Ep. 111 - Chris and his Dad, James Fairbanks (bonus Montana episode)

Are you leaving?

I you wanna way back home? Either way, we want to be there. Doesn't matter how much baggage you claim and give us time and a terminol ingay. We want to send you off InStyle. We wanna welcome you back home. Tell us all about it.

We scared her?

Was it fine?

Melbourne? Do you need to ride?

Do you need to ride?

Do you need to ride?

Do you need to ride? Do you need to ride?

Do you need to ride?

Damn to ride? Do you need with? Karen and Chris?

Welcome to Do you need to ride? This is Chris Fairbanks. I'm in Missoula, Montana, my hometown. At the end of a two week was I here two weeks? About two weeks?

Vacation seemed like two weeks.

It did seem like exactly two weeks. At no point was it going too fast or too slow. I think that's just a sign of me enjoying myself.

That's always a good thing.

My father is with me, James Fairbanks. I don't call you James ever, nor do I really call you father. I remember sure when I was little it said anyone can be a father, but it takes someone special to be a daddy. But when I call you daddy, Like at the end of a phone call, anyone in the room will make fun of me. All right, see you later, daddy. Like then my roommate will go, what.

Did you just call your dad?

You know, daddy? Totally normal, That's what everyone calls. There lots of Daisy's, whoopsie, Daisy's. I let that one out. My dad was born in nineteen forty four, the year that Allied Force has stormed the beaches of Normandy. That's the you know, Jefferson was elected that year. The papers everyone read about it. You were born the same year as Danny DeVito, George Lucas, Michael Douglas. And I know, I'm glad you're my father, but Michael Douglas would have

You know.

Cars were expensive even though they were just a thousand.

Bucks, and they were simple, kind of like the people.

A postage snamp was three cents. Seventeen magazine first came out in nineteen forty four, teaching young women, I suppose table manners and what kind of bloomers to wear in the fall, what length of skirt to wear for clay field tennis sporting. I don't know. I don't know what seventeen magazine talked about back then.

It was an interesting time for a kid, I think, and we all think back and people still tell stories, like parents about how great it was to be a kid back in the olden days.

And it was. There were plenty of things to do, and parents didn't seem.

To worry about kids. I would submit, they didn't care where you were or little I was.

When you were a kid, there weren't white vans driving around Missoula looking snatch people up right right?

Kids were expensive, Who wants an extra one? You know?

But I mean also, you look around, there were a lot of There were a lot of little kids my age whose parents or whose dads had been killed in the war.

There were a lot of people that.

Were missing limbs like there are now, but there were a lot more than And there.

Were little kids that had polio who were crippled.

Am I making it up that you had a brush with polio?

I think that.

I think that every parent was hyper sensitive about fevers that ran unexplained for a day or two.

So, yeah, there was there was a point in time where they were afraid. Maybe I did, but you just maybe I had symptoms but it went away in a week.

Or it was the flu and some shin splints.

Yeah, something like that.

But polio was a big deal, and it wasn't until the fifties the Sulk and ultimately the Saban One dead German, one live German. I guess vaccine came in and nobody thinks about polio.

Nineteen forty four was also the year of Germans tried to assassinate Hitler but unsuccessfully. I'm just throwing that out there. You mentioned Germans. Yeah, oh, it's in the books, this pamphlet is printed. Well, I'm assuming none of it is lies. Granulated sugar was seventy five cents for ten pounds, so that's enough sugar for a month with your cobblers. Everyone just back then, cobblers Rubart.

There was no McDonald's. There was so fast food. You ate what was.

Put in front of you, and it took hours to make, and a lot of times it wasn't good. My favorite was my dad, very strict sober guy who was seldom sober, would say things like something wrong with your dinner, Jimmy, Oh no.

Daddy, absolutely not. I would you like to eat at the neighbors? Hell? Yes?

But you didn't say hell yes.

I did not say hell yes.

Did he say I want you to eat every bean and pee on that plate?

Yes? Or maybe I just said that.

I think that that's probably something you said. You came up with the jokes. He didn't joke as much.

Did he look at that person? Drive?

Yeah?

Did you ever have a wreck when you do this?

No? No? I think one time while driving, I realized how vulnerable Eddie Peppatone was in the back seat. I think we had a close call, And I'm like, this is a flawed concept. A moving podcast A twitchy. Well, it's just he happened to be in the car and I just wasn't paying attention and we almost killed a one of comedy's sweethearts. He didn't know. He didn't know. I just noticed the close call. He was in the middle of the story, and I'm like, well, we almost

Well.

I was born in Minnesota, Christopher, Yeah, and then came to here I was about sixth grade. I guess we moved around quite a bit. I was in nine schools in twelve.

Grades, which a lot, which meant you had to fight every.

Lot of us fights a lot of But girls like me, girls always like the new guy.

Because you're a mysterious drifter out and you're wearing a long.

Where's he from?

I hear he's from some exact town in Montana.

He looks like Buddy Holly.

But we're coming up on a place that I would go with my father and this had this started back in Minnesota when I was tiny, where he would go to a bar and leave me in the car winter summery didn't really matter, and go in and drink shots and beers.

How long would you sometimes be in the car.

I don't.

I think probably it wasn't a long time. There's the place right.

At the Oxford.

Yeah, it's fair. Everybody's got an Oxford in their town.

The one here is famous, though, a lot of people know about the one in Missoula. Yeah, because it was made in the first building that came up in town maybe.

Or it was.

You know.

It goes back to prohibition.

It goes back to the woman's movement and trying to get alcohol away from their husbands who wouldn't bring their paycheck home. That's what started prohibition anyway. So all of that concern.

Really the protecting of the sanctity.

Of marriage and family. Of course, that makes sense.

So I finally got to be big enough to go in and sit on a stool and become very quiet waiting for my dad to throw down a couple of week.

And it wasn't an age thing. They're just like, how tall are you? Okay?

So I go in one day and I saw something that that.

Kind of alarmed me. Had struck me.

I'd never seen something like this before, and it was an angry bartender who was chewing and at the same time throwing ice. They usually had a huge thing that was filled with ice, and they reached their hand, their dirty hand in and grabbed and made your drink and then they chew on the ice. A lot of bartenders, I think I've seen that movies. Why to test that the ice is don't know, maybe maybe if few have access to I see her into it.

Yeah, I can't explain.

So he's angry. This guy is angry, and twelve year old boys like to see angry men for some reason. Sure, I want to get to the bottom of this.

I can't wait to grow up and be angry like you.

So what he's angry about is they just hired a new bartender, and he's a little anxious about his place in the organization. I think they have just hired a woman bartender, and he is pissed. It's bad enough I got to compete with other men. Now I got to compete with a woman. Have you met this woman? No, never seen her. So you're really not angry at her.

It's just that she's.

Coming in and she's going to take my job and going to be way cuter than me. Yeah, so that I had never seen that before, and I thought, what this guy is mad at women?

He was maybe he was nervous that she'd maybe be more competent.

Right, because after all, there's a place for women.

There definitely was in that time, in the mid to late fifties. Yeah, women knew their place and stayed there. My mother was smarter than my father. My mother was educated. She was a teacher. My father drove a trunk, right, good guy, silent, silent.

Wess share it.

Scary, but he was a good guy.

But I noticed that they always went to cowboy movies. They listened to western music. My mother sang opera for crying out lout.

And she was a great whistler. Her whistle would be oh, yes, she had like a vibrating tenor to her.

She used to sing at church and have to go there, and she was so loud, you know, soprano.

You know, she had a big voice.

How embarrassing.

Oh, it's terrible, terrible, But I mean, you know, I started thinking about other things. Well, what about.

If women artists shouldn't have the same things as men, maybe people of color.

Shouldn't have the same things as men.

I started looking around, I started seeing that people thinking that way. Yeah, so, so times were good in the fifties.

I think it was.

I mean, you have to appreciate that that after in World War Two we beat the hell out of the world. Germany bombed England, We bombed Germany, Germany devastated Russia. Russia and killed you know, there was a lot going on, none of it good, and a lot of towns got bombed, but not here. Times were good here as good as they could be during war, so that at the end of the war, we've kind of blown up the whole country, including Japan, a lot of carpet bombing there.

So we had no competition as a.

Nation as no one bombed does. Yeah, we had this great piece of real estate. If you ever look at a map of the United States, you see all these rivers. We have this navigation system that is unparalleled on the planet with rivers. Then Eisenhower during the fifties oversaw the building of our highway system. No other country has that, so we could move goods around. We had stuff in our country, just about everything. The only thing they were actioned during a World War II.

We had some whiskey. We didn't have whisky. No, that was just the recording device I need to change.

During World War two, I think nylon and chocolate and rubber were rationed things like that, maybe even sugar. But we had roast beef, you know, we had cars, and so life.

Was pretty good here.

So when people say and when people look fondly back, especially old white men like me, look back fondly on the good old days, a lot of it has to do with all good things going to white guys, right, you know.

And maybe it's the same thing.

That you think about when you think about make America great again. I always thought it sounded like make America nineteen fifty eight again, of course, or is it make America hate again? Yeah, there's just some interesting parallels. People feel disenfranchised, certainly white men, older old white men, older white men, or maybe old white men. If if if their bartender job is in jeopardy because some woman or smarter guy comes in to take it, I want to.

Scream, right, Yeah, So it was it was just a yeah, that simpler time thing. It's not if that always gave me creeps since the beginning I did. It took me a while to realize that's what magus stood for. Well, yeah, and what people in red Hat's great. What people say and what people really mean. Quite often two different things. I suspect that our current president, mister Trump uh speaks because he is a good talker.

Like him or not?

Boy is he?

Or he?

A linguist said that he speaks out of level fifth grade does within.

Broken sentences if you ever see it written down.

But he can't he can be persuasive, never to someone like me, maybe not to someone like you.

But he can't be persuasive, I think.

And then they said Hillary spoke at an eighth grade, ninth grade level, and Bernie was twelfth.

Yeah, both are both were flawed candidates. It was a surprise actually she won. She won, So I think that much of the position of the current administration is whim and what sounds good or what.

Goes over at the rally.

Yeah, and coming down an escalator saying that people coming from another country are rapists and murderers. There are a lot of people, maybe like that bartender that lost his job, that think that is a real threat, and it's things in my life would be a lot greater if only those.

People didn't exist.

He just said this weekend that the biggest problem with Europe is immigration, and we're gonna Europe's gonna lose their culture wouldn't you like to be if you if you were French or English or Belgian Belgianese, would you.

Like getting advice from this man?

But it seems to feed into insecurities and angers. And I think I don't even know if he believed.

Yeah, you were saying, and it was an interesting comparison. You were saying that he just repeats what seems to work like it's a new bit in his act.

Yeah, he's building his act, and the anti sometimes doesn't work out great when you start separating babies from their families.

Yeah, that one. He won't do that joke anymore.

No, I don't know that. You did see those babes east.

Did Oh, that wouldn't affect him.

Oh, I don't know that he cares. Yeah, it just hurts the message. Right, I don't know what he cares about. He's kind of a chubby old racist who who.

Prefers hamburgers to.

His kids and accept the hot one.

Yeah, except the hot one girl, and doesn't know what he doesn't know, doesn't care. And now we're up in the mountains.

We are in the Rattlesnake. You lived here at some point, right, maybe not that far.

Yeah, it used to be this is. This is a very wooded area.

It's called the Rattlesnake Wilderness, and there's a trail that goes up for miles. Remember when you were tiny and I'd put you on the back of a motorcycle and we'd take off.

And later I wrote, bikes all the way up there, thirteen miles up and I miss that. I miss it.

But yeah, there are lakes up there that do are used for the water system for the city.

I guess I didn't ride that far. I don't remember lakes or used to be.

It used to be. It came down.

There's a damn semi working and most of most of the water comes from wells now.

But these beautiful lakes up there. You and I have gone up there when you were tiny on the motorcycle.

Didn't Is there rattlesnake? Why is it called the rattlesnake? There's not a lot of rattic I think with.

The twisting river there rattlesnake.

Didn't someone you know find a rattlesnake and chop it up and put it in a backpack. What's that story?

The guy I knew was hiking, he's an outdoorsy guy, yeah, Mike Lambert, Yeah, sure, sure, yeah.

And he was hiking and he was up on a rock looking around, appreciating the vistas. Right, and he hears unfriendly noises, right, and he looks down there are It's not a snake.

It's a pit of snakes, multiple snakes.

Just straight out of Indiana.

Jones, Yeah, something like that. And he has a big grabs a big stick. There's always a big stick available. Sure, And he starts beating these snakes, you know, like they did anything to him.

If I saw a bunch of snakes, I would just be in the next comedy.

Yeah, you know. Good day fellas.

Yeah, nice to see you. This can be your place from now on.

So he starts beating these snakes, killing them, and then he says, well, I'm gonna take them with me to make boots.

I don't know, to make dinner.

Sure, what eat snakes? Sure?

So he has a backpack.

He loads five six, seven rattlesnakes into his backpack. Before he does this, he thinks, I have heard of a snake biting someone after it's dead.

Sure, beast, do that snakes to that? Yeah, I think that happens. You have to slam your arm into its teeth. But I'm sure it happens.

Well, this constricting thing goes on, they keep moving, they're dead. Yeah, chops their heads off.

Sure might think you might as well.

Why wouldn't you do that?

No, and puts him in his backpack. Start walking down the hill with this constant movement.

In his backpack.

That would bother me. Yeah, and you were there, you were seeing it.

Hellowes, Yeah, okay, told me the story.

Okay, And I was obviously tied up, couldn't get out of there.

You can get another drink something and blood? I think, how much blood a snake?

It's coming down, draining down his legs, his back.

Yes, ages are just a water balloon of blood.

Oh no, thank you know.

This is not the only thing the guy did. I don't have an end of that story into that. He was hiking down in the bitter roots, huh. And he was hot and sweaty, so he thought he's again appreciating the vistas. Yes, and he thinks, I'm going to take this shirt off and try it out a little bit to nice day.

Maybe don't take my pants off, Yeah, which sucks.

What are these underwear doing here?

Yeah? Maybe he had his shoes on good.

So he thought, you know, I can have a better view if I climb up there, and so he scrambles up and gets up to the top. He enjoys it for a while, looks I can't get back down, that's too steep.

So he's up there naked.

And need somebody to come and get him.

Wouldn't your family be proud?

This is not a cell phone time, No, no cell phones.

I don't know how unless his wife was aware of where he was hiking.

And ultimately he waited. He had waited this march to wait.

This was in the newspaper.

I think it probably was.

Wow. I remember that. Yeah, just naked on the edge of a cliff, right, holding on to a twig.

How you doing good?

And I'm sure this look?

Don't grab me there?

That's funny. Could you grab those pants? But I know there's a news crew and you have to operate that camera. But my pants are just hanging on that twig. If you could just fling them towards me. But yeah, I remember riding motorcycles up here. It was fun.

It was fun.

Yeah, and now you can't even walk up here.

See.

The more the more people discover a place the more restrictions you have.

To put on it. It seems backwards, right, But it used to be. You know, in high school, you get a couple of girls.

And a couple of guys in the car and you drive up here, you go drive until it's been dark for twenty minutes when you're seventeen sure, so you know you're really alone. Yeah, and we used to go way up there, and then there was a time that the engine wouldn't start and I really didn't know these two girls that much and we had to walk out.

They were really angry.

Of course, they probably didn't have the appropriate foot player.

Yeah, and it's dark and it's in the forest, and we're miles away from this road. So we're walking out and trying to tell jokes, trying to light in the mid It's kind of funny. You know, we're gonna look back on this and really, Susie, what do you think all girls but the name Susie? Back there, so somebody hears something. I turn around and start walking backwards so I can see what's behind us. There's a there's a mountain lion stroking us.

Oh wow.

From this side of the road to that side of the road.

And I'm thinking these two girls are never going to talk to me anyway. Yeah, and the other guy, but I'm not gonna tell him there's a mountain lion.

Back here, right, they might panic and that's those kind of cats, that's yeah, that's what they feed on, right, fear right.

And you know I was just stoic, except for the part where they noticed I went in my pants. Sure, but we walked out, no incident and went back the next day with another.

Car to pick it up.

Be honest, though, with the was the first thig on your mind? Can I run faster?

Right? You don't have to run faster than the mountain lion? Yeah, just run faster than whoever you're.

With, Right, that's always a good rule of them.

Yes, it is this right here, this stretch of road, this long stretch of road is where we.

Drag with drag race for pink slips.

Not we weren't idiots.

Isn't that it wasn't racing.

For pink So you can give up a two hundred dollars car.

Yeah, come on, it's just doing. It's just half your income for the year.

Yeah.

No, all titles used to be pink slipping.

It was exciting, and we came up and usually came up in two or three car loads to people two guys. Usually they add fast cars. Or somebody came in from Clinton, right, little little town.

To the east, and they who's got that fifty six ford with a four barrel? I want to see him? Is that a or a two seventy two in that?

Well, that's a healthy competition though with a three twelve.

Yeah, I never told another soul. I was fun. Yeah, drag racing was fun. I think. I think high school in Montana was fun. I always enjoyed myself.

I suppose there was mine. You enjoyed it more than me.

I think.

I remember parking on that road in a semi circle and watched my friend Matt. They turned on lights and we had to watch Matt get beat up by some kid that was already out of probably in college, some wrestler, and he was like, we're gonna fight, and Matt was like, all right. We drove up here. Everyone turned on their KC lamps on the top of their trucks and we watched this fight. It was a horri fine truck. It

But it was right.

It was on that road, the drag race road. It makes sense. It's along straight road. Why not drag race?

Yeah, drag racing up here, and then the sugar beat road by which is all.

Mall right, now, Oh we did sugar beats here. I thought that was an Idaho.

You know, there's a there's a couple of brick buildings out in that that are now people write computer code there, I think, but they used to be sugar beat building. So farmers around here. This is a pretty straight up and down part of Montana. This is not This is the least agricultural county up the fifty six in Montana. I would suspect, yeah, it's vertical because we're in a valley.

But occasionally a farmer had come up with it. I got a couple of bushels sugar beach about we get some sugar.

Oh, simple business. It was a great time. What about how much has Missoula been impacted by the closing of these bills? That was our thing right, making paper. And now, now what does Missoula do right?

Well, I think you know it's worse than other places.

But yeah, all of the sawmills are pretty much yeah, they're all closed down. There's a particle board plant. But we had two plywood mills and stud mills.

Nothing.

And this was this was a This was an area that lived on forestry. We have the University of Montana here, that's a big deal. And regional shopping and healthcare. So much has changed over the last fifty years. Healthcare is a big part of our economy. Finance is a big part of our economy. We sell each other insurance and Hamburgers and loan each other money. Right, that's what instead of making two buy force, I mean they still make tu by force in Canada and.

Georgia and they do it here.

These trees right here, Yeah, in twenty years they'll grow in Georgia.

It takes sixty years here better. What Yeah, two.

By fours from a Montana tree is more dense just.

Because it takes a little longer.

Yeah, I did nothing. It takes three times as long.

Oh oh nah, we got an una to live on this street?

I did, I did?

Did you hear about the snowboarder that caused the death of two people.

And snow that came down and crushed their house.

Why did would they just had to say it was a snowboarder.

Snowboarder a shelter here.

Couldn't he just be a mountain sportsman?

Oh my gosh? And look at that. There's a new house going right there.

Oh wow, that's that's okay.

You see that ravine going almost straight up this mountain.

Someone was hiking up there.

Someone was snowboarding up there.

It could have been a hiker, could have been a hiker.

Could have been a clown. I don't know.

I got juggling Barnum and Bailey. Yes, of course, you know if it was a pachoderm.

You know what did I imagine that crevasse.

Filled with snow. Yeah, and a little of it comes loose. It came right down here and took that.

House out, and that's where they're building.

It was a guy, a guy and his wife were in there.

She was killed. Oh wow, Yeah, I forgot.

This house was damaged. It was horrible.

This story doesn't end well, that was not that long ago, a couple three years. Oh, there's the finish. That's a real.

Well look at that your cousin's house.

Oh is it? Oh wow? I went to his wedding. Yeah, he makes cool houses.

He does make cool houses.

He makes coal houses. Ah, there we go. I still got it. Even though I've had some time off, I haven't done comedy for about a month. It feels great. I've been so relaxed.

I've the not working thing.

Those of us who are retired, I get it. The not working thing is really great. Occasionally you have to do something to.

Convince yourself you're not an idiot.

I don't know what to do with my hands. I've been anxious. I do a lot of Oh we're coming up on some shirtless Yeah, environmentalists. Hi, they are a handsome looking couple. It's hot out, that's why they were.

Yeah, people wouldn't look like that normally. We're so hot.

Now getting all that, I was.

Going to go on this alley where we used to live. Your sister looked there. You never did.

Yeah, No, it's fine, and I don't want to hurt your feelings. But some of the wiring you did in the basement, and I'm not saying it's your fault, but I went to a party that happened to be at this house, and it had caught fire in the basement. There was burn marks coming from the light fixtures. I'm not saying it was maybe a coincidence. I've hurt your feelings.

I want to just get out.

I'm sorry. You know what. I think that they said that it was something they had done, They had tripped the breaker, and they.

Anything as possible. It's just romax and wire nuts. It's it ain't science.

It could have been anyone.

Yeah, I don't think I got anything wrong, but.

I think that these guys they were a tight alley, isn't it. Yeah? I can we even make it through this? We are well, here's another Nick Cole.

Looking well, I'll show you another house. He is.

My little cousin.

Here's my old place right there.

There are no rules. We aren't supposed to go anywhere.

Look at that fence, good lord.

That could use some work. That's the house. Wow, well the fence definitely isn't your fault.

I have never you know, I've owned several houses. I've never.

Had difficulty walking away from them, especially when you look over and see a.

Oh that's the size mattress at one that was a nice bed. Here's this school up here.

He used to skateboard at dangling participle.

It was I'm sorry, these are short shorts. Yeah that that wasn't I like this place that. I have a lot of memories. He used to jump off of that thing. We'd play basketball there.

Well, this there were no it's.

An international school.

There were many neighborhood schools that were grades one through eight and which was in conflict with with the way education is none elsewhere, and we had to change it. So they got away from from uh neighborhood schools and did the middle school thing.

But it was expensive and complicated, and I don't know what was gained. I was always I always thought Nick made this one too. One of these in here. I think it's this one that's Oh I think it's this one right here. Oh not pretty.

Oh wow, that looks like an older house.

Yeah, it is an older house. It was a redo.

Well now we're stuck.

We're totally stuck.

Oh boy, Oh that guy, this guy's no one's ever. Yeah, he's gonna come out with a shotgun. No one's ever in his drive way. There was time, wasn't there a time we were on the motorcycle and some banjo deliverance type guys came out to meet you. Yes, yes, yeah, I don't remember it, but I was there.

No, you weren't there, Okay.

I was just up riding a motorcycle up on top of a mountain and I'm off, you know what I'm doing, appreciating the visinus.

Yes, yes, pantiless.

Yeah.

So so these two guys in the jeep drive up. There was something about being alone in the middle of nowhere. It is scary as hell when somebody else shows up, right, like anarchy, Right, it's.

Like everybody's on his own, that kind of thing. You don't know what to expect. This guy is an axe, he's gonna come after me. These two guys are the jeep. What you doing? Yeah, I want to be here.

And it was like ten fifteen in the morning, and I thought, you know, I'm just going to look around a little bit and I'm each inching over toward the motorcycle hit the leg.

Over it, which they noticed.

Yeah, they started. That was as soon as it started. I figured out it's fine.

Yeah, And I thought that I just cheated death right there. Yep, those guys were gonna kill me and eat me and sell my hide or something.

Sure, so mix snick boots.

Right. A week goes by.

I'm in the courthouse where I worked, and I'm walking through the courthouse and here's another guy in a suit walking toward me. He's a day up on top of the mountain. Good to see you again, briefcase so out he is a lawyer.

Yeah, there was.

Yeah. One time we were in Oregon skating in Lincoln City. They had a new skate park and we decided to sleep on the beach me in seven minth friends. We were all in our sleeping bags and we had a fire you could have fires on the beach there, and these two guys with backpacks and and neck tattoos that were big kids just approached. It was in the dark. Half of us were asleep, and I was like, hey, guys, I do mind if we stand by your fire for a minute. And I'm like, sure, I don't own that fire.

Ando just sent. Is that a decision? You're just not going to try anymore?

Go to Portland or something.

Dad.

There's guys in the bank that with briefcases they have faced had times, are changing the a and the next same thing. The next day, early in the morning, we were going and we saw these guys walking down the street and they waved smiling. Hey, thanks for last night. Right yeah, well they aren't quite as scary anymore right here, or they were the nicest guys in prison. Is that your house?

No?

One of my brother's girlfriends lived there. Oh, and our house was right up here. My brother Is this a peeping tom styl friends?

Yeah, he was.

He worked at being an attractive guy and it was paying off.

So I can guess it's one of these two houses that you lived in, right, that.

One right there.

Yeah, and he's like four years older than they.

I just thought he was the coolest ever. And but I thought, Jesus, why do you have park.

A block from your mom's house when they know why.

You're there all night? Right?

Oh?

Wow, that kind of thing.

So I hear there's noise and I go downstairs. I was a little bit alarmed. My father's it's five in the morning. My father's getting up to go drive a truck somewhere and look serious. Yeah, and my brother's just coming home. And you thought, there's this meeting in the back sphairway right, and I'm thinking, sesus, this could be dark.

This could go south quickly, And they ended up just high fiving.

No, my dad says, one of us is nuts. What did he say, one of us is nuts?

He says, five in the morning, he's just going to work. Oh, five in the morning, he's just coming home.

The guy going to work is not nuts.

I'm thinking both of them are nuts.

It's a riddle again. We could talk about that lie.

I'm in the ninth grade. I think you're both nuts.

It's five o'clock and I'm awake. I think I'm nuts.

I wasn't scared to death because of the screaming. I wouldn't have been down here anyway.

Oh were they yelling?

No, there was no yelling. No one person yelled at my house. And that was my father would yell occasionally, but very scary.

You never were scary. You never yelled, but I was. I wanted to not upset you.

Yeah, I think I think I felt the same way.

That's a that's a skill. I think a lot of parents they have to. You would give me a look or say be careful, like if I tested anything, you just say be careful. And I don't even know what that means. You've never laid a hand on me, but that scares me. I just want your approval. I'm going to be careful.

Now.

Do you remember saying be careful and then you had a whistle? Yeah? Remember giving all your heads?

I remember laughing the yeah, I think a good one.

When I was trying to cry. Yeah, I start to cry and you go, oh wow, nice try and I got damn it. He sees right through these crocodiles.

If you're going to be a parent, you have to understand children. They have no power, they have no money, They're just every kid is looking for an edge, right.

Yeah.

If you get your parents to feel bad for you, if you get them to feel guilty and buy your shit, that's how and every adult should know that.

I do.

How are you You've been through a lot, sir. That guy had the posture of a man who'd been through several labor jobs.

Went to school with him, so you know, keeping that in mind, I appreciate.

I always liked you guys a lot, and.

Yeah, I got the sense you thought we were okay, I says, very.

Night, But come on, you have an obligation to put good little citizens out there, and to that end, as.

As your sister says, no, came up a lot.

Yeah, some of some of the things you've apologized for, you you wish that you would let her go see Duran Duran at some point.

Yeah, I say that.

Now you've faced on the same decision a fourteen year old girl going, oh was she fourteenth? Five hundred miles to a mosh pit. I think I'm still gonna say no.

I think I didn't push it. But in fifth grade, on my birthday, Fishbone and the Beastie Boys played in Missoula. But I'm like, I think I was scared to go, so I didn't. I was like, should I go? No, I don't think so. Yeah, me either. I don't want to, but I probably would have enjoyed that. But I'm sorry. You know what, I can't even hear anymore because of the concerts. I went to a Jay's upstairs standing next to a speaker. I am deaf now if there's background

I think I think people around me mumble a lot. I've noticed that.

I don't think I have any hearing issues the propensity for mumbling.

You.

Yeah, when I was young, you said, uh, you should enunciate you because I had, like I think, my tongue was always hitting my teeth. They do you remember the archaic things they did. They had me sucking on a button at the end of a string to strengthen my lips to make the more tau Yeah, and they had they were going to put a cage in my mouth to poke my tongue. I think those were just ways to make me focus on the relationship of my tongue

Yeah, it works.

And you bought me braces. That's thanks for those braces. I don't know if I ever said thank you. I wish that they had not been porcelain. I would have gone metal with porcelain. After having them one week, you have a lipt and cup of soup out of a vending machine, and then they're yellow for two years now, the first two years of high school, so maybe the most important two years to not have yellow teeth.

You asked for they were experimental.

You know the funny thing about those because they cost rice as much.

They knew how to put them on, but when it came to taking them off, they were like, oh, I guess just some pliers and some hard twisting. I could feel all my teeth moving like a flexible piano. God, it was awful. Come on, sayer, and what a liar. He x rayed my hand and said I'd be six foot four. Everyone in our fan both how tall was your dad?

Six feet tall?

How tall was mom's dad?

He was over six two or three?

And then you and I short tiny feet little dicks' Come on? That last one was for effect.

Yeah, I did my feet art.

We're both yeah, we're I was, We're just you know, five nine going on five eight. I'm shrinking, But yeah, everyone's tall. Got these cousins that are tall.

I know, what what happened?

What did you do what did you what did it? Was it something you wait that I ate? Did we not eat enough Brussels sprouts? I want answers, I.

Want a longer end.

Same, I'm okay with thirty. Yeah, this is this is what I got. Sure, this is what I got. You know, each person gets something. Yeah. I think if I was taller, I wouldn't have had to be try and be funny. I don't I'd be out of a job.

Right.

So you're a funny person and you're a you're maybe the best artist I've ever known.

Well, thanks, dad, I learned it from having you teach me stuff.

So you got that.

Thanks.

A couple of years ago, I'm going to the dentist and she said, how long has it been since your class cleaning? I'd probably been five years, And I said, oh, I don't know.

Eighteen months the exact calendar. Eighteen months.

She's working on my teeth and she's saying, well, but are you sure it wasn't more recent?

Yeah?

I said, wow, no, but I do try to take care of my teeth.

So to other people, though, and they're falling out left and right. We're just lucky, she said.

Some people don't get that's stuff on your teeth, plaque or tartar. Want to know, some people don't get plack. You're one of those people. And I thought, that's what I get. I don't get to be six foot two, I don't get to be good looking, I don't get to be a captain of industry, but I don't have plaque.

Yeah. Well, meanwhile, there's a guy out there was with the six pack abs and then he's just got gummy nerve endings dangling toothless? How far before we're in a lazy eye, but a hell of an assaye?

Four before we get to l a X.

Oh yeah, we I thought that now would be a good time to podcast, since tomorrow my flight is at the unreasonable hour of six a m. So I you know my brain doesn't start. This is a pretty podcast, you know what we we've kind of gotten, speaking of we've gotten lax with the airport part of things. We sometimes go Karen and I picked up Karen last time. She is great.

I'd like to meet Karen. You will.

You will someday, just to hang on. He's very good at predicting what I'm trying to say, even when I'm struggling.

Right, I've had a couple of friends, like when it was a radio that you.

Just click with certain people like Dave Bennett. Yeah, Bennett, you should contact him maybe. Yeah, he'd be happy to hear from me.

I think he would. Yeah, well, let's see the eighty five now.

Yeah, he's probably jogging playing bagpipes. Yeah, that was I remember vasically dropping like flies Christopher. He lived in the goonies town in Astoria. Right, was that in story? And I'll never forget. It's running into some neighbor kids and they had a rope swing going over a ravine, Probably something I shouldn't have been doing, but these kids were doing it, and I swung across the ravine right into

Right.

But I was told I was allergic to bees until forty of them stung me in the legs, And I'm like, I guess that was a false alarm. I think that was just something I made up.

Maybe we're getting out towards the cemetery. You've seen your grandparents post office box? It is?

It is a little po box.

Well, it's just let's not go on the ground. I mean caskets and all that. I was, Hey, how about cremation and a little.

Post office box. Yes, it didn't go over really big?

What didn't go over big?

The post office box saying they just did enough for about fifty people.

Yeah, well then that's kind of cool.

Maybe it is.

Maybe you don't want to be a lump of you know, of mulch.

Well that's part of the whole I'm not getting buried thing, is that people are more mobile, move a lot, and you don't want to be moving away from all of your loved ones, Like, like, you have any affinity for somebody who's been dead for botmoment a lot of years, you're not talking to them. Think about them, yeah, envision them, think about what they'd be saying and thinking.

About you and your life. But I don't know that I have to be near where they're put to rest. I do come out here.

I still have mom in a little box. I haven't done anything with the ashes, but I think that's okay. Yeah, they're just kind of hanging out in my room.

Right, Whatever you got is inside you?

Yeah, I think right there. Oh well, I don't know that I even exact boxes they really do, or a war commemorative plaques.

It looks like post you do on one of those.

Yeah, that someone just someone just died. There the little red flags.

Of people come back. You can put a little receptor. Sure, see that little thing. It's like they put in the volkswagons for a flower.

Oh wow, yeah, it's yeah, it is a Volkswagen bug flower base. Wow. Well, I don't know that. I haven't been to see a Grandma and.

Grandpa are both there, written next to each other.

I think it's been a long time. Certainly, I haven't been there since Grandma's been place there.

It's kind of cool cemetery if you like that kind of thing.

I don't know if i'm goth enough. I think I'm like any average person. I'm made nervous by cemeteries and mortality.

I just think that, you know, there's some I wonder about people like that guy. Yeah, what did that? Davidson? Guy?

I do it does?

Yeah?

I kind of like the idea of having a headstone acgs. Well maybe I'll do that.

The guy we golfed with the other day, willis.

Sure ex sheriff.

Yeah, an ex sheriff captain, a tough guy. He comes out here and.

Along with others, walk around and do He represents an old sheriff and talks about his wife and points to different people who have died and who they were in the community.

Fifty hundred years.

Well, that's cool.

It's a cool thing they do. I've gone to a couple of them.

It's just a group of him and some other.

Yeah, says it. Okay, you know cool.

It's just kind of a cool thing. And this woman over here used to.

Service all that.

Who are they speaking to?

A group comes, Yeah, they announce it in twenty to fifty. The people show up and wander around, and that's cool. Come up with a different idea of who to discuss.

And I like that he does that. Way to go, Willis? What you're talking about? Willis? Well, I'm talking about Judy Carlin. That's a name I probably shouldn't say names out loud.

I think she died.

Yeah. Was married to no Carlin, often often confused for Judy Garland Judy Karn. That was Carlin? Have you memorized all the names in that Graves park?

Burt Reynolds was married to a girl who was on Laughing named Judy Karn for about forty five minutes.

You know, I was. I was in a Christmas pageant this year with a woman from Laughing. She's still who was joe Anne wird N? Yeah?

Oh wow?

She reprimanded. I whistled. I whistled backstage, and she said, who's whistling? Stop whistling. Don't you know that's bad luck. I'm like, I'm sorry, Sorry, he's also bad luck?

Is that why I have worked and have a good show? Good luck?

That's bad luck too. Get this guy out of here, who's going to powder my You're very in time?

Yeah, she was good, she was good.

Well, I'm sure she had her time.

She didn't like me, and.

I'm still sore. I'm still sore about it. Well, this is a part of Mozilla that I thought would be all developed, but it's actually still well.

They used to be my friend's family.

Used to run the window manufacturing plant here class on windows may have them in your store and Poughkeepsie, but.

All of that has gone now.

And it surprised me when out by the airport somebody built houses up. This may be surprising to people listening, but land is very expensive in Missilla, monte Anna, compared to other parts of Montana, and compared even to lots of parts of Washington and the Dakota is.

Blah blah blah.

Why is that?

It's applying demand? It's always why it is. Yeah, people want it. People ask a lot of money for it.

I thought you're gonna say, because the soil is more fertile.

No, no, somebody has to want it.

And they say, oh, I guess I will pay more for that. So you build houses in areas that aren't as maybe as attractive, and you like around.

A plant right here. Yeah, you know, I.

Was surprised, as I say, by the airport, an entirely industrial area that is that is zoned industrial. Uh, they started putting houses out there like mushrooms everywhere.

Look at that cute little kids baby. Yeah, she is really cute. That's how come I was scared to ride a bike that kid's doing it immediately.

Remember kick you out? Yeah?

I just I just maybe I shouldn't have done the training wheels. I remember being very scared to take those off.

I remember you crashed and you said, hey, that's it.

Sell it, sell this thing.

Yeah, it could be that I'm not getting on the bike again. You do what you want with it.

I think it was because it had a rainbow gradient paint job, with a long saddle, with a cowboy jumping over a rainbow on the saddle, and rainbow streamers. I don't know if you recall that being the bicycle that you bought for me.

But I picked it out, did I? Yeah?

But then I knew immediately I've tried to turn it to a BMX bike. I must have bought the.

Doll your mother bought you with a Penis What this I don't remember, but it might God, what he.

Likes trucks, whoop, whoop. If he likes dolls, he can have dolls. I'll get him a doll.

Sure I was. I was okay with dolls like Lisa's dolls, but I was.

Taken a while. Are you pushing dolls on it? That was my only.

Especially Penis dolls was this thing clothed. It came with clothes at least. I just discovered the penis.

Yeah.

Usually dolls are sealed up front, and you know they don't represent a genitals, but this one had one. That's so strange. Was it called my first penis doll?

Something like that. I didn't. I didn't know you had to go into another section to get it.

But but boy, dolls were available, you know, I had a lot of we were very forward thinking back in the seventies.

Of course, this is progressive town. Yeah, I've ross had my cabbage match dolls. I get it.

Yeah, this was in modern ray I think maybe not, No, it would have to be here, You're right, Okay.

Yeah I was. I've been here since as two.

That's true.

I remember you buying me a gift in Monterey, though it was a a dump trunk or a fire. Yeah. I just remember being on the swings and then and then I met you. I'm your new dad, you said, and we rode off on a on a Harley. Oh there's a crow eating a squirrel. That's not You don't see that very often.

You know.

They saw the other day coming out of the golf course park there in the lot as I was turning around to leave a chipmunk pulling his squashed friend over to the grass.

Oh, speaking of a storm in the beaches at Normandy. Wow, you don't get over that.

Come on, buddy, that's just a little bit further.

She thought, maybe you could help him out. I guess, Oh, man, Dad, what if it was his little squirrel wife?

Yeah, you're exactly.

Right, you can't. It's hard to tell gender with those squirrels. She probably had a little bow in her hair.

Oh man, it defends me how people drive quickly, even knowing there's a bird or a little critter in front of them, and they don't slow down.

I see that a lot. I saw that a lot in Texas.

It says a lot about who you are.

Yeah, I think so. I don't know some people just the way. Yeah, they just care more.

I'm busy, gotta be some place.

Some people just think of animals as a food commodity.

I guess, yeah, like all of it's I guess we all do at some point. Yeah, if I had more integrity, i'd be eating more greens.

I guess around lunchtime, I care less about animals. I'm trying to eat just fish. And chicken. I've broken that rule with you.

If I had to do it myself, I would be eating carrots.

I think I could kill a chicken if I had to, if someone said do that, I couldn't do any other animal. I don't think I could kill a fish. I have killed.

Fish or like grabbing their head and twisting it.

Yeah, you know, you do what you got I do when you're in the mountains.

My grandmother do that for me. Oh yeah, that's great. Oh God.

You have a history of uncles and a lot of people. What Uncle Mith, You're sweet. Uncle was the kindest man ever. But he used to be his job to slit throats of us hog by Oh okay, he never slid throat I don't think he did. No.

But when I was a little my well.

That guy's still alive. Way to go. He's looked that way since I was a kid. He's had tubes and coming out of his nose even when I was twelve. He's still kicking it. That's good to see some of the see the homeless people. They are characters in town in Missoula. You know their names. And that was one of the guys. I've seen him all the time. I used to say hi to him. I'm glad to see he's alive. I don't know his name.

And negotiating the crosswalk at about.

He was walking very slow. It is walking very slow. Well, we're I mean, we're at an hour. Usually these episodes are about an hour dead. And then I gotta dice it up. I gotta edit it. I gotta add the bells and whistles. I gotta add the theme music. I only add music at the beginning and end.

I don't edit and bells and whistles.

That would be annoying. That would be annoying. It would be that's for the Christmas episode.

Well, this has been fun.

Thanks Dad. Guys he usually is and like, I like a lot of the things you said, and it was and people are gonna like this episode as far as we know, as far as I know, And we'll find out on Twitter. You're on Twitter, right.

Yeah, sure I am, of course. Yeah.

Well you've been listening, and thank you Dad. I love you.

Oh is that nice? Love you back?

You've been listening more? Oh, now it's a contest you've been listening to. Do you need a ride? D y n aar. You don't have to honk, I'll just go.

Are you leaving?

I you wanna way back home?

Either way we want to be.

There, doesn't matter how much baggage you claim. Give us time and they termino and gay. We want to send you off in style. Do you wanna welcome you back home? Tell us all about every scared he was?

It fine? Malborn? Do you need to ride? Do you need to ride?

Do you need to ride?

Do you need to ride?

Do you need to ride?

Do you need to ride?

Do you need to ride? Do you mean.

With Karen and Cress m