#642: Summer Camp

Love oh boy action,

and you could use that as a weekly quote.

Somebody drove a short bus into the lake.

It was moist, sticky, thick.

You bet it was.

Tell him, Steve, Dave.

Hello, and welcome to this week's edition of Tell him Steve Dave.

We got BQ here.

Hello.

We got Walt here.

Yo.

Got to get him here, of course.

Howdy all.

How you stanking?

Special guest, Johnny Law.

Johnny Law, everyone.

Hey, Johnny Law is here.

Happy to be back.

He made it back.

He made it back from where?

From the

did everybody listening to this know the adventure?

That was this is a show.

Any idea what happened?

Except for my close friends who I tried to snag into this until Johnny graciously accepted.

So

once a year?

No, it's

three years since the last one.

Okay, so

I think we decided

like every year is a little too

uh nobody knows what you're talking about.

Yeah, yeah, sorry, sorry.

Um,

so I went to a summer camp in my uh in the early 90s, it's a science summer camp for all boys.

How old would you have been like when you attended this camp?

What were the ages?

So it was 92, 93, 94, 95.

So I think we uh we age out at 16, but I was allowed to go at 17 because my birthday was in June.

So

big dick swinging

13 to 17, 13 to 17.

13 to 17.

It was a science camp.

Science summer camp opened since 1963.

And it was.

And how'd you get in?

Because of your massive fucking IQ?

Like an experiment or something?

Did you have to write an essay?

My parents saw an ad in Boys Life magazine and wanted to get rid of me for a month.

Got you.

The check cleared.

Yeah.

So you could be.

The camp was a month?

It was, oh, there was three sessions.

There was eight weeks, six weeks, and four weeks.

So you did them all?

No, I did the last four weeks.

The last four weeks.

So they didn't screen

any of

the kids or the boys going in.

Like you could have just stepped off the shirt bus and attended science camp.

Like you went you went to school on the shirt bus for 12 or six months, then you went to this mensa camp.

Yeah.

Keeps dropping in the short bus.

But

they were like, anybody's welcome.

Probably as long as the check clears.

It wasn't for the gifted and talented or super.

No, there was gifted kids there.

But they weren't actively pursuing them, though.

No, I don't think, yeah, it's not like some supermensication.

Right, okay.

So I went there in the 90s.

We loved it.

I loved it.

I loved it.

Some people didn't like it that I loved it, but we'll get into that later.

At 13, like if your parents suggested science camp to you, how would you have felt about it?

For a month, all boy action.

As if you didn't have enough all-boy action in school.

I love all-boy action.

And you could use that as a weekly quote.

I think at 13, I would have rather been running around on my bikes with my friends, running around Staten Island, than going to

a camp like that.

But I can't say that I don't see the appeal of it.

I do.

I wouldn't say I don't know why somebody would do it.

I get it.

I think it would be fun.

I didn't really have a lot of friends in my neighborhood.

You probably did.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

So you were happy to go to camp.

Yeah.

So around eventually, for some reason, summer camp starts becoming less popular.

I guess people, you know.

With the other kids, you mean?

No, with kids and parents in general.

There's going to be a lot of scandals, right?

A lot of touch up.

No, no, no.

It's just

camp counselors getting in charge.

There's this one older camper.

It's the rise of phones.

Somebody drove a short bus into the lake.

I don't even think he's supposed to be here.

He's like 17.

One 19-year-old camper says, who cares?

I still love it.

Science, yo.

Well, those campers become counselors.

So why is it falling a favor?

You think?

Because it's girls and other interests.

Well, no, I've read articles.

It's parents have this, just like stranger danger has increased over the years.

Parents are like, we don't want to be away because there was no phones at the camp.

Right.

Unless an emergency,

you would send letters back and forth home.

And I think

a lot of parents became very paranoid about sending someone away for

30 days.

Yeah.

And so they had to start closing some of the cabins.

And then eventually

attendance was yeah

started dropping and then they in 2019 they hit a point uh after the 2019 session they announced the closure fuck that's still a long time you went from the 90s to 2019 no 60s from this why no but since you went though yes i thought you meant in the 90s they closed that and that's why you didn't go at 18 no no no i couldn't no i couldn't go it was the cutoff date the cutoff age was 16.

all right so i got to go at 17 because my birthday was in june so but in 2019 they decided to close the camp but keep it open as a outdoor facility that people could rent so we decided to have a reunion that year or in 2020.

Who's we?

And then COVID.

The alumni.

You were involved in the decision-making?

Well, yeah.

People were like, we're interested in coming.

We found out about a third hand.

Did you wrangle people?

Did you rally people, old people, to come and be like, hey, we're going to do that.

I'm setting this up.

Like, the curator set up his ant-meet.

Did you set up the reunion?

No,

someone suggested in the Facebook group that we're going to be.

There's no waiting.

Oh, someone said yes?

Because

they're not going to have it if there's no interest.

They set it up.

And you attended.

They set it up.

I agreed that I wanted to go.

I showed interest.

And we organized that we wanted to go.

But then 2020, COVID happened.

We had another one in 2021.

And you fucking smart-ass motherfuckers couldn't figure a way to do it around COVID?

You didn't want to do that.

What if scientists couldn't get together and fucking

bring the brightest and best of

a giant superstar guy?

What's up?

No, no, no, just to figure out a cure, man.

What's the fun when you're running around in fucking masks and shit?

So we had it in 2023.

No, no, it's 2022.

Sorry, 2022 was the first one.

Thank God you're getting these facts correct.

Yeah.

It's higher.

Someone's going to be aware of that.

There are people that are going to check in and be like, bullshit, it's all a lie.

I'm a little mentally drained.

The camp still stands as it stood back then.

Exactly as it stood back then.

And same owners, they just rented out to like weddings.

Owner's original name was Don Wacker.

He died.

Dave Whacker took over, and now his son, Dave Jr., runs it

still in the family.

Tiniest Whacker.

I would not want my last name to be Whacker.

Don't Jr.

Okay.

Childhood.

Don had two children: Dave and Richard.

Dick and Whacker.

I told this to John.

He didn't believe me.

We got to camp and someone brought it up.

And I was like, see, are those the two most sheltered parents in history that they don't realize, hey, maybe we shouldn't call him Richard?

Right.

Like, are they that clueless and like sheltered from

the world?

I can say this.

When I got you know got to the property, the whole vibe there is like the most wholesome kind of Walton-esque

situation.

It's almost saccharine.

It's so so if somebody were to pull out a dick whacker joke, they would be looked at.

They'd be like,

I don't look at this thing solely making fun of poor dick.

I think after hours, after hours, you can get away with a joke like that,

but not during like the five.

Yeah, yeah.

So

this was the second

annual reunion.

Well, no, the second reunion.

An overnight affair.

Yes.

Okay.

And they knew you were bringing a date?

No.

Well, apparently they thought I was bringing my son.

Yeah.

Well, tell the history.

Like, how it came to be

some mother.

Johnny Law attended.

I mean,

it must be different mothers.

So how long in advance do you know you need to bring your plus one?

They announced it it a couple months after the last.

So you're like, you're scrambling.

I got to bring a plus one.

No, I wanted to, after that first time, I wanted to bring a plus one because, like, you want to tell stories.

And when the people there know the stories, it's not as enthralling.

You want an audience.

Yes, an audience.

Someone to share this joy with me.

Yeah.

We heard about the boots in 22.

We don't want to get it.

The strangers weren't really willing to pretend to be interested in what he said.

So he needed to kind of bring someone.

Someone.

And he could share that.

These are stories.

campsite stories.

Yeah, yeah.

So, was there a girls' camp that you guys raided across the lake?

No, no, no.

There was a girls' camp.

We had a sister camp called Camp Onika, but supposedly there were dances with them, but I never really got invited to those, I guess.

Gotcha.

So,

the first person

by your side at that time.

I did not have Johnny Law.

You sued for discrimination.

So, the first person I asked is Lindsay.

And now, this is two years ago I asked her.

Lindsay, the one who saved Chuck's mom's life was a guest.

And somehow in my head, I thought that she's like, Haven't I done enough?

Again, this is two years ago.

You gave the kidney, so I didn't have to go.

I think I'm going to give him that kidney, or oh shit, no, I really got to give that kidney.

I got to get out of this.

Well, get him.

You asked her two years ago for this particular weekend.

Yes.

I mean, if someone asked me to do something in two years, I'd be like, what are you like?

Talk to me six months away or something.

No,

I want to make sure you can get the time off and everything else like that.

She might have been at a different job.

Okay, well, she could put it in her calendar.

We have calendars.

So I asked her, and I thought.

I thought it was hurt that he wasn't the first choice right there.

Fuck her.

Who is this, Lindsay?

I thought she had agreed, and then I brought it up, and she was like,

She's like, I never said I would go.

So I went back and checked her messages, and she never actually agreed.

She said, let me think about it.

So now I'm scrambling to find somebody.

Right.

So my first thought, someone suggested Steve from Reviewing History.

And I kind of hemmed and hogged because I'm like, well, what if people think I'm gay?

Because I'm coming up there with a guy.

Yeah.

And then Walt.

Well, what if people think you're gay?

I would just feel weird.

Like, that's not me.

Then Walt did what?

You kind of assuaged my fears that people would think that I was gay.

Oh, yeah.

If I brought a guy up.

I would not think that's the first.

No.

What is the first then?

These are close buddies.

You know,

they're into the actual.

Pals.

They look like they would pal around together.

A caretaker, perhaps.

A make-a-wish.

But then Steve got out because he had a family obligation.

Walt offered to come.

I did offer to go.

I cleared my schedule.

And I have a feeling that

he was thinking ahead and and being like,

he doesn't want to hear the stories.

He's going to get miserable and he's going to be, and I'm going to scene.

And I'm going to leave on Friday night and not even make it to Saturday.

Yeah, we agreed in the first meal, you'd be out.

There's no chicken tenders there.

There's no french fries.

But I stepped up and I was like, I felt bad because he was scrambling and nobody would say yes.

And I was like, if you can't find anybody, I'll go.

What a good friend.

I thought so.

So then I reached, I asked Jimmy.

Jimmy never got back.

No, no, I asked Natalie, Chuck's girlfriend, if she wanted to go.

Yeah, and but before and you were really, really worried that people were going to think you were homosexual, right?

No, no, again,

it was something that was on your mind constantly.

No, you got it out of my head that would happen.

Rubbing your back, telling you no one's going to think you're a gay boy.

It's okay, gay boy.

It's all right.

You're a manly man.

You slay that pussy.

Everybody knows it.

Yeah, and then it gets caught.

They're like, all right, get him, let's hear your pussy stories.

Oh, no.

I I walked into a woman at QS in the bathroom.

That counts right.

I still think about it every night.

So I asked Natalie and I asked Johnny Law, and Johnny was the first person to get back.

Like within a minute, he was like, Yeah, I'm in.

Yeah.

You're an outdoorsman.

I love this stuff.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That was the other criteria.

I was trying to find people who

would enjoy the outdoors.

Right.

Like, no air conditioning I felt would have probably put Walt out a bit.

There was a lot.

There was no air conditioning this weekend.

I have to to say.

No.

Holmes.

Wow.

I don't think you would have enjoyed this.

Not a single piece of it.

Not one piece of this would you have enjoyed?

Because there'd be other stuff that was happening that would have destroyed your ability to enjoy what was going on.

The food.

How do you guys think he would have liked rotating games?

Rotating games, I think he would have liked.

Okay.

But how do you guys handle that kind of environment where there's, especially at this past weekend, it was moist, sticky, thick.

You bet it was.

At night.

Wait, what were the sleeping arrangements?

Cabins.

Two to a cabin?

No, it's a cabin for you could hold eight people.

There are three total in there.

So you're sleeping with strangers.

Well, one stranger, I'm a singer.

In the same room, or is it, or is it you have your own room?

It's one big kind of room.

Like with bunk beds?

Bunk beds.

Holy fuck.

I did.

I did.

Well, you would have told me.

Can you imagine it happening?

I'm going to say, I did tell Lindsay that I could probably arrange for her to have a different cabin than mine.

Okay.

So, like, we would not, it would be like a totally.

Oh, get him.

I don't think anybody is thinking that you

would be it at all disrespectful.

Sorry, yeah, not a complete jolly.

The first reunion there, after the first night, my cabmate was like, I hate to say this, but I have to leave.

Your snoring is so bad.

I couldn't sleep at all.

Okay.

So I'm like, okay, I'm good with my own private cabin.

Right.

So I could just, you know, bounce off the walls there.

So you left Johnny Law alone with the other person?

No, no, this was my first time.

Oh, a couple years ago.

Oh, a couple years ago.

I had to leave.

Yeah, I very much got to witness the snoring.

The snoring, really, yeah.

Well, so did Walt, right?

When you were in Florida, right?

Yeah.

We slept many nights in our hotel, and

it is shocking that he's not still alive the way that he snores.

Like, he has that apnea snow.

Oh, my God.

He needs Cerebro from fucking

X-Men.

He needs that over his face.

He needs some massive.

Yeah, what do they call those machines?

A CPAP.

Yeah, CPAP.

Why don't you try that?

I gotta go for the map.

You have to go to probably a doctor.

Yeah, yeah.

You can't buy one of Goodwill.

That's the road

market.

Yeah.

Yeah, any Victorian breathing machines?

Coyote fellows.

So you came down here, you met up with Giddam, and then you guys drove from here together.

What's your first reaction when you get this text that you'd like to do?

Is this real?

I was driving, actually.

I was taking my parents out for their anniversary.

My wife's in the car, and my parents, and like on the screen, it pops up, you know, hey, do you want to come to this camp?

All that stuff.

So I go, can I go to the summer camp?

So I was like, you know, can I go to the summer camp with

Giddam?

Are we doing anything that week?

Because my wife kind of like knows what

everything's going on.

So she's like, yeah, that's fine.

And my parents are like, what are you doing?

They're like, I'm going to go to a summer camp with

this guy, Giddem.

And they're like, oh, okay.

Like, very strange.

But I was like, but they know you're an outdoorsy time.

Yeah.

This isn't a gay man you're going with, is it?

Is he a bear?

And

so I was like thrilled to do this because he told me there'd be fishing.

I sent you a link to that to the end.

And he was right.

It was a great time.

I really did have a blast.

And what's the missus thing?

Because you don't really, I mean, your only time you spent with Gidham is with the time you've been here.

So you're really going.

No, they hung out in Key Western.

Oh, that's right.

i forgot yes i was near you okay so all right i take it back so the missus knows that you're yeah okay you know she's like um

you know she's like obviously you know she's she's pregnant now oh congratulations

man you know she's like obviously my number one priority should be going to the summer camp yes

yeah well but he asked me two years ago

once that baby comes you won't be having time for summer camp shenanigans right we'll see you know how far along.

I like that she's like three months along now.

Well, technically, at the next reunion, she was thrilled, by the way, when I was out of the house.

His wife and baby.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

There was a lot of families there.

So many families.

If you can get my wife to stay in one of those cabins, I'll give you $1,000.

You fucking might as well sleep in a spider's web.

Yeah.

No, it's a very clean.

It's a very clean place.

McIdem, you're very concerned that people were going to think you're a homosexual, but if you brought Lindsay or you brought Natalie, very quickly it would have been evident that you guys were just friends.

So maybe they would think that you were just their gay friend.

Yeah, possibly.

No matter what, people are going to think you're gay going to this cat.

So I have to ask, though,

did I put the seed of asking Johnny in your head?

Because I remember one afternoon where we were driving somewhere and I said, here's what you do, Genem.

You asked Johnny to go in your place and pretend that he's you

and that you got some work done.

You got your teeth fixed and you got your shit together.

Oh, we could have put an earpiece in it.

So Kenneth could have told them what to say and do.

He said, you go and say in the wood, you sleep in the woods and you watch everything from afar, and then you realize all of a sudden Lindsay has decided she will attend.

She's going to be sleeping in a cabin with Johnny Law.

And everybody, and you're holding.

So does Natalie.

Which would not have been out of place, you know.

Oh, yeah.

There was an arrangement like this.

What?

Yes.

So my first year there, I saw this guy there with two women.

And I thought that, like, one was a spouse and the other one was a friend.

Right.

But then, like, after camp, I kind of like you roll it over in your head.

And I'm like, I wonder if they were like a tricouple.

Like a thruple.

Is that legal in New Jersey?

We weren't in New Jersey.

I mean, I don't think they were married.

Oh, that was in Pennsylvania.

That was in New Jersey.

I don't think they were married.

So they were just together.

They were partners kind of thing.

But they were back this year and like through overhearing, like they were an actual

so this guy who's scored two women, he's got two gals on each arm.

Yeah, well, one guy, he's the fucking smartest guy in that fucking camp.

How did he fucking handle that?

Well, you gotta get a little bit of a bunch of stuff.

You gotta see the women first.

Oh, no.

Oh, no.

No, no, no, no.

Was he the most popular?

They might listen.

They might listen.

Was he the most popular dude in the camp?

Not that.

Was he somebody like that?

Dude's fucking got some Riz.

He was

in the land of the blind.

He was one-eyed man is king.

Yeah, he was late 90s.

All right.

Yeah.

Wow, two women.

Yeah, it was, and you know, he brings both just to show off.

He's like, oh, you brought your wife?

My wives.

Yeah.

Look at how not gay I am.

It seems like that's all they care about is this camp.

Well, they took off for a full day.

You sure wasn't a gay conversion camp they sent you to?

You're just not aware.

They took off for a full day to go like antiquing.

Sure.

Yeah.

They did.

Apparently, the world's largest uranium glass museum is in Pennsylvania, close by the camp.

All right.

So, did you know that there would be no air conditioning?

Yeah.

You need it, and you're like, I figured there would be no power in the cabins.

So, I was ready.

But you're like, you do that.

Yeah, I like that.

You go into the middle of the wilderness with a satellite phone and nothing else.

Well, yeah, other gears.

So, is this like the Four Seasons then?

No, the Four Seasons is still the Four Seasons.

You know, I still like the Foreseas.

But it's still in his cabin, though.

Yeah, it was better accommodations than I anticipated.

Nice.

So, you have power, water, toilets, everything's in every cabin, you know, know, hot water,

grave, yeah.

So, what they do now is it's an outdoor facility.

So, for apparently three months a year, they rent it out to a Jewish summer camp.

Yeah, so they don't have to, you know, the Jewish summer camp runs everything, and they just collect the check for the

facilities.

But they have a rock wall, uh, climbing course, uh, archery, the lake, so many things.

So, who's the first person that you walk up on and introduce Johnny to?

The camp director's son, Dave Jr.

So, you go to check in.

Whacker?

Whacker.

Dave Whacker Jr., yes.

D-Whacker.

So he's like, oh, oh, he's like, okay, I was so confused.

He goes, I thought you had a son.

I was confusing you with somebody else who had a similar name.

But

I think we, my impression of this whole first meeting,

I really thought that you really knew these guys, like really knew these people and that they knew you really well.

I was expecting

him to walk up and they'd be like, oh,

How have you been?

How's it going?

It's like, there was people didn't know he even went to the camp.

I kind of felt bad for Giddam because Giddam was like on the drive down saying, you know, oh, like, these are some of the greatest guys.

And like, there was this closeness and stuff like that.

And then the first person he meets is kind of like, which one are you?

Dave Wacker didn't know you.

And Dave Wacker Jr.

didn't know you.

Well, he was after your time.

Well, he's, yeah, that was a good time.

Senior would have known you, though.

Senior, yeah, senior knows you.

Yeah.

Well, you used to, did you get talked to a lot in camp?

Oh, yeah.

Did he get in trouble this weekend?

No.

People.

So there were a lot of counselors that attended this, you know, and these counselors would have been Giddam's counselors.

And

how many attendees do you think would you put at this weekend?

How many were there?

70.

Whoa.

Wow.

70

with all the kids and everything?

I don't think it was.

I could pull up the photo, maybe.

I don't know.

Yeah.

Okay.

I don't think it was 70.

I could be wrong.

But yeah.

I was thinking more like 40.

40.

Still.

Still, you know.

But I might be wrong.

But the counselors were really impressed, I think, with how Giddam has changed over the years because one of them described Giddam as a camper, as an insufferable asshole.

Wow.

I really was expecting to go there and be like, oh.

Johnny, can you aim that up at your mouth a little bit more?

No, just tilt the microphone.

Just tilt the microphone.

The actual mic itself.

Nope, nope.

Yeah,

there you go.

There you go.

So I was really expecting it to be like

a frat reunion or something like that.

Everyone's like, but it was very clear right from the start that

no one really liked Giddam.

Why?

What'd you do?

That's harsh.

And I felt really bad about that.

Didn't like him back then or now?

No, they really like him now.

Oh, well, that's all right.

That feels well that ends right.

What were you doing back then to cause people to hate you so much?

I was a horrific asshole.

What were some of the things you did that?

Like, I was just, I would not do what I was told.

Like, I so, what would you do then?

The exact opposite.

Okay, give us an example of what you did.

That

I want to know what it was.

Asshole is a strong word, yeah.

But it's correct.

Especially for everyone to be unified in it.

I had a problem with my

junior counselor so much that my counselor made him

put me on his back and carry him around a field to try to make himself

definitely a gay camp

they used to do this run or something they would they would be running somewhere because we had this whole conversation with the counselor and

everyone in the camp would be running and get him would just stop and say i'm done and refuse to run anymore right so in order to kind of create some type of accountability and bonding the accountor was instructed to pick at him up, put him on his back, and keep running so he could stay with the group.

But he would just, you know, he would just basically say, How heavy was this counselor?

Weren't you 17?

No, this was that's probably going to have I was about 16 or 18.

So you have a grown man on your back?

No, no, no.

His grown man is carrying.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, he's carrying me.

Because he's refusing to run.

Oh my gosh.

Why would you?

And you were okay with this?

Like, you were okay with that.

I haven't had to crawl inside a man's hand.

This I don't remember so much, but Colin told me to do it.

Did somehow be by the end of the race, were you facing face to face?

You were making out as you're

running around the field.

They should have just put

a Kentucky fried chicken bucket on a fishing pole and bangled it in front of him.

So that's the photo from the.

Wow.

So wait, when this guy would carry you about, so he told you the story.

You got the story.

I got the story.

Get him was there.

So if, yeah, but he doesn't want to tell it.

I could tell it.

I was also drinking a little, so.

So when they carried him,

he would just be like, nah, I'm done.

And then the guy that had to carry him was there?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So did you ask questions?

Were you like, what's it like to carry this loaf?

So he was just like, he's like, I didn't want to do it.

He goes, but Colin thought it would be a good idea to kind of make, force him to kind of be a part of what was happening.

And then I think they assumed that, well, this is.

What kid wants to be carried by another man?

Like, eventually he'll get off and just run away.

Yeah, what kid

wants wants to get shamed about how office the mess he is week after week.

Woodkid, we could do whatever you want.

We could say it any way you want.

Yeah, this is a pattern of behavior.

Yeah.

No, it's not even a pattern.

It's just the behavior.

Yeah, so they tried lots of different things, but he was,

by all accounts, campers and counselors, very, very different.

Now, why did you like it, the camp so much if this was the kind of behavior and attitude you were permeating?

Universally loathe.

I did have some friends.

They just didn't happen to be there, like Babatunde.

This is the guy's.

Oh, this is the guy that went to Thanksgiving or something?

He was from Africa or something?

Nigeria.

Nigeria?

Yeah.

I thought it was the name of a tree for a second.

No, Babatunde, yes, F.

Like, I had some friends that came up.

He's going by the name of Steve Davidson right now.

That's why your credit's so fucked up.

You stole away back then.

So I had a small like insular group of friends, and that's kind of who I would hang out with.

But would you say, did you get the sense, Johnny-Law, that he was like that every year?

And every year he'd come back and be like, motherfucker, this guy's back.

So

I don't know that there was any improvement that was so big from year to year that the counselors weren't like,

like a little bit of.

Are there any other examples?

Did you gather any other facts?

Well, there was another one where, so everyone has chores that they have to do.

Right.

And, you know, you spin a wheel or whatever, and you've got to do those chores.

That's assigned to you.

And so people are,

you know, sweeping the counter.

You have to do this too?

No, no, no, no.

This is in the past.

Oh, in the past.

Oh, okay.

This is in the past.

So, you know, one kid has to sweep.

Another kid has to take the trash out.

Another kid has to clean the bathrooms or whatever it is.

Nobody wants to have one.

And

everyone gets sometimes, you know, the shit end of the stick.

You got to clean the bathroom.

He refused to clean the bathroom.

Did not clean the bathroom.

Would not clean the bathroom.

Not because of

why I wouldn't want to clean the bathroom because it's disgusting.

There's filth in there.

No, it's because the cleaner that they chose to use was a cleaner that he didn't like.

He thought it was, um, well, you, you, you know, it was Bon Amy.

It was like a powdered cleaner.

I remember that stage.

And yeah, like the smell of it and like the fact it would bubble when it would get wet.

Like I was constantly afraid I was going to get burned and stuff.

So like I would, so what I would do is I would try to trade off.

There was a job called Runner, which before every meal,

15 minutes before every meal is Runner's call.

Here's Dick Whacker.

He'll have to carry me while I walk.

So, you would go to the dining hall and set up.

Mount me up, Dick.

Mount him, Dick.

You would go to the dining hall and set up the table for the meal.

And then during the meal, you would go get the food, get replenishments, stuff like that.

And you'd complain while you did that?

No, no, that's the job I loved.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

So, again, but it is.

But I would trade for bathroom, and then Conwen would be like, no, you have to one-time a session.

They're trying to teach you lessons.

Yeah.

Not receptive.

But

he has, from the whole time I've known him, he has waxed poetically.

And the amount of admiration and affection he has for anybody who attended that camp spoke about them as if they were the salt of the earth.

So I, like you, I would assume that when he gets there, he's walking into the campsite like norm.

That's what I thought.

From cheers.

And it wasn't the case, though.

No.

It wasn't Norm.

It was the mailman.

Cliff.

He was Cliff.

He was Cliff.

Oh, you made it.

Great.

So why do you think that's a good thing?

But people, I should say, people really like him now.

Chuck See.

Yeah.

Like, why do you look back on it with such fondness if you weren't really doing and like kind of being

even being like refusing to participate?

Yeah, I had a great time.

Like, I.

You didn't realize everybody was mad at you and annoyed me.

Not Not really, nor did I probably care.

So, as long as I was doing myself, ignorance is bliss.

I'm swimming.

For him, at least.

I'm swimming, I'm fishing,

you know, doing

carried around.

Yeah,

doing my

video, I'm doing my robotics, I'm doing my knowledge.

You guys are popping and fucking jiving there?

You're doing

breakdowns.

No, no, no, no.

We had a robotics lab.

Oh, so like we were robots and stuff.

The science of breakdown.

It was the 80s, and you guys had a fucking farm box that you were spinning around on.

So what's the first night like?

So

you'd have to choose.

And he picked up the tab for you to go, right?

He did, which was incredibly generous.

How much was the tab?

200 bucks, right?

Yeah.

Plus, I bought him a t-shirt.

Yeah.

I will treasure it.

Thank you.

So we get there the first night.

We got to unpack the car.

We got to pick where we're sleeping.

And right away, like, as I see him get out of the car, I see like four phones spill out on side

onto my seat next to me.

Four mics.

I'm like, what in the world?

What is each one of these functions?

Because you don't, there's barely any service up there.

Sure, you barely are using one phone.

Why do we have four phones there?

I didn't say anything because I was like, you know what?

Well, did you get an answer?

Eventually, I got an answer.

Okay.

Yeah.

And then, so we all pack out.

We go to the

cabin.

We have to pick places to sleep.

One's already been selected, so I pick one near a window, and he picks one the furthest away because he's concerned about how loud, how loud the snoring is going to be.

And then we go and we get some dinner.

This was very concerning.

We got,

I love camp food, right?

It's great.

It's nostalgic.

It's fun.

They gave us spaghetti and meat sauce.

Really good meat sauce.

So you can see the chunks of ground beef in it.

Yeah.

Okay.

Johnny does not agree with that.

And garlic bread.

He does not agree.

He does not agree with the assessment.

It was good meat sauce.

It was perfectly edible.

Yeah.

Spaghetti.

And

I'm not some food snob.

I'm no Ming Chen who's trying everything out there in the world.

This was like, it was all right.

It's like they give you the pasta comes dry, and then you put on a little sauce.

That's like

about how it goes.

Okay.

Not great.

Yeah.

He turns to me and he goes, you know,

this is probably the best meal I've had in about three months.

And I'm like, get him.

That's by choice, though.

I'm like, get them.

How is that possible?

It's like,

it was like, it was the perfect amount.

You were doing it, so it was the perfect amount of pasta to sauce ratio, the garlic bread.

I love it.

But it did depress me when you said that.

But it's also, it's going back in my brain of like, I can taste that garlic bread again.

So all those good memories are coming forward.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

So, it was more than just the food then.

Hopefully, it was the nostalgia.

Glaring at him over a fire.

Because I brought this up, and I brought this up to other people at the camp because I thought maybe they would get a similar reaction to get him.

Be like, maybe it's just a thing.

Maybe, like, this pasta and spaghetti.

It's like, that's the meal.

And, like, not at all.

Like, what this guy, Jack, was like, what?

So that was terrible.

Now, do you attack the

dining hall like you do a China buffet?

Or do you, like, like you up multiple times?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We went through at least two plates of two pans of spaghetti.

Yeah, it's all you can eat.

Yeah, well, I mean, you're paid for it.

And I did for that shit.

You better fucking make it worth your while.

Well, it was all you can eat when I was a camper there, but then I still managed to lose weight.

So then after dinner was...

What did we do?

Oh, we went fishing.

We did.

We went fishing.

We caught some fish.

Oh, that's nice.

Didn't catch as many as I, you know, it was a little slow, I think.

The first night was slow.

So lakeside, a little lakeside fishing?

Yeah, and they provide the poles and the bait and all that.

I brought all that.

Johnny don't fucking use.

Oh, my God.

He's not going to use those old poles.

He's got poles from the 60s.

Well, no, they don't provide you poles.

But if you've ever seen Chuck's setup for when he films,

Johnny's is double that and all fishing stuff.

Like he's popping open canisters.

It's like, no, no, this is not the right lake gear.

This is the right lake gear.

And what you catch, do you keep or you throw it back?

For something like this, I'd throw back.

The only time I'll keep something very limited is if I have a legal striper and I'm with my buddy who we can cook at his place, or if it's a particularly great trout in an area that has lots of trout.

Right.

Either way, you're going to eat it that night.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

It's great.

And when does the drinking start back?

We've blown past the fishing already?

Well, I imagine he's drinking all these fish.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

He is very disciplined.

You don't want to hook someone in the eye with a drunken cast.

There is a time and a place for drinking at this point.

Right, okay.

Oh, really?

Yeah, yeah.

There's the time frame.

You can only drink.

Well, no, like, it's just no one is really drinking up until the fire.

Oh, no, there was.

You were looking at cooties.

There were people who had been coozies.

Yeah, it was kind of hidden.

Not me, though.

I don't think they were really embracing the spirit.

How long has it been since you've been fishing?

Bright fries was the last time.

Bright fries.

Yeah.

And did you catch something then?

No, nobody caught anything.

How much did you catch this time?

Good amount.

That was the only photos I caught.

Oh, wow.

If you count

showing me pictures of all the fish they caught fishing on.

I caught about at least 10 bait fish, and then that resulted in probably about six or seven actual.

And there was a couple that they threw the hook at the last possible second.

And then, is it just the two of you fishing, or you were fishing in a group?

Just us.

Just two of us.

So how long you fishing?

And walk me through that comment.

Like, you know, that's man bonding time.

That's like searching out the universe.

He was like,

Do you mind if we go fishing?

I'm like, Yeah, I want to go fishing.

Like, I don't, if I'm fishing, I don't care if I'm actually fishing fishing.

Yeah.

Like, it's just being out there.

But did you feel, Johnny Law, that you got to the real get-im in that time?

Because it's very difficult.

I've known this man at this point 15 years, and I still only feel like I own the

I've peeled a layer of the onion away.

Right.

I don't know if I'm at the deepest layer.

Now he's crying.

But I'm certainly peeling it away.

And he is just a really sweet, great guy.

That's what it comes down to.

He is.

And it was also great to see him in a situation where, for whatever negativity existed at that camp, just the opposite this time.

These guys loved him by the end of it.

And

he's not refusing to do shit anymore, right?

No, he's great.

He's not a burden.

Rotating games every time.

He's not those people.

Well,

but they even said you don't have to do everything.

So there was a point in time where they're like, oh, we're setting up some rotating into the first day.

It was like they were doing it for an hour.

No, it was the second day.

That's when we went fishing.

And they were like, well, let's just go fishing.

Well, the guy that carried you, was he there this weekend?

Yes.

So you didn't want to say, hey, man, let me climb on.

Let's take a climb on.

I didn't remember until he told me.

And he collapses and fucking dies.

He tries to.

No, I did not.

I did not.

Like, just snap.

You went the wrong way.

He asked me at the campfire.

He's like, do you remember when Colin made me carry you around the soccer field?

And I was like, no, I really don't remember that at all.

Now, you're only 16, right?

How can you not remember that?

Like, do you have like a tumor or something removed?

I just, I don't remember every single thing that happened.

If a grown man carried me around his back as a punishment, well, Jack's only like two years older than me.

He's only two years older than me.

He's not really a grown, grown man.

Okay, you were 17.

He was 19?

Yeah.

He could have gone off to war.

Or he was 15.

Or I was 15 and he was 17.

Okay.

Yeah.

All right.

All right.

Even then, I can't imagine me ever forgetting the day.

The smell, the feeling of his sticky, sweaty body as I have to hold on to it.

Because you're lazy.

Yeah, you don't have to.

You're lazy.

Yeah.

You don't even have to.

You don't ever forget it.

And you're like, that's a black spot.

I don't know what happened.

For me, it didn't happen.

I remember a lot of fights.

You gotta fist button.

No, no, no, no.

Headbutt.

Well, no, I did get a.

I had a camp right in, like, his name was Brett Fulton.

And one day we got into a little bit of an argument, and he ended up kicking me in the balls.

What'd you do?

I went down.

And everyone else in the cab was like, Brett, run

until he recovers.

Just get away from him.

Were you the type that would like get all red-faced and like out of control?

In like what kind of sense?

Spaz.

Yeah, like a spaz, basically.

Just swinging your arms.

Yeah, like swing, like crying and shit at the same time.

I think I was like more of a grappler.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

So you were a wrestler, right?

Yeah, yeah.

Was Brett there this weekend?

No.

He could have got his ass back with Johnny.

Kicked him in the nuts in front front of his family.

Hold him down, Johnny.

So then after fishing, was

dinner too.

I think

maybe before

digging through the trash with a spaghetti.

Seven raccoons out of the way.

Johnny, you got a thermos?

I want to pour this meat sauce in there.

This will stay good for the rest of the weekend.

So there's another.

So I think it may have been right before we fished, but know, Giddam took me around the property a little bit and was explaining, you know, hey, this is the cabin that I stayed in, or this is where the old robotics or

the computer lab was.

And then we walk up on this kind of

condemned looking building.

Like you can tell it's in total disrepair.

It looks like the building the camp wanted to forget.

Okay.

And we walked in.

Is it what type of building?

Like a cabin?

I couldn't tell.

We had to walk in.

It looked like a cabin.

You were allowed to go into it?

We went into it.

And

what I see are these.

No door.

It looks like a place you'd bring cattle into

with little spigots on top.

Oh, my God.

No, no, no, no, no.

That's where the meat sauce came from.

So the first half of this room is.

Fucking chunks of meat to block out the nozzles again, I told you.

So you come in and you're looking at a wall, except for like two doors at either end.

It's like the showers at like Auschwitz?

That's what it reminded me.

That's what it sounds like you described.

I didn't want to say it, but that's exactly what it reminded me of.

With benches.

And then when you go around to the other side, it has those wood lattice work.

The whole back end of the cabin is exposed with those wood lattice work.

Yeah.

Okay.

So you can see out and people could see in.

If you were to ask someone, what's that building?

Vidon Svikovzen.

Yeah, right.

National shame.

So, what'd you guys do in there?

Well, we walked in and he kind of

gave me.

I already explained it to you on the way.

This is where they put bars of soap and a towel.

I beat me, and it was like, well, this is where we all would come to shower.

Oh, and I said, oh, okay.

You know, and hey, listen, that time period, you know, kids in gym, they'd, you know, they'd all shower together.

Oh, then he goes, I got, I'll argue against that.

I didn't do that, and I'm older than him.

Yeah, I didn't do that.

I'd be like,

you guys didn't partake in a shower.

But in gym, the, the, I thought you went to the camp.

No, no, no.

No, me neither.

We were, we were at the age where there probably were so many, you know, sexual assault lawsuits that had already come about that the people who were in the middle of the day.

Were there any Sanduskies at the camp that you thought of?

Okay, here we go.

Sorry.

It just dipped out all of a sudden.

Were there any Sanduskies at the camp?

No.

No, nobody even thought of like that guy might be a Sandusky.

But

there was some what I would consider

questionable practices in the shower.

In the shower.

Because

what was done was the kids would be kind of horralled.

We would go by cabins.

Wait a minute.

Don't tell me the counselors got to watch.

They watched.

Oh my.

No, no, one particular.

Not the counselor.

This was a gay camp.

One

particular council.

You don't remember God carrying you.

There's a lot of things you don't remember, buddy.

I remember the shower cabin.

I mean, it's Camp Dickwhacker, for Christ's sake.

And so there was an individual who was tasked with watching.

Now, that's not the shit job.

That's not the shit job.

I think this guy liked the job.

No, it was

Don.

It was Don Wacker.

It was either Don or Neil who did this.

And they would check you in and they would make sure you were at least cleaning yourself.

Like, I'm not sure they were intently staring at you.

Got you, right?

Looking for.

We understand what you're saying.

You don't want to put the wrong impression of these people out there.

So we should be very.

We already got one new listener from the.

ain't listening no more stay marker jr

oh no so so we should be very clear that we're just making jokes that there were no there were

so that's not the job nobody wants i'd rather clean up the channel

trains yeah

because it's it's fine if you want to have someone in in the shower or near the shower to make sure you know there's no funny business going on there's no harassing and stuff But you don't I don't know that you need to be physically witnessing it.

You could be like the room over.

Sure.

Well, he was by that door because that's also where there was no controls on the showers for the temperature.

Mr.

Wacker would actually, there was like a main control.

Total control.

Like there was a main control of it.

Only he could control it?

Yeah.

It was in a low-locked cabin.

So that's where he would stand and like if everyone was like, oh, it's getting too cold, he would turn the hot water off.

Yeah, he's like, Neil, let's make these boys dance.

All right.

Okay.

But it's like, it's eight, it's like eight showers.

And again, there's no partition.

So you remember showering there.

Yeah.

You remember boxes and balls all over the place.

So did you guys

you guys ever pull up Porky's and look through?

You know, when you look through the

other guys?

Look at that song.

You didn't have to.

You just stand next to him.

Yeah, there's a lot of people.

You just got that job.

They look through.

The peephole.

Yeah, the peephole.

Peephole.

There's no such thing as a peephole in a shower.

What's it called?

Like, I guess the...

Oh, like a drain hole or something?

Drain hole or something.

I don't know, something like a pipe that went through.

I forget.

Yeah, it's always on the poster of porky.

But again, it's like eight shower heads all in a row, and there's no partition.

So it's not like you could, and he's at the one end.

And plus, again, the back wall and side wall are open wood.

So you can see.

You know what's important to say, though,

in this freight, is like those guys who ran that camp grew up in a period where taking showers together was not a big deal.

And all of a sudden, like, here come the 80s or the 90s, and all of a sudden, these

are the watch people's showers.

He's watching children's showers.

Like, oh, I'm too modest.

He was a little skeeved out that when I was wrestling, we would take showers together, and the coach would be in there

showering with us.

So fucking.

Because he was sweaty as well.

But it's a different

coach showering with you.

It's notable.

But again, it's all out in the open.

These guys went to war.

These guys who were running the camp, they probably were in Nom and shit, right?

I don't know.

Let's say yes.

But at what age?

At what age?

Because my understanding was this practice at the camp continued

throughout your time there.

Yeah, then.

So

if the person is there to monitor to make sure that these little kids are washing themselves and actually cleaning and being hygienic, don't you think that maybe you don't need to do that for a 17-year-old?

Well,

that's a point I hadn't thought of yet.

Yeah.

So, but this is what I was telling him is that when I got to the older, when I was my last two years there, we were in cabin 17.

We got special permission before Reveille to go and take a shower by ourselves, just the whole entire cabin.

You and one other guy?

No, no, like the whole entire cabin.

So it's a bunch of, again, it's a bunch of us guys.

Nobody's supervising.

Okay, but let me ask you this, though.

Isn't it also weird that as soon as there was no more showers, they let the building fall into decay?

They're like, oh, well, I can't fucking watch boys play

shower and play with Sunsy up.

I'm going to let it fucking just fall to disarray.

Well, I think it's because

you're a doorless queue.

No upkeep whatsoever because there's no reason to.

I think with the no-front door and the back wall being open, it's exposed more to to the weather, like the winters.

But nobody cared enough to preserve it.

They're like, fuck it.

It's no sense.

I mean, it's still let it rot.

And I don't think.

I don't know that you've fully explained what that back wall looks like.

So there's showers in the middle.

And so everyone's standing in this room,

the back wall is lattice.

It's like see-through.

So anyone that's walking around in that room.

But the same point, though, then probably secret shenanigans can't really go on.

Which is why you don't need to have a guy watching, I think, and Jenny.

Were there rumors of secret shenanigans going on when you were at camp?

Do you recall?

Aside from the carrying the guy around.

Some of the counselors had daughters who were there.

And we would joke that they would be out in the bushes staring at us.

Like we were some fucking Adonises to be reverse porkies.

Yeah.

Now, get him.

Do you remember in Forrest Gump, Forrest bought Jenny's house and tore it down?

Okay.

Do we need to do that for the shower building?

Do you need us to make it go far, far away?

No, I don't want anything in this camp destroyed.

It is.

Again, when you come, except for the main house being changed a little, I guess, because of ADA stuff, and them adding a porch, it's literally

the same cabin, the same bunk beds that was there when I was there in the 90s, and people who were there in the 80s said they were there.

So it is like this chunk of this chunk of place that has just been ripped out of time and just exists.

Sure.

Like once you pass the main gate, damn.

I get it.

Back in the 90s.

Yeah.

Back in the 80s, back in the 70s.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The older you get, the rarer that is.

Yeah.

Yeah, I understand.

And it's just so quiet.

Like, again, you're in a valley.

What about the four cell phones, though?

Were they going off like every two seconds?

No, we had Wi-Fi, but the Wi-Fi was really, really, really bad.

Yeah, it was bad.

Why four phones, though?

That's that's the thing.

From what I gathered, one phone is good because it is connected to a Google Voice.

One phone he can text with.

One phone is

a flip phone, which is what he likes to call with because he gets too distracted from the other phones.

And then another phone, I think, is one that his dad gave him, and he just kind of uses it as a storage device.

Is that correct?

No, that's one that runs all my weird apps.

Okay.

All right.

So there you go.

What kind of weird apps?

What are you talking about?

Like

if I have to install an app for like some Bluetooth device, I put it on there so that it's not really, like, it can't crash my main phone.

But here's the question: you really didn't give me an answer when we were in the car.

If I get a new phone and I give you my old phone, it's still, it's a good phone.

He'll have five phones.

Will you just get rid of the other phones and just

get rid of it?

This is a hoarder.

Since that's an Apple, I might get rid of the Apple phone and replace it with that one.

I will upgrade.

Why do you think you're the only person that needs this many phones, but everyone else is getting getting by with just one?

It's just the way I am.

Because you can't throw anything out.

I know.

So when does the drinking start?

Drinking starts at night for us.

Yeah.

What's the drinking start?

Yeah, and how much do you bring?

I was smart this time.

Last time

I brought extras just in case somebody wanted to share some natties with me.

And apparently other people have taste and didn't want to.

So my last night there, I had five natties left.

And I drank three, and I was feeling good.

I was like, let me take a fourth.

And then after the fourth, I was like, I don't want to take just one beer home.

Let me drink a fifth.

So he's filthy.

And I was hungover for two days.

Filthy drunk?

Well, this was the last time.

This was the last time.

He did.

Listen,

he was totally appropriate.

Never was he like, you know, out of control, but he definitely was drunk both the nights.

A little tuned up.

Because one of those natties is like three beers.

So like one natty daddy is like three beers.

How many natty daddy did you drink?

I had over the course of the whole weekend, I tried one natty daddy.

So, what were you drinking other than?

I brought, so a friend of mine whose wedding I was in gave me a bottle of scotch.

I don't really keep alcohol at home all that much.

So, I just brought it up.

I said, anyone can have this.

So, the first night, a ton of people came, and we all had a couple glasses.

And it was nice, yeah.

All right.

But, yeah, but get him is, get him can put them down, man.

I was impressed.

He's paying the price for it.

Yeah.

Oh, no, no.

That's day two that I'm paying the price for it.

Yeah, I was going to say, can he put him down anymore if he's suffering for the next couple of days?

Hey, you know what?

The first night

we were drinking in the game room or whatever.

Until we leave the game room.

Do you remember?

The game room?

Why not?

Why do it?

Game room.

I don't remember the time, but I certainly remember

in the game room.

Pool, it looked like

two board games.

Yeah, stuff like that.

Pink parking.

Poor games, yes.

There was an air hockey.

That's like the newest thing was the aer hockey, a piano.

Piano.

Yeah, a little wooden plane.

Are you panic?

A little bit, but not well.

I knew it.

Of course it can.

Yeah.

A little bit.

You know, he can play anything he wants.

But, you know, I don't remember what time we went back to

the cabin, but I definitely remember going back to the cabin.

But I think that part is missing from your memory, right?

I kind of remember stumbling back.

Okay.

What was your first instance of being like, what the fuck am I doing here?

I never had that first.

Never had that.

I really never did.

Oh, that's great.

I'll be honest.

I'm trying to bring out some of the crazier things about Giddam and Giddam's life.

But the reality is we had a great time.

Yeah.

And Giddam and I have a lot of the same interests.

Like what?

Well,

I love fishing.

He likes to fish.

I like outdoor stuff.

He likes to.

And he does like,

I would be one of those guys that goes around to flea markets, sure.

Like, if I didn't have a job and other stuff going on in my life, I would want to do that.

I'd want to have a company where I resell, you know, uh, stuff that I find at flea market.

That stuff is really fun for me.

So, okay, we do have some of that in common.

Did you guys talk about that?

A little, but not too much.

All right.

So, then, uh, so we went to sleep.

Yeah, it was a little

rough for me in the next morning, but I got over it.

Yeah,

because you were hungover.

No, no, I just had

I fell asleep the wrong way.

I had attached a fan to the bunk,

a box fan, and instead of falling asleep with my feet to the fan, I fell asleep with my head to the fan.

So I woke up halfway through the night and my entire head is completely dried out.

So, which is kind of why they sound like this.

So then I had to flip around.

And then I missed, I know I missed Reveli.

Yeah, you did.

But it was a little tough to hear the bugle.

What's Reveli?

And when the bugle?

Oh, yeah, everything in camp is run by bugles.

Yeah.

Okay, so that means you have to get up or you don't sleep.

No, Revelation.

You don't choose to sleep through it.

No, no, you don't choose to sleep through Revelation.

Well, I mean, in this particular situation, you could certainly just say, I'm just going to sleep through it.

I mean,

they don't have the same control over Ivy

as they did, you know, in the campus.

Time to shower, Johnny.

Yeah.

Yeah, you know, the Revelation.

So what time do you guys get up on Saturday morning?

Like 6 a.m.

8 a.m.

No, no, like

8 a.m.

Yeah, you woke up day 8 a.m.

I woke you up because I thought you'd want to go get breakfast.

Well, no, it's flagpole first because

we raise and lower the flag every day and night.

Whose job was that?

Color guards.

Not you?

No.

Okay.

Well,

if it was our cabin's turn to be color guard, it would be rotated throughout the session of who did it.

So I did do it a couple times, but I didn't.

Did you drop it?

No, never.

Never.

Never.

Forget.

Because

we were graded on your stuff.

I did not flag, didn't you?

No, it did not.

It's a little.

Never.

It was Color Guard's job.

Like, if it started raining, Color Guard had to leave wherever they were going and take down the flag and put it in the game room.

Game room.

So when does the competition start?

Ooh, yeah.

Well, they briefly gave us an overview of the competition the night before.

But Saturday was the day.

So what are some of the things that you can compete in?

It's hot, you hung over.

Ribbons.

Hung over.

Why are you fucking drinking when you know competitions are the next day?

Don't you have enough discipline to fucking

not drink when you know there's a ribbon on the line?

You'll see the footage, Walt, but I don't know that he took it as seriously, maybe as he should have.

I told his ass I wanted him to come home with multiple fucking trophies and ribbons.

He tried really hard, but I don't know that there was a lot of prep.

Yeah, there really wasn't.

So, what are some of the things that you guys could vie for for trophies and ribbons?

Were there trophies or just ribbons?

Just ribbons.

Ribbons.

Oh, they fucking cheaped out, huh?

Yeah.

Oh, come on, man.

You know how much a ribbon costs over a trophy?

A ribbon is probably a quarter.

A trophy is at least 20 bucks.

So this is the first part of the events.

Yeah, no comment.

I just dislike camp.

I love my camp.

They're soft of the earth.

You get a ribbon for eating two bowls of cereal.

So we should explain that.

Is that the case?

Get him.

Don't answer that, get them.

I got this.

Get him, please.

Yes.

These are individual events, but they're all individual events as part of a relay.

So a person

from every team.

Once all of this is completed, the relay is over.

Totally understand.

It's the team that finishes first one.

Okay.

So it's a lot of fucking that's only one page.

That looks exhausting to me.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, Johnny, how dialed into are you into these events?

Are you like, you know, are you Newt Rockney or are you more like, you know,

this is just silly.

I just he was the first name on the list.

I was like, let me pick.

the thing that I know I can do.

Right.

I wasn't going to be like, oh, this sounds funny.

I was like, no, I want to win.

I want to win.

And I want to win.

But more importantly, I don't even care about the whole relief.

I want to win my event.

And this is why I was so happy Giddam was bringing you because you are basically a ringer.

I told him that this is your chance to go back to that camp and shit in every funny motherfucker's face whoever fucking dissed you or teased you.

Rightfully so, it seems.

You know, this is a chance to be able to do it.

If they were there for the exact four years, you were.

This is the revenge tour.

2025 for Giddam Steve Dave as he fucking fucks up every asshole that ever fucking fucked with him.

That's exactly right.

Ben, whoever that was that kicked me in the balls?

Brett Fulton.

Brett, yeah.

Yeah.

Guess what?

Fucking my lawyer's here with me this time.

Try kicking me in the balls.

I'll try.

So what's the first thing?

You guys got to take it?

I did the canoe around the island.

Okay.

Now, are you a two-man canoe?

No, it's me and then this other kid who happened to want to do it.

Kid or an adult?

He was probably.

They split us up, so sometimes families were on both teams.

Did you smoke them?

No, no.

He was this kid, 14, and then it was two grown men we were against.

Where's Ginnam?

Why isn't he in the canoe?

Well, you have to, you can't do

it.

You can only do a couple.

Oh, well, we're getting there.

We're getting there.

You can only do like one or two events because you won't be able to get around to them fast enough, and you have to let everyone do something.

So the actual relay, it's like, you know, you could have some terrible people on your team.

What's your experience?

But the kids were doing the baton running.

What's your canoe experience?

Have you been?

I own two canoes.

I canoe a lot.

So you got this.

You know, I was like, I'm ready to go.

You're just sizing up the competition.

I thought.

And I thought the kid that I was with,

great kid, this kid that I was with, really nice kid.

He looked like he was an athlete.

I was like, all right, we're going to.

Because the two guys do also looked like they were pretty athletes.

You didn't tell him that, right?

Because that's no, of course.

You got him kicked out of camp.

We saved that talk for the Shane Dusky.

There's a meal for that

you know you're uh you did quite a job of it on the canoe

all right so you got to pop off that shirt let's canoe let's hit the shower cabinet

we haven't even canoed yet

it's time to hit the showers

so but you he looks like an athlete but he's not it sounds like he is an athlete I think it's just I don't think he's really has

because the first thing that happens I get in the back to steer the canoe that's where you want to be if you want to steer it.

And he gets in the front, and

he does these really choppy little strokes that bear.

That's almost like he's slapping the water, which means he's just soaking me this whole time.

So there's Johnny.

All right, we see him.

So you got to do all the work.

So I'm doing basically all the work.

You don't tell him like, hey, this is the job.

No, no, no, because it's too short of a, I'm like.

Positive.

Doing a great job.

Keep going.

Keep going.

Yeah.

Did you win?

We did.

All right.

All right.

All right.

So you get, so there's one of these ribbons I'm looking at for that?

Well, you don't get a ribbon for the individual.

Okay, so overall.

Okay, so what's your next competition?

Or what's Giddam's next competition?

I'm done.

Now I have to go and kind of monitor the other competitions.

So Giddam has two coming.

All right, well.

Sunken canoe.

What's that?

We take a five-gallon bucket and fill the canoe full of water.

Then we get into it and paddle across the lake.

You're not doing that.

Yes.

He's doing it.

Why the harmony?

Actually, you're right.

He's not doing it.

Why on earth would you allow yourself to do that and not Johnny?

Because I've done this before.

I did this before at summer camp.

He was adamant that this was the one that he should be doing.

And I, again, I have fond memories of this, but those fond memories are 30 years in the past.

So, in those intervening 30 years, the foam that holds most canoes up if they get filled with water has long since degraded.

And I've gotten a little fatter.

I'm sure it was the foam.

No, no, because

we pull the canoe out.

I get in it, and it instantly sinks to the bottom.

So you're halfway there.

And so then Colin tries again, and Colin's in the front.

That's Colin.

My old camp counselor.

He gets in, and as soon as he gets in and moves it just way either side, the canoe just pitches over.

So it's just

my phones.

No, no, no.

Yeah, I made sure I didn't have my phones on me.

I had shoes on because I didn't want to step up.

Did Johnny jump in and save you and give you mouth to mouth?

No, I was videoing it.

We had, like, they didn't have to wear a life vest for canoeing, but we had to wear them for a sunken canoe.

Okay.

So,

thankfully.

So, both teams are flattering, though.

And eventually, we get about, we get into the deep end of the swimming area, and they're like, okay,

you don't have to be in the canoe.

You can just grab the canoe and pull it along.

So, now it is me, Colin, and I, holding on to the canoe with one hand and trying to paddle with our front hands.

And now I'm wearing shoes instead of bare feet.

So, I'm having trouble.

And is your your heart fucking pound out of your chest?

Are you has Johnny got nine?

One, he's just waiting for you.

I am the one.

I was expecting the Coast Guard to have to come in and like.

Were you worried?

I was actually so worried because he was, you know, toward the middle of it, he was getting to the point where he was sinking down while he was swimming so that his mouth was like half covered.

So he'd be breathing heavy and water would just be spewing out of his mouth the whole time.

Like some lake creature trying to surface.

In fact,

he's covered in leeches.

In fact.

Jack, one of the guys, his wife was standing next to me and she's like, oh, is he okay?

I go, he's magnificent.

I was checking out of him, too.

It's the one we were...

We ordered mounts.

We were going to have mounts for this whole entire thing to record.

We recorded some GoPros.

But they never arrived.

Well, thank God you didn't fucking bring the GoPros in the water, though.

Well, no, they had...

Oh, they were waterproof?

They were waterproof.

And that's when we needed the mounts.

But I'm like, it would just be me going,

I kind of went, are you okay?

But at one point, he kind of steered away, and I couldn't see the dock.

Now, in my head, we had advanced 50 feet, and then he corrects, and I'm like, oh, my fucking God.

And we had to keep the baton with us.

So now, you know, and

I mean, it sounds like a great weekend.

It was.

But then

I get to the end.

I finally

get the canoe to the dock.

I can finally feel something under my feet.

And so I get out of the water.

I thought I was going to throw up.

Luckily, it was just a burp.

Yeah.

But then, so I start going towards the cereal eating.

I start going to the cereal eating, but meanwhile, my baton runner is way ahead of me.

And

someone has to just set three tables.

And I am not moving quickly.

No.

I am like at a.

It's like, have you ever seen an astronaut that's been out and like the for months and then they get back home and they can't really walk?

And it's like, yeah, they're adjusting to gravity.

I mean, it was, yeah.

Well, where's their national hero?

This asshole just tried to move a canoe 20 feet.

No, it wasn't 20 feet.

It was long 50 feet.

50, 60 feet.

So, what happened to the cereal?

It was from there to there.

So,

what happened at the cereal eating contest?

Well,

so what they did was they set a guy at they sent a guy ahead of me who was actually able to run.

And he's like, I'll set it up for you.

And if you don't make it, I'll start doing the cereal eating.

That's the kind of picture that's like, you see it, and you're like, that's when I realized I needed to go on a diet.

Yeah.

Mouthful of cereal and scooping it in.

This picture isn't really capturing just how

intense the moment was because, and hopefully you'll see video, but he was his whole body is shaking at this point because he's so out of breath.

And at the same time, he is shoving.

What type of cereal?

Can't you tap out?

Like, can't he fuck tag team in, you in, do this?

I, I was.

Well, there's Johnny right there, holding the camera.

Yeah.

Okay.

So you can't tap in and take over.

Listen, I thought if there was going to be a medical emergency, let's make sure we get it on film.

If it's going to go, what a way to go.

Right.

Right?

You have to shove his cereal into his voice.

In the place where he loves doing the thing that he loves.

He's like just hanging off his balls.

And

by this point, Johnny had already found three

problems with

the waivers we had signed.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, really?

Where you just wait and you're counting your money.

It's like, wow, I am going to take this camp for everything that they have.

Emotional distress.

Oh, yeah.

So did you win cereal?

Yes.

Yeah.

All right.

Fuck yeah.

I knew no one could out eat you.

No.

No way.

So you guys are now, you won canoe.

You've won cereal.

What's next?

Let's see.

Frisbee Toss.

This is all not us anymore.

So we kind of just

went to the bottom.

We don't care about it.

Yeah, we went size with the camera.

Jack Whacker and his fucking crew.

We only care about you, Google.

No, it's Jack Trachenberg and his crew.

He has to correct me.

I'm sorry.

Well, yeah, well, Jack Trackenberg.

Whacker and Tracker.

Yeah.

Sounds like a legal team.

Yeah, I know, right?

So I went and sat on the front porch in the shade just to try to get my heart rate back down to somewhat normal.

Under 200.

So what's the next thing you guys partake in?

It was pretty much the fire at the end.

The fire at the end.

Oh, my God.

Oh, so you're going to do any of the rest of the?

You got to start a fire?

No.

No, because they had to let everyone else do events.

So, what we got, what we got a big advantage was playing card stacking.

So, we had a guy who was really good at stacking cards, and he managed to do it in like 40 seconds.

And then this guy couldn't do it, so he had to wait five minutes to continue on.

Okay, so we now, at this point, we have a four-minute lead.

This is also the guy who has two partners, yes, you know, really.

So, he's the guy, he's the man.

Yeah, I mean, he's got one of them at Blondechick, no,

no, that's Jack's wife.

that's Jack's wife

nice job Jack Jack

Great guy she named her son no dickwhaker

No no different family

I know there's a fire photo here

oh wow

Yeah, there we go.

So there I am blowing on the fire.

So we got we got to start the fire first.

I go down and my

well my heart

for the alcohol on his breath

Once I saw the types of breaths that were being taken I quickly shifted from working on the fire to getting video

you were doing fine you guys got video and we're gonna make cut that video into a Patreon video coming whenever we get it out but like here I'm holding my beer because I at one point I know I like the firefly back and I yeah but we ended up losing that and that is that why your eyebrows look so weird is it

I would not be surprised I thought you had a four minute head start.

We did, but

we had to boil water to a full rolling boil.

To start a fire?

Are you guys sure you're doing it wrong?

Well, that's what the problem is.

You can have your Zippo?

The fire was started, but the problem was

it was improperly stacked.

Who stacked it?

I did not stack it.

Who stacked it?

I don't remember who was there.

Whomever was there before.

Stacker stacker did it.

Fucking bullshit.

But they put logs on top, and that blocked some of the heat from getting to the fire.

So they ended up getting the water boiling first and got to the flagpole to raise their flag.

Looks fun starting a fire in 95-degree weather.

I don't think it was that hot.

So you guys lost the first thing you tried to enter?

We did.

We got second place.

So one of these ribbons is second place?

Yes.

The red one.

So this would be a silver.

A silver.

This was the Olympic.

There is no bronze.

Which one's the red one?

Yeah.

Second place.

Second place.

Camp Watanka.

Yep.

But it was very close.

So how much did that chafe your ass, though?

Because it would have fucking ruined the whole weekend.

I was so.

Was it a blue ribbon the first one?

I poisoned all the

week.

Eat that meat sauce now, motherfucker.

Tastes funny, right?

And for lunch, for lunch before this, we had to make your own tacos.

Yes.

That was the best lunch, I think, of the whole trip.

Crispy tacos or salt tacos?

Salt tacos.

All right.

Nice, fresh ground beef.

Cheese.

I had about four.

So, like, that's why when I got out of the water, I'm like, something's coming out.

Yeah.

And then I had to go eat cereal.

Oh, I thought you liked cereal.

I did.

What kind of cereal was it?

Rice Krispies.

Rice Krispies.

Yeah.

Milk on a hot day after you've been running around with it.

Yeah.

There's a start of finish.

Was it whole milk?

Yeah.

Yeah, I like whole milk.

Me too.

So then after this week, no, we didn't do rest hour.

Then we did rotating games, and that's when we went and really went to finish.

People listening at home, there are pictures up on the TV now, and it really does look beautiful.

It looks nice.

It looks like very difficult not to have a very peaceful fish.

It's very scenic.

Yeah, it really is gorgeous.

It's beautiful.

It's a beautiful property.

The lake's beautiful.

Yeah,

I could see why you guys.

Everything I'm seeing in these photos looks great.

I would go back in a second.

Yeah.

So, what's the green award for then?

You guys have three ribbons here.

This is for showing out, you know?

You guys shouldn't have put this on.

That's right, I know.

This is what you're bringing to us, a second-place ribbon and a pants fish.

But there's a brown ribbon.

That's right.

Is that for someone blew up the bathroom?

Excellence in fishing.

Excellence.

You're a Euro-ringer in that one, though.

The only two fishing ribbons awarded this entire reunion.

What was the other one?

Oh, you both got them?

Oh, these are Johnny's and Euros?

Oh, okay.

So Johnny gets to go home with these.

Right, yeah.

Oh, shit.

Johnny, you should wear.

I've already called my framer.

You should wear all three of these ribbons whenever you're in court.

I think I wrote.

Oh, I told him, I said he's got to put these next to his diploma.

Yeah.

You're going to pass those on to your child one day.

I will.

I participate.

So, how do they measure who gets the ribbon for fishing?

Is it by weight?

It's more by asking the person who's in charge of the ribbons if we could maybe have a ribbon for fishing.

Okay, I was going to say it's because we were bragging about all the fish we caught.

To be fair, we definitely caught the most amount of fish of anyone.

There was no proof of it when they came around.

When they were seeing

this particular guy,

This particular guy was also around and would see us catching fish.

What type of fish are you holding up there?

That's a largemouth bass.

Largemouth bass.

He caught his biggest perch.

I got the caught the biggest perch I've ever caught.

All right.

Caught some

bluegill, caught some,

I think, crappy, caught some.

Oh, that's what I, is that what I caught?

Yeah.

Yeah.

They stock this lake or it's just now.

I guess it was stocked at one time, and now it's just

like this, yeah.

So there's pickerel, largemouth bass, smallmouth bass, crappy, bluegills, perch, perch.

Uh, he said some kind of catfish, yeah, yeah.

Do they uh do they stock this lake or these naturally occurring fish?

They stocked it at one time, yeah, and then just let it go.

The thing is, that's a question I just asked.

Yes, oh, did you?

They just spent a minute answering it.

I'm sorry,

the thing with battle.

I was looking at that fish and listening to Johnny.

Yeah,

I lost time.

I lost like a minute.

That's concerning.

Yeah, tell me about it.

Look at you.

I wasn't going to to say anything until you gave me that look, and I was like, yeah, maybe we should point this out.

Guys, when are we going to start this podcast?

Where am I?

Who are you?

Very bad.

Did I win this ring?

I can't believe I participated.

I won.

Oof.

All right.

So that's Saturday.

Is there anything else happened on Saturday?

I went fly fishing Saturday.

Well, that's Saturday morning.

Yeah.

We went to the river instead of the lake.

Oh, so it's only like 10 a.m.

This is is the last fish we caught.

Yeah, yeah.

We did other fishing, though.

I did some fly fishing along the river.

Did you catch anything there?

Yeah, caught some small fish there.

It was beautiful.

Yeah.

Yeah, that was the first thing we did when we got up.

We're like, yeah, we're just going to go fishing.

And what are you guys talking about?

Like, what are you guys rapping about?

Everything and everything.

I'm not a big,

I wasn't having any luck river fishing, so I eventually just kind of gave up and was like trying to record him.

But then the water started getting a little deeper.

I had phones in my pocket.

So I ended up, I bushwhacked through the

tall grass and I found a cut through.

And I took all my phones out and everything and I waded back down the river to get back to him.

And he was just leaving at that time.

But it worked out because that was right before.

He was perfect, yeah.

And I will say this.

Giddam, I know Giddam gets a lot of flack from maybe

talking a lot, having a lot of opinions and correcting people.

I know that in the past, that's been some things brought up.

He's a great fishing partner.

Because in a fishing partner, you need someone who's happy for long bursts of silence.

And he was perfect.

Really?

Yeah.

He was.

He was, I don't get those long bursts of silence.

We're at the office then.

Fish with me.

But

as you said, when I posted that photo, I could smell that from here.

So that was my first fish.

That fish is anemic in him.

Yeah, that's pretty awesome.

Why are you even taking a picture of that?

It was the first fish I caught.

All right.

But then I turned that, I put a big giant hook through it.

It was trying to catch other fish, which didn't, I think it was, we were just at the end of the day for the fish.

Like, they were going deeper and they weren't really hitting.

But the next day when we went, they really hit.

Yeah.

So.

So then we had the closing campfire.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They did a great job.

Well, no, we had dinner.

Dinner was

hamburgers.

No, it was hamburgers and hot dogs.

Like a barbecue outside.

Yeah, barbecue outside.

What kind of meat you were

talking about?

90% lean or was it like 60% lean?

These hamburgers?

It sounds like they probably, by the looks of, they didn't spend any money on trophies, that they put it towards the food.

Again, if you saw the amount of ground beef that was in the meat sauce and the tacos, like it was good meat, good grate, okay.

All right.

Best meat.

Best meat.

Now, were there campfire sing-alongs and stuff?

Did you guys do that kind of thing?

No, no, thankfully.

Scary stories.

There were people that shared stories.

The first night, yeah.

The first night.

The second night, they gave out the awards, and then there was this other older gentleman.

Joe Macy, that's him right there.

Who gave a speech, a very, very nice, sweet speech about the camp.

Joe Macy was my mortal enemy my first couple years there.

How come?

He kicked me off.

He was the rifle engineer.

He kicked me in the balls.

I think everybody there kicked him in the balls.

That guy right there giving a speech kicked you off a team.

A field trip.

Okay.

He kicked me off a field trip.

And again, when we went there, there was no, you couldn't call your parents.

Yeah.

But if you were on a field trip and there was a payphone there, you could call your parents.

Okay.

So you would angle for a field trip at least once a session.

They gave you a certain amount of points, and you could choose.

So

why did he throw you off the field trip?

Because some kids were acting up, and he turned around and he spotted me.

And I wasn't one of the kids acting up, but I had this reputation, and he thought I was part of it, and he just kicked me off the trip.

And it just,

and now this is, I think this is Action Park.

So we would send like three buses up to Action Park.

Yeah.

So now there's nobody else at camp.

And I am devastated that I can't talk to my father or my mother or my grandmother.

Right.

And it just, yeah.

And then, like, later on, we were talking about it in our cabin, and people who were there were like, no, he didn't do anything.

Yeah.

So, but then I hated this guy afterwards, and he hated me.

I think you've talked about this guy before.

Yeah, I feel like I've heard this.

Yeah, we made up.

Yeah, we made up.

We made up the previous.

You guys are copacetic now?

Yeah.

I was just like, you should have drunkenly interrupted his speech.

Oh, yeah.

No, I've got a few fucking things to say.

Hey, Macy.

I don't know if you noticed.

I was just.

Oh, I definitely noticed.

Yeah.

I was crying.

Yeah, I noticed.

I didn't want to, you know.

know, crying about what, though?

He was moved because the speech was talking about, and I think it's happening.

He's crying right now.

He gave a very nice speech basically saying that, you know, just because the camp isn't here as it was before, just because

we are not necessarily campers anymore, you have that memory, and for that instance, you're back at camp.

Yeah, you know, when you think about it, all of a sudden you find yourself back at camp.

Did you start crying?

No, no, no,

no, no, what am am I?

What is this game?

Come on,

save that for the shower room, boys.

The game room.

Wow.

Did you guys do any science?

No, all those cabins have long been since locked up.

The robotics cabin is closed up?

Yeah.

So, what kind of robots did you guys build?

Anything looked like Herbie or

did you remember?

It was a robot named Hero.

Like, it would be on Mr.

Wizard.

It was like this square box that had like one robotic arm.

Like, we would.

No.

So, how advanced were these robotics, though?

Because that seems crazy in the 90s to have a robotic cabin.

It was like we would do this is the hero robot.

Like, you could program it to do certain things.

It looks like a Dalek from fucking well, yeah.

They were released in 82.

We were still working on it.

And guys, could any of your robots do anything cool, like shoot any kind of lasers or anything?

No, no, no.

We programmed them to detect colors and stuff like that.

You know, you were doing like programming, like if, you know, if this sensor gets crossed, then this

action happens.

So, like, you would make

things that would like, you would put Lego bricks on a conveyor belt, and it would detect the color and then move it to a certain other conveyor belt.

So, wow.

Yeah, okay.

You gotta remember, this is a camera.

This is a camera for kids like age.

I was saying you guys, and then NASA didn't come and fucking poach you, young fucking geniuses.

But we had, had, oh, yeah, video class.

So we were

working with video cameras and editing and stuff like that.

And so is it happening again next year?

No, no.

Well, Joe said two years, but it's probably going to be two or three years.

Yeah.

Well, I think they can't get it together once every year.

I think it's fatigue.

It's fatigue.

Yeah.

Like, you know, and then if you miss it, you're kind of maybe you don't want to go the next year because you missed it.

And I think it gives people enough time to plan ahead.

Like, I'm going to cut out this carve out this section of time.

So.

You've got to tell Johnny Law for next time.

I'll be there, man.

It was great.

I'm saying he might be there on his own.

Part of the family now.

I loved it.

Yeah.

I had a great time.

What was your name officially?

John 2 in camp 5.

John 2 and Cabin 5.

Cabin 5, yeah.

Did you now, Johnny, like when you were at the campfire, any of the wives started giving you looks, like pointing towards the, like, nodding off towards the woods or anything?

No, they didn't.

They didn't do that.

Yeah.

No, he had a, he had a, was she like four or five years old?

Oh, yeah.

She was adorable.

Yeah.

She was just like latched onto him.

Yeah.

And then we were fishing, and her and her family were kayaking, and she came up, and she saw him almost catch a fish.

Yeah, and then she wanted him to catch a fish so that she could hug it and kiss it.

She was adorable.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I caught her a little bait fish and showed it to her.

She's like, kiss it.

No, no, she petted it, and then she's like, goodbye.

And the mother was like, stay away from the man.

And she said, goodbye.

And I put the fish in the water, and she turns away, and the father and I are looking, and instantly, like a bashis comes up and just grabs it.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, it was awesome.

Jeez.

Yeah.

No, it was the most wholesome weekend I have had in a very long time.

Yeah.

Any other story?

Any good stories about Giddam as a child come out?

Not as a child, but I think that last night, Giddam really, in a heartfelt way, said, you know, all of these counselors here and stuff like that

really shaped who he is today,

which is

an improvement for sure.

Oh, no, no, no, no, on what he was like, you know, as a kid.

Yeah, I mean, all the counselors were like, Yeah, you're way better now, you know, sure.

I would hope so.

Like a 45-year-old man versus a 13-year-old kid, yeah, I'd hope so.

He's not on medication, and I think they were touched.

I honestly think they were touched by when what you said.

Oh, that's it was nice.

So, when then we got into a giant legal argument, yeah, we did because there were a bunch of lawyers there.

A really

multiple lawyers, yeah.

Like, I was, I was loving it.

And I was loving it.

Was he the only lawyer?

I was loving it.

I didn't have any idea who was going to be there.

But this one guy, Jack, was there, who was a tax attorney.

And,

you know, I think

great guy.

I really hit it off with this guy.

And then there was another lawyer there, and Jack and I kind of had one position on something.

He had a little different, and

it was a fun night.

Yeah.

A little verbal jousting.

Oh, yeah, the guy ended up leaving.

So I think next time

you should have Johnny give the closing campfire speech.

I don't know if he has that kind of juice.

No, I don't think, yeah, if it's a choice between me and Joe Macy, everyone's going to go with Joe Macy.

Joe Macy already fucking spoke, but more than that.

Yeah, why is he fucking speaking?

He gives the closing speech every time?

Yeah.

How old is he?

He's the elder statesman, for sure.

He's pretty old.

We've got to start thinking about

seven

years.

So that's Colin, and that's Jack.

And that's Jack's wife.

All right.

Look at this.

Who's that buff dude right there?

That's the guy I beat at the canoe race.

Look at that shit.

All steroided out.

Didn't help him, did it?

No, not a bit.

Well, his roids didn't fucking help him get to the other side of the lake.

He's not listening to this, is he?

I don't know if that's going to kill us.

I think the second night was when people really started asking about the podcast.

Why did you even tell them about a podcast?

Well, because people had asked what he was doing.

Like, they'd asked what kind of job he was.

You have a fucking fake fucking career.

Yeah.

I'm an architect.

I'm a publisher.

You don't have a fake career at the ready?

Well, I had had to explain why he was my lawyer, and I was like, he defended me in a case.

But it really came up, I think, with when they asked, What are you doing?

Because you could easily just be like, oh, he's just, he's a lawyer, and that could be the end of it.

Right.

What were you doing that you had to explain what you were doing?

You were just asking people what's going on.

Just catching up.

Yeah.

Like, what are you up to these days?

What do you do?

You know, that kind of thing.

Like

the guy who was in our cabin, Justin, he used to work in radio.

I forget what he's doing now.

We had a discussion about this.

I was a little groggy.

That's how much these conversations mean.

Justin.

No.

No, I was a little groggy, but his boss wants him to start a podcast.

Oh, boy.

Everybody's got a podcast.

Somebody, like, we were sharing, like, you know, he's like, he's like, no, he wants me to do it in this glass conference room, and I'm trying to tell him you're going to be.

So, when you have to explain what you do, what do you say then?

I work for a podcast.

Do you tell them what your title is and everything?

Yeah.

No, I said

I'm an ancillary.

I'm an ancillary member and I help do like the setup and stuff.

Okay.

I'm like, oh, if you're watching Practical Jokers, yes.

You know, Brian Quinn, yes.

He's on our podcast.

Really?

Yeah.

You dropped that?

Yeah.

Oh, he dropped it.

And then Sunday morning,

it's time to go home.

Sunday morning.

We wanted to go river fishing again.

Okay.

Because now that I found this little cut through, it was like a, you know, like a real cut through down to the river.

And it was a part where the river comes around, so it gets really wide and deep and slow.

Okay, it would have been perfect for him to pull.

Yeah, I would have liked to have gone there, yeah.

But they said, No, no, no, no.

We got up, and just in the distance, you kind of hear thunder.

Okay, and we take the picture in the front of the cabin.

We start eating breakfast, and then it just

comes down.

That was it, and I mean,

lightning, just

horrible.

So, like, everyone just, you know, because we couldn't drive the cars in front of the cabins.

We had to take everything back to our cars.

Okay, so it started raining, so you could have found it.

Gotcha.

Okay, that's really heavy.

Yeah, Yeah, yeah.

It rained.

I think I lost some more time.

Yeah.

True, true.

The skies turned darker.

The river was wide and then

deep.

And the cars drove around the building.

I don't know how much we wanted to go out there.

I didn't want to get swept away

by a torrential flood.

Oh, we went on the evening hike.

We did.

We went on Saturday night, yeah, before the campfire.

To a beautiful waterfall.

He was checking with me.

So, you sure you want to go on this hike?

You don't have to go on this hike.

I want to go on the hike.

Well, you, yeah, you were, you know,

yeah.

And you got to see some good fishing spots over there if you eventually do go back.

I would love to.

Yeah.

Do you think you'll ever go back?

I honestly, I would see if I could rent out like one of the cabins on some off time with some people in the city.

What's your run, do you think?

It can't be that much.

I mean, for a for a whole cabin.

And what's the

car ride from here?

What's the time to get there?

Two, two and a half hours from here.

Oh, okay.

So it's not that close.

Yeah.

It's not too bad, though.

But yeah,

I would totally rent out a cabin there and bring some buddies and go fishing.

Because there was great fishing.

It is beautiful.

It's hard to get around that, man.

They picked a great spot to put this camp on.

There's the ropes.

Where's the ropes course?

We're looking at a drone from the beach.

Did you do the rope course?

No.

No.

See, this is the part we wanted to go fishing.

Oh, yeah.

That is some brown water.

It's probably a good look.

It's actually a lot clearer.

The stone is dark.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, wow, guys.

No, I was going to.

What an adventure.

He had a tennis elbow?

I have a tennis elbow, yeah.

Yeah, so he couldn't do the ropes course.

So we went fishing instead.

Okay.

Yeah.

A lot of fishing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Your elbow looks really a lot.

It looks very similar to Giddam's elbow.

Doesn't it?

I got to go to the doctor right now.

Which that seems pretty high, so it might have just rained recently.

So what is the main takeaway, Johnny Law?

Like, what did you learn about Giddam?

Like, what peek-in did you get?

Like,

I learned, well, you know, the big thing that I learned was that Giddam's youth,

I think he dealt with a lot of negativity

pointed in his direction.

And the fact that he is the way that he is today, which I think is a maybe

getting more well-adjusted and just a kind person.

This is a person who could easily have lots of resentment, I feel like, in his life.

I mean, just between some family stuff and how his friends have treated him.

He's made huge strides, which is encouraging.

Yeah, because that means that he can make even bigger strides going forward.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think that's my big takeaway.

You know, it wasn't just a fishing trip.

It was really.

He is, we've said before, as much as he can be a lazy,

you know,

employee, he's a great guy.

He's a great guy, and

he cares.

You know, and who knows if, like, let's say Giddam had been born now and they had different programs and stuff like that to have him adjust a little bit more,

it'd be better.

But, I mean, it's hard to argue with your way you worked out.

Walt really took you on this wing, and

any progress you made has got to be attributed to Walt.

No, no.

Well, I think they, again, they started it,

you know, back then.

And then it's, you know, I latched on to people I think who can help me.

And, you know, they help me.

Yeah.

I will, one last remark for me, I guess, is that I found a really interesting common

link, I think, between everything that Gedham does.

Very charming.

No,

and it really is this hyper, hyper sense of

nostalgia and emotion

tied to objects.

Yeah.

Everything.

So

I feel like that is a huge part of your life where

you can't move forward because you think you're throwing the past away.

And

yeah.

No sense of Buddhist impermanence in this guy.

No.

No.

I'd love to see one phone.

I really would.

Yeah.

Knock him down to one phone.

Yeah.

Even two.

Even two would be better.

If you could have his number of phones, you'd be ahead of the game.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, but again, he's doing fine.

Like, what's what's what's he wanting for?

Well,

how much longer do we got?

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Now, would you be wanting for if you were in his position?

What is he wanting for?

Was this episode brought

to everyone commercial free?

For

commercial free, baby.

Sponsors heard about the showers.

How many times have they mentioned Sandusky?

Oh, wow.

And now you now I asked you before we turn on the mics, I was like, we have to get the green screen down today.

And you were like, well, I don't know if I can get to it because

I'm in bad shape.

And you were going to allude to what happened.

Why are you in bad shape?

Because of the underwater canoe.

The canoe?

The underwater canoe.

Oh, you're all sore and shit?

Yeah.

Oh, okay.

He's all

this video of him,

there's going to be no question as to why that green screen is still out there.

Okay, just want to point out that the green screen is held onto the walls with 15 clips.

Giant alligator clips that you could take down in

less than a minute.

No, I'm dreading that step up

on a chip.

I'll do it.

I'll do it.

I'll do it.

I'll do it.

No, it's just because it has to come down and then go back up.

So you did.

It's called a job.

I know, I know.

It's fucking wild, dude.

It is insane.

It's crazy as fuck.

But it has to go back up within a day.

Yeah, I understand.

By next work day, it has to go up.

I didn't say I wouldn't do it.

I'm just thinking

you're specifically saying you won't do it.

No, no, no.

I was like, it's just going to take a little longer than it normally does.

Oh, my God.

All right.

Wow.

All right.

Well, I mean, now you're off back to Boston, huh?

Back to Boston.

Like,

it's got to be rough, huh?

I mean, now you got to go back to the

old nine of five.

Yeah, I mean, you know,

this is your last hurrah.

This is your last hurrah.

You're depressing me now.

Yeah, this is it.

It's a dad life after this.

No, yeah.

I'll be honest.

My life at home is very, like, my job is great in the sense that I can kind of come and go as I please as long as things get done.

I fish a ton up there.

Okay.

My wife fully supports my fishing.

It means I'm not going to be able to do it.

So

you don't have any, like, you want to go away on a short notice over a weekend.

It's not really an issue.

It's never an issue.

Never an issue.

You got to talk to my buddy Tom.

Yeah, is it an issue?

Yeah, dude.

Tom needs some.

He's a...

Tom was going to do it.

Oh, my God.

So since Q West, right, the beginning of April

to now, I have not been home one weekend.

Whoa.

Yeah.

Because of tons of different things that have happened.

Some of it works.

It's brutal, man.

Yeah.

I'm like so excited to do nothing.

You know, Tom Milazewski's text number?

You know, is the phone number?

I have Tom's.

Yeah, you guys got to get it.

You got to start helping.

You helped get him out this weekend.

Now you point your

wisdom towards Tom so he can get a weekend away from home.

Well, right now, I mean, Tom's got it right, I feel like sometimes.

I'd much rather sometimes just be relaxing at home.

I think I overcommit to stuff a lot of the time.

So if you're gone

three weekends a month, four weekends a month in three months, yeah.

And this is is a heavy travel for you, too.

Like, it takes, what, four hours to get here from Boston, then another two to the camp.

Yeah, but I, but I work in fun stuff.

So I came down the day before and I did some saltwater fishing.

Gotcha.

Like near, right,

where New Jersey and New York kind of meet.

There's some saltwater fishing to do down there.

So I did that.

So it's a more leisurely thing.

No, I just went out.

I brought a surf rod, retailing rod.

Yeah.

So I try to work in, you know, fun.

Some manly shit going on here.

No, I'm not doing any of it.

Me neither.

No.

What about you, Walt?

You doing any manly shit?

I went to a comic book show at the mall this weekend.

I thought that was pretty manly.

It was pretty good.

What mall?

What mall is that?

Whitman Center had a comic book show.

They had it as a comic book show, but it was 90%

fucking Pokemon cards.

Pokemon cards.

Pokemon cards.

They're taking over the

they're back, man.

Oh,

all right.

Tell them, Steve, Dave.