The Worst Idea Of All Time - Good Times: 06

Episode Date: September 24, 2024

Come on down to Guy’s Memory Surplus for our September Clearance Sale! Niche details of the 2003 All Blacks lineup, premises for discontinued shows on the WB: Everything Irrelevant Must Go! As Monty explores his mind palace, Tim gets Rhys Mathewson on the blower to talk the merits of voice messages and whether or not you should squash the beef with people you may have wronged as a kid.Our intro music, “Los Angeles,” courtesy of Eyeliner. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Cool guy alert, I'm wearing a backwards hat today guy. Oh that is cool. For good times. I'm wearing a pretty cool thing too. You're also dressed very cool. They're called underpants and they'reaining people's relationship to their pants. To hear more, stay tuned after this. Sick of getting bits of piss and poo on your actual pants?

Welcome to underpants. They're pants that go between your body and the pants you wear. Underpants. Over the body. Under the pants. This is Good Times with Tim and Guy brought to you by the worst idea of all time which was with Tim and Guy. But we're having fun now. Tim, I got a question for you. I'd love to hear it. How the bloody hell are you? Pretty good, bro.

What's making news? Just listening to one of my favorite New Zealand musicians, Eyeliner. Yeah. Now I've turned it off. What is making news? Who knows, bro? You know, here's the thing. I think when you've got young kids such as I do,

your world gets quite small for a bit. There must be small bits of local news. You must get local news. Local news. I walked to the coffee shop today. Eventless. Cold morning though. Oh frosty. Do you go on your phone when you walk? I'm trying to stop that. I'm not only trying to stop going on my phone. I'm at the moment making attempts to get the earphones out of there too. Do you want to hear? Just take the world in man. You want to hear again?

Yeah I do. I'd love to. Atomic Kitten had a song called Hole Again. W-H-O-L-E. Thank you. No worries. Looking back, I have so much information I'm ready to not have with me anymore.

What's the flavor of it? Things like most of the lyrics to Atomic Kitten's Hole Again. Stuff Hole Again. Why don't you want that? That feels part, like an important part of the milieu that makes you, you. You know what I mean? Your experience of the world is colored by the fact that you know the lyrics to Hole Again by Atomic Kitten. Stuff like Sean Alexander having the rushing touchdown record in the NFL,

former running back for the Seattle Seahawks. Like him and LaDani and Top, like memories of teams I used to build on Madden when I'd play fantasy franchise mode. Yeah. This is your life, man. This is your time on this earth. But I don't want that. I mean, I'm happy for it to be part of who I am. I'm happy, you know, that it's a building block that helped build, build me. Yeah. But there's information I don't have.

There's stuff I can't retain from more recent parts of my life that I want. I think you're thinking about this in the wrong way. You seem to think that this information is occupying a space where other stuff should be. How does it work? If not like that, how does it work? I don't know, man. Different to that. It's not that simple. Is it not as simple as I'm out of shelves? I'm just going to delete a sports fact. All the shelves are full. So there's someone carrying around like, you know, they get a recent bit of information.

Oh, shush. Oh, he's going to get... No, no, no, don't let him out. That's the reason he's in there. In here with us. Who's it for? Someone's come round to measure for some curtains that are going to keep the heat in some rooms and Rufus can hear them. And he doesn't he doesn't like it. We talked about this on a previous episode. He's letting me know someone's in the house.

It drives me crazy. It's too loud. I will say that. It's coming through in the headphones loud. Is that happening for people at home? Is it loud? Yeah, it must be. Yeah, he's a fucking loud dog, man.

Imagine that every time you come to visit Tim. Yeah. Well, it's not usually that bad. It's because he can't get to the person. He can't even access the person, yeah. And that's the worst of it. So here's how I'm envisioning memory. Yeah.

Are you finished? He just certainly won't be you fucking wish there are shelves mm-hmm all the shelves are full in your brain there's a new piece of there's one person who works here okay they organized the shelves yeah they've got a lot of the shelves just how they want them. What's the name? Gregory. Nice. He's got this. He's got a lot of this shelves just how I want them. Yeah. And I'm sort of like, you know, I'm me still and I can talk to Gregory and I said, Gregory, look, I don't care. Gregory's boss? We're more pairs. I say to Gregory, look, I don't care how like neat and tidy you've made them look. Yeah, I don't care that everything fits in just right.

I don't you know, there's some stuff that you've put three, three memories back on a shelf. Yeah. That we need to get rid of because we need to use that space for new information I'm bringing in now. And Gregory's like, I actually don't go down to those shelves anymore because I got them just right and I've left them. That's really an interesting way to think about your brain working. That's how those shelves are. There are memories that are locked in because you don't access them often enough to make

a decision about them. Gregory's like, we don't even go there anymore. And there's still like, you know, there's still the way that they get pulled up, pulled off the shelves and presented in my mind. Yeah. Sometimes it's like I'm rifling through the shelves to find something I can access it. Other times, it's something that is on a shelf that Gregory doesn't look at. I haven't thought about, but for whatever reason, it just floats in and it goes,

and it goes back. And so then Gregory, I'm telling him to sort this old stuff out he's organized. Yeah. But Gregory, he's also carrying new information and he's walking around like the shelves he's looked, he's been working on more recently. Trying to figure it out.

And he's trying to be like, can I put this anywhere? Yeah. And most of the time, yeah, he's looked he's been working on more recently trying to figure it out and he's trying to be like can I put this anywhere yeah he's like no most of the time yeah he's like not and he just chucks it back where it came from Wow throws it in the incinerator can I ask what do you think about that analogy love it's beautiful does it does it make sense to you and how your memory works um yeah I think so I like the distillation of how memory works, but is is how you've described it. It's nice and simple and easy to follow. That is how I want everything to be. Yeah. Simple and easy to follow. I think that I think I have I don't know if I've tried to do it as a joke before, but the way it was presented then I will listen back to this. I will try and-

You won't, you never listen to any of these podcasts. Yeah, I don't like what I've got to say. I am gonna reverse engineer that into a bit. You should, it's very good. That's how I feel about my memory. A weapon has been presented, and that weapon is the telephone, because it's time for one of our favourite segments

to make a return after a few episodes away. It's the forgotten art of the phone call. Before we do, I just want to tell you what our word of the day is. Oh yes. O. O! As in? Better get them on the phone. O-W-E.

Oh, I like to owe someone a debt. Yeah. Far out. Is this? Oh. Yeah, that was a fake out, wasn't it? That was a fake out. Guess again, motherfucker.

No. Oh. Lovely to hear your voice, Rees. That's how you start a phone call, motherfucker. Ah, no. Lovely to hear your voice, Rees. That's how you start a phone call, Guy. Not if they say someone else's name. Well, I rung them. Yeah, but if someone picked up the phone and says someone else's name, I'm not going to go lovely to hear your voice. Everybody, it's Rees Mathieson. Rees, welcome to a podcast that we're doing called Good Times.

Oh, thanks for having me, Guy and Tim. Lovely to hear your voices. It's a pleasure to hear yours too. The thing is, we used to make podcasts together, Tim and I, and they would make us feel bad about ourselves. Take everything you know about that, throw it out the window. Now, now it's all good.

And that's why you're here, Rhys. You're a wholly good entity in my life. Always liked seeing you, always liked's all good. And that's why you're here, Rees. You're a, um, a wholly good entity in my life. Always like seeing you, always like talking to you. Has Rees never made you feel bad? Never. Ever, ever for a second. How do you feel about that, Rees? That makes me feel great. My one joy in life is supporting my community and lifting people up.

Making them feel good. That's your only joy. Yeah. I got to tell you the rest of life's going pretty bad. Hey, can I, can I ask you just right out the gate? What do you think of getting on the phone? Tell you what, phone calls, love getting them, hate making them. Tell us about that. Stresses me out.

I think the thing with a phone call is it's, I feel like I'm ambushing people into a conversation in a way that in person, you can kind of get a vibe on if people are keen for a chat. You can read the body language, you can go, you know what, not the right time to go over to someone. Yes. You don't have those social cues with a phone call. You're going in completely cold. And I find that a, a frightening frontier. Oh my God.

This you've described the thing. I didn't know what it was. I couldn't put my finger on it. That's exactly it race. You're removing an ability for the other participant in the conversation to sort of signal to me. Like, I don't want to be here. You're both maniacs.

Do you think other people have no agency? Do you think you can't pick up a phone and say, Hey, I'm just a bit busy at the moment. Do you mind if I call you back? Some people can't. Some people find that really hard. Not me. I'll fucking tell you if I don't want to talk to you.

And you've rung me. But who are you? Who are you? Who are you anxiously calling race? Well, I think if I'm ever a phone call, it's all, it's all in my head. This, um, this suppose it like person looking at this, at their phone, seeing my name come up and going, Oh, Jesus fucking Christ, but being unable to screen the call for some reason. Yeah. Yeah. Like how, how powerful do you think you are when you call them that?

Not only do they have to pick up, but they have to engage on your terms. And to think while that's happening, you are anxious because of the power you wield. I guess in my world, I'm the president of the United States. If I'm ringing, you're picking up. If this phone's a ringing, Matthew Sins is zinging. You're always calling up with fresh bits. Do you have many friendly conversations on the telephone these days, Rhys? Because you've presented what is part of the big issue.

Earlier you said if it's a phone call, generally these days it's business. Maybe the solution to that is sort of watering that down with more friendship calls. Yeah. What I've started doing is cause I'm, I'm really against the trend of voice notes. Okay. Oh, yeah, man. I find them interesting. I don't like a voice note. Either just message me because I'll probably like it's normally when I'm with people in some way,

and then I can't just go hang on everyone shut up while I listen to this voice note for 14 seconds. So, um, but people talk in their drivings. Is it what I like to do is. No, you go ahead and then I'll ask my question. So, um, rather than kind of voice noting back and forth in the car, I like to string those voice notes together into a free flowing phone call conversation. Makes sense. So you don't, do you think it's more rude to break off, to listen to a voice note than it is to break off to look at your phone? Yes. Why? Because, uh,

It takes way longer. I'll fucking tell you a voice note to communicate the same amount of information for the recipient takes so much longer. So it takes longer to listen to something than to read it. If you wrote something out that was 30 seconds worth of voice note, but I read it, it would take me far less than 30 seconds to receive. I want you to do a race with yourself, listening to an audio book or just seeing how long like find a book I'm telling you right now listening to it find a book see what the runtime of

the audiobook oh wait no I feel like this is different books I feel like the math is off why I don't know I don't know but I feel like the math is off what what you're assuming guy is that it's, it's a different discipline. You're comparing the 100 meter sprint to the marathon. Like reading, reading a message is not you're doing that much faster than you are reading a book. Do you know what? You're 100% correct. You are totally right. To take the analogy, it's your legs. Yeah, go on.

Can I ask you, when you were children and you would have to answer the home phone, and isn't it crazy that homes used to have phones? Yeah. What would be your opening standard, this is the way I start a phone call? It changed. It would change with time. I'd say original, probably trained into me by mum and dad. It would be, hello Guy Montgomery speaking. You get both names.

I have no idea why this is the case, but as a child, I would say my full legal name when I picked up the phone. Do it for us now. Hello, Timothy Andrew Bat speaking. Why? And I've also never gone by Timothy. Maybe this is a false memory, but I don't think it is. It feels real. It's so confusing to me. What about you, Rhys? How would you answer the family landline? I would say hello, Matthewson residents.

That's good. That is so you. Do you know, my vision of you as a child is like a prodigious younger brother in a sitcom. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And so would people love it when you do that? No, they would just ask who was home. It is very precocious. It does kind of feel like I am the butler of the family. Yeah.

We were all the butlers of the phone though, weren't we? Cause you don't know who the call is coming in for. So it was sort of this, uh, very service lead. Intro to a conversation. It was, how may I help you? Hello, this is the house you've reached. How may I direct your call? Were you, were you fielding many phone calls for you, Reese?

Oh, very occasionally it would be someone going, hey, do you want to come over on this afternoon or this weekend or something? Do you know, actually I've just had such a visceral memory and it's of me, it's a weekend. I'm on the home phone. So you had to collect other people's phone numbers to be able to call. Everyone's in the phone book, but if you are a child, the initial, you don't know the initials of your friend's parents necessarily. Your friends initials certainly aren't next to their name in the phone book. So you'd have like your own

private phone, you know, your contacts list basically, which is all written down. And one weekend, I was trying to find a friend to play with, I hadn't teed anything up, and I'm calling around, I must be 11. So sort of like in between having proper agency and not. And I've tried for maybe five of the, you know, your top tier go-to friends. Right. I get down to someone who I get along well with, but we're not really at that level.

D tier. I call them up and they say, hello, person speaking. And I say, and I've forgotten this completely, but I say, without thinking about how it might impact them, yes, finally, someone is home. Man. Man alive. And I can hear like the wounded inhale right now. Even at 11, I could feel that I had done that did you know

you'd fucked up cosmic damage damn man oh that's really brutal that is isn't it you owe which is our word of the day race oh oh we that person an apology I feel see if I can find them yeah that, that'd be good. Do you guys ever do stuff like that? It's especially at a time when you're so acutely aware of social status to be told you're on the B team. Yeah, that feels... Even in Guy's telling of the story, I think the person, the recipient of the call would have known it wasn't B team.

That was way down the list. Do you have any of those? I've found them. OK. What are you going to do about it, Guy? Well, you know, you've said I owe them an apology. It sounds like you guys have got another phone call to make. It sounds like we do.

I can't call this guy out. You ruminate on that for a little bit, Marty. I can't call this guy up. You ruminate on that for a little bit, Monty. I can't reach out to him. Reece, do you have this thing where you sort of recall an awful thing that you've done from your past? Do those rattle around in your brain? Oh, of course. Of course, of course. You say of course. I don't really have that.

I've got such a bad memory. That sounds awesome. That my regrets disappear. Oh, yeah. My memory is not good either. It's just that they they sneak up on you like that. Right. It's like a sense memory.

Yeah, watching guys face as he was recalling that memory. It was like seeing a Vietnam vet recalling, spotting, you know, someone in the trees shooting at him. I, you know, I just, I think I just have to let this go. Yeah, I think, I can't reach out. It's crazy. I think it would be like more damaging to do that. This is a cross you have to bear now yourself. I can live with, I mean, look, I was, it was a mistake, but what, you know, like, You're 11. Life's so hard on yourself. I can live with I mean look I was it was a mistake but what you know like

you're 11 life's so hard on yourself life life happens or to take some responsibility I'll stop being so hard on your 11 year old actions we actually the guy came around and we played I want to hear what Reese has to say about this. I mean yeah yeah, he knows he's home. He can't stand on pride. Yeah, this is the sort of thing that would make you feel guilty. We're not only now. If you got someone on the phone and they can't get out, you've got someone on the phone and they have to play with you and you've made them feel like shit. None of it's good. Okay. So here's a question about, do you feel that that like reaching out to someone

to apologize for something long in the past, do you feel that that action is more for the person apologizing? It's a classic question, isn't it? Apologizing too. Yeah. It is situational dependent, but I think more often than not, it is a, it is a, I honestly feel in my heart of hearts. It's a selfish thing to do. I agree. I think, uh, you know, I mean, I doubt that this is a core memory, but I also think you don't know if they've made their peace with this or it sticks in their craw. You might, in reaching out to apologize so that you can sleep better yourself that night. Which is what it is. You can stir a feeling or rekindle a negative thought. Or create something that wasn't there at all. They didn't even know.

And it's, it is self-serving, largely. What do you think, Rhys? Um, yeah, I agree with that. I would say in this particular instance, if this guy hasn't moved past that one instance, then he's a fucking loser and I can see why he was home by himself. Got him. Fucking got him. Our word of the day today, as I mentioned before, Reese's owe, do you owe anyone anything? Well, we all owe people things. Of course we do. That's true. That's the social contract. Less than a social contract, just sort of a way.

And more in a, do you knowingly, is there something quite tangible and specific that you know that you owe someone something? Could be a phone call, could be a book that you know that you owe someone something. Could be a phone call, could be a book that you borrowed, could be six thousand dollars because you had a hot stock tip that didn't pan out so you weren't able to pay them back. Oh yeah I've got Simon Pound's towel. Really? From Business is Boring? Yeah. What? You've got his towel.

Yeah, I've got his towel. How'd you wind up with that? I went to, when Childish Gambino did his show in New Zealand, out where they do Splore, and I got a ride with, I can't remember who teed it up, but it was like Hayden Donnell's van and Simon Pound was there and I full on dropped a full open beverage that we'd all been given and Simon Pound had a towel and he was like, use that mop it up. And I said, thanks, man. I will wash that and give it back to you.

And I, and it's like a, it's a, it's like a, clearly a kid's towel as well. There's like frogs on it. It's lime green. That's interesting. Cause that both elevates and diminishes the value of the, you know, that, that makes the variable outcomes of not returning this towel greater. Because he's a guy with kids.

So on one hand, this could be a prize towel that someone is having a fit about not having anymore. Or it could just be the person who's outgrown this towel. This was a spare towel. Well, this is comfortably seven to eight years ago. So I'd hope the kids have outgrown the towel by now. Well, they didn't get a chance to do it in their own time. You forced a kid into puberty by spilling that drink. Or stick it into puberty by spilling that drink. Um, Rhys, that's, that's just about all the time that we've got for today.

I've got one though about, about owing someone something. Okay. I'd love to hear it. So does that work? Rhys is, is one of our nations, indeed the, the, one of the best stand up comedians going, and he's someone that I write with often, we write together. And I think it's common in our generation,

particularly of New Zealand comedians, to write in pairs or in groups. And sometimes when you're riffing someone else's material, you can lob a phenomenal line into the ether. And you just, you know, if you're operating on trust and as pairs, you trust that, you know, if you're operating on trust and as peers, you trust that, you know, that what flows both ways and, you know, you give and you might receive, you might not, but that's okay. You don't owe anyone anything.

This is my belief. But then sometimes you see, you see your joke, their joke, but the line you lobbed. I will usually nearly always forget if I give someone a good tag. And you see it on the stage. I mean, often the mistake I'll make is I'll see someone's show and there'll be a joke that they make that really makes me laugh. And afterwards, I'll say, I loved that line. And yeah, you gave it to me. But how do you feel? Because I've got I think in my show that I've been doing this year, there's there are probably I can think of one off the top of my head, but probably one or two lines that you gave me in a writing

session. How do you feel when you see your line or tag up on up under lights, getting a big belly laugh? Be honest. a big belly laugh. Be honest. I feel a strong urge to lean over to whoever I'm watching the show with, give them the tap point at the stage and say, that's one of mine. That is how it feels. That is exactly what it can feel like. That's fantastic. We'll shout out to perhaps our sponsor, Mosh, which, Reece, just to bring you up to speed, Patrick Schwarzenegger. He's fixing Alzheimer's with a protein bar.

Yeah, with his mum. Of course. He's not getting back to us. We're reaching out to him. We've basically written one perfect message. And I feel like until we hear back, he's going to get it a couple more times. Also, it hasn't come up on the episode, but I'm wearing a sports team shirt, uh, which they've made a movie.

Is it, is it out? Is it coming out? Who knows? You have to look that up, but yeah, they've made a feature film sports team. And one of the most fantastic music videos for the best. Forces have made some incredible short films for the 48 hour film festival. a feature film. Sports team are one of the most phenomenal creative forces in the country. They've made some fantastic music videos for the Betts. They've made some incredible short films for the 48 Hour Film Festival. They did a...

They're incredibly prolific. They've been... They were art department for the most recent season of Taskmaster. Yes. And they're also broadcasters on BFM. And they made a feature horror film in Te Wai Pounamu, the South Island. Wait, is this a video podcast? Can people see you guys? Yeah. If they pay, yes. If they pay $5 a month on Substack. If they pay, they have the right to make it harder to do other things while we're talking. Yeah.

That is their writing into that. Yeah. That is their running into that. This might be too much to ask, but when you call me, can you have that little graphic pop up on the screen from like the 90s of like on the phone and then like the most insane picture of me that you can find? I actually have a photo of you in my mind's eye that is incredibly old of you clean shaven from many, many years ago that I would love to use if possible.

You've got a big bushy hair. It's just one of your old headshots, but it's from when you were like 20. There's a bit of fun to be had Googling Reese Mathieson and looking at clicking on images. You were so funny from so young that like we've got headshots of every adult age you've been. Yeah.

Not everyone has that publicly available. Yeah. I've got an image of you from a theatre view review of your show, Reese Matheson and the best $18 you'll ever spend. It's an all time look. That's the photo shoot. I reckon that should be the photo. That's the one that popped into my head.

Yeah. Well, if that's what was in your head and that's what's on the computer, that's what it's got to be. All right. Well, Reece, you've made a wish. It's going to come true and I hope you're cool with that. I encourage it. Lovely to hear from you guys.

So nice to talk to you on the phone. Do you know this segment's actually really warming me up to phone calls writ large. Phone call, I'm making calls, man. Yeah. If you're not careful, you're gonna start getting calls from me. Maybe I'd like it.

All right, Reese, peace and love, man. Peace and love. Thanks, Reese. Hooray. Goodbye.