We're Here to Help - 257: Mouth Tape Nightmare & Montage It Up (with Shabana Azeez)

Episode Date: February 4, 2026

Jake and Gareth are joined by The Pitt's Shabana Azeez. Together, they banish a mouth tape demon and brainstorm the best way to enjoy a wedding dress, without getting married.Catch Shabana on season 2 of The Pitt, now streaming on HBO Max. See images from the episode here: https://www.heretohelppod.com/post/episode-257Want to call in? Email your question to [e-mail]: https://patreon.com/heretohelppodMERCH: heretohelppod.comINSTAGRAM: @HereToHelpPodIf you’re enjoying the show, make sure to rate We’re Here to Help 5-Stars on Apple Podcasts.Advertise on We’re Here to Help via Gumball.fmSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Well, good afternoon. This is your little friend, Steven Berg, and this is a message going out to all you fantastically brilliant vasectomy doctors. I have a little proposal for you all. My wonderful friend and brother, Gareth Reynolds, is looking to get a bisectomy done because he is making the choice to not bring children into this world. And you know what? I respect that opinion. Nobody wants a bunch of little Gareth running around. Boy, try saying, try plurizing. Gareth with a list, that's not easy. Nobody wants a bunch of little Gareth running around when Gareth himself doesn't want that. So, doctors out there, what we are looking for, what we are wanting, if possible, is for you to give our friend Gareth a vasectomy. Now, we'll

pay for it. He's got Cobra. He's got great insurance. That's not the issue. Here comes the little angle we're taking. We would like to document this on a little thing called videotape. this is a plea. This is a call to all vasectomy doctors in the lower 48 in the United States. Please, oh please, let our little friend

Gareth Reynolds get a vasectomy and let us videotape it. We're talking to high eight, you know, like a gritty. You know, it'll look good. It'll be classy. It'll be artsy. You will come off looking like an absolute hero.

That's a burgundy. Thank you. Enjoy this message and enjoy this episode. food. Bye-bye. This is a headgum podcast. What do you got, Shabona? How do you like working on the pit?

I like working on the pit, but are we allowed to promote things that aren't anything to do with our careers? Yeah, absolutely. That's exciting. Great. There's this umbrella brand that I'm really looking into right now. because I find it quite upsetting, okay, immediately going badly. It's going great. I find the experience of opening an umbrella incredibly fun.

It just comes out, whoa, I feel like a god. And then I put it back in it. I'm not the strongest person in the world. And it's like a big, you know, a moment to get the emerala back in this. And so there's some brands have been pitched from people on Twitter who've been really kind. But I really want to actually almost put a call. out to the world to ask them to, if there's a Kickstarter, if there's like a startup company that has an umbrella, it's as chty to close as it is to open.

So basically is what you're looking for is this is a version of Shark Tank. Have you ever seen Shark Tank? I've never seen Shark Tank, but I've heard of it. Wow. You know of Shark Tank. So Gareth and I are in a spinoff version of Shark Tank called We're Here to Help. You're also a shark. And what we're looking for is umbrella companies. that we could invest in that are easy to open and easy to close. Yes.

I want to say it's not so much about ease as it is about, I mean, it is about ease, but it's also about, I don't know if I can swear, but, but, you've, that's your second, did you say,

I didn't, you were saying, gidditch? Yes. Yes. What the hell is cuckage with an umbrella? Oh, so,

because you know, when you open it, you press the button, and I feel like I'm a Russian spy. I feel like I'm a spy. It's like being a peacock. Yeah. It's like a big.

Yes, thank you. And so I want that experience of feeling like a Russian spy when I just close it, you know? It's, I, Jake, I don't know how you feel. I do feel like this is a fair problem. You do feel. I don't get it. Well, you feel when you open the umbrella, you feel, it's, I've arrived. And then you're kind of this little weirdo like, excuse me while I put my stuff away.

Imagine if you had a ballpoint pin that every time you opened it was like But when you closed it you had to wind it away Okay, I do get it That you get it Yeah That's interesting Now wait Shabana but you've been talking about this online enough where people are This is a big enough problem where you've really been going through it with this

I have decided I'm not I'm not about fame necessarily, but I have a few followers on Twitter. And I went, oh, what I can do with this is outsource Google. They're like my chat GPT. Instead of using AI, I use people on the internet to be like, if I wanted bread, that was good. What do how do I get that? Yeah, I think we all do that.

We're outsourcing everything. It's the bad. But it's also an amazing one to be like, I have a problem. How do I get this umbrella away? And I look smooth. And I look smooth. But it's interesting, though, because you're totally right. I don't use umbrellas.

And part of the reason I don't use umbrellas is the clothes. Wait, wait, wait. Do you mean you exclusively will not use an umbrella? I don't use umbrellas. I mean, that's wild. No, no, no. I also avoid umbrellas. Are you short or are you taught?

Or maybe this is a triggering question to ask a man. I don't know. No, it isn't. I'm a medium king. 5'10. Medium king. Great. I'm 5'3 and I'm lying about that.

And so I'm quite some 5'3. Yes. Okay. I'm quite short and my thing is whenever I'm holding an Amrilla, I have to hold it up here so that I'm not being an asshole to the people that are six feet tall. Right. Otherwise, I'm going straight for the jugular. So you lied about 5'3. What do you walk around at? You 5'1? Um, um, my lawyer will be present next time I'll answer questions about this. Well, guess what? I'm representing 11. I, I actually, I was looking at my casting profiles. I was in a meeting with a casting director the other day and she showed me my casting profile that my,

my management have organized for me, and they've got my height list that was five, six. Wow. Wow. By the way, you know what that is in real life, though? In other Who Cares News, because I'll tell you what,

you're just really going against the whoever number one on call sheet is, however tall they are. Oh. What? Did I get lost? No, no, I mean, you blew. What would you seem to be thrown by that, about her.

No, you, wow. It's the lead actors, five foot five. Yeah. And it's a, he's a, and it's an action movie? Yeah. Well, he's six foot two for the movie's point of view. And if you were 5'1, then you're 6th and you're 5'10. That's wild.

Yeah, I've had actually multiple people come to me after screenings of things and be like, look significantly above my head and be like, oh, I thought you'd be taller. Like, you see him tall on TV. And that shit feels good. But then it feels bad because they've, you know. It feels good and bad at the same time. Yeah, like most good things, yeah. Where are you from?

Australia? My parents are from Fiji. I'm from Australia. Cool. Where do you live now? That's a great question. Wherever, I'm just begging people for a job just like on my knees. So I'm on the pit.

When I'm on the pit, I'm in L.A. And then otherwise I'll go to the Romanian wilderness and live in the tent. I don't care. I just want to be employed. I've been unemployed for a long time. And I don't want to do it anymore. So you will not even disclose where you actually are located because you are open to being anywhere so much.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. As long as they have an umbrella that closes quickly. Yeah, so here's what we've learned about you. Okay. You don't want to do any promotion for the... Oh, shit. Umbrella company. You will not talk your height.

you will not say where you live. You're anywhere between 4, 10 and 6 feet, and you are anywhere available. Romania is an option. Yeah. Great. That's what we know. People should watch the pit,

even though it seems that... Where can people find you? People can find me on the pit on HBO Max or Spectrum TV or... I don't know what it is in the UK now. You can find me on the pit, which is great. It's a great show. Too late. Too late.

very bad job with her money. It would be great for a PIT episode for someone to come in with an umbrella and for you to be like, my God, it won't close properly. I'll pitch it. Yeah, okay, correct. If there is a,

if anybody on the creative side of the pit is listening or hears this, please start having Shabana use umbrellas every chance you've got and write in she has to close it on camera. If we can get one moment of you from this closing the umbrella on camera, that feels like a win.

And likewise to our audience, if you have any umbrella solutions or any leads, let's talk. Yeah. I mean, we're here to help. I guess I've been the first person you've helped today. I think that's fair. That's beautiful. I think that's fair. We haven't helped yet, but we're on the path.

Yes. Natalie, we got a caller? We do have a caller. Also, we have Eric, and I don't know why. Send him in. It's just going to join us? How did he get the link? Did you send him the link?

I sent him the link. We were going to have him in. We'll just do a briefly. He'll join the call for a little bit, then we'll get rid of him. For over 50 years, Walden University has helped work in adults turn ambition into action through flexible distance learning. Today, our mission is simple.

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certified to operate by Shev. This episode of the podcast has been brought to you by Dell. Have you been waiting for the perfect time to upgrade your tech? Good news, the wait is over. Day's annual sales event is here, and we're celebrating our best customers with fantastic deals on the latest PCs like the Dell 14 Plus with

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fibs and their white lies. We use Squarespace for that sometimes. But other times people will use Squarespace, you know, for trying to build up their business online. I was working with someone who we were going to start a whole ear business and it completely fell apart. But we were going to use Squarespace because there's no other place to go. It's an all-in-one website platform that is designed.

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Plus, streamline your workflow with built-in appointment scheduling and email marketing tools. So go to Squarespace.com. for a free trial. When you're ready to launch, use offer code Gil sent me to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Hello there. Hello. Hi. Hi. How are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm good. Thank you. Can we get your name, please? Yeah, I'm going to go by M today. M, just the letter. Okay. M, how old are you roughly? I'm about 21. You're about 21.

Okay, hold on, M, we got to stop you for a second. Eric Edelstein just jumped on as well. Hey. Hi. I'm here to. Hi. I am. What a privilege.

Thank you. I appreciate that. So, M, we have Eric who just joined us. You have Jake. You have myself. And we also have one of the stars from the pit. Shabana Aziz is here. joining us too. She's looking for umbrella solutions, but we'll leave that alone for now.

Okay. But so you've got a lot, there's a lot of people who are going to help you. This, this actually feels a little like the pit, Shabana, like we're kind of surrounding the problem and we'll be attacking it as much as possible. Exactly like the pit. Okay. Okay. So where are you calling from and then tell us what your issue is today that we can help you with? Okay. So I'm calling from the general northeast area. And so basically my boyfriend and I have been dating for a year now, but most of it was long distance because he was studying

abroad. But he came back last semester. So we were finally dating in person. And it was going great. You know, we were like bonding. And we, no, it's still going great. I said was, but keep going. But he finally got like vulnerable enough to start sleeping with mouth tape.

and I had no problem with this. I thought, but every time you started sleeping with mouth tape, I would have like borderline traumatic nightmares where I'd wake up sobbing and would have to sleep with the lights on and watch TV just to go back to sleep. What? Yeah, why that I think is just to put a finer point on that for us if you can't, you sounded fine with it, but then you'd wake up horrified and cry.

Is that? Yeah. I thought I was fine with it, but then when I went to sleep, I would have these, like, terrible nightmares that would kind of incorporate the mouth tape. So I think that secretly my brain, for some reason, is interpreting it as an enemy or, like, a threat to my well-being. So I don't know how to train myself to stop thinking like that because our solution now is that he just stopped using it, but I feel like that's not sustainable. Just very quickly, okay, we're all calibrating here.

here. He is, the reason he wore the mouth tape was to stop the snoring. Yeah. And then now you're comfortable with him not wearing the mouth tape. Is he snoring and is it bothering you? Just maybe less than the mouth tape nightmares? I mean, he snores, but yeah, I'll take snoring over the nightmares. But he does want to keep using the mouth tape because it helps his breathing. The goal here, go ahead, Shabana, yeah, jump in. We have a medical professional here. We do. We have Shibona. We have Shabana.

I'm a doctor and I just want to ask, have you ever taped your mouth? I have not, but that is, okay, so just to give some context on the types of dream I have, it is kind of incorporated. So the first dream, both of them have been like a pseudo-reality situation where I can't tell what's real and what's a dream because I'm having a nightmare within a nightmare, essentially, every time he sleeps with mouth tape. Wow. Jesus Christ.

It's very complex. Do you slive together permanently? No, we don't. Do you still have the nightmares when he's wearing the mouth tape in a separate in his own house? I don't know, actually. I don't really ask him when he used the mouth tape.

That's a great, great question. Shabana, are you pitching they break up? I'm pitching a documentary. I'm agreeing to also throw some money at that. Can you tell if other people are wearing mouth tape? Like, would you do an experiment for a week if you gave a random selection of your friend's mouth tape

and then every morning when, I think Zoe was wearing mouth tape? We're asking a lot of everyone to give everyone mouth tape. Well, okay. So, Em, let me ask you this. The problem we're trying to solve, just bottom line it for us real quick, just so we know we're helping you in the right direction before we start taping the mouths of your friends. Which I'm open to, by the way. Right now it's the best solution.

Absolutely. Of course. Is that what we're going for here? I mean, I'm open, I guess, to asking my friends to tape their mouths. But I think the broader issue, so basically, Every dream I've had has resulted in like, or it's consisted of some sort of terrifying events. Like the first one, I was being possessed by a demon and I was trying to like scream out and like wake up my, because my boyfriend was sleeping in my dream.

So something bad would happen to me in my dream that was really scary. And I would try to get help from the dream version of my boyfriend. But it was as if the mouth tape was stitched into my face. And so every time I tried to scream, like my mouth. couldn't open and no sound was being produced. So every time he sleeps with mouth tape, I have a nightmare where my mouth is like stitched shut and I can't get help.

Wow. We have gotten a clear question basically, right? And the clear question is basically how do we, how do we kind of bridge the gap between keeping him satisfied with his mouth tape and not snoring, which is not giving you a good night's sleep, and how do we find our, way to you not having extreme stress nightmares over mouth tape, over him wearing them. Exactly.

That's the question. Can I pitch some science? Absolutely. I know I already pitched the experiment with the friends. But also, what if you went to bed with him and he didn't wear mouth tape and you did? Would you still have... Brilliant. Brilliant.

So I should try the mouth tape? And he doesn't wear mouth tape. Maybe you're becoming sort of codependent in some way, and you're like, he's my mouthpiece, we are one. But if you can't talk and he can't. I also, I like that. I think we just move from Tidley Wings to Chess. That's quite a leap, Eric. I don't know if we, I don't know.

We did it. You know why? Because the good doctor put on her cape. I want to be clear that Shabana's not an actual doctor. She plays a medical student on TV in a hit show. I understand that part. That's the same thing, Gareth. Without question.

This is what I would say to you is I like that. We're probably going to have to do a follow-up and find some of the results of what this is. My pitch would be, does he show you that he's putting the mouth tape on before you guys go to bed together? Like, yeah, I know when he's putting it on. I'm curious if he lets you go to sleep first. And he almost doesn't, because I actually go on the road with a guy,

for stand-up and I share a room and he does the mouth tape. What? It's not great. My life could be better. My career could be better without question. But what I'm wondering is if you go to bed and he lets you pass out first, then he self-hostages his mouth so that you don't have to see it, maybe it's a since it's out of sight, out of mind sort of thing, would be my question.

I think that could work. The only concern with that is that whenever, like, he wakes up at night, like to get water or something or go to the bathroom, I also wake up a little bit. So what if he's trying to put it on and I wake up? How is he getting water with mouth tape? I think you can take it off. But doesn't it lose its adhesive? For those just listening, Shibonda, did do a pretty clear.

Excellent. It's a tutorial on removing it. No, I am looking right now at psychology today. And it says recurring bad dreams about your partner. No, no, that restraining order went away. Often resolve from underlying anxieties, insecurities, or unresolved issues in the relationship reflecting your subconscious fears.

So, you know, this is new. And I think the suggestion of you putting on mouth tape is world class. I like it, too. I think that would start to do it. But I think it's beyond the mouth tape. And it's definitely triggering something that's deeper in the relationship than just mouth tape. But on the surface, for now, without unearthing too many of her inside anxieties,

logistics mouth tape, Eric, I also like Shabanas. Do you have any ideas as far? I mean, as a snorer, do you have any outside solutions? Eric, Edelstein? I mean, I, this is, we're getting close to home here, but I've had this lingering bronchitis and my wife has slept the last few nights in our guest room. And there's also an issue. I'm a sweater.

So she has this feather bed at Koyuchi. It's some Japanese linen. We're getting deep here, Shemar. And I can't have that on the bed. So now the thing is her perfect cozy bed is in the guest room. So if I start to snore, she very gleefully goes in the guest room. But we don't want to turn into sleeping in another room. But that's why I went to.

Have you tried Scandinavian sleeping? No, what's that? So that's when So you have like two people You like sleep in a bed together But you have separate comforters So like if one person's a hot sleeper They can just take it off

But it doesn't affect the other person Shibon have you heard of this? Yeah yeah yeah For sure thoughts pro I mean I love it conceptually The only reason I date men Is because of their body heat Because I don't produce my own body heat

And so the Scandinavian situation Is sort of anthetical to the reason and I will date a man, which is to feel warmth at night. That's really the only, the main reason is for the heat. And think, and think about it.

And you're not questioning it. Think about it. No, no, I honestly, as a man, I get it. The number one thing I can actually bring to the world is body warmth. Body heat, I don't, I'm cold, period. Like, I don't, I'm like a lizard. And so it's really, yeah, the Scandinavian thing is not for me, but I think it's for you, maybe, Eric.

Yeah. Have you tried white noise, then? um oh for his snoring yeah i think for him i mean i don't really care about the snoring i'm a deep sleeper but he is really into like he likes the mouth tape because of like um it forces him to breed through his nose i'm not i'm not pitching that i'm not pitching he doesn't wear the mouth tape i'm wondering if that maybe does something to your stress sleep maybe it covers the tracks of that a little bit separately i can try that i can try that i can try that i I mean, so the second time I had a nightmare, the nightmare was like significantly less scary.

And it's because we meditated before bed. So I'm wondering if like a soothing situation could be good. Well, why did you stop? Why did you do it? Why would you not go back to the meditation well? Well, because I still had a nightmare. Like, it was still scary. It was just like less scary.

And it was like during finals. So I didn't really have, I couldn't afford to not sleep well. So the solution was just to just not use mouth tape. I mean, this is my first pitch, but I don't want to be a parody of myself, and this is my lane. But David Lynch would say, if you do just a little bit of meditation before you go to sleep, there's a very good chance. You're not going to think of horrific scenarios of your partner in Dreamland. It's true. I believe it.

Do you speak out for yourself in your real life? Oh, yes. Fascinating. I really thought you, there was some, you are silencing yourself in some way because you're saying it's about real life and you're having these dreams where you can't speak up your boyfriend's mouth tape is fusing onto your mouth.

No, I would like maybe argue that sometimes I speak up too much. Interesting. Interesting. Or is that just what you think? I think we like you speaking up. In general, I think the benefit of mouth tape is a man can't speak, I would think.

I think we're really. I think we're, We use 10% of our brains. It's like we're just less of all. But we're so hot. We are warm and we're like wobble. Says the guy sharing a Super 8 with a touring stand of comedian. Super.

I wish Super 8. That's the problem, buddy. We're getting to deeper stuff with all of us here. Right now, Shabana seems like the only sane one. I wonder if there's a way to create an even safer environment. And since you feel like he's, like if there's a way to saffin up the room for you a little bit, What we're going to honestly have to do, M, is we're going to have to have you go off. Have you told him you're calling the show?

Is he aware of how much this is affecting you? Probably if you speak up for yourself so much. Okay. Yeah. I think you are going to have to go off in the field and do some of these Shabana. I have an idea. Let's go. It's not good.

I'm going to preface it with that. None of them are. That's okay. But have you seen those videos of people talking with their mouth closed? I'm talking like this and I thought of this talk. No. Why don't you learn that language, babe?

Oh. Oh. Common ground and pitch a tent. Wait a minute. That actually leads me... That leads me to an idea. What if we did this, Sam? What if he spends a day with the tape on his mouth

casually hanging and talking to you? And we're sort of trying to normalize it outside of sleepy time. Yeah. So it's not like an enemy. It's just like part of normal day. Yes. It's just for a day. I believe they call that exposure therapy. You expose yourself to it more often. Of course. Yeah. Wait, okay. I might have an idea based on an earlier pitch.

Go. What do you got? Give us. So our early pitch was that I should try the mouth tape. But I am back home now. And like he's at his respective hometown. Like right now we're not together for like winter break, like physically. But now that I'm at home, I have slumber parties with my sisters. So I'm wondering, should I ask them to sleep with mouth tape and see what happens? So part in my French fucking lootly. Brilliant.

Yeah. You're close to the source, sister. You're close. The meditating, this idea. I think we're really coming on to something here. Shabana, this was kind of your idea. Will you co-sign this? as our first port-a-call.

Yeah, co-signed. Get the sisters to do mouth tape. Also, you're already having nightmares. Don't make yourself meditate and do extra stuff. Get other people to do the labor for you. So, okay, there's a... The doctor knows. The siblings are four.

All right, all right. You're good. You get, kid. So, all right, and here's where we're at. Our first thing you're going to do is you're going to go to wherever the hell they sell mouth tape, a CVS or something like that. You're going to get it. You're going to present it to your siblings.

You're going to tell them that probably tonight, they need to put mouth tape on for your adult slumber party. We'll find out the results of that. Maybe start, if you could maybe keep a little bit of a tracking journal for us. So you know, and that when you come back for a follow-up, we know what's the leader. Then when you and your boyfriend get back in person together, let's try a night of you maybe putting on the mouth tape.

let's try maybe him putting on the mouth tape before dinner for an evening. You watch a movie, like Shabana said, he learns to speak through his tape, like someone who's been thrown in the back of a van without his permission. Then we will also maybe do a version where he doesn't tell you that he's putting on mouth tape. He lets you pass out first. He puts on the mouth tape after you're asleep. I think that's pretty much it. It's obviously...

Yeah, for her to do. I see us doing this in 14 days. We could come back with solid. I'm serious. Am, let's set a deadline for this. When can you get back in touch with us, and we can find out the results of your weird sleep tape study? Okay, so I am at home until January 13th.

So I won't see until, like, the 13th or 14th. Yeah, it'll be a while. What do we want to say? We want to say maybe five weeks. You check back. Shabana? I can give her a season. Let's give her win, you know, like give her like a quarter.

You're talking leaves off trees? Give her a quarter because you've got a lot of science to do. You've got like white noise machines to buy. I don't know financially what the situation is, but there's a lot of investment here. We don't get involved in that part. We pretend everyone's rich. No, I'm kidding. And separately with this, I do think Eric, I think you should start wearing mouth tape.

Should I? I will do it because I view you as a doctor. And this is what I'm prescribing. And I also think that it's interesting because you've got quite a bit of facial hair and I'm interested to see if it sticks. Well, Em, how do you feel, do you feel like you've got all the walking orders or the sleeping orders as they were for you to go off? And once the seasons change, check back in.

Shabana, maybe you can join us for that so we can really, you know, see where we're at. Because honestly, this is not something you can go off and accomplish now or even in the next couple weeks, do you feel comfortable going and trying all these or maybe seeing if a combination of these gets you back on track? Yeah, I think this is a great plan. Just as if now, we've just been doing nothing. And then I think Schabat, worst case,

I think what Chabana said, which is break up with him. I mean, I think that is, again, our worst. It's really only there for their body heat anyway. I think Shabana's stumbled onto that. There's a lot of heat to be found somewhere else and not have nightmares, right? Yeah. Yeah.

I suppose. I suppose. I think maybe he provides a little bit more than body heat. I'm concerned maybe I don't. I know Gareth doesn't. It's probably why he's subliminally sharing a hotel room with another touring stand-up comic. I run cold stuff. Which we're going to discuss after you hang up.

Don't you worry, Gareth. Oh, no, no. We're cutting it out of the episode and the conversation. No, no. We're not cutting any of this out, buddy. 100%. Well, Em, that's what you got to do. So let us know.

And we'll talk to you once the flowers start to bloom. Perfect. Sounds good. All right, Em. Go get them. Thank you. I'm honored. Have a good one.

Yeah. Good work, yeah. Thank you. Emma, it was an honor. Me as well. Watch the pit. Em, do you have any umbrella issue? When you open an umbrella and you close it, do you feel,

do you ever close the umbrella and have an issue with how it closes? Yeah. I'm not really. well-versed umbrellas because I was born and raised in the desert. So I only just got an umbrella

for the first time like two years ago. Interesting. All right. Well, listen, we're just, we're out there. We're trying to find some stuff.

It's a separate, yeah, it's a separate sort of thing. All right, M, go get them. Yay, science. Thanks, Sam.

Go get M. Bye. This episode is brought to you by Quince. Quince gives you that well-built wardrobe that holds up over time, premium materials, thoughtful designs, everyday staples that feel way easier to wear.

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that to you. Shabana might be under five feet. We're not 100%. I'm not built for this world. It's one of those things you do not think about. Jake Johnson is back. Jake, he just had an incredible phone call, but we have an even bigger issue that I really want to bring you in on now. Umbrellas. Beyond umbrellas. During the call, Gareth just casually threw out that he shares a hotel room with the stand-up comic that's opening for him.

This kid is sitting at his house of . . . He just taped a special. Cut that up. Hotel rooms have never been cheaper. There is a deeper issue if you are sharing a hotel room with another man. Shabana, please help us out. I actually think, I kind of really respect what you're doing, Gareth. Thank you, Shabon. I think inconvenience is the price you pay for community.

And I think this guy wants to be friends with some funny people. He's literally going, he's doing his tour, he's finding people he thinks are funny. And he's going, he's going to put him in the same room as me we can hang out all day, every day, slumber party with a funny person. I don't know. I mean, I've never been on tour. Actually, I used to do comedy. You just had changed?

I completely forgot about that. Yeah, I did. Yeah. Sorry about that. I think it's amazing you forgot about that. How long did you do stand-up tour? I, oh my God, I can't believe I totally blanked on this. I did musical comedy by accident with a friend who wanted to do musical comedy,

and she signed me up for a competition as a duo. And I went to her house and I was like, to pick her up for Ted I go to a movie. And she was like, hey, do you sing? And I was like, yeah. And she was like, great. We're competing in a comedy competition on Thursday. It was Monday. We've never done a comedy before, either of us.

And then we got to states. And then we just kept getting asked to do stuff. So it just got out of hand. And then we'd do like a run on fringe and then we'd win an awards. We had to tour somewhere else. That's where classy standups go, Gere. I've heard of it. Yeah, I totally forgot I did comedy.

Wow. Sorry. I need to talk about my therapist. I need to talk my therapist about that. This is not a bad. We're going to start encouraging that more on this show. It's a good thing. Sorry, continue.

That's bully Gareth. Hey, Shabana, how did you get started? What were you doing before comedy? Before, well, I was acting. So, what's your origins to her? How did you get into this? How did you get into doing fringes? How did it all start?

Do you have fringe here? Do you have fringe? We do. Yeah, I did all the things. I used to do a two-person comedy show. we did all the fringes in the States. I loved him. Oh, yeah, so I guess we're the same.

But I started because I didn't get to drama school because my parents wouldn't let me be an actor. They were like, that's crazy. We're immigrants you're being crazy. And they were right, because you don't make money as an actor. Or I mean, I didn't, for sure, for a minute. And then I was allowed to do one drama school edition in my life, and then they were like, and after this audition,

we don't want to hear about it ever. If you don't get him, we never want to hear about acting ever again. I crashed my car on the way to the audition, had the worst edition of my life, did not get into drama school. And then I was like, well, that was the deal. I'll just shut up about it now forever. And then a few years later, I was doing like an arts media degree, which is actually the perfect training ground, I think, for an actor. Because I'm not from LA. I'm not, I have no connections.

So I think as an actor, instead of learning how to act, you need to learn how to be unemployed. And an arts degree is actually the perfect way to learn that. I'm so good at being unemployed. It's, you know, no issues with that. So I did that. And then, yeah, I was working at an office. And my boss, who was a producer of films, said, what do you actually want to do?

Because this is not a way you're passionate about. And I'd love to act. And within an hour, she got me on audition. And I booked it. What was that first job you booked? It was a short film that the place I was working was producing because we were like an emerging filmmakers hub. And it was, I played a cat that got turned into a human.

Cool. Sure. We've all been there. We do have a caller, Natalie. We do have a caller. Eric, thank you for joining us for the mouth tape nightmare. I think Jake is back to take over. Yeah.

Awesome to meet Shabana. Talk to you later. Lovely to meet you. Tell me about the mouth tape. Yeah. Fire. Hello. Hi.

Hi. Hi. Welcome to the show. Can we get your name, please? Yeah. My name is honor. What's your name again? Honor. Just like Honor and then...

I bet you're very used to saying that. Honorah. Where are you calling from, Onora? I'm calling from Denver. Honor. We have Jake. We have myself. And we have Shabana Aziz is joining us.

So we won't get into her umbrella issues yet. But they exist. But we know she's little. We know she's little and she's probably, yeah. Well, we're not sure. She's between 4-11 and... She might be little or big. Yeah, we're not sure.

But we're not here about that. We're here for you, Honor. That's exactly right. Thank you, Shabana. All right, honor. What is going on? So, long story short, my mom, who is very religious, sat me down about five years ago and said,

I'd had a conversation with God. He's told me that if I buy you a wedding dress, you will meet the love of your life and get married within the next three months. So if you let me, I'll buy you a wedding dress. It was not something I wanted to do. I was very single, but because I love and respect to my mother, I let her do it for me. Three months went and came, did not be the love of my life, did not get married. And now it's been five years.

And I just have a wedding dress. I think of my husband. Shabana, this shocked you, obviously. I loved this. Oh, my God, it's the dress. Wow. Oh. I don't know if I'm comfortable explaining a wedding dress.

It looks, oh, okay, there you are in the wedding dress. So you're a beautiful dress. Yeah. Thank you. You look good. Yeah, it's a beautiful. This is a $3,000 dress, and I feel like it is going to waste. Wow.

Honor, it's not going to waste. What have a great time? A little bit if it's just sitting in a corner. We'll see. We'll see. So what is the question we can help you with today? My question is, what do you think I can, do with my wedding dress.

I would love to have a reason to wear it or showcase it or I don't know. I'm tired of throwing at it and having it daunting me and reminding me that I've disappointed not only my mother but also God. God. I think God's okay with it. Go ahead, Shabana. Are you yourself religious honor? Yeah, I believe in God.

I would say spiritual. Spiritual. Are you, oh, go ahead. Well, I was going to say what you should do. is if your mom is disappointed and you're not disappointed. Because that's crazy. You weren't going to meet the love of your life in three months after getting a wedding dress. Are you God, Shabana?

Once again, my lawyer is not present. I want to be answering questions. You're quite tiny for God if you're God, by the way. Who's to say? You know. It's fair. But wouldn't it be great if you got her to set you up with a bunch of people and then you shut up to each date in that wedding dress?

Like, wouldn't that be so fun? That's really. She's very religious and everyone she knows is very religious and not up my alley. Okay. Okay. So that's not an option. But do you feel like you have to preserve the wedding dress? Like, are you okay if we pitch, you know, going out, just hanging out in it?

Is that an option? Or are you trying to find something you can do with it that's not as sociable? I honestly, I don't really have any pushback on anything. I'm happy to hear any pitches and I don't feel like I need to preserve it. It's been preserved for the last five years and it's done nothing. I've got an idea. I do too. Go ahead, Jake.

What if we, you're in Denver, you said? Yeah. What if we found eligible bachelors in Denver who wanted to get in tuxedos and do a photo shoot with you? and we took wedding photos with a bunch of different bachelors and we voted on who makes the best-looking couple together and we don't play them this, but as a long way to do a weird parent trap to see, you got to be single,

but you guys take a wedding photo, everybody goes, you look cute together, and maybe this was a weird way that God was right. It wasn't three months, it was five years and a few months in a podcast. I actually, I like a lot of that. I kind of had something before that maybe pairs with that nicely. I like that on its own.

What do you got, dearth? Well, there is a unique opportunity to, if you have a wedding dress, like, people recognize you're in the middle of something big. If we did what Jake said, and let's say we pair you up with someone else in a tuxedo who's down for this, you could probably. go out and have a very cheap slash free experience in Denver or adjacent areas by people thinking that you and someone else, everyone wants to buy you a drink, everyone wants to give you things. You might be able to go out there and montage it up pretty big if we set you up with someone

in a tuxedo and it's like you guys just got married and are out having an experience, you know? I want a fake wedding. Yeah, Shabana, what do you think? None of these options work if you're normal. That's an all title for the show, to be honest with Shavada. That is an all title for everything. That's much. None of these ideas work if you're normal.

We're here to help. So I guess the question is, are you normal or would you do any of those things? I, you know, I think I have a wedding dress and have been single for five years, never engaged. a little weird. Do you know what I'm thinking you could also do? Throw the wedding dress on, do the makeup, do the raccoon eyes with your mascara, and go into places like you just got stood up. Because I'll tell you what's going to happen is somebody's going to go,

you what? And you're going to go, I got stood up on my wedding night and they're going to go, let me buy you dinner. And one of these guys is going to be goddamn Prince Charming. That's not true. The first part might be, though. Nobody. By the way.

Sorry, PSA to all people. If anybody tries to hook up with you while you're wearing a wedding dress, that person is not a life partner. I mean, there's rebounds, and then there's the Dennis Rodman rebound, which you're talking about. That's bad. That's true. My I buy you some pasta. If you're trying to hook up with you while you're wearing a wedding dress.

I heard you had a baby. A life partner. I heard you had a bad day. So, Honor, let me ask you a question. What are you looking for? Just to how to get rid of the dress? Are we giving up on God being right and finding you a partner? Because we can figure out of what,

something fun to do with the dress. But what is the want behind the want on this question? You know, I think I want to change my point of view on it. I want it to be something that, you know, brings me joy every time I see it instead of don't see. That sounds fun. Okay. So we can stop the parent trap idea.

We're not looking for a husband. We are looking to change the point of view of the wedding dress and turn it from, this was a sad thing, and Indu, this is a really fun thing. Do you wear fancy dress often? No, never. So we can't die. I got an idea. I got an idea.

Go ahead. We throw it in the Denver area. women of divorce wedding gown party night you guys go on a bar crawl in your wedding dresses but you all the only rule is is the wedding did not work I as a guy

like it that's my take Shabana what do you think I like it very much I've heard of these parties where you wear like the outfit that you have but you've never had the opportunity to wear Have you heard of those parties? No, honestly, but I like it.

Well, you know, like the fanciest dress, the thing you have in your wardrobe that you love, but you're never going to wear out. And I think you could throw one of these potties with your friends and rock up in a wedding dress, and that's kind of like you would win a prize. You would win a prize. You know, the dress is, honestly, it is a tough gift.

I mean, that's a lot of goddamn pressure, which is why I think what we're pitching is basically just take the power back and just go find, a totally kind of ridiculous who cares reason over it. So I would say you should, honestly, I would just find a way to go out and wear it in a way where it's low stakes, just kind of silly and fun.

I like Jake's pitch of get, if you want to just, like he said, we could float it out there. If there are people in the Denver area or a drive-away who want to join up to go out and wear their wedding, their wedding day dresses that now kind of do hang in this weird sort of limbo of nice, so I don't want to get rid of it, but also what the fuck, not like my favorite memory or something like that. Why don't we pitch you guys go out there as like a not, you know, low stakes wedding dress day, or like we're saying, we could set up a photo shoot for you or something like that,

or you and a fake groom we find you can go out and have a. a free sort of montage day, or you can look like you got left at the altar and also go see what happens, you know, any number of those, Shabana. And then after that, get rid of the dress. There is also that. This is not your wedding dress. Honestly, there's also that you could try. I think that's kind of true, too.

So why don't we go have one blowout day with it where you can go do one of the options we pitched? And then after that, why not try to fucking see it? sell it or go to some bridal store and try to see if they want it. Is that how any of this works? Natalie Shabana? Oh, if you have a rage room near you, if you have a rage room near you, you can take the dress to the rage room and destroy it,

unless it's very expensive. It's 3K, right? That's very expensive. Yeah, it was $3,000. I don't think I want to destroy it. I would try to find a way to get something out of it, and then I would try to find a way to get some money from it. Yes, but in all of this,

know that your worth is not tied to you using the dress. Yes. And your life doesn't happen on your mom and God's timelines and you're doing great. Yes. And your next relationship is not going to, you're not going to have the dress looming in the back of your mind when you date this next person that you date.

Yeah. It's also, it's a really weird thing. It's like an archaic idea of, you know, like we got this. important dress and all. It's just a lot of pressure. So out of all the things we've pitched, Honor, what do you think you're going to do? I think I want to have a fake wedding. I want to get to wear the dress and have people find me dressed and I want a fake wedding.

Okay. Well, we're not giving you a fake wedding. We're offering you a low-rent groom. That's what we're offering. Fake wedding the show will not be paying for. We can find you. Now, do you want the show to try to help you find a low-rent groom? or do you just want to talk to someone you know and be like, hey, Darren, put on that fucking tuxedo. We're going to go have free shrimp. Oh, I know no men. I would love for you to put it on the show.

Natalie, how do we feel about that? I feel great about it. I think Jake would be very happy. We're going with fake wedding because his internet died and he left. He did leave. So here's what we're going to do. We are now putting the bat signal out there.

We are asking Denver area gentlemen who have a tuxedo and also have no shame to reach out, and you're going to go out, and you and Honora are going to go get some stuff for free. There's also the option, if we get a bunch of them, we could portion a day out into like three different tuxedo people if you wanted. See if maybe there's some weird sparks there. I don't know. Where are you at Shabana?

How do you feel about that? I am obsessed with you, Honor. And I think... We all are. This is so fun. And also, if you've got more men, if you've got three men with tuxedos, why not they fight over you? You know, like the best fake groom wins. They could, who knows how weird this all gets?

But we'll start here. People, men of Denver with tuxedos who are looking to go scam the system with honor, you know, email the show, helpful pot at gmail.com. And let's just start there. Fuck yeah. Awesome. Thank you guys. All right, Anora. Thank you. Thank you.

We will be in touch. Sounds good. All right. Thank you, Anna. And thank you, Shabana. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for helping. This was a gift.

We changed a lot of lives today. That's right. Without question. We've saved one relationship and moved on from the trauma of a non-existent one. And we're doing a lot. We did some science. We did some social experiments. Science.

Eric yells. a tremendous amount. Jake left. You joined us for a unique situation, but thank you, Shabana. And everyone should go watch the pit. Everyone, thank you so much. Everyone should go watch the pit.

It's lovely to meet you guys. You too. I'm a little bit behind on episodes, but I'm listening to the CalPen episode, and I just have to chime in about Jake and Gareth's confusion about Sarah's response. to whether or not she had noticed Connor's hands in regards to the tiny little boy tie. And I get it as a woman.

There's something about a man's hands, you know, so that's not a completely out-of-line response. Sarah, I'm with you. I get it. We're here to help is hosted by Jake Johnson and Gareth Reynolds. If you'd like to be on the show, please email us your question at Helpful Pod at Gmail. com. And if you want to watch video episodes of We're Here Here to Help, you can go to our Patreon at patreon.com slash here to help pod

to see our entire catalog. We're Here to Help is produced by Rabbit Grimm Productions. Executive producers Rob Hollis, Jeff Porter, and Natalie Hollis, Associate producer Jesse Thurston, editing mix and master by Chris Foller. Theme song by Oliver Raleigh. The cover artwork is by James Fostike. Animation's by Andrew

Strelecky. And if you'd like to see Gerith do stand up on the road, go to Gareth, com. Remember all of the advice given on we're here to help is for entertainment purposes only, and all listeners should be adults and make their own decisions. That was a headgum podcast. All video episodes of season one are available now on Patreon, and season two video episodes will be available every Monday starting January 20th. Go to patreon.com forward slash here to help pod.