Ear Biscuits with Rhett & Link - 145: On Life, Death, and Turning 40 | Ear Biscuits Ep. 145
Episode Date: May 28, 2018Rhett & Link talk Link's epic 40th birthday party, finding strange hairs, and all the things that come with getting older on this week's Ear Biscuits. To learn more about listener data and our pri...vacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Transcript
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This, this, this, this is Mythical.
Welcome to Ear Biscuits, I'm Rhett.
And I'm Link.
Yeah, you gotta hit that consonant.
Yeah, this morning we do.
What, what are you clicking for?
You gonna tell them that it's the morning again?
Well, yeah, I can just look at your face.
I can't, there's no denying it.
I guess if people are listening to your face.
But now that we've done one Ear Biscuit in the morning,
I think at this point we should just make people guess
by looking at the face.
Maybe I'm faking it.
Maybe I'm throwing them for a loop.
Yeah, I can have morning face at night.
I've done that before.
It's nap face.
This week at the round table of dim lighting,
we're gonna share some personal experiences.
I think there might be some deep introspection.
I don't, I think we're at risk of there being a point
where this gets sad based on something I've got
inside my own heart, okay?
Oh gosh.
Here's the deal.
Yeah, you're already using the word heart.
As of the-
You're not talking about the anatomy,
you're talking about it in the emotional sense.
I know, I'm just warning you people.
Because technically, your heart
doesn't actually hold any thoughts.
I mean, it's just a muscle that pumps your blood.
I mean, I hate to burst your bubbles for everybody,
but I mean, that's all happening in your freaking brain.
And anatomically speaking, I don't have a bubble to burst.
So burst all you want.
I just gotta maintain the balance here.
You mean making light of the fact
that I said I'm gonna cry?
No listen man, I mean I know what we're talking about
so I might cry.
We're not gonna cry.
Okay.
You never know what's gonna happen.
Here's the deal.
Nap face.
As of this current conversation,
the moment of recording this, I am 39 years old.
As of the initial release of this podcast
in its audio form, I am 39 years old.
But as of June 1st, 2018, I become 40.
And I've already celebrated in a huge way, in party form.
And I wanna tell you all about that party.
And then I wanna transition into just an analysis
of our own aging, because buddy, I'm joining you in the boat.
In the 40 boat.
I'm about to get up.
Did you just burn yourself on tea?
You're like an old man, see?
I can't even drink tea anymore.
You gotta put an ice cube in your tea.
I feel like Jim Baker eating potato soup.
Which incidentally, I watched a crap ton of last night.
Oh you did?
Because RuPaul actually posted
the very best of Jim Baker.
It was a compilation on Twitter.
On Twitter?
But it was a YouTube video.
And I just sat there.
Did RuPaul edit this thing? No. I don't think RuPaul has time to. It was a YouTube video and I just sat there. Did RuPaul edit this thing?
No. I don't think RuPaul
has time to. It was a super deluxe video.
And it was not even, I mean it was one that I had seen
all the pieces before, but it was the very best
and it included that that's good moment.
Which we put in the episode where we tasted
the Jim Baker buckets, right?
Yeah we did.
Is that why you got such nap face this morning?
Because you stayed up late watching the Jim Bakker bucket?
It's only a 16 minute clip, so no.
I love the internet, man.
I've already been to the gym,
I've been in a steam room with several other naked fellas.
Okay.
I mean, I'm up, man.
It's just my face, I guess my face, you know what?
I think maybe.
In the same way that there were people I saw,
you saw as well, comment on the internet,
when you asked, let us know what you think
about us recording in the morning,
a lot of people were like,
I can definitely notice it's different.
Well, I doubt that they can notice it's different.
My personal opinion is we suggested that it was different
and then they just- It's the power of suggestion.
And then they started to think
that they were picking up on different things.
I think that my morning face is,
if it was 11 p.m. right now, you'd be like,
you look tired, man.
You just woke up?
And if it was the middle of the day, you'd be like,
you look normal.
That's my theory. Hold on, I thought? And if it was the middle of the day, you'd be like, you look normal. That's my theory.
Hold on, I thought you were gonna say
in the middle of the day, I was gonna say you look tired.
No, middle of the day, I would be what you expect,
which is middle of the day face, which is just normal.
So your peak Rhett face at noon is what you're saying?
I'm saying it's always the same.
That's not what I heard, but okay.
I'm saying right now, having been through the things
that I've been through today, I can't imagine
that I still have what you would consider morning face.
Two hours ago I definitely had morning face,
but I got steam face now.
Oh, well I guess they're easily mistaken for one another.
I mean, do I look like I have nap gnat face? No, because I don't let
the power of suggestion and the environment
influence my opinions.
I'm a perfectly rational being.
Not even your own suggestion?
I don't mean to insult you,
Ear Biscuitier listener,
but I do feel like
when we said that
in, I guess it was the
last episode talking about it in the morning, was that the last one?
Whenever it was, it doesn't matter.
We were just kind of planting something
so that then you could feel like you were noticing something.
Three ago?
Three ago.
Three ago, wow.
We're still waking up.
What have we been doing?
Steam rooming.
There's an art to entertainment where you can plant
something in a video that people will feel smart
for noticing and then commenting on,
but really we're the smart ones for putting it in a video.
We're the smart ones.
I'm not trying to tell you. Let's establish that.
We wanted you to talk about how different it was
in the morning if you thought that it was better.
Okay, I'm sure it was different.
I'm just being facetious.
Let me backtrack a little bit.
I don't wanna hurt your feelings.
I'm sure it was different, but at least.
I'm getting old and crotchety.
At least a percentage.
I'm almost 40.
At least a percentage of you definitely said something
just because we said, we gave you the opportunity to say it.
And that's a good thing.
But that's how the world works, man.
We're pulling the curtain back.
You're seeing our bare bottoms in the hospital.
It's not a curtain.
Well there is a curtain and then there's a gown.
We're pulling the gown back.
Because we don't hold anything back from you
because that's the new me.
That's the middle-aged me.
We can get into this but,
I mean 40's not the middle of my age.
I aspire.
Statistically speaking it probably is.
I'm not gonna statistically live past 80?
What is the average life expectancy
of a man in America?
Could somebody look that up?
I would guess that it is.
86.
No, I would say 82 max.
Ooh.
And I would say probably 79.
I think maybe a woman is 82.
If it's less than 80, lie.
No, don't lie, tell us the truth.
78.74.
78, oh dang, I said 79, that's 78 points, what?
74.
78.74. Oh gosh. Yeah, dude's 78 points, what? 74. 78.74.
Oh gosh.
Yeah, dude.
I've already passed middle age.
I didn't even know it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
You're past.
I did that a year ago.
Exactly.
That's why they call it over the hill, man.
Now, I do think it means something different.
But this is what I wanna get into.
Let's not get into it yet.
We're gonna talk about getting old.
Let's start, buckle up. Let's start with the it yet. We're gonna talk about getting old. Let's start. Buckle up.
Let's start with the party, man,
because I feel like I owe it to you
to give a complete play by play of my party
because A, we did that with your party, Rhett.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And B, you weren't invited.
So this is my way of including you
even though you weren't invited.
Or you know what, maybe you're one of the people
that was invited and you'll know when I'm lying
about something, embellishing to make my party seem good.
Of course you're here for that.
I'm here for that.
I need a t-shirt that says that.
Thanks for coming to my party, Rhett.
Oh, you're welcome.
When you walked in, I was so relieved.
Yeah, yeah.
That you showed up.
I almost didn't come.
You thinking about it?
Last minute, we were like, should we?
What were you thinking about doing?
I was gonna watch Apollo 13.
Oh, again.
Yeah. It's a good movie.
I was like, you know.
You know you're gonna get a good satisfying experience,
but with a party, you're like,
do you experience anxiety when going to a party
like anybody's party?
I always have a tinge of anxiety when I go into,
maybe it's just any sort of social.
I mean, I experience this, yeah,
I think I experience a tinge of anxiety
if I'm in any environment that is not 100% familiar to me.
Okay, it's good that you're admitting that.
I'm just joking.
Okay.
Christy turned 40 on May 13th.
There's a two week gap there where she's older than me.
I mean she's always constantly older than me
and I do point that out to her in strategic moments.
Older women make beautiful lovers is the country song.
It's a good country song.
But never is it more obvious in the two weeks
when she's 40 and I'm not.
Right. And we planned our party more obvious in the two weeks when she's 40 and I'm not. Right.
And we planned our party smack dab in the middle
and I mean, we had, in planning the party,
we really had to run interference with what you did.
I think we talked about this in terms of like,
you had a grand party, man.
Set the bar real high.
You set the bar really high.
And honestly, I had multiple conversations with Christy in the privacy of our own zone where I was like,
let's not have a party.
Yep.
Like, and it wasn't, I mean, it wasn't like,
I don't think I can top Rhett's party.
I mean, Christy did say something like that.
Don't compare, don't compare.
You don't have to think like that.
You don't have to compare our party to Rhett's party.
It's a good party, but it's just not a healthy path.
But you were gonna let that keep you from having a party?
It was just one factor.
I think.
I mean, I did have probably
the greatest birthday party ever.
But that shouldn't stop you from trying.
In general, I mean, even, like I said,
even going to a party, there's like a level of anxiety
that maybe most people will experience,
like what's this gonna be like stepping into this thing?
But then when you're in charge of it,
I mean, it seems like there's more pressure.
It certainly didn't take any pressure away
to have experienced your party.
But Christy really wanted a party.
And I came around, I was more than happy to be a part of it.
I was like, but we got, okay, I want there to be something.
I wanted there to be an activity.
So we ultimately decided that we were gonna have
a bowling party and we found this amazing venue,
the oldest bowling alley in the city of Los Angeles,
which is one of the oldest cities in the world.
I don't know if you knew that.
No.
I did not know that. The second part, I don't know, I knew that. No. I did not know that.
The second part, I don't know, I need to wiki that.
Yeah, I'm pretty positive.
But the first part is Highland Park Bowl,
super cool venue, right?
Like we had never been there,
but we visited in order to see.
I could describe the place just so you don't seem to,
like a braggy daddy.
Okay, yeah, well I didn't build it.
I didn't renovate it.
But this place was. It is the oldest bowling alley in LA. Very, yeah, well I didn't build it. I didn't renovate it. But this place was.
It is the oldest bowling alley in LA.
Very, very, very cool.
And like stepping into a bowling alley
from a time gone by.
So like you got this like.
Prohibition era.
You like walk in and there's a bar on each side
and then there's the lanes and they've got, they're doing a lot of things to kind of establish the vibe.
Right.
This is a hipster bowling place, very cool place.
All the bowling balls are black.
No pink balls here, no blue balls either.
It's just all black balls.
It was an aesthetic choice, not a functional.
It makes it a little difficult to remember which ball is yours, but it's worth the cool factor.
And the lanes not only look amazingly vintage,
but then the whole, the whole place, 91 years old,
built in 1927.
The mechanisms.
The mechanism in the very back, you know,
when you bowl and knock down the pins,
and then the mechanism, the robot thingy,
picks up the pins, sorts them all out
and puts them back down and sucks the ball up.
It looks like a steampunk.
It's all exposed.
So you can see the inner workings of it.
So anyway, yeah, it was a super, super cool place.
They have a pizza oven.
So they're like making some good pizzas.
Oh, the food was incredible.
And just as our book dictated,
there will be meatballs at the party.
Well, there was meatballs at the party.
Was that a special request because of our book
or that's something they do?
It's something they offer.
And I was like, they were like, we can have meatballs.
I was like, there will be meatballs.
There's spicy meatballs.
They were so big though,
I don't think we could have played hide the meatball.
I didn't even think about playing hide the meatball
because I was throwing the bowling balls.
I actually didn't get to eat a meatball.
I mean, so there was like, I don't know,
maybe 120 of our friends and some,
the Mythical crew members were also there
who I consider friends in the party zone, not coworkers. Oh consider friends in the party zone. Not coworkers.
Oh, friends in the party zone.
Um, and then,
Chrissy and I are mingling.
Lionel Richie showed up.
And then, yeah, you said I should get Lionel Richie,
but we didn't do that.
We had a DJ and I made a playlist,
which I steered clear of yacht rock,
even though that is one of my favorite genres of music,
because you had the gold standard
of yacht rock cover bands at your party.
So what did you?
I just need to steer clear of that.
What did you play?
It was late 70s, early 80s, so around the time
that we were born, soul and funk music.
But the bowling alley's so loud
that it just kind of all blends together.
Yeah, it didn't register really.
I didn't want the music too loud
so that you couldn't talk with your people.
Did the DJ feel emasculated by that request?
I paid him so he could feel any way he wants to feel.
No, but I think DJs get off on.
Being the center.
Playing the music so loud that you cannot
have a meaningful conversation with anyone there.
I couldn't tell and I didn't care.
He did a great job and I don't think he was upset.
So it was a cool spot.
Christy and I had matching bowling shirts.
I don't know if you noticed.
I did it with your names on them.
Of course we also have matching bowling shirts from when we did the fire bowling, but you wore yours. I mean, of course't know if you noticed. I did, with your names on them. Of course, we also have matching bowling shirts
from when we did the fire bowling, but you wore yours.
I mean, of course, I have to wear it.
Jessie could've worn mine, you could've.
Jessie got her own.
She got her own.
She went off on her own and got her own bowling shirt.
We tried really hard to find something
to put on the back of the shirt for me and Christy
and we landed on striking while we're still hot.
Where'd you get that?
I think that Jessie came up with it.
My wife did.
Cause I was like.
She's very good.
She loves that.
She's like.
Yeah, there was a text thread.
She's really good at slogans.
Let's see, cause I wanted it to be something
that was lame.
Like, bowlver the hill, I think is what I came up with.
A combination of bowling and over the hill
if it's not clear.
Christy didn't like that.
So striking while we're still hot.
They didn't wanna focus on.
And it was a bowling ball and there was flames.
The back end of the hill,
they wanted to focus on the fact that.
We're still good looking.
Yeah.
And then I had, I requested that Christy's shirt
also have, you know the silhouette of the women
that are on the mud flaps of rigs?
Of course, I've got two on the back of my sedan.
I wanted her to put those on the collar.
Pair of truck nuts.
The lapel of her bowling shirt.
And when she nixed that idea, I put it on my bowling shirt
because I wanted it to represent her on her own shirt
and I was gonna have the man version on my own.
And when we started looking into the man version
of mudflap silhouettes, that's very problematic.
Right, because what can you emphasize?
Right, so I have the woman on mine
and then we had our names embroidered.
I noticed that. Mine said Link.
I noticed a woman, I didn't ask any questions about it.
It's Christy, it's Christy Silhouette, she's still hot.
And my name said Link and underneath it said 40 years old.
Cause I'm like, I'ma own this.
Christy also didn't want her to say 40 years old,
but it said 40 on the lapel.
These are the type of things that you get into,
the minutiae of planning a party,
and that's when I'm like, oh my gosh,
it's so much, there's so much effort
and planning and details,
and then it's very overwhelming for me.
I think the thing that I learned was,
it was a great party and I feel like I would've had
so much more fun if everything was the exact same
except it being my party.
I think that's my problem is that I feel like,
I told Christy somewhere in the middle
because we're like mingling and talking with everybody,
I'm like man, it feels like a wedding reception.
I'm like not getting to eat anything
and I'm like talking to everybody
and it's becoming a blur.
Whereas if you just attend a party,
mission number one is just to have fun, you know?
But when you're in charge of it,
mission number one is, at least in my mind,
and I couldn't check out from this,
is making sure everybody else was having fun.
And who am I kidding, they were.
It wasn't up to me.
I mean, you set the stage and then,
hey, we're freaking bowling in this amazing place.
You got pizza and you got bowling shirts.
I think, I don't know when this happened.
Definitely in the past like two years,
I've experienced a shift in recognizing that
I enjoy creating experiences for people.
Okay.
And while I completely relate to what you were saying,
it's difficult to enjoy anything that you've,
it's difficult to enjoy a meal that you cooked.
As someone who prepares, you know,
I'll have like a bunch of people over and like do a pork butt you cooked. As someone who prepares, I'll have a bunch of people over
and do a pork butt or something.
I enjoy food more if I go to a restaurant
than if I make it for myself and for other people.
But I've kind of shifted to like,
oh, all these people are enjoying this.
And then you take a little bit of the pressure off yourself.
So I think that that, my-
You think you're becoming more of a host.
My party, when people kept coming up
and saying they were having a good time,
I was having a good time, even though I was anxious
about when things are happening and that kind of thing.
And then like the game night that we've been doing,
which I legitimately been having a lot of fun personally,
but the fact that people are enjoying it,
I'm enjoying that vicariously.
I think that's the key to not being anxious
about something that you're at your own party is like,
cause everybody did have a really good time.
I almost had a great time
cause I almost was
on the winning bowling team.
Oh, you're giving it away, you lost.
Well, we had a bowling tournament and Christy said,
okay, we're gonna hop on the mics and you can orient people
to how this bowling tournament's gonna go.
I'm like, well, that means we need to make a speech.
Are you, she's like, I'll talk first
and then you can do that.
I'm like, well, I gotta have my speech.
So like I worked up a speech that,
I don't know if you could tell by the execution
of my speech, but I effed it up, man.
Well, here's what I'll say.
When you, in the middle, you were talking
and you were like talking about the bowling rules
or something, the way the tournament was gonna work.
And then there was a pause.
It was a little longer than I was comfortable with.
And then you were like, F what they say about being 40.
Yeah.
And I was like, and what I thought was,
Link's got something here.
Like I know how your brain works and so I was like,
he's going into, he's got something,
he's prepared something, but then,
He was trying to access something that he had prepared,
but, but then, it fizzled.
Then you just had like another sentence
and it was over. It fizzled.
And it turned into, I And it turned into a heartfelt thanks to
all of my friends for being there.
But here's what I wanted to do.
I wanted to say, okay, I'm gonna start by saying
something that's gonna get everybody's attention.
Be like, what the heck?
And this was it, I was gonna say,
I don't give a flying F what people say about 40.
And then I was gonna say, I can't even remember it right now.
I should've had it on a card.
You know you can't have it on a card.
I don't give a flying F what people say about 40.
I think 40 is fabulous when you're fortunate enough
to have friends like these.
See the Fs?
Yeah, alliteration.
And then I was just gonna leave it at that.
Oh that was all it was gonna be?
That was it.
Okay, okay.
That was it. Right, okay. I had planned just that and I was gonna leave it at that. Oh, that was all it was gonna be? That was it. Okay, okay. That was it. Right, okay.
I had planned just that and I was gonna leave it at that
because you know me, I ramble and things start to fall apart.
The worst example of that was my wedding rehearsal dinner
that we constantly make fun of me for, which I deserve it,
which is I went around and started thanking
every single person that attended my-
Personally.
Wedding.
They all got like a two minute speech.
Which was literally, I mean-
Two times 60 is 120.
Yeah.
It was two hours.
I mean, it might've been a 90 minute speech.
Because once I got into it, I couldn't back out.
And I'm like, I'm not gonna make that mistake.
I'm gonna have something quick
and it's gonna be about Fs.
Okay, all right, yeah.
And then I blew it.
Well, I don't think. And it doesn't matter.
I don't think anybody other than me knew
that you had something that you didn't fully hatch.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The egg cracked on the floor.
But I scraped it up and no one else cared.
That's the thing, is like I started,
you know you start to focus on things
that don't matter that much.
I just don't think throwing parties is for me, man.
Just for my personal enjoyment.
Next time you should plan my parties.
But I think it's just a shift in,
a shift in, it's just a shift.
Mentality?
Because, well,
I mean if I threw more parties.
Because you already said it,
but no, but you just said it.
You just said that I would have more fun
if this was not my party.
And what is the thing that you're anxious about?
How good of a time who's having?
You are the people who are there.
The people.
But the default disposition of a person who's at a party
is enjoyment, especially a good party.
So if you put the ingredients in place
and then it just starts happening,
you look around and you're like,
these people are having a good time.
I'm gonna enjoy that.
I have been thinking about this actually quite a bit.
I've been thinking about what other things could I engineer?
Like other experiences could I engineer
for groups of people?
Maybe I should become a tour guide.
Because I've been thinking about doing something special
with like the game night.
Mm-hmm.
And now that, now I can't do a party like we did last year,
but like, neither of us have ever thrown parties.
I haven't had a birthday party in years.
I think the thing that you're onto.
I think the thing that you're onto.
Because of last year, I'm like, I wanna do this again.
And with the, yeah, it's more about,
the thing about my personality type
that's different from yours is I'm a perfectionist.
So I'm constantly thinking, not is this great,
but I have in my mind what is the perfect party,
the perfect party that I've planned, right?
So when it's, okay, for the last round of the tournament,
like when the last two teams are bowling
and I want everyone else to gather around
and when the person's going to bowl,
I'm gonna get the DJ to kill the music.
And it's gonna be comedically dramatic
for these amateur bowlers to feel like
they're in a freaking bowling tournament.
That will be funny and it will also be fun
for everybody to be focused on it.
But then when the party goes along
and the freaking DJ's packing up
and it's like okay, that can't happen.
You know, these are the things that start to go off
in my mind as a perfectionist that I think is healthy for me to come to grips with,
of course, and maybe that does mean throwing more parties?
But no but, I mean.
And of course, no one knew that that's what you wanted.
Right, so it didn't bum me out actively,
but subconsciously, as a perfectionist,
these things tend to stick in your crawl.
If you can find a way to take a mental note,
next time I have a bowling birthday party,
I'll do it in a way so that we make sure
that the tournament is still going
when everybody's still there.
But I'm not gonna not enjoy this first one.
I didn't.
I enjoyed it as much as I could at this point in my life.
But when I'm 50, I will enjoy it even more.
A couple of other side notes.
We also planned the party on a Sunday night.
I'd say spare no expense to have a party
on a Friday or Saturday night is my other thing.
Because we rented out the whole bowling alley and there was no way we could have done that on a Friday or Saturday night is my other thing. Because we rented out the whole bowling alley
and there was no way we could have done that on a Saturday.
And I think, so there would have been other people there
on a Saturday, but I don't know if that would have been
a better choice or in general, to throw an epic party,
you can't do it on a Sunday night.
You can't have people worrying about.
Because a lot of people gotta, they gotta go somewhere.
They can't be worrying about their lives the next day.
Other than that, I'm very happy with it.
It was a great party.
It was a really good party.
I mean Lionel Richie would've really sent it over the top.
But Lionel. See I'm fine with that joke.
That doesn't hurt me because that wasn't part of my plan.
But Lionel's not, he's not that responsive.
He's just not that responsive.
Lionel is not responsive.
Lionel. Trust us.
Yeah, he's just, he's got his own thing.
Been begging, begging to hear from Lionel.
He's got his Lionel thing and that's good.
You know, we've got ours.
We're gonna talk more about us getting older in a second,
but first we wanna let you know that Ear Biscuits
is supported by Oatly, the original oat milk from Sweden,
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Now, you know, both of us don't drink LaCalle's milk anymore.
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Link, list some of those characteristics for us.
Well, it's non-GMO and gluten-free
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If you like gums and fillers in your drinks,
Sorry.
then this Oatly's not for you.
It tastes amazing.
I've had the chocolate oat milk.
Oh, you can only imagine.
It's got this cereal-ness to it that you know I love.
There's a barista version for your lattes
and then there's just a normal Oatly oat milk
which is absolutely great.
Yeah, you gotta try it.
Even touching the carton is satisfying to me.
Like you know, it comes in like a satisfyingly
pliable carton.
It is a satisfyingly pliable carton.
You can tell with the packaging that they're thoughtful
about the whole thing.
Yes.
And I think the oats are even happy about it.
I'm sure they are.
They haven't complained to me.
You can get Oatly oat milk at your local supermarket
or your favorite coffee shop.
And to find out more about oat milk, go to oatly.com today.
That's O-A-T-L-Y.com.
Now on with the biscuit.
I will say just one small,
one additional thing that...
I don't give a flying F what they say about turning 40.
40 is fabulous when you're fortunate enough
to have friends like you.
That's good, that's good, you should've said that.
For reals.
The only thing that kept me from enjoying your party
in the way that I would've liked to.
You can stop clapping now.
You can, come on, we need to bowl, just party.
This is not about me.
Just have fun.
You know, it's not about me.
Is the fact that when I got into the party,
like literally walked in, saw the food,
saw the bowling lanes, was like,
I'm gonna have such a good time.
Yeah.
I made up my mind that I wasn't gonna worry
about the fact that the next day was Monday.
I said, I don't care.
F Monday is what I said.
But then my beautiful wife comes up to me and says,
I left my phone in the Uber.
Seriously?
Yeah, I was like, oh gosh.
Of course, I still have a phone,
so now I'm responsible for handling this and also.
So you gotta solve this crisis
instead of being in party mode.
We use my app, you know.
How does one get a phone back?
Great question.
It's not as easy as one might think,
especially when your driver does not speak English well.
Because you still had his number?
There was a communication, her number, Mr. Assumptions.
Oh.
So.
Thanks for calling me Mr. Assumptions.
I kinda like it.
What did I do?
Oh, you can click on help, click on I lost an item.
Then it eventually puts you through to this number
that calls them.
But it doesn't show what their number is.
I don't really understand.
It's basically so that you can go through their system
in the right way.
They're supposed to get like a $15 reward back or whatever
when they bring it back but this Uber driver
did not understand the system and did not really understand
how that worked and so when I got her on the phone,
it took about 10 minutes to just explain that my phone
is still in the car, my wife's phone is in the car
because she was charging it with one of her dilly-dallies.
And anyway, I got it back,
but it took like an hour and a half.
So the first hour and a half of your party,
I was kind of dealing with that
and having to go out into the lobby
to be able to hear myself and hear the driver on the phone.
And eventually she brought it back.
And then when I went out, I had $16 cash.
Now the thing said give $15 for a returned item.
I had 16, that's all the cash I had on me.
I was like, here's $16, that's all I got.
And then she was like 25.
Ooh.
And she was holding the phone, captive.
You're not in a position to barter at this point.
Well you could barter, you give them a watch.
So I ran back in and just found the nearest friend.
Seriously?
Yeah, Ward and Annie were there,
I was like, you guys got 10 bucks?
Yeah.
You got Ward to give you 10 bucks?
Daddy needs 10 bucks.
I told them why and they gave it to me.
Oh wow.
Yeah, I owe Annie 10 bucks but.
Or do you?
Whenever you go to give her that 10 bucks,
she's gonna be like 25 bucks.
She said don't worry about it.
Anyway, I got the phone back and started having a blast.
Then I lost, actually, okay.
You didn't lose the tournament.
You got down to the last two teams.
Well, again.
And half of one of the teams had to have,
had abandoned my party.
My team was my wife and I,
and Stevie and her girlfriend Cassie.
And I ended up talking,
Tobias, you know,
of buddy system fame,
and he's also been in a lot of other stuff.
Tobias, he came in and I was talking to him about,
I was like, well, I'm definitely not gonna win.
My team is Stevie and Cassie and Jesse and me,
so I'm definitely not gonna win.
But I didn't say, all I told him was like,
well, I'm definitely not winning.
So Tobias was talking to Stevie
and they were talking about the tournament
and he was like, all I know is Rhett said
he's definitely not gonna win.
And Stevie was like, Stevie and Cassie came up to me
and they were like, oh, we heard what you were saying
about your team.
Well, we didn't win, but then one couple that was half of the four person team
who made it to the finals had to leave early.
And then Nick and Allison and then Nick came up
and was like, hey, you wanna be on my final team?
And then Ben's girlfriend Jordan joined our team.
I will point out when you start recruiting people
to your final team, you know, championship team,
you should have an advantage to win.
Except when the person on the other team,
one of the four guys is Davin who works for us
and he has professional bowling shoes.
He brings his own shoes.
But I'll also say that I'm not really good at bowling
and neither is Jordan.
We're just average so we felt.
They tried to make it interesting.
It was like okay we're not gonna bring in
like the best person here.
And in the end you lost by six pins.
It came down to the last roll which was pretty dramatic.
Good way to end the party.
What are the chances that eight people's,
that four people added up with four other people
comes down to just six pins?
100%, I plan it that way.
Oh, good.
To end the party.
In the days following the party,
you know, I felt the need to actively engage
in reflection on my life and the 40-ness of myself now.
I have to admit, I did, I felt in a little bit of a funk
after the thing, you know, it's kind of cliche,
but I have kind of felt that way.
I think, obviously, I'm a little too cerebral
when it comes to my own party.
I've got things I gotta work through.
But then beyond that, you start to think,
you got all these friends here and it's,
on one hand, I'm blessed to be where I'm at
and have all these people that mean so much to me
and it's like, you start thinking weird things
of like, how much do they really mean to me?
You know, you start to think weird things
like kind of depressed, depressed thoughts.
Okay.
It's like, I don't know. Interesting.
I thought you were gonna say. I just been kind of sad.
I did not anticipate that that was what you were gonna say.
I thought you were gonna say, you got all these friends together, I did not anticipate that that was what you were gonna say. I thought you were gonna say,
you got all these friends together, they're for a party,
but they're really just mourning the death
of the prime of your life.
Like, no, I can relate to that.
My point is I'm seeing things that are totally unfounded
and it's at a point where I can be very grateful
and I'm typically very positive.
I've been experiencing a little cloud
of negative introspection and over-analyzation. I can be very grateful and I'm typically very positive. I've been experiencing a little cloud of
negative introspection and over-analyzation.
So I'm on the backside of that now.
And so now all I'm thinking about,
because I've gotten through that,
is just the sheer symptoms of getting older.
And it's not just the gray symptoms of getting older.
And it's not just the graying of hair. I'm glad I made the decision to like,
let the gray hairs fly.
You know, it hasn't been a year yet,
but you know, look at my age a little bit.
But the thing that's getting me is not the hair on my head,
but the hair in other places.
I've started to shave weird spots, man.
Like I've got hair on my shoulders.
Like I got this like weird little community
on the right shoulder and the left shoulder.
Cause when I'm like brushing my teeth in the mirror,
I'm like, what is that?
A weird community up there.
And I'm like, I'm just gonna, I'm shaving my face.
I'm like, I'll just go down there,
shave that off a little bit.
Got a little one over here.
She wax it.
Shave that one off over there.
Kill the follicle, man.
And I think this is common because
in that song, Amanda, which there's a Don Williams version,
there's a Waylon Jennings version.
He says, he talks about,
"'I look in the mirror in total surprise
"'to see the hair on my shoulders and the age in my eyes.'"
So I'm like, okay, all right.
Waylon and Don went through this.
I'm in good company, I'll be okay.
But then I start looking at my ears.
Once you start, you just can't stop.
And I'm like, there's a community of hair on my ears
and I ain't even talking about
in my ears, that's the common thing.
I'm talking about the outer ridge, like right there
on like the outer ridge of my ear, I got a community
of hair growing right there, you see it?
And so every few days I gotta hit that with a razor.
Yeah, yeah, a little thick.
It's hard not to nick your ear
when shaving it with a razor, man.
You have to get an ear razor.
I feel like a kid who's just going through puberty
and learning how to shave, but it's my ear.
But, and also the inside, like I have nose trimmers
that I shove in my ears and I've looked at you on Good Mythical Morning enough
to know that you got a community coming out of your ears.
Yeah but here's the thing,
it's gotta be there for a reason.
Oh you want me to leave it?
Just let it grow up?
I'm just saying that like,
there must be some survival benefit.
Like when you get so old.
There's a reason that old men have hair in other places.
And I don't, and I just because I don't understand
their survival benefit doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.
I don't wanna get rid of it because then I might die.
It must be, well, when you get older.
Who am I kidding, I also groom myself.
You can't hear as well when you get old.
I agree.
So I think it's your ears just closing themselves up
with hair, it's like we don't need these anymore.
We can't, you know, the frequency fidelity is gone
so let's just close up shop.
And I think you need some signs.
You need to know.
Know what? You need some physical indications that you're getting old. You need to know. Know what?
You need some physical indications
that you're getting old.
Well, that's one.
Little red flags.
I'm not done with the hair because.
Oh gosh.
Yeah, your wife told me that you had some kind of egg.
What are you talking about, egg?
I don't know, she just told me that she walked in
and you had some little handheld
egg-shaped thing and you were running it over
every part of your body.
Not an egg, a peanut.
It's a, you know a clipper?
Yeah, a peanut.
There's a certain type of clippers,
you know like hair clippers that you give someone
a buzz cut with, well there's a smaller version
made by Wahl with an H,
not a sponsor, called the Peanut.
It's a smaller clippers that all of the hairdressers have.
And it's just like, it's easier for grooming,
like your body hair.
Because it fits in weird places?
Shave your peanuts with it?
Because it's smaller, yeah.
So yeah, I've been using that and yeah,
for two years now, I'm loud and proud
that I trim all body hair.
Like my leg hair, I like keep that svelte.
I trimmed off, but I wait so long,
I trimmed off so much body hair,
I stand in the shower, no water,
just so I can then gather it up.
I gathered up enough body hair
that I peanut it off of myself.
It was like the size of a human brain.
It's like a hair brain.
I'm sure it could have been compressed
into a much like a mouse brain probably.
Yeah, I did.
I compressed it into the mouse brain
and then I wrapped it in toilet paper
and I put it in the, not the toilet, that'd be a mistake.
That'd be a mistake.
I put it in the trash can.
But here's the last place that I've noticed hair
that gosh, if this is happening at 40,
what's gonna happen at 50?
You quit caring at 50.
I've noticed hairs on my nose.
Oh yeah, the tip of the nose.
Like here, on the bridge, like not the bridge,
but like just above the nostrils right in the middle.
Like a troll.
Like a freaking troll.
Yeah, troll hairs.
I'm not shaving those, I am plucking those.
Now I pluck my eyebrows, I never got out of that
since puberty, so now, I'm like, the time of self care
is just like, it's just blooming, man.
The time it takes to get all the hair off my body.
Like I'm freaking plucking hairs off the top of my nose?
It gives you purpose, man, that's the thing.
As you get older, you start, you know,
and this is the thing that I've been contemplating.
And hold on, some of them are black.
You think they're just little white hairs?
No, I have a few that are actually black.
What on earth?
It's like the hairs on my head are turning white.
There's a reason.
There's probably some sort of sensitivity,
like when you get close to things, as an old person,
you need to know
that you're getting close to a wall
and the hairs on your nose touch it first
and you stop short before you die.
Whiskers.
What I've been thinking about related to this is,
as I've been 40 for months now.
You're killing it too.
I'm so much more conscious of age.
So you know how like when you've got,
like when you're thinking about getting a new car and then you start seeing that car everywhere.
Yeah.
Or you start thinking that you've got some sort of,
like you know, we got a friend who was losing his hair
and he was like, I'm thinking about it.
So I look at everyone's hair
to see how much hair they've got.
Yeah.
I'm gonna start looking at people's noses.
I never thought about age
in the way that I've been thinking about it lately.
And I think part of it is this,
this little question that I can't escape and that's,
are my best years behind me?
And I know that that's a very cliche thing,
but I especially, and I'm a futurist,
that's my disposition, I'm always thinking about
what the next thing is. And I've always firmly believed that my best work
is ahead of me, right?
And I still feel that about what we do, right?
So I still have every reason to believe
that the most significant thing we're going to create
is something we have yet to create.
And even if that's utterly false,
it's very important to believe it.
Right.
But then I begin.
It's very healthy to believe it.
But then I know that at some point,
at some point it will become irrational to believe that.
Right, okay, at some point, it becomes unlikely
that the thing that is gonna be the greatest thing
you've ever created is ahead of you.
I still feel like it's rational at this point,
but then I start thinking, well, maybe it's not.
You know, and again, this is a pretty selfish thing
because your life is not boiled down to these things
that you create for your own self-glorification.
I'm aware of that and I'm aware of the,
what is the word I'm looking for?
The psychology behind your statement, you mean?
Just the fact that this is not a healthy way
to think about things necessarily.
But that's the thing I've been thinking about lately
is like you start noticing, oh, that guy's younger than me.
It's like why am I thinking that?
You know, when you start, we talked about this before
how I spent most of my life like thinking like NBA players
are older than me and even when you become older
than the average NBA player, you still see them as older
because you see them as these elevated athletes. That's the average NBA player, you still see them as older because you see them
as these elevated athletes.
That's the mode with which you've always watched them.
But now I definitely feel older than them
and I just find myself thinking about age
and then also thinking about like, oh, I'm 40,
and then I start thinking, man,
oh man, as soon as the summer's over,
there's like a couple of months and then I'm 41
and that happens so quickly and that's one year out of 10
and then I'm, and then that's gonna happen a few more times
and then I'm 50.
It's like Footlights when he's like,
I'm 41 years old and I ain't got no place to go
when it's over, you know?
Great song, by the way.
And I do take comfort in the fact that
it's one of Merle's best albums serving 90 proof.
It's 41 years old.
I think we've talked about that.
For me, I try to adopt, I'm staying with country music lyrics for some reason.
And I'll stick with Waylon here.
In the song Waymore's Blues, he says,
"'I got my name painted on my shirt.
"'I'm no ordinary dude, I ain't got to work.
It just puts it in perspective that like,
the song is a blues song and he's like,
I mean, he's acknowledging his age,
especially when you pair it with like the song
I mentioned earlier about the hair on your shoulders
and dealing with that.
But like the dude is living life, still wearing, you know,
in Amanda he says, I'm crowding 30,
or and then the lyrics in some versions are also,
now I've turned 40 and I'm still wearing jeans.
You know, it's like, I'm still a kid at heart.
I'm still living this dream life
where I've got my own freaking logo on my shirt is what Waylon was singing.
You know, it's like, I ain't got nothing to complain about
even though I may be over the hill.
You know, it's like few people can say,
can walk around in jeans and their own merch proudly.
Right.
So I think that's kind kinda how I try to,
that's the perspective I try to adopt
is just one of being grateful for what we've got
and for what we've already accomplished,
even if that's it, but it's not healthy
just to rest on your laurels.
So I do think it's good for us to believe
our best work is ahead of us,
but at some point you just retire and spear fish.
Well, that's another thing is, I mean, obviously,
retirement is nowhere in sight.
No.
But I'm reading a book
and the main character is recently retired
and he just sits and watches television in the afternoon,
like watches like Judge Judy and Dr. Phil
and his life has become that but then something happens
that then kind of re-engages him in what his career was.
Is this the Stephen King book?
Yeah, it's the first in the Mercedes Killer Trilogy
which I don't know if that's the name of it
but I can't remember the name of the book
but it's that Mercedes Killer Trilogy.
Okay.
And this guy's 62 in the book,
and I think about how he didn't have anything.
So you mentioned spear fishing.
I feel the need to begin to introduce,
and again, we have some things that we do,
like what, you know, but at least one of them
is something that would be, is gonna be difficult to do
as you get older, like I mean,
the whole paddle boarding thing is,
or at least paddle surfing in the way that we do.
I mean, as much as you've alone been injured
in the process of the few times that we've been,
at 60, you're probably not gonna wanna be willing,
you're not gonna be willing to deal with whatever the physical repercussions of getting hurt are.
Is that why you're getting into golf?
Well, it is one reason.
Back into golf, I should say.
I'm getting back into golf
because my dad's coming into town
and I wanna play with him.
I also wanna get the boys into it,
especially Shepard,
because he didn't really have anything that he's,
you know, sports-wise that he's really into.
You can make a lot of money off a kid playing golf,
I hear.
Too late, you gotta start them when they're like one.
But anyway.
But you've thought of it.
But this, the idea of,
you know, I heard Joe Rogan say one time
that everybody needs, you gotta have something
that you wake up to do.
And right now, we got-
And I don't, that sounds good as a general statement.
I think it probably is more true of some people
than other people.
But in general, I do think that's true of us.
Well, specifically, I think that's true of us.
I would say most people need something to wake up and do.
In one form or another, yeah.
I mean, but that could be read the paper.
I'm just saying that like,
once you stop having something to wake up and do,
and so that's when I start getting really self-conscious
about like what we've created.
I mean, of course, we have,
I think we've talked about this, maybe we haven't,
but we have a chip on our shoulder in some regards
when it comes to our work and what we've done
because everything that we've done
has kind of lived under this, in the world of YouTube.
And this is probably an unreasonable thing to think,
but there is a certain connotation that comes along
with the word YouTuber and the stuff that YouTubers do.
And it's because it's such a broad category
and it's something that anybody can do.
You know, when we talk to people in the industry
about some other ideas that we have
that may transcend YouTube and may be something
like a TV show or a movie or something like that,
even though there's not really that much of a distinction
anymore between these different medias.
You know, for instance, Buddy System was not even reviewed.
Not one critic wrote a review of Buddy System.
Nobody cared about our show on YouTube Red
because nobody cared about YouTube Red at the time.
I cared.
And so there's this chip on our shoulder
that we wanna create something that people can't help
but encounter, even if they hate it,
but people have to encounter it and have to talk about it.
But then I started thinking, okay, but at what point
am I too old to be able to create that
and to be able to get people to care about it?
Because I start thinking, well,
people don't really know that we're 40.
That's the best thing we've got going for us
is they still see us as these like,
I don't know how old they are,
but those guys from YouTube, they seem young
and they're on YouTube so they must be young.
Hold on, but the one with glasses, he's got gray hair.
And so you start second guessing.
I think that's what I've been dealing with
and again, I recognize that it's not,
this is not a healthy way to think
because the other thing that I'm trying to do
just like personally is get to a place
where I don't care about what people think.
And I don't care about, and I don't evaluate myself
through the lens of what people think
about my accomplishments.
Or creating something that then,
you're satisfied that it now defines you,
you know, in a way that you wanna be defined.
You know, I'm definitely thinking more about it.
I think, you know, when I mentioned earlier
that like I just felt like I've been in,
I don't, I guess you can call it a depression.
Like if it's like a few days stint,
like for the past week or so.
The one missing piece of the puzzle,
which certainly is a huge factor in all this was,
I had to fly home right before the party,
the two days leading up to the party,
I had a shocking death in the family.
My uncle passed away.
It was a tragic accident on his farm.
It was utterly shocking to our entire family.
So like, we knew, we all flew home for that.
He was 69 years old.
He was retired, you know, he was retired,
he was doing what he loved.
I mean, it's not a joke, but he died doing what he loved.
He was on his tractor on his own land
that his grandparents farmed, his parents farmed,
he farmed, and his son farms.
And he also made the decision.
And that's how he went out.
He made the decision to stop doing his,
he could have kept working at his other job.
Sure.
But he made a decision because he wanted to farm.
So that was why he got up every day.
But it was certainly an untimely
and shocking end to his life.
You know, I thought we were gonna have to cancel the party
because I didn't, you know, we weren't gonna,
we were gonna be there for the family
and then get back whenever it made sense
and then it worked out, but it was literally,
we flew back in that morning
and then at night we're having the party.
So I think the day after the party and the day since,
it's like all those things together for me have,
when you talk, have led to a lot of introspection
and reflection.
I think that we talk about being over the hill,
but there's an underlying assumption.
If you listen to a lot of what we said
in this whole conversation, it's just assumption that,
what's the average age?
Cause I'm gonna beat that,
or I'm at least gonna hit that, you know?
I'm gonna live to 79.
And then it's, you know, there's of course no guarantee
that that's gonna happen, you know?
And so it's, guarantee that that's gonna happen.
I think that I certainly don't think about, and it would drive me nuts if I woke up every morning
and thought this could be my last.
There was the guy, you know the old guy with the beard
who worked on the pyrotechnic stuff for GMM,
like when we did the fireball and stuff,
he had that catchphrase when we'd see him
and we'd be like, hey man, glad to see you again.
I can't remember his name.
And he would always say.
I woke up alive.
Now it's up to me.
Yeah.
It's like, I woke up alive, now it's up to me.
So it's like.
And not just, maybe he had,
I mean he is a pyrotechnician,
maybe he's had some close calls.
But he's also an older guy.
Yeah, I mean, he could, I mean, dude looked in his 70s.
He could be that old, yeah.
But I guess he adopted this mantra.
You think it's a healthy mantra?
Maybe it is, when you're that age.
Like at 40 years old, I don't wanna wake up every morning
and say this could be my last day
because I think that would freaking wig me out.
But I think there's gotta be a way for some of that
perspective to influence kind of what you're saying
about being so focused on what is it we're gonna create
that's gonna provide legitimacy or what, you know?
I don't know what the balance is.
Admittedly, it's not healthy.
Well, because the thing that I struggle with is,
I mean, this is like the thing that I think about
all the time is I know that one of my many personality
defects is just how much I want to accomplish, right?
is just how much I want to accomplish, right?
For those of you who know the Enneagram, I'm a three on the Enneagram, which is an achiever.
And it's just basically means that I'm hyper competitive.
Anybody who's watched the show knows that.
I want to win.
I want to be the best. I want to win, I want to be the best,
I wanna create things that people notice.
And while that's been helpful.
And then be commended for it.
Yeah, yeah, that's how I want,
basically it's how do you wanna be loved?
And so the way that I wanna be loved
is by people loving the things that I create.
And so I'll get uncomfortable
if you start talking directly
about me, I'd rather you talk about something
that I created.
So the, but the struggle is, is that I,
I'm like, okay, I don't wanna care
about accomplishing things, but if I don't care, I won't accomplish anything.
So I kinda get on this, in this loop,
because I'm like, ah, yeah, I guess there is some
state of contentment that like, you know,
like a monk somewhere has, where they're like,
my work is this simple, repetitive thing that I do,
and the whole point in being a monk my work is this simple repetitive thing that I do.
And the whole point in being a monk is to kind of take away the things that distinguish you as yourself.
You know, that's why you shave your head
and that's why you wear the same thing that everybody does.
That's why you do the same thing that everybody does.
That's why there's no hierarchy.
You're not like, he's the head monk.
It's like everybody becomes equal
and you kind of fade into humanity.
And I know that that's healthy in a lot of ways,
but it also scares the crap out of me.
So I think about like-
You really don't look great with a shaved head.
Yeah, yeah, and I couldn't have a beard probably too,
it'd be horrible, that's the main reason I'm not a monk.
But the hood, big hoods.
But the simultaneously looking to the future
and being like, there's so many things
that I want to see us accomplish.
And to me, it's not about losing the desire
to accomplish those things.
It's losing the false belief
that I'm gonna find some kind of purpose
or ultimate satisfaction in those things going well.
Because we have had a lot of success.
We've had a lot of things go well.
And we know, just like we talked about
in the book of mythicality,
in the stop and celebrate chapter,
that our MO is to accomplish something
and then immediately move on to the next thing
without stopping and really appreciating it.
So I know that if, okay, if we were able to make a film
or we're able to make a show that people,
that critics care about,
I can anticipate what that feeling is gonna be.
I know that there's not true satisfaction in that,
but if I can just enjoy the process,
which is something that I do enjoy,
the creative process is like, that's what we're made to do.
I find an incredible satisfaction,
not just in the results, but in the process.
I don't know, those are just the things
that are kind of running through my mind.
And the thing that's complicating it is this age factor,
is the fact that, oh, now I've got this other thing
I've got to contend with, which is the fact that, you know.
Sand running out of the hourglass.
When is my, yeah, when am I gonna run out of time?
When am I gonna become irrelevant because I seem too old?
When is my mind not gonna be as sharp?
When am I not gonna have that thing?
All the best athletes in the world,
even the best poker players in the world are young guns.
Right, you don't see some 45 year old come in there
and win the world poker tour,
you see a 20 year old do it.
I know there are exceptions, but that's how you feel
because what do they have?
Did I have it and I lost it?
Those are the things rattling around in my 40 year old mind.
I'm trying to figure out how for me as a perfectionist,
as a personality type,
how I'm interacting with getting older.
Because I want things, whether it's a party
or whatever it is, my life to be arranged in a certain way.
And I think my uncle, he was,
I think he also might have been a one just like me,
a perfectionist because he had his life arranged
and even his family life and his professional life
and his hobby life, he had it all very arranged
and he was very methodical and calculated,
which by the way was why it was such a shock
that he had an accident.
It's totally against everything
that you've ever observed from this guy.
is totally against everything that you've ever observed from this guy.
And I think he was living that yet, boop, it was over.
And was it worth it?
Was it worth the, is that the goal for me?
Is that what I'm trying to emulate
or is that something I'm trying to, I don't think so.
I think it's something I'm trying to put in its place,
the strengths slash weaknesses of being,
of thinking I know the best way for everything,
putting that in its place so that I can still
or everything, putting that in its place so that I can still live a full life,
even when things don't meet my standard,
which is probably, if it is attainable,
you have to sacrifice enough things
that it may not in general have been worth it,
you know, in terms of like what that does to relationships
or, you know, what it takes to get there.
So using the party again as analogy, it's saying,
I think I did pretty decent saying this was a milestone
experience that I'm grateful that Christy and you
encouraged us to do,
to have the freaking party and not say,
well, because it can't be the absolute perfect thing,
then I'm not gonna do it.
That would have been a horrible mistake, right?
And I think that's kind of a microcosm
of what I'm trying to do with my life
by putting those aspects of my personality in their place
so that I can experience the imperfections of life
and see beauty in that and experience that and love.
And love, throw love in there. Yeah,, throw love in there.
Yeah, just throw love in there.
The last thing I'll say,
which I think is,
I don't know if it's a generational thing.
I think- We're the same generation,
by the way, so it's not,
don't start treating me like a child.
We're whatever same generation, by the way, so don't start treating me like a child. We're whatever is between,
there's a very small generation
that's between Generation X and Millennials.
The Xennials, is that what it's called?
I think we're Xennials.
Perennials.
It's like 77 to 83.
Okay.
Again, this is just stuff reporters make up,
so take it with a grain of salt.
But the thing I've been, I think is typical
of most generations before ours,
and maybe it still is, I don't know,
is that you tend to get a little calcified in your views.
Right, you get to a certain point and you're kinda like,
I'm kinda done changing the way I think about things.
So far in my life, the way that I view the world
has gone through some very,
has gone through very drastic upheavals and changes.
I'm less certain about a whole host of things than I ever was
when I was 20 years old.
Yeah.
When I was 20,
I had just a very particular understanding
of so many things.
And I was so sure that I was right.
I mean, it was just like,
I remember sitting around and actually having the thought
of like, I pretty much think I know the right thing
about the most important things.
Yeah, I was there for that.
You know, I was like, I think I understand the basics
of the most important truths of the universe.
That's a very fortunate position to be in, I said to myself.
I did not actually say this out loud,
but I remember like having thoughts like that.
And then over the past 20 years, I look back at that 20 year old and I'm like,
what an idiot, you know?
I mean, now I was-
Let's not even keep it in the 20s
because I'll say it is something that has,
we both, it's part of both of our experiences.
It's not something that just, you know,
shortly after that we checked out of.
It's been quite a process between 20 and 40.
It continues to this day.
I mean, and that's a weird place to be,
to feel like you are entering into your 40s.
Now, there is a lot of stability.
There's a lot of stability in my life.
You know, with even the sort of the unpredictable nature
of what we do as a career, there's a lot of stability
in what we've kind of built up.
And that stability has increased exponentially
just in the past five years in a way that it did not.
There was a lot of uncertainty.
There's still a whole lot of uncertainty
but there's a reasonable certainty
that we're gonna be okay.
We don't know exactly what our job is going to look like
five years from now but probably gonna be okay.
Probably not gonna be like thumbing down the road.
You know what I mean?
Unless it makes for a good video.
As a character.
But I've never been less certain
about a lot of different things
and more open to different people's perspectives
and can hear somebody say something and be like,
ah, that's a good point.
Ah, that's a good point as well.
This is difficult to parse.
And I think that that is, in some ways that is just a,
I think that this next generation, like our kids,
are growing up in the midst of that.
We kind of grew up in a place where you were not exposed
to anything that challenged your worldview.
And it was very tight and it was very tidy.
And then we were kind of this generation
that got introduced through the internet
to all kinds of different thoughts about different things
and it began to kind of change the way we thought
about that foundation.
But I think that our children-
Which made our initial reaction to it something
that was more about maintaining the tidiness in the face of the internet.
Basically.
Batten down the hatches.
Whereas our kids, you know you.
There are no hatches.
When you grow up in an environment where there's no way
to not be exposed to almost everything on Earth
just by virtue of the internet.
As much as you put up healthy boundaries
and things like that, yeah, absolutely.
It's a different world.
Oh, we sound old.
But it's, what are you getting at?
Maybe you're getting at-
I'm just saying it's another observation
I made about myself.
The one thing that we can have
that that 20 year old poker player can't have is wisdom.
Now, you don't automatically have it.
And I'm not saying that we have it,
but I aspire to that.
And that is something that,
that is the advantage that old farts can have, right?
Yeah and I'm also trying to fight,
I'm trying to fight cynicism actively, you know.
Yeah, play Fortnite.
I hear Locke talk about the latest Lil rapper,
you know, there's these Lil rappers,
everybody's got Lil in front of their name.
And I just find myself just talking to him
about how ridiculous this whole thing is.
And it probably is ridiculous on some degree,
but this is coming from a man who has regularly
eaten animal testicles
for entertainment on the internet.
So I'm a little ridiculous myself.
Little ridiculous is my rap name.
But yeah, again, I don't have a conclusion.
I don't have a landing place for this.
It's just-
We'll have to end it somehow.
There are multiple things happening.
There's that internal struggle with like trying
to not be defined by my accomplishments,
but being fearful that I have yet to accomplish,
that maybe I've accomplished the greatest thing
I'm ever going to accomplish.
This less certain than I've ever been.
And then wanting to fight against cynicism
and just beginning to say things,
like sometimes you have to be like,
you're talking, you're literally saying
this generation of kids.
Like just don't use that terminology.
Don't get to a place where you use the term
this generation of children or this generation of teenagers
and then say something negative
because that generation of teenagers and the say something negative because that generation of teenagers
and the way that they think differently
and the things that, you know,
that frustrate us are gonna be the things that,
most likely the positive things that define the world.
It's just, it's the way it happens, man.
And it's happening quicker than ever.
More quickly, grammar Nazis.
So now what?
I think we just die now.
Just curl up.
I think we do everything we can to make it a 79.74
and then we die.
Buck Owens died in his sleep.
Good for him, you know, he finished a concert
in the Crystal Palace that he built in Bakersfield
and he went back to his house and died in his sleep.
But there's no guarantees.
I just wanted to tie in another country music.
It's like, it seems like country music is my religion
in this episode so I just wanted to tie a bow on that.
But thanks for listening in on this therapy session.
I feel okay. Thanks for listening in on this therapy session.
I feel okay.
I always feel like in retrospect, like looking at what we've discussed in this episode,
I do feel the need as we're shutting this thing down
to just say, I don't think you need to worry about me.
You know, it's like I use the term.
You need to worry about me.
I think we've been very honest about what we're doing,
but you know, and I wanna be sensitive
and thrown around the term depression,
which I know I said that a few times,
but experiencing depression.
I don't know what I wanna say about it,
except that,
what do you think I should say about it?
I just don't want people to worry about me
in that way specifically because
I'm not actively struggling with clinical depression.
But many, many, many people are.
Absolutely.
And hopefully we haven't,
we did what we always do.
We started talking about something,
not knowing where it's gonna go.
I think ultimately what you're saying is that don't,
I mean, we're just processing these things.
It's like, don't.
And I don't think there's anything wrong,
I'm not gonna apologize for being sad, obviously.
But I, you know, so I'm, we're not trying to be an example,
but in retrospect, if we were an example with anything,
I hope is that we're talking openly and honestly
with each other, you just happen to be listening
at a certain point.
I think that's what happened in this episode.
And I, you know.
Well, there is a podcast that Jessie's begun listening to
that is a therapist and her patients
and they let you listen in on the sessions.
Really?
And I don't, you know,
obviously all the confidentiality stuff is taken care of.
Well this is as close as we're gonna get to that.
So thanks for listening in.
And we'll talk at you next week.
Yes.