The Morning Stream - TMS 2270: Wong Ratzenberger

Episode Date: March 31, 2022

Seven boys, one Johnson. Let's test the major phases. It's large format ping pong. The cute side of a turd! Yogo Pants and Mini Vans as far as the eye can see. I got this shriveled up orange I'd like to talk about. It's like short ranged tennis. Driving in the hunk-about. One up your Swetch! Don't need your validation, I don't need your thought control. Audio Books not brought to you by Audible with Amy. Mayor of Theratown with Wendi and more on this episode of The Morning Stream. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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purchase. That's BOMBAS.com and use code audio at checkout. Coming up on TMS, seven boys, one Johnson. Let's test the major phases. It's large format ping pong. of a turd. Yoga pants and minivans as far as the eye can see. I get this shriveled up

orange that I'd like to talk about. It's like short-range tennis. Driving in the hunkabout. One up your sweats. Don't need your validation. I don't need your thought control. Audible books not brought to you

by Audible with Amy. Mayor of Theratown with Wendy Stand Stilletti. And more on this episode of The Morning Stream. of the deepest jungles when pressman toy makers looking for something new the secret they brought back for you is incredible the pressman witch doctor head shrinkers kit plastic flesh mixing cauldron and petrifying potion i'm going to be giving you some cheese the morning Sweep the leg.

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to TMS. It is the morning stream for Thursday, March 31st, last day of the month. So get your, I don't know, what do you got to get done before the third? Well, get your patrons in. Like, if you're, if you're not a Patreon, then boom, today is the best day to do it because you start seeing, you start feeling the love immediately. Oh, yeah. As soon as you sign up.

There's no delayed love. It's immediate love. Exactly. You get it right away. You get all of April's benefits, maybe even the tail end of March. I can't remember how it works. I think even the tail end of March's benefits. Yeah, yeah. So get over there. Get that done. That'd be good. Yeah. Welcome to the show, everybody. We're glad to be here. I'm Scott, and that's Brian.

We've got stuff to cover. Hi. Hey, I'm talking on this new mixer. I hope everything's set up right. You sound great. What kind of mixer is it? It is. I went. So, okay. So the story is when it went bad, my other one melted down. Yeah. Yeah. I immediately crossed ship one from Beringer, Beringer. Beringer. Beringer, Beringer, whatever it is. I've always called Beringer, but it could be Beringer.

I'm sure it's Beringer. It's probably Beringer, right? Like Tom Beringer? I bet it's Beringer like Tom. Yeah, it's spelled differently than Tom Beringer, but it's... Oh, man, we've brought him up two days in a row. Is he going to die next or something? I brought up Mackey because that's what my mixer is.

So, man, we got Anthony Mackey versus Tom Beringer. Who's going first? I hope neither. I hope neither. I ended up grabbing that thing, configured it, thought I had it working, was causing issues could never quite get the right setup going and also it's like

mic or like the sound adjustment stuff just didn't sound right it didn't sound as good as what I was used to and I could I've lived with it sure but it wasn't it was never you know high enough quality oh also I couldn't hear myself while I also recorded which was Jack

that's a problem that is a definite problem so I got a Mackey this thing is just a low end nothing too fancy analog version of the Mackey called the Mac A, sorry, the Mackey Mix 8. Oh, no promo effects on your mixer, huh? None of that stuff. I need none of that.

I avoided that. Not on purpose, but, you know, if it had come with it, it would have been there, but I probably never used it. I mean, you don't need the extra, you know, whatever. I don't need that stuff. $250 or whatever it is. Sure. So I just needed something that just did good routing,

good audio, analog audio routing. And it did. So I'm going to recommend it right off of the bat because zero issues. I plugged it in. I dialed in the sound I wanted. All the routing is working the way it's supposed to. This thing's great. I'm not going to say the Berringer is bad, but I'll just go ahead and say it's kind of bad.

It was bad. Well, that specific Berengenger was bad. You know, podcasting early days, Beringer made this perfect mixer for podcasters that was like, you know, the size of a TV guide. and a little two three inputs or something and and maybe it was only two it's like two mics i think exactly yeah exactly i remember that look they're fine brand i don't want to besmirch them they just didn't solve my issue and this one was cheaper this mackie was like i don't know 30 bucks cheaper so i'm i'm good and and you know of course amazon's like i call them by the way i call returns to amazon back to bezos that's what i call them so i've sent that that entire mixer

back to Bezos. He can have it. He can have it. Yeah. He can hook it up. Did you, do you, when you do your Amazon returns, do you have a coals near you? No, but we do the, so they have three options. They have coals.

They have the Whole Foods thing. And then they have UPS store. And the best I can tell is they're all kind of the same. So we just do UPS store because it's close. Well, they might all seem like the same, Scott. But, uh, you get some free foot cream at the Coles or something? What happened? What did I miss out on? I'm, I feel like, yeah, Coles. So Coles has the, um, uh, the return desk and you don't even have to re-box your stuff. Like you just like hand them the mixer and all the cables dangling off of it. And that's fine. Do they hate you though when you go in there? Are they like, oh, another one of these guys can't do this? No, no, not at all. They have just a person at the desk who's smiley about it and all that stuff. I mean, I mean, you put it back in its regular box. But at Coles, you get a receipt when you take it back. And on that receipt is $5 to spend at Coles.

And you don't have like a minimum. It's not like, oh, spend 50 and get five off. It's like, here's a $5. Coles thing that you need to use in seven days. I had no idea. Really? That's crazy. You know what?

I don't know if my wife knows this. She would jump all over this. She'd love this. In fact, I'm going to tell her today. Well, it makes me think, all right, so what are all the things that I could buy from Amazon that are less than $5 and take them all back at the same time to Coles and get like a pair of sketchers for

$8 or something. Yeah, gain that system, man. Exactly. Or maybe they pay me. They pay me at Coles now to get the sneakers because I'm trying to decide the last time. What I did in a Coles, I don't know if I've been there in a million years. It's been a while. We don't have one near us. We used to back when we lived,

this is like 10 years ago, but we lived in this place where there was a Coles right there. And we went there a but it always felt like we were just waiting for Kim to do stuff. You know, me and the kids just sitting in the car going, oh, Mom, what you're doing? It is the coals we have, and it is literally a block away from my house. It is the closest retail establishment to Casa to Coverville. It is soccer mom vans and yoga pants, like almost a requirement. You must be wearing yoga pants and drive a soccer mom van to get in.

And can I tell you that when they come out of the parking lot, because basically we come out of our neighborhood at an intersection where the people coming out of coals are facing the other way. And chances are the people coming out of coals are not going to be driving right into our neighborhood. They're going to be turning left. So we always are waiting head to head at the light. We almost always turn left out of our intersection. those soccer those yoga pants

wearing soccer moms none of them know how to use a turn signal so we're always at that light waiting and it's like

oh just to put down her Starbucks or her giant Naljean water thing or put her phone down so that she can

flick her turn signal on during the turn that's perfect that's what you want when you're over there at the Coles near the Coles

yeah I feel you dude I hate that kind of stuff We have a thing like that, like an intersection like that, that's like a, you never know where those people are supposed to go unless they honor the signal rules. If they don't honor the signal rules, you don't know what the F's happening. Yeah, no, this is totally, you never know. Because they'll just go right into you, if you're not careful. Oh, drives the other way.

I hate it. They totally, totally don't know to turn that turn signal. Just so, I don't know, you can identify. Let the people know that, hey, across the street, it's cool. You can turn left now because I'm turning left too. Yeah, exactly right. So here's another thing. Here's how you know you live near a roundabout because we do.

It's not super close, but it's close enough. Oh, I love roundabouts. This is how you know. If any window is open in the house, here's what you hear. Someone's always honking at the roundabout. Really? Yeah, because they don't know how to operate. Somebody who stopped at the roundabout, like they're waiting for the roundabout to turn green or something.

Yeah, or they cut in front or they keep going. going when they're supposed to yield or all the things you're not supposed to do with the roundabout people do and you always know when it happens because you always hear somebody to lay on their horn at this at this roundabout nearest and sometimes it's my wife because she has the worst luck she knows how to use a roundabout yeah the other people just don't know how to use the roundabout all right you know how to build the roundabout you just don't know haven't pulled up that uh that sign for watch seinfeld dot net thing but uh I did. I had it on for a bunch yesterday.

Did you? That's great. Yeah, that was your, you gave that to us, right? That was you. Uh-huh. Yeah. I love that. But, yeah. That's awesome. I had it on for, I don't know, a couple hours just playing in the background, which is hilarious because later that night, once again, it was on a regular TV playing, so. Dueling Seinfelds. This is probably a bad.

You know what I did yesterday? We're talking about equipment right there behind me. And you know what? I realized that my microphone might block it, so I'm going to turn it a little bit. Right there next to the Tempest machine. Oh, look at it. is my Marvel pinball machine. Yeah, yeah. Which, as of yesterday, is no longer just a Marvel pinball machine. What is it now?

What is in there now? It is now a Marvel, a Star Wars, a Williams. Oh, shit. And a Zen pinball pinball machine. That's awesome. Any Zen pinball games, all of the Star Wars, all of the Marvel beyond just the 10 they give you. So did you have to hack this or do some special? something it was surprisingly

easy there's software now that kind of you just basically you plug in a a USB thing to this and flash it and there's software that does all of it and it's all Linux crap anyway so it is yeah it totally is

I want that that's rad yeah and now I have all my mini Marvel Funkos blue tack to the top of it because I had no idea what else to do with those Yeah, you're either going to throw those away, let the dog chew them or put them on your pinball machine. They're small enough to be terrific projectiles.

Yeah, why? Look, whatever comes down to it, Dave's breaking in to try to get cash for the next to be a hit. Exactly. You can pelt them with those things. Yeah, Jertstar, this is the arcade one-up pinball machine. It is a, it's digital. It's a screen inside. And that's the next tack I'm going to do is putting a brand new,

a brand new monitor in there that's bigger, like a full-size monitor that takes up the most of the table space. Nice. There's an old video, so I wonder how hackable it is for like, you know, could you put Sonic Spinball on there, which is a great old. Yes. You could put that on there. Yeah.

Like, like, oh, like the pinball, the old pinball game. I mean, technically, yeah, you would, you could basically, if you replace. Well, because Spinball is just a video game, but it's a pinball based video game. So would it just play? You wouldn't, you wouldn't use the, I mean, you probably could do a thing to map the keys. there are videos online of people modding this to actually the next thing I'm doing too is replacing the backglass with a monitor and that'll actually work with some of the games with the Zen pinball games

and show you stuff on there but people have hacked that to actually put video games in the pinball machine so you know they take a break from playing pinball and they can whip out a little joystick and play dig dog on that huge monitor inside it That's cool. That's actually really cool. Dwight Shrew in the chat says, think of the dust gathering capabilities. I know. Believe me. Yeah, exactly. This was gathering dust until I went to the Texas Pinball Festival and found out, oh, no, those things are super hackable.

They're not beloved by the pinball community. But if you've got one, you can hack the crap out of it or mod the crap out of it and make it into a really good, still digital, but really good pinball machine. I wouldn't mind doing that to my joust rampage one-up I have here. Yeah. I just haven't gotten around to it. I'm sure there's videos. I'm sure it's easy.

I found a video for that yesterday where you turn it into a switch screen. So like you play your switch games on the arcade one-up. Whoa, really? Is that a thing? Wait, how are you? I don't know details, Scott, but... Interesting. I wonder if it's running emulation.

just running in the emulator for switch games, which exists. It's not perfect, but it's okay. It's out there. I don't know. I don't know. I'm sure it's 100% legal. No issues. Oh, I'm sure. Yeah. Nintendo, and as you know, Nintendo's really cool with this sort of stuff. They're happy with people hacking their stuff. They love it. They're huge fans. All right. Hey, we got a big friends of that. We've got a question that's about Marvel a little bit from a listener here. James wrote in. I don't know. This is not, I don't know who this is. It's not. Yeah, we have a lot of James's in our group. I don't think it's James

Grammar. No. I don't think it's James It's not James of Svet Probably. No, definitely not. Hey, I'm just wondering. Hey, I got a question for you guys. I talked to them yesterday. I love talking to those too. They're the best. They're the best. I love those guys.

Well, anyway, this, whoever this James is, I don't have your last name, says are we, this is asking the royal we question here. Yeah, yeah, he is. Are we sick of the MCU yet? Feels like a lot a crossover fan service these days and not much else i just don't see the depth in the stories anymore is it me it could be me james uh i don't know what do you think if you don't like something you don't like it it's totally cool you don't need other people's uh gratification or not gratification

uh um approval you know we're like uh approval to not like something that's totally fine that's true would you if someone said to you though brian hey do you think we're still running hot and everything's all good, what would you say to that? Do you think we're good? I think Eternals was a little bit of a misstep. However, zero crossover fan service in that. No other

MCU characters. Don't they address stuff like New York and things like that? They talk about New York. They talk about Avengers. They talk about the death of Captain America. Spoiler later, or not the not death, but the leaving of the Avengers by Captain America.

Moon Night. We just watched that last night. How is it? Zero crossover. Excellent. Holy cow. I'm excited. I'm going to watch it today.

I was so worried with this whole like Oscar Isaac fake British voice. And now I realize I don't have to worry anymore. He's the real deal that dude. He can do it. Man, he really is. Yeah. I'm excited. I'll watch that today.

Because it sounds like. Shung Chi was fantastic. Yeah, it was good. I enjoyed it. Very little crossover in that. I mean, you had. You had you're, you had, uh, Wong, you have, uh, Wong and everything. Wong is the Ratsenberger of the, of the, yes. You have, what's his face, um, uh, slattery, uh, the actor from, uh, Iron Man 2, Trevor. Yeah. Uh, he's cool. I like him. He is cool. You know, it's, yeah, I don't know. Look, the way I see it is, we're between phases. Abomination. Right? So these extra, these little one-offs are what we're getting. And it's fine. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, uh, And then we're between major phases of like the big groupy stuff.

Let's test the major phases. And I'm, I'm still fine. It's fine. Yeah, yeah. There's no problem. But James, if it's not for you, validation, that's the word I was looking for. You don't need other people's validation to approve if you don't like something. If you don't like it, you don't like it.

And that's fine. Yeah, you just move on. Find something you do like. If you're digging the DC stuff. Great. Good for you. If you're like in the new Halo show or Invincible on Amazon, there is so much content out there for comic book lovers that isn't MCU. You can get your fix elsewhere. J.C. Calhoun says, I strongly disagree. Shang Chi was bad. Hey, hey, J.C. Calhoun, I don't need your validation. Okay. I like that movie. Although I really was annoyed with what's her name in it. But other than that, I really like. Aquafina. She just drove me crazy. I don't know what. Really? I love Aquafina. I like her and stuff. I don't know. like her in lots of stuff. I did not like her in that. She drove me up a tree. I don't know why. It's just something.

The only thing that I agreed with you on is how this valet Parker woman all of a sudden became almost as good with a bow and arrow as Hawkeye. Yeah. It's like Hawkeye Jr. over there suddenly with very little training in about five minutes in the little town there. Now she's suddenly the greatest arrow shooter in a whole time. Stuff like that drove me crazy. But just her whole like it was just painted so broadly of like here's the regular person who doesn't have any powers and is just sort of experiencing this crazy experience so that you the audience can be right there with her and I don't like it when it's that overt just like too much yeah yeah yeah totally get that his dad Claire asks didn't you see that vampire thing by Leto and I say not yet but in this weekend right a few hours I will have seen it oh it's tonight seeing it today yeah it opens taking it technically opens tomorrow, but you know how they do that.

Well, it opens tomorrow, but see it Thursday night for blah, blah, blah. Yeah, I'm really curious about that one. We don't have any early reviews yet, do we? J.C. Calhoun says Morbius reviews are not positive. I'll be honest. I was not expecting it to be great because... Oh, it's bad. 18% on Rotten Tomatoes is what J.C. Calhoun says.

Oh, that's not good. Yeah. I'm going in with low expectations. based on Venom, too, and, uh, oh, are people complaining about Leto? Is that the deal? That was his problem. Uh, well, the people, you know what? He's a mess. Whatever. Yeah, Sony just doesn't know. They just need to turn over all of the Marvel, all of the Spider-Man stuff to, uh, to Disney and say, yeah, we've got this really expensive machine and we don't know how it works. Can you make it work for us? Yeah. It's a bummer, man. Oh, yeah, all of these. These are

terrible. Are they really? Morbius is what happens when a studio applies a horror filter to an average comic book picture. The filter may shade the original image differently, but it's an unconvincing effect. Oh, here's one. At one point, Morbius warns, I'm getting hungry. You wouldn't like me when I'm hungry.

Oh, no. No, really? That's so stupid. Brian, you might be in for a real treat. I'm sure I'm in for a real treat. It's a bummer, too. I'm not the biggest Morbius fan. My uncle is, though.

And he, this was a character that made his first appearance in Werewolf by Night, which was another comic he loved. Morbius is one of those characters that in the 70s and 80s, any guest appearances, my uncle would just buy that issue without question. Any appearance, he's got every single appearance of Morbius in comics from 77 when he debut, whenever it was that he debuted to He was a 70s creation, right? I'm pretty sure he was a 17.

I think Gene Colon? Feels like. The unfortunately named Gene Colon. Yeah, Colin, it's a bummer to have colon in your name. Yeah, I could be, I might be wrong on that. But, um, but, uh, yeah, this is, uh, this is, this is not give me hope. Yeah. I don't know, man.

Like, um, does this mean, if this does bad, uh, badly does, uh, is Craven kind of off the table maybe maybe here's what they do like because you know neither of the venom movies were like spectacular they were fine uh maybe they just maybe one of these needs to tank so bad that they finally do go all right fine figy get in here with your baseball hat and let's get it done and we're done messing around let's just let's just hand over the chains to these guys we'll still make money because we own the rights and we'll do like spider man and we'll fix this that's what they should do just hand it over that's how you do it

that's how you get it done anyway and even if you know maybe you could work out some deal where it's like we'll let you we make the movies Disney could we have maybe

15% of the profits because we know you'll do it right and you'll yeah why not can they take they probably could do a 7030 split or something yeah exactly where it was I'm sorry

it was amazing Spider-Man 101 Moonlight moon night's first appearance was Wolf by Night Oh I didn't know Morbius first appeared an amazing Spider-Man 1971.

71. Oh, that's early sense. Thank you, J.C. Calhoun. You were absolutely right. Okay, cool. That was,

uh, I was going to say about the, um, uh, the, I was going to say a thing about Morbius. I forgot what it was. Uh,

I like, I like the idea of, um, I mean, I don't know. They got blade. Just bring blade. Let's just do blade again.

That's fine. Yeah. Yeah. Isn't that happening? There was, there was, there was, you know,

there was a, you know, there was a lot of, um, connection between morbius and blade which is now blade because of eternals yeah you know marvel stuck their flagging the ground and said blades we got blade we're blades us we're going to do a blade thing settle down we are shawley yeah it better be it better be bloody or and violent or else what are we doing right you know what i mean like i don't know how they they do this under the touchstone name or some other name like it's blade is meant to be a bloody mess so get in there oh

I can't wait for that. I love Blade the comic. I love the comic. And I like the Snipes movies a lot. I enjoyed them. Yeah. In fact, you could argue Blade 1, the first true, because it was pre-X-Men. I would call it the first truly well-made comic book film of my lifetime.

The first one, I think. Because what else was before that that was any good? Well, I mean, the Superman, the... Oh, you can count that, I guess. The Christopher Reeve movies. But the first, certainly, Blade was... the first Marvel movie to do to get it right you know to get it right yeah yeah I feel like that's true do not mention Batman forever or even the Burton Batman's I don't count them I don't

think they're good I think they're kind of bad right sorry I don't know that first one the first Michael Keaton was okay it's all right I still I still argue that that Jack Nicholson is overrated in that role way way poorly casted for that yeah uh 1998 it was the first blade film. And so I'm trying to think, was there anything Marvel, the Marvel had a bunch of TV stuff, but had,

um, yeah, they had no, as far as I know, they had no big movies. When did, uh, the, the Ben Affleck Daredevil was like 2004 or something?

2003, four, three, two, maybe, I forget. Mm-hmm. I took a,

I took a, uh, seven boys. Uh, they were all probably 12 or something. Okay. All right. This is back in my scouts days.

And I took them all to see, the Ben Affleck deal. Daredevil. It was fun. We had a good time. Seven boys. Seven boys. I took seven boys.

It was a handful, though. Twelve-year-old boys are... Sure, yeah. A lot, man. And load them all up in two cars, and it was a nightmare. Oh. Yeah, Greg, for Walkman reminds me. Howard the Duck.

That's right. We did get a Howard the Duck movie. Oh, yeah, but we said done right. Didn't we say that? Well, we did. I did say it was the first Marvel project that wasn't TV. That's true.

If that's the criteria, yeah, you probably give it to that. Yeah. And there may have been other attempts that I just don't know about, but. Why would you start? I know, why would you start with Howard the Duck? It's such a low, low, I mean, I know, uh, freaking, what's his name? Hey, my, my, my, my, my waddle. What's his name?

Um, what's wrong with me? Who made, who made Star Wars? What's wrong with me? Oh, George Lucas. He had a whole, he had a whole thing for Howard the Duck. I was thinking a waddle like a, um, like a bird waddling. I was like,

my waddle, what? Yeah, it works both ways. But, yeah, but he was like really, I guess he was super

into that character or something and just really wanted to do it. Yeah. It was bad. It came out the day before my birthday in 1986, and I was so excited because Thomas Dolby did the music. And then it was like, oh,

all right. Yeah, it was pretty good. Yeah. I was excited because Marty's mom was in it. And she was. Yeah. Lear Thompson, hubah,

hubba, Yes. I remember that. Which was about what Beverly wore on the comic books, too. Oh, yeah? She was a little, I never read any of it. Beverly was, oh, yeah, Beverly was a little, like, drawn to be a very, like a red-headed Betty Page, very curvy, like, sex pot kind of thing. That was the time, so why not, you know? Yeah, right.

Well, on that note, I think we're going to bring Amy in, although I haven't heard from her, but I assume we're good. Well, should I talk really quickly about... Oh, yeah, yeah. Tell us about this, but we keep forgetting. We talked about it earlier. Well, you get Amy all really quickly. So for those of you coming to TMS Vegas, we finally have a venue. We're going to be at the Artifice, which is a arts. It's a bar in the arts district of Las Vegas near downtown, a very, very short Uber taxi lift ride from the plaza.

A very cool comic book vibe to this place, and there, you know, we'll probably have the run of the place. We'll do a live TMS. Doors open at 8. The show starts at 9. I know that's later than the last time. But whatever, it's Vegas. Sleep in. Take a nap, midday, whatever.

And you're up for some fun times with your old pals, Scott and Brian, and special guests. Yeah. It's going to be great. Yeah. Excited. It's coming up. It's fast. It's going to be here in like less than 30 days.

We're there. And you're there. too. So be there. Me there. Be there. Be there. And now listen to this. That music's time. What? That music means it's time. That music's time. That music's time is over. No, that music is literally true because it came out in the 40s or something. But anyway, it's time for us to talk to Amy. It's read this with Amy, who comes on the show and talks about, you know, books and things, audio books,

regular books and why you should be reading them. We're bookish people here with Amy. Hi, Amy. Hi, Amy. How's everybody doing? this morning. Very good. How are you? I'm good. Yeah, you talk about Howard the Duck. I feel so bad for Leah Thompson's hair after that movie. Like, so much crimping. Oh, yeah, that's right. It was crimping.

It looked like it was crispy. Crisp from all that. Yeah, she had the crispy crimp. She was also, wasn't there weird, like, I always like these in movies, these weird gangs that aren't like typical gangs, it's like theme gangs.

Like we talk about a film sack all the time. And it seems like Towered the Duck had a great theme gang, if I remember right. Can't remember the details, but I love the theme gang, man. It's like, that's why the Warriors are so amazing. Here's the baseball gang, and here's the stupid gang that wears the right, the same hat, and here's the sweaty gang, and I'd love that. I want more theme gangs in our lives. I think it's better than real gangs.

Anyway, it's good to have you here, Amy. Thanks. Let's let fly with what your recommendation is this week. I don't have any links from you yet, but I think you sent something, but Discord. Oh, no, now it's here. It showed up just now. Okay. But it wasn't here, but it's four seconds ago. That's weird. All right, I'm going to play. Do you want me just play this? And we'll go for it.

All right. Yeah. Let's see what we got here. Hold on a second. Here we go. You're part of a large group, but in the raft, it's just the two of you and a guide. You spend the day navigating some surprisingly hard rapids in an incredible tropical setting. Then you and the rest of the group prepare to spend the night in little jungle cabins under a billion stars, with no streets or cars or lights or any other sign of civilization except Guaro, a drink made from fermented sugar cane that is approximately 175% alcohol. Is that, is that Duby-Hauser?

Am I hearing Doogie Houser? Is, that is Neil Patrick Harris. Okay. I was like, wait a minute, I think I know that voice. Anyway, what is this book? You do, indeed know that voice. It is Neil Patrick Harris, Choose Your Own Autobiography. clever and yeah it is hilarious like in it's the the the gimmick that he's doing is he wrote his

autobiography as a choose your own adventure book and it's really funny it it reads exactly that way it's if you want to have a good childhood go to page 43 if you want you know i mean it's like if you want and and how do they do that with the audio book i mean i can understand like doing that you know joking around with the print but uh it sounds like hodgeman kind of hodgeman like when he always does with his books they always feel like uh manuals or something and less of a story or a of a book john hodgman yeah well and he writes the entire thing in the second person so you know as a choose your own adventure book would read you know but yeah as far as they he addresses that at the front of the the audiobook actually he says you know now i recognize with an audiobook this is a little more

complicated. So guess what? You just get to enjoy all of it. And, you know, plus, with the audiobook, there's actually a really fun part where you hear like a little teeny young, pre-Dugie Hauser, Neil Patrick Harris, giving a speech. Oh, weird. Really? Oh, wow. So adorable. It just, yeah, it's just like, oh, I just want to pinch his little cheeks. Oh, the artwork for this is great, too. Like, it's exactly what you'd expect it to be. Oh, yeah. This book's a little old.

The whole playoff of the Choose Your Own. Not real old, but a little older, 2015 looks like since this came out. Yeah, it's a, I think it came out in 2014. So, yeah, it's a little old, but I just learned about it recently. So I was like, hey, if I didn't know this existed, I bet in a lot of other people didn't either. And I had fun with it. I love Neil Patrick Harris. I find him hilarious.

And, you know, I loved him on how I met your mother. And I didn't love his character because he's, But he's fun to watch. Did you do box one by Neil Patrick Harris, by the way? Are you familiar with Box One? I have not. Excellent. We'll talk offline and I will mail you Box One and see what you think.

Fancy. Box one. Is that a newer thing? I can't find it in here. It is a mystery box by Neil Patrick. Carus. Interesting. Oh, I love this.

I love this idea. I'm excited and intrigued. He's written. What I'll do is have you just pass it along to Scott when you're done with it or something. Yeah, I'll bring it with me to. If it comes before Vegas, I'll bring it with me to Vegas. Oh, there you go. And if it doesn't, then I'll bring it to Vegas for you.

There you go. Yeah, exactly. Listen to this. This is great. Okay, so he's got these magic misfits books. It's like a series. They're kind of for kids. Well, they are definitely for kids.

I love the description here. It sounds like his own, like maybe he wrote this himself and very much tongue in cheek. It says, The Misfits must work together to fend off mysterious attacks in this magical finale to the number one New York Times bestselling magic misfits misfits series from acclaimed and wildly popular celebrity, Neil Patrick Harris. That's pretty good. Wildly popular. Sounds like he wrote it himself. Wildly popular.

No, that seems, I didn't know this guy wrote all these things. Look at all these books. There's tons of it. He's got all kinds of stuff. So it seems like a good one to start with. Choose your own autobiography by Neil Patrick Harris. Available on Amazon, for example, for, geez, $12 for the Kindle and then normal prices for everything else. So you can go good.

Yeah. Yeah. And, I mean, I bought it with an audible credit, so there you go. Well done. Let me ask you something about the way audible credits work. How often do you get a book? Like, do you feel like you get through one a month, two a month? Like, what's your rate of how? Yeah. Well, I mean, okay, so whenever I get a lark to go get a new audiobook, I never lack for credits. I'll put it that way. So I haven't really tracked my rate of consumption there. But yeah, we have an audible subscription. And I'm never, I don't think I've had to pay extra for an audiobook in quite a while.

That's awesome. All right. Put it that way. That's the best commercial I've heard for audible in the 20 years I've been hearing audible commercials. That's very good. well awesome uh check this out it's out there and available and always if you want a good follow on twitter and other places follow red fraggle because uh red fraggle the sorry the red fraggle three nope three three three red fraggle three replace the replace the e with a three red fraggle e three no red fragglery fraglery people often ask me like what's the deal with a three and like are there are two other red fregles. And I say, yes, they're both in a museum at the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta.

Oh, my gosh. Look at you. What a great answer to that question. Yeah, that's a really good answer. Because usually if it's like Scott Johnson 69's because there's 68 other versions of me. Yeah, let's be honest. You pick Scott Johnson's 69, even if there aren't 68 other Scott Johnson. Oh, yeah.

Come on. Come on. Actually, I don't think I have that one. Well, anyway, it's always good to talk to you, Amy. Have a fantastic week. All right, you too. And we'll see you next time. See you.

Bye now. Oh, everyone want to hang up on her. Okay. Bye, bye. It took a second for, I don't know why. That's a good test for any guest of TMS is what do you do when, you know, we say goodbye, but we don't disconnect right away. What do you do? Yeah, what do you do.

It's time for some morning news brought to you by. America's next top podcaster, the first episode is now on the feed. for patrons. So if you can't wait, then just become a patron. Give us a buck or two a month, and these episodes will all be yours. Plus,

you're getting a big set of episodes on the Patreon that you're not getting in the free feed. You get a whole bunch of extra content, including full-length coaching from Tom, full-length judging episodes, the submissions from all the contestants, and a whole bunch more. content so go check that out it is patreon.com slash top podcaster very nice i'd like to share with people

real quick here something i found in a box i can't believe i still have this okay all right this is what's in the box this used to be a full size orange oh that's the orange i remember that this you remember this on the fence or the gate or the yeah fence that's where it started yep started there and then eventually just ended up in a drawer and it just continued to sort of dehydrate and not spoil It's just this hard, petrified orange thing. And I've had it since 2005. That's how old this orange is. So the same year...

You love a good streak. Oh, I love a good streak. And this orange is having a streak, man. It doesn't smell like anything. Hard as a rock. Listen, doesn't shatter or break or do anything. It is just one solid, almost like a stone that used to be in orange. It's pretty cool.

Crazy. Wow. Anyway, the twinkie still looks like a twinkie. Yeah, the twinkie does look like a twinkie. and it's freaky. You don't know where that is, though. It's in another box, but if I ever find it, we'll show it on the show. And that's almost as old.

I think that thing was 06, 05.06, something like that. Yeah. So anyway, you all think fries last forever? These oranges, that's where it's at. They do. Under the seat of my car is a perfect preservation location for fries, because the fries that come out of there look and taste, just like they did right out of the box.

So the Arvada National Installation of Fry memorabilia underneath the price. That's right. Exactly, yes. Aventry storage. Or a vet of fry preservation storage. All right, here's your story. We'll get one or two of these in today. Okay.

This is a Denver story, okay? Oh, Denver Connection. Denver man faces felony charges after city accuses him of making pickleball court without permission. You know, the pickleball? All the olds are into the pickleball now. Yeah, the olds love the pickleball. And so does the plaza up by the pool are pickleball courts.

If anybody wants to play pickleball during TMS Vegas, you have the location. You're at the right place. If you don't know what it is, it's like poor people, not poor people tennis. That's not what I mean. It's poor. It's for people who don't want to walk a lot. Yeah. Yeah, it's like short range tennis kind of.

Yeah, not quite as short as ping pong. No. But, yeah. It's like, it's right between ping pong and tennis as far as the... Oh, I do like that one. Large format ping pong is a pretty good way of it. There you go. Yeah, so that's even better.

Well, as 71-year-old Denver man is facing a felony charge after the city official said he made a pickleball court without their permission, with prosecution on the table, some believe the punishment doesn't fit the crime. Quote, the whole pickleball community is really sadden and shocked, says Jan Denver or Devor. D. D. Dever. This is a friend of the 71-year-old Ars, Arslan Gunny, is his name. Arsland Gunny. I'm making this pickleball court, and you can't stop me. says Arsland Gunny. Let's see. She's also a pickleball player. Gunny and others used basketball court at Denver's Central Park Recreation Center for Pickleball.

Last Monday, the markings on the court had faded, so Gunny remarked them with a Sharpie. Oh, okay. Well, the Sharpie, and that's the best. Like, not even... Could you imagine a guy, like, on a basketball court, redrawing pickleball. lines. Yeah, it seems like a bad idea, especially with a Sharpe. Oh, my God, with a Sharpie.

It says here, let's see, the markings on the court. There, let's see, oh, there it is. Three days later, an arrest warrant for felony criminal mischief was issued for Gunny. The court document also claims $10,000 in damages. Really? Really? $10,000? I mean, I think, I think the first or second time it rains,

Sharpie or not, it'll probably come off. Yeah, it'll be fine. Maybe not rain, but a few months of sunshine, rain alternating and that sort of thing. Well, they take it seriously, though. Gunny also received an email notifying him from the Denver Parks and Recreation membership that he has is now suspended indefinitely. So he can't use that. I know. What are you guys trying to do to this elderly man?

Or is 70 the new 60? I don't know. I don't know. It'll be when we get there. I hope so. The game, a mix of tennis, racquetball, and ping pong is one of Gunny's, or is one Gunny has. played for years, according to close friends. Deaver said she and others

are appalled, shocked, and saddened by the situation. He is what we call the mayor of pickleball, pickleball, she says. He is the mayor. I am the mayor of pickleball. No pickleball happens without the

say of the mayor of pickleball. Couldn't he get an asphalt colored Sharpie and just cover up the lines he created? He should. That's how I do it. That's how I do it. Let's see. He has written a letter to Denver Parks and Recreation apologizing. He's trying to be nice and say, well, I didn't know, you know, whatever. They're all devastated. And I hope, I hope they pull back a little. Come on. Freedom for Arslan. If you're going to go pure letter of the law, I got bad news for it. There's a lot of letter to the law stuff. People don't prosecute. So you're going to start doing that. Somebody spit on the sidewalk and you get, isn't there's like a death sentence in some states or something? listen Denver police go after the people who come out of the coals and don't use a turn signal

huh there's you can you'll get like a hundred people an hour guaranteed Brian already talked about a way worse crime earlier and it was the stupid uh saying with the traffic was that pre-show the coals oh was it I don't remember I can't remember if it was oh no it was during the show yeah talked about the mixer it's hard sometimes that stuff bleeds together it's easy to do it does it totally does all right here's a here's a story that'll uh curl your toes a little a human corpse so that's a dead dead person for those who aren't oh okay thank you yeah they saw dead people

was ejected from a transport van a horse in trailer the horse in trailer okay in multi-vehicle crash on Route 17 is a terrible headline anyway says you have to believe it to see it or see it to believe it says witnesses a corpse being taken from a hospital to a funeral home

fell out of the back of a transport vehicle in a multi-vehicle crash that involved a horse trailer on Route 17 and Paramus wherever this is. This is in New Jersey Jersey, I believe. Paramus. Sounds right. The people who were hospitalized, none with serious injuries in the five vehicle pile up,

good Lord, on the southbound route. Let's see. The body was on a stretcher wrapped in a sheet when it popped out the Honda Odyssey and went flea. Okay. Do you, I visualize Bruce Willis

on the stretcher, like, going as fast as the car, I was looking around like, oh, no, what's going on? How am I going to get back? Holding on maybe to the sheet to the back of the track. And I'm trying to remember, is that Hudson Hawk what I'm thinking of? Was it Hudson Hawk? What movie am I thinking of that has Bruce Willis riding on a stretcher behind, like, an ambulance or a hearse or something? It's not the one with the Way in, brother.

The Last Boy Scout, it's not that. And it's not, I don't think it's the last Boy Scout, no. Yeah, it has to be Hudson Huck, because it was like, that's around the time period of doing, like, the comedy stuff. It wasn't, uh... Yeah, action comedy crap he was into it. Die Hard was too serious and, uh, yeah. Yeah, Cole Cash said that's a immediate way came to his mind too, and yes, it's Hudson Hawk. It is Hudson Hawk.

Okay. One of Brian's favorite movies of all time. Come to Rome. We'll have a few laughs. We'll still a few paintings. By the way, we, you know, our hearts are going out to Bruce Willis currently in his family. All the news came out yesterday about his aphasia. Oh, yeah.

No, dude, I spent all day, like, in defensive mode on Twitter because everyone thinks we cursed him by talking about. Oh, for Pete's sake. Yeah, happens every time an actor dies or goes through something. Everyone's like, didn't you just bring him up? It's your fault. Technically, somebody else brought him up and said that he had dementia, that the rumor was that he had dementia because that's why he's taking him. all those other roles to have money. Yeah, which is definitely not what he has.

Aphasia is a very different condition. It's a cognitive issue, but it's... We still don't know what the injury was that caused it because it's always trauma that will cause aphasia according to everything I tried to read yesterday. Anyway, we look, all future dying or suffering celebrities, we will try not to bring your name up right before you announce your problem, okay? We'll do our best.

Exactly. Anyway, so this body went flipping out there And they had to go get it And they took care of it It's fine It's all good Now if it was a comedy movie The dead body and the horse

Would have somehow swapped places And the horse would have ended up in the back of the hearse And the dead body would have ended up In a horse trailer headed to Tennessee For all I know This is the plot of a fine mess That I walked out of that movie of fine mess Because it was about

Like Edwards though right Blake Edwards? It was Ted Dancin, Howie Mandel. They were both kind of having a moment. And it was supposed to be this raucous comedy. And I made it like 12 minutes and I was like, I am not watching this garbage.

It was so bad. You did really well, though. And we appreciate your sacrifice in watching as much of it as you did. Yeah. Oh, and Jeannie makes a good point. I did read that it's strokes can also cause the aphasia because that's basically brain trauma.

So it could be a stroke. Let's move to this story. Brian, you want to bathe and poop? You want to do that? I mean, it's a Saturday night at Ibit's house. That's right. If it's Saturday night, all bets are off. Bathe and poop with Japan's latest weirdly wonderful bath bomb.

All right. Move aside unicorns. Time for some human poo to take the spotlight in the bathtub. Japan's love affair with human excrement has become something of a cultural icon in recent years. the poop emoji personifying the cute side of a turd The cute side of a turd Anyway, whatever But now the poop emoji is here to take over your bathtub

Something confusingly called the rain bomb mini poop chocolate In Japan So you don't eat it Okay, it's for baby It's supposed to be a bath bomb It looks like what cute little turd Doesn't stink or anything But it's imbued with a sweet scent of chocolate

So it's like a chocolate-y, you know. It looks like Gwyneth Paltrow's poop. Yeah. Yeah. Is there a candle wick in it? Because, you know. Yeah, there should be. That seems like the way to go.

Here, chat. You guys can see this. And actually, I was hoping it would look more like a pilot, like a more 3D version of the poop emoji. This just looks like a slightly flattened 3D version of the poop emoji. Like a little cookie or something. Exactly. That's not cool. No.

I want like a 3D poop emoji. bath bomb. Yeah. Or I want like one that looks like a big, like a real turd. Like a real turd or baby Ruth. Yeah, baby Ruth and have that sink to the bottom of the thing. But I haven't put off a lovely, you know, aromatic's the thing and, you know, clear your sinuses, whatever. But yeah, when you look at the lower pictures, they look like sweet tarts, honestly.

The pink and the purple ones look like sweet tarts. Oh, I don't see them. Why? Oh, because my browser's blocking these images for some reason. Oh, interesting. I don't know why. Brave thinks these are nefarious. Maybe they are.

I don't know. All right. Well, there's your news for the day. I'm sure that helped everybody get through their morning. We're going to take a break when we come back. My sister Wendy will be arriving. We got an email we're going to talk about today. And it's going to be good.

So stick around. Brian, play that song. Oh, yeah. All right. We're going to do a really good one here. This is The Bloods with a special guest, Laura Jane Grace. Yes, she's the lead singer of Against Me, a transgender lead singer who is just such an incredible voice.

They have a brand new album called Together Baby. That doesn't come out until September 23rd. Holy cow. Like, that's half a year away just about. But you can listen to this song right now. The new song is called I Like You. Here Are Bloods and Laura Jane Grace. in I pick you up now we can stop pretending we jump back in when it's enough I never

stop depending on what it's gonna settle the sound in our lives I never want to let you down the heart so kind Don't bother me, admit to be, follow my leave. I like you, open the door who was closed before you give me more than I could find a way to settle the sound in my minds. I never want to let you. down a heart sometimes

not think alone Never sleeping alone anymore Not sleeping alone Alone anymore Never sleeping alone and more Not sleeping alone and more

Never sleeping alone anymore You blow me I'll pick you up Now we can stop pretending Now shrunken heads for all occasions Collect them, swap them Give them to your witch doctor friends You can always cook up more

With Presbyn's witch doctor head shrinkers kit This is what I'm having for supper Chicken strips Doesn't it look good? The morning stream. How About a Booby? Back, everybody. Welcome back to the show.

Hey, who is that again, Brian? That was Bloods featuring guest vocalist Laura Jane Grace from Against Me. Brand new single called I Like You pulled from the new album coming out September 23rd via share it music called Together, Baby. Ooh. Ooh. All right, that sounds good. Let's give Wendy a call. and see what she's up to.

Wendy. Yeah. Oh, yes, Brian, we're going to call Wendy. Windy. Here, I'll play it. Oh, I hear her right now. It's Wendy Dunford. My sister.

All right. We're related. By blood, in fact. Most of my siblings are Korean. They're not blood to siblings, but Wendy. Yeah, we're the only ones who share all of the same DNA. Yeah. No, that's right.

Because my brother, Mark, 10 years older than me, is from my mom's first marriage and some guy named Jerry I never met. Did you never meet Jerry? I never met Jerry either, but. Yeah, you haven't either. I don't think any of the modern kids have met Jerry that I know. I mean, he's just a myth. Have you met Jerry?

Jerry. Yeah, he's an interesting story, that guy, but I've never met him. Yeah, I was. Anyway, so yeah, so as we share this blood today, we share a microphone and we talk about helping people with real problems because Wendy's a therapist, she helps people with real stuff, comes on here and, you know, slums. it with us for an hour a week and it's always good not an hour usually less anyway Wendy it's good to have you here did you have some snow right that's a bummer yeah I still have some snow

shouldn't be having that you should be no it's so irritating yeah wow yeah I uh we had the most beautiful awesome breezy warm day yesterday sun in my face chilling with the dog on the back porch it was amazing so I hope that for you coming up yes thank you all right let's get to this email. This is one you got, right, and sent to me. So I'm going to read it right here. And let's see where this takes us. We're not going to give this person a name. I have a fairly, I am a fairly recent widower. All right? I am 41 years old and my wife passed away three years after treatment for breast cancer. She passed away at the age of 40 and we have two kids, six and four. I've started dating another widow and I really like her and I see a very possible future with her.

She's also my age, but she lost her husband abruptly three years ago. She also has two kids, nine and seven. I have listened to you talk about going to marriage counseling many times before you get married. And I brought this up to the woman I'm dating, and she hesitantly thinks it could be a good idea. My question is, what should I be asking from a couple's therapist? Our relationship is rather new, so we haven't hit any real road bumps yet. have a few issues I foresee like I'm an agnostic slash atheist while she is a Christian but doesn't attend church finances are also a question mark while I make a comfortable living she's

she has a lot more money and potential income some background on me I was with my wife for almost 20 years but I was scared about marriage grew up with divorced parents and waited 10 years to get married I've been seeing a therapist for a while but stopped recently because of work and life taking too much time see I am all also concerned. Others may think I'm moving on too fast, but after grieving for three years while being a caregiver. But after grieving for three years while being a caregiver, I think you meant to say something else there. But anyway, I choose, or I chose, or I choose to enjoy my life and move forward without leaving my late wife behind. Our spouses are very much a part of our

life still, but I'm extremely happy that we found each other. Okay. So this sounds like of the beginnings of a possible, a very happy ending for both people, because they both are dealing with loss and recent loss and heading into this thing must be a little scary, but also they seem like maybe they're right for each other. So I don't know. Where do you want to send them? I know you are a big proponent of like, let's do counseling before we get married and check our compatibilities and all the stuff or whatever. But that's usually younger couple. So does that apply here? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Times 500. Oh, really? Okay. Yes, yes, yes. Oh, really? Wow. Yes, because your divorce rates on second marriages are significantly higher than first marriages.

I mean, significantly probably, you're in the 60 to 70% range. I guess that would make that would make sense, right? Because there's probably a lot of fear in a first divorce like, oh, my God, you know, what, what's going to happen? What's going to be the result of all this? And then once you get divorced and say, okay, well, and, you know, I'm better off now. That was a rough thing. you know what to expect from it and you're less afraid of it for the second one. Yeah, I would have thought the same.

Well, yeah, no, it's not that at all. It's that you took, you didn't, you didn't deal with your problems, probably the first. That probably makes more sense. Yeah. You bring it to the second. Well, usually what it is, is that whatever was going on there, you just remarried a different version of that and then added some, you know, now this person has a sister-in-law that's crazy, right? Like, you've got all sorts of a combo of things that happened that second round. And especially blending families with children.

It's incredibly difficult. So, you know, a young couple who, you know, maybe to share a dog doesn't need couples counseling even remotely as much as someone who, in this, like, their situation. Now, if they were both divorced in doing this, I would say it should be a requirement. They should not even be allowed to have a marriage license before they go. that would be me if I ran the world. Everyone has to take a course before they can have a child and before they can get married to just help everybody out a little bit.

Anyway, I do think, you know, in this case they probably, it sounds like they both had good relationships, so maybe marriage isn't the thing that they're stressed or nervous about so much, but it's just the reality of blending a family. So maybe if they can, he could reframe it with her a little bit. of it's like, you know, you have someone do your hair, right? You don't do it yourself. Why?

Because you can't see the top. Like, you don't know what it looks like back there, really. And so you pay- Yeah, Brian does his hair. But just like you pay a professional to help guide you through buying a home or redecorating something. Someone has skills you don't have

and has a vision you can't see. And when you do it early, there's very little work that actually has to be done compared to a few weight. So if I don't cut my hair for 100 years and then I go in, it's a lump of work, right? And so that's really it is it's more about preventative and positive. And that's, you know, most couples counselors, couple counselors are like, you know, you're the highlight of their week, I promise. because they're not untangling all the damage.

What they're doing is helping you optimize the strengths you have, navigate stuff before it becomes a problem. It's ideal. Yeah. I could see, I just feel like by the numbers, because it's kind of a numbers game, if everybody lived in your utopian ideal

for everyone getting counsel before marriage, before kids, before whatever, you would have like a, it would be a huge effect, right? Like a massive effect on people's emotional, mental well-being, but we don't live in.

It would be fun to try it. Can we have a little town where we start that? Everybody does the counseling. Yeah, boy, it probably cut down as much on marriage as it did divorces. Exactly, right? There's a lot of preventative. Well, first of all, I mean, that's the other thing. And this is why I think there's legitimately people feel a risk sometimes is like,

well, what if they say we're not a good match? Well, I'm going to tell you right now, if a therapist, tells you you're not a good match. It's because you guys are a hot fire and someone's going to get hurt. But other than that, they're not going to say that, right? Right, because everyone's got little issues. They're not going to say, oh, you don't like, you don't like how he picks his nose. Oh, you're screwed.

It's not like that. It would be more like, no, he's a psycho or he's, I don't know, whatever the reasons are. It'd have to be something big for them to say that. Yeah. And also, they're really not, that's not the job. The job is not to tell you what decisions. you're making. The job is to hear and see and then guide to a healthier version of what is already there. That's what couple counseling is, right? So when people come in, they're like,

we're staying together. You're like, all right, let's work with what we got. And you do. You work with what they have, not some other ideal that doesn't exist yet or, you know, whatever. So chat room thinks you should be the mayor of Theratown or whatever we're going to call. Oh, Taratown. Theratown. What we do, here's what you do. We go to China. We go to China. We go to China. China, because China's got a bunch of cities they started and then never populated. We've ever seen video or footage of this? It's crazy.

Like huge, huge cities, empty of nothing because it just never worked out or whatever. We take over one of those, and now when Wendy becomes mayor of Theratown, we're good. Let's do it. I'm ready. The key is, and this is going to be a little more difficult. So we always have to have people living outside of Theratown. No therapists can live in the town. Well, that's true.

Because of confidentiality. And, yeah, they need to be not. The Arnold Tapist in that town. Yeah, that's right. But if we do one of these abandoned city somewhere, go cities, they call them. And they're like whole factories there. We just take the whole place, do what we got to do. And then therapy people live in the next abandoned town that's only, you know, 10 minute to commute.

Right. And their town is called, whatever they want to call it. I don't care. We're perfect people.com town. They could also like, just tell a health in, you know, it's fun. Yeah, well, yeah, that's true. Let's do it all by Skype or whatever, and you're good.

And then people outside of Theratown are like, oh, I want to. Or this is a nightmare. Because any time we try to create Utopia, it just happened, the opposite happens. So let's, I don't think we should do this. I'm scared now. Yeah. But everybody would just, just for the fun of it later, when you got a minute, Google abandoned, or Chinese ghost town, you'd be shocked how much stuff there is. It's really cool.

Anyway. That's freaky. Continue down your path, sorry. So definitely go talk to somebody and, you know, they're going to recognize, you know, what this is and what it's for. And this is, you know, you could do a couple sessions where you just say, hey, let's just make sure our communication's up to snuff. Any, any, you know, resources or thoughts on how to blend the kids, you know, they are all young enough. This is a great time. how do we make sure we include the both spouses that have passed in these kids' lives?

How are we all, you know, being healthy and comfortable with that sort of thing? What does that look like? What rituals can we use to combine our family and create, you know, strong bonds? We've all been through some loss. We've all, you know, like just getting a little supervision on this is just going to go a long way. And, you know, we do this all the time. We ask people we care about and love for advice or what would you do or, you know, we're doing that all the time, but we're asking people that are biased and that has a place in life. It's fine, of course. But when you could ask someone who is not biased and can see a little, you know, and has seen a lot of other things, sometimes they're just going to be able to steer you towards some stuff that just is going to make a big difference. And like I always say, you never know all the bullets you dodge. when you get healthy because, you know, there's still challenges in life.

It's not anyone gets a free ride, but, you know, you don't have to find yourself in the gutter and be like, well, I didn't see that coming, you know? How did I get here? Yeah. You can just live your life and never know that one of the paths you might have taken. Some people are more aware of that type of thing. Like, whoa, I'm so glad I turned right on that intersection or, you know. But for the most part, we just are going to be blissfully.

dealing with, you know, sort of basic stuff rather than... Isn't there a downside to that, though, where if they, if you're not aware of, I don't know, I'm trying to think of a good example, it's like people that are in a privileged position, let's say their parents had a lot of money and it gave them a better start or they, you know, they grew up in a place where they didn't, weren't subjected to some of the problems that say poor people were or whatever, they don't really know and therefore cannot relate to people struggling worse than them because they aren't experiencing it. Is this doing the same thing in the long run where if you, I feel like it's antithetical

to what we're trying to say, but if you're working really hard on yourself and you become the best version of yourself, is it hard to not lose touch with people maybe who need help or not understanding where people are coming from or not knowing what you're, you know, It's like not knowing, you don't know what's great unless you've known something bad or you don't know what pleasure is unless you've experienced pain because what's the opposite of, you know what I mean? Does that make any sense? Yeah, totally. I, I don't know if your example is a good one. It might be bad.

It might be bad. More like, well, okay, so you start when someone's 17, 18, and you take some things they went through as a kid. kid and you help them work through that. Yeah. And now they're not constantly, like, okay, let's say there was something traumatic happened or something with a parent that, you know, and now you're going to spend the rest of your life trying to get someone to love you who also hurts you because that's what dad did or mom did or something.

I mean, that's a very different life trajectory than the one where you are allowed to grieve and be angry and understand and learn and put certain things in place, recognize triggers, recognize when people are toxic for you or not, you're going to have a very different outcome. Right? And so it's just that, you know, it's like education in any form. You know better so you can make different choices. You have options that you wouldn't have otherwise. So it's really sort of self-education.

And we're not great at this. Like the other day, I was just thinking, what is a long laundry list of, well, I'll give you an example. So Peter made dinner. He is 10 years old and it was delicious. What do you make? What was it? It's a pasta that has cherry or grape tomatoes, like fresh mozzarella and basil.

And it's really simple. It's not hard to make. The kid's been making pasta since he figured out what pasta was. He loved it so much. So he is, so he made dinner and like the beaming pride, like the accomplishment of a lifetime. time like I kept thinking this is the energy of someone right like that it's just building self-worth like I can do a thing and everyone is seeing eating it and liking it and anyway it was just like one of those moments where I thought yeah that is just an important life skill and it's not even

just that it's a life skill it's a competence developmentally we need to have a degree of competence about certain things to feel good right and so so here he is making dinner and feeling competent, and I was loving it because I didn't have to make dinner. And then, you know, I was sitting there thinking, like, what other things like that in life go a long way that when you start younger, it's, of course, easier, but you can still learn to do a lot of things and become competent at a lot of things sort of later in life. But I'm just thinking, like, how to manage your email? Like, why isn't that a class?

It should be, right? Yeah. It seems very fundamental, but like, do I archive something? Do I save it? Do I delete it? How do I keep this clean and make seconds? How do I not treat this as like one big to-do list? Yeah.

And have it stress me out and cause me to panic or how do I learn? You know, there's just some things. And, you know, anyone listening is probably like, well, your parents should teach you these things. It's like, did your parents teach you how to handle an email inbox? They did not. No. They did not. No.

They did not. And it's not going to be like, come here, junior. Let me sit down and teach you how. to manage an inbox. Right, right. It's a weird. Here's how to manage your social media account. I think that it's funny you bring that one up as an example because it may seem really

basic, but it's also a very philosophical kind of training because how you handle an inbox is a lot about how you handle being overwhelmed, taking a bunch of stuff and segmenting it in a way that makes sense, building a to-do list out of a ton of people asking you to do things. It's a lot more than just drag it here, pop it here, and archive it there. It's like a, you know, how do you want to tackle your communication? And that's a bigger, that's a bigger lesson than just, you know, use your email. Which ties right back to the marriage counseling, right? Like, in the end, each pair of, in a couple have learned different things, different skill sets, both in this, in the emailers case, have been married before, raised two children

together. Like, they have a lot of background that, you know, like they did things a certain way. And you're going to blend that. That is now the impact of four people because this previous spouses also had an impact on how that other marriage was run and, you know, et cetera. And now we're going to all join that together. I mean, think about that like a project at work or something. Now, you imagine not giving it a project manager? Just like, good luck. blending all the things, right? Like, and this is just human nature. We tend to just like, especially when we're happy, right?

We're like having a good time and I'm meeting this person and our brains are actually a little bit brain dead from not, you know, this person's amazing and I can't see their faults and I don't want to see some of them. You know, we're not great at that in the early stages, which is why human species continues is that we have to be a little bit stupid at first, right? but especially when there's kids involved and you're blending two families and your finances might be complicated and by the way everyone's finances are complicated I'm working with somebody who you know they've been married 10 years have two kids and they have yet to share a penny isn't that insane it seems like you ought to have at least some of that I get I get different accounts for some people and some people are you know two different jobs yeah some people are make that stuff work no problem but and everyone's different

and everyone can make it work, but of course I get to see under the hood, which is they also don't rely on on each other. They might as well be divorced in some ways, right? And so we're working to build connection and interdependence. And money is just like a placeholder for relying on one another a little bit, right? It could be something else, it can be who's doing the dishes or, you know, who carrying my bags sometimes when I don't feel good or whatever, right? Like there's that interdependence. And that is something, Every couple has to navigate. And everyone can be different.

They can have totally bizarre living situations that work out. It's fine. It doesn't have to be that you do things like everyone else. You do have to find what works. It's really hard to find what works. Sometimes if those things are very different than what you've been accustomed to and what your parents modeled to you. So getting on the same page and learning how to communicate about the things you'll never get on the same page about.

Because that's true. You will always have things where it never is going to align, ever, from the day you dated first date to the day you die and you're together the whole time. That thing doesn't get resolved. How do you handle that? And somebody, you know, can help them guide them. So I absolutely find your third party there that can just give you some guidance and then keep their name in your pocket. So when you need it later, you know, they can be part of a family. development. It really is really valuable. It sounds like he's used to, you know, used to this

to the system. He understands it. He's been in therapy. He gets it. So this will be an easier transition from him. Maybe the, uh, this new relationship in his life, maybe she's a little less, you know, ready to jump into that. But, you know, I think him having that experience is definitely going to help them get there. Yeah. Well, and especially like if your family, no one gets, no one asks for help in your family. And then your new partner's like, hey, should we should do counseling? You're like, well, I've never needed that, or the only people I know who need that are really messed up. That feels like a weird thing. And so, you know, it's rather than, like, let's go to a marriage coach.

Maybe you should feel more comfortable. Just the idea that therapy means problems is so ingrained in everybody, right? And life coaching is really like this way to, like, do the positive work of counseling. But counselors do that too, right? Like someone who knows all the nitty gritty and can help people out of a deep dark pit can just like snap their fingers and make your marriage a lot better because they have just so much skill to do that. I do know therapists who don't want to work with anyone doing premarital or the easy stuff

because it's just boring to them. So double check. Like, are you bored with happy people? Is that a thing? Some people, some therapists just want to deal with the really hard. stuff and don't want to? Well, I mean, I'll say from my perspective, sometimes I'm just like, oh, this is easy and I can do this in a session. And that's kind of fun. But I, you know, I do like a challenge. I think that's fun. I also think there's a lot of therapists who have transitioned into

life coaching because it really is all the fun, positive stuff and they're tired of the hard stuff. So everyone's at a different spot. But I think it's worth exploring. And maybe, you know, for the average person, maybe not in this exact situation. You know, if we thought of things, this is, humans are terrible. It prevented of anything because we can't predict very well what will happen, obviously. And so we just are like bizarrely optimistic or sometimes bizarrely pessimistic more so than we maybe is merited for a certain circumstance. And it's usually protective, right?

It's going to protect me from getting hurt, so I'm going to be really pessimistic. It'll protect me from having bad things happen by just hoping for all the good. And sometimes that means, you know, a rude awakening as real life hits or you, you know, you just need help navigating. I don't think there's a person out there who hasn't thought, ooh, I should probably talk to someone about that, you know? Or who can I talk to about this? Or, ooh, something might be wrong with me, you know? And usually if you wait until the house is on fire, it's just a lot more work. So preventative is way better.

I do wish the health system here was more conducive to treating that stuff the same way you treat other preventative health care because I think that holds a lot of people back. They're like, well, my insurance doesn't cover it. I don't want to pay a thousand bucks an hour. I don't, you know, it's another racket. Blah, blah, blah. There's like just this attitude, you know, about that sort of thing. And I don't know. Right.

And it's not easy. So like, you know, friends are reaching out to me all the time like, okay, I got a kid or a friend or me who needs their. How do you suggest? I do it. And I am helping them navigate it. I am searching with them online. I am doing the work that they need to do with them. And I'm just like, this is ridiculous. It is. It's so difficult. And thanks the pandemic, there's not a therapist who isn't booked and exhausted. So, you know, you have a lot of just, you know, supply chain of therapists has run a little. I was curious about that. Is there kind of a supply and demand problem right now with, Oh, yeah. Therapy? Yeah. For sure. Part of it is that more and more younger people are expressing.

It doesn't mean they, there's a jump because of the pandemic. For sure, for sure. And I will see that all play out eventually numbers-wise. But I think there's a lot more anxious kids and other things happening and social stuff that, you know, occurred because of the last two years. Yeah. But I also think just the sheer number of. So people seeking help has risen because their awareness is better. It's my fault.

I'm talking about it freaking every week on this show. I'm like, who, who? Where are we supposed to go? And, you know, I work a lot with people overseas, and it is so much worse there, just not as many numbers. Every country has just sort of its different understanding and take on things. Lots of expats are always just trying to figure out how to navigate that because it's just really tricky. So a long time ago, I'm not going to give you the whole history, but mental health parity was, you know, is forced through passage in Congress as applying it to medical health care coverage.

Yeah. It's still not parity by any shots. And, you know, couples counseling isn't even covered by insurance. I don't know if you know that. No. No. So it should be. Jeez. Yeah, really should be. I know. Isn't that crazy? Like all these family values, guys, we should totally. It is, yeah, totally right. I always go back to Carl on the Simpsons when they said good teamwork, Carl, and says, yeah, my teamwork. And I'll never forget that line. And it applies to almost all of these sorts of things. Everybody wants theirs. And when they say freedom, they mean their freedom. When they say freedom of speech, they mean their freedom of speech.

And they don't really want you to say anything. So, F those guys. And that sucks. Exactly. And couples counseling really, and especially prevent. of couples counseling should just be mandatory. Like, oh, you want a license to get married? Here's a card. Go for six sessions.

You know, it'll be amazing. I feel like that's possible, but whatever. I'm not in charge, and no one's made me mayor of any town. Nope. Not even fair a town. But I think that idea, though, is, like, it is difficult. And if you're an American, you have currently the most access of anyone in the world. And it's still this hard, right? at least in terms of population numbers and those trained,

I think it's improving in other places. But I just know my experience in Sweden was just like just not enough numbers. It was very difficult to get the education and the licensing and get all that done. And so you just didn't have as many available. And, you know, that'll change over time as demand increases. But it has increased. And so get on waiting lists if you need to right now. And that's why I like the preventative models by the time the house is on fire.

it's you can't there's no ER there is an ER but there's not the sort of things in place that there's no brain ER unless you're reading destruction and stuff that happens if you wait until it's too late yeah and if you go to the the ER they're going to say what's the matter my marriage is broken oh well get out of here like we don't really we're not really equipped for it you know the only time they have I do know actual ERs um they have entire sections for you know mental health yeah they always bring in the site guys on the TV shows. He's like, oh, we're getting a psych eval from Bill upstairs or whatever. Yeah, exactly. But just needing, they need more literal space to sort of put folks because

there's just more and more having challenges. And then that's, that's how our medical system works as you go to the yard when you can't afford anything else. Yeah, when you can't, when you're just screwed. And then you pay that, pay that bill for the rest of your life. And that's, and here's where I'm a hypocrite and there's the irony is that I'm, really bad of this. Like, I am really bad at preventative stuff. I just, that is usually the case, isn't it? That, uh, you know, doctors are really bad about taking care of themselves. Yeah. Yeah. It's like that. Um, I'm really bad at the like, yeah, like, well, we'll just wait to like, like, you're, it's a flesh wound. You know what I mean? Some like that. Yeah. It's not great.

So, I hear that sparks, that sparks joy organization lady on Netflix. I hear she lives in a dump. Oh, yeah, she just, she's, true. No. She probably doesn't a very, a very organized dump. Probably, yeah, a very organized dump. That will spark joy. That's a good title. All right, well, this is all well and good.

I hope this helps. And I think you guys are on the right track. I'm also super happy for them for finding each other. I think that's great. Yeah, me too. It sounds like an awesome, awesome thing. And your kids are young enough that this might be okay, you know, they get a little Oh, it will be okay.

Absolutely. But just, you got to do your best by them and, yeah, I love it. That's great. There's something about, I don't know, a cool step sister, stepbrother thing that can work sometimes. Like right now, things are a little cloudy around here because John, my mom's husband, is in the hospital getting, what's he having done? Always getting a kidney stone removed. Oh, wow. But his prostate's so big, I'm just giving a bunch of HIPAA information here.

Oh, my gosh. It's called HIPAA. can't reveal these things. Technically, that's true. But he's got, I mean, he's 90 years old. That's not his doctor. Yeah, that's true. He's 90 years old. He's got a gigantic swollen up deal there. So nothing can get past. So they got a drain first and he's in a hospital. He can't eat. He's a grumpy as hell. And my mom can't really drive. And none of this is fun. But even they could use some counseling. Even at 82 and 90 when you're so set in your ways, they would benefit from, you know, a little bit of something, but they probably, little bit of help.

A little bit of help. All right. Well, this has all been well and good. Wendy, anything going on besides that? I mean, you know. Yeah, we got our final week of, well, next week is our final week of real steps. And then we'll start registering people again. It's going to be, it's great.

We have, yeah, man, I need, I, will you, would you let me bring another person on to talk about their experience? Of course, course. And then you're going to do it, right? Yeah, I'm totally doing it. This next session, I'm doing it. Me and Carter are going to do it. She says she wants to do it too.

It's going to be awesome. Yeah. So come for the lulls. And Scott and Carter can give you an autograph if you want to join. Yeah, that's right. Carter's autograph will be worth way more than mine. I can promise you that as time goes on. There's my investment advice.

All right. Wendy, have a fantastic week. We'll see you next week for more. Bye now. Bye, guys. See you. All right. It's good stuff.

Yeah. Get counseling is the point. Hey, let's talk about some shows coming up. I know covervilles today. What's going on there? What are you doing? Yeah, tribute to Taylor Hawkins of the Foo Fighters today because needed to happen doing a tribute show

when we lose somebody important. It's what we got to do. So a lot of Foo Fighters cover stuff that I didn't play when they were inducted into the Hall of Fame last year. So some newer stuff, as well as a cover by Taylor Hawkins' other band, the Coatail Riders, and maybe the weirdest cover I've ever heard of a foo fighter's song, but I feel like Taylor would love it.

So that's coming up at 1 p.m. Mountain Time Twitch.tv slash Coverville. Man, that guy. What a legacy. You go into a band who's already got one of the greatest drummers working. Right. Yeah. And you somehow become as good or better than him. And you complete that band in a way that's just really sucks. No one felt like they were second fiddle in the, and foo fighters right i mean they were you know yeah everybody was on deck all the time

bums me out uh so that's uh 1 pm mountain time twitch dot tv slash cover of life i think i said it but i'm gonna say it again it's all right sometimes twice is always nice uh core is tonight at 5 p m we're going to go deep on those sony tiered system they're going to launch in june we want to get into that bunch of other stuff happening uh of course the games we played this week and and more so check us out tonight core that's video games the way you want them five p peter you m Mountain Time for the live show and wherever you get your podcast after that. Carter and I will be doing a game stream tomorrow at 10 a.m. A couple hours there.

And then TMSPM tomorrow is happening. So come be a part of that, patrons. If you're not a patron. Do we know, is it Dan or is it? Don't have confirmation yet, but that's mostly because I forgot to ask him. Okay. But I think Dan is around. So we're going to probably have Dan.

If not, it'll be us doing apps. But either way, that'll be Friday afternoon. 2 p.m. Mountain Time for all of you folks who are patrons. Sign up if you haven't, because that's for a buck a month. You can come and watch us do a life. So much extra content for a buck a month. It's crazy. It's silly. It's stupid. We're dumb. We're the worst.

All right. Oh, there will be Dungeons Saturday at 2 p.m. And, of course, a film sack this weekend. We're doing another watch-along while Randy's out of town. But that'll be this weekend as well. Oh, yeah, X-Files. We had a lot of fun with that episode. It was weird. We did. It was very weird.

I keep forgetting. faces outside of the episode. It's funny, like, you know, the stuff we talked about during that episode, talking about Charles Nelson Riley's toupee and how he once pulled it off of his head and put it on a contestant's head on match game. Yeah, it always, I always thought that was gong show, but when you showed me the clip, I was like, oh, it was never gong show. He may have been on the gong show once or twice. I don't know. Maybe it was. I don't know if he ever was. It feels like it would be right up his alley, you know? I mean, the, the, uh, J.P. Morgan and Jamie Farr could have slid over and made some room for Charles Nelson Riley.

For all you kids at home, this was like American Idol before American Idol, man. That's what we tried. Yeah, this is the best we had. Oh, and I'm going to be a guest on, oh, my gosh, why am I forgetting? It's like there, it's the educational thing that Major Spoilers, Ashley and Jason do, geek history lesson, geek history lesson. Good Lord. Why couldn't I figure it out? I'm going to be a guest on that this weekend. I don't think they do it live, so just look for the podcast once it's done.

But I'm going to be talking about this little known, I'm not even sure I'm familiar with it, band of superheroes called The Avengers and a movie that came out apparently, you know, back in 2012 or something, I guess. So, yeah, be talking about The Avengers with Jason and Ashley for a geek history lesson. Those guys are great. I'm excited for. They are great. For everything else you're looking for, frogpants.com slash TMS will give it to you.

If you want to request songs or do anything else, it's all there. And email us the morning stream at gmail.com. We're going to go now. But tradition states, right here in the bylaws, we have to play a song. So do you have one? Yeah. Well, I got a good one.

David Link wrote in and said, this song manages to be both cheery and a little depressing at the same time, just like the weather this time of year. You thought I was going to say, just like a side united at its house didn't you i totally did i absolutely did that was funny i did think of until i said just like this time of year uh here's to cherry pies candy bars and chocolate chip cookies while they last bulbs to grow though signed david uh that that was a good

hint uh you know the cherry pies candy bars and chocolate chip cookies you got it you got it yeah i'm talking about nothing but flowers that's sung by the talking heads where uh the whole is overgrown and 7-Elevens are gone and dairy queens are gone and been replaced with big fields of greens and flowers and stuff like that. This is the band Guster with a live version that they did in Portland, Maine in 2004. Here's Guster, nothing but flowers. Here we stand like an adamant anewanee, what aeney, waterfews, waterfalls God and I'm eating Two fools in love

So beautiful and strong The birds in the trees I'm smiling upon now From the age of the dinosaurs Because I run on gasoline Where? Where are they gone now? It's nothing but plus

There was a factory Now there are mountains and rivers You got it, you got it We call a rattlesnake Now we've got something for dinner We got it, you got it This was a shopping mall You got it, you got it

If this is paradise, I wish I had a long more You got it, you got it Years ago I was an angry old man I'd pretend I was a blue ball Standing tall By the side of the road

I fell in love With the beautiful highway It used to be real estate Now it's only fields and tree and trees Where Where is the town Now

It's nothing but flowers The hollets of course Sacrifice for agriculture Guess we thought that wheat's not over But I guess I was wrong Once there were poplots oasis you got it you got it this was a pizza hut now it's all covered with daisies you got it you got it i missed the hawkjohns derrick queens at 7-11s you got it you got it

an essence fell apart nobody gave much attention you got it you got it you got it Thank you. I dream of candy bars and chocolate cookies You got it You got it We're used to microwave

Now we just eat nuts and berries You got it This wasn't discounts So now it's turned into a cornfield You got it You got it Don't make me standing here I can't get used to this last time

This show This show This show is part of the Frog Pants Network Get more shows like this At FrogPants.com playing with myself. I'm going in.