This is pod Popular Podcast for the People.
The Great Love Debate. It's Great Love Debate, the Great Love Debate.
It's a Great Love Debate. Hi again, Everyone's Brian Howie.
Welcome to The Great Love Debate, the world's number one dating and relationship podcast since twenty fifteen. I am not in the very fine studios of Pod Popular Podcasts with the people. I have recorded this podcast in a a lot of places over the years. I have recorded it in a Starbucks in Shanghai. I have recorded it in all of America. I have recorded it in a casino. I recorded it in on a beach in Tel Aviv, at the Carlisle Hotel, in a coffee shop in Melbourne,
like anywhere I could go. And I'm going to get into where I am in a minute. Obviously, those of you guys who have been listening to the show, you know that this particular episode is a special show for me and the Debate team in this country and probably around the world. We'd love to celebrate round numbers, and in the history of this show, both our live show and the podcast, we have celebrated the one hundredth and the two hundredth and the two hundred and fiftieth and
all the rest. Sometimes we do it really over the top. Sometimes it's muted in private and just a sly like we did it, smirk on my face. I am recording this in twenty twenty five. Next year is America's two hundred and fiftieth. Surprisingly, there's not a lot of building buzz around that, even though two hundred fifty seems like a nice round number. I think it's because it's not a cute name, like the bi centennial. Two hundred and fifty is the semi quinn centennial, which is not easy to say.
It's not a fun fact, so maybe that's why it has no buzz.
Anyway, this is our five hundredth episode, and.
This show's about relationships.
Ones, bad ones, ones we learn from, ones we have pain from, ones we grow from.
And and that's what I feel like.
This show is, this podcast is a relationship between me and you guys, this audience, this big audience, and it is honestly, professionally and personally as satisfying, rewarding, giving, honest relationship I could ever have imagined having.
Over ten years.
Now, week after week, me and you guys, we sneak off to a cheap hotel, and we share all kinds of parts of ourselves and our hearts and our minds and our thoughts and our laughs. And so this show matters to me more than you guys know, the whole Great Love debate and this particular episode, it matters a lot. So I'm gonna ramble on a bit and we're gonna
cover a lot of ground. But when I thought about who I wanted to have guessed on this show, somebody who who I knew could take a look back and has been around for the history of it and also help me take a look ahead, because five hundred is just one milestone. We're gonna have a lot more of these. I wanted to have the person on this show who is the most responsible for it, even more than me. She hasn't been on this show in a while. I had to track her down, so my undisclosed location. I'm
literally halfway up a mountain. It's sort of like was it Ray had to go find Luke Skywalker in one of Star Wars, like I had to make a track.
I had to make a track.
To find her to the mountaintop where she hides out producing hit television shows. So I'm gonna bring her in in a second, and I'm gonna flatter her to death, and then she and I we're gonna share a bit of history about this great love debate. And those of you haven't been around for the whole ride, I think you're gonna learn some stuff.
But those of you who have been around for the.
Whole ride, and I'm shocked to always meet and hear from people who have been along all four hundred and ninety nine episodes to date. And she might get embarrassed at some of the things I'm gonna say, and she might storm off.
I don't know.
She is back for the first time in maybe a couple of years. She actually co hosted my very favorite episode of this show ever. People ask me all the time, what's your favorite episode of this show? Go listen, Sorry, a truck is rolling up this hill here, Go listen to episode four hundred and fifty seven of this podcast. It's literally entitled the best episode ever, where me and her dove into the twenty three questions that matter Anyway.
Here she is.
I tracked her down in person, the longtime producer of this show, The Brilliant and Beautiful, the two time Emmy Award winning Kko.
Hey, hey, I've heard that a while.
A lot of our fans are always like, where's ke Co.
I'm like, she's too busy for the show. So let me. I'm gonna flatter you.
Okay, I'm ready.
You know, this show's about love, dating and relationship.
And I've said many times, because I know the difference you made in my life, that it is much harder to find somebody who believes in you than somebody who loves you. And there have been people in my life who loved me, and maybe some of they even believed in me, but I was not aware of it. I did not accept it. I did not trust their opinion
of me or whatever. You, young lady, are the very first person that I can say for a fact, believed in me, believed in me as a man, believed in me as a talent, believed in what you thought I could do to the point.
Where I wasn't even doing what we were doing.
So I'm going to give you a little bit of history, but i'll give your perspective of that. You thought I'd be a television star, and now here we are halfway up a mountain doing the five hundred podcast.
Oh my god, you want me to tell that story.
Yeah, okay, all right.
So so okay, So back in the day again.
It is about ten years ago.
I was a very very active television producer and working in development and looking for talent for new shows and things like that. And after much you know, begging and pleading and suggesting, a girlfriend of mine, who was actually one of the on stage lineup for Brian Howie's show for The Great Love Debate, said you know, you really should come to this show.
Come to the show and just take a look at it.
And I said, okay, fine, So I walked in there as a television producer to look at the show as a potential.
Vehicle for a series.
This is the live show, the live show, the live show, the Great Love Debate Live Show. And much to my surprise, Brian Howie, the writer, producer, owner of the show, was not actually on stage himself, and having met him briefly, I said, I don't I don't know why, I said to myself, I don't know why he isn't up there doing the show. I don't understand it. So when it was over, I asked him, I said, Brian Hollie, why aren't you hosting your show. Aren't you the great love
of debate? Do you remember what you said to me? No, you said, you said, Oh, I'm a writer, producer, director.
I'm behind the scenes talent.
Yeah.
Yeah, I knew I had the riz, as the kids said, but you were just like, what are we doing here?
Yeah?
His his riz was so over the top, different, better you know, than anyone else that you would normally run across, and for sure better than anyone that he's ever I think had on his his stage as a lineup. And not to not to offend anyone, We've had some really wonderful people, but Brian Howie really is the great love debate. He is front and center, so base. After he gave me his excuses, I said, I asked him, I said, would you do it once for me? Would you just do it once for me? I mean, I had to
see the guy perform, right, I'm looking for talent. I had to see him perform. And he goes, yeah, okay, fine, I got one coming up in San Diego.
Sure I'll do that for you.
Okay, fine, so very you know, very much like that, and then you know, fast forward. I think it was a couple of weeks he did a show in San Diego, and he was terrific. He was absolutely off the charts better than anyone else could have been. There was there's nobody else who could have hosted the Great Love Debate better than you right here.
Yeah, well, thank you.
And at that point, you know, I just didn't what we've learned on this show.
This is the podcast. So we'll get into the evolution of the podcast shortly.
That the answers always outside of your comfort zone and my comfort zone for I don't know, to that point, twenty something years in entertainment business as a writer, director, producer, I was talented, but I was not the talent. I was not comfortable being the talent. I was not comfortable
being the one on the mic. I always needed some filter for my thoughts to put it through these people and almost be this Fengali, this Marionette person, to have all these people have the conversations that I probably wanted to have myself. And so when you said, you know, I'd had agents, and I'd had managers, and I'd had other producers and TV people were circling me at that point telling me, you know, blah blah blah.
But that's a little bit of Hollywood.
You know, you get your ass kissed a lot, but you were not trying to kiss my ass. You were really asking me questions that I'd never thought about, but like why not?
What are you doing? Like why not? And then when you said do it once as a favor for me, I did it. I don't know, I.
Mean, it seemed like a sincere request. And then I did it, and I hosting my own show.
And remember the reason that I had asked him to do it was that I was looking at him as potential talent for television. And I did, in fact go off and pitch him.
And sadly, you weren't casting the Bachelor at that point. I was or survivor.
No, I was, you were.
You were trying to find Yeah, I was working in.
Development, and so I had to see him as talent and it worked out.
I found him.
I found him, I nailed him. I made him get on the stage, even though I didn't it didn't result in a TV.
Show, and that and and that version of of that show, even with me hosting back then, it was still a little.
Jerry springerish. It was still a little men against the women.
It was still I felt I was I was above the fray because I wasn't comfortable even as the host or even with the subject matter we're dealing with, going to that vulnerable, authentic place that I am now like, I admit I am getting emotional even talking to you. I didn't even have those emotions then. So forward after that time, I don't know how much longer after that, Adam Carolla and his gang were like, how come you don't know a podcast?
And I'm like, I don't know how to do a podcast.
Nobody knew how to do a podcast.
Most people didn't even know what podcasts were.
And so they met with you because you were kind of representing me as talent. And then so they're like, let's do a podcast. And then coincidentally, fortuitously or not, the way that he tested me was again back down in San Diego, Adam Corolla is like, you're going to appear on stage with me at the I think it's called the American Comedy Club. Sold out me, Adam Carola and Greg Fitzfimmens, who was a big comedian still is,
and I had to get out. I'd never been on stage in a comedy club before, although I thought it was comedy club funny, and that was his test. It was like, if we're going to produce his show, let's find it out.
And I went on that.
Stage and sorry mom and dad, but I was fucking funny. And after that, you know, and Adam's like, okay, wave the wand gave me the television, gave me the excuse me the podcast which was September ish of twenty fifteen, and I had to be produced. So the person I wanted to produce me was the person said do it for me, And boy did you inherit a shelter dog.
Oh my goodness, that was a real arm wrestle.
Let me just stay there.
You're like, why don't you do this? I'm like why. I was not easy talent to work with?
Oh my goodness. Oh that is such an understatement. He was impossible to work with. But I will say this though, I am probably the only person that could have worked with him, because I was so challenged and tested myself at you know, trying to figure out how to communicate with this person that needed to make make some pivots here and there are a few adjustments to be as good as he could possibly be.
I mean, it was it is hard to produce a producer.
Yeah, And I was like, I think you said to me time, like I wrote something and you were like, you.
Were like, hey, do you want me to take a cracker rewriting that. I'm like, rewrite me, like you do? You know who I am? So there was a little ego.
I mean, you were very, very accomplished in Hollywood, but so was I, and so trying to produce a producer and I've done a long time and a director and I knew how to deliver a line like that must have been no picnic And then about you know, thirty forty shows.
Into it, I'm like, you know what we should do?
And it was exactly like the idea you said and you just wrote your It was like, oh my god, I cannot believe that.
The light bulb just went off.
I've been saying this for six months and the show kind of went from there right right exactly.
I mean, it is it is true that that there. You know that producers are hard to produce, but Brian Howie also, I think was especially hard because he was such a fantastic producer and a fantastic director. He had in fact produced in the number one off Broadway show in New York.
For over a decade.
That was that was called Pieces of Ass and it was the spoken autobiography of some of the world's most beautiful women, and so he had to really really work with them to be able to tell their stories.
And it was not easy.
I know that I've heard, I've heard a lot of the story the behind the scenes on that, and.
It was huge.
It was a huge, huge, huge accomplishment. So having done that, you know, to credit you, I mean, I yeah, I mean I understand that you didn't feel like you.
Needed well, I had pulled hundreds and he did thousands and thousands of stories and stuff out of people, and so I'm like, I don't need you to pull anything out of me.
I did. I was wrong. I admitted that. The look on your face when.
I told you was wrong with you and our our other engineer Klin back then, Mike August like, they're like, oh my god, he's so difficult, and you know. But then I started to do the live show in comedy clubs and I felt like I could be funny and I was the talent and all that. I want to get into a little bit more of like the things we have learned the people we've had on the show and all that, all that kind of stuff. We got to take a quick break because we got to pay
for mountaintop retreats like Keiko as here. I'm here with the two time Emmy Award winning Keko and this is our five hundredth episode.
We will be back right after this.
And we are back and thinking back to the early days of the show The Guest, there were two shows that really sort of changed it for me. One was about Episode one and two, so two years in when I was forced to do a show alone. You remember early early days of the show, I would need this
whole peanut gallery of people on the show too. To me crazy, I had like four or five I had like a Howard Stern style like whack pack, because I needed people to say right, yes, hit the ping pong ball back to me, like I just needed these.
I don't think he ever had as many people in his show as you had on yours. You were more like like the original Bill Mahers show.
Yeah, I just had lots of people and they were just around and I needed everybody miked, and I need you on the mic, and I needed Kalin on I need everybody Mike because I didn't quite trust my voice. But then about one hundred episodes in two years in somebody didn't show up and I had to do one myself, and the feedback I got from you guys listening that it was like, oh, that was probably the most authentic version of you. You just talked as you guys know.
Now I probably do every other one myself, every third one. Being able to just talk and trust that there's a dialogue going on between me and the audience. That was one of the most important things in the show. And I produced a lot of podcasts now. I always try and tell them you're the host of the party, You're the strawitztirs, the drink. You have to be comfortable enough that people are along for the ride with you if you're going to be honest and and authentic.
But the one guest who.
We had early on that really validated what we were doing here was doctor Drew. And we went to Corolla Studio on a Saturday and he came on and he really just sort of you know, he had hosted Loveline to that point for ten years, you know, every single night him and Adam. I was lucky enough to co host Love Line with him. It was me and him and Marilyn Riskow Chloe from twenty four oh right, and
it was just thrilling. But when Drew came on the show and he's been a huge supporter ever since, and he kind of said, this is important what you're doing, this is this is important conversations that you're doing, you're not necessarily And he's the one who told me that that our job was not to provide the answers. Our job was to raise the questions. And he's like, there's
no experts on this, there is no expertise. And that made me think, like, you know, at that point in my forties, never been married, Like I didn't have to apologize anymore after he said that. So he really helped a lot. He really validated, and then we just had some really good guests. I remember when Jillian Michaels came in. You know, she's a fitness trainer, lesbian, what you know, what are we having?
Tom?
She was amazing, She was great and she was authentic. Mary Lou Henner was great. John Gray, who wrote mars Venus back, I mean these are you know, we hadn't had this show fully fledg yet, But we had some people who really liked talking about this, this subject matter.
We had some cookie cookie people, reality stars.
You know, Stossy Schroeder, Brandy Glanville, We had a lot of people like that, Ross Matthews. You know. We had a lot of people who would come in and make fun of me, which was fun. But the ones who really wanted to dig into this to the subject matter. I love that I loved and I'm super proud of her now Jen Glantz who wrote the book Always a Bridesmaid, and now she has a book out called Finally a Bride and she's a fantastic guest. And I feel like we've been on this journey with is a guest.
Yeah.
And so there's certain people, and there's certain episodes and certain milestones where it finally kicked in for me. You're like, oh my god, I should have kicked in earlier that I'm like, Okay, I think.
We know what we're doing here.
And the amount of feedback I get from you guys, the Great Love Debate audience, both when I was doing the live shows and just communications about this podcast, it was like, oh, there is more to hear than just complaining about dating, because you know, the old tagline for this show was why is everyone still single? And to move it from just a bitch fest, you know men's socking girls are crazy and into something that was a little bit I think, more substantive while still being fun.
That is the credit to you as a talented That's why you have the Emmys. That is why you cast every single show thing, and that's why you're like, let me keep this wild dog on track here to have conversations that had purpose versus just sharing dating disaster stories.
He was listening.
He was listening. I'm listening. So you know, we still battle as a producer.
When I said what I want to do for the five hundredth show, you had a completely different idea and you're kind of mad about it.
I kind of tricked you into coming here.
Yes, yes you did.
What did you want to do? Well?
I thought that the five hundredth show was going to be a round table with some of our currently favorite you know, guests, personalities, people that have a lot to say, you know, in twenty twenty five about relationships, whether it's dating or being in a relationship or whatever. But I thought that we would have a round table of some people that wanted.
To chat about well, I lourd you to. I lured you to a square table halfway up a mountain.
That's right with nobody else here, nobody else here.
What are we doing well?
I wanted to I want to say thank you, and uh, you know I did a show a couple of years ago where I talked about that that the five things that I need to hear out of my partner are good morning, good night, I'm sorry, I love you, and thank you. And people are like, that's very simple and basic, and I'm like, it's not as easy as you think.
So good morning, in the night and the good night are about this is you know, I think of you now, and I think of you at the end, at the close, in the beginning of the day.
That's why it matters.
I'm sorry matters a lot because it's really hard to say I'm sorry.
I love you. Obviously I need because I don't think I've heard a lot of that in my life.
But the thank you, the ability to express and accept gratitude is so much, goes so long in a relationship, and I wanted the audience to know that none of that. You are the most important person in the great love to beat. Even though you're not around anymore. None of this happens, none of this dialogue, none of this tone. You're very mysterious. You never give away anything of your own personal life. But what you have able to do is to create an environment where people could could share.
And that is something that you are a more talented producer than me, because I was unable to do that before you came along, and I was just in it for the laughs. So, you know, my favorite things to do in these shows sometimes are the when we play worst Date, First Date at the end of the shows. Those are always fun. But the things that I like are the things that you know, we've done five hundred shows. That's a lot of ways to slice this apple, and we you know, often circle back to subjects that we
haven't touched in a long long time. But over the course of this ten year period, five hundred shows, we have dealt with me too. We have dealt with blurring of gender roles. We have dealt with the injection of politics and a political environment into a dating culture. We have dealt with COVID, We have dealt with all kinds of things, and we kind of had to navigate the
subject matter. I mean, we're recording outside here now. I remember a couple times back in Santa Monica when we had the studio there during COVID, I had to record outside, yeah, you know, and that especially in LA and sitting five feet apart, like I just didn't want to do any zooms, like I wanted to still do this, And so we've had to navigate the subject matter changing. We have had
to navigate technology, dating apps, getting into dating, you know. So, like I said, our old tagline was why is everyone still single? This show has evolved away from that a little bit, maybe because I've gotten older, but mostly because the challenges of a single person and the challenges of somebody who is any relationship were married are not that different. It really always comes down to confidence and communication and trust and sharing and honesty and often willing to get
out of your comfort zone. And you forced me out of my comfort zone kicking and screaming like a mule to do the podcast the way you thought I should do it, and you were right.
So thank you for that acknowledgement. I'm delighted to know that you were listening, although just listening.
To oh, I don't know if I was listening.
Somehow it kicked in well because if we think, but like the way the way it all, the light bulb went off, I thought it was my idea. I thought it was fruit of the Howie tree, which it may have been, but I still I still remember when you offered to rewrite something like my head almost fell off.
I'm like, do you know who I am?
Like?
Do you know what I do? And then you did rewrite something.
I'm like, oh, actually you're a pretty good writer, you know, and technology, you know.
Bringing back to doctor Drew, I mean that was very early episode.
He was the one who first said that the coming storm was was Ai when in virtual dating and all that, and he was way ahead of the game.
He's like, that's gonna come.
That's going to really throw a curveball into everything because people are going to be a little too satisfied with themselves and their dates, putting on a helmet and just talking to somebody virtually.
And so he was right on that.
You know, when we brought up John Gray, Mars Venus, mena from Mars, women from Venus?
Is that right?
Mena from Mars yea? And he said to me, because he heard me say, women look for red flags and men look for green lights. And he's like, Oh, that's good. And I'm like, oh, thank you. You put that on your book cover. That would be a good book title.
You know.
And we've said we've dealt with that, you know, to this day, twenty twenty five as we record this.
That the.
Women have gotten harder than the men have gotten softer. And that is an environment again, especially at our live shows, because even though we're doing this podcast for most the last ten years, still on the road, foreign countries, new cities, or ever, trying to really break down the landscape of the dating and the relationship ecosystem, and you know, certain cities were harder than others.
You know, and you really attacked it like or addressed it like a journalist. I used to say a lot of times that I felt like you were a love journalist or the journalist of love or something like that along those lines, because you really want to know, really did want to hear people and understand what everyone was going through, find common ground and find some solutions and find like you say, confidence and communication and a way
forward where people could actually connect. And I think that's where the big change really happened in the live show, and you know what, the podcast eventually became because love, dating and relationships can be is should be funny and interesting and an adventure. And so to think that, you know, men and women have problems, to think that they don't get along, and to really live in that space, it's just not ever who this what this show was ever about.
This was all about the adventure of love with its ups and downs. Valley.
You know, I don't believe there's anything as an expert on this stuff, but I don't know who. It was a time somebody called me an influencer on this, which I am because I'm trying to push the dialogue forward and you bring up the journalist thing. I'm looking to find answers. But two three years.
Ago I got interviewed maybe it was longer for Nightline. Was that Debora Roberts.
It was longer Debora Roberts, Okay.
And she's following me around and she's asked me.
A bunch of questions and then she goes, let me ask you something, and I go what, And she goes, is this whole thing really about you? And I never thought about it that way? And that first my actuer was like, no, of course not. But maybe it is. And maybe it's because I had always had such you know, publicly, and you know, I always said.
Oh, I have a girlfriend, blah blah blah.
But but inside there was something that I was not getting the answers that I needed, and that I saw that in other people.
I had no idea.
Some of the stuff that men were going through because I thought I'm a guy, I understand guys. Even my book where this all started, How to Find Eleven sixty Seconds, I don't even push that book anymore because I don't believe in half of it because I got the whole men's side of it wrong.
And that's what I was just going to say. I mean, I really think that that that's what ignited the whole thing was maybe your own story, you know, your own feelings. I think that's where it started. But this is definitely not about Brian Howie.
No, this show drove me. I was the vessel.
I was the kind of Now, this show drove me to therapy, of course, And it wasn't you know. It was because I was hearing things and listening to people experiencing things, and I'm like, I don't even know what they're talking about and that's a bad place to be if you are the host and the public face of the great Love debate. So anyway, we have learned so much, which I hope you guys have too. We have experienced so much.
This show.
Like I said, I have recorded this show in a bunch of countries and a bunch of places the podcast. I have performed the show in a bunch of places, and a bunch of of comedy clubs and theaters and music venues and everything. And you know, millions of people listening to the show, and hundreds of thousands have come to the live show, and this show, this five hundred show, is a chance for me to say thank you to the audience, but it's mostly a chance to say thank you.
I love you to the time Emmy Wardmann and Keko, like I said, her ability to see something in me and believe in me in a way.
You know, that's the thing you say.
Like when I was challenging you as a producer, like I'm a producer, you're a producer, fuck off.
Maybe I didn't hear.
Maybe I could have backed off a little bit if I knew, if I believed in me the way you believed in me, and so part of that dialogue and part of me fighting back was me like, I need to be louder, I need to be more vociferous, I need to be more passionate about what I believe, because I wasn't as confident in me as you were. And so I appreciated to no end what you've done to this. I want the audience to appreciate. Maybe you're gonna have a bunch of fans come up here in your mountain
retreat here to track you down your wisdom. The amount of times you've been on the show and you always had the money line or something funny to say, and you say you're hey hey. And the fanfare when we used to break out the list, what did you what was your music?
Little fanfare?
All of that was such an important part of the show in the early days, and it lasts through today. Like there's no element of this great love debate or the conversations that I have that are not directly related to you and responsible for you. So I wanted the audience to know this. So sorry I tricked you on the roundtable. Sorry I lured you out of a semi retirement to come back and do this but I just wanted you to.
Know that well and stop saying that I'm not around anymore, because I will always be around for you.
I will always be around for the Great Love Debate.
So so maybe not in the proximity of you know, there in the studio studios.
The what do you call them? The lovely what do you call them.
We're back in the very fine studio, very fine, very fine, very fine. Maybe, and I'm not in the very fine studios, but I am always, always, always here for you.
Yeah, I mean there are Like I said, there are a lot of people out there, and I appreciate every single one of you who have listened to every single episode of the show. I got an email from somebody who climbed Mount Everest listening to Great Love Debate. I'm surprised at how popular we are in Malta. I didn't even know whatr Malta was very popular in a lot of countries, but I think there's a good chance. I don't know if you've listened to all of them, but
pretty close. And you've got a lot going on, and so I know that you don't always have time to do that. And I know a lot of what I say makes you roll your eyes and it makes you think, oh my god, if I was there.
But no, we don't edit. I have done.
This is a five hundred episode. We've never edited a word I've said. We edited one thing I think that Caitlin Bristow from The Bachelor said because ABC got mad, remember that, like take that out.
I don't edit.
And the life on the high Wire and working without a net to do that, you're just like be authentic and hopefully they'll you'll put some asses in the seats.
And you are doing that.
You are doing that. You are so authentic and your advice and your thoughts are either right on and sometimes they are, but even when they're not, they're very provocative.
And I think talking about I think that they they're not.
They help they are Listen when somebody, when somebody challenges you, it makes you think, Okay, if I don't if I don't agree with them, then what do I agree with?
If that's not there's what do I think? So it's all helpful.
Brain, there's a chance I'm wrong, and a lot somebody has not somebody, a lot of people ask me this, do you.
Believe every single thing you say on the podcast?
And I'm like, I think I'm figuring it out when I say it, I'm figuring out do I believe this is true?
Yeah, I'm running it up a flagpole.
And the response that I get from the audience like, this is a conversation that every person who listens to this podcast is a part of, or I want to feel a part of.
So I'm not always right.
I'm like I said, my job is to raise the questions and find the answers.
We have a lot of the answers.
Because nobody has raised the questions more than we have in front of more people in more places over the years. I stand by that I stand about behind our collective data. But some of the things that I say are rooted from my personal experience and the things that I've learned. I had no idea how angry certain men were. I had no idea how how much infidelity goes on in married like I just didn't know.
I'm a little bit as naive.
I didn't know how many people stay together on happily for a long time. I didn't know how many people were scared to go on a date. I didn't know how many people were believed in the words this is my type. And you know, if there's anything we preach around here is to get rid of the words not my type. If you're over thirty and you're still single, you have no type, and we will we will say
that to death. And so you know there's you know, thirty or forty things that That was another thing that I don't know if it was you or it was Mike August who was also producing. I went on stage and I realized I thought I'd said, well, I said that at a show earlier, and I was scared to say something again because I thought they'd heard it before. If somebody come to the show and he said, they want to hear living on a prayer, m h. And
what it meant was, don't back off on it. If it's these tenets, these mantras, these catchphrases, these slogans that we've developed over the years on the show, don't be afraid to say them. The women want the men to try harder, the men want the women to make it easier. Those things we've developed over the course of the years.
And you could see the look upeople's faces when they resonated. You know a lot of this was work shopping in the early days. A lot of this is work shopping.
Now when we come back episode one thousand, the five hundred is gonna seem qaint and who knows, we're gonna be able to inject this right at.
Our audience's heads.
But this is all a work in progress. We do not have all the answers, which is a good thing. Because we had all the answers, this wouldn't be fun anymore, right for sure?
For sure.
And and just so you know, I will put it out there that my next my next project is to convince you to write all this stuff down. So if if he ever gives the announcement that there's a book in the works, please give him the encouragement for that is.
I will be behind the line.
I know.
I get asked to do the book a lot.
Probably the best idea that has come to me is to do the state of the date and travel around and do the fifty states, the.
You know, the daily landstape in fifty states. That's a good idea.
There's there's probably a way to transcribe five hundred podcasts, edit it down.
Do that.
The reason I don't do it, and it's rare to turn down to publishing things I do get offered. That is because I'm so scared by the time we hit print on the book that because the landscape.
Changes so much that the direct it'll just be out of date.
So the reason I like doing the podcast so much is I feel like this is the five hundredth chapter of a really long book, and every week I get to add a new chapter. That being said, there is something about a book in hand, and there is something to be you know, thirty years from now, somebody can pick up the book and see if it still stands up. I brought that up on an episode a couple episodes ago that I believe that the best dating book that's ever been written. Sorry, John Gray is he's just not
that into you. And I believe that. You know, they were comedians and Greg is a comedian, and yeah, and you know the reason why. And again Corolla is a comedian.
I guess you know.
I headline comedy clubs. I don't know if I'm a comedian, but I'm fucking funny. Comedians are social observers, and that's why they have a really good handle on the relationship stuff. And comedians are also often wounded hearts, and they try and find the laughter in sometimes tough situations, which is
part of what we're trying to do here. Like some of this stuff, and when we get into breakups and divorce and infidelity and all these other things, it is a painful business, and we try and always put a spin on it.
And laugh a lot.
I said, somewhat embarrassedly or regretfully, maybe that I don't know if the show is as funny as it used to be. I don't think we laugh as much, But it doesn't mean we're not doing better shows. You know, sometimes making people think is a lot more important than making people laugh.
You taught me that. You taught me that, and I trust you. Yeah.
I used to tell my actors and actresses in theater that all the time they're listening to you, that's important. I didn't believe it myself until you told me that. So maybe you're just hitting the ping pong ball back to me. You held up the mirror and I did that. You are a brilliant producer if you.
Listen to me.
Yeah, no, I don't.
To be honest, I didn't realize that I had packeded you or influenced you in that way, because my thing was always that we have to find the funny because once you start laughing, I mean, everybody loves to laugh. And once you start laughing, you realize that things are not as bleak or serious as as they seem. And once you get into that place, you're in a place of openness. And the thing that I love that I contributed to this was the magic of maybe there's here's
a magic and maybe and so and so. I just think our goal should always be to get to a place where we're saying, maybe, maybe I'll fall in love today, or maybe I'm going to meet somebody that will be a friend, or maybe I'll meet someone that i'll fix up with one of my friends.
Maybe I'll meet someone that'll do business.
It's about possibility.
Maybe is about possibility.
And because the Hollywood competitiveness in me still flares up with you, I'm so mad you came up with that. That sounds like something I would say. I feel like maybe I muttered it, No, set it under my breath.
I'm sorry, that's mine, that's mine.
There's magic in me, magic and maybe all right.
Well there's magic in you. Two time Emmy one winning KKO, there's magic in the show. There's a magic in our audience.
So we are incredibly thank you. We're incredibly grateful and proud of doing this.
Uh A fraction of a fraction of a fraction of podcasts go on this long, and you know, we are kind of just getting started.
And and since you're in the thanking mode, I have to I have to mirror that right back to you, because if you did not keep on doing this, none of us would have all of this material, None of us would have these these insights and the and the you know, the provocative side of you is also, like I said, very very helpful. And everybody, everybody wants to to understand all of this better and you help us with that.
So thank you.
Thank you for.
Continuing to do this, for not giving up, and for uh, you know.
This show.
Thank you this show. This show really isn't about love. This show is about hope. And we're selling hope around here. And every time somebody tunes in or we want to have these conversations or whatever, we're pushing people to a place of hope to either find it, do it better, learn from it, grow from it, et cetera.
Thank you, two time Ember Award winning Keiko.
You're welcome thanks.
They don't give Emmys for podcast, but if they did, this would be your third.
Emmy as far as us.
After five hundred episodes, your reviews still meet a lot on the podcasting ecosystem, like share, follow, and like I just said, please review this podcast on Apple click five stars, give us five stars.
Damn it?
Yeah, please do it? Do it well, well it's on your mind.
Yeah, I'll hold, We'll hold.
Shoot us an email Great Love Debate at gmail dot com if you have questions, thoughts, uh, compliments, controversial things to say, or if you want to invite up the mountain to Keko's mountaintop retreat.
She won't allow you to calm, but we'll see.
You know, Brian how he reads every single one of those emails himself, So don't think that he's got like a team of of you know, associates who are who are doing that for him. He loves reading those. So please do write to him. Please let me know what you do and let him know what's on your mind.
Yeah, there's a lot, so I don't know, but I read, you know, I don't know if it was Churchill, somebody read every single letter. Anyway, because as always for the five hundredth time at the Great Love Debate.
We never stopped making love.
See you next time.
The Great Love Debate. It's the Great Love.
Debate, degree love debate. It's a great love Debate.