Rainn Wilson on God, Banana Bread, and the Dwight of It All

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Speaker 2 Two Jews, both big and tall, no subject too small for the good guys.

Speaker 2 A mother's dream, premium podcast team, make it your weekly routine. It's a good guys.

Speaker 2 And if you don't give us five stars, what are you nuts? What are you nuts? Yeah, we're the good guys. We're not the great guys.
We're just a good of good of the good guys.

Speaker 2 Whoa.

Speaker 4 We already have started. I mean, if anyone doesn't know, we have the great Rain Wilson here, brilliant actor, podcaster, author, theater actor.
I saw you recently on the stage.

Speaker 2 Where?

Speaker 4 Theater.

Speaker 4 Well, I will tell you, but you guys are just talking about the Knicks, and and it makes sense. I'm a Knicks fan.
This is a high-tee, uber masculine pod.

Speaker 2 I don't know if you noticed, but this is just like, look at me, I'm

Speaker 2 boy. This is broke, just total broke culture over here.

Speaker 2 Jason,

Speaker 2 fuck you, Joe Rogan.

Speaker 2 I'll jizz in your bald head. Come on, let's do it right now.

Speaker 2 Jiu-Jitsu Nick. It doesn't make me gay if I jizz on your bald head,

Speaker 2 which would be fine anyway. Yes, but I'm not gay for watching.

Speaker 2 Hey,

Speaker 2 enjoy. Enjoy the show.

Speaker 2 Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 You might be gay for watching.

Speaker 2 That's fine.

Speaker 2 Actors, we don't do things without an audience. Yeah.

Speaker 4 I saw you in Waiting for Godot.

Speaker 2 Whoa.

Speaker 4 At the Geffen Playhouse.

Speaker 2 That's crazy.

Speaker 4 And it was kind of a funny thing.

Speaker 2 Why would you come to Waiting for Godot?

Speaker 2 I'm having trouble. What?

Speaker 2 Well, I'm thinking about your vine comedy videos and your show your show the nickelonian show and the pod and stuff like that it doesn't it's not it doesn't quite sync up to you missed all the things i'm proud of oh my god

Speaker 4 it's just an oppenheimer um no i uh here's the thing i love theater and we're a bit we don't get enough of it in my opinion in la we don't yeah and uh i'll never forget i had heard so much about the show and friends of mine who love theater had seen it and it was the final performance and wow i have two kids and a a pregnant wife wow and i just was like i found a single ticket for the last performance no way and so there i am walking around what's what i'm like i am an artist

Speaker 2 i have a single ticket to the theater and uh i sat there and loved it you were awesome oh great yeah what a great show i'm so proud of that show i really am we worked so fucking hard on that thing i don't know that i've worked harder on anything i've ever done in my life than on that play it was the you know Waiting for Godot, for those who don't know, Samuel Beckett, it's this kind of postmodern existentialist, kind of also vaudeville romp.

Speaker 2 You know, it's part comedy and part like despair and kind of all this kind of eclectic language. And it's hard, man.
It's really challenging on every level as an actor.

Speaker 2 And we struggled to bring it to life, but I'm really proud of the production.

Speaker 4 Well, it's also over two hours where you really don't leave the stage.

Speaker 2 No. Ever.
No. Yeah.
No. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Yeah. It's a lot.

Speaker 2 And whenever I left the stage, which was only for like five to 15 seconds at a time, I would just be like guzzling water. For a while, like it was so draining on my body.
I'd use it.

Speaker 2 You know those little goo, the goo things?

Speaker 4 Yeah, like for Iron Man or the other. Yeah,

Speaker 2 you drink the carbo gooze. Like I was shooting carbo gooze backstage.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 I was doing carbo goose backstage and waiting for Godot, man. But it's worse than MMA.

Speaker 4 Rain gets like a bunch of cliff bars and goose into him. And they're like, oh, are you doing like the Boston Marathon? He goes, no, Shakespeare.

Speaker 2 That's so good.

Speaker 4 Do you love doing stage? I know you're trained as a theater actor.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you know, I do. And I'm so grateful for it.
I started in the theater. I fell in love with it.
I, you know, I had, you know, I always struggled to find my tribe. I was such a nerdy kid.

Speaker 2 I played the bassoon in the orchestra. I was on the chess team.
I was in Model United Nations. Hell yeah.
Hell yeah.

Speaker 2 And then I got into theater and all of a sudden, like the world changed, like I was accepted and I could be funny and goofy.

Speaker 2 And it was a, it was a weird tribe of, you know, misfits and were putting on a show.

Speaker 2 And, you know, and there were cute girls around and they would laugh at my jokes sometimes. And, and I was like,

Speaker 2 I'm in. I'm in it to win it.
I'm doing this. Yeah.
And so I went to theater school in New York. We were talking about the Knicks.
I moved to New York in the late 80s to go to theater school at NYU.

Speaker 2 And I was doing theater.

Speaker 2 And the reason I realized that I needed to get into TV and film was I had just done this theater, Shakespeare theater tour with the actor Jeffrey Wright. You know, Jeffrey Wright?

Speaker 2 I just worked with him. Oh, you did? In what?

Speaker 4 On The Last of Us.

Speaker 2 Oh, no kidding.

Speaker 2 Oh, my gosh. That's fantastic.
He's, um, I've known him since 1991, 92, right in there. And we finished this Shakespeare tour, and I was broke.

Speaker 2 And I had been working for like, I had like $1,200 in the bank and I had been doing theater for nine months. And then we went into the main, the theater offices to get our mail.

Speaker 2 And he got a residual check for doing three days on a Harrison Ford movie for like $5,000. And he was like, yeah, I got $5,000.
Oh my God. And, and in my head, I was like, okay,

Speaker 2 I need, I need to, I need to do the TV and film. I can't, I can't, I, I can't, I can't survive otherwise.
So that was like a big shift in my thinking at that point.

Speaker 4 You as a quasi-civilian, you're, you're entertainment folk, Ben, but you're also an entrepreneur and do other things. What are your, what are your views on, on residuals? What do you think about them?

Speaker 4 Well, first of all, residuals are a must.

Speaker 1 You know, know, Josh didn't get any residuals for Drake and Josh because it was a kid show. Just so you know.

Speaker 2 He's on the memories.

Speaker 1 He was on the most popular kids' show of all time. Not a single dollar from fucking Nickelodeon and Joe Rose.

Speaker 2 We just had

Speaker 2 Steve Burns, Blues, Steve from Blues Clues on our Soul Boom podcast. And I think it was the same kind of thing.
And that... That is like a stake in my heart.

Speaker 2 That's so unfair to the kids and their families and college tuitions. And I mean,

Speaker 2 why is that an exception? It's non-union or something or what?

Speaker 4 It's, you know, it's so funny because obviously everyone has an opinion about everything.

Speaker 4 But what I will say is in a world where the same people getting rich off my show are the same people getting rich off any massive TV show, except those actors get residuals, right?

Speaker 4 Like that's only, that's only my position on it. It's like in a world where this is the norm to have these weird outliers like Blues Clues or Drake and Josh or these shows that don't do residuals.

Speaker 4 It's not the coolest. But yeah, it was an after-contract buyout.
So they would pay you like the minimum wage and that was considered like a buyout of all your residuals. Wow.

Speaker 2 Crazy.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 4 I mean, it's only taking advantage of kids.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah.
It's cool. But, but putting that aside, the taking advantage of kids, like what a lot of people don't understand is that there's a lot of middle-class actors.

Speaker 2 You know, they think of actors and you look at, you know, you look on Instagram or the Entertainment Weekly or whatever and you're like, oh, everyone is like Gwyneth Paltrow and, you know, flying around in their private jets and wearing Gucci and going to the Met Gala and stuff like that.

Speaker 2 But look on all these TV shows. You know, I'm just watching The Pit, you know, which is a good, terrific show.
I love it.

Speaker 2 We love it. We love it over here.
It's so pick guys.

Speaker 2 But it's great seeing all of these like just so many guest stars and these work. And that's how I used to pay my rent, you know, doing a guest spot on a show.

Speaker 2 And like, yeah, and you come in and you get between like $1,700 and $5,000 to do a guest spot on a TV show. And that's pretty good money, right?

Speaker 2 But where you really make your money is if it airs over and over again, you make the residuals and you're going to make two, three, four times that over the life of your, of the show or, you know, of your career.

Speaker 2 And that's, that's just paying people's mortgages. It's paying for kids' tuitions.
It's for their college funds.

Speaker 2 It's for Trader Joe's groceries for the thousands and thousands of middle-class actors, especially in New York and L.A.

Speaker 2 And people don't really think about that, how important a role residuals play in that.

Speaker 4 And to all the people saying, like, well, you picked it, it's like, you know what? You need us.

Speaker 4 Like, you need us to be nuts and take the road less traveled and do this weird, artsy life to give you a distraction from your incredibly hard life when you get home at the end of the day.

Speaker 2 Or for your boring, pathetic, sad little lives. That too, which provides a little bit of glamour, spice, humor, and panache.
Rascal Dash, you're missing.

Speaker 2 Suckers.

Speaker 1 I'm fairly certain there's not one person that is arguing that you shouldn't get residuals, Josh.

Speaker 2 So you're like barking, talking to the wrong group.

Speaker 1 There should be a class action suit. We should go down.

Speaker 1 We should start picketing. I don't know.
I think that there are reparations to be had. We could have you made whole within five years.
If we have a targeted attack, Rain, if we can get Rain on board.

Speaker 2 Sign me up. I think we can get it done.

Speaker 1 Sign me up. I think we can get it done.
I'm just saying.

Speaker 4 When I hear the word reparations, I think 90s kid actors.

Speaker 2 That's right.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 2 It is the greatest injustice that needs to be righted in original men.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 2 Oh, God.

Speaker 1 And all I'm asking is a small 10% fee. I'm watching The Sopranos Rain for the first time.
As a Jew myself, I obviously find I'm watching, I'm looking at Hesh. I'm like, this guy, this is amazing.

Speaker 1 I could be the Hesh of the kids' actors.

Speaker 1 I'll get you your reparations. I'll keep my fee.

Speaker 2 No problem. Perfect.
Win-win. Right.
Win-win. Win-win.
Yeah. Win-win.
So

Speaker 4 you have your podcast, Soul Boom, and you've written a book with the same title. Yes.

Speaker 4 And it's sort of your foray, your, and tell me if I'm saying this correctly, your, your journey into discovering spiritual life and finding. And listen, I don't know if you know this about Ben.

Speaker 4 He's very into Eastern medicine, which I think is his original foray into his spiritual life.

Speaker 2 Let's like New Jersey Eastern medicine? Say more. Say more.

Speaker 4 Tell him, Ben. Tell him the supplements you're on and what happened recently.

Speaker 2 Is it Ayurvedic medicine?

Speaker 2 I love a good

Speaker 2 laughing.

Speaker 2 I love a good laugh. Ben, you laugh too much, man.

Speaker 1 Turmeric rain.

Speaker 2 You love some turmeric, yeah.

Speaker 1 I love oil of oregano, even though I recently overdosed on it. I love magnesium.

Speaker 2 How do you overdose on oil of oregano? See, this is an excellent question.

Speaker 2 It's oil, by the way. People, you have no idea.

Speaker 1 I thought that it was just a wonderful antifungal. Good for, I get a lot of sinus infections, or I did.
I thought I could take it. You know, all of a sudden I found out I'm taking too much of it.

Speaker 1 Maybe a little bit lightheaded, shouldn't take too much of it. You have to only take it at the onset of an infection.
But when Josh says that, I am a man of Eastern medicine.

Speaker 1 I love my turmerics to reduce joint inflammation. I've done away with Advil rain.
No Advil for me. And I'm supplementing with these things.
And it's working.

Speaker 2 Good guys podcast brought to you by turmeric. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Big tea.

Speaker 4 Big tea. Plenty.
Thorn, pharmaceutical, whatever.

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Speaker 4 So this is his foray into spirituality. He's also something I really respect about then.
He went to the yeshiva university in New York.

Speaker 2 Yeah. And wonderful.

Speaker 4 He has a beautiful religious spiritual life, but I like talking about it. You know, you and I were part of the secret club 17 years.
Okay.

Speaker 2 12-step. Congratulations.

Speaker 4 You're a 12-step too. Yeah.

Speaker 2 12-step guy.

Speaker 4 So I don't know. I just like, I just like talking about it.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah.
There's an intersection between all of this stuff, which is, you know, we kind of live in the secular materialist society that is like

Speaker 2 everything can be proven by science and reason, and there's kind of nothing beyond the material world.

Speaker 2 But anytime you're venturing into something where, you know, different modalities of healing, whether you're looking at the kind of God-centered serenity that one needs to apply when you're in 12-step recovery, you know, when you're thinking about what is sacred in your life,

Speaker 2 when your wife is giving birth and this miracle of childbirth you know unfolds in front of your eyes even we were talking about acting and even like waiting for Godot like the idea that a couple of people could be sitting on this blank space this empty space you know lit and a crowd of people in a dark room are watching this kind of strange story unfold and you can be moved and transported and have transcendent emotions like all of these are pathways to the divine and spirituality.

Speaker 2 It doesn't have to be through church or synagogue or mosque or guru or what have you there's a lot of different paths to explore when exploring spirituality and that's that's what soul boom's about yeah that was pretty good we should end it right there goodbye everybody that was great that was you joe rogan goodbye

Speaker 1 it's interesting

Speaker 2 you joe rogan

Speaker 1 It's interesting to hear you say all of that because I recently, Josh and I joke about it, but I went, my wife is 10 months pregnant we went to a spa i don't know two or three months ago and i did my first 10 months pregnant yeah it's really 10 months it's really 10.

Speaker 4 technically it's 10.

Speaker 2 really kind of yeah oh i didn't know that okay yeah it's weird you fight you find out at one month that you're pregnant and then there's nine to go so really it's oh wow it's 10.

Speaker 1 wow nine months but i can say cook for nine but she's full term oh she's full term okay ready to put it yep and a couple months ago we went to a spa and i did my first ever sound bath.

Speaker 1 And I didn't know what it was. I went into it.
And let me tell you, there is something as it relates to the way that sounds,

Speaker 1 especially with closed eyes and in a meditative state, can really transport you to just another world.

Speaker 1 I told Josh, I was in there for an hour. I felt like I was in there for 10 minutes.
And

Speaker 1 there is this. If you haven't done a sound bath, they're amazing.

Speaker 2 I have heard great things and I've never really done a sound bath. But you know what I've done is

Speaker 2 those flotation tanks.

Speaker 4 Float pod, deprivation, sensory deprivation.

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 And you sit in saline water that's the same temperature as your body and you're enclosed and you can just kind of lay back and you can either have music playing or you can have it be total silence.

Speaker 2 But it's the same thing. Like at first you're like, I'm like, what the fuck is going on? Get me out of here.
I'm claustrophobic. And you're like, oh my God, this is never going to end.

Speaker 2 And your mind is just like racing and whirring.

Speaker 2 And then, and then all of a sudden you're just like in this completely zen state and they're like that then the lights come on slowly and they're like okay your time's up that's been an hour and you're like whoa what the hell wow like it's a completely different relationship to time when you undergo some of these experiences it's amazing and none of these are religious that's what i love that you brought up like i am spiritually and religiously Jewish, but there is a relationship to a higher power that doesn't have to exist within the confines of religion.

Speaker 1 Like these experiences are clearly very deep and spiritual without being tied to to something greater.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 2 And for me, one of the things I talk about in Soul Boom, like the most spiritual experience I've ever had was at a Radiohead concert where I was just utterly transported and my heart was moved and I was crying and I was, and I'm in a sea of people that are just like moving and

Speaker 2 no drugs involved. And it was utterly transcendent.
And I think the connection between the arts and spirituality is something that isn't kind of explored enough.

Speaker 4 But that's not to to poo-poo organized religion.

Speaker 2 And that's one of the points I try and make in the book and on the podcast is like, there are a lot of positive aspects of organized religion. It gets a bad rap in a lot of ways.

Speaker 2 It's responsible for a lot of wars, a lot of hypocrisy, a lot of judgment, you know, a lot of corruption. And I get why people, especially younger generations, would be leaving organized religion.

Speaker 2 But what I say in the book is like, sometimes we've, have we thrown the spiritual baby out with the religious bathwater?

Speaker 2 And are there things to be gained and learned from the community that we're missing? You know, we're in this loneliness epidemic right now, especially among young people, mental health epidemic.

Speaker 2 And loneliness is as toxic to one's health as smoking half a pack of cigarettes a day.

Speaker 2 And isn't it kind of funny that we're, that we're experiencing this, especially the younger generations when we've discarded organized religion that gives you community and a shared sense of purpose and communal prayer and singing together.

Speaker 2 And yeah, it has some, you know, obvious drawbacks. And I can picture the comments section of this podcast right now with what people are saying around it.

Speaker 2 But there is, there's much to be learned from what an organized religion brings to a community of people.

Speaker 4 But it's also everything is a microcosm. Like I'll be in a 12-step meeting and they'll say something about like, can you believe so-and-so did this? I'm like, you know where we are, right?

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 4 Like, this is a clubhouse for carnies.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Like,

Speaker 4 we're drug addicts, yeah, like, yeah, I can believe he cheated on so-and-so, yeah, like, yeah, and that that's why I don't find any of it too surprising because we're all just these human beings trying to like, I don't know, I try to forgive myself for being human at times, you know, to a certain extent.

Speaker 4 I saw that as one of the stoic virtues recently. I'll take it anywhere I can get it, right?

Speaker 2 Right, stoics, whatever. I'll come in.
I love, I love the stoics, and uh, the um, yeah, I'm doing this like like workbook right now.

Speaker 2 It's like the self-forgiveness shame workbook thing that my therapist had me do.

Speaker 2 And because I'm so hard on myself, too, at the same time, you know, I talk a good game, but, you know, putting it into practice and self-forgiveness is really important. But you bring up the 12 steps.

Speaker 2 And the 12 step is, you know, it's the greatest. I think the Dalai Lama said it's like, it's the greatest spiritual movement of the last hundred years.
And it's, it's so beautiful in so many ways.

Speaker 2 But again, a community of people in shared transcendence, in surrender, relying on each other, needing each other, sharing each other's wisdom, experience and hope, and

Speaker 2 turning to a higher power. And it's an incredible, beautiful community.
I've gotten so much out of it.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I think the main reasons why it's been able to survive and be so impactful is that it's poor. Yeah.
There's no governing body. No.
And it has no opinion on outside issues.

Speaker 2 Yeah. No.
and yeah, servant leaders, servant leaders that are elected that, and there's, there's no money to be gained anywhere. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 Just have enough for the cookies and coffee. Yeah,

Speaker 2 the shitty coffee. Exactly.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 Yeah. It's an interesting thing.
Do you think I suffer from this?

Speaker 4 I remember early on when I was getting sober and, you know, it would be brought to me this idea of ego and being egotistical and self-centered.

Speaker 4 And I was like, but of course I'm not self-centered because that's reserved for people who like themselves. Right.
I said, that's reserved for the quarterback and the cool guy.

Speaker 4 And I was like, and they said, if you spend your whole day thinking about how great you are or how awful you are, you're self-centered. So congrats, you're self-centered.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's, that's so fascinating you say that. I've, I've learned a lot about in therapy and in 12-step around narcissism.
And narcissism is unlike what people think. It's not just like, oh, I'm.

Speaker 2 I'm the greatest. If you're also thinking like, I'm the worst, that's also a form of narcissism.
It's kind of this roller coaster between like, I'm the greatest and I'm a piece of shit.

Speaker 2 And as opposed to just, I'm a bozo on the bus. I'm just a normal, everyday, you know, average kind of person.

Speaker 2 And this one therapist I worked with on this, in this workshop, he was saying, like, if you are ever in an, if you're ever feeling entitled and working out of kind of ego entitlement, let's say, really what that is, is like, it's because of your deprivation.

Speaker 2 Like, go, where were you deprived?

Speaker 2 Because because that's a counter to deprivation because people who feel and that that makes me think of i i i don't want to get in the hot water and you tell me to shut up but president trump can i can i mention this or yeah yeah you talk about whatever you want

Speaker 2 okay yeah but you think about you know

Speaker 2 you know trump

Speaker 2 god bless his soul is like one of the most narcissistic people around i'm the greatest everyone loves me and i'm the

Speaker 2 and when you think about that in terms of like deprivation like how did he experience deprivation as a child Like, where was he not loved? When was he not held? When did he not get what he wanted?

Speaker 4 Did he not get a jet?

Speaker 2 Now he needs the jet. He needs the jet from cutter.

Speaker 2 But it's an interesting, it's an interesting perspective. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 What, you know, as Ben said, he's going to be a beautiful Bruch Hashem father sooner than later in the next couple of days. You're a dad.

Speaker 2 I am. Yeah.
I have a 20-year-old son. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Yeah. Any advice? Any, any, uh, anything to share with our, our new young, young dad to be here?

Speaker 2 Oh, God. I don't know.
Get one of those, the,

Speaker 2 the diaper things, the, the diaper, the special diaper garbage can.

Speaker 1 Diaper genie?

Speaker 2 Yes, the diaper genie that wraps it up so it doesn't stink. So yes.
Yeah. I'll go with that.
No, it's, listen, it's this, it's the stupidest cliche known to man, but it is so, so true.

Speaker 2 It's like, God, you have to just love that time with your kids. Like it's, and it goes, it goes so fast.
And everyone says that you roll your eyes, oh, yeah, it goes so fast. It feels kind of endless.

Speaker 2 But before you know it, you're a teenager, then you're dealing, they're a teenager, and you're dealing with a whole other set of issues. And then before, you know that, then they're off at college.

Speaker 2 My son's off at college. And

Speaker 2 that's a whole other ball of wax. Yeah.
Yeah. So.

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Speaker 4 So I heard, you know, because this is such a high team.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah. And do the sleep training.
It sucks, but you got to do the sleep training. Trust me,

Speaker 2 if you want 10 years of your life to suck, don't do the sleep training. Yeah.

Speaker 1 No, got to get them on a schedule.

Speaker 2 And it sucks because they'll wail and shriek and they'll cry like they're going to spit out their lungs. It's, it's torturous, but you got to do the sleep training.
Okay.

Speaker 1 Diaper genie and sleep training. I'm in.

Speaker 2 Yeah. I'm in.
And

Speaker 2 love every minute of it. And

Speaker 1 I can't wait. I really like,

Speaker 1 it's so funny how it hasn't happened yet.

Speaker 1 I think it's just the relationship with my wife, but like we've really been hunkered down for the last nine months. We've already had that shift.

Speaker 1 We were, we've been together for 13 years, married for eight, like very ready.

Speaker 1 We led, we had our entire life together all ready to do everything that we wanted to do. We feel very fortunate that we're like people are like, oh, get ready for your life to change.

Speaker 1 Like you're, it's like, yeah, I'm ready and I'm excited about it. I'm not leaving anything behind.
I feel very fortunate that I was able to get everything done that I felt like I needed to with her.

Speaker 2 So we're, we're, we're very excited. And there's Nick's onesies.

Speaker 2 Exactly.

Speaker 1 We're going to be watching from the hospital. And then I've already, I have an arrangement.
If they make it to the championship, I have to go to one game. One game.

Speaker 2 I have to go to one game. Yeah.
One game. And maybe

Speaker 4 name inspiration. He's having a boy.
Maybe it's like Meish Anthony Town Saffer.

Speaker 1 Yes. Everybody's saying Brunson.
Can you imagine? Honestly, I've been thinking about this.

Speaker 2 Brunson Saffer? Kind of sick. It's pretty good.
It's kind of good.

Speaker 1 It's also kind of nuts. Like when you go to like the, you were mentioning narcissism.
The idea of naming my son after a player that i like is insane

Speaker 2 like that idea is insane to me the fact that there are so many michael jordan pecs walking around because their dad was a huge bulls fan my daughter's first name is jokovic but don't worry

Speaker 2 like what are you nuts that's crazy you know what's a good name rain rain's lovely yeah it is and it's uh gender neutral like if you didn't know the gender it works either way it's raining by joe rogan

Speaker 2 from the name right right here. Not like Joe.
Yeah, Joseph from the Bible.

Speaker 4 You ever think about what we've talked about this on the pod? You ever think about poor Joseph, the carpenter, right? There's Mary, right?

Speaker 4 We don't, the Bible kind of leaves out the teenage years of Jesus. Sure.
Couldn't have been easy. You're the stepdad to Jesus.

Speaker 2 That's got to be hard. Right? Yeah.
You're like, you know, put your tunic away.

Speaker 4 And he's like, really? My dad's God.

Speaker 2 That's

Speaker 2 can it, Joe?

Speaker 2 That sounds like a good comedy movie of like

Speaker 2 young Jesus or teen Jesus

Speaker 2 or something like

Speaker 2 performing miracles at Joseph. Yeah, it's not his kid.
That's got to be hard. It's got to be hard.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 Like we do it differently here than where?

Speaker 2 Heaven?

Speaker 2 You know?

Speaker 4 Do you mind if I ask you a few office questions? Of course, my man. I'm fascinated to know when you've created.

Speaker 2 No, you cannot ask me office questions. Sorry, I'm finished with that chapter of my life, and I only want to be known by

Speaker 2 my spiritual path. I thought I was being interviewed.
Sorry.

Speaker 4 When you have a character that has become part of the, you know, the lexicon, one of like the seminal characters of the last 50 years, I'm dying to know that from your audition to maybe, you know, one year in, five years in, was that character fully realized in the audition?

Speaker 4 Or was there a moment season two, season three, where you were like, this is the guy. I've completely found it now.

Speaker 2 That's a great question. You know, it's interesting.
You can see my audition tape online on YouTube.

Speaker 2 And honestly, I would say like, there's not a huge difference between my audition for Dwight and Dwight in season nine. You know, a more fully realized character, sure, more.

Speaker 2 kind of character attributes you know maybe he did him a little uh simplistically at first, but you know how it is as an actor, like you kind of like, you lock into the essence of the character in such a way, what you, what you want, what you aspire to do is lock into the essence of a character in such a way that you can be kind of thrown any material in any situation and you can just respond in character.

Speaker 2 And that kind of like self-serious, you know, inability to kind of

Speaker 2 view himself from the outside and have perspective, you know, that kind of determination, all of those kind of aspects drove him super early on in season one and drove him in season nine.

Speaker 2 I think, but you know, where would I say the whole show like fell into gear? It was like halfway through season two.

Speaker 2 It was kind of like the Halloween episode, the Christmas episode, the Dundee's episode, somewhere there in season two, everyone just kind of like, it just stopped being worked at so much and just kind of like fell in.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 4 And was there an edict from the beginning of, because now it seems like like a lot of half-hour comedies are not borrowing the style, but this idea of like having a bunch of alts ready to go.

Speaker 4 And was the style of working, the style of working for the office seemed like you guys started, created something new as far as half-hour comedies go? Was that on day one?

Speaker 4 Like, this is the way we're going to work? Or was it sort of that that was found throughout the process?

Speaker 2 Well, there had been other mockumentaries.

Speaker 2 Obviously, it was like Spinal Tap was a mockumentary, but even like the Gary Shandling show, which we, the guy who directed our pilot in like 10 of our episodes, Ken Quapas, and he was a producer, he had directed Gary Shandling Show, and that was a kind of mockumentary behind the scenes of a talk show.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 the,

Speaker 2 but early on, we would come in in season one, we would come in and for like a half an hour.

Speaker 2 or maybe even an hour, we would just work at our desks and they would just film us working and we'd kind of improvise and like make copies and make phone calls and like get a glass of water from the water cooler and just totally to kind of like sink us into the reality of this being a documentary.

Speaker 2 And, and so that went out the window later on. But I don't know if you, there's a big shift between season one and season two.
And I don't know if you noticed that.

Speaker 2 If you watch season one, it's very drab. It's very dark.
It's darkly lit. People don't have any makeup on.
We're poor. There's, there's nothing like American television about it whatsoever.

Speaker 2 And then in season two, like Steve does his hair a little better. We're wearing a little nicer suits.
The, the, the, the, the set gets a little warmer in the way that it's lit.

Speaker 2 It's shot just a little bit friendlier. And, and, and it did help a lot.
We were, I think we were a little too close to the original BBC, kind of really dark kind of version of the office early on.

Speaker 2 And, um, wait, I said Gary Shandling, Larry Sanders.

Speaker 4 The Larry Sanders show.

Speaker 2 Plug in Larry Sanders. There was a Gary Shandling show and that was great, but it was Larry Sanders.
So sorry,

Speaker 2 just different S name. If we can plug that in.

Speaker 2 Here, I'm going to say it over and over again, and then you can edit this in of the audio.

Speaker 2 Larry Sanders.

Speaker 2 Larry Sanders show.

Speaker 2 Larry Sanders show. Cool.
Larry Sanders show. This is cool.
So you just take those and then bleep that in. from what I said previously.
So

Speaker 2 there was a the show changed and just became a little bit warmer and a little more human.

Speaker 2 And I think Michael Scott became a little bit more likable in a way like i remember there was i think it was the halloween episode where you see just michael scott handing out candy to children and just loving it and just just to see that like michael scott's got a big heart you know he's he's a doofus and he says all he always says the wrong thing but you know he's he's he's a lovable guy so more of that was kind of brought in as the show went along and then you know when steve left then it was a little bit chaotic of trying to figure out the tone of the show and who's the lead and how are we telling these stories without, you know, the comic engine of the show, which is Michael Scott, and without one of the greatest comic actors in American history at the center of our show.

Speaker 2 So that was, that was also a struggle.

Speaker 4 Is that a gut punch when you first hear that?

Speaker 2 That he's leaving.

Speaker 2 We knew it was coming for a long time. He was such a big movie star at the time.
I mean, he was doing...

Speaker 2 God, I don't know how many millions of dollars he was getting for these big, giant movies, but he was, you know, he was doing like burt wonderstone and these big comedies and um i'm forgetting all the names of them at the time but get smart you know stuff like that like they were in 2000 you know theaters at the multiplex kind of so of course he's gonna leave the office when he can so we were we were prepared for it but that was definitely a struggle to find the tone of the show without without steve I was just going to say, we had Brian Bumgardner on the podcast probably like six months ago, and he mentioned that there was just so much improv on the show, which I never realized.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Like, how, like, what, how, like, at what point did the improv start to take over? And how much more fun is it working on a show where you can really just improvise like that?

Speaker 1 And the directors keep it and support it. And like.

Speaker 2 It was like nothing I'd ever been a part of and ever will be a part of. It was incredible.
And we really owe it to Greg Daniels, our showrunner, because he was so secure in his abilities and talents.

Speaker 2 He wasn't like this control freak. So we, we had great scripts and great writers.
We always made sure that we got every line as scripted.

Speaker 2 And that's great. But then we could improvise.
And then he would, the show is made, any piece of media content is made three times. It's made on the written page.
It's made when you shoot it.

Speaker 2 And then it's made in the editing room, right? But our shows were really assembled in the editing room.

Speaker 2 And at that point, they would, you know, they would look at what's on the script, but it's whatever's funniest.

Speaker 2 And Greg Daniels would, true story, he would, if they didn't know like how to end a scene, let's say, and here's an improvised version, here's the scripted version, and here's this other crazy version, they would bring in like the security guard, the caterer, the janitor, the accountant, and they'd bring them in like this little test group into the editing suite.

Speaker 2 And they'd be like, hey, we're going to play you three endings to the scene. Tell us which one you like the best.
And he would go with the one that

Speaker 2 the group tested. So

Speaker 2 there wasn't that kind of ego around like, no, this is my script and this is how it's going to go and you're going to use this.

Speaker 2 But yeah, the ability to, there's also something about, and I'm wondering if you can relate to this as an actor, is when you know that you can improvise at any moment and when you know that the other actor can also improvise at any moment, it keeps you on your toes in a different way as an actor at any time.

Speaker 2 Like if I'm doing a scene with John Krasinski and he knows I could go off script at any time, I'm, and I could say whatever the fuck comes to my mind and he could do the same thing.

Speaker 2 There's a, there's a kind of like, you're, you're on a tightrope in a way as an actor that is create, I think a lot of the comedic magic of the show was often in a scripted scene, but where two actors don't know at any moment, like, what's going to come out of the other actor's mouth.

Speaker 2 It really forces you to really listen and respond.

Speaker 4 Right.

Speaker 4 No, it makes you listen and it makes you not make choices before because it sounded great in the shower that morning because you don't know if they're going to serve it to you the way you heard it in your head hours before.

Speaker 4 And I, I did a show that Danny Chun, who was a writer on The Office, that he was the executive producer of. And I'd love to hear what you found in the final product of The Office.

Speaker 4 Cause what Danny would say is you have to be careful with improvs because sometimes it's funny because it's new. Cause you've now, we've rehearsed it and we've done the joke on the paper eight times.

Speaker 4 Yeah. And he's like, and sometimes you get a brilliant gift with good improv.
He said, and sometimes what's on the paper was funnier. And you have to decide kind of in the edit what works.

Speaker 4 So what would you say was the ratio in the final office product?

Speaker 2 50-50, 60-40? Oh, no,

Speaker 2 it would end up being 80% scripted. Got it.
Yeah. Maybe some episodes 85%, maybe some 75%.

Speaker 2 But those little moments of gold

Speaker 2 where there were some improvisation or extra lines,

Speaker 2 you know, that's the frosting. You know, that's, that's the gravy.
And there's a, there's a lot of sprinkly magic dust there. But he's absolutely right.

Speaker 2 Like you do a scene and it's scripted and there's a funny line and you do it 10 times and then it stops being funny.

Speaker 2 And then someone says, you know, I'm going to eat a watermelon with my anus and it's, ha, ha, ha, ha, it's so funny. And everyone laughs and everyone's like, oh, that's great.
But you're right.

Speaker 2 You get to the editing room and it's like, oh, the scripted line is actually better and smarter and funnier. But maybe it got a little stale in the telling.

Speaker 4 Did you break?

Speaker 2 All the time. Who was the biggest breaker on the office? Who broke? Brian Baumgartner was the biggest breaker on the office, not even a close second.
John and I would set each other off.

Speaker 2 Like if John and I were doing a scene and there was just a little bit of a like a twinkle or the corner of a mouth going, the other person would just lose it immediately.

Speaker 2 Oscar, I think he broke once in nine years. Wow.
Yeah, I don't know. I don't even remember what scene it was, but someone told me that I think that he had broken once.
He would never break.

Speaker 2 Oscar, never break Nunez. And he's on the new show, The Paper.
Wow. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Great. When he heard he doesn't break.

Speaker 2 He's like, get him.

Speaker 2 Give me the guy that doesn't break. We need Oscar.
Let's get Baumgartner for it. No, he breaks all the time.
Screw him. Can't trust that.
Nah.

Speaker 1 Are you still very close with the cast? Like, is there like a group chat still?

Speaker 2 does any there is okay yeah we got a we got a we got a lot of group chat chats i got the group chat with the you know the the kind of the the leads if we're talking about something like oh they want to do an office thing what do you think and then a full office group chat and then you know i talk to jenna and angela all the time and then you know there's very variations of the chat then there's the jenna angela brian kate oscar creed version and then there's the craig robinson version.

Speaker 2 You know,

Speaker 2 it's all there. Now, when you say office thing with the leads, what do you mean?

Speaker 4 You mean like

Speaker 2 NBC wants to do a photo shoot for the 20th anniversary, blah, blah, blah, and do a thing. Like, did we want to do this? Are we sure?

Speaker 4 We're not talking reboot.

Speaker 2 No, no, no. Sorry.

Speaker 2 I mean, there was, there's, there's definitely the reboot has floated up many times, but there's, you know, Steve's doing all these other movies and shows and John's directing and doing other stuff.

Speaker 2 And, you know, I would be open to something something like it, but not for like doing a show. You know, maybe a one-off or a special or a movie or something like that would be fun.

Speaker 2 But people are in different places and, you know, have different needs and stuff like that. So I think we'll just let it stay that we made 200 amazing episodes and,

Speaker 2 well, 183 amazing episodes and a few middling episodes,

Speaker 2 which is a pretty good ratio. Josh.
Yes.

Speaker 4 Please.

Speaker 2 Should we get to how many drake and josh episodes are great versus middling oh god how many drake and josh episodes were there there were 60 they rerun them a lot which is why it feels like there's more

Speaker 2 individuals yeah

Speaker 4 um what were you saying ben i was gonna say having watched them i i think 55 were great thank you god bless that's great that's so sweet yeah it was so it was so merry christmas drake and josh didn't quite hit the mark and we all know that and Rain says it all the time.

Speaker 2 All the time. All the time.
It's in my Instagram bio, actually.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Merry Christmas, Drake and Josh didn't work. It's in my.

Speaker 4 I agree. It's weird.
Yeah. Should we get to a speak pipe then?

Speaker 2 Yes. Yes.

Speaker 4 So we do this thing where we get questions from the audience. They want advice from us for some reason.

Speaker 2 Oh, okay. But it's fun.

Speaker 4 It's cute.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 4 All right. So I think we could maybe try one or two before we get to our final segment.

Speaker 1 Yes, Ben.

Speaker 1 And in case you hear them refer to themselves as morons, that's just the name of our family. Okay.
Fair enough. So they might say, hi, I'm a moron.
Don't be alarmed.

Speaker 2 I fit right in with that.

Speaker 1 It's endearing. It's endearing.
We'll start with.

Speaker 4 If you want to leave us, get some advice, want to leave us a message, go to speakpipe.com slash good guys. Keep it brief.
Brevity is key. Let's hear from...
Let's do a light one with Catherine.

Speaker 5 What up, good guys? Here we go. Brevity is key.
So my dad's new wife keeps making me banana bread. I don't fucking like banana bread.
I just keep getting loaves and loaves and loaves of banana bread.

Speaker 5 She's the new wife. She's so sweet.
And I just don't have it in my heart to tell her to stop. What do I do? I just, I can't keep having all of this banana bread in my house.

Speaker 4 Champagne problems, am I right?

Speaker 2 Banana bread problems. Listen, hashtag banana bread.
The Catherine is her name? Indeed. Catherine, you're doing the right thing.
Suck it up. Keep Keep the banana bread.

Speaker 2 It doesn't need to be in your house, though, Catherine. You can give it away.
Do you have any friends, Catherine? Do you have any neighbors, Catherine?

Speaker 2 But I'm way to not shame the wife and just be like, thank you so much. You make the best banana bread.
I really appreciate it so much. And then just give it to your neighbor or your dog.

Speaker 1 I love it. I think Catherine should start a side business.
She should pretend that she's baking the banana bread. Meanwhile, she's selling it off to her neighbors.

Speaker 1 She walks, she goes door to door sells it for eight dollars a loaf she keeps getting all the banana bread meanwhile she's lining her pockets i think it's a win-win banana bread food truck yes

Speaker 2 i'll invest i'm in yeah and maybe you're not eating it right toast it put some peanut butter on it you did that hey delicious yeah i'm seven did you just come over

Speaker 2 okay so you need something yeah

Speaker 2 to get you through the night yeah yeah no i've done that i do do that i party i party all right

Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah.
I'm crazy.

Speaker 4 Okay. Next one is from, all right, let's get a, this, let's get really saucy here.
Oh, this is one from Lauren.

Speaker 6 Hey, Josh and Ben. So my fiancé and I are getting married in October.
And long story short, my fiancé has made the decision not to invite his father to our wedding. He's a piece of shit.

Speaker 6 We found out that he had an affair with my fiancé's best friend, like childhood best friend, who's also his best man, like for a large portion of his marriage of like 30 years and he his dad actually ended the marriage and then didn't tell anyone and then we found out about the affair he lied told everybody different lies then tried to somehow blame everybody else he hasn't said sorry once or accounted for any of his actions so i think it's a valid decision for my fiancé not to want him there it's his day he doesn't want to be stressed out but here's the argument and i need your guys's opinion on this is it more drama for his dad to be invited or is it more drama for his dad not to be invited The way I see it is: if his dad comes, everybody's watching us under a microscope to see how we're interacting with him, how he's interacting with the rest of the family, because everybody knows what happened.

Speaker 6 But if he's not there, then you know, everybody notices at the beginning, they're like, oh, what a shame. And then we move on and celebrate the rest of the night.

Speaker 6 Curious to know what your guys' stances on this thinks.

Speaker 1 So just to clarify, the dad cheated on the mom with the son's best friend, who's also his best man, Who's also currently his best man. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Oh my.

Speaker 1 Oh my. Oh my.

Speaker 2 But why is the best man invited?

Speaker 1 That's, I was going to ask the same question.

Speaker 4 Yeah, and not just an usher. I mean,

Speaker 2 why is he,

Speaker 1 why are they still friends?

Speaker 2 This is very complicated. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Maybe we do just a high-level.

Speaker 2 Well, I think

Speaker 2 I'll dive in. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I think, you know, and maybe this is the perspective of being in my late 50s. I just think more forgiveness needs to be shown to people.
People make a lot of mistakes. They do a lot of shitty things.

Speaker 2 I have. You have.

Speaker 2 I'm guessing Ben has.

Speaker 2 I have. Not Ben.
I have. We've.

Speaker 1 Terrible things.

Speaker 2 You know, we've made mistakes and been short-sighted and, you know, operated off of some of our baser, worser instincts.

Speaker 2 And, you know, maybe a wedding is just a time to,

Speaker 2 you know, you know, to celebrate and come together and just let that stuff go.

Speaker 2 This does sound especially complicated, but maybe it's a kind of thing like, hey, you can come to the ceremony. And then after the ceremony, we just need you to leave.
I don't know.

Speaker 2 But it doesn't sound like there's a lot of communication going on.

Speaker 2 It's like this isn't like being hashed out about, you know, it sounds like half the people don't know this has happened and some do, but it's all very, there's a lot of like, everyone's going to be watching and they're going to be talking and they're going to be whispering.

Speaker 2 And, you know, maybe there needs to be some

Speaker 2 group therapy here. We need the

Speaker 2 best man, the bride, the groom, the dad, the mom.

Speaker 2 Yeah. The caterer.

Speaker 2 The DJ. The DJ.

Speaker 4 It sounds hectic. And I agree with you.
I think that as long as they're not worried the dad's the type to make a scene. Like if that, if there's a chance that he acts out at the wedding, can't come.

Speaker 4 But yeah, I think, I also think, and I know this with my own wedding, if there's a chance that you will reconcile with someone in the next 20 years, you'll be happy they were there, even if in the moment it wasn't great.

Speaker 2 And so how would, how would the, I wonder also, how was, how does the mom feel about it? Because she's really the person. Yeah.
She's the one who was cheated on. How does she feel about it?

Speaker 2 Does she know about it?

Speaker 1 I'm also trying to understand, is the best man, I assume the best man is a man, right? So how does the mom, there's a lot that we don't understand here.

Speaker 1 The mom, the mom is still married to a guy who is clearly gay and cheated with a like a younger man who's best friends with her son.

Speaker 2 I don't understand any of it.

Speaker 1 I'm just going to say that based on what I do understand, it seems that you can't call the dad a piece of shit, but still be best friends with the best man who's also a piece of shit because he was cheating with your

Speaker 1 dad on your mom.

Speaker 2 Like, how can you be best friends? Like, this whole thing is

Speaker 2 insanity. Bullspringer.
This is it. Rest in peace.
This is insanity. So I don't know.
I agree. Ask the mom.
What do you want?

Speaker 1 What do you want us to do here? Do you want us to invite dad? Do you want us to not be friends with this guy anymore?

Speaker 2 I would ask the mom. If you invite the dad, the only thing I would ask is that you film the whole wedding and put it on YouTube so we can watch how the whole thing unfolds.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 No, that'll get bought by Netflix. Yeah,

Speaker 2 in a heartbeat.

Speaker 4 100. We go banana bread, we go infidelity.
Let's have one more from MM.

Speaker 7 Hey, good guys. Shalom from Tel Aviv, BHBH.
I wanted to ask you about a dilemma I'm having.

Speaker 7 A few days ago, a friend of mine blocked a guy from dating apps for harassing her and he took it way too far, sending her requests on our version of Venmo with continued disgusting messages.

Speaker 7 She denied the requests and he stopped, but I told her that if he continues to message her like this, she should call the police.

Speaker 7 Cut you today, I got a frantic call from a different friend about how she got a call from the police saying that they received a complaint from a guy about her and that she needs to stop messaging him or else she'll have to come down to the station if they get another complaint.

Speaker 7 She then admits to me that the guy who she was supposed to go on a first date with last weekend ghosted her. And then she texts him and he blocked her.

Speaker 7 And then she found him on Facebook and he blocked her. And then messaged him on OKCupid and he unmatched her.
Then she adds she emailed him a few times out of desperation.

Speaker 7 She admits she went overboard because she was feeling very low, but tells me that she's mad that he called the police instead of answering her.

Speaker 7 I'm in shock that both of these things would happen within a few days of each other.

Speaker 7 And basically basically my question is, how do you support a close friend who's freaking out over her own unhinged actions when she made decisions that you disagree with?

Speaker 7 She's lonely and single for a while, has pretty horrible luck dating, but that's not an excuse for this absolutely inappropriate behavior. What do you think?

Speaker 2 I think we're doomed.

Speaker 2 I think we're doomed. I think dating.

Speaker 2 I've heard, do you guys have young, you're young, you're young-ish folks. Do you have young friends dating? It's such a, it's supposed to be just terrible out there right now.

Speaker 2 It's so hard. And the way the algorithms and the apps work and it's just, it's terrible.
And even the idea of these apps where it's almost like a gambling app,

Speaker 2 the dating app almost looks like you sports betting apps. You know, and it's like, what's the next thing? And then

Speaker 2 it is not a formula to find like true intimacy, but it's so hard to meet people. And I get why people use them at the same time.
I don't want to be judgy, but it's it's got to be hard, right?

Speaker 1 Yeah, but it sounds like she and also don't stalk people okay well it sounds like they had found each other's perfect match he was a stalker she was a stalker why not i mean yeah connect those two perfect done win-win yeah yeah this these this girl needs new friends these are these friends are causing you too much stress and i would connect them and i would never talk to either of them again because this is just it's too much it's too much for the one heart to take

Speaker 2 i don't know if you're having to reach out over yelp they're over you

Speaker 2 it's not working yeah totally no good i feel like who's the guy who shot the guy the the ceo the healthcare ceo oh luigi yeah i feel like all of them need to fall in love with luigi and write write him and stalk him and send him letters they would be great you know what i mean yeah or ai ai that's a big thing now people are finding ai lovers i just read an article about how that's happening happening in Japan and that is coming here.

Speaker 1 That the lonely aren't going to be lonely anymore because of AI. So maybe go and talk to AI and they'll always respond back.

Speaker 2 But you know, how do you have sex with AI?

Speaker 2 Oh, we don't know. How about an AI?

Speaker 2 You have sex with banana bread. Yeah, yes.

Speaker 2 Use AI for fantasy, but you know, where the rubber hits the road is, you know what I mean?

Speaker 1 Yeah, use the banana bread. I like it.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Gooey.
Soft. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Joe Rogan. Banana bread always loved me.

Speaker 2 I have it on inside information. Joe Rogan fucks banana bread.

Speaker 4 You know what?

Speaker 2 I believe it. I believe it.

Speaker 4 I'm going to go and say yeah.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 4 Should we get to our what are you nuts, Ben?

Speaker 2 Yeah, let's. You guys have a lot of segments.
It's our final one. We promise.

Speaker 4 Our what are you nuts moment of the week is our gripes with people, places, and things, both big and small, whatever's sticking in your craw. So Ben and I will start.
Take your time to think about it.

Speaker 4 There's no bad nuts. Whatever you, you walk down the street right now, you were driving here, you were like, what are you nuts? Who would do that? Anything, everything.
Take your time, no pressure.

Speaker 4 Ben and I, I'll give you some examples. Ben?

Speaker 1 Uber drivers that wear cologne are completely nuts, Rain. You walk into an Uber.
You sit there, all of a sudden you can't breathe because they are wearing so much Armani. It is just too much.

Speaker 1 I just want to know, who are they wearing the cologne for, right? If they're wearing it for themselves, they can wear less, right?

Speaker 1 But they're not, unless you're trying to make a pass at the person in the back seat and you think that they're going to smell your beautiful cologne and you're going to hop to the front seat and all of a sudden you're going to form a relationship.

Speaker 1 There is no need for this. My wife got in it.
Again, I mentioned she is full-term. She couldn't breathe.
Pregnant women and this cologne, you can't do it.

Speaker 1 Wearing cologne in an Uber is a complete whatey and nuts when you are a driver and when you're a passenger. Don't stink it up for him either.

Speaker 2 I got a couple what are you nuts.

Speaker 2 One is speakerphone conversations in public.

Speaker 2 You've probably been over this. Good.
But I was sitting in Panquotidian the other day having a cup of coffee. Okay, this guy's syndicated.

Speaker 2 Yeah, having a $9 cup of coffee and working on my laptop. And then next to me is a guy, and the phone rings.
That's fine. He can take a little phone call.
That's fine.

Speaker 2 You know, there is an option to hold it up to your ear and have a conversation. He puts it on speaker in front of his face like this.
And it's like, hey, hey, Gary.

Speaker 2 Hey,

Speaker 4 what are you doing?

Speaker 2 i'm having some coffee here and that and uh and that's a very new york thing ben right i don't but i don't understand because it's so loud i i just i don't get it it doesn't make sense on so many different levels and now on airlines they have to they make an announcement that if you're gonna watch media that you should use earphones like why do they even have to announce that but yet i see people i've seen people do it where they're they're watching you know gray's anatomy on their phone with like the speaker blaring

Speaker 2 so that everyone around them can hear it.

Speaker 4 What are you nuts?

Speaker 1 We spoke about narcissism 30 minutes ago.

Speaker 2 That's what it is, Josh. How were they deprived? I go up to them.
I'm like, how were you deprived as a child? Do you need a hug right now? I am going to give you a hug.

Speaker 1 They do. We've each independently experienced people on speakerphone in steam rooms and saunas.

Speaker 2 No. Oh, yeah.
Yes.

Speaker 1 Yes. In a three, four-person, enclosed sauna speakerphone.

Speaker 2 What are you nuts to? Well, why do they have lost their minds? But the phone would be damaged in the sauna anyway, right?

Speaker 4 There's an epidemic of people with phones and saunas. Wow.
As a sauna guy.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 4 Constantly. Steam room too.
I'm like, so much moisture.

Speaker 2 You guys are in a lot of saunas and steam rooms. What's going on? We're married.
No.

Speaker 4 My Winnie Nuts is silly captions for your photos on Instagram. Shout out the great Craig Conover, wonderful guest of the show, reality TV star, entrepreneur.
We love him.

Speaker 4 He posted this beautiful photo collage recently. He's doing ads for all of his companies.
He's, you know,

Speaker 4 in

Speaker 4 Charleston, South Carolina, living beautifully. So many wonderful, like eight, 10 pictures of just like a beautiful life.
And his caption is, match my chaos.

Speaker 2 What are you nuts? It's not chaotic. You're eating a club sandwich, dog.

Speaker 2 Match my chaos? Like, what?

Speaker 4 By wearing Chinos?

Speaker 2 Like, homie, everything's fine. Nothing chaotic here.
What do you not? I love you, Craig.

Speaker 4 That's so funny.

Speaker 1 I saw that, and I was thinking something about this is chaotic.

Speaker 2 I had the same thought. So good.
It was a movie. You know what else is good, Josh? This podcast.

Speaker 4 Sorry. Brayden, do you want to plug anything? You want to plug the pod? Anything you want to?

Speaker 2 Well, yeah, I think the Soul Soul Boom podcast is something I'm really proud of.

Speaker 2 And we've been doing it for about a year, and we have fun conversations about mental health, spirituality, the meaning of life, a few laughs along the way.

Speaker 2 And I'd love to get some of your good guy morons to

Speaker 2 come on over and join the ride.

Speaker 4 Awesome.

Speaker 1 Well, you have a new listener in me.

Speaker 4 Folks, this episode is five stars.

Speaker 1 Otherwise, what do you announce? We should also introduce, have you met Jay Shetty before I close? You know, Jay Shetty?

Speaker 2 I have not met him. We texted a few times and I, you know, huge admirer of, of his work in bringing spiritual conversations to large audiences.

Speaker 2 It makes it very accessible, brings a lot of healing to folks. Yeah.

Speaker 1 He was just on our podcast. My wife was on his, like, I think that he would be a perfect guest for Soul Boom.
And if you haven't been on his, like, that's right up Jay's alley. He's so funny and nice.

Speaker 2 And he's great. You're going to make that happen, Ben.
Thank you. I'm going to make that happen.
I'll set that up.

Speaker 2 I'll do that.

Speaker 1 And folks, this is why this episode is five stars. Otherwise, what are you nuts? Listen to us wherever you get your podcasts.
Watch us on YouTube. Share our clips, Instagram and TikTok.

Speaker 1 Mondays and Thursdays, folks, the great Rain Wilson. We will see you next time.

Speaker 3 Please note that this episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services.

Speaker 3 Individuals on the show may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to in this episode.