Ep. 75 - Karen and Chris Are Back!

Are you leaving? I you wanta way back home?

Either way, we want to be there. Doesn't matter how much baggage you claim and give us time and a Turmanol and gage.

We want to send you off instead, you wanna welcome you back home?

Tell us all about it.

We scared her? Was it fine? Now?

Porn?

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 ride.

With Karen and Chris? Welcome? Do you need a ride? This is Chris.

Fairbanks and this is Karen Kilgaroff.

We are so excited to be recording this episode.

Hello, we're back.

We are back. We had a bit of a hiatus, more than a month.

Yeah, we lost people lost faith in our ability to podcast, which is understandable.

Yes, we had we had personal things going on. We had the holidays, we had work on the road. I had work on the road.

I had a death in my family.

Karen had a death in her family.

And but but ultimately, perhaps sadder is we recorded an episode that.

We then lost.

We recorded what I think maybe it's the it's like the Twilight Zone. We recorded the best episode ever. Their tears were shed, the laughter was had. It was the best of all emotions happening at once. It was a great podcast with Tigntaro, and we were so open and so personal, and so many poignant things were said. I thought during the middle of it, I'm like, this is the episode that will change the world. This is the one.

I was like, we're gonna get nominated for a Peabody.

We are going or at least a Casti or whatever. The I think they have the castle a poddle. Oh, it was the British poddles. We all would love to win a Poddle. But I get home among us, no one I know is that esteemed. I get home, I pull the cart out.

It's just empty. It's it's blank. That's never happened.

You help their friend.

Come on, friend, you got it. You've got a Mazda that needs to be moving. So I was very sad.

Yeah, that was That was insanely disappointing.

And then also the irony that people were like, we need an episode and it's like we do too.

Like we've it was.

Such a heartbreaker to lose it when we got our homework done and we didn't get any credit for it, and we got Basically it was an A plus piece of.

Homework, and we could tell that Tig was proud of it and excited for it to come out. I haven't broken it to her. I haven't told her we've met.

There there's a chance we might.

Find Andrew Solomson.

If you're listening and I haven't already contacted you, please, I know you you are a wizard when it comes to finding lost files, or I'm.

Hoping you are.

We think you might be able to help us.

Andrews.

I hope you have some device that you have in a handmade leather holster that that you've had that has saved people's podcasts.

Maybe there's a there's a red toolkit that you keep down in the bottom drawer of your.

Desk that you only pull out. Yeah, in very special.

Amount after your situation type in a security code would turn one two three four.

You should change that.

Yeah, yeah, that's really I mean, that's not it.

You always think no one's going to guess one two three four, But that is the first thing I would guess.

That's the first I mean, yeah, that's where you start.

So I hopefully we can retrieve it.

If not, we will just have another episode with take because uh, it's magic on the mic.

But we're just glad to be back.

With the sound quality, I assure you was so good. I spent time with the levels, and.

Not only was Chris the sound guy, but he was also the driver in that episode, so there was we were capturing a magic and an energy. Yes, it doesn't usually happen.

It was a special episode. I thought you were gonna say, because I was driving, that's why we lost the five. I thought, I'm so sensitive about this.

Chris was driving, so there's a good chance that's why he wasn't paying attention to the right lights. Everything I looked down at while I was driving, which is dangerous, but it was important, more important than our lives.

We were just on bit was big with you, and it.

Just was recording. Everything seemed fine.

Then you've done it before. You're good at being the soundman and driver.

I think I'm okay at it.

It's not ideal for you.

It's not what I'll be getting a podcast.

The award for your poddle will not come for an engineering I just had to pass aggressley correct you. It won't be an engineering poddle.

No, but certainly we've already established and one of the more handsome men in podcasting.

That's or that's my little thing. I don't usually that's it seems weird coming out, and I'm going.

To retroact it. No, no, no, don't retract it. But it's already out there, Christian, even if you didn't say it, people know it.

My age is coming up on me and my face has sworn. I've been drinking too much. It's the holidays.

I just that all looks good on men, though it took women love.

A small I guess.

I do remember one summer at a big sky Bible camp, I got stung in the face by bees, and girls were hitting on me left and right.

Yeah, They're like, why are your cheeks so full? You're so adorable.

The Lord told me to talk to you this afternoon.

It's a god, what a horrifying camp that was. Do I tell you that?

They told me my parents were going to help unless I converted them.

So when my dad.

Picked me up in the Volkswagen bus, I was crying and he said, why are you crying? We're driving, And then finally he asked, well, we're all going down this road.

Why why are you so upset, and I'm like, well, they told me you were going to help.

And my dad turned around and drove back and yelled at the head past her. From a distance, I saw him screaming at him. Yes, and the guy was just trembling. He knew, he knew he sucked up. Wait now, but who sent you to that Bible camp? Did your parents just think it was like a day camp.

Yeah.

They sent me to a lot of camps when I was young, and the house my sister went to it.

She was a little older. She's seven years older, so I think time she spent there was first being interested in boys and being at a camp. She was older, so it's like, oh, I made out with a boy or something.

She had fun, She had regular camp fun, and I guess didn't hear the voices of children drowning when she was trying to sleep. I thought that there was ghosts. I thought I was being possessed at a Bible camp.

Well, yeah, they're putting things in your head.

Everyone's snoring.

I remember, It's all You're in a bunk room with a bunch of kids, and everyone was snoring, and everyone snoring in unison. I had convinced myself was people crying and screaming out in the lake and I was like felt like the room was closing in on me.

It was a very traumatic.

So it was it was a sleep boy camp.

It was yeah, for a long time, and you'd have archery yep, and then you'd go to the chapel and have these competitive who can look up first Corinthians and everyone whips through and you hold up the book when you have it. No, and I didn't know that. I'd never opened a bike. I didn't grow up with a Bible in my house.

That's it.

Yeah, church stuff is so culty when you're from the outside. You know what's so funny is our next door neighbor and Andy Willington came with me to church one time and I was probably like twelve and he was raised with no religion whatsoever. And he I was laughing so hard because it was like I finally saw, like a Catholic.

Mass is the most ritualistic bizarre.

You're kneeling, you're standing, you're kneeling, you're it's like call and response. Yeah, And I'd never seen it from like an outsider's perspective before, how bizarre it is. But when you're raised in it. It's just church on Sunday. It's you're you're.

So used to it.

Yeah, I went to It was that way. I went to Catholic church once because when my sister's been married to her husband, Mike for a long time, but when she met him, he was Catholic, and so I remember once we went before he had am and woke up and said, oh, this is all kind of bullshit. I think that's how I don't.

Know, but we went and it was a lot of people reciting things, standing up and down and everything, everyone looking over and noticing that you don't know what you're doing, and feeling very excluded, not welcomed.

Right, And then someone put dirt on my forehead as I recall.

Oh you went there fresh Wednesday, that was right before Easter. Oh wow, yeah, yeah, ask me anything I can tell you all.

About that's okay.

The little wafers, the Eucharist, yes, that.

That is supposed to be Jesus's flesh, right.

Yes, it's the body of our Lord Jesus Christ.

And then the wine, even though you can see his wine with a label on, it is blood.

It's blood, and that is.

And that is just something that everyone there takes pretty seriously or is it just like.

That that's some point of the whole mass is going to get that And basically you're taking in the Savior and you're remembering him in his sacrifice for you by eating his body and drinking his blood. And I mean it couldn't. I mean clearly it's old. Yeah, it's from It's from times where stuff like that would have been, you know, pretty normal.

Do you think there's ever been someone in history that like drank themselves to death with red wine thinking that it was bringing them closer to God.

I mean, that was my rationale when I still drank.

It was just like, let's do this thing, Jesus, let's improve this situation.

I don't know, it's all so crazy.

Also, you know that like the one you described too, When I was in college, I was in the drama department and there was a guy that was like new to the drama department that made a big splash and was super cute. He's a great actor, and he started hanging out with me in my two roommates and we were like this group of like five people that would go to Denny's after play rehearsal and shit, and we were having we were all having the best time. It was like it was kind of like early comic hangouts,

So I just kind of like didn't even care and whatever.

I thought I had no chance with him because he was he looked, he was really good looking, and I thought he would like one roommate I knew my other roommate had a huge crush on him, and so it ended up that he liked me.

He came in was like I made a big pronouncement. Wow, So it was this big coup, right, like I got the guy.

And then like a week later he starts talking about the thing is I just really need you to say these.

Seven words because I don't want you to burn an hell.

And he basically was a secret born again Christian who went to this crazy Culty church and Sacramento and was just what didn't actually like me, was trying to get me to go.

To his church.

Yeah, and it was one of the most fucked up thing that's ever happened to me because his whole spiel was if you don't say these seven words, you automatically go to hell no matter what, you have to accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior. And literally, in my mind this was right when I think I just on comedy once, or maybe I just met Andy Kandler.

For the first time before I started stand up.

But in my head, I thought, you can't tell me Andy Kandler's going to hell, right.

That disproves anything you're saying to me.

I'm so happy to hear that.

I think I may have told him.

But essentially, though, I lost all of my faith in that whole exchange, because I realized religion is just.

A thing a lot of people use.

It's like a weird power tool people use to manipulate people to get them to do what they want and to scare them into thinking. I mean, these people were like ta. I heard a couple people preach about like they.

Die and you know, odd on drugs, and while they were out, while they were.

Dead on the table, they went into this land where they were in limbo, and it was like all this kind of stuff where by the.

Time you leave your scared shit list that you're going to die and then end up in this place.

That was one of the ceremonies at this camp. They were like, you have to well sit around this campfire. You take a log, put it on the fire, announced that the Lord's your savior, or that you accept them in your heart or whatever. If you've done this before, don't do it a second time. That would be a big mistake. And then I'm here, I'm like, have I.

Done this before? What if I did it in a dream?

And out?

Remember?

Boy, people are driving amazingly tonight. It's a full Oh that's everyone's driving like teen wolf.

What is that guy doing surfing on an ice cream truck? And everyone crazy?

Everyone Before they put a log on the fire, they set the I uh accepted the Lord in the back of a cop car one after I had robbed some people. Everyone was admitting all these things that created voids in them that they needed to fill, and I was like, I don't really have one. I don't have a story. Do you have to make one up?

I was like, twelve twelve sanity? Yeah, I mean.

And then one kid he said, Uh, my name is Ian, I'm from North Dakota. And I was hilarious, So I said, oh, are you in North Dakota?

Ian?

And he just walked away from the fire and punched me in the stomach and I was in a relaxed position.

That's how Houdini died. I mean, this guy obviously knew nothing about Whodini.

Wait, this wasn't the kid who you pulled on his brades, was it?

No? No, that was Joel. He broke my arm. I was at Kawanis camp.

Every every bad thing that ever happened to me happened at a camp.

Yeah, one time I ate some.

With some peas.

There's a pod pea pods on this hedge.

It was pea pods off ahead.

And I'm like, oh cool peas. I put them in my mouth. I'm like, delicious. They taste. I can't believe in Missoula, Montana you can just find peas.

Poison control was called. Someone tried to dig it out of my throat.

This woman who read.

Was reading a Playgirl magazine was pulling it out. Am I trying to pull out? There's peas for my throat And they were basically saying, Oh, you're gonna die.

You've been poisoned. That's how they reacted. So many bad experiences at camp.

How old were you on that one?

When you ate peas I was a bit younger. I was a bit younger. That was pre Big Sky Bible Camp.

Okay, good, Well, you know it's also the first experience of like being away from home, and I remember going the first year I went to camp. On day two, my mom I got a card from home from my mom and I think I was the first year we went. I was probably nine, and I took the card and went and sat down and opened it and it was like my mom running like, hi, Sissy, we missed you.

And did it da?

And I just started bawling. It was like I was only there for seven days and I was on day two. It wasn't like and it was, you know, perfectly fine camp. Nothing bad was happening. But it's that thing.

When you're little and you're not used to being away.

Yeah, it feels good for some people, I think in there's situations after that both and those were church related to even in high school.

It was like, Hey, on Wednesdays, do you want to know where all the popular girls at school are and you can eat for free on Wednesdays? I'm it's at church. And so I went because of that, and I was openly with the that pastor guy who's out of the game now.

I saw him in Oregon. He's like a fan marriage counselor.

Oh yeah yeah. But I knew he didn't care. I knew he didn't care. I'm like, I'm not really into the Bible. He's like, I don't care. People like you and uh, and you can go these work camps and we would travel. We went to Mexico and built a wall. We did things and soup kitchens of prisoners at these halfway camps and it was really it was cool because you like felt like you're making a difference. That's where I like church stuff. I think it's cool to have that experience.

Yeah, the service part.

Yeah yeah, But you know what that's really on that it's a little creepy when he's like, I don't care that you don't believe because you're popular, Like it.

Is such a it's it's a.

I just find really that there's certain aspects of organized religion that are so creepy and calculating and political.

Right, because it's like you have influence.

Yes, and you'll draw the other children in.

But he wasn't that.

He also gave me like handyman work, like he's like, oh, I'm working on my house. Want to help demolish this wall in my house? And I'm like, that'll be great. And I remember he hit his thumb with a ham and said fuck really loud, and I'm like, oh, you're just a dude, You're just a guy. And so then I felt comfortable around that the pastor man and uh, yeah, it was good experiences.

And you did not get molested by that pass.

No, no, no, no, this was Presbyterian. Yeah. See church from a river runs through it and so you just can't pull that chair.

It was it fish church.

It was like fishing all the time, just where there was a crucifer where Jesus was on the crucifix.

Above where his podium was. They actually had a billy.

Bass with some songs.

Yeah, yes, there was one year at Christmas where one of my dad's friends bought him. It was like the muskrat or squirrel equivalent of billy bass.

It was like a singing squirrel, I think it.

But it's supposed to look like taxidermy.

Yes, it's supposed to look real and dead, but it's singing.

Favorite form of we put.

When we turned it on, we would all laugh like lunatic dipshit people. It was one of them. It was one of the funniest things, just like do it again. I think it was a muskrat that was singing muskrat love. It must have been that.

Oh it has to be.

It simply must be. So what else have you been doing, Chris?

I have been hosting that show with April Richardson, and it's getting better and it's fun, grace, it's enjoyable, and they they got some new writers and I'm excited about that and I'm letting me have more input on our host copy great and so that's all fun. That's been enjoyable. I love doing stand up. I've been enjoying stand up more than ever. I've been doing lots of shows and feeling good about the shows.

Amazing. Wait where was your last show?

My last show, I guess was at the Ice House. You love your Pasadena. You know, it's like it's the only place in La or it's not in La passiting As. Actually, every time I drive there, I'm reminded, Wow, this is another city. It takes me an hour to get there, but it's it's like being on the road. It's just normal people wanting entertainment, and you have to remember that

It's you are wearing a tiny hat right now.

I am, yeah, And if I could grow one, i'd have a beard, but I can't. It comes in all patchy because I am apache uh huh.

I don't know what kind I am. I think that it's a native.

Blood that makes it to where the side of my my face hair doesn't grow in. That's what I've decided.

You're making that joke makes me kind of empathize with Ian from North Dakotia.

You're gonna puts me in the stumby damn it.

Well, that's I mean, I understand a lot of people are wrapped the wrong way by ponds.

Yeah, I really.

Don't like it.

Now, what do you think the difference is in your in the performing?

Is it?

Is?

It?

Is it just a cycle?

Do you think it's just like you're out of the bad patch, right and it's only temporary Because I've been out of the bad patch before, and then I have a shitty show and I'm like, oh, yeah.

Let's never get you never figure this out right?

Well, yeah, the variables change every show.

It's it's uh.

But lately I've felt like I kind of learned how to deal with when I can see it going south. Yeah, And it's just I think it's about being more open on stage, being open and being uh.

I've been working on my confidence.

Karen, how Yes, what do you do I need? I need to know.

I pretend that I'm confident.

That's something saying that's how you have to.

Do it, and it's infectious. Your brain will be like maybe we are for a minute, but then I just get that bad show.

For instance, we all have a few comics. Went drove up to San Francisco for a taping something called Ciso, which is like a Hulu for comedy. Yeah, and it's NBC. Yeah, and so they have a lot of NBC shows on there.

And then I guess they're.

Gonna have a lot of original other than Brian Reagan's special. I guess the first streaming live comedy special was what I did.

And man, it seemed like, oh man, no one's gonna edit this, Like I felt like it could have gone a lot better. And so after that, my fake confidence, I was like, where's that feeling? It went away?

It's tough.

I wish it didn't go badly. It just didn't go great.

I wanted it to go great because you know, they had a camera and a crane thing.

Yeah, there was a guy with some Dolly tracks.

You had a jib and you had a uh well that's a Dolly Yeah.

Yeah, you know that.

Oh yeah, I know a lot of.

The I wanted to pretend like I was the one. I knew the terminology. You know it.

You know I'm Union No, I'm a Union gaffer's best boy.

Uh.

I just I think that's an interesting thing to talk about though, because the confidence I was thinking of it like, I've done a couple of shows at the Improv Lab.

I don't know if you've done that really yet.

I'm doing it tonight.

Are you really very loungey feeling? Yeah? I love it. Have you done it before?

Yes?

Yes, I was so surprised I was asked to do it.

I think it's Meghan Keister show.

And the day, of course, an hour before I wanted to flake out and not show up because that's what I always do and what my brain tells me you're unsafe to stay home.

Yeah, don't go out, don't risk anything.

Which is bad for comedy, which is definitely for all create.

It's it's awful. So I knew that if I didn't.

Go and do that one set, even though I had no material, I would stop doing stand up comedy. It was that it felt that dire, right, And so I went that night with truly with these one liners that I've been doing and just kind of like pieces of ideas and.

No songs, no songs.

Now I'm trying.

I'm only talking comedy for twenty sixteen. I mean, like I'll do songs with drennand but for my own individual stand up, I'm going back to regular time.

I'm excited to hear that. And I love your songs, but I thank you.

I I'm excited to see you do joke after joke that'll think great.

You know what it is? I realized while I was standing up there. First of all, I realized it doesn't I'm not There's a long time where you absolutely have to have jokes.

You have to you have to know what you're going to end on.

You have to have all of your kind of like your map out in front of you so that you can navigate your set with confidence.

Yes, but I'm just.

Now learning that. But yes, yes everyone knows well.

But then there's a point time where you don't need that anymore because it does because you start to realize it doesn't matter what you're saying, it matters how you feel when you're standing there. So when I was standing there, I was like at this improv lab show, I just kind.

Of didn't care.

I knew I had these one liners that would get hard laughs, right, But other than that, I was excited to be experimenting again like that.

I feel like the last time I did it was like.

Old Largo, right wow, where I used to get to do it all the time and it was just the coolest feeling. And it didn't it wasn't it wasn't amazing. I certainly didn't like destroy the room or win or all the things I usually want to do when I do stand up. I just did fine and had a great time.

Right, And then that was what I just realized, that's what I want.

I think that that's what I mean when I say a manufacturing confidence, I'm just I just mean that state where you are forcing yourself to be in a state of mind where it's like this is fun. Yeah, I'm going to enjoy what I'm doing, and here it's a things that I'm excited to do in the set that I.

Can look forward to. Usually that just means a new joke or too right, and then and then you have a great time and the best it's the best feeling.

It's such a good feeling.

And sometimes it just for whatever reason because you should have stayed home.

But it's never true. It's it's I feel like it's never true.

And like the weird thing to me is that I used to be really brave. I think it was correspondent to what I used to drink. I used to I would be like, I don't care, I'll get up there and do it ill. I would do anything right and

Stage or like you used to be a coal miner.

No, no, no, I'm just stand up improvising things TV stuff that is very intimidating.

I've done it.

So it then the idea that I'm letting, like, you know, a downstairs Thursday night show intimidate me to the point where I won't leave my house is I mean, I guess like what I'm saying is that's the level of insanity I'm dealing with.

Well, it's also when you do those fun things and those tapings and at a certain level, and then and then you're doing a show for four other comics that is a booked thing that you didn't get all the information on, and then you show up and no one's there, which might very well happen for me tonight.

I have to learn how to have fun at those two yes, and be like, Okay, what can I learn from just hearing my voice say these things?

And what can you add? Like that writing on stage thing I hadn't done in so long.

And both of the improv lap shows I've done lately I've done, I've figured things out like things weren't going not just not doing well, just no response. It was just like, oh, I thought this was funny. It's quiet, and then instead of my usual thing, which is get super embarrassed and then super angry and then lash out and then kind of shut it all down.

I still do that. It's okay.

I think we all do. I mean, I think that's kind of the natural reaction.

But instead just hang out, Like I just have had the opportunity to hang out a little while longer and then actually here hear the connection and bring it back around. Just not panicking before that part happened, right, which is you know Easier.

Said yeah, yeah, just realizing it's happening before it doesn't dealing with it better.

That's what this all is.

Because also it's the people are watching you because they want to see you be confident. They don't want to watch you have a nervous breakdown or blame them or get angry. They truly just want to see a person brave enough to have fun and be funny on stage.

Weird, and when I first started, I think my whole style worked against that, this whole stammering, I'm not confident books, I messed up. Let me comment on that joke not working. Like I built this character that I did for years based on someone that maybe wasn't confident or maybe you don't know I'm messing up or not messing up.

Why would messing up the way I talk be a thing that I would do?

Well, I think it's natural to you, though, yeah it's not.

Here was a product of me always saying Chambers kunkie or a.

Character or whatever, I really do do that.

So I'm like, well, that got a laugh when I dealt with it, so let me do it again. So now I'm lying and pretending to make mistakes. But then if you keep it loose like that, then you can be improvising and say I thought it was freeing. But then I'd always have these bad shows where the audience is like that guy's not.

Even comfortable talking on stage.

Yeah, he's not confident or it, And so I still am trying.

I'm like, that has be something I need to remind myself to do. Be confident, and.

Also remind yourself that the voice you give the audience of how they're judging you is not accurate.

That's just your mind, right, It's it's just thinking.

It's just that thing of like, oh you've decided this is what the audience is thinking.

About you, like, are you serious?

Good lord, I hate I hate you.

Yeah, it's too late. Go ninety five miles now, dick.

Of course, it's a range range rover, of course in Beverly Hills, a classic.

Yeah.

Sorry, you never know.

When you're gonna run into a bunch of piles of dirt. You'll need that hint that wench on front.

Careful, there's a Gazelle range rover.

Yes, yes, thank god you're wearing. You're driving a car specific to African hunting.

Yeah. Important. Here near the Beverly Center in line, they have one.

Of those hard tan hats with a fan on it, a pit helmet. Yes, have held it. Thank you all.

Well, I think you're gonna I mean, you've done it already.

But I feel like there's always people in that improv lab room, and there's always a really good combination of people who are super supportive and people who are like, I'm gonna do the next show and I want to see who this like. Kind of the competitive energy of comics in the back.

It feels good and you can win them over.

Do you feel like it's a small version of what the old Largo room felt like?

Just yeah, maybe because there's curtains and luge situations. Yes, like tables and god, there's tonight is extra distracting.

Yeah, it's full it's full moon. I fully believe it.

I agree even the cops. Even the cops have turned to wear wolves.

Where is it coming from? Oh there it is?

Oh wow. Oh and he's going he's really going for it.

Oh good, Oh my god, that's seemingly coming right at us.

That.

Oh if you could you get the sounds. But I wish you could get this.

Guys.

That was an LA cop changing sides of the road so that he wouldn't have to stop in traffic.

Yeah, yeah too, I love that.

Last night there was about it was going to get a burger and it was late and about twelve cop cars all racing each other going one hundred miles an hour down my street with their lights on but the siren's off, which means they don't want the people where they're going to know they're gonna be.

And so I'm like, well, it's a hostage situation. Then yeah, that's what that means.

Yeah, that's bad news. I know we're coming, or like a break in like a burglar.

So I should I should have looked it up this morning. I love finding out. Do you ever find out or even in an article, even while I'm watching Making a Murderer and all those shows when you find someone that's committed to crime or just find it on the news online.

I find them on Facebook.

For there'll be a window a time where they still have a Facebook account, and I'll just look at pictures of them.

That's her, and look at him with his dog, and he'll have a cousin. Usually they don't have kids, and there's a couple of pictures where they're grumpy, and then you can still have this option. It's harder to find, but I like to poke them. Not I did once.

You poked a murderer?

Yeah, yeah, just to say I did that.

That's like ever heard.

It's one of those things where it's like, Wow, they have a profile, they picked out a photo, and they work at this place and they bought that shirt. But that guy killed his neighbor.

I mean like, yeah, clearly the plan was that they were going to be normal like everybody else to be on Facebook.

It's so yeah, and then they snapped and that's all anyone knows about them.

But I like to go to their Facebook see what shows they liked.

Did you ever throw up the thoughts and prayers onto their wall?

You know, I never wanted them to focus on me if they don't end up in the big house.

Oh yeah, yeah I could.

That's I don't want to fully interact. I only did that poking thing once.

But it's just I used to think about it a lot when I was a kid, too, Like when I go to the store and try on shoes, you know, you put on shoes and you walk around and the guy pinches your toe, and.

You're like, well, I think it fits.

I always, for some reason, thought of murderers. There's people out there that kill people or have bodies in their yard or something, and they still go shoe shopping and try on shoes and walk around, and they're like, I like these shoes.

They look good and they make me feel confident. I think later, I'm going to kill my neighbor while wearing these shoes.

M h, I should probably change into my old shoes just because these ones are new.

They don't say that out loud, of co.

The person a designer shoe warehouse has to call the police. I overheard a man planning something in.

The sandal in the middle of telling them he had a narrow foot, and then he said, butch, my neighbor is gonna get it. And I don't think he met a pair of a pair of shoes and he was fine.

Because of the hues making that hacking knife ees.

Gesture, yeah, if you know what I mean, and then he came at me with it.

It usually goes with a sound.

But yeah, it's murderers, man, they're everywhere.

Well, true crime is very hot right now, very hot.

And it's changing my daily thoughts. I don't want to think about it.

I know, well, you don't have to. You can.

There's plenty of stuff I can worry about.

There's so many other things to worry about. If you maybe joined green Peace.

Or uh, I'd like to worry about, Oh there's a pain in my leg or what let me get online and look it up. What I have these things?

Do you have rickets guaranteed?

Maybe? I uh, maybe I should? Maybe I should? I would, I should get involved with green pieace.

I actually I'm interested in keeping plastic out of the ocean.

Okay, I support it.

And you would have loved my grandmother because she used to My grandma Ann used to take the you know, the plastic things that hold soda cans together.

Yes, she always cut those up.

Oh so do I still yeah.

And she'd say, taught me to do that because birds choke, right that, she would say.

The first time I saw her do it, I said, Grandma, what are you doing it?

She said, it's for the boards.

Oh, that's yeah, they're in the same Irish ac Boards is a really good word to get Irish people.

Which is for you. How the phrase it's for the birds first came.

Amount with from my grandma cutting us cutting up plastic? Yeah, uh, what about the island of.

Plastic that's floating out It's the Pacific that's like so humongous.

There's five of them. They're called gyres.

What.

Yeah, they're the slow whirlpools where all the all the garbage collects. Sometimes it's multiple tons, and ninety eight percent of that garbage is plastic. That's the statistic that I learned when I did a private event for the five Gyres group. And they do go out on these green piece like boats and and pick up this garbage and they come back with tons of it. And the guy when I was done, it was a very difficult show. I had to like pretend to post this game show who wants to.

Be a gyronare.

A giant air? And it was it was. It was not the funnest gig. But my friend is part of this group. And they gave me a bag of plastic that was found inside birds and fish. There was just a full afro pick.

I don't know how big some of these fish.

Yes, yeah, you know those pels. No, there was an afro pick.

There was.

There was so many things.

There was something a piece of plastic that looked like a Yamaica And that was the only joke I made. It's like, well, at least we can all get together and know that no matter what race you are, we still are all affecting the ocean negatively that if we can't get together on that because there was a ok and they didn't you know you the way your response to that.

Joke did better than that night.

There was something else that Sorry, they gave you a bag of garbage and said, like riff on this and like use this in your act.

No, honestly, it was at the end the guy gave it to me and said, if you can ever do something with this or show it to people, since you're a person that's a public speaker. Please here is a bag of and I still have it. I can't, of course, bring myself to throw it away.

Would you throw it exactly?

I had this giant bag of plastic, So it's my little problem. It's in a little red bag with an American flag on it, and it is but it is scary. It's a lot of straws, and it's a lot of just apparently plastic.

Once it's in the ocean, so it breaks down into tiny chips of plastic, like a plastic bottle will eventually just become these tiny which makes them dangerous.

Because then they're bite sized.

Yeah, and fish are just eating little teeny pieces of plastic.

Like plankton, and then they're ingesting plastic and carcinogens, and then we're eating sushi that the fish that's.

A plastic fish. Basically, it's we're killing ourselves.

It is.

And I don't want to sound like a big old hippie, but I have glass straws. There's its people called simply straws, and there it's just a glass straw and I bring it with me. I'm always afraid it's gonna shatter and poke a hole in my leg or something.

And just so when I go to Starbucks and get something in a giant plastic cup, at least I'm not using the straw because I you know, there's a video of them pulling a straw out of a turtle's nostril and it is not a fun like the.

Old Field magic, sad but also cute because it's a giant turtle and they have them in a boat and he's wincing.

He's like he's making little noises. Who knew that turtles make little noises? And his eyes are so tight and he's fell a little nosebleed and they're trying to pull out the straw out it's nostril, and they finally get it out, and he has this look of relief and he like looks at the people. It is a if you can find turtle with straw and his nostra. It's very sad and hard to watch.

Every time someone gives me a straw, I'm like, I don't want this. Stop giving me straws.

I love straws. I buy them, I have them in my house. I had no idea they were that bad.

I truly like love to throw some Yeah, I love to throw a straw and make a beverage.

Not a lot, I do. I we're in a drought.

I still flush every time I pee, but I do, I do try to not use straws at least it's something.

I mean, I'm not preaching here.

No.

Look, you can get paper ones.

Yeah, ones, just do. We can all do what we can.

And they suck the paper one suck. You're halfway through your beverage. It SAgs in the middle and then rips. Right, that's like a straw made of paper.

But it's retro. That's how it used to be when they first started doing right.

Yeah, I mean that's how it was for the pilgrims.

So too bad.

Yeah, so there's so many things, but then statistically you look at how little impact you can make as a human, and then you get discouraged and then you forget. But I do know the boy this is I'm such an environmentalist all of a sudden, I know, I don't know, know not.

But when I moved here in three there were hummers and SUVs everywhere, excursions, they're just everyone that was. That was the thing in like early two thousands that everyone had a big ass car. And I've always lived in Venice. I never, you know, as I drive into Hollywood ever was able to see the Hollywood Sign. And that's what they tell you never could see it. I can see it all the time now. Yes, that's the one thing where I know maybe a bigger problem is all the

In LA combined.

Yeah, I bet I bet so.

And it's it's weird when you drive by.

I think they call it Cowshwitz because it's so yep, horrifying how many cows are just in this, just for acres and acres and acres. But you can smell their farts and it doesn't smell like cowshit. It smells like exhaust from a car. Yes, it smells like a car exhausted.

It smells like if a cow was a car, and what that exhaust would smell like because there is still a little bit of they buy the you know, organic element to it that is like shit. It's like shit in hay and then gasoline. Essentially, that's a rough I just I drove the five coming home from my parents this past Oh yeah, whatever.

I mean, I'm on that freeway quite a bit.

And did you have a good time with your family with it?

Like I had a really good time.

So for people who might not know my mom finally passed away after suffering and for.

Twelve years, and the word finally with me, it's so hard for people to relate to hearing that. Yeah, but you know I feel the same, and I've been you know, our moms are just trapped in this shell of who they used to be and and you want it to end.

You can tell they're not happy, you want.

It to end.

Once it finally does, there's no way of me knowing how I'm really going to feel.

It's pretty it's just weird. It's just kind of a shocking experience. And it's because the whole thing is so traumatizing in and of itself that that getting a phone call to say she finally passed away, it was like, it's too good to be true, and that in and of itself has all this. It's just a lot of conflict and a lot of guilt. But the good part about it, so driving up there, I was like dreading it, thinking it was going to be really sad.

I don't want to see my father be emotional. Kid, he's the most.

Repressed Irish Catholic person in the world, and he does not cry and is never weak and is never anything but either fun or yelling, and so.

All of that I was.

Dreading, and instead it turned out to be beautiful and all of my family and extended family were kind of together. It was my niece's birthday, so we got to have a fun party. And it's the unspoken and spoken, like my sister and I talked to each other about it, but the unspoken thing is this is better, this is what this is what we wanted, and it's good that

Yes, and I've been feeling that also for a decade, and that is how I will feel.

I think, and I know that it's so much.

That's why I'm so sad when a friend will lose someone or I've lost friends lately where it's tragic and it shouldn't have happened and it was or.

It's a stupid ass cancer or and there there was more. Had that one thing not happened, there would have been more. That's just different. That to me is more tragic.

People Also it stretched out for a long time, so the grieving is like how long is this gonna slowly end? So that's I think makes a lot of people uncomfortable. But I still think it's worse when not that. It's a contest what's the worst way to be gone? But you know, someone my friend's dad fell off a roof and died, and he gives a roofer. Guy, that was the worst. Yeah, it was the saddest. It was so tragic, it was sudden, it was so traumatic for him. It changed his personality in a lot of ways.

It's I think, you know, well, I mean, anyone that would come in with any kind of judgment about how you feel about the death of your own parent, it's yeah, but who cares, like to me that person you just put and disqualified yourself. And also to me, I bet you most of the time, those kind of people have never had it happened to them. It's so easy to talk about the way it should be or how you're supposed to do it correctly. But you don't know until you go through it, and it's a very.

It's a very distinct experience.

Yeah, and it's not you and I both are Like something triggers in me when someone says, I know what, it's like.

My grandma, and I'm like, Grandma, Yeah, it's not the same. Not Some people are so close with their grandma's that I can't relate. But I think a lot of people come at you with like you're wrong to feel this because they're thinking about when they did lose someone in a more tragic win, how terrible it was.

So they're like, how could you dare right?

Like they finally yeah, when talking about the loss your mom, I lost my mom to the you know, grenade, shrapnel or whatever, whenever, studden tragic thing.

Yeah, but I mean that's stupid. That's that's your problem.

I mean, here's because here's my thing is that it was bad enough already. The last thing I need is to feel guilt about natural feeling forgot.

I've already gotten her so much guilt. Yeah, fuck it.

And also anybody, I mean it, just anyone that's ever coming at you about what you should be doing is talking about themselves.

So that's that's.

All I ever hear it as anyway where it's just like, oh, you know, finally or whatever, where it's like my mother looked like a mummy from Raiders of the Lost Star.

My mom looks like a Iowa scarecrow.

Yeah, and it's not them, and it's like watching someone linger. She my mother would have one hundred percent had doctor Kovorkian kill her.

When she knew she got this.

My mom used to say it.

My mom used to say it too.

If I get all time, she was predicting and getting it. Yeah, so said like, if I ever get it.

Don't ever put me.

I just want to take a pill and be gone. But unfortunately she wasn't you know, she isn't mentally able to make that decision because.

Now we also think that it's bad as awful and weird.

It was when she would say that kind of thing when I was young, I'm like, uh, maybe we should have got it in writing.

Well, but it doesn't work that way. I mean like it's it's a it's a nice idea, but that at the end of the day.

The shitty thing about Alzheimer's is you have to go through it, and they have to go through it and and it would be amazing if there could be a shortcut or just all right, then then we're done. But that's the kind of hideous part about it is you just have to go through it for years and years and years.

Well, then people, the people that would tell you how you should feel will not want to hear me say I'm sort of jealous. I'm sure your mom past. Yeah, isn't that a weird thing?

It's not at all.

The first thing I thought when you told me, wait, what of course I don't mind still alive?

That would have been that would have been my reaction if you told me, I would have been like, when the fuck is do I get to have this?

And then we That was the day before we podcasted with Tig, and I know that you you were emotional but didn't know where to put the emotions. And just again, Tig, I hope that we can resurrect that recording. We did, But she was so the things she was saying about her wedding and what it meant to her and the people in her town being so supportive when she thought they were going to be picketing.

It was so special and uh, and you.

Got emotional and it was very it was such a good podcast and such a good moment and.

Well, hopefully we can find it. But if not that it was meant to be, I suppose.

What can we do and more great ones to come? Yes, yes, that's what we'll do.

And you know, ultimately, if we said tig it, you.

Know it didn't Cord. She'll do it again.

Yeah, I didn't know.

During it, she said why haven't you guys asked me yet? And I was like, oh, I didn't think that maybe that would be her stance. I was just happy that she wanted us to pick her up.

I know, but I was, and I was glad that I got to I don't know if we record again, I'll be able to say it to us. I'll just repeat it. I sow.

It's such a hang up about not having gone to her wedding.

She invited me, and I didn't.

Go because I chose somewhere, and while I was doing the shows, I was like, oh my god, I just made a really big mistake.

I should have been there.

It was important, and I didn't go because of money and because of.

Shows that I had, And I was glad I was able to.

Apologize to her personally, so she already heard it, so now I'm I guess re stating it.

Yeah, also a thing like that too.

I think those are those kinds of decision you can't know, like now you know that, now you know when you're worried about money, your you know, life is the way it is where you have to cover, you have to cover yourself and you have to earn, and when you come up with these decisions like that, you're turned right, You're think, I think when you're coming up with decisions like that, basically you're just trying to do the thing

Mean like it was.

Yeah.

I think it was a combination of having that regret and then shortly after being a my friend's memorial, when I knew other people weren't going to my friend's ex memorial because they have they're like, oh, I don't like death, O don't like funerals.

Yeah, no one does. You just go.

Yeah.

And then when I was there, I'm like, oh my god, it's so important that we're all here. And like you said, it was a great time.

It was everyone together having a great time and laughing and having a party. Yeah, and that's it's so important to go those things. And I yes, I learned a lesson.

I will. I will be at your wedding and your funeral.

Karen, thank you well.

Also, here's another lesson I learned that I don't think you can know until you have a loss, like this is you if someone died.

That's like a friend of yours, family member died and you don't know what to say.

It doesn't matter. You can call them and say I don't know what to say, I'm thinking of you.

Yeah.

Any way you extend yourself to people when they're in that situation is the perfect thing to say, Like, don't get caught up in being like a weird perfectionist. It's not about your message. It's about letting the person know that you're thinking about them. Because I got so many lovely messages, like, I was kind of hesitated putting it on Twitter. I didn't want to be like, I didn't want to seem like I was somehow trying to get sympathy.

Me to do show Alzheimer's show is, Karen, how do we do?

I don't know. Yeah we can.

I mean I don't know about him, but I think we can do it. Well.

He had does all these comedy for Alzheimer's.

I know it's already a thing, but yeah, but I mean he's not does he even do stand up?

I don't know what he does. I think a little bit. I'm sure he has some jokes.

I'm sure we could figure something out to do a benefit.

I want to Let's do it.

Let's do it.

It's important, it's very important.

And yes, say even if it's going to come out awkward and make people feel weird, say something.

You can just tell people you love them.

Yeah.

And friends of mine that lost their parents in high school when you're a kid and you really don't know what to say. Later in life, I've said like, hey, I'm sorry I never said anything to you, and then they're like, thank you, I noticed that you didn't say anything.

To me, right.

Yeah.

I even remember avoiding friends because I didn't know what to say. So instead, in high school they get shunned and avoided because they've lost their mom. Yes, that's awful, it is, so say it and say it awkward and because it's not about.

You, it's not about you, and and you don't know how strangely helpful it could be when you even if you don't. Like a couple friends who weren't talking to me about death, they were just texting me a lot more than they normally would.

Yeah, and I could just tell.

It was just purely of like, here's something so you don't have to think about or be in a bad place.

And I just it's it's lovely.

And it's it made me realize how few times I hope to be like that more in the future, is basically my point.

Yeah, because it's.

Uh, I'm going to be. Also, let's make a deal.

Yeah yeah, well, I mean also, that's just like experience. That's life experience.

That's just growing up essentially, which we haven't had to do that much of because of our our specific life choices.

Yes, the calm and the drinking and.

The driving, the driving and the hats.

Like a kid, I don't have time to grow up. I got road trips, I got.

I gotta smoke cigarettes in an alley. Yeah, that's my thing.

Oh, I'm we're here at a Pearl Richardson's. You're going to go eat with her? Right?

Yeah?

Yeah, I'm going to go to the improv. I'm glad that we did another episode. I think it was a good one. I'm going to try and doctor that one out of that missing I will see and what if.

You find other missing episodes?

Oh with other people that we don't even know ghost casts?

Oh my god, it's Richard Pryor is on here.

Thank you, we're back. Thank you for listening.

Thank you for tweeting and saying you missed us.

It's very lovely, very sweet, even though it made me nervous, but I needed to hear it. Thank you for complaining because it means you like the podcast.

Yeah, good to iTunes and do rate it. I guess that's an important And.

Yeah, rating it and subscribing is.

Yes or yes yes if you yes please and recommending yes yeah.

Tell your friends, you know when you're in those podcast conversations that people have mine uh names Chris.

Oh, and I also started another podcast with Georgia hartstart that one.

We started it called My Favorite.

Murder, My Favorite Murder.

It's on Farrell Audio. My Favorite Murder. It's just me and my friend Georgia talking about murders. That sounds great, it's pretty fun.

So listen to that. Thank you for listening to Do you need a ride? D Y n A?

I leave then I want to way back.

Either way we want to be there. Doesn't matter how much baggage you give us. Time and day German, I'll engage.

We want to send you us in.

Leanna, welcome you back home.

Tell us all about every scared her?

Was it fine?

Now?

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

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