Episode 874 - Steev Letts

Hi, he's Dave Shumka.

And he's Graham Clark.

And together we host Stop Podcasting Yourself.

Woo!

Hello, everybody, and welcome to episode number 874 of Stop Podcasting Yourself.

My name is Graham Clark.

And with me, as always, is a man who just can't get enough of this bald wig he found, Mr.

Dave Shumka.

Yeah,

I found it.

I know Abby tried to hide it from you, but you managed to find it.

Abby,

for one of her days of Halloween, she does the 12 days of Halloween.

She was Uncle Fester.

Yep.

And the wig is just...

Mine for the taking.

Anyway, check it out on this week's Instagram post of our guest.

When I was a kid, my mom made Frankenstein hands for a Frankenstein costume.

And those ended up being in the everyday thing in the house for the next 15 years.

My mom made Frankenstein hands.

Yeah, because it was Frankenstein, so it was like green

with like hair on it.

But what?

She made a pair of gloves that she altered?

Yeah, that she altered, yeah.

She took like green dishwash

with nails on them.

And yeah, they ended up being in the just everyday fun thing to have around them.

Also, like, if there's hair on them, then it's like, did you say there was hair on them?

Yeah, there was hair on them, yeah.

I don't remember Frankenstein having a hairy hand.

Well, different versions have different uh situations.

What do you think of that?

It's more of a Wolfman thing.

Yeah,

were they more Wolfman?

No, they were green like Frankenstein.

Like the hairiness.

The hairiness.

Well, you know, or was it just a few stray hairs?

Just a few gross stray hairs.

Oh, okay.

Where'd you get those?

Oh, I don't want to say.

Our guest today, first-time guest here on the podcast, very funny comedian, hosts a show once a month called Confession Comedy.

He also has an album out called Burger Queen.

It's Steve Letz, everybody.

Hi, fellas.

Thanks for having me.

Hi, Steve.

Welcome.

What is your take on Frankenstein's hairiness?

Well, first of all, I just want to say I've never heard a bald cap referred to as a wig before.

Sure.

Sure.

It's like is a hot dog a sandwich?

Like is a bald cap a wig?

A bald wig.

Yeah.

Well, what are the, there's a, like, a hair net

that you put under a wig.

Like if you're wearing a wig, you would put a little cap on.

Right.

Yes.

Is that a bald cap?

No.

No, that's just kind of holding everything.

It's like a hair net.

Yeah.

I think drag queens use pantyhose before wigging up.

They put a stocking over or like underneath before putting the wig on.

Who called it a bald wig?

I did.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, I've heard I've c heard it both.

Yeah.

I watched a video of like how actors in theater can switch hair, uh, hairdos really quick, and it's like the hair is kind of built on a almost like pantyhose kind of thing, so they can throw it on, and it looks like a natural part.

I never knew, I never knew how they did that.

I saw a video of someone showing like how a spy can go undercover and put on a fake beard, and like two layers of beard and two layers of hair.

Still looked fake as shit, though.

Um, what would you say?

Well, let's get to know us, yeah.

Get to know us.

Have you seen these Mission Impossible movies where they just pull off an entire face?

Oh, yeah, I've seen these movies.

Yeah.

They can't overuse that.

Like, they have to do it once or twice a movie, but if they do it like five or six times, it just gets too much.

Yeah, it's just funny, like, the amount of money and CGI that goes into essentially doing a Scooby-Doo gag.

Yeah.

Yeah, I love it.

I like when it's like the cheap version where you see the person like, okay, I'm tugging on my face and then it cuts to something else.

And then he comes in and it's a rubber mask being pulled off.

Yeah.

Because, yeah, doing that reveal, that's a lot of, I could have saved Dishonores all sorts of money if they had had me on there.

Well, how so?

I was like, because you don't need the CGI of me pulling off my face and it being another face underneath.

You just have it for shot from behind and have somebody looking at them and be like, oh my God.

And then I don't think it's much CGI.

I think it always is that.

Really?

That cheap keg of like, just they walk in front of the camera and then it's someone else taking off the mat.

I, Well, I stand corrected.

I do like it because

it

gets everyone in the mix.

Everyone gets to act.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think Rames has had a solid career based on that movie franchise alone.

Paula Patton Thick.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Paying bills off those movies.

Which ones was she in?

There's been like eight or nine at this point, so I'm not sure, but she was in a few of them, I believe.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think I might have missed those ones.

I saw those.

Let's see.

So the second one.

And five, six, and seven.

Have you seen them all?

I have.

In the background, they're kind of like movies that are on like as cleaning the house kind of thing.

So I couldn't like, I couldn't tell you the specific plot points of like Ghost Protocol or

Rogue Nation, though I do.

I guess I do.

The names stick, but that's about it.

Yeah, he

was not a guy.

I never paid attention to Tom Cruise.

I never liked, because he was too much, it was him in a movie.

Oh, there's Tom Cruise.

It's Tom Cruise.

He's not whatever character.

But then I watched, what was it called?

The Edge Edge of Tomorrow.

Yeah.

And I thought he was so funny.

And I was like, maybe I'm wrong about Tom Cruise.

And I went back and I, yeah, I admit I was wrong about Tom Cruise.

And you went and watched everything he's ever done.

I think he's great.

He's such a movie star for a reason.

And Top Gun Maverick was great.

It was great.

It was so, so good.

And like, I think it's also just kind of an interesting study.

And like, if you just like keep your head down and keep working, because the crazy around Tom Cruise, the couch jumping era of Tom Cruise is like, there's no way he's ever ever coming back from this.

And then, you know, cut to 2022 or three or whatever.

And it's like, wow, this guy single-handedly saved the theater experience.

Totally.

And then also, like,

did you see the closing ceremonies at the Olympics?

I know that he was in it, but I didn't think I saw it.

But he was like, he came down on a zipline into the stadium, and it was just like, nobody can do it like him.

He brought the flame to America.

He was a little bit of a drink.

And then the red-hot chili peppers played in a song.

Yeah, the closing ceremonies are always kind of a letdown.

Totally.

Because they do have a little concert.

I think ours at the Vancouver Olympics was Nickelback.

Oh, yeah, that tracks.

It was Nickelback.

I think it was Nickelback and Neil Young, but Neil Young went first.

And I was like, who?

What are we doing?

Come on.

Neil Young's opening for Nickelback.

Come on, you guys.

Were you here during the 2010 Olympics?

I was.

I worked at Bridges Restaurant on Granville Island.

Oh, seafood restaurant.

House of Switzerland

was bought out by the Swiss.

So there were just bowls of lint chocolate everywhere.

And like

Stephen Colbert came and filmed a segment where they did fondupong, and he didn't even end up using it for a show, which was such a letdown.

But having been in Vancouver, I'd for a lot of years, it was so refreshing and lovely to be like, oh, this city can be fun, you know, because we have a reputation for being a downer town and there's not great nightlife or whatever.

And for that two-week period, and this is not being me being pro-Olympics by any means, but I will say it was just nice to to feel like to feel an energy coursing through the city that is usually very absent.

Yeah, it was.

It was like a pretty, it was like weird, but yeah, good weird.

It was a weird time to be in the city because it was

we're showing off a little bit.

Currently there's we're on the verge of an energy about to invade our city as

Swift Storm.

Yeah, the last three

episodes of the Taylor Swift show are going to be

the last three shows of her like two-year-long tour will be this coming weekend.

It will have happened by now, listeners.

Sorry.

And I think it's going to be

like my kids were like, hey, can we go see Moana this weekend or Moana 2?

And I was like, as long as it's not down by the stadium.

Yeah, yeah.

It's going to be nuts.

It's going to be absolutely nuts.

Like people were lined up at three in the morning today just to buy merch.

Yeah, I heard that the merch line, they already like have opened that up.

Whoa.

Isn't that crazy?

That is nuts.

Like I went to Beyoncé Beyoncé when she came to town last time, and we almost missed the start of the show because the merch lineup was so long in the stadium.

It was like an hour just waiting to pay too much for a t-shirt.

So I can appreciate them opening it early or like selling to fans before the actual concerts, but a lineup for that at three in the morning, that's wild.

Yeah.

To get...

Come on, stuff you can just make at home for the most part.

Yeah, you get your mom make some decor.

Make some bracelets at home.

You don't need to.

Yeah, have your mom make a Frankenstein shirt.

Exactly.

If we can just go back to the Frankenstein, do you think your mom, like,

these last few years when the Hulk hands came out, she was like, really?

Now these are readily available?

Yeah.

I mean, we talk about the Hulk hands all the time, me and my mom.

It really wouldn't.

That could have saved me two hours back in 19.

And a pair of gloves, you know?

She gave up those.

But also, like, if you're trigger-treating, you don't want to, you have to carry those gloves.

And also,

like, Frankenstein doesn't have giant hands.

That's true, I guess, though.

He's more known for his hairy hands.

Right.

It's patchy hair.

Do you think at the end of the era's tour,

when she pulls her mask off at the end, who's it going to be?

Who's it been this whole time?

Tom Cruise.

It's going to be Tom Cruise.

Yeah.

I think it's going to be Ving Reims.

I think that's going to be the big reveal.

Yeah, Ving Reims is like, he doesn't really do a lot of the face pulling off because his body type doesn't match any of the other stars.

Yeah.

Right.

That's true.

Oh, yeah.

Like, all of a sudden,

why is Tom Cruise like six inches taller than he was before?

That kind of thing.

Yeah.

And two feet wider.

Big man.

Ving Rames.

He's been with us a long time as a movie actor.

Would you call him a star?

I'd call him a star.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

I'd be starstruck if I encountered Ving Rames.

Is he in pulp fiction?

He is.

Yes.

Yeah.

He's

Marcellus.

Marcellus Wallace.

Do we think Ving is short for Irving?

Oh, I never thought about that.

Yeah, me neither.

Or

Chandler.

Chandler Ving.

That Ving you do.

Do we want to find out?

Birth name, Ving Rames.

Okay,

talk amongst yourselves.

Who is a celebrity?

Like,

who's a celebrity that if you saw them in real life, you'd absolutely be like, gobsmack.

Like, you could.

Bjork.

Bjork is the first one that comes to mind.

Yeah, for sure.

I've been a huge fan of her since I was like 11 years old.

I was a weird kid.

I loved Bjork when I was little.

You got to get into her young.

Everybody knows that.

For sure.

Yeah.

I mean, well, because nowadays Bjork albums are just like musical experiments where she's like, I assembled a nine-piece flute ensemble and we recreated tropical bird sounds.

And I'm like, that's great.

I can't wait to never listen to that again.

But her first five albums are unimpeachably brilliant.

But yeah, and the thing is, if I saw her, I wouldn't approach her because I know she's had weird experiences with fans in the past.

So I would just like, I would just have a little meltdown in a corner.

I would leave her alone.

That's

a good thing to do.

Also, looks like kind of a mythical creature.

Totally.

So it would be also just like seeing her around other like normal looking average day folks, you'd be like, oh, yeah, that she really is from some other place.

Absolutely.

She came out of a volcano.

I saw, I watched this documentary about Keegan and Sarah about so there was like a fan who was

impersonating one of them online.

Oh.

And like had.

gotten into their like

their manager's like drive and had all their like passport information.

Jesus.

And

they were super close with their fans.

And then when this happened, they were like, any of our fans could be this crazy person.

Because don't they suspect it was,

but they haven't been able to confirm it?

They do confront the filmmaker and either Tegan or Sarah.

I think, well, I don't remember the parts of the movie where there's two of them.

My vision's not that great.

But

yeah, they kind of like they have a main suspect who by the end is like, no.

Actually, I think it might be you.

The person is so despicable the way that they're like,

how dare you accuse me, this person who.

They protest too much.

Yeah.

Okay, you for sure did this.

But there's like, but I see one of them around Vancouver and I am sometimes like, hey, I should say hello.

And after seeing this movie, I'm like, I will never talk to any of them.

They've been through too much.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think anybody, I mean, I feel like a lot of famous people have that happen to them at some point.

Right.

Like, not necessarily a stalker, but like an overzealous

tries to find out what their birth name was, and yes,

Irving.

God, yeah, it's Irving.

Okay, good.

But what's his middle name?

Whatchamacallit?

Okay, is it?

I've never seen it spelt this way, but I think it's Ramsey's, R-A-M-E-S-E-S.

Yeah, that's Ramsey's.

Or is it Ramsey's?

Because is his name Irving Ramsey's Rams?

Who would you be gobsmacked if you met a celebrity?

Like, somebody that really would be just like,

not somebody that necessarily that you're a fan of, but somebody like,

I can't even believe they exist.

Like, how am I seeing this?

Well, I was, I did share an elevator with Paul McCartney by accident once.

No way.

Yeah, in Heathrow.

And we were, Abby and I were changing planes, and everyone was taking the escalator.

And we were like, hey, that elevator's opening.

Let's run in.

And there was a guy holding a guitar

with like

people I realized later were his security.

But they let others enter the elevator.

That's nice.

Yeah.

They don't own the elevator.

Right.

And then.

But they all have like their hands in their jackets

ready to take off their fake masks.

One of them is Paul McClure.

One of them is Ringo.

And he had a four or five-year-old daughter at the time who was asking, are we going to plus two or minus two?

And then you just hear a voice go, minus two.

And then you look up and you're like, holy shit, whoa.

That is pretty cool.

And you didn't say, hey.

Big fan.

Yeah, I was like, hey, Paul.

This demo tape.

Take a look.

Do you think one day you might do an AI

song

with an old John Lennon tape?

I might do.

I I might do.

How about you?

I think it'd be Arnold Schwarzenegger.

I think if I saw him in real life, I'd be like freaking out because it's just like he's not, he's like, he's a person, but he's not.

You know what I mean?

He's like,

yeah, if I saw him, I'd just lose my mind.

And like, where would I be seeing him?

You know, I'd probably be on a nice vacation somewhere.

He shot movies here.

It would have been possible.

Yeah, he shot that one at the

library where the library is like the futuristic office.

Yeah.

The sixth day?

The sixth day.

Yeah.

And it's like a sci-fi futuristic.

Have you ever seen it?

I have not.

No, I think I missed this one.

I watched Terminator 2 this weekend.

And?

Holds up.

I had only seen it once before.

It's not like a thing that...

Because I know it's like...

I'll watch it.

Even if I see one minute of it, I'm all the way in.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm like that with Fifth Element.

That's my movie.

I like,

I have to watch this through now.

Yeah, like once you watch just a couple of minutes.

Yeah.

I forgot how he's he's so like normal sized in it like i think of him as being a gigantic guy and he's just like you know he's big but he's also with a small boy the whole time yeah that's true scale wise um and i forgot about the like funny bits he's very funny in it but oh he's funny but also there's like you know

don't kill anyone i forgot about the boy being like don't kill anyone so he just shoots everyone in the knees yeah and then he says you'll live

throws people through windows.

Yeah, it's funny.

And

doesn't just shoot people in the knees once.

He's like constantly doing it.

It's like a Magruber gag.

And he picks up a baby at one point and stares.

He picks up a baby by its like suspenders and stares at it.

It's very, it's very funny.

Like it could be, if you just cut together all the clips of him being funny, it would be like a comedy.

On its own.

On its own, absolutely.

And I remember at the time that like special effects were such a big deal.

Oh, yeah.

And they kind of

overuse them a bit.

Yeah.

The like morphing and like liquid metal stuff.

And then there's just times when like an electric bolt runs through the terminator.

You're like, that's not as good.

He, uh, there's a scene where there's a security guard that then, like, there's a double of the security guard and he, like, sticks his finger through his head.

Um, that was done by just having twins.

Oh,

really?

Yeah.

They were like, that'll save us millions upon millions of dollars.

So we'll just have this guy be a twin

and Sarah.

Yeah, we'll have

Mary Kate and Ashley also.

Yeah.

So Steve, you're here

and you're new to the show.

Where are you from?

I grew up in Victoria.

Okay.

That's where Dave went to university.

Okay.

Yeah.

I've been in Vancouver for like 17 years now, I think.

And I, yeah.

Like people complain about this town a lot.

Okay.

Which I.

This is how you're starting?

Is this how you're opening?

I don't know.

It'll get nice.

But I mean to say, I love it here.

Like I escaped a smaller town to move here, so this still feels like a big city.

And I'll probably get priced out like everyone, but I love Vancouver.

What's

in Victoria?

Was there like a good breakfast spot somewhere in Victoria?

So Victoria

invented lining up for breakfast.

There are so many great breakfast spots and all of them have 15-person lineups out the door.

Jam is, I think, the.

Jam's the one.

Jam's the one.

We have that here.

Was the original?

Is there there?

The original is Victoria.

Yeah.

The OG.

I think it's that lining up is a holdover from the British Empire, I think, because British people fucking love space.

They go queue.

Yeah, they even have their own word for it.

It's so, they love it.

You go to the

train station, everybody's lined up waiting for the train.

They know where the doors are going to be.

It's so great.

Yeah.

Canadians like it too.

Canadians like a good lineup.

Did you leave when you were how old?

Like 21-ish.

Okay.

22-ish.

Did you go to university or anything there?

I never did any post-secondary education.

I started working immediately out of high school and worked in retail.

My first job was at A ⁇ B Sound in the record department.

Awesome.

R.I.P.

A.B.

Sound.

And I miss.

those days like because you know for young people listening there was a time where you had to go to a store and get talked down to by a condescending prick yeah to find the music you loved and i got to be that prick for a while and it was it was you know a minimum wage job, but the most fun I've ever had at work for sure.

What were you, what were people purchasing that either outwardly or inwardly you were like making fun of them for Dave Matthews bam.

Dave Matthews bam.

Dave Matthews bam, for sure.

So we, the record store that I worked at had a partnership with the like insurance auto insurance corporation in this province.

Sure.

And so people would, back in the day, people would have CD wallets in their car with like 400 CDs or whatever.

You had to, you know, select different music rather than just having a computer do it for you.

And so, if their car got robbed and they had good insurance, they would get credits to purchase new CDs.

So, sometimes people would come into A and B Sound and they'd be like, okay, I have 400 credits.

I like A, B, and C.

What should I buy?

And you would get to curate someone's music collection, and it was the best.

But wouldn't they be like, I just want to replace the ones that were stolen?

They, I guess, didn't keep an itemized list.

Yeah.

And so they would.

New year, new me.

Yeah, exactly.

Like, let's

completely change it up.

So they'd be like, okay, I really like Dave Matthews' band.

What should I listen to?

And I'd be like, oh,

a gun caulking.

No, Dave's a friend.

I'd actually be quite starstruck.

Yeah, Dave Matthews is a friend.

He lost a lot of friends because of that bridge incident, but we...

You've heard the bridge incident.

I have not.

No.

They were in Chicago, right?

Yeah.

They were crossing a bridge, and the bus driver chose that moment.

With Dave's input.

Yes,

that's right.

To

let go of what was in the toilet portion of the uh bus and it landed on a boat full of tourists.

Oh, what?

Yeah, it's one of the it's one of the best.

There's a plaque there, apparently, that somebody put up as a joke.

And that's the inspiration for the song Don't Drink the Water.

Yes, there you go.

See, I wouldn't I wouldn't have had a Dave Matthews cut

because he did it, worked at AMB Sound.

When you worked at AMB Sound,

was it'cause there was one here that was really big and it had like a DJ booth up in that, and then it turned to Virgin Mega Store, I think.

Wasn't it an AMB sound first?

No, that Virgin Mega Store was the library before.

Was it really?

Yeah.

Oh, cool.

And it was the Virgin Music Store, and then it became HMV before the industry totally tanked.

But the AMB sound here was on Seymour Street, which is now a club called 560.

Yeah.

It was right next to Sam the Record Man.

Yeah.

Well, yes.

And it's weird because now this is really very specific Vancouver we're getting.

Sorry.

There was also, by the way, I don't want to get letters.

There there was an A and B sound on Southwest Marine Drive as well.

There was...

They had a tent

during their big tent event.

And the jingle that they played on the radio was, there's a tent.

There's a tent at A and B sound.

Okay, okay, okay.

All right.

The Sam the Wrecker Man, where that used to be,

it's now a English teaching college or whatever.

And the door handles are still big S's like the Sam the Wrecker Man.

Oh, cool.

So, you know, if you're ever in Vancouver, you want to see that

little piece of history.

I'm sure that's on every walking tour of the city for sure.

I want to stop here for a moment.

And if you could all

what was the big store in Toronto that closed in the last couple of years that people were like, Oh, Honest Eds?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I knew it had a guy's name in it.

That place.

Have you ever been to Honest Eds?

I never know.

It was like

kind of like a real, kind of if a dollar store was multi-levels.

It was kind of like cheap versions of things and kind of like a dollar store meets uh

remember the army and navy yeah store it's kind of like that kind of like if temu was a place yes yeah yes excellent yeah have we talked about tamu um i don't know have we given fair time to tamu here's my uh temu observation go on there was a time not that long ago when if you bought like a bad version of a product,

there would be a meme about it.

People would be like, if you get the wish version of whatever, an iPod, Timu Tamu took it over overnight.

Yeah.

That meme belongs to Tamu Timu now.

Yeah.

Yeah, is Wish even still around or has it been absorbed by the other, did one of the other shitty sites eat it?

I don't know.

Is it Tamu?

Did it rebrand as Timu Tamu?

No who rebranded and I was like, come on, this isn't better than what it was as Rakutan.

That was originally something much easier.

I can't remember what it was, but it's like, this company is now Rakutan.

No, Rakutan sounds like the name of a video game villain or something.

That doesn't doesn't make me want to buy anything at all.

So you've moved to Vancouver.

When did you start doing the stand-up comedy?

Actually, I think December

December 8th.

I think I'm coming up on eight years, but the pen screwed it up.

Yeah, it's nuts.

I believe it's been eight years.

I did a course at Langara.

Oh, yeah.

You said you did no post-secondary.

You did.

That's right.

I took a stand-up comedy clinic under an instructor named David Grunier.

Very, very nice, lovely man, funny guy.

And it was like, I think an eight-week course.

And you bring five jokes a week.

And then at the end, you do your showcase at Yuck Yucks, RIP Yuck Yucks Vancouver.

And yeah, it went really well.

And the doorman was like, hey, come check out these open mics.

And it just kind of took off from there.

And

I've never had a lot of hobbies and always had a lot of free time.

And so.

Fair.

I'm the same.

Yeah.

So so stand-up is, yeah, one of the first things I ever took too quickly and

just really love.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's, I know I remember that David Greenier course because maybe it was once or twice a year the class would graduate and there would be like a flood of new comics in the city.

And it's like, oh, this class just got out.

Like, oh, all these young.

I still look back on that time.

It's like, man, I wrote five jokes a week.

Like, that's the most prolific I've ever been as a writer for sure.

Can you imagine writing a joke now?

Come on, and let's climb it.

Forget it.

So, I'm off Twitter.

I'm now on Blue Sky, but I forget how to come up with a little joke.

My feeling about all these things, just reuse them, just go over to Twitter.

Sure.

Screen grab.

I agree.

I wholeheartedly agree.

If you came up with it on Twitter,

screen grab.

I was like, cut and paste.

Well, a lot of them don't age well because they're, you know,

like, oh, we got to get Obama out of office.

I went through all all of my like Facebook posts from when it started, um, uh, like 2007, I think I joined, and like went through all of just the stuff that I had written from over the years.

And it's really, really hard to look at some of some of the things you said that doesn't even feel that long ago.

I was like, why did I hate everyone's bodies?

Like, I've just, I've said horrible things to say about

that's you're a better person than me.

I had most, most of my stuff was about hating Graham's body as well.

When I was working, I worked at a radio station for a year, and they have like little breaks that are only kind of like 10, 15 seconds long.

I just used my old tweets.

I just like downloaded them all on my Twitter and just kind of started just because they were exactly the right amount of time and space.

And it's like, come on, they got a whole treasure trove just sitting there ready to do something.

So that's what I'm going to start doing.

Just cut and paste it, put it on blue sky.

Perfect with your classics.

I'm going to do just the classics, absolutely.

Do you have one classic tweet that you remember?

Because people will sometimes be like, oh, Dave, this was your greatest tweet ever.

And I'll be like, I don't remember tweeting this.

It's not funny.

The one tweet, because it got like so much retweeting and

at, what do you call it?

Responses, replies, I guess.

Was that I said, this is ages ago, before any of the political stuff.

I said, I don't know what everybody's talking about.

I think Donald Trump seems like a nice guy.

And he retweeted it.

Oh, no.

Of course he did.

And this was like, yeah, well before any of the political stuff, but people unmasked were writing me, you fucking idiot.

He's not nice at all.

And yeah, that was my most successful tweet.

I saw one today.

It was, so there was apparently there's the Facebook group in about

the Vancouver Taylor Swift concerts and the days that we'll live in it.

Someone was tweeting.

It does make you feel like, oh, we're such a podunk little town that everyone's losing their mind for this person.

But it's happening in every city.

Yeah, exactly.

You know, you're not better than us, Cincinnati.

Who would win in a neck and neck competition between Cincinnati and Vancouver?

I don't know.

They do have that.

Cincinnati's got grit, man.

I don't know.

Yeah, that's true.

Cincinnati might want it more.

They've got chili on pasta.

Is that the Cincinnati?

That's the Cincinnati way.

But they were saying, oh, a lot of people are in this Facebook group are finding out you can't come to Canada if you have a DUI.

Oh.

People are coming, wanting to cross the border.

They bought their tickets a year ago and assumed they could come.

Same going down in the States.

I think you can't cross if you have DUI or a CIA.

I think it's actually one way, if I remember.

You can't go to the States if you have like grapes or an apple.

That's right.

Yeah.

Produce, there's stickers on.

DUIs, eh, come on in.

Yeah, yeah.

You've got wide roads here.

It's fine.

So

I play in a gay softball league here in Vancouver.

And one of the reasons that we don't host the gay softball World Series in Canada is because

there are too many Americans with DUIs.

So they can't come and play ball with us.

Is it a big thing in the gay community to drink and drive?

In the softball community.

So do you have to go to the States for the

I went to the world series uh the gay softball world series in minneapolis a couple years ago

and i like i wanted to go is your team that good well it's so a world series is misleading it's just a tournament it's basically america and a few canadian cities and uh sounds like the world series i guess so i guess that's fair but uh you it's just every every um city that has a league uh that's part of this organization um can send like two berths from each division level and so either your your championship team or if they don't want to go, it's just whoever, like, whoever has the money and time to go spend the week in the States and Seattle.

You know, he's got a lot of disposable income.

Softball players.

So I went in Minneapolis last year and got to go do a tour of Paisley Park, Prince's compound.

And it was.

preposterously expensive, but so cool.

Worth the trip just to see his room of shoes.

You got to go in.

You go in the play hallway.

We paid for only the VIP super special tour.

And after seeing the exchange rate afterwards, I was like, why did I pay for that?

That's crazy.

But they had an entire room that was just specific shoe selections of all of his platforms.

So it would be like, these are the shoes he wore at Coachella in 20 whatever.

These are the shoes that he accepted his Oscar in and all that kind of stuff.

It was really, really cool.

He went an Oscar for acting.

Yeah, in the

under the cherry moon.

Have either of you guys seen the movie Purple Reign?

I've seen it, yes.

Yeah, I like that he was so popular.

They're like, you can start in a movie.

It doesn't matter if you don't know how to act.

It doesn't matter if you only have to find a way.

Half the movie is just playing music.

Yeah.

Right.

Rules.

Purple Rain rules.

Yeah.

When the soundtrack's that good, the music can be shit.

A lot of like,

there was one piano that was sent to him from, I think, Toshiba, or I can't remember who made it, but he sent it back twice because the shade of purple was incorrect.

So he made them repaint it twice for him.

Love it.

Love that.

And there was just a lot of like outfits and just like the detail that goes into them into making them and stuff.

And you would just be like led to one room.

You watch a little video.

There's a few artifacts kind of thing.

It's like any museum tour, but it was, if you're a big fan, it's worth it, I think.

What's Minneapolis like?

Like, I'm like, is it because when we say,

or I don't say, but some people say Toronto is Canada is New York.

And I'm like, but is it bigger than like Minneapolis or Chicago?

It's more Chicago.

It's more like Chicago.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think Minneapolis is

like

meteorologically speaking,

like Winnipeg.

It's right below Manitoba.

So it gets crazy, crazy cold.

But we happened to be there.

The bugs weren't bad.

The grass was lush green.

The people were friendly.

There's like an inherent musicality everywhere you go.

It was just, I had a really great experience.

I was only there for a week, but I thought it was lovely.

When I go back.

Did you go to St.

Paul?

We drove through St.

Paul.

That's one of the bigs.

Well, they're Twin Cities.

Oh, yeah.

What position do you play in the softball?

I outfield, but I don't know how many more years I have left of it because I'm over 40 now.

Diving for things?

Diving and running, like sprinting for stuff.

I don't know.

I would love to play first base because that's the least amount of running.

And there's a fair amount of action there, but you don't have to be dexterous like a shortstop.

Oh, I love running.

That's the only reason I have to run.

You go in the outfield.

Steve will do.

He'll take first base.

I got first base.

But there's always someone who's a little bit older than me or has a better glove than me who always snags first.

So I usually end up playing outfield.

A better glove?

You just try to go fund me.

Yeah,

I've never been in a league as an adult.

I feel like that's something that's

not by any choice.

I just haven't bothered researching and joining.

You were in a league of

extraordinary title.

Who's me and Dorian Gray and freaking, I don't know,

the Invisible Man.

Dorian Gray?

Who's in the League of Extraordinary Natural?

I don't know.

I'm asking.

Who's in it?

I don't know.

It's like Frankenstein.

Yeah.

Tom Cruise being ramed.

Tom Cruise is in there being raimed.

But it is a collection.

It's sort of like these are fictional characters.

I feel like, yeah, The Invisible Man.

The Invisible Man is the only one I remember because they did a movie that Sean Connery's in,

right?

But I can't really remember it.

God, Sean Connery is so funny.

Okay, starring.

Boy.

Stuart Townsend as Dorian Gray.

There you go.

Shane west as tom sawyer uh richard richard roxberg as james moriarty oh is that from i don't want to sound illiterate but i can't name it what any of these uh gentlemen are from that that one's from sherlock who is dorian gray the picture of dorian gray it's uh

he is it the name rings a bell but i can't face it at all is it all of uh no oscar wilde

i don't i actually don't know but i know the thing is is that there's a painting of him somewhere that is aging.

Have you seen the substance?

Yes, of course.

Basically, it's the exact same.

Okay.

Yeah.

Perfect.

Not exact same, but the overarching.

Yeah.

Jason Fleming as Dr.

Henry Jekyll.

Cool.

Nasir Ruddin Shah as Captain Nemo.

These are getting less and less famous, but

they're still extraordinary, damn it.

I mean, the characters are famous.

The actors, I don't know so much.

I don't even actually recognize the characters anymore.

Okay, well, that's leaving

Sean Connery as Alan Quartermain.

Sean Connery is like one of my favorite things is that he was offered the role of Gandalf in Lord of the Rings.

And he said,

I couldn't understand the script.

I didn't know what this was about.

And then they asked him after they were such a big hit, he's like, are you sad that you turned it out?

He's like, I still watched it.

I still don't understand what that's going on.

Yeah, he's fine.

Yeah, he doesn't need to be Gandalf.

Yeah, I can be in a freaking entrapment.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, you think that him and Ian McCullen were probably necking up for that rule.

Anyways, we wish them all the best, all the extraordinary gentlemen.

Now, Steve, the elephant in the room, spell your name for me.

Oh, okay.

My birth name is Steven with a V, just normally spelled.

I've been misspelling it as S-T-D-E-E-V for Steve for a number of years

just because growing up there were always three to four Steve's in the class that I was in.

And my high school, there were three Steve L's also.

So I just started misspelling it.

And as a

middle-aged man, I should probably have grown out of it by now, but I like it.

Oh,

I was wondering if it was a showbiz thing.

I don't know exactly when it started.

I think it was towards the end of high school.

That's when Showbiz starts.

Yeah, I guess.

So yeah, that's kind of when it started.

And I've just been sticking with it ever since.

There were like certain names that really

feel like Steven was really like a go-to name.

Yeah, like an 84-born kid, Stevens, Michaels,

on the girl's side, lots of Ashleys.

My sister's name is Ashley.

We both had very, very popular names for age.

Yeah, Ashley.

That was a.

That was a big.

And I was

David S.

There was David K, David W, and David D.

We were the Aidens of our time.

Yep.

Yep.

And my daughter, when she was in preschool, it was a COVID year and they were only so like in her preschool, they were like, we're only letting six kids in.

You have to like be on your computer at 7 a.m.

to sign up and whatever.

We got in.

There were six kids in the class, three of them named Parker.

Really?

Yeah.

So many Parkers, so many Harpers.

Parkers, Harpers, Graysons.

Yep.

My niece is named Grayson, actually.

Yeah, in high school.

And I'm taking her to Taylor Swift.

I feel like I have to.

You're going to Taylor Swift?

Yeah, I'm going.

I'm going to Taylor Swift on the Saturday show.

And it's more money than I've ever paid for a concert ticket.

But we got like the Avion rewards points

link.

And when I like, I had to do it on my husband's phone because he got the code.

And if you don't use the place where the code is sent, the device that it's sent to, then you get booted for bot activity.

It's like, it's like booted for bot activity.

Insane.

And that's my one-man show.

It's my sci-fi novel.

Thank you.

And so, anyways, I got in and I kept trying to select tickets and then they would disappear because somebody else bought them.

And so, I zoomed out, and the only thing I could see was floor tickets.

So, I thought, just don't look at the price and bought them.

And

this better be a great fucking memory.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, I think it'll be a thing.

Does your niece have a DUI?

No, thankfully.

And she's only coming from Alberta, so it's all good.

We allow that.

Oh, that's so, that's so cool.

I didn't know you were holding me up.

I didn't know we were with royalty.

It will be a thing in like, you know, a generation from now, will be like a thing like you were at Woodstock or you're, you know, it's going to be like a famous thing.

Did you?

If every, if every city had three Woodstocks.

Oh, that would have been rad.

And people broke the gates at all of them and just rushed in.

Oh, Woodstock.

I wonder if it'll be trenchmouth at

the Taylor Swift concept.

Do not do the brown acid UC at Taylor Swift.

Some people will be giving birth to Taylor Swift.

Yeah.

Yeah, I

think

it'll be probably the best concert you'll ever see.

It's going to be insane for sure.

Unless you have seen Guar, in which case, Guar is the same thing.

Right.

Yeah.

Always number one.

Yeah.

This will be interesting.

Like, I think I experience concerts a little bit differently now that I'm.

a little bit older.

And this is not for me.

This is for like my sister who's older than me is coming too.

She's a big time Swifty.

And I like Taylor Swift, no, no disrespect or anything, but it's for the others that I'm going with.

But I also, like, I I went to a

SISA concert earlier or last year, I guess.

And the only ticket I could find that was Lower Bowl, because my eyes aren't great.

I'm not going to nosebleeds anymore.

I'm just, it's not worth it.

It's not worth it.

The only affordable ticket I could get in the Lower Bowl was to go by myself, to just buy a solo ticket.

And so I went and I felt like it was like me and it was at GM or Rogers Arena.

It was me and 18,000, 20-year-old girls basically at this concert.

And I felt at times like a chaperone or like a phantom of some kind.

It was like

I wasn't really there, you know?

But it was, it was interesting.

It was a lot of fun.

I went, I bought for my wife for birthday to go see Phoebe Bridgers.

Okay.

And so I went with her

and we, I bought her a good ticket down below.

And then I took a nosebleed ticket.

But I meant, like, when I walked out in that lobby, I was one of three dudes there.

Totally.

Do people, when you're with your wife, think father-daughter?

Yep.

Or rich guy, you know, big fenus.

They think all these things.

Oh, yeah.

I

got my

Spotify wrapped today.

Yes.

I unwrapped my Spotify wrapped.

And it was.

I'm horrified to know what mine is.

I love, as a, again, former record store staff member, I love Spotify rap season.

I don't care if it's Spotify, like if it's Apple Music, Title, whatever you listen to.

I want to know.

I want to know what made you tick musically this year.

I want to know what you're embarrassed by.

Well, when you unwrap it, can other people see it?

Is that no?

You don't have to share it.

It was giving me, like, telling me about different months of my year, and it said, June was your Pink Pilates Princess Catwalk pop moment.

That was my July.

Good work, you guys.

But mine, since I've had kids, is all like

they're no longer, it's no longer like just

whatever, you know, Moana music in the mornings.

Moana in the mornings.

Go for Mo.

But now it's more just like I, most of the music we listen to is music I put on for them.

Yeah.

Like I'll play Heim radio in the mornings.

Sure.

And so my top singers were all Heim and Phoebe Bridgers and

Gloria Estefan.

Yeah, Gloria Estefan.

Pink probably was in there because it was your pink summer solstice.

No, Taylor Swift was my number one artist of the year

against all odds.

Yeah.

Who is yours?

Beyonce.

Beyonce.

I haven't done.

I haven't unwrapped, so I don't know, but I imagine it's background jazz.

Number one.

Congratulations, Grammy, for third year running.

Background jazz.

You're in Charles Mingus' top one for us or whatever.

We have like a family plan.

So on my phone, on Abby's phone, she listens, she has her own account.

And so she gets like her rap is all very cool stuff.

And then mine is just like, here's what I played for the kids.

Yeah.

Yeah,

you're taking a bullet for your kids.

Yeah.

Well, you know, you do anything for them.

I mean, I like, I like, you know, all these artists is fine.

Sure.

Yeah, you're right, because they're not the Moana agents.

Yeah,

that was bad.

Because it was every year it was Sebastian the Crab.

Was your number one

on his solo?

He had pipes, man.

Yeah, he did have pipes.

Have you seen that one tweet that the person has that's like,

I listen to cool music all year long and then I listen to Mambo number five one time, and suddenly Spotify is like, Your number one artist

is Lou Bega.

We told him you want to meet him, and then there's a video message from Lou Bega, thanking them.

Yeah,

yeah, it's uh I know it's gonna be something embarrassing when I lose when I find out.

I mean, we gotta do it.

Maybe I'll do it today.

Do it in the air, unwrap it now.

How do I do it?

You just open your Spotify, and it'll say you're wrapped as ready.

Okay, hold my phone the right side up.

Graham is his hands are shaking.

This is I didn't know he'd be put on the spot like this.

Also, he was holding his

phone under his butt.

Under my leg.

Thank you very much.

Okay, where is it?

Do I do library or?

Yeah.

Home.

Oh, I'm at home.

You're at home.

Maybe you didn't get one.

Yeah, it doesn't look like.

But there it is.

Jazz in the background.

There we go.

Recommend it best of the time.

No, it was right at the top of mine.

No, I got nothing.

I got no.

maybe they didn't do me this year.

Maybe they just skipped over me.

Or maybe you were naughty.

Yeah, I might have.

You got a lump of coal from Spotify.

Oops.

Okay.

Sorry, no, I was seeing where mine was.

When you said

you went and saw a Beyoncé when I did.

Yeah, I saw the Renaissance tour when she was in town, and it was incredible.

I have a Beyoncé

tour t-shirt, and it's from a year that the only Canadian date she did was in Edmonton.

Isn't that weird?

Isn't that weird to think of all the cities to like...

Well, I remember when Paul McCartney came to Vancouver, he was only doing like two Canadian dates that year.

One of them was Edmonton.

One of them was Edmonton.

I guess they must have a really good stadium or whatever that would be.

Probably.

I feel like Vancouver gets a lot because

people will either start or end their tours here because we're a good...

Also, like, I remember U2 and...

The Rolling Stones would just rent a airplane hangar and rehearse here for a month.

The police did that too.

I remember, yeah.

So I don't know why, like, that makes sense for Vancouver because we're at just the end of one part of North America.

But yeah, Edmonton, I don't get.

Yeah, I don't know.

Like, I know Garth Brooks did a concert there, and they added some crazy amount, like 12 shows.

They just kept selling out and selling out and selling out.

I believe it.

Apparently, he does a good, good live show.

But yeah, I probably, that might be my unwrapped listen to Thunder Rolls maybe one time during the year.

One time.

You listen to this many songs one time.

What's going on with you, Dave?

Oh, well, I'll tell you.

Sock.

Well, speaking of going to concerts alone,

Abby and I do that all the time now because we'll just buy, like, we've made the mistake of buying two tickets and then we don't feel like getting a babysitter and one of us doesn't really want to go.

And so now we just buy one ticket to a show.

That's smart.

And then half the time bail anyway.

Yeah.

But then you only waste one ticket.

Yeah, I've definitely like at the phase of life where like

I go to see somebody I like, but if there's no sitting, I'm pretty bummed out.

Totally.

I'm standing the whole time.

I'm like, this feels like work for me.

So

I've been going to concerts that mostly are like, we'll stand up at the beginning.

And we'll definitely stand up at the end.

But in between, let's all just have a seat.

The thing that I'm most stressed out about for the Taylor Swift show is like, this is going to be three plus hours of standing.

That's like the noise I can deal with, not a problem, but I'm just, I'm worried about my back the next day.

What kind of shoes?

What are you going to wear shoes on?

Something with orthotics in them, possibly just sneakers.

And luckily, we live a block from a sky train, from the Barard Skytrain station, and then we, so we don't have to do the whole walk to BC Place.

We'll probably train it part of the way.

All the way.

Nice.

But yeah, I went to a

show a couple of weeks ago at the Vogue, and they've like removed the seating

stage.

But then there were like the rows up like on the slanted part of it they kept the chairs on um so we just stood like in between rows of chairs and the whole time i was like could i could i pull off sitting right now would i but that's that's the stressful thing at concerts now is like why i like to go solo uh more moving forward is because i don't feel bad about checking my watch if it's just me you know i know whereas if i'm with people i want them to think i'm having a great time yeah yeah I like the shows where they take out where if there's room for you to sit if you you can go take breaks and like sit somewhere and then come back and stand Yeah.

I remember going to see not a concert, but a big like wrestling show at Rogers Plays Center

Arena.

And I walked to the like, because I was like, oh, I forgot to bring earplugs.

And so I walked to the like information desk.

And I was like, do you guys have any?

She just handed me earplugs right away.

She's like, you look like somebody.

I know what this does.

Anyway, so this week or two ago, I went to a live podcast downtown by myself.

Favorite murderer?

I went to see...

Smartless.

I went to see Smartless Live.

I

threw my bra.

I went to see the Sloppy Boys.

Oh, the Sloppy Boys.

Cocktail podcast that I like a lot.

And that was great.

But I never go downtown.

So I was downtown by myself on a Friday night on the Granville Strip.

Oh, man.

Do you have some money in your pocket?

Holy shit.

That sounds like a good night.

So after the show, I hadn't eaten dinner and I was like, oh, you know what I used to get?

Every time I was downtown, I would get a donair.

Oh, yeah.

Or a schwarma or some kind of pita thing.

Do you have a favorite?

Like donair spot?

Yeah.

I usually go, it's just probably on brand recognition.

At this point, we do donair dude.

Donair dude.

I was going to say that.

But it's always like, it's the size of a football.

And

I'm not someone who can like save half of my donair for later.

I'm going to finish the whole thing.

So I always just feel like a, like a, like a fat monster after donair dude.

I know.

And it's just like, yeah, especially if you're with somebody who saves half, aka my wife.

Yeah, I've just like pounded back a whole burrito and she's saved like two-thirds of hers.

I'm like, oh man.

But I was, so I, it's been so long since I've gotten one downtown.

I know there's,

my favorite place used to be a place on Robson and

like between Granville and Howe that it was

right next to True Value Vintage.

Oh, yeah.

I think it's now a ANW, maybe.

Sure, everything is.

But it's not there anymore.

And I didn't know where to go.

And so I just looked on my phone, and there were a few around, and one of them had a 4.9 out of five.

Stores gotta do it.

How many reviews?

Just the one?

Just one.

And I gave them a 4.9.

I don't know how to work this phone.

So I went, and

it was

so terrible oh no oh really it was like they did it was it felt not I mean I don't want to say inauthentic but because like what is authentic but I miss like they have the big thing of yeah the big tornado of meat of meat and they seem to you all the good places have a pan that they have altered they've cut the pan right so that the meat lands in the pan and so that the pan contours to the tornado this place was just like the meat was all ready

they just swept it off of a surface yeah they put it uh you know you pick your things they didn't have

every uh topping i wanted and then one of the toppings was nacho cheese yikes this doesn't sound good at all and so i uh i i i

whatever the yelp or google reviews really let me down yeah and i was walking around with this and the more i ate it i was like oh this isn't, this isn't scratching the itch.

Maybe I can go get a second one.

Yeah.

Give it in.

Did you?

No.

Oh,

I did.

I was going to, but then I would have had to cross Granville again.

And it was a Friday night, and it was too crazy.

Yeah, rowdy.

I would get

like a Friday night after a show because the comedy books was around the corner from Granville.

And for anybody not from the city, Granville's like the big party time,

Mardi Gras-esque, crazy knife crackers.

A lot of stabbings.

It's all donairs and knife crackers.

And

my go-to was there's

a bar called like The Moose, I think.

Right next to it, they have a poutine place.

Oh, whoa,

that's some good poutine.

Good poutine.

Now,

I'm more prone to partying on Davie Street,

the village of my people.

Softball players.

Softball players, that's right.

And there's a place, La Belle Petat,

that has great poutine and steamy dogs.

Yeah.

That was always our after-bar food.

The Belle Petat is amazing.

Yeah.

Yeah, I was always just hanging out on the.

Davies

felt like more upper crust for the Saturday night crowd.

Sure.

Granville's pure bridge and tunnel.

Oh, pure bridge and tunnel.

Yeah.

Nothing but bad seeds down there.

Right.

If Donair Dude is the chain, du jour, does Peter Pitt still around?

That's a good question.

Peter Pitt, last I checked, there's one in Kelowna.

So

last time I was in Kelowna, I saw Peter Pitt.

I went,

I forget what it was.

There was some ad on TV that was telling, like,

it was for a website that would tell you what

franchises you could invest in.

Oh, yeah.

And like, you go and you sort by province and then

how much it costs to get a franchise fee, what the expected cost of a fully operational franchise would be.

And the most expensive, like Pete Pitt was one of the ones you could do, I think.

But the most expensive franchise you could do that I found was Mr.

Lube.

Oh, I mean, there's a lot of overhead there.

Yeah, you gotta buy a lot of stuff.

Buy a, or at least lease a property and dig out the bottom of it.

Yeah.

Yeah, there's no like storefront lube places that you can just move into.

Also, wasn't Mr.

Lube was created, or not created by, by, but started by the same guy that started Boston Pizza.

Jim started.

No, not start.

He didn't start Boston Pizza, but he was one of the early investors.

Yeah.

I guess.

Jim Tree Living from Dragon's Den.

Okay.

The old guy from Dragon's Den.

Any product that had an online thing, he was like, I don't, I'm out.

Oh, anytime people said,

like, anything that wasn't a brick-and-mortar business.

Wasn't a pizza place or lube drive-up and lube.

Yeah,

I think anytime you're in a franchise, anytime they have to, they roll out a new product, you have to buy all the equipment for that new product, even if they only last for like three or four months and they're like, ah, nobody wants.

All right, I guess these pizza ovens have to go in the lube hole under the building.

Yeah.

Well, like, when I'm in the lube hole.

Because Subway is a sandwich store.

And then Quiznos was like, what?

We can toast our subs here.

Yeah, well, Quiznos ruled.

And they gave you a hot pepper, too.

And there still one.

Do you know there's still one on Pender Street?

There's two.

There's one on a commercial.

Yeah.

I walk past the Quiznos on Pedra because it's relatively close to where I live

at least twice a year and I'm like, holy shit, they're still going.

Good on you guys.

Yeah.

I mean, the last time I went, it was still great.

Because Subway,

like, it took them a year or two, but they were like, we can have toasters in every store, too.

Sure, yeah.

But they're not as good.

No, they're not as good because the difference is the Quiznose one moves along nice and slow.

Yeah, and you get to watch it.

Nice and easy.

Yeah.

You get a little window to watch.

And the sandwiches are all made with that in mind.

Like they've come up with these recipes.

This is the Quisno family.

Yeah, this is, yeah, absolutely.

There's a subway that I walk by

pretty regularly, and it had a sign that it was under new management, but like the sign's still gross and falling apart.

And I'm like, when is the new,

when does that kick in?

Where you're at.

Not the sign that says it's under new management.

No, the subway side.

Oh, yeah.

S is falling off and the U's all scraped.

And it's like, come on, guys, you know,

first thing on your to-do list.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Second sign.

I go.

If I go into a subway, I never see the manager.

I see one person who listening to a podcast.

Yeah, who's overworked?

Yeah,

it's lonely.

The late shift at Subway, that's a lonely time to be.

Tough.

Yeah.

Never worked as a sandwich artist myself, not counting it out for the future.

But, you know, you, you know, you respect those who have.

Absolutely, I do.

Sure.

Thank you for your service.

Yeah.

Was I saying on the podcast that like all

late-night fast food restaurant employees should be given like the government money because of the like social service that they provide for a minimum wage kind of thing.

Did I talk about that before?

No.

But yeah, do you not like, you know what I mean?

Like you go into like whatever, Wendy's the Wendy's over on Broadway.

Like 11 o'clock, it is wild what's going on there.

It's crazy.

And they don't have the, you know, they don't have a bouncer.

They don't have some big guy to keep everything under control.

It's just like

a tough guy.

They don't have a cooler.

Yeah.

No.

Like they're all like

17 years old.

And they've been through it so much that they know.

This guy walks in the door.

Get out.

Get out.

You're not allowed in here.

We know what you do.

Oh, that would be fun.

I like to have a job where I can immediately see someone and say, get out.

Some of the guests on this podcast, as a matter of fact,

come in and are like, hey, get out of here.

I was that way when we had Harry from Harry and the Hendersons talk.

He was so tight-lipped about John Lithgow.

And I was like, but it was for his own good.

Yeah, that's true.

Yeah.

There was recently an article released about bro cry movies.

Okay.

So like films that men allow themselves to cry watching.

And it was critically missing Harry and the Hendersons, which everyone should bawl at.

It's

so terribly sad.

It was a good list, all the like, you know, Shawshank Redemption and all these other ones that men love classically, but the one glaring omission was Harry and the Hendersons.

Yeah.

As a child, my dad took me to Harry and the Hendersons.

We were like on vacation in Montana.

And

I was cried.

It was whitefish.

I cried.

Oh, it was inconsolable.

Just cried the whole ride home.

Just Just couldn't stop crying.

So, so, so sad, but such a great movie.

Such a great movie.

Although I haven't seen it since probably like 1992, so I shouldn't, I shouldn't say things are great.

Harry says some things that

you wouldn't get away with now.

What are the, I don't think I really cried at anything when I was a kid.

I cry it now.

I cry.

Yeah, I don't cry at movies now.

That hasn't happened.

And I felt sad at the end of the last Avengers movie because I was like, there you go.

There's a decade of your life.

You felt sad for yourself.

Yes.

I spent this much time on this.

I remember when I was a kid, I saw the movie The Wizard

where

Fred Savage.

The power glove?

Yeah.

Hell yeah.

Yeah.

It was huge.

I saw it in the theater, and this was the thing, like, there are certain days of my life that I'm like, oh, I pinpointed like

events from this day.

Because I saw that movie, I came home, and the Canucks were on TV, and the Canucks were never on TV back then.

It was the 1990 season.

They were the worst, second worst team in the league.

And they were playing an exhibition match against a Russian team.

Okay.

And they were losing badly.

And then one of my family members asked me how the movie was, and I burst into tears.

And I looked it up, and that movie, that hockey game, is on YouTube.

Yeah.

Did you watch it again to tear up?

Remember the movie?

No, but I was just like, I figured out it was sometime in December of 1989.

Right.

Huh.

Yeah.

I, uh, no, I haven't cried.

Do you cry at the end of the movies?

When I was little, I cried at everything.

I was just super, super emotional.

And nowadays, I can't really, I struggle to cite an example, but if ever there's like a fat kid getting picked on in films, that always,

you know, wants a fat kid, always a fat kid.

That always tugs at my heartstrings.

Or if there's like an animal.

in peril that that usually does it.

I went and saw, I saw Wicked,

the film It's huge right now.

And

all of these people posting about how they cried like three or four times during this film, it's very well done.

It's a good movie.

I don't generally like musicals because I think they require you to access a well of like joy and wonder that I just don't possess.

Fair, fair.

But I thought it was very well done.

But the idea that you would cry at it, I thought, was weird.

I'm like, where?

Where?

Parts where you want to cheer, sure, but cry, not.

Huh.

Cried at Wonka.

You did, right?

A little bit at the end.

But then one of my kids was like, I have to go to the bathroom.

Dad, stop embarrassing.

That's my cry.

But I bawled throughout when I saw it in the theater that

Mr.

Rogers documentary.

Oh, yeah.

Like from opening scene heaving.

I was like, I had a childhood.

Yeah.

Well, and it is crazy, like, I mean, not that I watch children's programming nowadays, but to think of like how

grandwatched The Avengers.

Yeah.

Every single one.

When you see clips of Mr.

Rogers like telling you like you're worthwhile and you're, you know what I mean?

All of these like beautiful things.

He said you're like, I can't believe this was a part.

This is so important.

I can't, like, I don't know.

It's just, it is very.

I'm crying now.

Yeah, and I didn't even really, like, I think I watched his show a couple times.

Oh, he used to be, that was appointment view.

I, I, I, maybe, I think I saw it a few times, but I kind of zoned out when those creepy, waxy puppets showed up.

Yeah.

And the season where Mr.

Rogers kept showing off his abs, right?

You all remember that era?

He's peeling off the cardigan.

You're like, okay, buddy.

Okay, okay, we got you do so.

Oh.

You like that?

You're like, whoa, Mr.

Rogers has cum gutters?

That's crazy.

I think that is my favorite phrase dealing with the human body.

Cum gutters?

Oh, that's your favorite?

Yeah.

In describing a human body, cum gutters number one for me.

Yeah, better than muffin tops.

Thank you very much.

Cum gutters are the anti-fupa.

What's a fupa?

Oh, no.

I'm sorry to put this on you.

Fat, well, fat upper pelvic area.

So, like,

pelvic is the nicest way of.

Yeah, sorry.

I think I know what you guys are getting at.

Oh, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry to bring that into your house, you guys.

It is.

Well,

look, it's been living in the dark corners of my house.

There's plenty of.

Now that we bring it up, I'm flooded with, my mind is flooded with offensive terms for parts of bodies.

Anyway.

Yeah, come go to show us the best.

Thanks.

Yeah, number one.

Thank you, Steve.

Anyway, I had a bad donair.

What's new with you?

Was the concert okay?

It wasn't a concert.

It was a live podcast.

Live podcast.

It was the live podcast with a lot of fun.

Yeah, so much fun.

You know how I like to have fun.

Was that at the Vogue?

No, it was at

The Pearl.

Oh, The Pearl.

Formerly, venue, formerly

something else.

Yeah.

I know The Pearl.

I think I've seen a concert of the Pearl.

Anyways,

what's going on with me is I went to Alberta's capital city this weekend.

Edmonton, Edmonton, Alberta, where Beyoncé played that one concert.

Garth Brooks did a number of shows.

Yeah, he was there doing his 70th show in a row.

Yeah, I went and I flew,

flew cheaply because

it was a kind of, I had to go, I went to Kathleen McGee past guest celebration of life.

Okay, yes.

Did we mention on the show that she passed away?

I know that we put it for sure on our like socials.

But yeah, if you don't know, she's a past guest, Kathleen McGee, died after a very long

cancer battle.

And she got in, you know, in the nice way, she got a diagnosis and she was healthy enough to go do what she wanted to do.

She went to different, traveled to different places and did all the kind of things she wanted to do.

Recorded a special in Victoria, which you were a part of as well.

Yeah.

And

what happened was it was like a stand-up show.

So there's a couple of comedians did stand-up.

Oh, that's good.

Perfect for you.

You're the kind of guy who laughs at a funeral.

You don't understand?

You're doing well.

And then it was her special was like the headlining set.

So there, and there was hundreds of people there.

It was really, really packed out.

But because it was sudden,

you have to buy plane tickets closer to the date than you would.

And so, woof, do they get, wow, do they get expensive fast?

Like, taking a one-way

for Air Canada was something like $400

for a one-hour flight.

Yeah, for a one-hour flight, yeah.

And so it's like, okay, there's only one, there's only one cure for this, and its name is Flare Air.

And Flare, woo, it's the opposite of what they are.

Yeah.

Skybus.

Yeah, it is Skybus.

Yeah.

But I've been on it before and then this flight, it was the most Skybus of Sky.

It is weird that there's like a company called Airbus and they're the right, they're the Boeing and Airbus.

They make all the

planes.

Do they not know the bus sucks?

Boeing.

Have you ever been to Air Limo?

Yeah.

Boeing at least sounds like the sound of a boner.

But like

I've been on Flair before, and the whole thing is trying to get on without carry-on.

That's my right.

You have to wear all of the clothing that you're going to have on that trip.

So I pack so

like precisely so that I can just have the personal item which goes under the seat.

You're staying overnight?

I've stayed there.

Yeah, I went there the night before and then left the morning after.

So I was there for two nights.

Okay, so that's packing is

I had to pack a nice shirt and I was wearing dark pants, so so that was taken care of.

And then I actually overpacked.

There were

a shirt and underwear combo.

I never got to.

Also, what's the temperature in Edmonton these days?

It's so cold.

Dave, it's so cold.

Was it in the minuses?

It was in the minuses.

Double-digit minuses?

I think so, yeah.

As I walked to the gas station by the hotel, whoo,

I was.

Yeah, I saw my breath.

My

hair, yeah, got all crinkly.

And

it was kind of, you know, it's kind of nostalgic for about 10 minutes.

And And then I was like, okay,

this sucks.

But I just stayed in the hotel mostly.

The hotel.

Kathleen would have wanted.

Exactly.

It's part of the stand-up experience.

But

it was at a casino, like in their ballroom that also has the Yuck Yucks Comedy Club.

So it was in their ballroom, not in the club.

But I stayed in the casino, which I haven't done since Vegas.

Oh, okay.

It's weird, man, walking down open in the elevator and just being right in the games.

Can you smoke?

I don't know, but it smelled like smoke.

Okay.

So I don't know if you can, but I feel like if you could, this would be the place.

For sure.

And the check-in is just

a woman behind like a plexiglass thing with the circle in it to speak through.

Like it wasn't like a hotel at all.

It was just kind of like.

What do you want?

Can I get a token for the hotel?

I remember hearing that during COVID, like

COVID's still happening.

But when it was, when everyone, everything was opening up after lockdown, when Vegas opened up, it was like people had to wear masks and like it was being enforced.

Unless you were smoking, you didn't have to wear a mask while you were smoking or drinking.

So it was like.

But we see you eating it here.

God damn it.

Yeah, so it was

cold.

So, but I just brought a jacket because I knew I wasn't going to be out much.

Like, I was not going to be walking around.

So I didn't bring like a huge

when you got to your hotel room.

Did you take off your pants and jacket?

Dave,

I did that, then I did it all over again.

I put my pants on, did it again.

But like, yeah, like that's the

AMB sound?

Blink 182?

Yeah.

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

It was huge.

What would be the like best seller that you saw the whole time you were there?

What was the one that moved the most units?

One that I remember being a phenomenon, and it's not a very like

super exciting time.

What year are we thinking?

Okay, so back in, I worked at the one in Victoria, and then I moved to Calgary for a year, or 10 months more specifically, and got the hell back to BC.

While I was in Calgary,

Sarah McLaughlin released her like first post-divorce album.

I can't remember what it's called.

And so, all of the like corporate daddies of Calgary, all of them bought that album.

That was like a huge, massive phenomenon at the Calgary.

Yeah.

And I remember.

That's it.

That's really interesting.

Not the one you would think.

But yeah, Sarah, it's not.

Corporate daddies.

Yeah.

Calgary's just teeming with silver-haired oiled daddies.

And they all wanted some Sarah McLaughlin.

Sure.

Wow.

Yeah, fair enough.

I mean, she's great.

So, yeah,

I like to be meticulous.

about my packing.

I try to get it down to the most.

You like to get a compliment from either the security or the people working at the airline.

And last time I flew, before this, I flew Flare and I put the bag right in the personal item sizing thing.

And she was like, oh, nice.

I was like, yeah, yeah.

She was like, okay.

Boy, oh, yo, yeah, instead of putting a thing that says personal items, just gave me her number.

She's like, ooh, my fupa.

Oop, my fupa, dupa,

Graham learning about a thing and then

oopa looping it.

I love it.

But this bag was a little bit bigger than it was a backpack.

So when she said put in the sizing thing, woo did I struggle.

Like I was pushing that thing left and right, up and down, like muscling it in.

I took about at least two minutes, three minutes.

But when I had it,

you gotta give me the personal tag.

Did you take a picture of it?

I should have.

Look, everyone, I did it.

I did it.

And then I got on the plane coming back, and I've never seen this before.

I've been on all sorts of very cheap planes, but the backs didn't have seat

compartments.

They didn't have like a little place to

put anything.

Okay.

It was just blank.

Where do they have if you vomit, you're just supposed to do it in your shirt?

You have to scan a QR code if you want to vomit.

You got to pay for the vomit back.

Or like the safety pamphlet.

Yeah, no, nothing that you could put.

There was no anything, which is weird, right?

I also think now that I'm thinking about it, they might not have had tables that went down.

And now that I'm, yeah, I think it was completely.

This is how they fit one more row of seats in.

They just slice that little centimeter of room off of everyone's seats.

Honestly, if the person in front of me leaned back, it would have hit me in the head.

Like, that's how tiny these spots were.

So cramped.

And of course, I'm sitting there,

you know, empty seat next to me, other guys in the aisle, and we're we're just sitting there.

Oh, and then the last guy walks hold,

like, well, I guess who's sitting between us?

Of course.

But yeah,

anyways, Flair got you there, but

it's, it's, they're cutting corners.

They're really cutting corners.

Absolutely.

Yep.

I've never done it.

No?

It's if you're going for a short trip, it's not bad.

Oh, I don't do short trips.

You only do long hauls.

Yeah, I move.

Yeah, you go to Brazil.

Yeah.

Maya, you go to alberta once a week yeah i'm uh i'm this year i'm gonna be the marshal of the stampede parade and uh sure yeah opening for garth brooks i'm opening for garth brooks and edmonton um oh put your hands together for the squirt in alberton

hey everybody hi

do you want to find out why i'm called the squirt in alberta and then i fire them with a host

let's just say uh I got the same initials as gum gutters.

I'm Clark Graham.

Not Not quite.

Not quite, but close.

Yeah, we're trying.

We're trying to get you a new persona

in your fifth decade.

I would like to have a character that comes out with like a super soaker or something like that.

That would be, if I could do it all over again, I would do that.

Well, you could be like, I don't know,

it could be a super soaker full of blood, and you could be like Nickelodeon Dracula.

Oh, there you go.

And open for boir.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, but they probably don't like, you know how like an opener, if you're

a clean comic and the

opener is a dirty comic, like I bet you Guire would be like, yeah, you can open, but don't, none of the blood stuff.

We save our friends.

That's our

fair, yeah.

Yeah.

When I opened for Don Rickles,

I was like, just so you know, Don, I'm dude, 10 minutes on hockey puck.

Hockey puck insult.

But like, have you, have you been on a show where the opener does a ton of crowd work and then you get up there and you're like, so there's no meat left on that bone.

Have you ever had that?

Would be a nightmare.

No, I have not.

Yeah, I did it.

That happened the last time I was in Ottawa.

I was like, what the hell, man?

He did like a 10-minute, 12-minute crowd work set and then left the stage.

I was like, so

let me recall, you guys were here on a date together.

And

anything else you want to say?

Did he miss anything?

Yeah, is there anybody who wants to talk at all?

And the one that did want to talk the most had been given free tickets.

So she didn't know who I was, which was that's what you want in a nice small venue.

You want at least a couple of people who have never heard of you, you know?

Yeah,

I did a show last night called Christmas Sweater Comedy at Little Mountain Gallery, and there were three people in the audience.

And basically, we still did the show with the people.

We still did the show.

Yeah.

The

people who ran it were like, Show must go on.

And we said, okay, fine.

And everyone.

I would say, must it?

Must it?

Yeah, totally.

And

everyone just talked to this one couple who was one was the girl was from Kelowna.

The guy was from Kitsilano, and they had been together two months.

And it was literally like, it was basically a therapy session for these two people the entire show.

Oh, my God.

It was quite something.

That would be, I think that's my nightmare scenario, where you're just interacting with the show the entire show, where you're like, now you're the focal point of the show.

And the third person in the audience was sitting there like, nobody's going to talk to me.

I just got to leave if I was that third person.

Totally.

Nobody seems interested in my story.

I'm an assassin.

I've got all sorts of things to say.

I'm the jackal.

There's a whole day of me.

But

yeah, three people, I would say, show

must not go on, is what I would say.

Well, if you are lucky enough to have your funeral at a comedy club, I guarantee three people.

Three people, at the very least.

And one person has lost their, they meant to go to a wedding.

I got a free ticket.

I got a free ticket to Graham's funeral.

Yeah, and that

show was the best.

The Kathleen McGee

final show was everybody was so funny.

Past guest Sean LaCombre went up like he was a youth pastor with a with

what do you call it?

Like not a podium, but lectern.

Lectern, yeah.

And like, you know, related all her experience through Christ, and that was very funny.

Oh, man.

And then Lisa Baker, who hasn't been on the show, but I would love to have her on the show.

Well, she

called out somebody for doing something that Kathleen said in her special was there will be somebody who posts how much I miss her, but never

in real life.

They hated each other, and that literally happened.

And she called her out for it at the show, yeah.

Lisa Baker called amazing, called him out and said, You know, this fucking guy, that's who she's talking about is this guy.

Wow,

that's great.

It was great, that's awesome.

You could really feel like who are the comedy fans in the room because everybody's hooting and hollering.

And then the people who are more like, this should be a funeral funeral kind of thing were kind of timid at that point but sure it was the best it was the best um

but uh

yeah i uh you speaking of shows you do a show once a month as i said confession comedy confession booth comedy yes how does it work so basically uh the audience and comics submit confessions into a bucket that i read out in between acts

so comics if they have personal uh sort of oversharing material they want to do that's great but it's not a prerequisite necessarily It's just that it seems you need a hook of some kinds to get people to come to your comedy show these days.

And so the confession booth sort of bucket is kind of an easy way to do it.

We're doing it monthly.

What kind of things do people confess?

A lot of it has to do with

zodiac killer.

A lot of it is either sex confessions or drugs confessions or poop confessions.

Pooping oneself, a lot of them involve.

Really?

Yeah, the first month that we did it, it was probably about 30%

sharding confessions on its way.

It's funny because it's like, it doesn't feel like the situation itself is new, but talking about it so liberally seems to be a new phase of

shitting protocol.

For sure.

Yeah.

Like now you hear more people, especially comedians.

I don't understand how so many comedians.

Boy,

I missed the golden age.

I was ahead of my time.

You got out too fast.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That sounds like a great show.

That's great.

It's a lot of fun.

It's in the raccoon room where you also host Laugh Gallery

every Thursday night at 7.30 p.m., 110 Water Street.

Yeah, I love doing the show there.

But yeah, there's some

Boxing Day?

Yeah, probably.

Why not?

Okay.

People are going to need something to do.

That's true.

Why?

It's not holy.

Yeah, exactly.

It's a made-up British thing.

So, you know what?

I'll do a British show.

It's unholy.

Yeah, it is unholy.

It's an unholy day.

Boxing Day used to mean something, but it died off in

AMB Sam.

This was a place that people would line up for the day after Christmas.

It was back in the day, DVD players were the Taylor Swift merch of the 90s.

Yeah, people would camp out overnight.

Or just for cheap CDs, which probably weren't even that cheap.

Yeah.

Actually, Western Canada had the cheapest CDs of any Western country or something.

It was cheap.

CDs in Australia would be like $30 and they would be $14.99 here.

We didn't know how good we had it.

Right.

Yeah, man.

There are certain comedy albums where I own the CD and I could do verbatim.

Like, I could do the exact album, but now it's like

in one era.

Totally.

If I watch a special, I can't remember.

Do you like CDs?

I don't like CDs nuts if that's what you're going.

Nice try.

You like CGs?

Do you guys want to move on to some overheards?

Sure.

Oh my gosh.

Hi, it's me, Dave Holmes, host of Troubled Waters, the pop culture battle to the ego death.

Okay, everybody, word association with Troubled Waters, first one to fumble, loses, go.

Comedy.

Panel show.

Guests.

Celebrities.

Games.

Oh, sound rounds.

Improvised speeches.

Puns disguised as trivia.

A very niche Flash Gordon clip.

Of Cheryl Rowan.

Oh, no, Riley.

I'm sorry.

She will not return our phone phone calls.

I am afraid you're out.

A girl can dream.

Oh, but dreaming will not earn a girl any points.

Troubled Waters, listen on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Yucky Jessica.

I'm Chut Krudsworth.

And this is Terrible, a podcast where we talk about things we hate that are awful.

Today we're discussing Wonderful, a podcast on the Maximum Fun Network.

Hosts Rachel and Griffin McElroy, a real-life married

discuss a wide range of topics: music, video games, poetry, snacks.

But I hate all that stuff.

I know you do, Yucky Jessica.

It comes out every Wednesday, the worst day of the week, wherever you download your podcasts.

For our next topic, we're talking Fiona, the baby hippo from the Cincinnati Zoo.

I hate this little hippo.

Overheard.

Overheards.

When you hear it, we want to hear it too.

It's only fair.

If you're hearing things, why not us?

Why can't we have a piece of that action?

And we always like to start with the guest.

Steve, do you have an overheard?

I have an overheard that occurred at my day job.

The cubicle row next to mine.

I heard an argument going on between two staff members, and one goes, oh, no, the Jonas Brothers are for sure bigger than Green Day.

Wow.

Yeah.

Okay.

Big bold statement.

And I don't know if this violates the rules of overheards, but I joined the conversation.

I popped my head over the cubicle and said, What the hell are you talking about?

And so then there was a three-way sort of argument

where I was on Team Green Day, obviously, because I'm a sane person.

And so we had to look up what metrics would qualify because she said bigger or more popular, I believe.

So Green Day has sold three times as many albums.

The Jonas Brothers have 2 million more followers on Instagram.

So there was like each had checks in their columns sort of thing.

And so this was a a running sort of joke back and forth at work.

And then two days later, the Coachella lineup got announced, and Green Day is headlining one day, and the Jonas Brothers are not present.

Nice.

Nice.

I felt very vindicated.

Okay, so we did this at work a while ago where we were trying to find the artist with the most monthly listeners on Spotify.

Okay.

Because that was the metric we were using.

That bunny?

What month?

Well, it just says monthly listeners.

So Green Day, 32.6 million monthly listeners.

Okay.

Jonas Brothers, 20.1.

Which is still a lot of monthly listeners, but Green Day wins.

Yeah.

Also, I don't think I could name a Jonas Brothers song if I was pressed.

Not that I won't be, but I don't know.

The one that was on the radio a lot, like a year or two ago, was I'm a Sucker for You.

Oh, yeah.

Yes, yes, yes.

I know that one.

Okay.

Bad Bunny, you mentioned?

65 million.

Whoa, that blows Green Day right out of the water.

But,

like, the one when we were doing it at work,

we

found

there's jazz in the background on this list.

Taylor Swift, 90.5 million.

Oh, damn.

And the one we found that was bigger than her, but it might not be any more.

Any guesses?

Sugar Man from Surgery for Sugar.

Charles Mingus.

Oh, it's now less than Taylor Swift.

Ed Sheeran.

Oh, Ed Sheeran.

Yes.

Dave, do you have an over?

here?

Yeah.

I do.

Mine is from a Scottish restaurant in the neighborhood called McDonald's.

Okay.

There was a guy ordering something from McDonald's.

He didn't know what he wanted.

Right.

And he was kind of like,

the employee was kind of.

Trying to figure out what he wanted and he was like, she was like, do you want the habanero or the filly?

And he goes, Uh, whatever's spicier, and um, and she goes, Oh, yeah, so the habanero.

And he goes, Just yeah, and just try to make it as spicy as possible.

And

she's like, Uh-huh.

And then, as this order is being prepared, he goes and talks to another employee and says,

Hey, can you make sure my order is extra spicy?

And she's like, What?

Yeah, just can you talk to the kitchen and make sure that it's extra spicy?

And so the employee goes back to the kitchen and she's like, he wants it extra spicy.

And the person, you just hear a voice from the kitchen say, extra what?

There's no extra that.

Like, you can get more of

whatever sauce, but it doesn't go higher.

This is McDonald's.

This is what we do.

We get sent the sauce from Ray Crocker.

We don't have actual habaneros in the back.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There was always a thing when I worked at a coffee shop that people would be like, make the milk extra hot.

And I was like, I don't think you know what

properties milk has.

At a certain temperature, it starts to kind of go rotten.

Or evaporates.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So like I would always, yep, for sure, you got it.

And then I put it up on the counter, cappuccino, extra hot.

So that the person.

Well, that is like.

Sometimes you get it and it's just not hot enough.

Yeah, I understand that, but that's not my problem.

I always love when you see people in cafes who order a specific temperature.

They're like, I want a 180 degree whatever.

And I'm like, do you have a thermometer in your pocket that you're going to verify this?

Just say extra hot, you asshole.

You're not actually.

I mostly make coffee at home, but I was out on a weekend like our certain Neil Young.

And I was

going to a cafe and I wanted to get a latte.

And he said, what kind of milk do you want?

And I was like, dairy.

And he didn't know what I meant.

And I was like, you know, like 2%, whatever, whole, whatever you've got.

And he's like, okay, let me check.

We've got soy, oat, and

skim.

And I was like, skim, I guess.

Weird.

Because skim is not a good

thing.

And

it was

not good.

No, you want a 2% or higher.

Usually, if you're going to go with it, just go with a hole.

Go for it.

Yeah.

They didn't have it.

That's so weird.

No hole.

No hole.

Like

nothing.

Like a certain birth effect.

Mine comes courtesy of being

walking through Douglas Park

community area, and there's a big jungle gym there.

And when I walk past, there was a kid standing up on the highest point of the jungle gym, and then three kids at the bottom.

And they were kind of getting him to jump off.

And they started singing, I want to wish you a happy landing.

They were all singing, and it was great.

Yeah, and I didn't see the kid jump, but it was great.

It was a great.

I hope he did have a happy landing.

Yeah, for sure.

I want to wish him that.

I started watching, and I will continue later, but the final

late show with David Letterman Christmas episode.

Oh, with what is Carol?

Cain, what's always like?

No, it's

who sings Merry Christmas, Please Come Home.

I want to say Darlene Love.

Darlene Love.

Nice.

And it's always like the Christmas episode always had the same things.

It had

Darlene Love.

It had Paul Schaeffer did his impression of Sherd singing Ooh, Holy Night.

How have I never seen this?

It always has,

what's his face?

Jay

Leno?

No.

Pharaoh?

What was the actor's name?

He was on.

Boy.

Oh, my God.

Can't be Barochell.

It's not Barochell.

He's Jay Moore.

It's not Jay Moore.

We're running out of game.

We're saying all the Jays.

Was he, I think he was the guy who played Carla's husband on Cheers.

Oh, that's...

Yeah, I don't know.

And he would always come on.

Jay Kaskuzzi or something like that.

No,

Jay Thomas.

Oh, yeah.

You would know Jay Thomas.

Yeah.

And every year he came on and told his story of

his Lone Ranger story.

Right.

Which is a classic story he told every year on Letterman.

And then they would,

there would be a meatball meatball on top of the Christmas tree, and he and David Letterman would try to hit it off with a football.

And it's a,

I found it on YouTube.

It's a great Christmas tradition.

It's, it's, that's how traditions are born.

Just one stupid thing happens once, and you're like, we're going to

do this forever until we hate it.

My brother-in-law had one that he was trying to start with his kids.

And I think it was like a really good idea.

It was like very sweet, is he would take a branch from last year's Christmas tree.

So, you know, take the branch from 2024's Christmas tree, and then they would have a fire before they decorated the next tree and they would put that branch in the fire.

Okay.

And he like invented that.

And I was like, that's cool.

That's really

sounds like a tradition.

All of his traditions he invents have something to do with fire, though.

Yeah, he's a bit of a pyro.

Yeah.

That's

otherwise great guy.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

He burns down just a wonderful father.

Yeah.

Mostly abandoned buildings.

He blows.

Mostly.

Yeah.

He has this sort of Wickerman thing he's come up with.

But yeah.

But the Letterman tradition was they had

every year the Christmas tree would have like a pizza on top and a meatball and a bunch of like stupid decorations.

And they got the one of the like the quarterback for the New York Jets was the guest.

And he's like, well, why don't we try to knock that meatball off with some footballs?

And the quarterback was missing.

all of them.

Oh, shit.

And then Jay Thomas was like the next guest on.

Get out of my way.

He ran out, grabbed a football, and got it in one.

Dinged it.

Yeah.

I love it.

Now, we also have overheard sentences to us by people all over the map.

If you want to send one in, send it into sby at maximumfun.org.

And this first one comes from Andrew C from Vancouver.

I was at the West End Seniors Aging with Pride celebration of the gay community, and drag performer Toddy was singing as Julie Andrews.

Okay.

They were going to perform perform,

going to perform another song song and asked the crowd to guess what celebrity they were going to do next.

And a little old lady shouted out, Meatloaf.

Julie Andrews, the meatloaf.

We cover it all here.

Was this a Christmas thing?

No, it's just called Aging with Pride.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

I mean, Julie Andrews, she fits in the Christmas, right?

Although she didn't sing any specifically Christmas songs.

My favorite things has become a Christmas song.

Yeah, sound of music is associated with Christmas for some reason.

I think I play it on TV.

Is there Christmas scenes in it?

I don't.

I don't know.

No, but it does.

It feels like it belongs in the holiday

catalog.

And it's like I've I know Toddy, a very, very talented performer.

Went to school for opera, if I'm not.

Yes, a beautiful, beautiful singing voice, and so can do Julie Andrews very well.

So the thought that someone would see Toddy's dainty little frame and yell out, meet Lil after hearing them do Julie Andrews is hilarious.

I would do anything for love.

Sing that specific song.

I also love the idea of Toddy doing Paradise by the Dashboard Lights in front of a bunch of bewildered old gays.

I just think that's a wonderful image.

Yeah,

if I only got to hear one Meatloa song, what would it be?

Probably the song he does in Rawdy Horror Picture Show.

Yes, absolutely.

What's the one that's like objects in the rear view mirror are closer than they appear?

Is that not Paradise by the Dashboard Light?

I don't know.

i think it's they're all uh about cars and motorcycles yeah yeah he's uh he had a thing that he was like i don't know how he became famous but like i like a lot of his songs but i just don't know there was a good against all odds that he'd become a famous person there was a totally good episode of what was it called

uh

there's a podcast about like the charts and every episode would be about a different person or a different phenomenon.

Chris Melanthy, who was the host, I can't remember the name of the show, but they did one about Meatloaf and the guy who wrote all his songs, Jim Steinman.

And he also wrote,

like, he had like 10 versions of Total Eclipse of the Heart that he wrote before Bonnie Tyler got famous with it.

And Meatloaf wanted to record it so bad and it wouldn't let him.

Speaking of Bonnie Tyler and Meatloaf, she was supposed to be the female vocalist on I Would Do Anything for Love, but for some reason it didn't work out.

And so the woman who sings the vocals on that only got paid like a studio session fee because it was supposed to be a demo.

Oh, wow.

And he used it, and that song went like 28 times platinum, and she never got royalties from it.

Really?

Yeah.

So Bernie.

What happened to Lewin Davis?

Yeah.

He had a hard time.

He had a hard time.

He was supposed to get paid for that astronaut song.

Did you, was the woman who sang that song the woman in the video?

No.

No, they used a model in the video.

They sure did.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That was in that 90s phase of like where Martha Wash sang every great chorus and they just used some model in her place, Justice for Martha Wash.

It was actually me.

It was you?

Yeah.

You hit it.

You hit it bro.

I forgot the notes.

No.

I tried to find, I tried to get to the bottom of this, and I didn't get a satisfactory answer.

Is who did the rapping on Black and White, the Black or White Michael Jackson song?

Oh, that's a great trivia question, and I can't remember it.

It's not somebody famous, though.

It's like I looked it up up and I didn't find it was like weird.

You mean to tell me that wasn't actually Macaulay Culkin?

No, it was Macaulay Culkin.

They aged up this voice,

but I want to know what name he did it under.

It's a turf war on a global scale.

I want to hear both sides of the tail.

You got notes and rhymes.

It was MC's cat cat.

Yeah, oh, yeah, he worked with Apollo Dewell and Michael Jackson before dying of an overdose.

This next one comes from

Andrea from Pittsburgh.

This is from a conversation between my husband and daughter about whether she wanted to go by a nickname.

She was about four years old.

Husband, you want to be called Sky or Skyler, daughter?

Just call me the truth of death.

Okay.

All right.

As you wish.

Now that I know that's what you want to be called, I'm freaked out a little.

That's like,

that's heavy even for my adult men friends who I mostly just call Kev.

Sky or Skylar?

Neither.

Did you ever have a nickname?

Gray?

Crazy.

Cray Zone?

You know, there was a lot of

Clark Barr, Graham Cracker.

Graham Cracker.

And there was also Grambo was one that a couple of people call me.

Most of the Grahams I've known, I've referred to as Grambo.

The Grahams that I worked with have always been Grambling.

Gramelam is one that I got, you know, I think.

Oh, Blackberry.

The Gremlin?

no never the gremlin but that's good that is good i would accept the gremlin okay from now on moving forward so you and me thing yeah and you steve as uh i'm guessing steve with three e's right yeah exactly just yeah uh i got i got a lot of um steve-o uh in high school but stevie from my family stevie yeah yeah steve-o-like i feel like that was a common one but i feel like steve-o the guy kind of took that away from everybody.

Totally.

Like now you can't be Steve-O.

There's only one Stevie.

Well, the drummer from Sum 41 also went by Steve-O.

And it's just at the same time with the same haircut, same teeth.

They did have the same haircut.

Yeah.

Finally, we have this one from Aaron A.

from Charlottetown, PEI.

My 10-year-old gets $5 a week for a few light chores.

Recently, he started doing the morning dishes.

I told him that we could raise his allowance to $7 if he does the dishes without putting up a fight.

He countered with, how about six with a fight?

Well, you're already getting five with a fight.

I know, but we're the negotiation.

I'm fine with six.

I'll take six, but I got to still cause a ruckus here.

I respect it.

Yeah.

Pay him what he's worth.

I wonder how far apart the postal strike is from getting resolved before Christmas.

For people who don't know, there's a big strike in Canada.

I ordered things offline and they're never going to get here.

Why did you order them offline?

Because my house is wireless.

And by that, I mean there's no wires in my house.

Okay.

What did that have to do with the blanks overheard?

Oh, just negotiation.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

Well, in addition to overheards that are written, and we also accept your phone calls.

If you want to call us, our phone number is 1-844-779-7631.

That's one

SpyPod 1, like these people have.

Hi, this is Deborah from Reston, Virginia.

I have an overheard in the kids say the darnest category.

We just had American Thanksgiving, and my husband asked my five-year-old nephew what he was thankful for,

and he said, my penis.

And my husband said, oh, because you're a boy.

And he said, I'm thankful for my penis because it helps me pee.

And I'm thankful for my butt because it helps me poop.

Classic.

This is classic.

Off I go.

Any chance to insert pee or poo into the conversation.

My butt doesn't help me poop.

I help it.

It's like,

it's doing all.

I mean, it's kind of the boss.

Yeah, and you know what?

Penis can help you pee.

It's one of the great.

One of the great functions of the penis.

Absolutely.

Top three.

Top three best.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Let's go through the top ten.

Popcorn bucket prank.

Sure, that the prank that one of the Fairleigh brothers would do.

The wristwatch?

Yeah, he would hold it over his wrist and say to Cameron, do you like my new wristwatch?

Also, in the Fairleigh brothers canon, zipping your penis into the when you're zipping up your pants.

I saw something about Mary in the theaters with my father

when I was like 12 or 13.

So like just the most awkward pubescent age at all to watch that kind of shit with your dad sitting right beside you.

Yeah, the jizz stuff, I think, would be harder than the mangled penis.

Yeah.

I think the mangled penis was maybe the biggest laugh I've ever witnessed in a movie theater.

How'd you get the beans above the frank?

It's just gray writing.

It's just solid.

All right.

Here's your next phone call.

Hey, Dave Graham and guests.

This is Brent from Colorado.

I was just shopping grocery store and this lady had left her buggy at the end of an aisle, so I couldn't get out.

And I just, you know, sat over the car, hey, ma'am, excuse me.

And she turned around and looked at her buggy and she goes, I'm sorry.

I just saw these donuts and I don't know what I'm doing anymore.

All right, off I go.

Nice.

That was mostly for the ending.

Someone leaves their buggy in the aisle.

And you need to get by it.

Do you go, you say, excuse me, ma'am, or do you just push it?

I push it.

You move it politely.

Yeah, you don't just like, yeah.

I mean, if I have also got a buggy, clang, clang, clang.

Damn it.

Yeah, I think pushing it aside is, that's fair play.

And

it's less rude than leaving your buggy in the middle of an aisle.

Yeah, which is

I sometimes will like find an aisle,

like a less busy aisle and leave mine there.

Yeah.

What's the least busy aisle in the grocery store?

It's the ones that are.

No, it's the ones ones that are like, you know, more sort of pharmacy products.

Oh, yeah.

Sure.

Like L'Oreal and whatnot.

Or just like the...

You know, toilet paper.

Oh, sure.

I don't use toilet paper.

I just use L'Oreal.

That's my, it's my go-to.

Well, you don't use toilet paper because you got no wires at your business.

Two things at Graham's house.

No wires, no TP.

Yeah.

It's all offline.

I think I might have taken that wires joke from the office now that I think about it.

But you know what?

They've got all the residuals I can make a joke of.

That should be allowed.

Free, right?

Fair game.

They got all the money off the joke.

I should be able to do some of their jokes.

I think that's what she said, right?

This is good.

Hi, Dave, Graham, and guest.

It's Heather from Vancouver again.

Calling with an overseeing.

I just saw a HelloFresh truck parked outside of an apartment building where

and then another HelloFresh truck pulled up and the guy got out.

And as he was approaching the building, the other HelloFresh driver came out and they saw each other and were like, hey, hey, so happy to see each other and hugged.

So I guess a HelloFresher family.

Very wholesome.

Thanks.

That's nice.

I like the idea of

workers of a company that maybe don't even know each other just hugging on site.

They probably knew each other, but probably.

Sometimes you'll see like bus drivers give each other the like a little wave and I always think, do they know each each other from bus school

or or conversely sometimes you'll see like a bus driver who's off duty or about to start the shift just walk onto a bus and walk right by and go to the back and I'm like oh are they fighting do they hate oh yeah they're not hanging warring drivers it's uh the craziest thing about driving the bus is like the bathroom situation like you have to pinpoint somewhere that will let you use the bathroom every day right like i i found when our neighbor's house was under construction how many like delivery drivers saw construction sites, knew there would be a port-a-potty, and

that's the trick of the trade.

Yeah.

Construction houses are a place you can pee.

Yeah.

You know what?

You can just pee around them, too, because the house isn't built yet.

That's true.

So it becomes part of the house.

And a lot of, you know, pee on the windows.

Yeah.

Give them a test run.

Yeah, because they're going to want, a lot of them still have a little film on them, too.

Oh, yes.

And just peel right off.

Yeah.

Perfect.

Oh, did you, when this house was built, do you get to peel off any

plastic from anything?

Because that would be the saddest.

You peeled off the entire roof.

Still have the plastic cover on it?

Well, this house was built out of an iPhone, so I got to take off.

They should at least leave one thing for you to do if they put in new windows or something.

So saddest.

We left it on this one if you want to peel it.

Oh, thanks, guys.

I do like what I love is

a product I did not know had a plastic film on it till three years in, and I'm like, there's a freaking plastic film I can take off this microwave.

The microwave, exactly.

Or even just like the microwave pad, like the button pad.

And then it works a little bit better, just a tiny bit.

Well, that brings us to the end of this episode.

Steve, thank you so much for being our guest.

Thank you for having me.

This was really fun.

And like we said before, you have a show once a month at Little Mountain Company.

Confession Booth Comedy, 9.30 p.m.

on the second Thursday of every month.

And my special Endless Bummer is available on YouTube.

Oh, Endless Bummer.

And you also have one called Burger Queen from 2020, and then this past year, Endless Bummer.

Nice.

Well, thank you, and thank you, everybody out there, for listening.

You know what?

Take a moment to explore your house and see if there's anything that has a plastic film on it and just rip that baby right off.

Oh, go slow.

Go slow.

Oh, yeah, go slow.

That's true.

It's not a band-aid.

And come on back next week for another episode of Stock Podcasting Yourself.

Maximum Fun, a worker-owned network of artist-owned shows supported directly by you.