fan. And we watched it. And I always felt like I was cheating on the Yankees when I watched it because I loved that team. I loved the 86 Mets.

Yeah, again, Carter, I mean, Yankees Maddenly loved it. But like Carter, I wanted to be a catcher. And so Gary was just kind of when I came up as a kid, I didn't know anything. And he was like, oh, that guy seems great. So yeah, it's great. You should definitely check it out. It's, yeah, it goes into some stuff. And, you know, the 80s baseball era was a little weird.

Yeah. It's on ESPN right now. It's on ESPN, but it's like I have that bundle with Disney Plus. Me too. And the first two episodes were on ESPN plus, and I went to watch the third one and was like, nah, you must have ESPN. I'm like, I don't have a cable. And now, I don't know.

So how many do they have? Four? Four out right now. I'm not going to watch it. Is that the whole series is four? I think it's four. All right. I got to check it out.

I do like those. It's funny, like there's so many great sports stocks. Yeah. But I find myself not watching a lot of them, but like the ones that are really, interest me, like, watched one on like Chuck, Chuck Ladellie. on like Tito Ortiz on ESPN. And it's like, those things are just so phenomenal. Look, it's like Ken Burns baseball.

I've watched that all 10 parts 50 times because it's just like, I love having it on. I love going through the journey. They're well-mean. Yeah, I love a good doc like that. So that's when I really do want to relax. Or honestly, I put on Netflix. And I love Favreu's cooking show with Roy Choi and the David Chang one, ugly delicious, which is a pretty poignant doc.

I just watch those kind of shows. And Grace and I like some British gardening shows. Well, that's the one. I think that Brett watches a lot of those, the gardening shows also. Does he now? Yeah, he does. I like that. Like that Brett guy.

I know, Brett. He probably watches Love Your Garden with Alan Tishmark on BBC 2. Fuck that is. Let me ask you the serious question, though. Yeah. You shave your balls? Oh, man, all the time. Do you?

I got to tell you something. I know you're going to an ad. Yes. You, last time I was here, you gave me one of these? Oh, I gave it to you. That's right. I gave you the manscape. Yeah.

Use it every day. It's the best. All over. It is the entire football field is trim. Is this the first time you used the one, by the way? First time from the one yard line to the one year line on the other side. Was I lying to head to toe? I was not lying to you.

Let me tell you some. It's got that fucking Terminator light that comes in. Yeah, you got the one I'm talking about right now. And I got the one with the ears. I go into the pit apart carcoon and clean that jungle out. The nose whacker, the nose in the ear and that sound that it makes, it's like doing its job. See, I gave it.

Dave Ken won last time he was here, and I'm so glad. I totally forgot that I did, and I've converted him. And so all you guys, the support for this show, the big thing, it's brought to you by Manscapes. They are the best and below the waist. They are the grooming champions of the world. It is Manscapes. Manscape offers precision engineer tools for your family jewels. Manscape just launched their fourth generation trimmer.

That's the one Ken's talking about. It's the Lawnmower 4.0. The 4.0, you've got to join over the 2 million men worldwide who tried. Trust Manscape. Put the pit boss in that crew because there's an exclusive offer for you guys. If you want 20% off and free worldwide shipping, use that code, big thing. But you got to go to manscaped.com. Now, if you can imagine shaving with a sleek, well-designed, and optimized trimmer that makes shaving time your favorite time in the bathroom, that is the 4.0. myself, Ken Napsock, we are some of the first people to try the new 4.0. And obviously, after listening to Ken, we're both blown away by the performance.

The craftmanship and the details on the 4.0, they are next level. Before this, what were you shaving with? Like a fucking machete? For 24 years with just a razor blade, yeah. Can't do it. Never again. Yeah. Never again. The razor blade doesn't have an infrared light on it. And how much has it improved your household?

It's great, because like I said, I love their copy. But below the waist, above the waist. Everything. I don't want to be Tom Selleck, so I trim that down. It's no joke. Yeah. And it doesn't hurt. No.

It doesn't hurt. You can get hurt with other razors, not with Manscape. Ain't going to happen. The Manscape engineered the ultimate groin and body trimmer by focusing on intelligent functionality and incredible, comfortable grooming experience. Their fourth generation trimmer features a cutting-edge ceramic blade to reduce grooming accidents thanks to their advanced skin-safe technology. I have no problem going in there and spend

and it's addicting. It's addicting. Oh, it's a daily thing now. It's the best. Yeah, you got more copy? Just a little bit. The lawnmower 4.0 even allows you to customize the trim through additional guard lengths. It's got, you know, one through four there, one through four the blades.

But if you want to get 20% off and free shipping, use that code, big thing at manscape.com. That's 20% off with free shipping at manscape.com. Use that code, big thing. Unlock your confidence and always use. the right tools for the job. Yes. So I'll give you an exclusive story. So I literally have been manscape, mangroom, whatever, for 25 plus years.

Yes. Started doing that. Early on in Grace's side relationship, we didn't live together. You know, I was heading over, you know, so I was doing some, you know, let's clean up the house. Yeah. And I had the raise. She said, you got to clean up your tools. Well, you know, it's already pretty clean.

But, you know, so I had the old traditional, you know, fixed safety razor. And I was doing some work downtown. and I made a turn wrong. Oh, man. And it was bleeding. And I, we weren't early enough. It was early enough for the relationship, but I wasn't comfortable to be like, something's gone wrong.

So I went over there with a wad of toilet paper and duct tape to like one of my inside dies and just try to pass it off as normal. Right. You know, she's like, you want to go upstairs? I'm like, I do not. No. What's wrong with me? It looks like it all.

Looks like a hallmark store got hit. It's like Al Capone knocked over a hallmark store down on my pants right now. I don't want to do that. So if I had had the Manscape Lawmower 4.0, would not have that. You would have had a much better story that day. But it wouldn't allege you to the realize that you needed something new. Yeah, that's right. Because, yeah, I remember when I gave it to it, it was like a Christmas present.

Well, you were walking out and we were walking out. And you were like, you want one of these? And I'm like, of course I want free stuff. And I was like, I thought to myself, I already do this. Yeah. Yeah, I haven't put it down. It's, I'm telling you. It's the best.

So we could make a whole fucking podcast on the Manscape 4.0. I'm telling you guys. And I said this the other day. Even if you don't just try it for yourselves, do it to keep this show for us, because every time they come up on the new one, a 5.0, a 6.0, I don't ever want to lose Manscape as a sponsor

because they are the best. Them and Native, we lost Native, because you guys weren't getting Native. Native is so good. What's Native? I don't know Native. Oh, my God, Native the deodorant? Oh, no, I don't know that. Dude, so they're not even a sponsor right now, but I'll talk about them. Native is, and I use Native all the time.

So Native is, I can't use, I never use the Nodern. natural deodorants because I smell like an alley cat. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. After a while, I can't do it. My wife was like, you can't use that aluminum shit. She's like, it's bad for you. It causes all this stuff. You can't, you can't do it. And I'm like, I have to because I stink if I don't fucking do it. Yeah, the tradeoff is socially unacceptable. Yes. Yeah. So Native came on as a sponsor and smells like candy. I wanted to eat the fucking thing, right? And then it just, it's, it's wonderful. And it's got body wash and all. I'm game. I know they're not a sponsor. Well, I'm not, I don't have like a box

of outside. I do. I don't have a box outside, but what I'm, I want them back. And listen, I'm telling you guys, I'm going to try to get Native back. Okay. And then when I get them back, use the fucking codes. Get these guys on. Like, native is the best. Because the aluminum thing, like, I've heard

it for years and I just like, at this point, like, do what you're going to do to me. But I used to feel the same. I used to feel the same. It's very similar to Diet Coke sparkling water conversation we just had. It was the same exact thing. I was like, we're an advancing aged gentleman. You know, we've You got to be concerned about.

This is what we get excited to talk about these days. It's fucking deodorant, ball trimming, and sparkling water. That should be the name of this episode. Do it. But that's the thing that's life, man. I get excited about it. I'd rather talk about that. I thought a lot of other shit.

I'll tell you that. Yeah, because I've already picked up some of my dad's traits and, you know, Ellis McCug, even the grace makes fun of me all the time. I've just, I have, I got to stop myself from doing the, Christian, you know, I took some polvina down here. It was three minutes quicker, but I get it now. I pulled up here excited Don't ever not do that to me

Because I always want to know the new routes How you don't have children is beyond me That you know of So but I Yeah man I feel the same exact way I think my fish are dead But I don't know why

I don't know why I thought about the story It's nothing to do with what you just said Except with the fact of the fish I was when my I have a pug now But I had the classic pug of Taz He was the original He was the OG

So was that a yeah a pet co with my wife, who was at the time my girlfriend, and we were getting food for the dog. And that line just wrapped around of these people just sitting with cats and dogs, like, waiting just miserable online. The cashiers are just saying, don't care. It's like you're just waiting. So there's this, the girl, the cashier must have been, I don't know, early 20s. Let's say 23, 24 years old.

Hope's still in front of her. So she's there, but she looked like it was gone. Yeah. And she's there. and out of nowhere, I don't know if this woman was Russian, I don't know what she was, but she just walks up right next to this woman in front of everybody, sticks a fish in front of this woman's face

and goes, check my fish. The woman goes, what? Check my fish. My wife starts bawling laughing. I'm like, stop, stop. She's like, are you kidding me? One more time. Check my fish.

She goes, Hold on. Aaron. So here comes fucking Aaron, right? And he walks over and he's like, what? She says, she wants you to check her fish. And it just, it's these stories that stick with you. Like, forever.

Check. And we say it'll do each other all the time. Check my fish. Well, ma'am, there's a dead fish. This thing's been dead for two months, lady. We have four, we have, we have 40, we have 40. We have 40,000 brand. Go pick one.

You can get one for free. I'll take it out of my check. Just get the... Take the 10 cents out of my check. Just get it out of here. You want two? We'll give you two fish. It's fucking dead, all right?

You sure? Yes, I'm sure. Eat the fucking thing. Check my fiche. It's the best. I love it. It's the best. All right, so the game,

go in guys, one more time. Fetility, the actual game of living. A lot of these kind of laughs are found in the game. It's a satire of life. Not the game, but like life, the one we're living here. and you try to retire and life sends you down the other other path so anyways please support we're very excited i'll put the link in the description so you guys want to go check it out um you

happy you're happy now pal you seem happy me happy yeah yeah he's got like a lot of life in your face yeah yeah i'm i'm so much happier where i am in life i'm always i'm always a little more happier i'm working i'm working at how i outwardly project yeah i've i understand my representing resting yourself? Well, yeah, Grace will say, you know, you had the face of a serial killer. Like, come on, sociopath. The loving words. Yeah, smile more.

She should be like, do you love me? And I'm like, yeah, she's like, you look like you want to just absolutely run away. But that's my dad, too. Every photo of my dad's like, yeah. So, no, I'm happy. I've never been, the grumpiness, all that stuff's not a character. Like, I'm playing it. It's part of your personality.

But it's also, I vent and purge and I'm done with it. I move on, right? And it just, and life goes on. But I'm in a good spot. I think I've learned a lot. You know, getting laid off from Collider was the best thing to happen to me, though, at the time, it's scary. Right. You know, still living off the, you know, paying off the debt of living off credit cards for a year and all that stuff.

But I made a choice. I didn't go back to the malls. I didn't go back to a day job. I didn't go to, I was like, no. How close were you? I was never close. I'll tell you why, it's never close. Yeah.

Our mutual friend, Dutch Hollywood. Yes. I have talked to a couple of years. I was going to ask you. I haven't talked of COVID kind of, you know, we all kind of going to our corners. Dutch and Miss Kathy, Stephen Stanton's co-managers, the great Stephen Stanton voiceover. I'm looking at Emeritus sign photo behind the picture there.

Dutch was the one who was like, I had this thought. He's like, he called me up and goes, you got a credit card? Is it open? I go, yeah, I'm good. He goes, no one's going to tell you this. Use it.

Survive off of it. Yeah. You need to reset and find out what you want to do next. And don't rush back, don't panic. Don't do all that kind of stuff. You know, I'll buy a pasta if you want. He'd treat me to dinner. And it was one of the,

one of the best pieces of vice that I wouldn't necessarily give to everyone. Because I am in debt. We're all in debt. But I took a hit in 2018. Yeah. But that allowed me to go write the book. They allow me to go figure out what I want to do next. And, you know, you pretty good with the book?

The book. I just had a book signed in in Victorville last week. It's still going on. I'll tell you. I told the story on the Wangers, I think. I'll tell you. You want an ego check? Yeah, go ahead.

So I'm there sitting in front of the store. Table 40 books. No one's there. No, this is the Victorville. Victorville. Victorville. Victorville Barnes & O'Kent. Kent from Blue Milk Lates, part of the management team there, and he invited me over.

He set it up. I'm there, you know, and it's a little spinal tap that I got my head. I'm like, oh, no one's going to know who I am. So this big tall guy, looks like Ron Perlman. I'd seen him in the store. Big, probably never lifted weights in his day. He's just lifted steel. And he has a weird, he was talking to his kid.

He goes, son, my sweet son, what book have you selected today to take home from from the John? I was like, what is this guy? So he stops it. And he comes to it. He goes, son, that picks up a book. He goes, Star Wars, huh? I'm like, yeah, it's a book about why I love Star Wars.

I have a son who's home sick. He loves Star Wars. Oh, okay, great. He goes, I'm going to call him and see if he knows who you are. In front of my table, calls the son. Yeah, yeah, he's cat absentech. Why about the Star Wars? He goes, he doesn't know who you are.

I go, oh, okay, man. I don't know who I am too. I go, hope your son feels good. He goes, yeah, he's home with the flu. I go, yeah, he goes, you remember the flu? I go, yeah, you don't hear about those statistics anymore. COVID's bullshit. And he walks up.

So that's how the book is going. That's how the book is going. We had a great time. And I got to meet new people. And it was a lot of fun up there at the Victorville Barnes & Noble. Right. Oh, that sounds fun, though. Yeah, books going to go.

But anyways, yeah, you talk about happy. I learned a lot and learn how to kind of survive and do my own thing and learn a lot of, you know, I got to face stuff about ourselves and mistakes we made. And you and I talk about this on your other show, too. It's like, it's easy to look back. on why things didn't work out and blame others. And there's maybe truth and stuff, but you always got to start with yourself.

It's always that cliche thing too, right? It's always that like you, and I've said it a million times over, it's easier than done, but you can't judge the past if you don't know what the future looks like. Because like even the shittiest thing that happened to you in your life that you think is the worst thing

that happened to you, it could turn out to not necessarily be the best thing because it's still that pain that comes with it, associated with it, but it starts to pave the way, for the best thing in your life. Yeah. Right?

Like there's shit that happened to me. Like when in like 2004, shit that I thought like, oh man, like fucking this is it. I'm done. I mean, shit,

like even shit that happened when my brother passed away and how that led me to be, I've been pretty open about it. Like, you know, like, it led to me,

like, we fucking joke about it all the time and I've talked about it on this show and I've been bringing up again. I've been brought, and learning about myself and bringing more open. The whole shit with the Galaxy's Edge.

That whole shit went down because I was fucking angry. I kept my brother's passing in me for a year. and I've brought it to work every day. Right, right. And I let it explode on the fucking air when it's like stay home, motherfucker, take time, breathe, think about it. But all that stuff,

it also allows you when something like that happens that you say, okay, look, either keep going down that path. Yeah, keep being angry fuck and get yourself into more trouble or look at it. Yeah. And say, now don't do that again.

Yeah. Turn it around. Yeah. And now take it in the other direction. It's the same thing you're talking about. Like you look at Koliath. you get fired from Collider and you go, oh, you could go, well, fuck this, I'm going back, I'm doing that, but instead you decide to go another round.

Yeah, I find out, you know, I work alone better, which is a struggle that I had to go through, and, you know, you work with me, I'm not easy to work with. In the past, I probably was. I was pretty easy to work with, like, my old job and, you know, very popular. You know, I was a boss for a long time, and that means you're already going to, you have the people are going to hate you anyways. But, yeah, I've learned a lot about what I like and what I want to do. And so it's a struggle.

And there's some months, I don't hide the fact, I don't need anyone to, you know, send me a basket of food. But like, there's some months. I don't know how next month's going to get covered. But guess what? I'd rather be doing that. Right. Than the mindless, you know, drone job that I had, which at times was fun and everything. But like, you knew that you're in that time.

Yeah. And it was like, this isn't what it was, what I was supposed to do. And I'm still trying to find that next thing. And I'm getting back, you know, launched that show, pop rock and radio on Mix Cloud. I'm doing, you know, trying to do more music work. and everything, and I'm always going to try, and I'm always going to do things and see where it goes, but I'm just happier taking these big swings and, you know, it's hard work.

It just makes you feel better, though, too. And I think that for you anyway, I'm curious if it's going to be the same for me, is that with stand up back in your life, it's probably you get those frustrations that aren't. You get to, even though it might not necessarily be what you're talking about, but it's still what's in there is coming out. Yeah, just what you try to communicate. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, no, and something I feel oddly more complete. Yeah. You and I talked about a little bit last time, but it's like we didn't get into the 2012 and things started to explode a little bit more with podcasting schmows. You guys have been doing it for a couple years to be clear. But like, we all of a sudden were like,

oh, this is great, let's try this. And then it became how we lived. Right. And it's still how I lived. Force Center still pays most of my bills. And guess what? Happy to do it. The other day I was kind of complete.

I was at home. I was like, God, I have so much you do today. Grace was like, what? I was like, I got to do Star Wars news. I got to watch Clone Wars. I got to watch Visions. And it's like, well, that's pretty cool. Yeah.

Let me shut up. Totally. I get it. But it's still an investment is still time. It's still work. And your mental health, the work is work. Yes. But with the stand-up and everything, I feel a little bit more connected to why I moved L.A.,

which is also about performing and writing and getting out there more too. Yeah. But it's all circular. You've touched on them, too. I wouldn't be more where I am on stage, which is more comfortable if I hadn't developed a little bit more chops over the years doing live shows, podcasts. Smodowns, isn't that? And you never know.

I would say right before the pandemic really hit in 2020, I got a car accident, my car was totaled. You know, how bad. I was luckily okay. You know, insurance totaled the car. They gave me a little payoff. Guess what? That's how I survived the first month,

a couple months of the pandemic when all my work dried up. And, you know, I don't need a car accident every time. You know, please give me something else. Better. But like at that particular day in that moment, when I'm freaking out in the tow truck show and I'm like, my life's ruined. That day kept me afloat, a float through 2000.

I mean. That's what I mean. You can't judge a bad situation and think that this is the because you don't know what situations are going to present themselves because of certain things, right? Focus determined to reality. A hundred percent. And like you were saying with stand-up, I'm so curious. That's one of the main reasons that keeps me kind of, I don't know, feel like the force kind of pulling me towards it, right? Because it's like, I don't, I'm so curious that because I do this all the time and because, like, what you just said, you felt yourself get stronger. Yeah. Yeah. Because all comedians, a lot of a minute, especially if you like Star Wars, you always equated to the force.

How strong are you in the force? Yeah, yeah. When you're not doing it, the comedians is like you're, it's like you shut yourself off from the force. I can tell you right now, I feel like I've been more, since I've been writing again and since I've been back thinking about jokes and putting them together, I feel like I'm been quicker when I'm talking. I feel like when I'm listening to people, I can make situations better than I did. I remember like I'd be on shows with whether it was Ellis or whoever it was back in the day when I was. was just focused on movie reviews and everything too. And I wasn't writing jokes.

And I remember thinking, I would have, I would have capitalized on that moment in the past. And I didn't. I've had conversations with people who have come on board. Yeah. Come on board after, you know, 2012, 2015. Quite frankly, after 2015.

Yeah. Guests, host, pundits, and everything. And to be frank, have a conversation. They're like, hey, some of your favorite comics, I'm like, I'll tell you, I used to love,

I used to love watching Harloff back in the day. And they didn't mean it disrespectfully. They'd be like, really? I'm like, yeah, I know he's just busy reviewing movies right now, but he's, he was on the comedy store wall. Yeah. And week and week out, he was my favorite, one of my favorite ones to watch. Also, Kailer and all the people we knew. But I know what you mean. Not saying that you and I haven't been funny or Ellis hasn't been funny on the shows. But sometimes we would be have some inside jokes or laughing and giggling on Jedi Council on some of the comments would be like, too funny. Right. Get serious. Get serious. Right. And so you felt like you had, you know, in business.

It's broadcasting. There's different styles of communication. So I think you're, you're connecting back to who you're, were in that regard. You've always been, but now your engines, your engines running. It is because that's the thing is that for, because Mark and I met through the comedy store, right? And we were both comedians. And I was comedian first, like you said, I'd done all this stuff. You helped him.

I helped him, right? So, but when we started Shmose, the fans never knew me that way. People that I worked with didn't know me that way. So they always said, well, Mark's the comedian, Christian's the serious guy. Yeah. And I was just like. That's what I mean. And I get people to see it.

And people, coworkers, right? And it's like, and Andrew Guy said it when he was on the show. He's like, I didn't expect. He was there in New York when I did the set. He's like, I didn't expect that. And I was like, well, that's because that's not what I do there. And like, because think about comedians that you know. How many comedians, like, are always on?

Like, Ellis is not always on. Like, on camera, how you guys know him? Yeah, he's on. But, like, when you're talking Ellis, Ellis can be like, you know. And then he's on when he's supposed to be. You see Ellis before a show? He's not fucking joking.

around. He's in a, he's in a zone. Serious, taking a nap. You gotta get naps in. You go drinking. No, like a lot of the comedians that are, are either really serious or fucking miserable, right? And that's like, and that's why, I don't know, like I was, I was, had talked about this with Steph and, and, and, Brett also, but like I, my wife has said, you know, I wasn't ready for your mistress to come back. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, it was, it was always like my girlfriend.

Yeah. Like, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, that relationship was like sometimes oh man when the sex was good it was good but fucking a when it was bad it was bad you know and it was and it was like it just had to I've always had this thing with stand-up I remember so when I was at silver I had stopped for like before I went to silver about a year and I jumped back that's when I picked up with you that's when you picked up in 2004 actually and then Franco had me come back in I started so from like 2004 to like 2008 yeah I was like get moving. And then I think what

positive and the negative of finding Schmo's was that it just replaced stand-up for me, which I told my wife the other day and I guess I'm being a little more honest than I maybe should be on air, but like,

it's like, I think I made a fucking mistake of leaving it. I think I made a mistake. Like, especially not capitalizing on it in 2013, 2014.

But it will go back to you. It's back to you. I know. You get to turn around. Unless, unless it goes horribly wrong on Sunday night. But look, it won't.

I can say with confidence, you're gonna, you're gonna, you're gonna, even if the crowd's like, eh, your material will be to a point where you're like, yeah, those, those good shot, we'll go forward with it. Yeah, I know you enough. I trust what you do as a comic. Yeah, no, I know what you mean.

We all make the sense, but again, you can't, you can't, you can't, you can't look back, but also, you, you know, you know, it's fine to move forward and also just acknowledge it. Yeah, I just wonder if I feel like a, like, like a fighter who's like, I got one more fight in me there, Mick. And then, you know, it's like the first round.

It's like, nah, maybe my endurance wasn't up for it. But you don't know. But it's also why you're doing it. You know, when I jump back in, I think 2014, 2015, I think it was when Ellis got me at La Jolla. Yeah. It wasn't a great set. And it scared me. And, you know, I was probably not going back for the right reasons.

Now I think I'm back for the right. And those reasons aren't to be a regular, get a special, whatever thing. It's just like, I need to find myself on stage, which so far is so good. I just, I got a, I'm going. going to stop internalizing it a little bit more. Even Ellis said that the other night. He's like, you know, you're unflopable. You're, you never, I never see you panicked, unless it's about stand up.

That's like, you're right. Right. I got to get over that. So that's kind of my finishing out the year that way. Yeah. But I know what you mean. You know, I'd look back and go, why did I? Because I remember the moment, the first real time and I quit, Jody Miller came up to me.

And she goes, hey, I need a host for my student show next week. And I went, oh, I'm quitting comedy. You know, oh, okay, that's too bad. Walked on because that's what, that's what, that's, what life does. Life doesn't go, oh, come back, please, we need you. Okay, great.

Right. We're all replaceable. And I stuck with it for a year in 2007, which I wish I didn't. Well, I mean, here we are. Who knows? Who knows what's going to? But I definitely feel the same way that you do.

I'm not, I'm up there because I just, I have some fun stuff I want to talk about. I have some things. I want to see if it works. I want to see, I want to, I want to get back to that feeling of saying, okay, I said it that way. if I would have said it that way, would have worked better.

So I'll try that again this way. Yeah, plenty of old stuff. Yeah, maneuver and say like, okay, well, that was a brand new joy. And that rushed of trying something brand new. Yeah. And then saying, okay, well, that worked in my head, but maybe it didn't work the same way I wanted it to. Why?

Is it just a bad joke? Or did I say it differently? Yeah, did I find it word? And try to say it next time. There ain't nothing like finding a new joke or a tagline or when you're on stage and you just kind of say something. And you're like, oh, I always say it's that it's that final put on a golf course where you've had a bad round but you're like oh i got to go back that's i got to go back that's exactly right like i have one that i'm doing on sunday that's brand new that i fucking love but it's like and you've

been here before right it's a joke that you love and then it's like if it works you're like fuck yeah that the one you call me about i probably called you for not the one i just called you about the other day yeah i can't that one i can't do but like yeah you probably you probably can't do that one but i but i but the one at the but the no it was it was one that i came up with that i said i know this fucking goes and if it works i'm gonna yeah but if it's Like, oh, man, they don't like my kid. You know what I mean? That's how it feels like.

Look, I got this one. I'm going to bring it back. But, you know, I tried a big old bit about going to the batting cages and I have it all done. And it didn't go well. And so you have that instinct where you're like, well, you kick it out of the plane. It didn't work. And it's like, it could be just one word. That could be your energy.

That's exactly right. Yeah. Something. And I, you know, me. My struggle is I start to collapse in. And so I need to push energy out. And that's where I'm focusing on those little fundamentals. And also just, there's this other thing,

just go be funny. That's it. Just be funny. And just have fun. Because if you start to doubt yourself on there, I'll remember that the only time when I first kind of started doing, and I was green, I didn't understand comedy that well at all.

And you're always learning, right? But this is like, just like 2000. And I was at the, did you ever do the martini lounge? No, on Melrose. No, I didn't do it. Yeah. So I was up there. And I remember, and this is like a big no-no, but I didn't know back then, right?

I was, I had just been doing comedy in L.A. for a little bit. So I got up and I started going up eating tons of shit. Yeah. And I was supposed to do six minutes. I jumped off the stage at three. I ended my set at three. Right. I think Bob, I think Oshack was hosting.

Oh, shit. Yeah. I think Oshack was host. I can't remember. Yeah. But he was, someone was like, oh, shit. Like, oh, is it over? Because comics aren't watching other people.

Yeah, no, yeah. I've never seen a set in my mind. They're waiting and then they time it out. And they're timing it out and they go, okay, this fucker's going to be on for the other. So I just interrupt this poor bastard's cigarette break in the middle. He jumped off. And then I remember, I can't remember who told me. They're like, no, no, no, you can't do that.

You can't do that. It's things that you learn. Yeah, trust me, as a host, regular room five, you know, that would happen. I'd be, you know, downstairs tinking into the urinal or. You said, I got six minutes. And if some asshole jumps off at two, you're like, dude, do you want the time? I don't want the time. Or I'm going, Claire, where's my pizza?

Jody was my pizza. Right. Oh, that pizza. They were so good. That fucking place is closed. It's a different place now that room. I don't know what it. I wonder if they,

I wonder if you do. Because Acme's not even next door to it. It's not. They shut that down too. But I wonder if that room is still, is like open. It's a great spot. I know. I wonder if it's open.

I'm telling you, man, I want to find a spot where we can do at least a monthly thing. Monthly's probably, let's be honest. We're real busy. Yeah, a monthly thing. Well, because you can, Rick, reorganize it. And then because the beauty of that room,

room is you only you packed it with 40 people so you get a pack a room with 40 people it's it's when you start trying to pack it with 100 200 people yeah yeah punch your weight until until you can't until you totally speak i don't know why i just thought about this but i when speaking of uh just packed rooms i remember doing er i was just in irvine over the weekend and the last time i'd been in irvine was when i did the irvine improv oh wow yeah great room i've never been there oh it's a fucking great room that one yeah but it's just an irvine at the pumpkin patch this is not something you do 2006 Harloff just rolled over in his grave.

No, he's done. He's done. But pumpkin patched with the two kids, and it was a great memory. It's great memory walking around the kids. And it's amazing. It's amazing what can entertain kids. As here are you and I trying to figure out our poor fucking lines talking about Star Wars. I have to review the Clone Wars. And we're trying to find excitement.

What excites us? And meanwhile, here's my four-year-old and 10-year-old getting, like, shitting in their pants with laughter, shooting pumpkins over. real field. Yay! The pumpkin goes. Look at the pumpkins. And it's like, you know,

and it's like the beauty of being a kid of just shooting fucking pumpkins. However, if I had that thing in my neighborhood, I'd be just as happy. Oh, yeah. So firing off pumpkins into fucking the middle of the... I would do that right now. Yeah, right.

Pull! I can hit the Trader Joe's from here. It's my fucking 14. Yeah. Yeah. We're in the movie theater. There's an empty lot that's not like a Walmart. And we would go out there with a golf club and a bag of balls and we'd see

who could hit the theater. That's right. And like, what are you doing? And how much enjoyment did you get? I remember it more than I remember things I did last year. Ever. And just to have a pumpkin shooter, I mean, I would be, I'd get arrested. I'd get arrested. Oh, yeah, you're launching it over the 405 freeway.

Let's see if we can beat traffic. You see if you can clear it over the six trucks. That's the thing. What you have is kind of what you need sometimes. And it's not just materialistic stuff. I think sometimes you feel you don't focus. It's a jet. It all comes back to Star Wars stuff.

It's never your mind on where you are. what you're doing, that one speaks to me a lot. Andrews, speaking of Star Wars, by the way, you know, I've been doing these rewatch. Have you guys done rewatches on, uh, we've, yeah, we've done, right now, our big series, uh, on Fridays, we do the Clone Wars report. We were just going through every arc.

Oh, shit. So we've done some of the movies. Yeah, yeah. Um, but yeah, we've, we've done some of the movies. Yeah, yeah. The release order? Or not release order. Canon order. Yeah, yeah, story. Yeah. Yeah. Storyline. Okay. Yeah. Because that's where you did episode one.

Yes. We started with episode one. We just, we went through, we did solo. We just finished Rogue One. So we're coming up to, well, today we dropping episode four. We dropping New Hope. I love that Rogue One, man. Yeah, Rogue One, I love it too.

Yeah, it has the, we were just talking about, unfortunately, the other day about why it's generally the most loved of the new era. Why? You know, the reasons why. Yeah. Well, because when you and I, well, I don't know, we saw solo together. But like Rogue 1, when I saw that one, I liked it a lot. As time has gone on, I think especially paired with Mandalorian and watching New Hope,

that it certainly has that tone of like those shows, right? And I said this the other day, I don't feel that there is a wrong tone for Star Wars, right? Like some people say, well, and I probably was guilty of this as well. The prequels aren't the same tone. It's the wrong tone. Well, it's not the wrong. That's tone. It's not the wrong tone for the seven-year-old that saw that,

and that's how they identify with Star Wars. The new era of Star Wars, that tone, it's not the wrong tone if that's how you identify with Star Wars. How I identified with Star Wars was the OT and Rogue One and Mandelaar. I think that's why I love Mandalorian as much as I do. But I don't know, there's just something about that movie now. And remember how much I didn't like the music? Yeah, and I've since, and my friend Jen is friends with Michael,

and I haven't met him yet, but I told him, said, If I finally meet him at one of his little parties, I'm going to apologize. Same. Because Rogue One's one of my, your father would be proud as one of my favorite pieces of Star Wars music. It's great. The only, I still, I still am not on board with the, when Krennick shows up to Mustafa. Not on board with that piece. I know what you made.

Considering that, Jekino had two weeks to score. Two or three weeks to score with, yeah, John Williams over his shoulder, going, hey, do this, do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's tough. Yeah, that was tough. Yeah, so, but I've, I've since come around, and I was pretty vocal on how much I didn't like it. And I'm actually really hearing it this time around. But revisiting watching episode four, I'm pretty pumped about it.

You know, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. No, I don't know. Because especially episode four, it's one of the ones that you've probably seen the most. It's growing up, you've got an empire for me now. But, yeah, but yeah, well, yeah, that fact is they like Jedder or something. Like, I watched that more as a kid. Yeah, yeah.

And so it's easy. I find new hope. It's easy to overlook where you're just like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it. Episode four, episode four. Right. And then you go back and reengage with everything that's there. It's wonderful. Yeah, yeah.

Did you, do you have, a couple more minutes here. Do you have a... Yeah, I'm not rushed. I was checking my phone because Grace wants to see what I'm on at Target, which is a pretty sexy tax. What do you get? It's too much. It's too much. We shop at Target.

Is that where you get all your stuff? A lot of groceries and stuff there. I shop it. Well, I shouldn't say I. My wife shops at every fucking store in Los Angeles. So, yeah, you name it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm texting or...

You talk about your dad. You talk about your dad? Do you have True Bill? True Bill? Yeah. Oh, dude. Truebill will change your life. We have Truvia.

No, no, Truvill will give you a breakdown of all the shit that you spend and everything. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Everything, and I do it. And it's like, I am my dad. Oh, shit, I spent $200 less this week. Last week? It's pretty exciting. It's amazing.

Yeah, well, I have a Google sheet of what's in, what's going out, which I didn't know. Probably probably why I was in some trouble I've been in the past. But it's weird when you start counting duckets. I mean, having kids and groceries all the time. Yeah. If I told you how much I spent on groceries. I have to wake you up. I got to believe it because I know what I spent on me, Grace, and a dog.

And I can't imagine. It's nuts. It's nuts. It's around the shit that we got. It's like, well, we're running out of apples. We need organic apples. Get the apples going. You got to get apples.

Yeah. We need it. And I get, you know, when I'm thirsty, it's like suddenly the house has 59 zivia, bottles, cans, everything around. It's like, I got no food. No. It's always the same. We got an air friar and that changed our life.

So there you go. Boy of conversation. I love it. But going back to Book of Boba Fett, have not got a trailer yet for it. As it right now, no. Not yet. We assume we're going to get that in October

with the Disney Plus shit. It's got to be soon. Yeah, got to be soon. Oh, there you go. Stop that. Soon, but you know, they're doing that Disney. They did that thing last year. Yeah, the big, yeah.

Real quick, I just remember it. Yeah. Did you see this thing about the editor? The editor. I can't remember her first name, Lucas. Oh, Marsha Lucas. Marshall Lucas. Yeah.

I did, Marsha Lucas. The editor. My head. George's ex-wife. Yeah, I did. And so she, who was instrumental in George doing everything. We only have a new hope because of her.

Some people think that it's because of Marshall Lewis, the editor, that we, because of all the stuff that she's done with George, but before, you know, while they were together and they think that when they split up, that they were worried that Star Wars, was going to take a hit because of it. Yeah. And some people say maybe it did. And she was essentially a race from Lucasfilm history.

Yes. Yeah. So Marshall Lucas said along the lines of that she loves Kathleen Kennedy. She's a great woman. And Frank. Frank Marshall. And Frank. So things that they're great.

But doesn't think that she gets Star Wars. Doesn't understand that J.J. Abrams gets Star Wars. You and I have very different opinions on this overall. But it was very interesting that she decided to say this now. because... In Rinsler's book, by the way. It was Rinsler's book? It's his last book.

It's about Howard Kazanjin. Okay. And when, so when was this interview taken? Prior, it was after Last Jedi. Because she says in the latest one, they killed Luke. All right. So this is not... Now this is, this is the world we live in.

This is the age that we live in. That, you know, this information comes out now. Because when we were doing Jedi Council together, I felt the same way. I felt Kathleen Kennedy, great producer, creatively, maybe she shouldn't be making a lot of creative decisions inside of the Star Wars. is it doesn't seem like she really cares about it, right?

Yeah. But then it seems that she did exactly that as a producer, and I don't, I always get, like, why, if you can shit on her for choices she made in Last Jedi and things that happen in solo with the directors, if you can do all that, how do you not also give her credit for Mandalorian? But they're like, well, it's all Favreau and, and, and, uh, and, and, uh, and, She is calling the shots.

Yeah. Now, I think, rightfully so, she goes, I'm stepping back. What do you guys need from me? Favre said as much in the gallery thing. He said, she's a great producer. We need stuff. She gets it. We have ideas that we need.

She's able to ask you. That's what a producer does. So when March look is talking about, you know, how this back then, at that time, probably accurate. Now I don't know if it's as accurate because I think she's stepping back. I don't think she's trying to get as involved. Yeah, I mean, I think you can't speak enough

of Marshall Lucas's accomplishments as an editor. Work with Corsesey as well and everything and Coppola and everything. So you're correctly, you're correctly, given her all the credit of the world. I just, I don't even think it's an opinion, she said. I think it's a half-baked idea of what she thought. Her criticism was, they killed Hans Solo for no purpose. they had a purpose whether you agree with it or not.

And I just don't, I don't, I just, just fundamentally disagree with the tone there. And it reeked a little bit of, I love Kathy. She stole my macaroni salad from the break room, 83. And this idea that JJ was running into the meeting late with coffee and notes, goes, I don't know, let's kill on.

Like, it was just like, what do you? I agree with that. What do you, like, you and I could come to a disagreement about, like, I think you at least acknowledge, they made a choice. I don't agree with the choice. Her comment was more,

Why would they do that? Why would they do that? It's like, I can talk to you for a long time why you do it, but also, you know, and it also reeked of a little bit of, not out of the game, but just like, you're not in those trenches either, too. And it's, and I could talk all day. Anytime I hear someone go, well, what if they had done this? I'm always like, yeah, that's a great idea. Right.

But they didn't do that. Right. They did this. So what does that idea speak to you about? Right. And it just, and I feel bad, too, because it's Rinsler's last book. The guy passes away of cancer, pancreatic cancer. and it's his last book and that's all we're talking about.

Not you and I, but just like the internet. Yes. And it's like this wonderful sweet man wrote his final book about Kazanjin and this is what we got. Well, yeah, I mean, they pull that clip from it because the problem is it was during what all of that shit and all it went down. And now it's adding to that fuel. Like, see, we told it.

And to be honest with you, though, I think, I mean, again, we're in different philosophies on it. But I think at that time, Kathleen Kennedy, was getting too involved in the creative when she doesn't, I don't personally believe that she loves Star Wars. She doesn't have to. Right, right. It doesn't have to.

But as a producer, I think she's doing, I think she's stepped back and she's now making the moves. I think she's doing a great job with Mandalorian. And I think it's not fair for people to judge her. Look, there was so much pressure. People, oh, I think people don't underestimate the Iger factor. And I'm actually a fan of Bob I guess.

But like a lot of the Lord Miller stuff, I believe, was his kind of hire those. Yeah. And plus the release date. All that stuff. And then you got a producer on set, maybe, you know, rumors, completely rumors of hiding Kathleen's notes from Lord and Miller, all this kind of stuff you hear. And it's like, you know, what is she going to do?

At some point, she's going to do it. You know, and there's sole pressures to relaunch this franchise. But I think you're right. I think that's where I get a little upset as if you find if you don't agree with the story, but it's like engage with the story. See what the story's there for you. And also, like, we're not in those meetings, man, and everything she did. And also, let's not forget, I, you know, I don't think it's a direct comparison to MCU,

but it's like, that didn't get off to the greatest start right away. Iron Man leads to Iron Man 2, this and that, and they figured stuff out. You got to let them figure it out. And we're here for the long game. And Mando was great. And, you know, and I've talked about this before with you. If you truly, I know you don't love the sequels, you know, that much, that's, you don't have to, because now you have a Mandalorian.

Now you have a book of Bobafet. What a great time. And I don't need to take that away from you. Yeah. Right. No, no. And we can stuff our faces with the corner of the salad bar we like. Or the beaver knife.

Take another one, will you? Really good. But anyways, and I want to be clear, like, I don't mean this disrespectful. Plus, I respect that Marshall Lucas was just like, yeah, say it. Tell it. Boop, it sucks. Like, that's ballsy, too. Yeah, you know, she has the right.

And also, again, she was, it's not Kathy, but it was like, she was written out of Lucasfilm history. Yeah. Post-divorce. That ain't right. Right. Because she, without her, she doesn't come in to fix it. And I think going back to what you're saying with the Han Solo thing for her, like I get the choice, right?

But like for her, you also got to realize how attached she was to that character of everything she did in the editing room. And so in her mind, like you said, I don't know. Either way. Lyrgyzden wanted to do it. And I think it was great purpose to what the Force Awakens specifically is about the weight of the legacy of the stuff that came before us. It's literally a movie burdened by the,

the history of the franchise and old and new characters have to deal with what they were. And so it works for Han on a lot of levels. And that's what I'm like to her. I'm like, but you didn't, you're not engaging on that level. You're just going, they killed Harrison.

You're not getting more in depth of why. And there's no, actually given a reason behind the story choices anyway. Yeah, yeah. But again, it's like, but in this and then someone will clip this out,

clip this out, and this and meanwhile, you know, the spirit of J. Rinsler is completely lost in this wonderful book I do want to read about. Howard Kazanjian, who by the way, comes in to replace.

Gary Kurtz after Gary Kurtz was like, EWarks, F you, George, I'm out of here. Right. Well, either way, guys, so lots of stuff to, that we, is so good. That we talked about here at Ken Napstock, and we'll probably have to talk some more once he comes back again. But to let you guys know, if you didn't know already,

make sure you get the game or go to the Kickstarter, please, futility. The actual game of living. The link is in the description. Help them hit their goal. What's the overall goal again, Ken? Another one of those beaver balls. Another one of those.

$30,000. We'll be able to reduce 500 games. That's the Kickstarter goal. We'll have stretch goals to go beyond that. And at the time, we're about 50% fun. There you go. So make sure you do that. Support us.

Always a pleasure to see you, my friend. It's fun. It's been a lot of fun. I know the fans are happy to see us Jim Jamming back together. We'll do it again. Yeah. Do it again for sure. And then Ken, as Ken mentioned earlier today,

we are going to be in New York. October 8th is the show with myself. and Ellis Ken will be on that. Hopefully, we'll see. October 7th, it's a Thursday show. I'm definitely on that. And then I'm around. I'm going to very least be drinking at the bar

and in the audience on the 8th. Come on. So Kenneptu'll be there in 8th. And then if you didn't know already, the 9th, Shemotown, Marisol McKee versus Chance Ellison. How great was that title match, by the way? That was great.

It was wonderful. So good. Wonderful. And then, by the way, this weekend, ladies and gentlemen, if you're able to, please head on over to Tony Sopranos. I don't even have that thing. Head on over to the...

What's happening? Who knows? Flappers on Sunday. It is going to be this Sunday. Flappers, myself, Jamie Costa, Mark Ellis, Justine Marino,

among the few, Jake Lewis, among the few people on the show. It's going to be a lot of fun. 9 p.m. You can get tickets. If you go to that link that I think that I have up on my Twitter,

you can get 60% off on the tickets. So please go and check it out. I think I'm going to go there. You should, definitely. I'll be in the crowd. I told Jamie, about you. So I want to make sure.

I appreciate that. Yeah. Jamie and I know each other and I totally respect his work. I just, we don't know each other to be open to show. So hopefully I'll get in front of his face. You will.

And we will see you guys very, very soon. Thank you. Monday. Mark Ellis will be back. And it's about it. Hit like, comment, all that stuff, guys.

You know how it goes. Like and comment. Apple podcast, Spotify. People have been asking, is this available on podcast for him? Hell yeah, it is. It helps us out.

And then you got the rewatch of, a new hope up on the channel a little later on today. Thanks. Peace.