S2 - Ep. 70 - Whitmer Thomas

Are you leaving?

I you wanna way back home?

Either way you want to be.

There, doesn't matter how much baggage you claim and give us time and a terminol and gay.

We want to send you off in style. We want to welcome you back home.

Tell us all about it.

We scared her? 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?

Ut? Do you need.

With?

Karen and Chris welcome to Do you need a ride? This is Chris Fairbanks.

And this is Karen Kilgarra. Hello Karen, my friend, Hello Chris and Montana.

I am right as.

You said that there's baby deer in my backyard that looked just like Bamby with the little white spots.

Huhh.

I don't I think I've talked about this deer that was in the backyard that had obviously been in a some kind of a collision with a car, and its tongue was always out, but was living a normal life, and its front leg bends the wrong way kind of like a human's.

Like no, no, no, yeah, I know, but has been that.

Way for five or six years now and just had a baby and kind of like we're trained to get happy because I'm like, oh, the deer with a backwards leg had a baby. But then I thought, well, then maybe it wasn't her choice.

You know, she can't.

Are you going to bring Bambi rape into.

Why the point? Yeah?

I know that, but you know me, my stories all come out and save themselves in the end.

I was just happy.

I'm just saying everyone has a type, and she's telling.

Herself there's a pot for every lid, right, And.

There is a deer out there that's that wanted to have a bamby baby with the deer with the long tongue that's always out, that's the isn't I.

Bet that deer is on TikTok because that's the big thing for selfies and stuff. You stick your tongue out. It's a way of being cute, and it's like, that's how.

You're cute these I've been actually meaning to start doing that. But you know, oh, who's got the TikTok all figured out? As our guest today.

Yes, finally someone young.

He's going to teach us how to be valid online. You know, our guest from uh he's got a very amazing HBO comedy special called The Golden One. You can watch it now. What else he was in, uh walking Dead? I think he's got.

A podcast called The American Arts and Culture Review.

I mean, he does it all more important than Walking Dead. Everyone put your hands together for Whitmer Thomas.

Thanks, thank you all for having me. Thanks for all the nice stuff.

And I like that y'all think of me as a young TikToker type.

Well, you're a skateboarder, you're dare I say, distractingly handsome. You are uh younger than me. You're younger than me.

Well, thanks, thanks man, that's all bets, all great compliments.

That's awesome.

I feel bad for like their true blue TikToker twenty year olds who are like smoking hot. Yeah, because they're making hot hot twenty year olds right now are like making more mistakes than any year of hot people in like the history of time, Like mistakes is and things.

They're going to be like kind of embarrassed by in a few years.

Yeah, Like they're they're they're tiktoks. They're being recorded.

Yeah, they're being they're recording themselves like hot boys are recording themselves going like a girl comes out to me and she's wearing that cherry chepstick.

You know, she's gonna beginning my kisses and like licking their lips and like, yeah, we didn't. I didn't do that. Maybe I did that or I thought it, but I wasn't filming it.

That's a really good point.

Have you done a series of characters on TikTok as the people?

You should?

Maybe you should get into that.

Uh, keep doing that cherry chapstick bit, because that was pretty great.

That's just they all talk.

Like they they all talk like their jaws are broken.

Like they all talk like they have like they have really they got to wet their lips and their jaws are so pointy that like maybe.

They don't really open all the way, you know, like.

Like, yeah, if you tell me what would happened if if you are seeing a girl who is pretty and then that girl just so happened to me being abused by her boyfriend, this is what I would be doing. And what is this this scenario they made up? Do you ever see those like the act where they like there's a scene.

Now, No, because your point is you're exactly correct. I've only seen them when someone is making fun of them and respect bonding to them in a TikTok. Yeah, because so then they'll show them, you know, making fun of that person they fall off their stool or whatever.

But there's one right now that it's just like four different ways to laugh to make a girl like you.

And I like going to change your laugh.

Like and then a guy going it's like a dude showing you the way he laughs to make it.

And he's not kidding, that's.

In earnest, he means it, and he'll.

Be he'll be so embarrassed in ten years. Yeah, and it's permanently on the internet.

Sorry.

Have you ever liked someone because of strictly the way they laugh?

No?

Is that a thing to work on?

No, I've not.

Like I didn't know how talented fran Dresher was because I was judging her paste on her laugh on the Nanny and little I know she was her whole career. She's really kind of a genius. And then but the laugh, that laugh ruin everything for me.

Yeah, I mean there's sometimes there's some people who have a laugh where they do the they're laughing in the audience and I'm like, Wow, well a laugh that person has there, Yes, imagine having that laugh.

A real standout, a real standout laugh.

Yeah m hm, yeah, there's no laugh that doesn't I don't like hearing anymore.

Yeah, I really You'll take any kind Yeah, even a TikTok boy laugh. The only wait wait sorry, I was just gonna say, can you give Chris his four choices?

Yeah?

Yeah, of laugh, because I actually do want people to like me, and I do want it based on my laugh and my snort.

People have been thinking that's forced.

So I don't want to do the snort, just loud snort, So let me hear the.

Well, let me try to do it naturally.

So could you just go over the outline of the deer knee tongue.

It's a good example of a very fun all the way through fun stories. So while we were talking, a baby deer just went by the window here with.

Yeah, that's number one.

And the mom is in the backyard, and mom's been in the neighborhood for a while.

Her tongue is always permanently outed. It's just always there's number two. Okay, good.

I do like these laughs, and uh, you know, but I'm happy because you know, she's a mom.

Yeah. Number three. There's always somebody for someone out there.

Mm hmmm, that is that TikToker was slowly getting choked. Yeah, that was his laugh, triple three.

It felt like, yeah, that's a good one.

That is the kind of thing you worry about when you're a kid. Though, to laugh your laugh is cool. Yeah, dude, I had.

A friend who had a fake laugh and you go, oh, oh no, something's funny, not cool.

Did he get that from Do you think that was like, oh, that's what the teenage mutant Ninja Turtles did or oh yeah, like from a movie or something.

No, you're absolutely right.

Because of being grown up in Alabama, everybody wanted to sound California like oh my friends, so we would do whatever we could, damask our accent, sir, and so he was really.

Big on like, dude, that's absolutely wicked.

You know.

That's what's funny. It's I noticed that in Boise, Idaho. I go to Boise, Idaho a lot, and everyone there kind of talks like an eighties surfer guy like no way, whoa And I'm like, wait a minute, are you currently farming for potatoes?

Yeah? I think you just sort of taught that that's the cool way to sound.

Yeah, totally dude, Bill and Ted, the Bill and Ted dialect that's left. When I was a teenager, when the actual Valley Girl, when the song came out Moon Unit Zappa's song, which is actually genius if you re listened to it, and then the trend of talking like a quote unquote valley girls started. And this was like the early eighties, and everyone went from just regular to everyone had the most extreme crazy accent that that was from

It made my parents insane.

Wow, Yeah, it's so funny that people didn't sound like that before then.

Yeah, it's except in La like in the Valley.

Yeah, that song and then yeah the the uh.

Way? What else started it from me? Yeah?

I thought of it, but then I lost it anyway, Oh Specoli, Yeah that I wanted to sound like Specoli when I was young, and there was one there was an older group of guys and they did have skateboards and they they went to high school when my sister did though, so it was like mid eighties, and they had a Vokeswagon bus and they'd come spilling out of it with their skateboards. And I think I saw him once when I was a kid, and I was like, Okay, that's the.

Life I want to lead.

And we had a Vokeswagon bus and my father he's in the next room right there, and I hope you can.

Hear me, Dad.

I sold it ray when I got my driver's license and I.

Got a Ford Escort wagon loser. I had a van, a.

Big van that was my first.

Set at all, buddy, like a Cono Line van exactly.

Yeah, in Florida'conna line and had bunk beds. Bought it. I bought it from my brother for five hundred bucks. Wow, and uh it was great. It had a big stencil of mister T on the side. There was inherited.

I didn't wait, your brother had put that on there.

That's Chris did or somebody else did.

Or well your brother you have a cool older brother.

Yeah, yeah, he's in your special Yes, he's a he's a brother.

Yeah, he's like one of the legends of my hometown.

Yeah.

But I'm stupid because my last name is Thomas, and so people at school, my teachers would call me mister T. A lot of the time, and I thought it was just because my last name is Thomas, and then I realized, oh yeah, there's this mister T Stencil and then yeah, that's why we call you mister T f cool.

You know what, in your defense, the fact that you were your name, you know, your last name starts with a T, that's where I would go with it.

Yeah yeah, well not everyone.

It's glued to the TV watching the A team, right, it's mister K's reading booked.

And is that is your older brother? How you got into skateboarding?

Went oh, yeah, yeah, he he was into all of the things. You know, penny Wise the band, not the clown. I mean he liked the clown too.

We loved that clown, that creepy little guy.

Yeah, but the clown is in a lifestyle like Pennywise the band, right, the most boring.

I saw it Anywise as like a more older guy, and I was like, this is what I like. It's just dudes in backwards hats going. This one is for all of your friends. You have to stay friends with your friends. These punk guys are obsessed with like.

Your friends are your family, that kind of yeah, yeah, you.

Know that kind of thing. And he got me into all pretty much everything I like.

Now, you know how much older is he.

He's five years older, So yeah, that's a good yab.

I actually just realized, like in therapy of just like a couple of weeks ago, that something that I did because my brother was nice.

Enough to let me hang out with him all the time.

Him and all of his older friends go skating and surfing and go to shows and stuff. But they would make fun of me and sort of pick on me all the time because I was like a child. So I would do this thing, and my therapist only just recently told me that this is like a part was kind of like a problem.

It makes a lot of.

Sense, which is where I would get into the car and I would think of a thing for them to make fun of me about, and then I would say it in earnest, like as if it was true.

So I'd get into the car and go.

You know, it was the early two thousands, so there's a lot of homophobia back then. I'd get into the car and I would go, like, guys, I just want to suck all your dicks. They would spend the whole car ride making fun of me for saying that, and then looking back, you know, I was like, I'm in control of this.

Yeah, they don't realize that I'm in control.

And my therapist was like, that's a problem, and that's probably that's why you're a stand up comedian.

Oh, because I look at it and I'm like, wow, you were a smart kid. Your therapist to be like, you're even older, you should know better to me that I was going to say, good job.

Yeah, you're going through your head as a kid and going what's the worst thing, probably, what's the worst thing they can say to me, or what's the most you know, threatening or upsetting whatever, And.

Then you say it first.

Yeahfore it doesn't hurt, and that you know, anything they try to do doesn't care.

Oh, you're in charge. I love it.

Yeah, and the attention is almost My sister is six years older, and I also her friends all wanted to hang out with me, and I thought it was the coolest and they would fully dress me up in my grandma's clothing and do full makeup on my face and do my hair and it was the funnest. Actually, at no point was I embarrassed of those photos.

There are photos where I look like a.

Tiny little woman and like from my early age, and it was only memories of great times. I got to find some of those photos. I know we've talked about this, Karen, but there.

Are yes we have.

Yeah, I've tried to get them from Yeah, it's only the third time I've mentioned it. I know we're in season two, but the season one was five years long with and I only have list in two year eight. I have seventeen stories and they all get better with age.

I can't believe I didn't tell that story last time I was on the podcast five years ago.

I know when we were in the car.

But I think that is such a crucial I feel like I could always tell kids who didn't have older siblings or cousins or someone around them compared to people who did, because you get it's almost like they take you and they beat you up and they insult you, and you get kind of seasoned for like the social politics of school and you are not like you really do then have the thick skin or that whatever where you can like manage that stuff that I think when

There was always like that kind of thing.

We're in the same army, Yeah, stop hitting me.

I'm on your side.

But I always just think it's I think it's such an advantage. Like my niece now is an only child, but she has she has like three older cousins, all girls that have been relentlessly mean to her since she was a baby. So like she has this kind of like who gives a shit, She just can handle shit so well, where me and my sister was like, wow, she was really cool about.

That, and it's like, oh, that's right.

We found they were playing a game one time and we went through to see like what.

The names were.

It was some computer game or something I can't remember, and the one of their one of the other older cousins team name was Nora Nora should die or something insanely violent against my niece, and we.

Couldn't stop laughing because they all act.

Like they're like sweet and cute to each other, but it's like, you know, the gloves are off when they're together, and then you get that kind of you get pre bullied.

So bullying is not it isn't as much of an isshoe.

I think, Yeah, you gotta get bumped on the head a couple of times before you go to school and steal some kids pencil or something.

Yeah, yeah, they s't.

Over, You're done.

Yeah, you're really Yeah.

Anytime I meet someone, even in an airport, and they're losing it because they're not getting their way, I want to yell only child.

Yeah.

But also when I see those people, I think that's that person is somehow happier than I'll ever be in my life. When they fucking scream at people. Screaming at airports is hilarious. Like, but I'm also they're tapped into like a.

Level of uh are there.

They lack the self awareness to like understand how they affect people, so they probably just sleep so peacefully every night, not really thinking about any of the mistakes.

They yeah, because I've seen those people lose it and then later on they don't even realize it and they don't care that later on they're sitting on the airplane in front of everyone who just saw them. Yes, this is absolutely ridiculous, when it's like, it's not really ridiculous. You just don't maybe fly that often, but planes are canceled I would say sixty percent of the time.

Yeah, pretty commons we did. And then they're sitting on the plane. Hey, so where are you going to don't try and talk to me. Everyone on here saw you lose it at the kiosk. You weirdo.

You only child, You're already the big asshole.

You're like the kid who threw up in grammar school, and you're just the kid who threw up for the rest of school. Like now you're on that plane and you're the dick who yelled about a.

Thing no one can control. You're a child.

I always wonder what they think they're gonna get from the flight attendant, Like what do you think this person is going to do for be able to do for you.

The funny thing is, though I have seen it, where like I'm always like, well, I guess that's the way it goes.

I'll miss my first show.

Tonight, and uh, and you'd see someone else lose their mind, and they they times get what they want in the airport because they're like, let's just quiet this lunatic down. And so sometimes I'm like, you know what, maybe I should lose it and pound the desk and kick over some papers.

I guess that'd be a karate Rick. You must have done that at one point. I can't imagine you haven't. You haven't had to.

What do you What are you saying, Karen, I've.

Seen you key things for much less reasoning.

Yeah, yeah, I don't. I don't know why I'm so well behaved in the airport. Then you never yell God no, because there are people everywhere. If I could get alone with the person, oh, then I tell them come in.

Could you come in the hallway with me?

Pardon me, We'll just go in the This is ridiculous, ridiculous.

Sorry I'm yelling. It's just no one's around. It's so freeing.

I feel bad because the and we can use this to segue into how has your quarantine been? But I just read a thing about how now the places are trying to reopen. The clientele is so unbearable because no one has manners and everyone's.

Kind of an asshole anymore.

Like this this effect of all of us beings desocialized and isolated in our houses. Like now when people go out to dinner, they're just total assholes to the wait staff and the people that are like just trying to be there, like doing their best through while we're still in this global pandemic.

It's so sad.

Oh yeah, I have a trendy works at a bar and they said that also people are getting completely like sloshed drunk by seven pm and then yeah, like trying to drive home, Like people just don't know how to live outside anymore. And I did go to a restaurant recently and they said, like, when I made the reservation, we only have two employees, so don't be rude. That's a kind of a nice thing, but it's like, what what how did they have to get there? But people have probably been so.

Mean, Yeah to where it was part of the telephone reservation announcements.

Don't be mean to our two people.

Yeah, it's kind of like, you know the same reason people odeon heroin, You take a break off and you forget how much you know, your body isn't used to it, and so everyone's like, I can drink again, and they get I've done all these shows where everyone's not only are they drunk, they're around people for the first time, and they forget how to act.

They're like disruptive.

But I accept it because I'm like, I'm just happy there's an audience.

Say you go ahead, treat me terribly, do what you will. I'm happy to be here.

I'm sure that first buzz, like when you're you know, one and a half drinks hits you and someone's up there making jokes and you're standing in the dark again.

You're like, it's a real life.

Like That's the reason I'm an alcoholic is because I have lots of friends who are like, you get kind of buzzed and then you're like yeah and you stop there, and it's like that's that's the engine for me to start going where it's like we're gonna.

Have the best night of our lives. Yeah, and it's it's Wednesday.

Yeah, the way things are going, it can only get better. Bottoms up, let's do this blackout. How was your quarantine?

Wit? Did you have h what what are some of your observations now that we're a year and a half in.

Yeah, I look considerably older. My hair turned gray, truly. That's the main thing I keep thinking about, is that why my hair turned gray in a year I turned to I aged twice two years.

It's just sun it's highlight. You were out side, you were skateboarding. The sun lightens your hair.

It's a gray light. I think you're going gray.

Yeah, I don't know. I aged two full years. At the beginning of Lockdown. I was like, Okay, my comedy special came out like a week about a week before Lockdown, and as it, oh, wow, here comes my life. It's about the change. And I had all these door dates and ship and then you know, they whatever, they all got canceled. But and then, you know, it became kind of awkward to tell people like this national international crisis but hey check this, hope you got a subscribe to HBO.

Yeah, but.

So true.

So that took a few months of me like kind of getting out of my head. It like stopped being kind of not to be a brat, but just trying.

Really hard to not be bummed out about that. You know, a lot of lockdown was.

Just like people thrive on the Internet and kind of go and like, how the fuck I gotta figure out how to do that, and then realizing like dang, and I don't know how to do that, or fuck, I've spent forever trying to figure out how to be a musician and a comedian and now I got to know how to be good at the fucking internet.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, So.

That really that is such a That's a good news story in and of itself, because I heard so many people talk about how much they loved your comedy special with and talked about how special it was and how different and cool, and I feel like that is such a rip off your right to you get to be

Yeah, it really is.

And we there were times where because we were driving back then, we would drive by Whitmer had billboards in Los Angeles Like that had to be to see a billboard if you're special with you on, it had to be pretty exciting. But at the same time, that's right when you're like, damn it, this is the billboards there. No one's driving by it because they're at home watering.

It was really funny because they got stuck up on They were up for like, yeah months because COVID, but no one was driving in LA.

It was awesome.

It felt like I am legend, no traffic, nobody on the streets, and it was kind of symbolic for me feeling kind of like I've always felt like an outsider, you know, like I don't belong And then finally I have a billboard just alone on Sunset and Algorado, the most prominent like east side billboard, and I have it, but like nobody's driving by, and I was like, this kind of works for my narrative.

It's also a good you know, it's a good new chunk because god damn, you know, like, I'm sure you're going to be able to write some jokes about because that's real pain, and that's like a really shitty kind of injustice that you know. I think the best comedians when stuff like that goes on. It's just like and now you have a new five minute chunk, right, Yeah.

Empty my billboard with no eyes on it.

Yeah, fucking rip off.

I think I think Parent's right. I think you just we got you a new bit, right. The billboard from I am Legend very relatable.

Yeah you know that thing where when you work really hard and you finally get a comedy special. Yeah, people like, yeah.

Yeah, we've all tried for that in this audience.

No, but yeah no, I mean I was like spinning out, but then I stopped caring.

I was just, you know what, who fucking cares?

I don't know.

I'm okay at least I can pay my rent and stuff.

Yeah.

Yeah, Well there were stages of us all dealing with this thing, and I was having the same thing, I mean, not similar. I didn't have billboards, but I put mine out right at the beginning too, and I've canceled my tour also, And I was like, so you feel selfish when you're worried about your thing, but then the next stage is you know, whatever it is for you.

But then you saw the psychopads who were just acting like it was.

Happening, and yeah, yeah, and especially.

Into June and July with the Black Lives Matter protests and stuff, people who were just like going about their lives and posting like that my impression of a person who doesn't know what a table.

Is or something.

Yeah, fuck these buckets, psychopaths.

What is happening?

Yeah yeah, yeah, fuck out of here.

Yeah, I got serious.

I mean, but also for both of you, I think that it's that horrible lesson of show business, which is like every you guys leveled up and you got to this next level and you had already made up in your mind what was going to be like, and you can absolutely rest assured anytime you're in that position, show business is going to be like guess what doing something else like that's you know, there's people, really successful people and really talented people who have years of stories like

So it's good. It's good to have a broken Yeah.

I've always I've always said I'm not excited about something till the actual check for having done it is in my pocket. But in this case, you know, if there's a pandemic, that doesn't even matter either.

I was like, oh shit, I didn't factor that in.

Yeah, it was hard.

I couldn't even imagine a pandemic. I didn't even when people were like COVID, I.

Was like, who's a what's a corona?

Yeah, what you're talking about.

I remember reading the article and sending my friends the article because we had just all had lunch together and we were making some plan like, oh, we should do this once a month or something like that, and then I just sent everyone the article that was one of the first ones of like mysterious you know virus the

And as we.

Know, it is not that. Do you guys know? Andy Smith is.

The stand up comments Yeah, and she's great, but she also did like my the album, the layout for my first album and stuff.

She's she was working at rooftop, but I've known her a while and she out of no eye. I had heard in the background mentions of everything, but she sent me on Twitter.

Like you have to.

Tape a grid in your house and stay six feet away from people. I thought she was going crazy. She listed everything that was to be announced not for another couple months, and I was like, I am so sorry. I kind of don't know what you're talking about, and I don't believe. And then I asked everything start happening. I'm like, oh, okay, genius with a crystal ball.

How did you know?

She was warning me way early on and I still haven't followed up to one thank her or to how did you know that?

Because I bet she's related to a doctor.

I bet you or something, because my sister has the same kind of connection where my sister sent me the N.

Forty five or fifty for whatever. The mask.

Yeah, she was telling me about the masks.

Yeah, yeah, my sister sent me the masks in February because she has a friend, you know, like that she has a close related doctor who was just kind of like out of the side of their mouth being like, get ready for this, do this, make sure you have this, which is just the creepiest. But I want to say this really quick. Andy Smith, I'm sure she still does comedy. Yeah, it's truly one of the best stand ups.

Really.

I love watching her stand up if you've never seen her.

Yeah, and yeah, that's first and foremost. I just also, she happens to be a good graphic designer and made my album art.

But and she tried to save your life. Yeah, you need to text her.

I know.

I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I actually didn't even answer the last one. Sorry, I'm a little busy right now dealing with the things you were warning me about.

We should we should actually have her on. That's you should text her and say be on the show's sorry. Now we're just doing Yeah, we're doing a little business. It's just sitting there like, excuse me, I have other projects to discuss.

Yes, projects.

You started skateboarding more during.

Yeah, I started.

Skating all the time, me and Chris have gone during COVID. I guess maybe that was on the other end of it, but like, I got better at skating than I've ever been, saing grace for my mental health.

Yeah, and started playing a lot of music. At one point I was like, I don't think I'm going to do comedy ever.

Again, and then I write, you know, obviously things opened started to open back up, and I did one show like two weeks ago, and I was like, oh, never mind, I like that is my favorite thing in the world.

It takes one show and it's like, oh, I forgot this is part of my identity, right yeah, right.

Now are you doing Sorry to ask this question, but now I'm being serious. Are you doing TikTok chalker characters on stage? Rusions of TikTokers on stage?

Maybe I should do that?

Please start absolutely, Just let people know I want to write. I want to write this bit with you. Be like, I know not everyone's on TikTok. It's kind of young, so I'm just gonna let you know the stuff that's going on on TikTok.

That's a great idea.

The guy that does here's ways to laugh and be direct. That's so funny and stupid.

I need my hair to grow a little bit longer because they have these like really perfect bangs. Yeah yeah, yeah, it's like, ah man, it's it's pretty bleak. So scrolling through TikTok is pretty bleak. But then every now and you'll you'll get like a baby.

With cheese stuck on its face.

And then you scroll for like another hour until you get to like, go that's stuck in a market.

Yeah, any anything stuck on a baby or an animal you like. I realize the videos I've liked the most lately are TikTok. And it doesn't have to be a dance or a lip sync or a kid with bangs teaching out to laugh to girls. There's some pretty I gotta get on there. I'm gonna get TikTok. I swear.

Here's can I just tell you? Yeah, I'll just write bits for everybody. Here's yours for TikTok. Get your ass out in that front yard and take videos of Bambi.

With her tongue out with the babies. Yeah, oh yeah, that's all That's.

All you need in a in a viral video. Yeah no, it's like an interesting tongue out animal.

And all I've been doing is little Instagram videos of like here's a deer outside my window and that's I don't add any comedy. Who am I?

Who do I know? What do you want them?

You want tongue out?

And yeah for you, you got that song that's like look at your phone, the song you put that onto? TikTok. Yeah, we'll start making videos. Young girl, a seventeen year old. Girls will start making videos about being bored and then having to look at their phone, and then your song will become a chart topping hit, because that's all how all music becomes popular now is they'll pay these TikTokers to make videos of you're right.

Yeah, that's a good idea.

Like the day that Bo Burnham special came. He has some Jeffrey Bezos song that is a catchy. All the songs are good. I actually really like his special.

He writes great songs, really really good.

I saw that song being used all over TikTok like within the week.

Jeffrey Bezos.

Yeah, come on, Jeffrey, you can do it.

It's pretty great. Yeah, yeah, you're right. What's right?

What's right with your permission to take my song on there and be the first seventeen year old girl that does it and then start the you start the trend.

Okay, you're the only TikToker I know.

You're right.

Right, you're in the process of doing a music album right with Yeah, I'm in.

The recording studio, so we're taking a week off.

But I'm right now, that's what I've been doing it just like Yeah, my friend Melina is producing it.

She goes performs under the moniker.

Jay som and she's producing it. But yeah, So a lot of what happened is like I just started writing a lot of music, some of it more comedy leading and.

Some not, you know, not too different than what I already do.

But yeah, but I stopped with like synthesizer music because that music was fun to write, knowing that I would then be going on tour, Yeah, going to you.

Are dancing and stuff to it, but.

Writing that like alone in my room is not as fun. It was more depressing than anything.

So I just kind of went back to just playing like.

Guitar, and that's more the vibe of the new music. And that's why I was very great that I had that because and then the lockdown happened. Because to be honest, if I would have gone on tour right at the beginning of Lockdown, I probably would have just done a bunch of half written jokes and songs, and maybe people would have gone maybe not, I don't know. Maybe people would have been like, it's not this didn't seem very well thought out or planned.

But because of.

COVID, I kind of had to sit and really like think about, oh what I would do.

You wouldn't have gone out and done the material from the Golden One.

No, And that was kind of a weird realization, is like, oh wait, because I'm the people who put out my music are called there the labels called hard the Art, and they don't. They've never done a comedy album, and so they were like, hold up, you don't.

You performed, Now you go.

On tour and do the Golden One. I was like, no, that's not how comedy works. I already burned it. I did it, already came out, and they were like, damn it, we're planning on like you going out and supporting this album.

I don't think people want to hear it again.

No, I don't know wh I think you can do.

You don't you want With comedy, I really do like if it if you know, people are going to like it. I don't think as comics we think people are going to get mad if it's something that they heard on an album. But if it that soon after, you spe you can keep doing that stuff. You don't have to. I'm telling this to you and to me, you don't have to retire all that material.

Especially with music, because the mus the music part is a different. Yeah, the experience is different and so yes, it's good to always be like push yourself and always be making new stuff. But like those people, especially now, it's the perfect setup because the people that did see the special or didn't get to engage in it in any way, it's like, it's this that's the second chance.

And that is the different part with me.

I want to hear those songs you did on your special, yeah, and I don't want you to retire them. So see, now you have all this new material because we just gave you permission to keep doing it. That's what I was fishing for yeaheah, well you just got a big old bass.

That's your new album, Fishing for Permission.

That's a great that's pretty good, good one. Thanks, thanks love permission. Sorry I did the accent. That's no right, hey, that's not right to do to a Southerner.

That's what fisherman sound like. They sound in southern no matter where they're from.

Every time I.

Do it with my southern accent, I'll goough like, hey 'all, what's everybody doing, which is just kind of my voice, but in southern mom like, don't go down there.

That's what I used to sound like.

The reason I stopped having a southern accent is like a real one. It is because when I saw a video of myself when I was like fourteen is escape video and I'm trying to get my buddy to allie off of the loading.

Doc and I go, dude, just do it. Don't they have the itch? And I was like that was I heard my voice and I was like, I can't talk.

I gotta fix this.

But so anytime I do it that voice, people will comment online. They'll be like, you're doing Zach alf and akiss or It's like, oh, you're.

Doing Seth guf Naxason.

It's like it's funny that the well, I guess he does that on this TV show too. But the high pitched sounnn guy Chip, Yeah, yeah, his high pitched sounden guy is absolutely reserved. It's like his thing, you know. Yeah, And it's wild because there's a lot of people who sound like that, and that's what you're good is because it's so relatable. But I'm like, holy shit, Like if I just sounded like my natural voice, like if I would have never altered my accent growing up, I was just sound like Chip.

You should grow you should grow a big beard, just be doing Zach directly like they're going to say it anyway, do it?

Oh my god. Yeah.

I remember the first time I saw a stand up set when I very first started.

It was like the third time I had done stand.

Up, and my voice was pitched up like this, like it's that thing I see people do it all the time, men and women, where you kind of pitch your voice up as if to say please, don't hurt me, like hey, what do you guys like this thing or whatever. And then soon after that video where I was like, I can't believe I talked like I almost sounded like like I.

Was in high school or younger.

And then I saw Jenny Grofflow on Half Hour Comedy Hour, and she her whole thing was this, and so then I started talking as deeply as I could without like basically hurting my throat because it was like, oh, that's what I want to be like her. I don't want to be like you know whatever I thought, I naturally was.

Like, I mean, dude, if you want to see a guy flailing, you gotta watch videos of me.

When I was in Australia, I did like.

Some like late night Australia sets, and I was bombing all over the place in Australia, not having any good shows, and so I started doing an impression of an American but like thinking like okay, just be really confident, sort of lean into that you're from Alabama, like be big and like don't basically don't be yourself at all. And it's so fucking embarrassing. It's like, eikes, it's really weird. For all your listeners. If you see these videos, just know that I know.

Well, what are you supposed to do?

Like here's the thing that makes me think of when I did colleges when I first moved to LA I did colleges for money, and that's all I did was eat it.

And I remember like I had gone.

And done one and it was so terrible, and it was I didn't have enough material.

I wasn't good enough.

For like you know, a bunch of nineteen year olds who think they know everything or whatever. And I remember coming back and being in a full panic and being at a party with a bunch of comics and they're like people were telling me I could take entire chunks of theirs that They're like, yeah, just do whatever you want, like just survive, like get through it because this is

She goes, take that whole chunk. I don't care, Like.

You know, it's a thing of like when you're alone touring and eating it consistently, there's nothing worse than the world.

Whatever people end up doing.

It's like, I'm sure that's how a lot of people ended up being ventriloquists or like you know what I mean, like a magic a comic that also does magic, because like it's you're truly dying.

On stage, like you you're fighting for your life.

Yeah, it was a nightmare.

It was awful, and I'm glad there's like documented evidence of Like me, it was just like really struggling.

Yeah, I'm getting quiet, realizing with myself that I've I've been doing stand up a lot, kind of saying to myself, well, I'm going to win them over with my reggae chunk.

I just kind of realized what was happening, that's my magic. On a cruise ship.

It works though, Christ.

You know what, I can't deny that after I do it, I feel it's like getting baptized or getting dipped into an ice bath or whatever. Do I feel terrific afterwards when I do reggae for people, and I'm all sweaty because I'm nervous.

I'm really putting myself.

Out there because oh yeah, it's a misappropriation of a whole culture. So that puts my back against the wall. I'm like, if I say the wrong thing or make fun of it in the wrong way, I'm really in trouble. So at the end, my back's all sweaty. I love reggae music. I would not have said that a couple of years ago.

See, to congratulate both of you, because what you're saying is when you're eating it or when you're in a pinch on stage, what you do is you try, and you put in an effort, and you're like, what kind of show do you want?

Then I'll give you what you want.

Whereas when I start to eat it on stage, I like to then begin to kind of hold.

Forth on how comedy is dead, and I.

Just like to shut the entire fucking evening down.

I like that, I might as well turn the lights out.

So shit it too. It's so shitty.

No, Like, I love what I've seen you do that when you had your show with Aprol the improv, and I'm like, yeah, I want to do that too, And then I go on stage in a bad mood.

Here here's something Karen didn't mention. Audiences are dead. I wish that's one.

That's what I like now about playing music because people are just sort of forced to clap and then you gotta go yeah, that's it. Yeah, doing bits like elaborate sort of bits that involve a prop people feel guilty and you.

Know they got it.

Yeah, but then you got to get out of there. Yes, that's awesome, that's it. That's so cool.

You're they're totally trapped and they have to regard you. I mean, that's the that's the thing that you said. So, Chris, was the hardest thing for me when I would do my songs was starting the song and knowing this isn't going to be over for like three minutes. Yeah, and every one's just gonna listen to me the whole time, maybe hopefully laugh, but for the most part, I'm they just have to listen.

It's yeah, it's very.

Difficult if you're used to laughs, I guess, but I did just listen. I would just listen to you and and to Wit because they're you guys actually make good songs, and I don't listen to music. I like and laugh at them, you know what I mean?

That's you know, yeah, I know what you mean.

And sometimes I'm like a lot of the greatest musicians if they were to tell stories in between their songs, just a quick little anecdote about what they're about to sing, Yeah, those songs would then become like the greatest comedy songs.

Yeah, yeah, like.

That nothing but flowers by talking heads. Like if David Byrne was like, what's why that was there walking around on a parking lot or walking around a field and no, there's a pizza hut, had some joke.

About it, and then he was like and then he wiggled his news.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Sometimes have you ever.

Seen one of those guys with huge shoulders and a small head that's called back of All Time? Later he shows up, like all of these people, if they just did stand.

Up, they they showman told Troy, yeah, told a little talking after the chorus and that's all.

You know, what, do you ever feel that heaven is a place where nothing ever really happened.

I like David Byrn talks out of the side of his mouth as a comic, He's one of the more subtle stand up comics.

Yeah, guys, you know, well.

Imagine still I feel guilty about playing music and gen people are going to listen to this song for three.

Minutes and there I like expected him to clap.

But imagine being one of those comedians where your whole thing is that you have like a hot take about.

Feminism or something.

Yeah, yeah, I think there's a reason, you know what feminism.

And it's like that guy is delusional.

He's like, I'm gonna I've got such a good idea that I'm going to make people listen to it, and people do those.

The thing people love it all of comedy. It's all of comedy right now.

That's comedy right now.

Though, like the comedians who are really like top top of their game, uh, the big guys are mostly just.

Kind of complaining.

Yeah, Like that's a lot of what like the most successful comedy in the last few years is just people just like kind.

Of crying into a microphone that you're strong. They look strong.

They're streaming on on four different channels talking about how they've been silent, ironic complaining.

Yeah, that's that's a future comedy. We have to complain more and start lifting weights with.

Yeah, be fun boys, beef fus, It's time to beef up.

It's Karen Whitmer skates with this one of my favorite skateboarders that kind of took a break and then came back and he does a lot of it.

And then Whitmer.

Skating with a Spanky Long all the time, and I'm like super jealous. So one day I was skate in this curb spot and Spanky was there. It was just me and him and some other guy taking pictures of him, and I just went up to him and I was like, I'm friends with Whittmer. He's like, oh, yeah, that guy's great, and I'm like, yeah, say you later.

He told me about that.

Well yeah, well maybe it wasn't that awkward.

I did explain why I was bothering him, but uh, yeah, that that guy.

Well he's so nice.

Yeah he's a nice status.

Skate are exciting, but trust me, from my perspective, it was very awkward, and I just said I'm friends with with bye, and then I went back and said, sorry, that was weird. Uh, my name's Chris, No, did you Yeah? Yeah, well we were skate circled back around. We were skating the same spot otherwise, I okay. I then stand next to him and be like, remember a minute ago, never mind, I can't look at you, sir.

I'm trying to eat in this restaurant. Yeah, please move away.

And he skates with that Tim Robinson who put it.

He's got the new episode of I think you should leave that guy.

You see it.

It's very good at skateboarding and very good. Yeah he does front sight flips, big ones.

Oh yeah, he's he's great.

You get the impression he doesn't skate that often, he's just got that ability.

Or oh no, he skates a lot. He skates a lot, few times a week.

Okay, now, okay, for a while I needed to hear that. Yeah, yeah that's what everyone dead. Everyone's coming back.

Oh yeah, I love great about COVID.

I get to make this return.

Yeah yeah yeah.

Tim Robinson is so funny, yeah, and so good and I think you should leave is so fucking funny and insane.

It's just and I love how much people love it. Yeah, like people are people just love it.

Like my friend called me after it premiered and wanted to talk about coffin Flop like it's.

A you know what I mean, It's like a real thing.

And he's so deserving of that kind of total devotion, Like he's such a good guy, cool guy.

Yeah, oh yeah, he's funny like nobody else's. And the other day I was talking to nobody, like, so many people are gonna start copying Tim Robinson now because.

He's the first seeing it, already seen it show that is like purely silly guys.

But then I was I started to continued to think, and I was like, that's probably okay. Yeah, people just going full blown silly again.

It's like that's kind of nice.

Yeah, yeah, totally it is. Yeah, I've already seen it. I've seen a lot just on people's videos. I'm like, oh, that guy's trying really hard to be Jim Robinson right now.

Yeah, but if he inspires people to be like dumb asses, than hell.

I mean, yeah, that sketch that started with him spoiler alert with a hot dog hidden up his sleeve trying to eat it eating it's just.

Like I'm in that sketch. Yeah, it's really Yeah, it doesn't work.

I don't look like myself.

No, is your hair slicked back or something?

My hair slicked down and like very perfect, perfectly combed, and I'm wearing like business man.

I got so excited that I'm like that you brought up the hot dog sleeve and I was like.

What's in that ship? And okay, he'll say it, say it?

Can I just say for one secon and that I thought this second we started talking about this, I thought maybe I remember that you were in it, But then I know Andrew Mashawn is in it, and I was like, are you are you mixing up the young blonde comedians that you know, Like, don't.

You don't be that person?

Are you confusing yourself with and the other skateboarder?

So how did you you wanted to give us a little background? Were you friends with him or what? How did you get into that?

Yeah?

On that part, well, you know, I'm barely in it for a hot minute, and you're not the only person who's like, tell me about that sketch.

And then I'm like, you know what I mean?

That that's you, and then they like they go and pose it on me and they're like, this doesn't look anything like you.

Yeah, I have.

This effect where if like I wear glasses or if I comb my hair. To be honest, I don't even have blonde hair. I have brown hair, but people see me as having blonde hair all the time. They like, imagine me with blonde hair. So but most of the time usually, you know, like every gathering I go to, someone will come up to me and be like, did.

You dye your hair brown?

Yeah? Oh that's there's just I have.

This effect to where like I'm a complete stranger.

Right all the time.

So that's because you're a good actor, because you're a very, very good actor.

No, I'm not being sarcastic.

I saw that movie that you made, that short film where you were the creepy.

Yeah, that my my friend's mom or what's it called my daughter's boyfriend, my daughter's boyfriends.

I was so close friends my friend, my daughter's boyfriend.

Yeah, it's confusing it with the blink song.

I was just surprised when I saw that. I think I told you this already, but when I saw that that you really are a great actor to the point where I think you're right in that like neutrality is kind of the key because then you're just going in like I didn't recognize you because as I know, he wouldn't be in a boardroom, right, why would he be at a marketing meeting or whatever that meeting was.

That's true, And now I totally feel it and I got casts because probably because I'm friends with Tama. To be honest, I don't know. He didn't text me about or anything. I it's the cat, you know, to aid my agent, It's like, yeah, do want this, but I'm I'm not seen for like most of the sketch until I have a line. My whole sided table is and I'm worried that that that is because I was laughing.

Yeah, yeah, scare.

It's so funny through the entire shoot, even when the camera wasn't on me.

When it was on me, I was I was like, how are the fuck are they gonna cut wells together? You?

It takes a comic to know how to play the other side of a sketch like that. And that's when I noticed about the first season or even the his characters thing. I was like right away, it's like God, the supporting cast of all these sketches is so good at playing the straight man that clearly they are also funny enough to realize, Oh, I have to just earnestly react like I don't know if I'm I'm explaining that correctly, but that I've I've been impressed with everyone in that show.

Yeah, Like I felt really unprofessional because all of the other actors in that were real actors, and they maybe some of them were Tim's friends, are you know, fellow comedians, but like they were playing they.

Were not laughing, Yeah, as I was.

But I was sat right across from him and was looking at the ship of the hot Dog.

Do you not laugh?

How do you not laugh at that?

And he kept.

Looking at something that's not in it, and I don't think he cares that I say, but he kept looking at.

Me or whoever was around and going, this is a really good meeting.

That is so fun.

This is one of the best meetings I've ever been to.

He's truly my favorite, so good.

I watched that with my nieces and when he was walking with his eyes I didn't quite get it when his arm was good and my nieces were like, oh my god, the hot dog's.

In his sleeve. That's like what I was like, Yeah.

Oh god, yeah, yeah, so delightful. Yeah, good for kids. It's my point, my sixteen year old niece, since they loved it.

Oh I bet yes.

If I was like a child when this came out and I would be obsessed with it.

Yeah, yes, yeah, big time, because it is that. It's like there's it's all things. It's like they're really good concept. Like just the concept of a sketch of a guy that was trying to eat a hot dog during an important meeting is.

So funny and stupid.

And then of.

Course the extreme, he takes it to the extreme. He takes everything too. Everything becomes like a mud pie and yeah, shit in this and whatever. And it's just like it's the feeling of like when your parents are having a dinner party downstairs, when all the kids are in a room upstairs and you start like running around or whatever and there's no supervision until everyone's kind of out of

I love that stuff.

Yeah, I love that silliness too, but also yeah again, Nut, I just want to bring it back to your special I actually watched that and I was like tearing up.

It's so like heartfelt and serious.

Sometimes I think that, so then of course we're going to appreciate straight up silliness.

Yeah, that's where my line that I prefer that.

As far as me making comedy goes, it's like I've found sort of that.

Like I'm there.

I am the opposite and mysterious as a comedian there as a artist, like I just want people to want like, Okay, I'm writing this, Let's see if I can teach people everything about me in three minutes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, And I don't.

I'm not one of those guys who is able to like go on stage and I have to tell people that like my parents my dad's split and my mom is dead, and then also let me sprinkle in a joke about how.

I fucking clog the toilet or something like that.

Yeah, but like first I have to kind of oh, yeah, this is to teach people a little bit about me.

We're all part of that.

We all are part of the Dead Mom's Club. That's that's what a cool meeting. Yeah you're not, but someone could do that and you could tell they're doing it as a You're just naturally open, so it doesn't come off like I got to mention this and this and this.

You're just that's what you talk about. It's great.

Oh so it's a style It makes me think of like when you guys used to host that show at that Black Power that Power Violence.

That feels like it was twenty years ago. But it's this. It is a style of it's.

Like deconstructing stand up in a way where it's like, right, I'm about to do this and everything, but also I'm going to do what I want. It's very punk rock skateboardy kind of it's I always have that tendency. Or it's like, right, I walked out here, you clapped for three more seconds, then you're clapping died down. You're expecting

That is a different thing.

It's going to be more personal, it's going to be more casual, and it's my pace.

I'm going to have the guts to set it. And I think it's you know, it's good.

Yeah, you're right, Yeah, yeah.

I just like putting on.

A show like I honestly, a lot of times, I don't you know, I don't really care if it's super funny. When I'm watching somebody, I just want to feel like I was like super entertained, and I'm like, I'm not looking for like they had fourteen perfectly crafted jokes.

Yeah yeah, I just kind.

Of want to be like super entertained, which I think is why sometimes it's really fun to watch a friend bomb.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And power violence like that was like probably ten years ago, when.

Well you were you kept doing it at the Satellite, which unfortunately is closed.

But yeah, that show got really big.

Well that was like we got lucky because we just didn't know what we were doing.

We were a band and then everybody made fun of us.

Looking back, we were so confident because y'all were headlining comedians who made a living in comedy, and we were so brave to be like, hey, Chris, here's we're gonna give you some chalk and would you for like ten minutes draw things?

Oh yeah, that was it. And then yeah it was fun. Yeah I canot about.

I have a photo of that somewhere, just like drawing.

And then Karen would be like, you have to pick which one of us to go out on a date with.

Oh yeah, I remember that Drew pictures.

I still have one of those pictures makes me laugh so hard because whoever drew my eyes are really big and my boobs are really round. It almost looks like someone used like a peanut buttered jar.

It just it was just like.

That was that was my favorite I've never comedy is always has always been so painful to me or so like h and that was like I remember standing on stage and just being like, this is a whole new generation of comedy where like people are truly romancing you as you're doing your set before or after, so hilarious.

Totally.

Yeah, I mean we would do like we did a bit where we gave our friend Clay a bath on stage with Doctor Pepper at the beginning of the show, and so the whole floor was like sticky faery And I think about it and laugh all the time because Natasha Leazeiro went out after that and her high heels were sticking to the stage and she didn't watch the beginning because she was backstage, and she was like.

What is wrong with the floor, And then never was laughing at her for not watching the beginning of the show.

Yeah, and so I now every time I'm sitting backstage, I look at the stage and I look at the comedian on the stage, and I imagine if their feet.

Were danced to the floor so hard, Like we didn't have it.

We didn't think about that at all, Like what the what if the comic who's like really trying.

To work out their material for their job is annoyed because their feet are sticking.

Nah, then that's sad for that comic because their job is to have their feet stuck to the floor and say something funny about it, like.

Well, she wasn't she was totally cool.

But yeah, she's thinking about the funniest. She's probably just pissed about her her shoes getting dirty.

Yeah, yeah, probably nice shoes. You really fucked up those shoes with.

Yeah, expensive, expensive, expensive shoes.

Well when do you When do you think or I don't know. Do you know when you're going to be done with your album? Your music album we're working on.

Oh, probably by the end of August. We're just we're just so cool.

For more little days, sprink. We got to record some drums and some extra vocals.

Well everyone should look out for that, because with the songs on Your Special, I really like they were in my head for a long time. They're really good. It was like, I don't know what you would conce sinth the synth. I'm not saying it because of the synth, but they reminded me of what do you I hate like labeling music, but like I.

Just call it like dark waves and dark way wave. Yeah, yeave, I like dark wave. Okay, I like dark wave. Yeah, melodicy eighties and thank y'all.

For having me. This this, this podcast.

Every now and again, I'll just see a tweet that says like, oh my god, the kidnap and just listen to do you Need a Ride?

Yeah, talks Whitmer Thomas kidnap story.

Yeah, yeah, and I'm like, holy shit, that's where I first told that story.

Is that true?

Yeah it was, or I mean I had probably told it before, but I think that was the first time I ever told it publicly. Yeah.

I think I saw you tell it at meltdown and them was like, I need you to.

Yeah, it seems kind of weird to say, but after you listen to this episode, listen to the first time Whitmer was on our podcast as an accompany and because man, we covered some shit that door to door sales stuff. Oh there was some good stuff in that episode.

Oh man, oh man.

Well, yeah, thanks for being on, Buddy, and let's go skateboarding.

And yeah, it's nice to see you. I haven't seen you in so long.

With y'all too, I miss I mean, I see Chris so mostly miss Karen.

No offense, Chris, No, It's okay, Yeah, I mostly miss you too.

You have to hang with y'all soon.

Yeah, Yeah, I'm looking forward to your music album.

Oh wait, do you want to plug your podcast or do you or a show of any kind?

Oh yeah, I.

Got I go on tour in December. None of those dates are announced yet, so yeah, that's not helpful. But I have a podcast called American Arts and Culture of View just me and my buddies who are in power violence with me, and we just talk about, you know, being going to see a movie, being hungry.

American Arts and Culture. Yeah, just like the title, son, Yes, check that out.

Awesome. Hey everyone, I have an album coming out on August third, called the Rescue Cactus Album. Some of the material is the second night of recording, uh from when I did my special. A lot of it's all new. Get it.

It's on eight hundred pound Gorilla Records, and it's wherever you can find your music iTunes and everything. So enjoy it and thank you well, thanks for being on brand. Good to see you again, Karen, my other brand you've been listening to.

Do you need a ride? D y n A?

I leave in on you wanna way back?

Either way you want to be there, doesn't matter how much baggage you us time and German on engaye.

We want to send you off InStyle. Do you want to welcome you back home?

Tell us all about ity scared?

He was it fine?

Melbourn?

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 need

With Karen and Chriss, that's how you make a horn and sound if you want a girl to like you,