TCB Classic: PJ's Mistress!

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Speaker 1 Ooh, it's the cold, cold opening with a little bit of music. It sounds like I'm a DJ from 1992.

Speaker 1 Here's Sonic Youth with yet another mumblebuddle song.

Speaker 1 Hey, I'm coming on quickly before the episode here, the TCB Classic that we're presenting today. Just to let you know that everything's fine.
Chrissy and I are good.

Speaker 1 We're just taking our first holiday break in the entirety of the six years we've been in this studio. We have never been away from the microphones during the holidays.

Speaker 1 We are going to do that this year, give ourselves a well-deserved vacation with the family. And quite frankly, I'm still recovering from whatever crappy virus I had two weeks ago.

Speaker 1 So you understand how it goes. I hope you do at least.
Listen, when we get back next week, we will be

Speaker 1 recording live and you can watch it and get involved at youtube.com slash thecommercial break or on Twitch at TCB Podcast.

Speaker 1 And you can come in the chat and you can come in the video and you can have some fun with us.

Speaker 1 But if you're unavailable to be with us live, then you can just listen to it like you do normally on the RSS feed every Wednesday and Friday. That is our new schedule.

Speaker 1 Hence the reason you're hearing this on a Friday. There you go.
All right, so as you move into this holiday week, just know that we love you. And we're all going to get through this together.

Speaker 1 I'm going to feel better eventually. Going to get my voice back eventually.
You're going to love

Speaker 1 two days a week of TCB live and two days a week of TCB recorded. And

Speaker 1 yeah,

Speaker 2 kiss a kiss. You wouldn't want to miss you.

Speaker 1 All right, let's get into this episode, this TCB Classic, episode number 771 from earlier in season number six. Bye.

Speaker 1 Guys, has this ever happened to you? Man, I'd love to go hit the dance floor and show off my new jitterbug, but I'm afraid the guys are gonna see my jitter rug.

Speaker 1 Ha, they call me Jizzy Jeff Hoadley, and I know the feeling, boys. Over two decades ago, I had a similar incident.

Speaker 1 I hit the local jitterbug jeep joint in my one-piece Unitar, started with a pair of jazz hand and a high kick to the low alley, and what came a tumbling out? My tumble weeds.

Speaker 1 That's when I started Jizzy Jeff's all-male review dance hall and laser hair removal studio. That's right at Jizzy Jeff's all-male review dance hall and laser hair removal studio.

Speaker 1 You'll never worry about those dangling participles again. At Jizzy Jeff's, each client is treated with a patented 12-step laser procedure that's only legal in two states.

Speaker 1 We'll remove every hair off your body with almost no pain that lasts more than four days, or your money is almost guaranteed completely back.

Speaker 1 And when you're done recovering, come back to Jizzy Jeffs and show off your silky smooth marbles with a brand new Lacy Lombada for the ages.

Speaker 1 Every undercarriage is treated as if it was our own. We'll eat off of it, or your money is almost guaranteed mostly back.

Speaker 1 So, guys, what are you waiting for? Get your legs so silky smooth you'll glide across the dance floor with ease. Yes, please.

Speaker 1 Come on down to Jizzy Jeff's all-male dance hall and laser hair removal studio.

Speaker 1 And as a special thank you to the township of Crab Apple, Jeff is giving away a free back waxing with every single dance. Tell them Jizzy Jeff sent you

Speaker 2 on this episode of the Commercial Break.

Speaker 2 Frankly, you're not always the funniest comedy podcast out there. You don't always have the most interesting topics.
Your guest interviews are not always the most organized or in-depth.

Speaker 2 Your show can be scattered and muddy, but that is exactly why we all love it. You are literally building the plane while you're flying it.
It is a living, it is living and breathing and organic.

Speaker 2 It is sloppy and sharp and confused and focused and hapless and perfect and a total train wreck where the wheels happen to stay stay on the track. Your show is all of those things.

Speaker 2 All of those things that we need, and a lot of the things we don't.

Speaker 2 The next episode of the Commercial Break starts now.

Speaker 2 The birdie in the morning!

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah, cats and kittens, welcome back to the commercial break. I'm Brian Greene.
This is my dear friend and a co-host of this show. Chris and Joy Odele, best of you, Chris.
Best to you, Brian.

Speaker 2 Best of you out there in the podcast universe. Thanks for joining us.
Here we are, back and alive, and kicking after Brian put out a two-hour best of best of classic.

Speaker 2 Two hours long. That's crazy.
So if you didn't listen to Tuesday's episode, who can blame you? There were like 13 of them over the weekend.

Speaker 2 But Tuesday's TCB classic was a TCB best of from early season two.

Speaker 2 I think I mistakenly said season one, but it was season two, where I had put together, it was like our first or second best of, I had put together all of the times we had done a Frankie B video into one long supercup, and it was two hours long, coming in as the longest out, longest episode of the commercial break.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 you're going for all kinds of records. I am going for all kinds of records.
Now they've got Chet TCB on my side. Me and Saddie.

Speaker 2 He and I are friends now, and we're working together diligently to put together the super brain of the commercial break, driving him and me crazy at the same time. Him? Him.
Oh.

Speaker 2 No, she. I don't know.
It.

Speaker 2 Not just what.

Speaker 2 It's an it. I will always refer to it as an it.
It should be referred to as an it. But it is coming up.
It is coming up with some interesting statistics on the commercial break as it's going along.

Speaker 2 It showed me some of those. As I asked it to.
I said, give me tidbits, informations, callbacks, taglines.

Speaker 2 And then I said, you know, and anything that frequently pops up in these early seasons, I'd love to know about.

Speaker 2 I might revisit them, right? And so it gave me a heat map of the show and told me what we're talking about most frequently in which episodes and which seasons and stuff like that.

Speaker 2 It also cut all the bits out of the shows for me and there's a lot more than I even thought I had.

Speaker 2 There are some that I went back to that it alerted me to that I don't even remember like the one where Jizzy Jazz Jeff's Jizzy Jizzy Jeff's dance saloon

Speaker 2 and pants and ball shaving parlor. I remember that.

Speaker 2 Are you getting a high side to the low groin or whatever it was? Are you getting a bushel to the low side or something like this? Come on in to Jazzy Jev's dance saloon and ball shaving parlor.

Speaker 2 I listened to it and I was like, that's really funny, Brian. That's really funny.
Good job. Or I talked about the pantaloons or the.

Speaker 2 Oh, what was it?

Speaker 2 We had a whole thing back in about talking about the pantaloons. Oh, the pantaloons.

Speaker 2 They were back in style, weren't they, for like a minute? There was like pantaloons when the...

Speaker 2 Yeah, that was also around the time that we were talking about filling up your car with gas grass fed gas gas fed gas gas fed grass there's a lot of ones that we could go back to i will i'm gonna i'm gonna revisit it and i'm gonna pull out some of the good ones and we're gonna go back to it because there's also one called the um

Speaker 2 The Quitterbug phone that you can give your parents that has no Fox News or accessibility to Facebook.

Speaker 2 I did a whole commercial on Quitterbug, the phone you can give your aging parents. Disconnects them from Facebook, Twitter, and Fox News.
Man, do we need that more than ever? Wow, unbelievable.

Speaker 2 And sad news for anybody who's a podcast listener, follower,

Speaker 2 general like aficionado of the podcast universe, Mark Marron. Yes.
It was one of the very early podcasters who kind of pioneered the space in a lot of ways. 16 years.
16 years. 16.
16 years, 2009.

Speaker 2 He put out his first podcast, 1,600 episodes,

Speaker 2 thousands of hours. Um, and he had so many guests on.
Mark had every comedian probably that has ever worked that is even remotely notable.

Speaker 2 Most comedians who have been on here that are notable were on Mark Maron's show at some point.

Speaker 2 Um, and he talked to them at length about the craft, about what it takes to be a good comedian, about the downfalls, the pitfalls of the entertainment industry, really interesting dig in conversations, kind of like Joe Rogan without a lot of the extemporaneous bullshit.

Speaker 2 And he had Obama on.

Speaker 2 He's had, I mean, he's had everybody on. You can go back.
If you don't know Mark Maron's show, What the Fuck with Mark Maron, WTF with Mark Maron, you should do yourself a favor.

Speaker 2 And before he leaves in late fall of this year, listen to a couple episodes. Go early, mid, late.

Speaker 2 Maybe I'll suggest some as we go along and we'll all say goodbye to Mark together because there is no doubt about it. No Mark Maron, no commercial break.
No Mark Maron, no Joe Rogan.

Speaker 2 No Mark Maron, no Dak Shepard. He was a pioneer.
Theo Vaughan. He truly was a pioneer.
And I think he was even like maybe earlier that way earlier than Serial was even on.

Speaker 2 Like Serial is like the noted podcast that kind of made podcasting a word that everybody knew and that people that all of a sudden started downloading podcasts. And Mark was doing it before that.

Speaker 2 So Mark announced today as we're recording this in the morning, he announced on his Instagram that it's time. He is burnt out.

Speaker 2 He does not find, I'm putting words in his mouth, but the joyfulness of showing up every day and having these conversations is not there anymore. And he feels, in his words, incredibly accomplished.

Speaker 2 So after 1,600 episodes, what else is there to say, really? And when you had, you know, Obama and I don't know who else he's had. He's had a bunch of people on.
Yeah, very famous people.

Speaker 2 Yeah, when you've had all these famous people on and you pick their brains, they've even written books like taking insights from all of the episodes of the WTF show.

Speaker 2 And his producer, I think the guy's name is Andrew, together they said to each other, and they've said this on the show before, when we're done, we're done.

Speaker 2 Like when it's no longer the thing, it's no longer the thing and we'll just move on.

Speaker 2 And he made an announcement and it said, Andrew and I have come to the conclusion at the same time that we're done. It's just it.
That's it.

Speaker 2 He was in that new show with Owen Wilson that's on about like the golf guy. Oh, the golf guy.
Oh, Mark Marin is? I think he is. Okay.
All right. Mark Marin,

Speaker 2 an accomplished comedian in and of himself. Like, he really was one of those early Comedy Central comedians,

Speaker 2 like some of these people that we have been talking to, who

Speaker 2 just kind of rode that wave. Tom Papa.

Speaker 2 Who else did we have?

Speaker 2 Oh, Margaret Chow. And Kathy.

Speaker 2 Oh, yes.

Speaker 2 Kathleen Madigan. Yep.

Speaker 2 Lewis Black.

Speaker 2 Margaret Cho was even before Comedy Central, I think. I think she was more of like

Speaker 2 ABC Fox News HBO, like that, or Fox, early Fox, HBO. She was even a little bit before the time of Comedy Central.

Speaker 2 But there's like this group of Kyle Kinane, these group of comedians that came up in the very hot Comedy Central era, and they kind of rode those 30-minute specials to fame. And Mark was of those.

Speaker 2 And he just got the idea early on. He heard about podcasting, got the idea, jumped on, invited some of his comedian friends to come on and talk to him for an hour or two.
And there you go.

Speaker 2 And away it went. And for a long time, Mark Maron's podcast was number one, number two, or number three for a long time.
It hasn't been in a while. It's like still in the top 20, top 25.

Speaker 2 And the charts don't mean shit. I got to be real honest with you.
Yeah, wow. If there's a weird cut in the podcast, it's because all of the sudden the power popped.

Speaker 2 It just like popped, went off, popped again, and then went off, and then popped a third time and then went off for a few seconds and then turned back on, which is really strange.

Speaker 2 But they're doing construction on the highway down or the road down the street, and I think they might be moving the power poles. So anyway, we're back.

Speaker 2 I was talking about Mark Maron and I was talking about the charts. Listen, Mark,

Speaker 2 regardless of where Mark sits on the charts or where he has been sitting on the charts, I think it's clear to any observer, casual or otherwise, that Mark Maron has had a huge impact on the podcast industry.

Speaker 2 And I think he was one of the first to have commercials. If I'm, if I'm not mistaken, I think like Dollar Shave Club or whatever was one of the first.

Speaker 2 I don't know this for sure, but I do remember listening to early Mark Maron podcasts and hearing commercials in there and thinking to myself, wow, he's selling commercials.

Speaker 2 Even though, like, I didn't really get into podcasting until much later after it had started. Like, I really didn't jump on the bandwagon until Serial.

Speaker 2 When Serial came on, I started listening to Mark Maron's podcast and I was like, wow, that's great. Commercials.
Can you do that for a living?

Speaker 2 Because if you can do that for a living, in 10 years from now, I am also going to do that for a living.

Speaker 2 So anyway, Mark Maron gets all the props he should rightfully get for really turning this into an art form, a radio show, a late night TV talk show, a place where people can come and sit and have

Speaker 2 long, in-depth conversations that are meaningful and change the world. The exact opposite of what we do here at the commercial break.

Speaker 2 I didn't say we were going to take Mark Maron's thing and make it better, but maybe, listen, not to dance on anybody's grave, Chrissy, but maybe there's a small chance that we will get some of those Mark Maron listeners.

Speaker 2 People who are looking for smart, intelligent, witty comedy podcasts, they'll go, that commercial break, that's not it.

Speaker 2 But I'll download it once just for shits and giggles.

Speaker 2 I was saying yesterday when I put out the best of, I was saying that chatty TCB, I asked it, hey, what is a good like snapshot of what's indicative of season one, early season two? Yeah.

Speaker 2 And is indicative, like an indication of where the podcast is going, raw, kind of whatever. So it came up with this whole dissertation, right? Where it's basically blowing smoke up our asses.

Speaker 2 And it says, you know, this episode, it gave me three episodes. One of them was this Frankie B.
Best of episode. And it says, this episode is early riffing, highbrow

Speaker 2 comedy. It says highbrow comedy with lowbrow jokes.

Speaker 2 It's sharp, witty satire with something or other. And I was like, wow, this thing is really good at kissing my ass.

Speaker 2 But then what it said at the end was, an early indication of what a cult classic the commercial break would become. Cult classic means no listeners.
Right.

Speaker 2 Has anybody ever said, wow, I made a million dollars off my cult classic movie. Or, wow, my one-hit wonder music group that became a, you know, do you understand what I'm saying here? I do, yeah.

Speaker 2 Okay. So, like, right said Fred.

Speaker 2 Blue also agrees. Yes, Blue.
Fuck you, Blue. Wright said Fred.
Wright said Fred. I forgot about him.

Speaker 2 He was not excited about being a cult classic in the underground music scene. I can guarantee you.
He wanted the money.

Speaker 2 But you know what? We do this because we love it. Back then, it was just a hobby for us, honestly.
It just was.

Speaker 2 Speaking of back then, back then, when we did 13 episodes of the commercial break in one day, kind of went off without a hitch, I think. Oh, yeah, you're talking about

Speaker 2 the TCB

Speaker 2 a few days ago. That feels like a year ago at this point.
No, I thought it did go pretty smoothly. I think maybe we had built it up in our heads

Speaker 2 to be

Speaker 2 more chaotic or something. We built it up in our heads to be brought three bags of money.
I know I was telling somebody this.

Speaker 2 I was telling my little brother this.

Speaker 2 Patrick, we went out for his birthday, like the brothers and

Speaker 2 the new girlfriend.

Speaker 2 Oh. Uh-uh.
Oh.

Speaker 2 Okay. I got to be careful about how much I say.
It's early days here. Early days.
Yeah, you'll have to fill me in later. Yeah, I don't know if she's ready to be a podcast character quite yet.

Speaker 2 You know what I'm saying? Yeah.

Speaker 2 Lovely, lovely human being. Lovely human being.
But anyway, we were all talking at there, and

Speaker 2 we were chatting about the TCB's Endless Day because I went out to dinner with him on Sunday. I was just butt exhausted.
I mean, like, wiped.

Speaker 2 Because here's the thing about TCB's Endless Day. My day really didn't end.
I walked right out that door, had to bathe, you know, feed and put children to bed.

Speaker 2 And then they were up the next morning, early, ready for me to rock. And it just didn't, like, I realized on Sunday, I really don't get a fucking break.
Like, Chrissy right now is sleeping.

Speaker 2 She's going to go have a boozy brunch. Her and Jeff are going to walk around the house in robes, catching up on all their favorite nets flick shows you got a fucking massage

Speaker 2 yes

Speaker 2 i got a fucking kick in the potatoes is what i got by my youngest kid who decided she now wanted to play footsie with my sister i know and i was thinking about you guys a lot after that and it did make me you know text you last night and so it was very sweet i would i would be happy to help do a little babysitting well i told astrid astrid went to shakira last night and i'll let me tell i'll tell this

Speaker 2 oh wow All right. Let me tell this one.
That was good. But first, I want to say this.
I love Shakira. Endless Day went off pretty much without a hitch.

Speaker 2 We did build it up to be some long, dramatic thing that

Speaker 2 it was going to be like we were scratching to get to the last minutes. And it really didn't feel like that big of a deal at the end.
We took our breaks in the right places.

Speaker 2 I didn't leave the studio for nine hours, but we did take breaks, so it felt okay. Yeah, it felt like...
It felt like there was some breathing room. But here's the point.

Speaker 2 Thank you to everybody who called and texted and wrote in and gave us a little fuel for the tank to move on to the next step.

Speaker 2 It was really nice too with the live when we did the live episode and then the Instagram

Speaker 2 comments and things. It was great.
So thank you very much.

Speaker 2 And we will be announcing here shortly that we will be doing more Twitch live streaming recording in the future, maybe once, maybe twice a month. So stay tuned at TCB podcast on Twitch.

Speaker 2 If you just want to follow us and hit the notifications so that when we do decide to go live, but we will keep you informed on at the commercial break on Instagram. Okay,

Speaker 2 so Astrid's birthday.

Speaker 2 In December, there are three concerts that are announced, two of which we really want to go to. Pearl Jam, or I want to go to.
Pearl Jam, I want to go to. Pearl Jam and Shakira.

Speaker 2 I don't want to go to Shakira. I want to go to Pearl Jam.
Astrid doesn't want to go to Pearl Jam. She wants to go to Shakira.

Speaker 2 But Astrid doesn't have someone that's like a super Shakira fan to go with her. And it's going to be just as hard to get tickets to Shakira as it is to see Pearl Jam.

Speaker 2 Because Shakira is the Taylor Swift of everywhere else in the world.

Speaker 2 She really is. She's a superstar, mega superstar.
People scream and yell and

Speaker 2 wait in line for days to see that shaky little booty. That girl,

Speaker 2 those hips don't lie. So I get online to go get Pearl Jam tickets, but I've got brothers that are going to also be online to get Pearl Jam tickets.

Speaker 2 They're all going on sale the same day and the same time.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 the absolute gem of a husband that I am, I decide, let my brothers knock out Pearl Jam if they can. Let me try to get Shakira tickets for my lovely wife.
You are a gem. And I do.

Speaker 2 And I get. The exact same tickets to Shakira

Speaker 2 that my brother got to Pearl James.

Speaker 2 The ones at the very top. I.e., the worst tickets you could possibly get.
But they're the only tickets that I could get.

Speaker 2 You know, that fucking ticketmaster is so goddamn convoluted that as soon as I grab them, I'm like, okay, I guess, you know, there are other seats around, but I'm afraid to lose the two that I have in the basket.

Speaker 2 So I'm like, just check out. And then you can figure it out later.
If you want to get upgrade to seats, you go to one of those, you know,

Speaker 2 off-market sites. Hey, brother.

Speaker 2 Hey, brother. I got two tickets to Shakira on the floor.
$7,200 a piece. PayPal me.
At you got scammed. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 Got those tickets. Assard comes home.
Happy birthday. You're going to Shakura.

Speaker 2 You did it for the birthday, too. I'm going with you.
Don't worry. I'm your ride or die.
I've been to Taylor Swift. I've been to the Jonas Brothers.

Speaker 2 I've been to concerts where I can barely pronounce the names of the artists. I've been to Luis Luis Fonse, you know? Okay.

Speaker 2 I'm deep. I'm deep in the Venezuelans.
Yes, I'm deep in the Venezuelan culture. I one time went to a Venezuelan restaurant like 20 miles outside of the outside of where I live.

Speaker 2 So it was like 50 miles outside of the city.

Speaker 2 I went to a restaurant where they literally took the tables and chairs and put them to the side and put rows of chairs to see a former boy band from Venezuela, a bunch of brothers, get up and do two hours a cappella in a restaurant

Speaker 2 that they just put a bunch of chairs on. And it was like,

Speaker 2 I didn't know a fucking thing. I didn't know a fucking word.
And I didn't know a fucking human being in there. But I went because that's my wife.

Speaker 2 She is excited. And I'm going to make sure that she has a good time.
Even if it's not my thing, I don't care. It's that's what we do.
That's what you do with a good partner. Of course.
Right?

Speaker 2 And she has been to Pearl Jam, Fish,

Speaker 2 and

Speaker 2 those two

Speaker 2 but to be fair to astrid i have been living here all my life there are people that i know that can go with me to these concerts astrid has lots of friends here now but she didn't back then so i would be her ride or die okay

Speaker 2 so that concert was monday right and uh last week Astrid, we're dropping the kids off at camp and we see a lady that we know, another Hispanic lady that we know that's friends with the family, Gabby, Gabrielle.

Speaker 2 Okay, lovely lady. She's taught a number of our children.
She's a teacher,

Speaker 2 super awesome human being, the kind of person you just want around in your life because she's just that kind of human being.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 so we see Gabby and Astrid spends some time with Gabby. And then Astrid comes home from spending time with Gabby.
And I'm going to tell you about what happened. after these messages.

Speaker 2 I would have gotten this all in before the break had we not had some power explosion. So hopefully we'll be back after this.

Speaker 3 Okay, you're probably wondering why I, Rachel, have taken over the voice duties at TCB. It's pretty simple.
Astrid asked me to shut Brian up, even for a minute.

Speaker 3 Well, lovely Astrid, your wish is my command. Do you want to help Astrid too?

Speaker 2 You know you do.

Speaker 3 Leave a message for her or me or Chrissy at 212-433-3TCB. That's 212-433-3822.
You can be on the show too.

Speaker 3 Just call and say something.

Speaker 2 Anything.

Speaker 3 Or text us and we'll text you right back. Promise.
Then head over to tcbpodcast.com and get your free sticker. It's your constitutional right to a sticker and we must abide.
You get the point.

Speaker 3 Follow us on Instagram at thecommercial break and watch all the episodes on video at youtube.com slash thecommercial break.

Speaker 2 Best to you and Astrid.

Speaker 3 Especially Astrid.

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Speaker 2 Okay, so every single married couple and probably couples that are married, been together for some period of time, any period of time, really three months, eight months, nine months.

Speaker 2 You start to understand

Speaker 2 a small change in the tone of voice, the way they breathe, the way they walk, the way they swing their arms, the way their eyeballs are moving. You start to pick up on body language.

Speaker 2 And you know, it's just like I was telling this story the other day to a pregnant girl at Starbucks who's her first pregnancy. She's early on, it's early days.
She's like four or five months pregnant.

Speaker 2 Maybe it's not early days. It's days.
And she's having so, you know, it's not the easiest pregnancy in the world. And every time I go up there and I see her, she says, Hey, how are you doing?

Speaker 2 Hi, how are you doing? And I check in, hey, you know,

Speaker 2 I feel like my back hurts. And I go, Yeah, you're literally getting ripped open.
You know, does she work there? She works there. Okay.
She's working there. Yeah.
And

Speaker 2 so I said to her, she was talking to me about the concerns about birth. And I said, about labor.

Speaker 2 And I said, you know, I don't think it really often happens the way it's pictured on TV, like water breaks, you're screaming all of a sudden. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I think a lot of times it's like a slow buildup and you already know long before the action is going to happen.

Speaker 2 I'm sure a lot of, for a lot of women, the water breaks and it is like that, but I don't think it's like that for everybody because that's what she was saying. And I was like, because my first

Speaker 2 people could do it for like 24, I've heard of like 24 hours, you know, somebody being in labor. Astrid was in labor for with our first one for like 18 hours, 18 or 19 hours.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 she started labor at two in the morning and woke me up at like seven with one word, honey. And when she said it and then the way in which she said it, she did not need to say anything else.

Speaker 2 I already knew exactly that honey was not the same honey that was always there. It was a honey of it's going to be a long day and you're about to your whole life's about to change.
Strap him.

Speaker 2 And the whole world is going to come crashing down.

Speaker 2 So Astrid comes in the door the other day after being with Gabriella and she pops open the door and I say, Oh, honey, welcome home. Like I always, like I always do.
Welcome home, my love.

Speaker 2 You look beautiful today.

Speaker 2 I'm so happy you came back to through the threshold of the door. I've missed you so much.

Speaker 2 What can I do to make your life easier? Back massage? foot massage can i take the kids for a couple of hours like i always do and uh

Speaker 2 and she says yeah it was great it was wonderful gabby's great i have an idea and when she said that the way that she said that i already knew i'm getting something's happening here i'm getting

Speaker 2 that idea does not include me something about something happened and i'm gonna get the small end of the dick you know what i'm saying i have an idea and i was like uh okay what what how much is it?

Speaker 2 What are we going to do? What do I, how much, how long do I have to watch the children? Or where are we driving? Right. And she said, well, I was talking to Gabby and she really likes Shakira.

Speaker 2 And so she thought, if you thought that you didn't want to go see Shakira, because you know, we know you don't like Sakira, Shakira all that much.

Speaker 2 She's already convincing me that I don't like Shakira. And in my mind, I had already said to myself, watching Shakira shake her ass for two hours is not exactly the worst thing in the world.

Speaker 2 No offense. She's got a beautiful female form and she knows how to work it.
Why would it that? And she does that.

Speaker 2 Part of the reason why she's so world famous is because she does. That's what she's known for.
Yeah. Along with the singing and the great music, she's known to shake her patuti.

Speaker 2 That's what happens at a Shakira concert. God love it.
And then I also knew that there's, it's just going to be a room full of happy people dancing their patooties off.

Speaker 2 Of all the stuff I've seen with Astrid, including the restaurant boy band, this could be the least of my concerns, right? I can deal with this. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And I thought to myself, okay, here it comes, you know, Gabby said, if you don't want to go because you don't like Shakira all that much, she really likes Shakira and she would be happy to take your ticket.

Speaker 2 And I thought to myself, well, this is a no-win situation that I'm putting, that she's putting me in right here. I could say, no, I really want to go with you.
And then she could say, yeah, of course.

Speaker 2 I know, I know.

Speaker 2 And then she, in her head, is going to be just a little bit pissed off that she could be standing next to someone who knows every word, English and Spanish, to every song Shakira ever did, every move, every album, every next song coming up, a playlist,

Speaker 2 how many times it's been played in what city and which live venue, just like I would with the Pearl Jam Show or whatever.

Speaker 2 Or she could be stuck with Brian,

Speaker 2 60-year-old white man who's got bad knees and has never danced a day in his life.

Speaker 2 Not worthy of Shakira, that's for sure.

Speaker 2 So there's going to be 28,000 people in there screaming in Spanish about whatever. And Brian's going to be going, hey, ay de Amio!

Speaker 2 Hola! Come on, Miamigas.

Speaker 2 Or

Speaker 2 I could say, sure,

Speaker 2 absolutely sounds like a good idea.

Speaker 2 And then Astrid in her head is going to go, he never wanted to go in the first place.

Speaker 2 Whoa. Whoa.
He's just doing this to pacify me.

Speaker 2 It's a double-edged sword. It is.
And I don't know what to do. In your head.
In my head. In her head.

Speaker 2 Just give up the ticket.

Speaker 2 Yeah, just give up the ticket, you dumb-dumb. Then we don't need a babysitter.
Exactly. We don't need a babysitter.
And I can go have actual fun at the concert. Right.
Right?

Speaker 2 But in my head, I'm like, oh, this is a husband quandary. It's like, do I look fat in this?

Speaker 2 Of course not.

Speaker 2 I can't believe you were double thinking it. Oh, I was triple thinking it.
I was down a rabbit hole for a few seconds there. But then I was like, okay,

Speaker 2 pretend like you want to go,

Speaker 2 but be the hero. Right.
Right. That was a good move.
Yes. So I said, oh, you know, I was looking forward to spending time with you.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's not my favorite artist in the world, and I don't know a ton of her music, but I was really looking forward to it, you know? That's what I said. I go, you know?

Speaker 2 Like a puppy dog? Like a puppy guy gave the hands and the puppy dog look. I'm like, eh, eh.

Speaker 2 And she goes, you know what? You're right. You, yeah, that's fine.
I'm, you know what? I told Gabby he'd probably, he's probably going to go. So, so don't worry about it.
Let's go.

Speaker 2 We're going to have a great time. And then I'm like, uh-oh, chance is slipping away.
Chance is slipping away to get out of the Shakira concert. And I said, yeah, you're right.
You're right.

Speaker 2 We should go. We should go.
We'll have a good time. Play this out for a few minutes, Brian.
Play it out for a few minutes. Okay.
All right. And then we go our separate ways.
I had to go somewhere.

Speaker 2 I was out the door. And then we're texting with each other about an hour later.

Speaker 2 And then I wait for a pregnant pause and I put together the text message that's going to win me marriage points probably for the next year.

Speaker 2 I say, you know what, I was thinking about it as I'm at the tanning bed because she's going to get mad at me for being at the tanning bed.

Speaker 2 So I'm going to, I'm going to soften it up a little bit. I say, you know what, I was thinking about it.
I really do want you to have a good time at Shakira. And I know that it's important to you.

Speaker 2 to have somebody with you that knows Shakira like you know Shakira and enjoys Shakira like you enjoy Shakira and can sing along and do all the things and you can take pictures and buy merch and all that with the same level of excitement that you have.

Speaker 2 So go ahead, tell Gabby. And she responds right away, Are you sure?

Speaker 2 And then I said, Listen, I really want to spend time with you. Dink, ding, ding.
I really want to spend time, which I do, but maybe not a Shakura, but I do.

Speaker 2 I really want to spend time with you, but it's okay. Go ahead, go with Gabby.
If you don't call her and tell her, I will.

Speaker 2 You're so dramatic. 5.30.

Speaker 2 Oh, my God.

Speaker 2 So Astrid comes home. So I babysit the kids last night.
Yeah. Astrid comes home.

Speaker 2 And by the way, Shakira has had a number of show cancellations due to stage mismanagement or something, something about the stage not being safe.

Speaker 2 Boston, D.C., she fell somewhere, like somewhere in California. She fell off the stage and had a problem and whatever.
But the Shakira Atlanta concert went off without a hitch.

Speaker 2 And so

Speaker 2 a couple of hours before the show, Astrid, I had sent the tickets to her and Astrid checks the seats and she's like, oh my God, these are like the very last row.

Speaker 2 And I go, well, I didn't say they were good tickets. I said they were tickets.
Yeah, they are in the building at least. And she said, no, no, no, you're right.
You know, she's trying to play it off.

Speaker 2 You're right. We're going to have fun.
Yeah. And I said, well, listen, if it's only, if it's not a lot of money, why don't you check one of the ticket burger just and get an upgrade?

Speaker 2 Go down in the lower bowl, right? Or whatever, you know, pay a couple hundred dollars and get them there.

Speaker 2 Well, she goes and she checks, and there are tickets in the same section a couple of rows up from where Astrid is going to be sitting. And they are selling for five or six hundred dollars a piece.

Speaker 2 And she tells me this, and I said, Can we sell the tickets? Right. Yeah.
Can no one go to the show? And I will cancel with Gabby. Yes.

Speaker 2 I will babysit the kids on this end of the house and we will put Shakira on YouTube here on this side of the house. You can find all the friends you want.

Speaker 2 You guys can have your own Shakira concert right here because that $1,200, that's insane. That is insane.
That's crazy. But she went.
She had a great time. I watched the kids.

Speaker 2 Little to no drama. As soon as she left the door, almost all the kids were asleep, which never happens.
Never, ever, ever.

Speaker 2 But she doesn't get home until like 12, you know, 12 at night, 12, 30 at night.

Speaker 2 And so I went straight from endless day to putting all the children to sleep to waking up early the next day to then taking the kids for periods of time on Sunday because Astrid really was very going to the tanning bed.

Speaker 2 Going to the tanning bed. Well,

Speaker 2 I had to go to the tanning bed.

Speaker 2 I mean, come on. What did you expect?

Speaker 2 What did you think? I was not going to treat myself after all.

Speaker 2 I got no sun on Saturday. I had to get some sun on Sunday.

Speaker 2 No, I actually didn't go to the tanning bed on on Sunday, but I watched the kids. We, you know, took them out to the pool, did the thing, yada, yada, yada, yada, yada.

Speaker 2 And then rolls right into yesterday, you know, TCB classic. We're going to do all the videos for the endless day.

Speaker 2 Then up all night. And then here I am again, early for another interview.
TCB's Endless Day is just a description for TCB in general. That's it.

Speaker 2 It never ends. I know, as I walked in today, I was like, and we're back.
And we're back.

Speaker 2 Mercifully, not for long. Not for 12 hours.

Speaker 2 The good thing is that you have a very relaxing vacation coming up. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 No problem.

Speaker 2 No problem, Chrissy. That's going to be fun.

Speaker 2 Brian got it wrong again.

Speaker 2 Brian got it wrong again.

Speaker 2 Agreeing to go to Disney World for five days.

Speaker 2 I love Disney World. Love it.
I'm not a Disney adult per se. Like, I don't go that crazy.

Speaker 2 You're to the edge. Yeah, I'm, yeah, I'm way, I'm past Disney adult.
I'm like,

Speaker 2 actually, I think I'm right on the edge. That's what I was saying.
Yeah, you're at the edge. I'm not going to wear the ears.

Speaker 2 I don't buy the merch.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I don't do all that. I just like to go to Disney World.
I do think, in some sense, it's a magical place. It reminds me of good times

Speaker 2 when I was a child and a teenager and in my 20s and in my 30s and in my 40s. 40s.
Yeah, I've been a lot.

Speaker 2 And every time I go, it gets a little bit more stressful because it's a little bit more crowded. It's a little less

Speaker 2 have fun at a theme park and a little bit more like what's on the spreadsheet next, right? Yeah, it seems like that. It very much is.

Speaker 2 And if you don't do that, you're not going to get the most out of a very expensive vacation. But I love Disney World.
I love the Disney Cruises. I love everything about it.

Speaker 2 Isn't there something new too that they've got down there? It's always, they're always changing. They just planned.
They just announced a billion-dollar investment into the parks down there.

Speaker 2 Like there's a lot of stuff that's going on that's coming up, but now it's just mainly things that are closed so they make room for

Speaker 2 universal. Yeah,

Speaker 2 universal has that new epic universe. That's what it is.

Speaker 2 But I hear they're having all kinds of troubles with that. Really? Yeah, like brides breaking down, things not working.

Speaker 2 Some people went, they bought tickets to go to like the, you know, a restaurant opens, they have like preview week. Soft opening.

Speaker 2 Soft opening where you go in, you eat at a very low or free price, but they're training the staff and the

Speaker 2 cooks and the chefs and the bus boys and everybody. They're training everybody.

Speaker 2 So they give you free food so that they have a dress rehearsal, but you can't get pissed when everything turns out terrible. All right.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Practice. Well, TCB's, I mean, TCB.

Speaker 2 We're still practicing. We're still practicing.

Speaker 2 Universal did the same thing with their new park, but they offered very discounted tickets, and then they limited the tickets so that it's not super crowded.

Speaker 2 You can go in, but don't expect any magic because it may or may not happen. The rides

Speaker 2 may or may not be working. Things may or may not be clean or in order.
It's just

Speaker 2 a dry run. Well, apparently, some people were extra pissed as for almost two days in a row, none.
of the rides were working. None of the rides were working.
No, they paid. They got in.

Speaker 2 None of the rides were working. Why would they they even open it? It's just that it's a very complicated, like, these are all state-of-the-art rides, right?

Speaker 2 And they're brand new and they're just bound to have hiccups. Every new ride does.
The difference between Disney World and Universal is that Disney would have tested the whole...

Speaker 2 It takes Disney. It took Universal four years to build this huge, brand new theme park, this multi-billion dollar theme park.
It would have taken Disney a decade to do that. Here's why.

Speaker 2 Because Disney would have made sure that every fucking thing was working six ways to Sunday before they ever let a guest see it. That Star Wars land, they kind of rushed that open.

Speaker 2 Star Wars thing, is that even still. It is.
It's still there. The hotel? Remember that hotel? No, the hotel closed.

Speaker 2 Because no one wants to be locked into an underground chamber with fucking Jar Jar Binks for 10 days, drinking fruity pineapple space bubbles. No one gives a shit.
It is a disaster. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Listen, I'm a Disney fan, but that one was, you could have seen that one coming down the tracks. And everybody did.
Yet they can, they, they went down. Now it's just an empty building.

Speaker 2 They're using it for like storage. It's like great.
Yes. Yes, because it's a hotel with no windows.
Yeah. And it was like super expensive.

Speaker 2 $5,000 for like the, for, and you had to stay for at least three days. Listen, I.
Cruise ship is as close as I get to this kind of scenario, and they have balconies. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 And they stop places. You can get off the boat on occasion, and they're huge.
This thing was not huge, and it was just a bad idea.

Speaker 2 Even if people are in character and you're in the space in a Star Wars land,

Speaker 2 I just think that it either had to be much better,

Speaker 2 it had to be done much better,

Speaker 2 much shorter, or much differently for it to work. But a small building with a bunch of dressed up people running around telling you to do a scavenger hunt.
Here, go find, you know,

Speaker 2 go find Atu Bapu Tatu Patu Patu's golden coin around the ship.

Speaker 2 You were supposed to be on a ship, and then you would like walk and be stuck, you know, the coin to be stuck to the wall and you'd take a picture of it. It'd be like, 10 points.
Fucking cares.

Speaker 2 Honestly, who fucking cares? It's just dumb. It's just dumb.
Anyway. I forgot what I was talking about.
Yes, I'm going on vacation. I'm going to go on vacation.
I'm going to take the kids.

Speaker 2 I want the kids to experience the same kind of magic that I did. But part of me believes,

Speaker 2 you know, we did this in Paris. We went to Disneyland, Paris, for the kids' birthday a couple of years ago.

Speaker 2 Very excited about this. Much smaller parks, much less crowded, much different.
It's just in general, different.

Speaker 2 Same kind of flavor, magic, cleanliness, all that stuff you expect from Disney, but it's just different. It just is.
It's in Paris, for God's sakes.

Speaker 2 But I realized about part of the way through the trip, as I'm looking around, as kids are

Speaker 2 crying, screaming, throwing up,

Speaker 2 everybody's just kind of some state of disarray that I wonder if sometimes this is a little bit of sensory overload. It can be for sure.
Yeah. So that's my relaxing vacation.

Speaker 2 I'm going to go down there and I'm going to relax. Nice and relaxed.
Nice and relaxed. We honestly almost planned an extra five days afterwards to decompress the beach condo.
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Just to decompress, just to get away from all the noise and the sounds, just so we could feel like we actually went on vacation. But then we realized it doesn't matter where we go.

Speaker 2 We have 13 children. We're not getting away from it.
So might as well just get back home and relax. See, try and relax here.
Anyway, listen, we got some great.

Speaker 2 Are y'all driving or flying?

Speaker 2 Oh, drive, please. Flying is crazy expensive these days.
It really is. I mean, and it's not that bad of a drive from Atlanta.
Six and a half hours, probably eight hours by the time we get to Atlanta.

Speaker 2 Couple tanks of gas there and back. You know, even in the family truckster that burns, you know, that's like goes one mile per the gallon.

Speaker 2 It's still going to be less expensive than flying so many people down there. Oh, yeah.
You know, and

Speaker 2 flying by the time you leave the house, all the bags, get there, check in, pack up,

Speaker 2 get all your bags checked in, go through security, tuck everybody in, do the whole nine yards.

Speaker 2 You could have driven to Disney World, right? It's about a six-hour thing. It's a two-hour flight down to Orlando, hour and a a half.

Speaker 2 You have to add an hour and a half onto each end to get to and from. It's six hours.

Speaker 2 Yeah. So I don't, I just mother.
I'd rather drive. And that way, if anything happens and the kids get upset.
Right. You'll have your car, too.
Yeah, the car.

Speaker 2 It's not like an old man.

Speaker 2 Going to Disney World.

Speaker 2 You know, which is something some people don't ever get a chance to do. So I'm not trying to sound

Speaker 2 like bratty about it. I'm glad.
I'm a curmudgeony. Yeah, I'm grateful.
I'm grateful that we're able to do it. I'm grateful that American Express allowed me to do it

Speaker 2 before they shut off my card.

Speaker 2 You know, I'll be paying it back for the next 30 years, but whatever. At least we had fun.

Speaker 2 It's magic.

Speaker 2 We're fucked.

Speaker 2 I know.

Speaker 2 Disney's kind of your Wally World.

Speaker 2 Oh, it's definitely my Wally World. And I am definitely Clark Griswold when it comes to a road trip to Disney World.
I'm like, ooh, Marty Moose.

Speaker 2 Let's go. Grandma's dead.
Put her on top of the car. We're making it there.

Speaker 2 We paid for this. We can't miss it.

Speaker 2 So all the, I want to wrap back around to one thing. All the well wishes, all the wonderfulness about TCB's Endless Day.

Speaker 2 And again, so many of you really gave us fuel for the fire before, during, and after.

Speaker 2 But there's one person who I think stands out in the crowd that they wrote me an email yesterday. It dropped into my email really early in the morning.

Speaker 2 It has one of those iCloud masking email addresses. It's got no name on it, no identifying information.
It's completely anonymous.

Speaker 2 And maybe there's a reason why, and you'll hear in the email, maybe that's just something they didn't want to announce to the world, and that's fine.

Speaker 2 But when we get back, I'd like to read you maybe the single greatest

Speaker 2 comment, review, email that we have ever received here at Commercial Break. It's emotional.
It's funny. it's sad, it's all the things.
Oh, wow. Okay, I have not heard this yet.

Speaker 2 All right, put it on your listening ears. Yeah, you haven't heard it because

Speaker 2 I want this to be first-strike kind of material. You know, Ukraine just bombed a bunch of planes in Russia.
Did you hear about that? Like, it's first-strike material. Surprise at dawn.

Speaker 2 Good for you, Ukraine. Keep going.

Speaker 2 We stand by Ukraine. All right, we'll be back.

Speaker 3 Why don't you text us and we can text back, and then you can text us and reply, then so on. It's a fun little little game I've been playing.
And I think you'll be great at it. 212-433-3TCB.

Speaker 3 That's 212-433-3822. You could leave a message too.
If you do, maybe you'll end up being the voice of the show. But be warned, the pay is not great.

Speaker 3 You could go to the website and drop us an email also, tcbpodcast.com. And while you're there, you can get a free sticker.

Speaker 2 Who doesn't want a free sticker?

Speaker 3 Just go to the contact us button and ask for one. Follow us on Insta at thecommercial break and watch the episodes at youtube.com slash the commercial break.

Speaker 3 Now I'm gonna go back to that texting game. You wanna play?

Speaker 2 Come on. Bye.

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Speaker 2 All right, you ready for this? I am ready.

Speaker 2 This email comes into my personal email address. So even though, I mean, I think it's out there somewhere, but I don't know necessarily how they got this.

Speaker 2 This is someone we've corresponded with before, and I responded with my personal email address. I don't know.
This one's got me stumped, but I guess it doesn't matter at the end of the day.

Speaker 2 It was a someone wrote in. They felt the need to do that.
I don't think it's someone that we know personally.

Speaker 2 But here we go. This

Speaker 2 blue, you have something to say about this? She does. Oh my God, this is her vlog.
She wrote every time No Emmy's over, Blue goes fucking bananas. She is crazy.
Anyway, here's an emote.

Speaker 2 Do you want me to wait? Should I just wait, Blue, till you're done? Talking

Speaker 2 unbelievable. Unbelievable.

Speaker 2 Like I said, you know how many mentions? I'm going to ask Chat TCB. How many men? I call it, I called it now, Chat TCB.
I'm going to find out how many mentions of Blue or barks are in the background.

Speaker 2 I'm going to ask it. I guarantee it's every episode.
Guarantee it. It'll just make you mad.
Oh, it's already making me mad. Drives me crazy.
Yesterday,

Speaker 2 I go to pick up my daughter from a camp and I go out and then we were driving around for an hour or two or whatever it is. And then I come home and I can't find Blue anywhere in the house.

Speaker 2 And I'm like, where the fuck did the dog go? Where is the dog? And sometimes she likes to hide under a bed. I think she might be a little hard of hearing.
She's getting older.

Speaker 2 So sometimes she doesn't come as quickly as she used to or at all because she's a bitch. And so I'm like, what the fuck? So now I'm freaking out.
I'm like, where is Blue? Oh my God.

Speaker 2 So after like 15 minutes, I'm like, she's not outside. I didn't let her outside.
I opened the back door, but I say, okay, well, let's just start yelling outside. I'm freaking out kind of now.

Speaker 2 You know, I hope nothing happened to her. I open the door.
I look. She's in the neighbor's backyard digging through like old

Speaker 2 coals from the barbeck.

Speaker 2 She just got ash all over her face.

Speaker 2 And I'm like, how did you get out?

Speaker 2 Why are you in my neighbor's yard?

Speaker 2 We like these people. We don't want you fucking it up.
Please stop it.

Speaker 2 Even though my neighbor's very sweet. He's like, my yard is your yard, dude.
Don't worry. Just think of it as an extension of your art.
Blue can be back there all she wants.

Speaker 2 That is until like a couple of weeks ago when Blue took a hot steaming shit out there. And I'm pretty sure one of the kids next door stepped in it.

Speaker 2 Thanks, Blue. Thanks, Blue.
Can't take you anywhere. And I don't because you're crazy.
All right. Hi, Brian.

Speaker 2 It's been a couple of months since I tuned into the commercial break. Not because I don't love the show.
I would certainly consider myself a super fan.

Speaker 2 But because life circumstances have kept me pretty busy, and I'm unable to tune in on a regular basis right now. I certainly will get back to it.

Speaker 2 I just so happened to catch a few notifications this morning and saw that TCB's Endless Day was going on. I otherwise had no idea that this thing was happening or what it was.

Speaker 2 I just noticed multiple episodes in one day.

Speaker 2 I'm not sure which episode it was on Saturday. Maybe it was the last, but

Speaker 2 you made an impassioned plea for people to get help with their mental health. You mentioned that if it helped just one person,

Speaker 2 then the entire podcast would have been worth doing.

Speaker 2 Well, let me share my story. In mid-2023, I was engaged to be married to my longtime girlfriend.
We had met in high school and we'd been together for about nine years.

Speaker 2 As we both worked our way through graduate school, we lived together, struggled together, stressed together, fucked together, and fought together.

Speaker 2 And when I turned 26 and finished my post-education, we moved into an apartment together to start the rest of our lives. It seemed like a pretty damn good time to ask her to marry me, and I did.

Speaker 2 And what do you know it? Against all odds, she said yes. Early in the summer, we had a vacation planned.

Speaker 2 We were very excited to take this trip together, and it was going to be the much-needed break after the school, after school we both needed.

Speaker 2 Two weeks on the beach. That was the vacation.
That was the plan. Today was the day we were getting ready.
Wow. So far, so good here, bud.
I like this story. This sounds great.

Speaker 2 Waiting for the shoe to drop. As we were packing up to leave that morning, she asked me to grab something out of her school bag.
I reached into the grab.

Speaker 2 I reached into the bag to grab the requested item, and I pulled out a piece of paper. The front of the paper was schoolwork, printed text.

Speaker 2 However, the back of the paper was written text in two different colors of ink and in two different styles of handwriting.

Speaker 2 It was a love note that was seemingly passed back and forth between her and a classmate. There was nothing to lose.

Speaker 2 There was no interpretation to be lost here. This was a steamy, sultry seduction squib.
I instantly fell to pieces. I could not control myself.
I knew exactly what this meant.

Speaker 2 As it turns out, the gentleman responder was her study partner, had come to our house for dinners and parties, came over for Thanksgiving because he had nowhere else to go, and even met my parents multiple times, and my dad invited him to a baseball game.

Speaker 2 Anyway, Everybody has a sad love song somewhere in their history. Mine is no different.
Needless to say, the wedding was called off, and I was distraught.

Speaker 2 Over the next few months, I fell into a deep and overwhelming depression, something I had never experienced before in my life. Every day, darker than the last.

Speaker 2 I just couldn't get the racing thoughts and images of my fiancé with this guy out of my head.

Speaker 2 All the things that could have been, all the memories that we shared, all the pain constantly and continually came striking back. I could not shake it.
I was falling and falling fast.

Speaker 2 Then about four months after that faithful day, I woke up with a solution in my head. I could not make the pain go away, but I could make it go away if I could make the thought stop.

Speaker 2 I could make the thought stop if I could make my brain stop. And I could make my brain stop.
Well, we all know how that happens.

Speaker 2 I had reached the ultimate and terrible conclusion, and I was thoroughly convinced it was the right one. I was as determined as I had ever been to complete this act.

Speaker 2 I even went through the rest of this day quietly saying my goodbyes to the ones that I love. I was sad, but I longed for relief.

Speaker 2 My plan was to grab a hotel room many miles from my house so that my family or my friends would not be the ones to find me. So on this Wednesday, I booked a room for that Saturday night.

Speaker 2 Jesus, get me chucked up. God, I know.

Speaker 2 On Thursday, I woke up just as determined. I got into the, I started my morning walk.

Speaker 2 I started my morning walk to go somewhere I needed to be, and I started listening to a podcast that a friend had recommended.

Speaker 2 During a commercial break on that podcast, a commercial break for your podcast came on. Honestly, the commercial was so terrible and so silly, I really wanted to hate listen.
I was miserable.

Speaker 2 You were miserable. We were going to be miserable together.
So I turned on an episode.

Speaker 2 So I turned on an episode, my first episode of the commercial break. From the moment it started, I wanted to be irritated with you.
I really wanted to dislike you so much.

Speaker 2 And I did, probably for the first five or six minutes. But then you went on one of your signature rants.

Speaker 2 And I found solace in your comedic anger.

Speaker 2 I believe you were talking about people walking on the wrong side of the sidewalk. What a dumb fucking thing.
What about the treaty? The treaty. What a dumb fucking thing to be angry about,

Speaker 2 I thought to myself. But he's absolutely right, I also thought to myself.

Speaker 2 As I walked down the street and witnessed the same thing happening over and over again, as you yelled, I witnessed, as you screamed, I saw.

Speaker 2 As you went on and on and on, I understood and found the funny in all of it. Before I knew it, an entire hour had gone by.

Speaker 2 I had walked well past my intended destination, and I did that on purpose, just so I could listen a little bit longer, so I could figure out how exactly I was going to hate you guys.

Speaker 2 But it never happened. Quite the opposite.
I fell into a trance. One episode turned into two.
I took a walk at my local park so I could listen to yet another episode.

Speaker 2 Now I was four episodes in, and it was only 1 p.m. I got into the car and I drove aimlessly for three hours so I could listen to just one more episode, find one reason, one more reason to hate you.

Speaker 2 They were not all funny. They were not all extremely interesting, but there was something about the friendship between you and Chrissy, the self-effacing humor, and at times the childlike behavior.

Speaker 2 There was something almost indescribably magic about your show.

Speaker 2 Oh my God.

Speaker 2 You tackled highbrow concepts with lowbrow humor. This is where I I heard this from.

Speaker 2 You injected sharp, sophisticated satire into sophomoric jokes. You never let it go to your head, and you always knew exactly where your place was.

Speaker 2 You were in on the joke, and that meant I was in on the joke. And I was starting to feel something that I was desperately missing.
Something that got ripped away from me in a moment's notice.

Speaker 2 A sense of comfort, of humor, of belonging.

Speaker 2 Excuse me, I'm getting choked up here. Yeah, it's

Speaker 2 heavy. A sense that I was a part of something bigger than myself.
And I know this sounds spiritual and maybe it is, but it's the truth.

Speaker 2 Frankly, you're not always the funniest comedy podcast out there. You don't always have the most interesting topics.
Your guest interviews are not always the most organized or in-depth.

Speaker 2 Your show can be scattered and muddy, but that is exactly why we all love it. You are literally building the plane while you're flying it.
It is a living. It is living and breathing and organic.

Speaker 2 It is sloppy and sharp and confused and focused and hapless and perfect and a total train wreck where the wheels happen to stay on the track.

Speaker 2 Your show is all of those things, all of those things that we need and a lot of the things we don't. There was an episode where you once talked about the Grateful Dead.

Speaker 2 You said that part of the reason why people like the Grateful Dead so much was that they weren't perfect.

Speaker 2 And it was always an experiment and it was changing and morphing and getting better and getting worse with every show, every time. I think the commercial break would be well described in that way.

Speaker 2 I know you get a lot of emails, and I'm sure I'm not the first one to say you helped out in the dark spot.

Speaker 2 But I hope you read this message, and I hope if you take one thing away from this extremely lengthy scribe, it's this.

Speaker 2 You are exactly where you should be, and everyone who has ever listened to the commercial break and gotten something out of it should be grateful that we were alive during the time of TCB.

Speaker 2 I know the show is already popular, but I think someday people will look back on all of these episodes and fall in love again with the mediocre podcast that is the Commercial Break.

Speaker 2 Because here we find humor and belonging and comfort.

Speaker 2 Love you and best to you. Ah,

Speaker 2 best to you. Wow, best to you, buddy.
I don't know who you are.

Speaker 2 Man. I don't know who you are.
I'm assuming you're a man.

Speaker 2 But, you know,

Speaker 2 I don't know that I could have,

Speaker 2 I don't know that I can take that kind of compliment. I think it's a very grand compliment, and I'm not sure that it's worthy of that kind of well-written,

Speaker 2 well-written review. But I will say this, I could not be more grateful that we found you at the right time.

Speaker 2 So here's to you and to you being here with us. Yeah.
Because we certainly

Speaker 2 are. Yeah.
We certainly all do understand what it feels like to be in that place of absolute desperation where there is maybe only one solution in our heads. And

Speaker 2 I've been there.

Speaker 2 It's years ago as a teenager. You know, I was all fucked up on Accutane and hormones and love and love gone wrong and unrequited attraction and all that other stuff.

Speaker 2 But, you know, I do remember feeling that extreme sense of desperation, like that solution was the solution because then at least I got relief and the people around me didn't have to listen to it anymore.

Speaker 2 But that's never the solution because it only leaves a wake of destruction. And when so many people out there would die to have someone back, it's a shame that you would ever give that up willingly.

Speaker 2 You know, we're built to

Speaker 2 move on one more day. That's just the way it is.
And they're not always good days. A lot of them are bad.
And the commercial break is exactly what you said it is. It's imperfect.

Speaker 2 We're building the plane as we fly it.

Speaker 2 There's often nothing funny about it. There's interviews are boring and shows are long and Ryan rants about nothing.

Speaker 2 But you do have a sense of, you do have a place here. There is some belonging here.
If you listen to the commercial break, and I think this is, I think what you said

Speaker 2 played out on Saturday is that there are a lot of people in the universe of the commercial break who are wonderful and loving and empathetic and right here with us. So,

Speaker 2 yeah, 100%.

Speaker 2 I don't know what else to say. I know.
I'm kind of speechless. Yeah, I didn't get that emotional when I read it the first time, but I did the second time.
I think reading it out loud has a different,

Speaker 2 takes on a different connotation. So

Speaker 2 to whoever you are, wherever you are, thanks. Thanks very much.
It's the grandest compliment we've ever received, and I don't think it could have been said any better.

Speaker 2 And again, while I don't think I can accept it, I heard it. I heard it, and it touched me.
So, there you go.

Speaker 2 Wow.

Speaker 2 Okay, one, two, three, be funny.

Speaker 2 Now, funniness. Oh, wow.
Okay. All right.
There you go. Shake it off, Brian.
Silly emotions.

Speaker 2 All right.

Speaker 2 So, if you haven't listened to Commercial Break's Endless Day, go ahead and do so. Those are probably in your inbox, in your podcast inbox.

Speaker 2 I have to say, I was kind of laughing at the, I kept getting notifications

Speaker 2 thinking like, ding. Yep.
Ding.

Speaker 2 I'm sure we lost a few people on that one. I'm sure we did.

Speaker 2 I can almost guarantee we lost some people who were like, what the fuck?

Speaker 2 But, you know, hey, listen, you go, you go out in the world and you try. And if it works, it works.
And if it doesn't, it doesn't. If you lose a few along the way, well, that's just the way it is.

Speaker 2 We didn't need them anyway, Chrissy.

Speaker 2 We don't need those people. We don't need to pay mortgage next month.
What are you talking about?

Speaker 2 Oh, well, absolutely. I mean,

Speaker 2 it was a couple of pronged approach to that endless day. Yeah.
And I mean, the big overarching one was to raise awareness for mental health.

Speaker 2 And so I'm just so happy that, you know, like you said, we touched one person. It touched one person.
And well, I know the endless day wasn't the thing that got you over the hump.

Speaker 2 It was just regular episodes of the commercial break. Maybe somebody, maybe it did touch somebody out there.
I have to believe it did. Somebody out there somewhere.

Speaker 2 There was, like I said yesterday, oh, actually, I don't know if you heard this. There was a guy from India who was listening to us, and he reviewed my resume and offered me a job for $500 an hour

Speaker 2 right on the TTV phone.

Speaker 2 So if this all falls off the tracks, at least I got that. Yeah, he loved us.
He thought it was great. I was perfect for the position.

Speaker 2 He didn't tell me what the position was. Did he train you too?

Speaker 2 I got one recently that said something about, we'll train you too. Oh, make all kinds of money.
Awesome. I'm not good enough yet.
I'm no Mark Maron. I'm only halfway to 1600.
So let's put it that way.

Speaker 2 All right, at the commercial break on Instagram, tcbpodcast.com. You can get your free TCB Endless Day sticker.
Go to the Contact Us button, drop-down menu. 212-433-3822.
212-433-3822.

Speaker 2 Questions, comments, concerns, content ideas, and youtube.com/slash the commercial break. Okay, Chrissy, that's all I can do for now.
I think so. I'll tell you that I love you.
I love you.

Speaker 2 Best to you. Best to you.
Best to you out there in the podcast universe. Until next time, we will say, we do say, and we must say.

Speaker 2 Goodbye.

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