I Am All In…Again: Talking Too Much (Season 2 E20 “Help Wanted”)

I am all in again.

That's just too.

Luke Steiner with Scott Patterson an iHeartRadio podcast. Hey, everybody's Scott Patterson. I am all on podcasts, one of them productions. iHeartRadio Media, iHeart podcast. Very special guest here on our episode twenty season two recap. Mister Clay Aiken himself is here. He is if you don't know him, and I'm sure you do. He's a singer, actor, father, and was the runner up in American Idol and Apprentice. His debut album,

Well, thank you for thank you for having me. There was a heck of an introduction. I appreciate it.

Oh I cut it short. There's so much more I.

Am probably I probably don't know barely half of what the people who listen know about the show, but obviously I recognize its cultural significance and did a little bit of honing up a little brushing up on my season two episode twenty for today to be able to talk about it.

Yeah, that's all we're discussing. Yeah, I mean, trust me. In the Gilmour fandom, I am pretty much to Novice myself. Oh god, but that's saying a lot. They are steeped in this show. They know it chapter and verse. Man. I just this is just my second go around watching it.

So, oh, you're going through it.

So you're going through it right chronologically fell for a second time for.

Yeah, and now when when.

Was the first time you watched it? What was the first run through? It originally aired.

Four years ago when we started this podcast, I'd never seen it.

So wait, so you didn't watch it when you first when it first aired? That is correct, Okay, you're like that with everything you do.

Yeah, I mean it's growing on me, man. I mean it's a great show.

Well, I mean it's very difficult to when you know the people almost as much as you know the more than you know the characters, sometimes it probably is very difficult to watch.

That's why I'm not an actor.

No, no, it was at the time, but you know, twenty five years later, twenty years later it's it's it's a different person, so you don't Yeah, it's okay to watch it now, you know. But anyway, so let's let's I'm gonna kick off with a synopsis. Newcomer Open Stars Hollow First Music Store, the one and only Carol King Richard, who probably wrote the greatest theme song in the history of television. Richard decides to kick off his new business

I mean it certainly does to Roaring, right she she was stressed out about it more than anybody. Yeah, uh yeah, I mean I think that's probably what the the intention was, right, if it's never been closed, you've never been away, that that to to really kind of underline that all that there's a lot of there's a lot of subtext in the show, which is what makes it good. There's a lot of like real deep thought into why, and not

Yeah, I mean that's that's the question, right, Did he leave town to send a message or or does this just mean that he's he's taking this fight very very seriously and he needed time to just sort of be by himself and convalesce with nature as it were.

Well, you, no one knows him better than you, so do you. He doesn't seem like the type of what's the word, I can't even think of the word punitive person. He's not gonna be punish. I mean, he doesn't seem like somebody who's gonna punish Laura. I. So he probably just needed a break.

He needed a break. Yeah, I agree with that.

He didn't need to see her first thing in the morning.

He just, you know, I think he's just a little bit wounded and he needed to go retreat a little bit, you know, and think about what he did because he you know, he yelled and screamed too. So all right, So seems like this is the biggest fight Luke and Laurel I have ever gotten into Clay who apologizes first in this situation? Who do you think should? Oh?

Well, I gotta.

I definitely think Laura I should because she annoys me all the time. I yes, she kind of She's She's an intense personality, so personally, I'm sure I've sided with Luke.

I have been known to roll my eyes at Laura a few times.

You know what I really thought, this episode is now my favorite episode of all of them, Health Wanted, This is my favorite episode. Well, you're barely in it, but not really right, I mean.

Well, because it's about there's so much, so much gravity weight from your character.

Right, So I think that's great writing, and I think she's never been as funny in an episode, Laura Lauren. I think from beginning to end, this was just just a comedy masterclass showcase in great writing and great great acting and great comedic timing mixed with all that drama stuff. It was a perfect use of supporting characters like Sally Struthers delivered maybe her funniest speech of all of them, and to Rory, perfect use of Lane, perfect use of

It's definitely one of the funnier, at least more overtly funny.

I couldn't stop laughing. I was roaring through the whole thing. I mean, it was just like the joke and the cops Yeah, it was just so many great one liners, just fantastic. All right, So let's talk about the fallout from Rory's accident where she fractured her wrist. Dean's coming home from his trip, but he doesn't know about the accident. Rory gets out of Friday night dinner so she can be there to explain when he gets home. She writes him a letter explaining everything. Dean reacts.

We never know exactly what she says in it, but right because he doesn't, I mean, he didn't read it out loud.

He just reacts to it.

Well, we know that she starts it out by saying I love you, I love you right right then, but then he goes downhill from there. We can only speculate what was in the rest of the letter, but it was I think it was just her sort of confessing to, you know, facts as they happen, because I think she, you know, in her fit of honesty, is you know, the best thing you can do in that situation. So the letter explains everything. He reacts. He keeps saying what what what shock? Shock?

Shock, and ty I mean Rory does does does the letter because she just doesn't have it in her to say it out loud, because I found it really interesting that they chose to to have her write the letter, but then give it to him in person and stand there while he read it. I just just she didn't have the nerve to say the words, so she had to speak them. I mean, I would have thought, if you're gonna write a letter, you send it to him and not have to be there for his response.

Were you a little worried for her safety at his potential reaction because he kicked the bag, which is going to scare her, which scared her a little bit because she's probably think of what me next? Is he going to kick me next? Did you ever fear that she was in any kind of do you know? Okay, here's a question. You didn't think that? No?

I did, I mean, just just because now, was that was that? We'll see, I don't know the Was it an actor choice to kick the bag or no? That was written for him to do that, to be to be that angry. Was I supposed to be afraid for her? I guess because I wasn't.

Okay, yeah, no, I okay, all right?

But I also think she's a strong enough person that I wouldn't. I mean, I think I've never I don't see Rory as as.

Weak or beta, right, but I like the fact that this show will go there because it's supposed to be a comfort show and family friend, the whole thing. But it does get intense. The humor's intense, the sarcasm is biting, the feelings are intense. It's like it's it's it's funny, heartfelt. But man, it's a serious drama too, right, it could stand alone as a serious drama. Oh, I think some people confuse it for that.

I think that that was my honestly, that was my reticence to even be interested in it years, you know, when it was originally on, because I assumed it's a drama about it a mother and a daughter, and I'm not going to enjoy that at all. But it's the humor that it's the humor and the well the pop culture report, the fact that it lives in this real

Right, right, right, right? Yeah, So Rory talks to Laurala about Dean's reaction and then uh, you know, inviting her calming down and then just inviting her in for dinner because they're standing in front of his house, and that's that's a pretty pretty bold gesture to go to his house, hand him a letter, standing there face the fire, and then get invited in for dinner. It's probably she didn't expect that.

Well, you hated him, then, you hated him more than than I did in general, because Laura I didn't love him either, right, people was he I mean, I didn't consider him.

I didn't hate him in the beginning.

Dean you're talking about You're talking about Dean in the beginning. Yeah, I didn't like I didn't like him in the beginning. Yeah, I didn't like him. After the scene with Laurel I in the house when he says, now it's my turn to talk and he, you know, he kind of gives her what for and I'm just like aa there again, it's because I think she talks too much.

But you know what, she was the case.

She obviously carried the show and you can't you can't enjoy the show unless you enjoy her.

But there were about her that made me go.

Ah, Right, right, right, all right. Then Laurie Rory then goes to apologize the tailor for destroying his bench sign in the accident, and then be Bett confronts Rory. I wouldn't say confronts, but sees Rory and runs over to her and starts talking about Jess being a dirty little wolf. Great, great speech, great Sally Struthers performance, I mean, the best comedic actress out there. Really just unbelievable. Yeah, I mean, you think Lauren's good and then you get a Sally

Probably?

I mean generally, I think he is constantly me his self esteem is not as high as it should be. Probably, and I think he's always a little afraid of it. But which is ironic because I think she's a little afraid of it too. But that you know, at that age, that's how everybody feels, right, right, So yeah, I imagine that he probably, Yeah, he's probably a little worried about that. He also do I mean, I don't think he loves that he's not I don't think he loves that he's

Right.

Sometimes I feel like he's like he's a buy the book person like herit he read a book on how to how to behave in cer certain situations, and he he does it that way. Yeah, I mean I imagine that that I see now I'm thinking about these the show in ways that I didn't back then, and certain things are coming back to my head. But I didn't think I don't I didn't think about the psychology of it.

But yeah, it's there. Right. Do you think that maybe it was on Rory's part a failed attempt to get Dean to break up with her. Where are these questions coming? From No, I didn't think that at all. No, I didn't think that.

It doesn't come for a while though, So I don't think that she was already there.

Right right, Okay, all right, So okay, Clay, why do you think Rory's being so defensive? You think it's because she doesn't want to be looked at like a damaged little girl, or because she feels bad for Jess getting all the blame.

Well, I mean, yeah, she's a girl. She's a you know, a high school a high schooler who is very you know, she's defensive of her friends. And I think that, yeah, she probably, Yeah, I think she is a I think she's I think again, that goes back. That's kind of why this show connected so well, because the writers, the the showrunner were able to kind of really connect with how that demographic thought, you know, how a Tina high school girl would think. And yeah, I think she would

But it's it's.

Very difficult as a parent to remember what it's like how my brain worked when I was that age, and there are just a very few shows ever that I can think of, where writers have done a good job of thinking like high schoolers, like teenagers, like people whose frontal lobe has not completely formed yet. Think. And that's one thing that the show did brilliantly. And yeah, I think she gets defensive because she People get defensive when they don't when when the reaction is not how they

Right. Also, she's appears to me that she's in love with them. She loves that kid, she loves Jess, she misses it.

She thinks she does.

She's well, okay, I'll grant you that she thinks she does, but she feels something powerful. There's a connection there, and she's concerned about him, you know, and not to jump the gun, but I think we felt that quite in a quite weighty way. That was actually quite moving in the very last scene and something we've never seen before scene between Luke and Rory late night at the diner drinking a cup of coffee talking about Jess as he okay,

Well, it was also a really good opportunity to build that character that that relationship between Rory and.

Mm hmm too, just to Yah to kind of see him as a.

Not a not a paternal figure, but certainly a certainly someone she could she could confide in in that way and talk about things that she couldn't talk She didn't she you know, she wouldn't couldn't talk about that with with her mom, right because Laura lies not was far more biased.

Yeah.

Yeah, So to have that that non biased third party opinion and the discussion with someone who she respected was a was a not just I mean, it was great writing, yes, but it was a sort of a important moment for the show, in the whole arc in general.

M h Yeah, and it proved yet again that both people can be right and think that each other. I think Luke understands how Laurel I feel, but I think Laural I feels, you know, angry that Luke didn't protect her daughter from Jess, you know, didn't see what kind of trouble he could he could stir up. Anyway, interesting interesting stuff. Did you think about that?

How did you go How did you think about it going into that, because that was a big moment, it was we've done You're obviously not your first scene with her, but it was certainly your first, big.

Big scene with Rory alone.

Right, So how did that How did you think about going into that seeing the you know, the gravity and the weight of that conversation.

Oh, we knew, I think that we knew. We felt that. It's just there, it's in the script, it's in the writing. You read it, and you know, right, the trick is not to play it. The trick is just to sort of feel it and do the lines and not try to do too much right from a technical point of view, And I love that scene. It's just one of my favorite scenes. I really really loved that scene. It was very very tender and very very felt, but not too much.

I thought it was interesting to me the dynamic between Rory and Luke, or at least that not paternal, but the connection that they had and how it kind of ran parallel to the the different connection, not different, but the connection between Laura l and her dad in this episode two, because that you know, the fact that he was seeing her in a different way than he had in a while, and the idea that he, you know, he liked that she was, how good he wanted her

I thought it was interesting.

The it was a in a show that's about moms and mom and daughter more than anything. You had two story lines in this episode that were very much about father and daughter.

Right yeah. And I think another thing that really encapsulates that is, you know, here we have, at the end of the episode, the only two people on the planet who care about Jess and care about his wellbeing and care about his future. That's it. His own mother doesn't care about him, laurrel I doesn't care. Everybody hates this kid except for Rory. And look and there they are, which is also why she's defensive too.

Just to go back to that, she sees the wounded animal and.

Right, yeah, it's very touching, very very touching. Love that ending. Love it all right, So let's get to Richard's new venture, his new insurance internettional insurance consulting adventure. He starts a new com.

Scene was also pretty hilarious, having between her and mom and you know her mom trying to explain what and because no one knows what a consultant does. That's it was probably the most accurate scene two.

And he doesn't know what consult what does he actually do? And so he gets in his office and what does he do? Consults.

Obviously, she doesn't know either. She just knows he makes money and brings it home.

Well. His His twenty year secretary, Terry Margie, decides not to join Richard's new firm, so he considers not following through with the new company.

She called way lor I call her something Margie? What she call her?

I don't know.

Oh God, now I'm being We're being yelled at by people who are listening because they all know exactly what she called. When she was younger, she could didn't remember who she didn't know who she was. She couldn't remember who Marchie was. He'll you know, Oh you mean fat Margie or big Margie or whatever.

I think Emily referred to her as rotund. Okay, but anyway, Laura I offers the help out while they find Richard's secretary, so Richard doesn't have to quit so soon, So Laura I says to this. She arrives at the office, it's a mess. She helps Richard by supplies organize the office, interviews candidates for the new Margie. She's she's impressing her

Well, I mean I'm not that old. Good god, I'm getting older, But lord, I know, I do think there's certain people who are who are workaholics, and you obviously, to be as successful as he has been, he must enjoy working, right, So yeah, I mean, it's not a surprise that he wants to do something to and he needs to stay busy. He also probably you know that annoying part. The thing about Laurla that annoys me, she gets from her mama, and so I imagine he wants to be out of the.

House, right, all right, So Lurlai steps in to help her dad. I find secretary seems very selfless of Laurela, and they end up working well.

Together, especially considering how they treated her, right.

Yeah, not well.

So so so so for her to be that gracious, I mean, obviously they they're paying for school, what I mean, they're they're no longer estranged.

But yeah, the.

It's it's it's nice to see that she is, that they're bonding without a required dinner.

This is really the first time Richard sees his daughter as being sort of accomplished and smart and capable and right.

Yeah, that's why I was saying that the father's father daughter theme of this episode. It was obviously it wasn't that way with with Rory and Luke, but that had some of the elements of it, and the father daughter theme was strong in this episode.

Right. It's like daughter appreciation Day for Richard. Right, It's like he probably has never felt this way about his daughter.

Well at least well they've always They always treat her like she's stupid and my kid, right, and he's seeing her as someone who's able to handle things right, and she's like that learning from her.

In the story when he's yeah.

Yeah, it's like, Dad, I run an ind I've been doing it for years, you know, I mean I run a business. I run a fairly large business. Well, it's just it's nice to see those moments with those two together. Obviously it brought them closer together. You know, obviously how much that sticks around is right, It's going to be temporary, Right, Something's gonna happen.

That's the way life is that.

So yeah, Stars Hall of Music Store, Sophie's in there, the Great Carol King, So Stars Hall is going to open up a new music store, and Lane is very, very excited Carol King's debut did it. I think she did a great job, you know, she she handled the comedic moments beautifully.

Yeah, I didn't realize that she watching this again, this episode again. First of all, I don't even think. I'm sure I did clock it when I saw her the first time. Obviously I know who Carol King is and know her what she looks like, but I.

Didn't clock how funny she was.

Yeah, the first time.

I mean that second scene when she's trying to close up and yeah, her timing's quite good.

She was believable. There was no acting there.

Yeah, I mean it's hard to come in there as a non actor, but an artist, right, you know, a very high level of artists, so maybe there's some some experience. Who knows, but she seemed like she really knew what the heck she was doing. Well, she's been in the business longer than all of us, been a lot indeed, right, she knows what she's doing, right, I mean, jeez, I grew up with her. She was she was a big star when I was, you know, growing up in the sixties. Seven.

She's still got more.

She's I feel like she's I don't know what the record is. She's her Her grandson is my guitar player. Actually, but so I think you think i'd be a little bit more educated on it. But I feel like she's had something like one hundred and one hundred and twenty hit top ten hits. She's one of the most prolific songwriters in American history by far, without question.

Wow.

Yeah, I mean I should look it up and see if I can sign it.

That's a that's a lot. Yeah, she's got a Jackie. Can you confirm this number?

Oh no, you don't believe me. I see what it's Okay, I'm checking myself too. Well, I've I've got a highley. She co wrote one hundred and eighteen songs that were in the top twenty I mean top ten. Oh is it one hundred and twenty one hundred and twenty one hundred and eighteen class I have that have charted?

Okay, maybe that's what it was.

Listen.

Still, that's very I mean, but we're talking about and the ones that she wrote Natural Woman and well, I can't even think what they did that whole I mean, the whole musical on Broadway Beautiful. It was about her, and it's full of her songs. Up on the roof, this soul world stocks getting me down up on the roof, she wrote, she wrote songs for other people. You got a friend for James Taylor. I mean her stuff is the cannon, right. So so coming and doing an acting role was she didn't need the money.

Yeah, I mean really outstanding performance. And you know that's tough to do, to come in for a small role a scene, you know, a little scene here and there.

Right with not enough meat, right, you know how to do what to do with it.

But she came back again.

She's been back a few times, I think she Yeah, and she was in the she was in the revival and.

Yes, yeah, I remember that, Yes she was. She was well, you know she she made a deal with Lane, right, so she proposed that she practices twice a week at the store. In return for working at the store. Lane found her longtime passion drumming and the band. We see Lane pressure on the drums for the first time. Clayton, you remember singing for the first time.

I don't remember it.

And my mom said I was doing it when I was a kid, when I was eighteen months old. Do I remember singing in front of I don't remember singing in front of an audience until probably middle school.

Like that. But I mean, I've been doing it my whole life. I don't remember.

I don't remember discovering it as a passion and the way Lane did, all of a sudden out of nowhere, pulled out of nowhere.

And so what was there a moment for you and you thought, oh, I'd like to pursue this professional, pursue it as a career.

No, when I when I on the finale of Idol, when I was when I was there, I didn't have any plans to pursue it as a career until the career pursued me. No, I didn't have I guess you know. For me, and this is very different than Lane's situation. I learned to love it because I discovered I was good at it, and I was good at it, so I might as well keep doing it.

Whereas Lane just thinks it looks.

Fun and so she's gonna she wants to do it well, and she's gonna practice and maybe be horrible.

She didn't she didn't sound like she was too good, right, This is so so it was different for me.

I mean, I think I think it's the kind of thing that she's going to grow out of in a few weeks.

I mean, Lane's Lane is.

Not psychologically developmentally, Lane is a little developmentally young from her age. I think, you know, she she provides some of that foil to Rory, because Rory can be so mature, and Lane just kind of shows us how mature she is, because Lane is is not.

And she's very she's very childlike.

So she's going to have that sort of she'll grow out of it and she'll be into into planes next week, and then the week after that she'll be into something else. So she exactly exactly, I don't expect her to stick with it, and so but I mean that comic relief and it's an important I mean, it's an important.

Building block to the show.

Again because you know, some of these things are there too, Some of these characters are put in place, and the way the storylines are built are kind of built to kind of supplement or or build up certain factors about other characters.

Right, So Lane helps us, it helps.

Foil Rory and shows us how mature is for her age, for Candy, for her age.

That's interesting, you know, that's a various student observation, very interesting observations.

Not just a pretty nice.

You are stirring the pot, buddy, let me tell you I like it all right. Cocktail launch party. Emily throws Richard a big launch party and invites all of his clients and potential clients and friends to drum up his business. He ends up hiring that Karen for his secretary anyway, and he is happy to be work scoring deals or bagging the suede as they say. And what Emily worries cast She blames Lorelai for that accident, and it's like, here we go again. We saw it coming a mile away.

But she she even she she foreshadowed that in the beginning of the episode when she was like, how am I explain why you had a cast on.

To her? So, I mean, but that's not That's just that's who she is.

Right, and uh and Rory Laurlai get into a yelling match in the hallway outside the office. When Rory expresses her frustration with everyone blaming Jess. I mean that got very heated. Rory heads home by herself. She wants some time alone, right, But of course Emily blames Laura I immediately that that's her default position, Emily. You think Emily uses moments like this to undermine Laura. I mean, it's just a constant barrage of sabotage.

Emily doesn't have anything going for herself, right, I mean, and she she reminds me, also, what was that?

What was the.

Crap?

I can't even if it's friends, but was Monica Monica's relationship with her mom on friends?

Right where?

And that's also I think I've heard.

I believe it's not uncommon for women and their daughters, you know, a little bit of a little bit of competition, a little bit of trying to not belittle each other all the time, but not wanting to let not wanting to admit that their daughter has grown up and is perhaps more stable than they are. Right, And Emily's not really ever had anything going for her except for being a.

Rich so so.

She is she Yeah, she has to belitve Laura because I don't think her self esteem is high enough at all.

Which of course is ironic because you raised her right and in a sense broke her, and Laurel has been putting the pieces back together ever since. So Laurel, I screams at her daughter. When my daughter comes home broken, I get to hate the guy who broke her. That's how it works. He's gone.

I win.

Claiy, do you agree with that? Yes, parenting style, that's a tough love kind of a situation where it's like.

Hey, tough lover.

I mean, I'm not doesn't go over well in my house always. But but yeah, I totally she's right.

She was actually.

Generous to Rory a little bit too, because she blames it all on Jess and it's not all Jess's fault. Rory's right about that, so she's being extra generous to take all of her anger and hate out on him. But yeah, I mean, I think she has every right to be angry, and she has every right to be certainly skeptical about what Jess may turn not turn her daughter into, but the influence that he has he could have on her.

So I don't blame her for that.

And this is this has come from somebody who gets annoyed by her a lot.

So I thought she was in the right there.

Right because you know, this is a kid, love or hate him, who can destroy Rory's life. There could be you know, she's having forbacks to her own teenage years when she got pregnant, and she's seeing Jess as the same animal, right, like, oh, this is not going to happen to my daughter. You know. The apple has fallen not very far from the tree on this.

One, which makes you wonder now, to go back to Emily, how much she history repeats itself, right, And even as I am forty something years old, I think about, oh God, I'm doing exactly what my mother would have done.

And.

How much in common Emily might have with that too, Like were there things in Emily's past that she doesn't want Laura to repeat, you know, being useless for example. She doesn't want Laura to be useless like she is, and so she is much tougher on her. She caviously takes it out in a different way than Laura I does with Rory. But there's no doubt Emily loves her daughter, just doesn't know how to show it right. And they're probably your commonalities there. I mean, they're both they're both

Right, Yeah, well, I think that's primarily the fear, and even beyond getting pregnant. Is you know this guy, he's explosive, he's unpredictable, you know, but he's hot, so it's okay, dangerous, I guess. So that's why I didn't dislike him. You know, just just put on a wife beater and chop would and you're good. You know, there you go, just go over there and do that. That's what I do. That's

Because they because Luke's the only other person who cares about him, right, and she doesn't want her, she doesn't want him to believe something bad and then have nobody care for him. So, I mean, that's that seems somewhat obvious. She I think she also wanted validation a little bit too.

Knew was a safe place to be there.

And like I said, it was just an opportunity for them to bond over something they had in common.

To mm hmm.

You want people on your side, you want someone on your chain.

Right right, right, But it sets up all of this potential conflict with Lorelei and everybody else in the town because now these two are aligned. They feel we see they feel the same way, and as you so aptly put it there, maybe they're going to go up against the mob in a sense, and I have kind of interested kind of drama.

Then you won't have a TV show.

There you go, there you go, beautiful setup. Right, We got some some questions for you, sir. Uh all right, here we go. Uh, if you could choose one of your songs to be the Gilmore Girls theme song. Which one would you choose? Oh?

Well, I didn't have very many songs of my own, so let me think of what would be appropriate. I had a song called I Survived You, which I think would be pretty appropriate for it. It's about it's about surviving a very difficult relationship and persevering after it. And I think every character in the show at some point had to survive something and became stronger because of it. So I think it would be appropriate for the for Gilmore Girls.

M hm. Okay. So, as you have stated, you started your singing career, or you start singing at very young age, when you started to grow as a singer, what was that adjustment like when your voice started to change?

It never did?

Oh is that right? Well, I mean obviously it changed some, but I definitely definitely still sound like a girl. I didn't have to worry about that. It didn't bother me because I think one I.

Was always told.

First of all, it didn't change much.

I was an alto when I I was in fifth grade, and I could be an alto today if I had to. They call us countertenors now. So my voice didn't make too much of a change. Unlike my son, he went from sounding like this, don't look now he Mine didn't change any Plus, since I sang steadily through that pubescent period and I was doing I mean singing every day in school and a part of choirs and doing stuff after school, I've been told that because of that, you kids whose voices are used a lot and they sing

Is there a Gilmore girl's character you relate to the most?

Well, I probably should say I relate to Lauraai the most, even though she annoys me, and maybe she does annoy me because she's she's She's definitely the wittiest one, right, Not that I'm complimenting myself and saying that I'm the wittiest, but god, now, I've never thought about this, so I'm having to think about it now and therefore not doing as deep a dive as I could.

But probably mean it probably would be.

Her because she does like to be she does like to be the center of attentional and I can't say that I don't and I think that I think that she's probably a lot. I mean, she's definitely a lot more vulnerable than she wants to appear.

To people.

So I mean I would go I could go with her, probably. I mean, I mean, I'm as clumsy and clueless as Suki as but I I'm gonna go with Laura La for now.

Mm hmm. Okay. And you, as you mentioned, you have a sixteen year old son seventeen now, he just turns seventeen years seventeen. Wow, Yeah, what are some of the values that you're hoping to pass down to him.

I mean i'd say that I say that as we as we were in this period where dads and their kids do the same thing. I think that I was saying good women and their daughters do. I mean, I do think a strong work ethic, being willing to sweat and be sore at the end of the day. You know, I had to do that as a kid, and I stumbled into a career where I don't as much and as a result, don't have.

To make him as much.

So I hope to kind of push him to be uncomfortable sometimes. I think it's important for all of us, and I think sometimes we've gotten especially as with some

Reason, right, right, are you team Jess or team Dean?

I'm probably team Dean, but that again, that's only because I think Jared's cute. I mean, listen, listen, I would't tick either one. I'm out of bed, all right, So.

Who do you side with in this episode? Laura I or Luke in this episode?

Well, I mean cannot considering the context from other ones, I would side with Laura, I because she is just trying to defend her kid, right, And you have to understand the motivation for someone who's just trying to defend their kid. If you take into account, you know, the other factors, like at the very least, I mean, the fact that Jess's background and how he's sort of treated poorly, then you obviously start seeing Luke's positions more clearly, Right,

No, No, absolutely not.

Especially given that she doesn't know everything that she wont you know, at some point might.

Right, any plans to tour anytime soon, I'm going to get it back out.

Well, you know, I stopped.

I stopped performing for years and just have gotten back into it a little bit. So my kid's old enough now that he wants me to leave as much as possible, and he and and he doesn't need supervision all the time. So I've I'm getting back into performing and doing stuff, and I do plan on doing some shows. I don't know if there'll be a tour in the next six months, but there's going to be music and new music.

That's the plan.

Which is which is a new thing for me because I haven't done that in fifteen years.

Oh, that's going to be exciting for your fans. Anyway, Good luck with everything, and hope to see you back out there on the road doing your thing and making people happy. Klay Can thank you for your time, much appreciated. Thank you best fans on the planet. And remember I'm going to be in Brighton, Michigan at a Gilmour fan fest on September Gosh, twenty is it gonna be twenty ninety? That weekend Friday and Saturday of that weekend September twentieth,

That's what she.

Calls large marchi margin. That's right. She will. She will not largelye Margie will not be in Brighton, but I will, yes, exactly see now came to you and my thanks to our special guest Klay Aiken, the one and only. And remember where you lead, we will follow all the best everyone, Stay safe, everybody, and don't forget. Follow us on Instagram at I Am all In podcast and email us at Gilmore at iHeartRadio dot com