Bonus Bang: This Book Changed My Life Ep 21 (Lily Sullivan, Andy Daly, Ben Rodgers)

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hey everyone welcome to another bonus bang where we re-release great episodes of comedy bang bang out from behind the paywall this is your host scott ackerman and we are at the conclusion of our series i love lily that's right we do love lily uh the lily we're talking about is lily sullivan uh performer extraordinaire she does so many wonderful characters on the show now uh we are doing something a little different this week.

Usually, we release old episodes of Comedy Bang Bang, but this week we are bringing you something a little different.

It's another Comedy Bang Bang World exclusive.

This is episode 21 of Lily Sullivan's series that she has over there.

This book changed my life.

Now, basically, this series is Lily hosting a book club of sorts with comedians playing readers of the book.

And this week, Lily invites her friends, Dean Firehouse, who's played by Andy Daly, and Auggie Silverado, played by Ben Rogers.

And they're going to talk about the book Perseverance by Preston Lug Wheeler.

So this is going to be an exciting listen for you.

If you enjoy this and you want to hear other great episodes of this book, Changed My Life, or maybe previous episodes of Comedy Bang Bang, or every single live episode we've ever done of Comedy Bang Bang, become a subscriber at cbbworld.com.

Every single episode over there, the live shows add-free new episodes and original shows like CBB Presents, which you're going to hear today, and Scott Hasn't Seen.

We're going to be back Monday with a new episode of Comedy Bang Bang, but until then, enjoy this bonus bang.

Put everything on red, I yell.

My sequence dress from Zara is itching my armpits, and my fake eyelashes are only half on.

The forced oxygen is pumping through my veins, and I feel like Tom Cruise must feel when he risks his life jumping out of a helicopter for the sole purpose of getting a direction.

The dealer looks at me, befuddled.

I said all on red, Champ.

My name is not Champ.

My name is Sal, he says.

And this is the blackjack table, ma'am.

Ah, Las Vegas.

The city of lights.

There is truly nowhere on earth like it.

Where else can you see a father of five betting his daughter's college fund away on a finding Nemo slot machine?

The entire strip is like Dave and Buster's had a baby with a cruise ship and there's no way out.

Your days are simple.

You spend either $140 on two beers and a French dip by the hotel pool or lose $80 watching a hot robot woman with triple F tits spin the video roulette wheel.

Your nights are even better.

Three dirty vodka martinis with blue cheese olives and a half-eaten filet mignon from the bus tub at Bavet's steakhouse.

If you're lucky, you can see a show.

Maybe Penn and Teller will bring you on stage and make jokes about how much you hate your husband.

Or you can see Joey Fatone from InSync do his latest two and a half hour stand-up special.

Whatever you end up doing, you'll have the time of your life.

Is this New York, you'll ask yourself, wide-eyed, at 3 a.m.?

Nope, it's just Vegas.

After losing $800 on the craps table, you'll head to your hotel room and eat $300 worth of chips from the mini bar while watching an old friends episode.

You know, the one where they all hate gay people.

Then you'll you'll drift to sleep to the sounds of your neighbors screaming in a way that makes you think they're either having sex or being murdered.

Either way, you'll know you had a great time.

I pull up my strapless dress and I look at my cards.

Jackpot.

I'm all in, Sal.

I push my life savings to the center of the table as he flips my cards.

Two threes, he says.

House wins.

I smile to myself.

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

Welcome to this book Change My Life.

I'm your host, Lily Sullivan.

And today we are talking about a very, very incredibly special book, Perseverance by little-known author Preston Lugwheeler.

I would like to welcome on my first guest.

He's somebody who I met vacuuming, of all things.

We were both at

a Best Buy and trying out the vacuums.

And I looked over and I said, Dyson?

And he said, yep, yours.

And I said,

Dyson, you know it.

And we were fast friends ever since.

Please welcome on my guest, Dean Firehouse.

Dean.

Hello, Lily.

Wonderful to be here.

So good to see you.

It's great to see you too.

I love every time you tell that story about the time we met.

It has more details to it because I forgot that we were talking about the Dyson.

I had been there, you know, I had been there every day for three weeks trying out all of the vacuums.

And some of them have handheld it.

You know, so it's like, right.

You haven't tried it until you've tried both ways.

That's what I always say, too.

Like,

I don't want to just vacuum standing up.

I want to vacuum in all positions.

And how am I supposed to know which one is the best for me personally without trying them all?

Sure.

And I've been a Hoover man since way back.

I can't even tell you how long I've been.

I remember Hoover.

Loyal to Hoover.

I'm very suspicious of newfangled vacuums.

I know.

I got to know all the guys at Best Buy over the time.

And, well, you remember

Cherry, she went with me.

Yes.

Or I don't know if it was Cherry or Richard.

I think it was Cherry.

Yeah.

Cherry.

She got real mad.

She did.

Well, I mean, you were spending all day there every day for a very long time.

Yeah.

She started.

What she started calling me was a deadbeat.

And she started saying, you're never going to buy a vacuum cleaner.

Well, she doesn't know me very well.

She doesn't know because lo and behold, of course, you did buy a vacuum.

I did.

Finally, online.

I did from a different store well yeah sure

i found a store uh small store in colorado that does refurbished hoovers right right and that was i ended up with a good 1975

hoover superplex yes you know what it reminds me of do you ever listen to that this american life where um someone's talking about like how they want to buy a couch and they couldn't decide on a couch to buy i have i've heard that very story that you're referring to yeah that is you to me like you are so particular and you want to make sure you're buying the best purchase.

I mean, I've been to your house, you have no furniture.

No, I don't have

for heaven's sake.

How do you decide on anything?

I know.

And to tell you the truth, it doesn't, the thing about furniture is it just gets in the way of straightening up.

Right.

You know what I mean?

Well, you're, yeah, I mean, your place is spotless.

Floors in Southern California.

That's what you always say.

Yeah.

I advertise my house that way.

I give tours.

You know, I give.

I know.

I've come on one of them.

I've come to see the house.

Yeah.

For the listener, if you don't know, you can go to Dean Firehouse's house,

which is, I mean, funny.

Not a firehouse.

I've got a lot of that.

I know.

Half of my Yelp reviews are, this was not a firehouse.

And I think the other half are, why the hell did I do this?

It's just a tour of a house with no furniture.

Of an empty house with no furniture.

And, you know,

it's true.

I don't have a lot of positive Yelp reviews

on the tour.

But you do have a lot of reviews, which I feel like, you know, no news.

I mean, sorry, all bad news is good news.

Well, I don't let them leave without that they've been on Yelp and left a review.

Yeah.

You can't leave.

Well, yeah.

Right, because then you get held in your basement, which oddly has more furniture than upstairs.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But none of that is like furniture I'm proud of.

Yeah.

It's all, in one way or another, I'm ashamed of every piece down there.

Yeah,

you call it the shame lair.

Yeah.

It's just a room full of, just chock full of terrible memories.

Everything in there was a mistake or something that's left over from a horrible relationship.

Yeah, I was going to say, so, I mean, most of the time, I think you moved all the furniture down there after the divorce, is that right?

Yeah, that's right.

Every single piece of furniture reminded me of my darling wife

who just had enough of me.

Yeah, she did.

She left the state, right?

Oh, yeah.

I mean, I could, if I tried to track her down, there's no way.

All right, I've tried to track her down.

Yeah, you have.

I remember.

It can't be done.

It can't.

No,

she's gotten rid of her cell phone.

She's gotten rid of her car.

She's gotten rid of, I mean,

her fingerprints.

And I don't know.

I have no idea if this is even possible.

I'm told she's changed her ethnicity.

That can't be.

It can't be right.

That can't be.

I've heard it from two sources.

Like she did in Ariana Grande.

What is that?

What did she do?

She Rachel Dolezate herself, essentially, but no one calls her out for it.

Oh, wait a minute.

I don't know what that is.

She's just a white girl.

Okay, Ariana Grande.

But, you know, she has enough tanner that

people question.

From what I understand,

my darling Marjorie moved to Thailand and now she's Thai.

Well, that just can't be.

Well, I've heard it from two people.

Well, either way, Dean, your business is booming.

I mean, people still come for some reason to go see your house.

Like, you're doing good.

You're doing better at least than the last time I saw you.

Oh, thank you very much.

When was the last time I saw you?

Wasn't I starting that coffee cart business?

Yeah, you were selling coffee and dog treats.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And no one was buying either.

I guess that's true.

I gave away a lot of free samples, sort of, sort of, you know what I mean?

Yeah.

Get people hooked on both.

Right.

Yeah.

I guess you're right that it wasn't, yeah, they weren't buying it.

They weren't buying it.

Good point.

Good point.

Yeah.

Huh.

That's interesting.

You were in good spirits, though.

I hadn't thought about it, but you're right.

Actually, I think I never sold a cup of coffee off of that thing.

But you did give away a lot of dog treats.

I gave away a lot of dog treats.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, I'll tell you what.

Huh.

I, because I said I was very clear these dog treats are made human grade.

Yeah.

I always say human grade.

Right.

I saw a number of times somebody take a dog treat and walk away and eat it themselves.

No.

Yeah.

No.

Many times, many times.

Well, I mean, and they weren't really human grade, were they?

No.

Of course not.

For Christ's sake, why would I waste good money?

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

I'm making these at home from just knickknacks and whatever I find around.

Odds and ends.

I know, I know.

I mean, you're not a chef.

I know that about you.

Hell no.

No.

Nope.

I do have a kitchen.

I do have a functioning kitchen.

Yeah, you do.

Your kitchen actually has probably the most furniture of any room in the house.

Yeah, I guess, if you can think of a stove as furniture, but I'll boil some water on there.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

Yeah, but

mostly it's Grubhub.

You are the forever bachelor in my brain now, you know?

Well, let's talk about the book, Dean.

Oh, yeah.

Perseverance.

What a book.

By Preston Luke Wheeler.

You brought me this book.

Yeah, yeah.

And I have to say, I was blown away.

You were?

I was blown away.

Have you read adventure books before?

No, not up until this point.

And honestly,

I think about it like it's like a lot of men read these kinds of books, but not a lot of women.

Okay.

I suppose you're right.

It's just like

a fascinating tale into this disaster, essentially, right?

Yep.

Well, now if you're, if you like this adventure book, it's a whole section of the bookstore of adventure books.

And it's one thing after, I tell you,

I read a new one just about every week.

I've yet to read one about an adventure that went even okay.

Yeah.

They're all

seems like they all go badly.

I guess you're writing a book about it.

Yeah, I guess that's it.

I mean, I am at the point now where I wouldn't mind reading an adventure book where we set out, we set sail and accomplished what we set out to accomplish.

And everyone came back alive.

Exactly.

I guess it'd be short.

I think about that all the time, like with the the Titanic.

Like, I'm sick of like these sad Titanic stories.

Like,

why not have a book like that?

Imagine the Titanic arriving in one piece.

Oh, well, that's a whole other genre.

What if?

What if?

What if the Titanic didn't sink?

That's what the History Channel is made for.

Is that what they're doing over there?

Yeah, yeah.

I changed my package.

I went from Dish over to this fellow by the name of Charles.

And he's, I can't get history anymore.

Wait, so Charles does the

Charles gets the cable all hooked up for you?

Is that what you mean?

Well, he brought his own dish over.

He says, so it's just a plate.

What?

It's just a plate.

It's on the roof, as far as I know.

He came in and he said, what are you paying dish for?

I'll hook it up for you.

And I've got, he says, I've got my own business and whatever he calls it.

I see him from time to time and I try to flag him to, hey, I have mainly what I wanted was history.

Right.

I can't get enough of those World War II planes, but I tell him.

Anyway, I pay him a monthly bill, and I do get some channels.

Which channels do you get?

I get,

it's mostly Charles.

This is his channel.

Yeah, he broadcasts out of the basement, but it's local interests and

very religious.

Very religious.

Oh, that's good too.

I love that.

Well,

yeah, I mean, this book, okay, so it centers around one man

on his adventure into the deep sea.

Into the deep sea.

That's right.

Yep.

On

this ship, the Perseverance.

Yep.

It was a beautiful giant ship that was intended to go a submarine as well as to sail upon the waves.

Yes, exactly.

It's

a twofold thing.

It's a what did they call it?

That's what they called it, right?

They called it a marine/slash submarine.

That's right.

Boat.

And so it was

meant to sail and then at a moment's notice because I mean a sailship, up with the main sails and all that, and then at a moment's notice under the waves.

And it was, he had developed it for the British military in the 1920s.

And this was the prophetically named Byron Will Drown and he was uh Byron Will Drown.

That's right.

Yep.

That is that is the story.

This is the story of Byron Will Will Drown.

Yeah.

And

it turns out, well, that's a spoiler.

He drowned.

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But I do want to bring on our next guest because I feel like we have so much to dive into about the perseverance.

This is somebody who I met on the pickleball courts.

We were smacking around the ball and

I turned over and I saw somebody playing with a bunch of old people and he was absolutely whooping their asses.

And I thought,

that's a cool cat.

And we ended up chatting over some lemonade afterwards.

Please welcome my dear friend, Augie Silverado.

Augie.

Hey.

So good to see you.

It's great to be here.

Thanks for asking me.

It's good to see you.

Not in sweats.

I'm not depressed anymore.

I'm doing much better.

Yeah.

I got dressed up for you guys.

By the way, you, of course, know Dean.

You guys are old friends.

Indeed.

Good to see you.

Nice to meet you.

I did not know you

had gotten into pickleball.

I'm doing pickleball now because it's new for me.

Yeah.

Because it's a new sport and I want to get involved in the new things.

And

it doesn't take a lot of movement, but if you got a little bit of spriage,

you can really take down all these people out there.

Yeah, because I mean, the people you were playing with when I saw were like in their 90s.

You're in their 90s.

You're, of course, in your 70s?

That's right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

76.

76.

Yeah.

And,

you know, the pickleball court is

different than where I came from, which, of course, is

state prison.

That's right.

Yeah, no pickleballing statement.

No pickleballs,

anyway.

I feel like there should be.

I'm going to bring it back.

I'm going to bring it back.

Yeah.

Uh-huh.

Yeah.

And we met, you know, when I, there was a period of time where I was, I lived so close to the state prison.

That's right.

You would come by.

I would come by and say, who hasn't had a visitor in a while?

And then you'd bring your cart, your coffee, and your dog treats, which was offensive in a way, the dog treats for the prisoners.

Well,

you think that you think, You would think it would be, but it actually,

I would get those dog treats and they would make my day.

They would?

They would make my day, and you bite into them, and they're full of little.

He would put little

prizes in them.

Yeah, he would put pieces of cloth, I remember.

They got me in a world of trouble.

It's like those, you guys know they do this in like in Greek culture, and I think they do this in English, in England as well.

But they put, you know, if you get the little piece of cloth in the cake, or if you get the coin in the spanny copy ta, good luck.

Uh-huh.

It's good luck.

And you look at the little cloth and you think maybe there's a message in here from Dean, and you look at you twirl it around, around, and it's nothing.

And then you say to yourself, I guess it's one of those good luck charms.

Right.

That's funny you say that because it was just, I thought of it as filler.

You know what I mean?

Okay, all right.

Just stretching the batter.

You were using, I think, wood chips.

A lot of wood chips out there.

You know, when you're inside, you tend to look into things a little bit too much so it was filler to you and to to me it was a good luck charm prize oh that's funny well anyway

i would give them the dog treat saying hey you're gonna get out someday and when you do you might want a dog hang on to the treat i'm never guessing these prisoners were eating the darn things i'm sure it's better than the food in prison to be honest like yeah it actually was not it was they fed us well there yeah they gave us good we had one good chef in there wow Steve, he was a master chef.

He was on Master Chef?

He was on Master Chef.

Yeah, he won Master Chef.

You're kidding me.

Yeah, he ended up inside.

That's incredible.

That's foul stuff.

I had no idea.

I'm not really.

I'm more of a top chef gal, you know.

Yeah.

Padma, Tom Calicchio, Gil.

Of course, yeah, Gil.

I don't get it anymore on TV.

I don't get the top chef or that or chopped.

Boy, I love chop.

I miss chop.

Yeah.

I love chopped.

Yeah.

I don't get that.

I mean, you were essentially playing chopped every day that you were making those dog treats.

I suppose I was.

Like, what do I have today?

What do I have today?

Some gravel from the driveway?

Can I make it any smaller?

Yes.

Or just grind it up with a hammer and no one will even know.

Right.

You guys, this book,

Perseverance by Preston Luke Wheeler, about our man, Byron Wildrown.

Admiral Byron Will Drown.

What was your favorite part of reading this book?

Because obviously it's about a tragedy.

That's right.

But there's so much more to the book and the story ahead of that said tragedy.

I can start with my favorite part.

I thought it was so interesting when we met Byron.

He was at

basically like a retreat.

um for billionaires that's right and they were having kind of like a kumbaya circle and i just never thought billionaires would do that and i really liked that Well, it made me feel good, too, because

inside people,

believe it or not, there isn't much of a kumbaya vibe.

No, there's not.

You're saying generally in people?

General, yeah, in general.

Uh-huh.

Yeah.

People at their core are angry.

They're angry, particularly in prison.

They'll say some terrible stuff to you, and you will wind up saying terrible stuff.

So it's refreshing to read it in a book.

You're so used saying stuff like

calling people motherfucker and stuff.

For sure.

And you're seeing a bunch of millionaires and billionaires

playing guitars and bongos.

Yeah, it was sort of communal living way ahead of its time

in the 1920s.

He was up there in the up in the fields of England, I suppose, North England.

I didn't even know that was a thing back then.

Well,

they were way ahead.

I mean, these are the innovators of their age and the captains of industry.

And I didn't even know that there were billionaires in the 1920s.

Oh, yeah, no, they didn't talk about it much.

Right.

You know, you had to, to get, to get a billion dollars together in 1920, you had to be a son of a bitch.

You really did.

You really did.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I.

You're actually in prison.

You got to be kind of a son of a bitch to get really anything.

The economic system in there.

Really,

a box of cereal is the equivalent of a billionaire in some ways.

Oh, really?

Wow.

Depending on the cereal.

So you're just like

rice krispy treats, like you'd be rich.

Oh, rice krispy treats through the roof.

I remember you were always asking me for shoelaces.

Next time you come, bring me some shoelaces.

No, you never did.

I never did.

I thought, what are they going to do with them shoelaces?

What were you going to do with those shoelaces?

Well,

to be honest with you, I was going to kill myself.

See, that's what I was doing.

I knew it.

I knew it.

You're giving me all the shit about being depressed.

Like, I remember you, like, when you were down on your luck, Audrey.

Yes, I was doing bad.

Will you tell the listener what you did to get yourself in prison?

Yes.

Well,

basically, wrong place, wrong time.

I was a groundskeeper at a camp.

Yep.

Summer camp, summer camp.

Kids, summer camp.

All the kids got murdered.

How many?

There were 13.

They were smoking reefer, and the camp was over, and I was the last guy to see them, and they landed the blame on me.

Now, luckily.

So this is the end of the summer.

All the campers have gone home.

They're partying.

I told them, I told them it's a bad vibe because I have, I get feelings sometimes.

And

I was just getting a feeling in the air.

I was like, bad

vibes, right?

Yes.

And

you guys know that about me.

I'm really like, stay inside today.

Yeah, you're like, it's too nice to be outside.

Right.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

You've told me a few times specifically, don't go down to the reservoir today.

You know, what's going down at the reservoir?

I just get these feelings.

You're like, don't go down there.

There's going to be stuff released.

So, yeah,

somebody killed all these kids.

Holy DNA got me off.

Well, yeah, eventually, yeah.

The police showed up.

They found 13 dead bodies and one living body, and that was you.

It was me.

Well, I can see you.

I mean, you were, to be fair, you were just sitting there.

Like, you didn't even call anyone for help.

You were just.

Well, I was shocked, and the whole thing was because I'm the groundskeeper.

I'm thinking how am i going to clean up this mess right oh that's you were overwhelmed by the mess i saw the mess you know we never talked about this that you guys are so bonded by how much you love to clean like and organize

you know like you're two of my like cleanest guy friends that i have really yeah that was nice to hear the

well

You'll come by the house sometimes.

I'll come by.

Sometimes I see him just looking in through the window sometimes and he's just wide-eyed with amazement at how sparse the area is.

I get, because I'm a bit of a pack rat now that I'm outside.

Oh, yeah.

And

so I get jealous at the sparseness of it.

I keep it clean.

Right.

I keep it clean.

It's clean hoarding.

It's very clean and organized.

Organized hoarding.

Pag everything.

Yeah.

I remember.

DNA exonerated you?

DNA got me off.

DNA got me off.

Oh.

And now, unfortunately, the DNA also pegged me for a couple other things.

Oh, it did?

Yeah.

But it got me off of what I was in there for.

Did they find the person that killed those thirds?

They're still looking for him.

Holy macaroni.

I don't like to hear that.

He's still out there.

Don't go camp.

The camp vibe is.

Now, that granted, that was a long time ago, but it was.

It was, it still haven't found them.

Have they ever reopened that camp?

Yeah, they're planning on reopening it this summer.

Wow, spooky.

You guys, what was your favorite part of the book?

Oh,

well, I very much appreciated the

when he set off to

explore Greenland,

which had already by that point been fully explored and mapped and settled long since.

Right.

So in a sense, you know, they called it Will Drown's folly

because he was setting off to sort of, you know, a self-styled explorer with nothing to explore.

And that was really the mockery that he took at home in the press from that was really the thing that

I think made him push the envelope, you know,

and

experiment with

his ship before it was quite ready.

Right.

Seems like.

Yeah, he decided to really prove something to the press because of what they were saying about him.

Yep, yep.

And he put together a crew of

100% journalists at the time.

It was really a ragtag bunch, wasn't it?

Well, that's what it was.

Yeah, it was a ragtag bunch.

A ragtag bunch of journalists,

which

one of them was from, of course, Fox News.

Yeah, the early equivalent of that.

Yeah.

Which was, yeah, I don't think many people know that Fox News actually started in the 1920s.

It wasn't a TV station at the time, but it was a

coloring book, like a coloring book magazine.

Yeah.

Raver

Rupert Murdoch I

put that together.

Yes.

He began it and now

we're dealing with his

offspring.

The first Rupert Murdoch was a bit of a coloring genius and not so much worrying about the colors, but the layout of shapes next to other shapes.

And

that's a separate podcast, I suppose.

But

I mean, you look at some of those blocks he put in those early magazines.

They're pretty, pretty.

He made the the coloring books.

Yeah.

But you say

he didn't concern himself with the colors so much.

No, no.

Because

the person who buys them colors them in.

So

he is

quite possibly colorblind, is what the theory is from some people.

I always imagine with a coloring book that there is a sort of a platonic ideal of how each page should be colored.

You know what I mean?

And that somewhere someone has done it.

But

maybe that's not the case.

Now, if you're putting the a coloring book out there and you yourself have not colored it and you don't know if it can be colored, I think that's irresponsible.

I think so too.

I think that's dangerous.

Yep.

Now, you'll meet some really scary fellas inside who will demand that you color a coloring book one specific way, as you suggest.

Now, these guys really,

I mean, they will get on you fast if

you paint somebody's,

let's say, Santa Claus.

Okay.

Okay.

Well, I think we all have an image in our mind.

I know what I'm thinking.

Big white beard.

That's what I'm thinking.

Big red suit, big black belt.

Yes.

Now, let's say you paint that.

Not paint.

Colonel.

Are we talking about crayon?

We're talking about.

We're not talking about a paint by number here, are we?

Good luck getting a paint by number inside that junction.

That's what I mean by that.

Oftentimes.

The number of times you ask me, please, some lead-based paints.

Yes.

Yeah.

What were you going to do with all that lead?

I mean, do I have to spell it it out for you?

What were you going to do?

That's a slow way to go, my friend.

They can't pick up on it.

They can't figure it out.

You just get sicker and sicker, and

you wind up in the hospital, and then you can get out.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

The hospital is just a pipeline to freedom.

Oh, yeah.

It's so easy to get out.

You see, what you do is you dress, you get in the hospital, then you dress up like a doctor.

Okay.

Yeah.

And that's real easy.

All you hate is one of them white coats.

Now, which brings us back to, let's say, you're coloring a doctor's coat.

Okay.

It's supposed to be white.

Better be white.

Yeah, well, what if you color it purple?

Yeah, you're losing an eyeball, my friend.

Okay.

I get it.

There's certain fellas in jail, prison, that want to see something colored a specific way.

That's right.

It's a pretty serious thing.

And at the time, in this book, I mean, this was a very serious

situation having one of the Fox News's only journalists, one of the primary inventors of the coloring book on this ship.

Like, if we lost this person, that's a big deal to Fox News, you know?

Yeah.

Would Fox News be what it is today without that person?

Right.

I mean, well, I mean, consequently, it's the most well-documented

trip on a ship ever.

Right.

Because those who did survive were all 100% talented writers or comic book designers.

And coloring books.

What did I say?

I said comic book books.

There was one comic book guy.

There was a comic book guy.

Right.

Well, there was, yeah, but he was half mad.

He was half mad.

Yeah.

Well, we'll do, what was the other half crazy?

That's right, man, right.

You get nothing but trouble.

Sometimes you're rooting for somebody to die in one of these books, you know.

That guy's really got under my skin as a reader, but he's, as far as I know, still alive.

Amen.

He's still living.

He's still kicking.

He's over 100 now.

There's a lot of people actually from the Perseverance who are still alive.

Most of the journalists, but of course, not Byron Wildrown.

Nope.

He drowned.

Can you?

Dean, you can't keep giving away the ending.

I'm sorry.

Okay, because we're going to get to the spoiler section and then we're going to find out that Byron Will Drown drowned.

Okay.

I beg your pardon.

You can edit it out anytime.

Yeah, Brad.

We can edit that out.

Just edit that one.

Just edit it out.

Three, two, one.

He didn't drown.

Three, two.

Or I won't mention all that.

No, don't, don't, let that help.

That helps.

Yeah.

That helps.

If the listener could just fast forward.

So, okay, yeah.

So, guys, fast forward right now.

3-2-1.

Hello.

What?

Different topic.

3-2-1.

Perfect.

Let's talk about our favorite parts of the book.

Okay.

It worked.

Brett knows what he's doing.

He took a class recently, and he's gotten a little better at it.

Good for you.

For a while, he was being really bad at it.

Taking classes, you got your whole life ahead of you.

I'm trying to start over.

You took that podcast editing course at the Pasadena Community College?

Yeah, you know, I'm auditing it.

Are you?

Oh, my God.

Good work.

You're auditing it?

Yeah, I'm auditing it.

They don't want you to, they want you to pay for it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, but you're auditing it.

Yeah.

To make sure the finances are all together.

No, he's going to teach his own class.

He wants to see how much money there is.

Oh, I see.

All right.

Get your head squared.

Get your head screwed on, Jack.

yeah jack get your head screwed on you audit a college class by just going in for free and sitting there and not getting a grade now as it happens i'm also auditing the professor

i don't think we talked about how you're also

i am i did i am an auditor i have been self-deputized by the internal revenue service to look over the books of people that interest me That's right.

It's all just based on your own self-interest and whatever you want.

As a free agent agent of the IRS,

I'm able to look into the books of people that interest me from what I'm saying.

That's a huge honor, being able to self-deputize.

Not a lot of people can do that.

No, that's true.

I have self-authorized myself to set

deputize myself

various government agencies.

Yeah, the listener maybe needs to know a little bit more about your background, Dean.

Sure.

Obviously, we know what you do do now, your house tours, and obviously you're still auditing and all that.

Yep.

And I still have the coffee cart.

That's right.

But before that,

you were an agent.

Yeah.

I was an agent of the

people get so mad when I talk about it

because it was a bureau set up,

a federal agency to promote cruelty to animals.

And people get so mad.

Right.

You know, it was the American Society for

the Treatment of Animals.

The idea being that if you're too kind to,

you know, stray cats, stray tortoises,

stray tortoises, one of the worst.

Well, a lot of people inside had a problem because you were testing some of these experiments out on the prisoners.

Okay, well, now we're going to get into that.

I don't, you know, well, I did a lot of nice things for the prisoners.

There was a lot of psychological stuff that you would be doing to these.

This is the point.

If you feed a squirrel, let's say, that squirrel's going to come back and back, and they're going to have babies, and then there's going to be too many many goddamn squirrels.

If you defeat a possum, same thing.

If you feed a cat,

it doesn't matter.

Fill in the animal.

If you're nice to one of these animals, it'll only make them reproduce more and more and will be overrun with whatever it is, raccoons or something like that.

This was a federal program to get people to do the opposite of be nice to a squirrel.

Can you get close enough to kick it?

Yeah.

Can you throw something?

Yeah.

Can you shoot it?

Or any sort of aversion, sort of a technique to say, you're not welcome.

Right.

And those were the ones, the psychological ones, that I initiated a program in the prisons.

He would do it in the prisons.

It was.

You were brainwashing prisoners, pretty much, basically.

I don't call it that.

Yeah, you were.

You were going in and you were having your talks, your conferences.

Yeah.

He would give these big conferences to all the prisons, and they would show up.

Well, it's a captive audience, I tell you.

Yeah, they were forced to go, yeah.

And he would talk in a real low voice, so we had to get real close to him, and we would come right in, and he would have cupcakes and stuff set up, and they weren't for us.

They were just for him.

You guys got the dog treats done.

Do you have your agency credentials by the dog treats?

Maybe that's why.

Maybe that's why people didn't buy them.

Of course, he did.

Screw your head on, Jack.

Screw your head on, Jack.

No, this, well, part of the reason I make dog treats is to make it up to the animals of the world.

I don't work for that agency anymore.

They just

have a lot of making up to do.

I don't know.

It was important work at the time.

And now

I feel badly about it because we really did scare a lot of animals, I'll tell you.

But yeah, part of the process,

draw them in

and then unleash on them was what we were what I was working on with

the prisoners.

Yeah.

Here come, you know, hey, everybody, gather around because I had a sore throat.

I can't talk too loud.

And everybody comes and starts

making fun of our haircuts.

My goal was

when I walk into the jail, I want everybody to scurry away from me

into the corners of the building.

And I got there eventually.

Well, I would say, too, like, it's harder to realize when somebody's like insulting you and it's like a low tone like that, you know, the way that he talks.

That intimate low tone.

We can't reproduce in jail.

The whole point

of the program seems to be so the world won't get run out.

Well, it's an experiment.

A monkey's not going to put on mascara,

but you try it out on the monkey.

Yeah.

You know what I'm saying?

And the monkey may look good.

Yeah.

Have you ever seen a picture of a monkey in mascara?

I actually have.

And it's so hot.

I beat a guy up good to get a picture of a monkey with mascara on inside.

Yeah.

I mean, that was a hot commodity.

I was in the hole for a long time because of that one.

But it was a big monkey.

It was huge.

Huge.

Oh, yeah.

One of them gorilla type monkeys.

Yeah.

I guess chimp.

I guess it was a chimpanzee.

Don't get into that.

I don't do that whole thing.

Yeah, you had to.

If it looks like a monkey, it's a monkey.

I don't care how big it is.

You're the one who said gorilla.

That's what it's a gorilla type of monkey.

That's size, but it's a horse.

It's a chimpanzee type of monkey, okay?

Don't get into that.

Anytime somebody I say, here comes an alligator, somebody says, That's a crocodile.

I want to push them in the water.

Well, what's the goddamn difference?

I got to call you out.

You're just echoing what you heard on Charlie's TV station.

Oh,

you don't have animal plants anymore.

Oh, you sound like Charlie.

I feel like I'm talking to Charlie right now.

Guilty as charged.

That is one of Charlie's bugo bees.

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you guys.

What was your favorite part of the book?

I already told you the Greenland part.

What's your favorite part?

Oh, I like

probably when they got frozen.

When Byron and

you know, I don't know who saw it because they claim he was alone, but then it's how do they know?

Right.

Oh, yeah.

When they got frozen and he had to make his own playing cards to make to play solitaire.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Solitaire.

And he used his own fingers.

He used his fingers

because his fingers would freeze off and then he would nibble little symbols in the fingers.

Right.

And then he would stack them up.

Now, the thing is, how do you play solitaire with three fingers worth of cards?

I don't know.

And I would love to know.

And these are some of the mysteries that haunt us about the perseverance.

And it also reminds you when you're, because, you know, this book saved my life,

changed my life.

But this book saved my life.

Wow.

Okay, because you know, I'm inside and I'm getting depressed.

Yep.

And some, and the books they got inside are wizard books.

Wizard books.

Harry Potter?

They got a wizard book.

I don't want to.

Harry Potter?

Yeah.

It's the only wizard book I know that exists.

They got all the wizard books.

They got Harry Starry.

Which one?

Sorcerer's Stone?

Yeah, they got Harry.

They got

Boise.

Boise the Wizard.

I don't know that one.

I've never heard of that one.

Yeah.

That sounds me.

How about The Wizard of Oz?

That was a book, wasn't it?

Oh, yeah, I guess that's a wizard.

That's the second wizard book.

They got a whole Boise series now that I've seen.

I don't want to talk about the Boise series with this one.

I like the part two where their extremities were frozen and turned the fingers into playing cards.

And you're right that we don't know how they played Solitaire with that few cards.

And we'll never know.

And we'll never know.

Well, and also, you know, who

figured that out?

Right.

One of the journalists must have been there.

Right.

You can play Solitaire with one card.

How?

Brett.

If it's an ace, you win.

I play that all the time.

Oh, my God.

Sometimes he's so sad.

It's honestly so devastating.

Son of a bitch, that word.

Can you edit that part out, Brett?

Can you edit that?

Three, two, one.

Brett doesn't play solitaire.

Thank you.

Thank God that's gone.

My favorite part, I think, was when

they got stuck in the desert.

You know, they make it, they make the ship get on land finally,

and they dock in the desert.

They gotta modify it to be a land vehicle.

Right, which was incredible, given they went to the deep sea.

They went, obviously, to the frozen Antarctica.

And then they find themselves docking on to the desert, and they're they're all so thirsty, so tired, they have no fingers or toes left.

And they just managed to,

you know, essentially build shelter out of just sand.

And this is 18 years into the journey as well.

Yes.

So they've been, and everyone gave them up for dead a long time ago, you know, and little do people know they're out there making their own shelters in the desert.

They are.

And that's how Adobe was invented.

Yep.

And that was something I learned from the book: I knew nothing about Adobe.

Yeah.

And I didn't know the history of it.

You know, I thought like a sandcastle is a sandcastle.

Right.

But no, and they had complicated structures in the desert.

Yep.

They had various floors.

They had stuff you don't think.

Elevators.

They had elevators, which I wasn't even sure.

Outrageous.

They had landing pads.

And I read it and I thought,

what landing?

They were not not thinking straight a lot of the time yeah because the way the adobe came about if i recall was one of the fellas says we got to make an igloo we're freezing to death out here next thing you know they're trying to fashion an igloo out of sand yeah next thing you know it worked next thing you know they're building second and third stories right and figuring out how to get a goddamn elevator up there unbelievable unbelievable a lot of wasted effort in my view well they went a little crazy see well they did.

They went a little cuckoo by the time they were out there in the desert for that long.

I mean, they were there for 20 years.

20 years.

Well, it took them 18 years to get to the desert.

And then they were in the desert for a further 20.

So we're talking like we're in the mid-60s at this point, aren't we?

God knows.

God knows.

Listen, I'm just a humbug.

I'm a groundskeeper.

I didn't do the math.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Because it's all, I mean, the world now is crazy to me.

Oh, yeah, for sure.

I mean, we got

Roombas and

doors that open.

You know, it's interesting that you never considered getting a Roomba, Dean.

Oh.

For your house.

Uh-huh.

Why would anyone do that?

You know what these things do?

They learn your, it's a goddamn robot that learns your house.

What's the big deal if it knows the layout of your house?

Like, how does that?

What's the big deal if it knows the

Like, what is the government going to do with that information?

I know exactly what the government's going to do with that information.

Are you kidding me?

But they're going to come in and hide stuff in your house.

What do you mean?

He's got a point.

I didn't think of that.

What would they even do?

Where do you think

the gold comes from, sweetheart?

Don't call me sweetheart.

You guys, honestly, you're lucky that I'm having you both on.

Yeah.

Two senior white guys.

Like, you're fucking lucky like you're on today.

Please.

You've told me that

I'm sorry about that, Missy.

Oh, no, Aggie.

What did we say about Missy?

No, dear, okay.

No, Missy, no sweetie, no honey, right?

No, honey.

All right, good.

No, baby.

But you can call Brad any of those.

All right.

All right.

All right, baby.

It's a compliment.

Where do you think black mood comes from, sweetheart?

It's the government.

And they map map your house with these goddamn robot vacuum cleaners, and then they put it in a place where they know you don't look very often.

Why did they want you to have black mold?

Well, because it messes with your mind.

It messes with

him.

All right, sport.

You get thunderpunk.

Yeah, yeah.

All right, punk.

It's the same reason that the Romans made everyone, gave everyone lead poisoning with the viaduct.

I don't want the civvy conspiracy theory hour with YouTube.

Seriously, I knew we were getting close.

Between how much history channel you guys used to watch, make stories.

Are you defecating in your diaper right now?

Why did you 3-2-1?

No, I'm not.

Why did you say that?

God, it just sounds like...

Brett, edit that out, okay?

3-2-1.

I didn't defecate.

They sound sad enough on this episode, but we can't have that.

It just sounds,

the amount of strain it took to get that out.

I knew something was going on.

I know what that sounds like.

Gee, whiz.

You're not supposed to mention it when you see it happening.

Guys,

stay on topic.

Fine.

Persevered.

That's my favorite part.

You already said your favorite part.

Should we talk about how the survivors got discovered finally?

Yes.

Let's talk about the ending.

Spoiler alert section.

It smells so bad.

Guys, please keep it together.

You don't like to smell?

You don't like to smell, Jack?

See you all in Jack.

Why do you keep screaming in my face?

Smells fine.

You're my kid, Jack.

Guys, please.

All right.

Jesus Christ.

Spoiler section.

So if the listener, if you haven't read the book yet, you're going to want to turn off your laptop or iPhone.

We're going to talk about the ending.

So obviously, this is a well-known story.

But the Perseverance,

after the desert,

they've been living in the desert for 20 years.

It's 1960, I think, 1962.

From there, They finally get discovered in one of the least likely places I would have expected them to get discovered with the ship, which, of course, was, do you guys want to say it?

Dallas.

Dallas.

Yep.

Airport.

Dulles.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Dulles.

Dulles-Fort Worth in Dallas.

That's right.

Yep.

The Dulles-Fort Worth airport, which is in Dallas-Fort Worth.

That's right.

And

you know,

the overlap, and this maybe gets into Charles' territory a little bit,

who turned me onto the book, speaking of.

Oh, my God.

You've been watching Charles do?

I didn't realize.

Yeah, he installed my cable.

Jesus Christ.

Now,

1962.

1960, you go a couple of more months, 1963.

Who goes to Dallas?

Who goes to Dallas?

Who doesn't leave Dallas?

John Connelly.

That's right.

I guess.

Is there some conspiracy theory?

Yeah, John Connolly got assassinated in Dallas.

Governor of Texas.

He was the real target.

Anyway.

Anyway,

so the Perseverance team,

so they obviously the boat has gone from being a sailboat into a submarine.

into

being on land as a car.

A desert rover.

Desert rover.

And then, of course, they find a way to make it into an airplane.

They fly it over.

They land at Dulles Airport in Dallas Airport area.

Which from the, I believe it was the Sahara where they were.

Right.

And they flew direct.

Which is a long flight.

Very long flight.

And landed at Dulles Airport

1962.

The whole world is getting ready for the assassination of John F.

Kennedy.

The whole world.

They didn't know it was going to happen, Dean.

Not everyone thought that was going to happen.

That's not fair.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry, honey.

Wake up and smell it.

Even this, I gotta say, Lily, you're

okay.

Oh, my God, Brad.

Truly, if you're in a

there's too many white guys in this room, it's honestly like brain damage central.

Like, I don't know what, who's rotting all your

frontal cortex.

Get the wool off your eyes, all right?

Those big brown eyes.

Get the wool off of them.

Don't talk about my body.

You're not allowed to talk about anything about what she looks like.

I've tried it.

I've tried it and tried it.

Yeah, we had to have our own seminar, our own workshop, which I wish you would have attended, Doggy.

About what you can and can't say nowadays.

All right.

Welcome to 2023.

They got mad.

They wouldn't let me come in with my hockey mask.

Why were you wearing that?

With your hockey mask.

I was coming from hockey.

You could have taken off the helmet.

I just said, it's not, I wouldn't let him in.

I just said, I don't want you wearing that in the room.

I think it's distracting.

And I want people, mainly you two, because literally no one else was there

to really hear me out.

That is the bloodiest goddamn hockey mask.

Caked in blood.

Why is it so bloody?

What were you doing?

This is a rough sport.

I mean, have you you ever played?

I mean, he's like drenched in blood.

Yeah, well, I'm my team's enforcer.

I don't have this skill.

I mean, that's why I like to blow off steam on the pickleball court.

Yeah.

You wear that mask during pickleball court.

That's right.

He's wearing it all the time.

You're like, you could clean it in between games.

I'm superstitious.

If I clean it, I'll lose my mojo.

I'm surprised you're not wearing it today, honestly.

Yeah, no,

it honestly got too disgusting to talk through.

I really appreciate you being vulnerable with us and showing your full head and face.

You're welcome.

Anyway, so the Perseverance lands in Dallas.

And

obviously, you know, they're getting off of the plane and everyone's like, who are you guys?

What's going on?

Are you aliens?

Remember, they all thought that they were aliens.

That's right.

No one had seen a wooden submarine fly into an airport.

That's right.

They had all lost their hair,

and they got really into ritual shavings.

Yes, they're all completely like no eyebrows, no eyelashes, no nothing.

That's right.

They're smooth.

They're smooth.

Yeah.

Covered in baby powder.

Yeah, they looked like that guy from Powder.

You remember Powder, the movie?

Of course, it was one of my favorite movies inside.

I was obsessed with powder.

I couldn't stop watching powder.

It's a classic.

It's a classic.

Everybody loved that movie.

Yeah.

That's a real good one.

The CEOs would come at me and I'd be like, I'm going to powder my way out of here, motherfucker.

What did that even mean?

How would you do it?

Turn into pure energy.

That's the toughest way to break out of prison.

I forgot that's a good one.

They can't, yeah, they can't get you.

Yeah.

Okay, so obviously they land.

And then soon after that, yes, John F.

Kennedy is assassinated, I guess.

Sure.

But it has nothing to do with them, the timing, anything like that.

Oh, I'm just saying, setting the stage, 1962, where everybody's, we're not quite getting ready for the moon landing yet.

Right?

Well, yeah,

we're gearing up to get ready.

Yeah, but we're getting pretty ready for that JFK assassination.

Just getting geared up for it.

The world is there with bated breath.

Yep.

All right, guys.

Getting ready for the 1964 World Fair.

was that the year

that was the year sure 63 the well 64 was the World's Fair year yep

big one but yeah I don't remember this one oh

64 Queens New York Queens New York

big color TVs yep it's a small world after all

You guys, please stay on topic.

I want to just finish the fucking book.

Queens.

Have you ever seen Mission and Pop?

Now, Men in Black?

Yes, of course.

Okay, yeah.

That's where they shot it.

The World's Fairest site.

Okay.

Men in Black.

Yeah.

Huge bomb in prison.

No one liked it.

You would think, yeah,

booed, booed it off.

You're kidding me.

Yeah.

Can you believe it?

Well, I'm

apologize.

It was not the standard edits.

Wait a second.

You brought a version that was.

I should have known.

When

Charles is in half a day.

Well, I just thought this was back from Charles's more successful acting days.

So Charles comes in.

He's got the black suit on, the black tie.

The sunglasses.

The sunglasses.

He starts calling out

prison numbers

from the screen.

The prisoners by number.

Yeah.

horribly like giving personal details.

Everybody was booing, throwing stuff at the screen.

Yeah, I'm not surprised.

I mean, the film you saw is a co-production between me and Charles and Barry Sonnenfeld,

who had nothing to do he had made because he made the original, right?

You got that.

Dean,

I don't like you collaborating with Charles.

I like, I think it's better that you just get back to the house, touring the house, dog treats.

Just say for the record, Charles is a son of a bitch.

bitch

Ullie's got stations I get jack shit on my camera

he fucked me over because it's literally a dinner plate I don't know how many times I have to say this it's a fucking dinner plate on top of your house right he goes behind the screen he does he's literally it's not even TV it's a play You're watching a play every day.

He puts a frame around himself.

It looks like a TV.

It's got the dials and everything.

When he comes over, he holds up a bunch of scrambly wires and stuff and says

the station isn't working.

Yeah, and then in between, you guys are supposed to adjust and go,

yeah.

Can you believe it?

I pay him for that.

I can't believe it.

No, I can't.

I owe him $100,000.

You don't owe him anything.

Please, let's finish the fucking book, okay?

I finally get out.

I finally get out from inside.

I go to Charles Dedder's prison.

Wait, what?

He has his own prison?

He does.

No.

So you're in his own prison right now.

Are you on bail right now or something?

What's going on?

Since I'm out installing plates on people's roofs,

I know.

I am going to be better.

No, you better not.

It's not good.

I do it at night.

I do it at night.

Good idea.

In this seat?

Guys,

all right.

I'm just going to read the book.

No, we already talked about favorite parts.

Okay, so then Byron gives this big speech in front of all of

Dulles.

And he says, you know, none of you believed in me.

There was a smear campaign against me.

Look at what I've done now.

Look all at what I've accomplished.

And again, the people think he's an alien

because he's covered in baby powder.

He's hairless.

And he's oiled.

I don't think we mentioned the exact oil.

Because the oil and the baby powder

adds an interesting mix of textures.

Very dry in some places and very slick in others.

Yes.

Uh-huh.

And then I believe he's grabbed by a group of people

and they drown him.

Yeah.

They're trying to baptize him

and

they keep him down for too long.

No, they do.

Yeah.

Like, I think they were trying to honor him, honor his journey by dunking him into the the

toilet.

Well, accounts vary because some people feel that they some folks still thought they was aliens and thought if we could just baptize these aliens, if we can teach these aliens about Jesus a little bit, maybe they'll stick around and do good.

And so I don't know if it was a hooray, Will Drown is back.

We're glad to have him here.

Let's baptize him because we love him so much.

Or, goddamn, these aliens, we'd better baptize them.

Who knows what they're doing?

It very well could have been a mix, yeah.

Or a mix.

We got to get on top of them before they bring whatever alien

religion to us, right?

I mean, not a bad idea, by the way.

Alien religion,

people say we're being visited by aliens, it's not a bad idea to get a hold of them and baptize them.

I don't really want any religion talk or alien talk on the pod, like it's very poor.

I'm not talking about it, I'm just saying it's not a bad idea.

So,

So the irony, the irony that Byronwell drowned, didn't drown on the ship,

but instead drowned in a toilet in the Dulles Airport.

Yes.

I mean, Q Atlantis more asset, right?

Yeah, I guess so.

I never know what you mean when you say that, Augie.

They say it all the time.

He's always saying, QL Annus Morris said.

I don't keep up with pop culture, really.

And that's, I'm just trying to speak your language.

Yeah, no, it doesn't get through to me.

But guys, wow, we really got, finally got through the book.

Can you believe it?

I can't.

No, I can't either.

Let's talk about.

It's got me excited for her to reread.

However, to do a reread.

How was the book received publicly?

Let's talk about that.

You guys know.

I mean, you've been on the online.

You've been checking stuff out.

I mean, I don't know at this point what your online is looking like.

Well, I got a phone from Charles, and the thing works pretty damn screwy.

But that was new for me, and it gets me online, and I get to read.

Are you talking about that remote?

Yeah.

It's not a phone.

It's a remote for like a TV.

Okay.

That explains a couple of things about

why

it doesn't

do that much.

Well, I'm very handy on the internet but i've had the advantage of not being in jail i go down to starbucks and i just ask somebody

can i use your internet for 15 minutes or buy anything you want off the starbucks menu

so you buy someone some egg bites or something whatever they tell me they want

within reason i see you know egg bites is a big

one egg bite not two i'm not gonna give you two guys go havers on the egg bites they come in two yeah you go havers you buy them you buy two you eat one and you give the other one to the guy for the internet.

If they want two egg bites, they got to buy two orders of egg bites, and then I'm going to have two egg bites.

This is economics I can understand.

So you've been on, you actually have been on the internet.

You know how it's being received publicly then.

Oh, yeah.

I've been on Goodreads.

You ever go to Goodreads?

It's Yelp for Books.

And people there love this book, boy, I'll tell you.

Yeah, I mean, well, so Preston Luke Wheeler, this book didn't get published until, what was it, a year ago?

I think so.

So it's a pretty recent book that came out, but obviously about such a historical phenomenon

slash disaster.

Yep.

And I thought it was interesting that Fox News,

they hated it.

Isn't that interesting?

I thought they would have loved this book.

Because it traces back to some of their lineage.

Their roots.

But I feel like maybe they didn't want people to know that they came out of being a coloring book.

And, you know, you think of your own family, and, you know, I'm not too proud of some of my ancestors.

Well,

don't bring it.

I know a little about your family history.

It's pretty dark.

It's very, very dark.

Yeah.

What's it?

Give us the darkest.

Oh, God.

Well,

they used to give tours.

They were in the tour bus business.

Oh.

And,

cheating the insurance companies, they would just, a lot of times, just let these buses roll right off a cliff.

You got to be kidding me.

Full of passengers and whatnot.

Yeah.

God damn.

Yeah.

And then just to collect the insurance.

Yeah, that's right.

Now, I don't know exactly how the.

I don't know exactly how that worked, but

that put, you know,

my grandfather through medical school, probably.

So, I mean, it's kind of weird to me, Augie, like how much death is in your family's history, but also yours.

Like,

all 13 of those

hopped up kids fucking each other.

This is still a tragedy.

I've heard that part before.

Yeah,

they were all fucking each other.

Guys,

guys.

I went on that 23andMe.

I got connected to a whole family I never knew anything about.

They don't want anything to do with me, to a person.

Right.

I mean, you told me about this.

The interesting thing about it is they're like direct relatives of yours.

Well,

first cousin.

Yeah, it's like, it's basically just like your cousin.

It's your uncle.

It's your me.

Literally.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

One of them is a full-blooded sister.

Yeah.

So it's like, you knew these people.

You didn't need to do 23andMe to like find out who they were.

Well, I thought it'd be more fun for you.

Hey, look at this.

Here I am.

You're long lost for DNA.

Isn't it amazing?

And they,

not one bite.

They're like, I saw you last year at Christmas.

Like, what the fuck?

In some cases, yes.

Well, you guys, what are we reading next?

This is one of my favorite questions to ask.

And I am curious.

You guys are still reading books.

That's great.

I was worried worried after, you know, how much TV you've been watching.

No, I'm a lifelong reader.

I'm a lifelong learner.

Okay.

And

I'm reading a very interesting detective book.

That sounds interesting.

Yeah.

And

it's about this guy.

He's

a dog.

Oh.

Whoa.

Wait, the detective's a dog?

That's right.

Okay.

So it's fiction.

I haven't gotten that far into it yet.

It's fiction.

Sorry, sister.

It's the police department has dogs.

Have you ever seen a movie canine?

Yeah, I have.

Okay.

Keep going.

You can keep telling us.

He's a dog detective.

He's a dog detective.

Yeah, he got kicked off the police force.

Okay.

Now he's a PI.

Why did he get kicked off?

He was too rough with

unintended.

This is the back of the book.

This is a fucking children's book.

I'm looking at it now.

This is a kid's book.

This is obviously fake.

This is the back of the book.

No, this is a child.

I'm taught it here.

This is a child's book.

I mean, I'm doing my homework.

Aggie, this is outrageous.

I'm doing my homework.

I'm reading a what-if book about what if the Hindenburg had blown up on on departure

wow

it just imagines that

yeah it would have blown up and that would have been the story wouldn't have existed at all no it's it's almost the same it's the Hindenburg takes off from Berlin yeah and it gets 10 feet and it bursts into flame and so instead of oh the humanity it's exclamations in German German stuff people saying things in German.

Meanwhile, Lakewood, New Jersey, the destination of the Hindenburg, life goes on as usual.

You think about it, the phrase O the Humanity probably isn't even worked into the cultural

Zeitgeist.

Yeah, that wouldn't exist.

Like, what would we do without that line, if you think about it?

A lot of the book concerns itself with what is it like to exist in a 20th and 21st century America where nobody knows what all the humanity refers to.

I wouldn't want to live in a world like that.

If I got taken to that dimension, I would freak the fuck out.

I wouldn't want to live in that world.

Well, I'm reading a really great book, actually, as well.

It's about phone chargers, of all things.

Whoa.

Yeah.

And the history of phone chargers, the different types that there are, and just sort of how

we don't really think we take phone chargers for granted.

Yeah.

What came first, the phone or the phone charger?

That's what's so interesting, the phone charger.

Wow.

And no one really thinks about that.

It doesn't really get the credit it deserves.

Wow.

And if you think about it, like how much of how many people you see at a bar or something, like, can I use your phone charger?

Does anyone here have a phone charger?

That always happens to me when I go to a bar.

God, I'm sick of it.

It's such a part of our culture.

And we just, and you don't even need to charge your phone.

It's our own.

I don't know what they're talking about.

I give them the batteries out of my phone, and they look at me like I'm friggin' nuts.

Wow, you guys.

I can't believe we did it.

I truly can't believe it.

Thank you so much for being on, Dean Firehouse.

So nice to see you.

My pleasure.

Come on down to Dean Firehouse's not firehouse

and give it

a look over.

Take a look at that bear house.

It's hot on my floor.

It is clean.

I go there, I look in the window, I just drool because I know he's got a lot.

You got to clean up that drool when I leave and it drives him a little crazy.

You guys like it.

It's symbiotic, your little thing you guys have going on.

Augie, Silverado, thank you so much for being on.

Really nice to see you.

Yeah, on the pickleball courts.

Yeah, yeah, you will.

Yeah.

I mean, I don't know that you're going to be invited back after what you did last time, but.

Yeah, I got.

I burned some of the net last time.

And some people.

Well, they were trying to put out the net.

That's kind of on them.

I don't know if I can take the hit for that one, but.

Anyway, and Brett,

yeah,

good job, I guess.

Oh, well, thank you.

You guys made me look good.

Three, two, one.

Pretty good job.

Yeah,

next to these two, like, real conspiracy theorists, you seemed slightly more normal.

To the listener, I just want to say thank you all so much for coming on this adventure with us.

I hope you go to the bottom of the sea and to the desert and up into the mountains.

And I hope you find the book that changes your life.

Thank you.

Such an unbelievable episode.

Big thank you to my guests, Andy Daly and Ben Rogers.

You can hear more from Ben on his podcast, Action Boys, and more from Andy at patreon slash Andy Daly.

As always, thank you to CBB World, Scott Ackerman, and Brett Morris for making this show happen.

And finally, you can follow me, your host, Lily Sullivan, at LILYYLAY.

Until next time, I hope you keep gallivanting through the pages, and I hope you find the book that changes your life.

Hey everybody, it's Paul Scheer, host of How Did This Get Made, a podcast that covers the best, worst movies.

This week, we're diving into the brand new War of the Worlds reboot starring Ice Cube.

Yes, the movie that got 2% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Ice Cube is saving the world from aliens via his computer.

It's so convoluted, this plot, but basically, if you have an Amazon account, you can save the day just like Ice Cube.

There is so much going on in this movie, so join me, June Diane Rayfield, and Jason Anzoukis, as we break down every bizarre choice and every Ice Cube one-liner on this week's episode of How Did This Get Made, the podcast that makes sense of movies that don't.