Family Trips with the Meyers Brothers - PATTON OSWALT Hated a Beach Read
Episode Date: March 12, 2024Patton Oswalt joins Seth and Josh on the pod this week! They talk about everything from living in alpine cabins, Patton writing letters to his father when he was in the marines, how some dogs have “...aunt energy,” what Patton’s daughter really thinks about him voicing Ratatouille, and so much more! NissanGo find your next big adventure, and enjoy the ride along the way. Learn more at nissanusa.com AirbnbSupport comes from Airbnb your home might be worth more than you think find out how much more at airbnb.com/host to learn about hosting. Marine LayerFind your new favorite fits and get 15% off @marinelayer with our exclusive link marinelayer.com/trips Saving your closet one shirt at a time. SquarespaceGo to Squarespace.com/TRIPS to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. EightsleepImprove the way you sleep by using our link at eightsleep.com/trips for $200 off plus free shipping on their high tech Pod 3 Cover.
Transcript
Discussion (0)
This episode of Family Trips is brought to you by Nissan.
Nissan SUVs have the capabilities to take your adventure to the next level.
Learn more at NissanUSA.com.
Hi, Pashi.
Hi, Sufi.
Well, this is a real delight for me having eyes on you.
Why is that?
Because I can tell that you're sitting in your childhood bedroom.
Yeah, I mean, it's not preserved the way.
It's fairly preserved.
Yeah, it's fairly preserved.
But these weren't my colors.
This is, it's a very sort of.
The color pattern is different.
There is over your left shoulder three photos you took years ago at the Pittsburgh Zoo that were then framed.
Yeah.
There's a lion, there's a yak, and there's a
sun bear. I believe it's called a sun bear. I was very proud of them. Very proud of them. Not
a lot of reason to be proud of them. These were real basic pictures of these animals.
And as a young person, I remember. It's that thing where because you were proud of them
and because mom and dad are good parents, they frame them you yeah barely lousy frames oh yeah no they're not store-bought slide in click yeah they would definitely be
amazon frames in today's world but there's also still above your bed there's a poster of cows do
you want to tell everybody the terrible mistake you made with cows as a young man? Got really into cows for whatever reason.
Holstein cows.
Holstein cows.
It was a specific Holstein cow affection.
And me and my good friend, Bobby Stewart,
I mean, I would say we started an organization,
but we didn't try to get other members,
but it was called Pafet Talk,
People for the Ethical Treatment of Cows.
And we weren't, I mean, we were still eating hamburgers and whatnot.
So we weren't that hardcore. But this was step eating hamburgers and whatnot. So we weren't that.
But this was step one in a long process to your current veganism.
I guess so. Yeah. And also Holstein cows are dairy cows. And they're beautiful. They're the black and whites. Yeah. So I got very into cows. And then as a result of that, every birthday and every Christmas,
I would be inundated with cow gifts.
Yeah.
For a while, it was all I would get.
And then I had to, at some point, cut it off.
It's a real cautionary tale not to just pick some dumb thing that you're into.
Because parents are so, as a parent now,
if I had a kid who was into one thing, I would feel such relief.
I would just go to Etsy, enter Holstein Cow, and just buy him something, and it would seem thoughtful.
When in actuality, what you did was you eliminated the need for anybody to be thoughtful.
They just said, oh, yeah, cows.
Yeah.
I have a very similar thing.
Oh, yeah, cows.
Yeah.
I have a very similar thing.
My good friend Molly Kloss loves otters.
And I will admit to going to Etsy and just typing in otter and scrolling and being like, oh, she's going to love this.
And I wonder if at some point she's going to reach a breaking point.
Yeah.
It was really insufferable the years you were into Holstein cows.
At some point, you know, a lot of the clothes that I had, that we had,
I don't know if yours are still around, but a lot of our clothing was preserved. So I had t-shirts at some point and I pulled them out a couple of years ago. And I want to say I had maybe 15
cow t-shirts. There was like, it wasn't Farside, Farside Cow sort of artwork is fantastic. Sure. But it was sort of in that era.
So there would be like a Vincent Van Gogh, but it would be like Vincent Van Cow.
And it would be like a self-portrait.
Yeah.
It was easy to get a pass from the cow crowd.
And so I had like 15 of these shirts and I finally had to be like, all right, we can get rid of these.
I, a few years ago, and pretty much I guess every time I stay at the house now, I sleep in your room because you have a bigger bed than my bed.
And although maybe, I think the mattress, tell me if this is wrong or not, is made by Lumpers.
It's a a lumpers mattress
well i'll say it's i mean i there's a cover on this there's a uh there's a topper on this one
okay so there's a couple things a lumpy super lumpy bed also are there actual curtains because
even though it's the middle of the woods it's the it's brighter to sleep in
your room than it is to sleep in new york city because mom and dad have like a i'd feel like a
klieg light outside yeah well i turned off i know i've learned how to turn off those outdoor lights
but the curtains are the kind of material that like a belly dancer's skirt would be made from. Yeah. It's like Stevie Nicks' scarf.
Yeah.
And it doesn't,
I feel like it also doesn't even cover the whole window.
It's just like a framing.
Yeah.
You tug them sort of towards the center
in a futile attempt at sort of having them back.
So these are a couple of negative things
about your childhood room.
But the other, the worst one,
I can't remember how many years ago this was, I was maybe looking for a couple of negative things about your childhood room. But the other, the worst one, I can't remember how many years ago this was.
I was maybe looking for a pair of socks and opened the top drawer of, you know, this would be like going to Mount Vernon, like one of the, you know, whatever, George Washington's childhood home and looking for socks.
I had a sense that, you know, the curator had left some socks in there and I opened them.
And you remember what I saw that It made me scream my ponytail.
Josh cut off his ponytail and then thought it was a good thing to save.
And if you're wondering what it looks like in a sock drawer,
like a furry snake?
Just a terrifying dead ferret?
It's in a hat.
I'm going to get it.
You're going to get it?
Yeah.
I can't believe it's still there.
Just a bacteria catcher.
Alright.
Alright. Get a...
We should at least get a screen grab for the
show notes. What's it in? It's in this
hat. It's in this puma.
Oh, that's good. So you reach into a
hat that you might want to wear and then you're like,
oh, a human head's still in there.
Oh, my God, it's awful.
Jesus, it stinks.
Oh, no, a little piece came off.
Do you want me to send this to you?
No, send it to the FBI.
Yeah.
It's a lot redder, I want to say.
Yeah, it's definitely redder.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yes, I still got this going on.
That's one of the bummers about saving a ponytail
is when it comes time for you to reattach it,
your hair is grayed.
And so it no longer matches.
The red, your fox red ponytail doesn't go with your,
whatever color you'd call now, your gray cinnamon.
Yeah, I am a gray cinnamon.
So you're managing to do this podcast with
mom and dad i'm assuming in the house since neither of them have jack shit going on dad
dad left dad went to go do his uh charitable good deeds all right that's good we should shout out
dad is doing we're retired doing charity work with dogs. Yeah,
Delta Dogs.
He volunteers with Delta Dogs.
And,
yeah,
mom's probably,
I don't know,
doing puzzles
or reading a book.
She's probably reading a book.
Mom in the house.
If you had to pick
one of our parents
to be in the house
while you were
desiring quiet
for a podcast,
you definitely want
mom in the house.
Oh my God,
yes.
Yeah, although dad got up this morning first
and I didn't hear him.
Really?
Which was amazing.
Yeah.
Because we also got like creaky,
we got creaky floorboards
and you just assume you'll hear someone.
Yeah.
But dad, myself, my son, Axel,
we're old school creakers.
If there's a creek and a floorboard,
we're gonna find that creek.
Yeah.
It should be noted, you came out east.
We did a podcast festival in Brooklyn.
The On Air Fest.
The On Air Fest.
It was very nice to be on stage.
Yeah.
Talking about our podcast.
Yeah.
I love going out to Brooklyn, and it was nice to be, yeah, super nice people, cool hotel.
People seemed to like it.
Audience of podcast enthusiasts.
Mm-hmm. cool hotel people seem to like it audience of podcast enthusiasts talked a lot about 1.5 listening to podcasts on 1.5 and whether or not that is offensive to the podcaster
josh and i want to stress to all of our listeners we don't care what you listen to it on nope i
still can't understand people who would be offended as someone who records something if someone were to listen to
it faster yeah so we're good with you listening to if i would say you know when it gets to josh's
song you know i think that's probably the one that's best to listen to at regular speed but
otherwise or maybe not maybe you just want to hear them all a little bit faster yeah the ones that my
one concern if you speed it up is i i worry sometimes that my laughing can become annoying
and i think it would only be made more annoying sped up right you would think maybe it's less
annoying because you get through it faster but it might not be if that math might not so weird
yeah so you were out east and then you and i got to bring my boys up on the train. We spent a weekend together.
Yeah.
In the country with the kids, my wife.
We had a nice dinner party with some of our friends.
Yeah.
Went skiing. I got to meet some of your pals.
And I know we've stressed, I think the ski season's almost over.
Everybody, you're out of the woods on that.
If you've hated listening to us talk about skiing.
Josh skied down the slopes a couple times with baby Addie between his legs.
I think that was a real hit.
Yeah, little two-year-old girl.
I got there, and Addie and I were sort of the first ones ready to go.
And right away, I was just sort of put on the magic carpet lift with her.
And I've never skied with a baby.
So I was a little nervous with how I was going to go.
And I heard someone else telling their tiny, like almost pre-verbal child to bend their
knees.
So Addie and I start going down and I'm sort of holding her around the waist.
And I say, bend your knees.
And then instantly her back and the back of her helmet are on the snow as she's still
moving down the mountain.
She's two years old.
So to pull her up by her shoulder was not
hard. And she's delighted. She likes it so much. And as soon as you get down, she just says again
and again. It's adorable. We also were kind of skiing around this tiny little mountain,
hoping to see the boys during their lesson. We came upon Axel. His teacher was talking to him.
Axel was lying on the snow like he'd fallen off
the ski lift. Nowhere near a ski lift. There was no fear that that had actually happened. He was
just lying there being a bag of bones. And I will say his instructors seemed charmed by him, but also
there was some real dead assery going on by. He also had fallen down, sort of going down the wrong trail.
Yeah, he'd gone down a black diamond.
And so he had to kind of walk his way back up.
Right.
And I sort of skied up to him and gave him my pole and said, here.
And he was like, Uncle Poshy?
And then you got behind him to push him.
And he was like, Daddy?
Yeah, we were sort of the ski patrol.
It was like if the ski patrol yeah it was like if
the ski patrol showed up and they were your dad and your uncle he was pretty psyched about it but
then you need to make yourself scarce because if he knows you're there like he just keeps looking
at you and waving yeah so we did that we did get gone yeah but it was lovely it was very nice to
have you there yeah i had a great time i will say there was some very nice wine drunk at your
dinner party yeah you were you were given some wine some fancy wine i was giving some yeah because
it was the 10-year anniversary of of late night and i was uh the network gave me some very nice
wine you know what i think about very nice wine i think this is going to be something very
complimentary and i'm very excited to hear it. It's bullshit.
I don't know why you would want to get good at wine.
I don't know why you would want your palate to achieve a level where you would be able to tell the difference between this very expensive wine and a $20 bottle of wine.
Because at the end of the day, it's all wine.
It's all smashed grapes that someone shoved into a bottle.
Yeah.
And I had, there were three bottles.
And I feel like I tried the first one, maybe, and first one,
and then a very small amount of the second one.
And then I just skipped the third one entirely because I was like,
it's totally wasted on me.
Well, I got some more bad news huh we just lost expensivewine.com as a sponsor hey i agree with you on the fact that
i don't have a palate for it either and one of the nice things about that dinner was i made sure
to have friends over who did like nice wine because I would have
been wasted if the if you and I drank one of these bottles of wine I think the whole time we'd have
been like yeah and so it's nice to be with people whether they were being authentic or faking it
who kept saying oh my god this is very good wine yeah I will say in the same weekend Mackenzie my
fiancee called me and she's like, I found the perfect bottle of wine.
Like just what I've been looking for, an easy drink in red.
And she's like, I found it at our corner shop.
I said, how much was it?
And she said, $22.
And in my mind, I'm thinking that's more than we usually pay for a bottle of wine.
But you're willing to go $22 if it's a perfect bottle.
Well, what I like is that she bought the first bottle.
I don't typically drink much wine at home, so she bought it and she likes it.
And so maybe she's going to be buying the wine from here on in.
Oh, I see.
That's good.
Yeah.
I feel like Mackenzie buying a cheap bottle of wine would be like if I told Mackenzie that I just found a very affordable horse.
I found a $200 horse and she would say,
you can't buy a horse for $200.
And I said, I can't even tell the difference.
Yeah.
You understand horses, but these guys got all four hooves.
I insisted on four hooves.
Yeah.
That's a good thing to insist upon when you're out horse shopping.
Well, this is very exciting.
A friend of mine, have you met Patton?
Yeah, yeah.
I would have assumed.
And he's a delightful person to have a conversation with.
And we hope you enjoy the conversation we're going to have with him right after you listen to our friend Jeff Tweedy.
Family trips with the Myers brothers our friend Jeff Tweedy.
There he is.
Hi.
Hello, sir.
I got my time zones all juggled.
Oh, it's fine.
You're an old school time zone juggler.
I really am.
I never agreed with the whole time zone thing.
I think we should stick to railway time.
It was a huge mistake.
We entered the jet age.
I think it should all be that's so interesting so a lot of people are against daylight savings time but you're really
drawing a line in the sand just on time zones i think time zones just makes everyone lazy
and uh and i think it gives the west coast an advantage when you're traveling back west after
a meeting on the east coast i think that's that's why Hollywood was able to become dominant after the 30s
because we had that weird three hours earlier.
We fly back, wake up earlier, we got a head start on you.
I don't know why you guys gave that up.
Yeah, I don't know either.
We blew it.
So, Patton, I want to start.
Your dad was in the Marines.
Yes, he was.
I know the term Army brat for people who move around
is it called a marine brat i think army brat covers all of the arms yes i believe it covers
all the forces gotcha so you considered yourself a brat a little bit yeah except that my dad did
kind of a cool thing once my brother and i got into high school because he remembered he was an
extreme army brat like he went to six different high schools,
went to high school all over the world. One year they'd be in Morocco, then they'd be back in
Maryland. It was just a complete mind F. We got into high school. He says, I'm going to take a
desk job just training people in Washington to be a pilot so that my kids can actually go to the
same high school. He wanted to give us that advantage. Very cool, wise thing for my test pilot dad to do.
I couldn't believe it.
Wow.
That's amazing.
And so he was an active pilot until that moment.
And then he got out of the cockpit and sat behind a desk.
He got out of the cockpit and yeah, sat behind the desk.
He was out at El Toro in California when I was a little one.
We were living down in Anaheim.
And then he started just training people so that he didn't have to move around anymore.
So he's an army rat.
So he comes from military, joins the military.
Then he's military.
He has two sons who both go into comedy.
Just like he drew it up.
Well, I think before he went to Vietnam, i'm sure he thought i'd love my sons to
be army men and then after he got back he was in vietnam for three years oh my god he was like
you two are never joining the army gotcha so it wasn't this was not your rebellion this was he
was happily pushed you away from it oh god yeah and he was always a big fan of comedy. So when we became, we both got into comedy, he's like, Oh, thank God. Good. Go do that. Do not pick up a gun. Go, go, go entertain the guys who pick up guns, because he'd been on the other side of that. He saw how horrible it was.
having to go to vietnam our dad was a big comedy fan and i think that we were maybe the first generation of kids whose parents were liked comedy or thought comedy was cool and also didn't think
of like a life in show business as a failure like right oh my son's an actor oh my god like
they were the first generation that saw that oh Oh no, go do that. That's actually pretty cool.
Yeah.
Especially if it works.
Yes.
Yeah.
Especially look,
they,
they certainly don't want you,
um,
uh, hosting local banquets as a,
as a comedian.
I'm sure that's not what they're hoping for,
but yeah,
they can tune in every night and go,
there's my son.
That's so sweet.
Yeah.
That's gotta feel good.
Yeah.
I was just thinking i've i've weirdly
started getting emails from tivo it's like celebrating the 25th anniversary of tivo and
i guess tivo's still a thing somehow but i remember yeah i don't they must have like a dvr
it's called the tivo edge this is not a paid ad. Wait a minute. Do they physically make the TiVo
boxes anymore or is it just an
app? I think, yeah, I think it's a
box, but it serves as your...
Yeah, I don't know. But I remember
when Seth and I were originally on...
When Seth was on SNL and I was on
MADtv, our parents had to get sort of
a TiVo in two different rooms so they could
watch us
both. But it was like, yeah, it was very exciting for them and they would stay up.
Hang on.
Couldn't you record multiple shows on TiVo?
Or no, you had to have separate boxes?
I think the issue was they wanted to...
Didn't they want to record it onto VHS, which was maybe the harder trick?
I don't think they...
Yeah, I don't know.
My first season of SNL and Josh's first season of MTV,
they would record sketches we were in.
Anytime we were on camera, my mom would record
and then just like hard cuts and then like a new,
and it was a lot of waiters, one line waiter.
It would, it's like if you had been just a murder victim
on Law and Order, but multiple times
and your mom had a bunch of those
no it was no value to anyone wow but very sweet if there are meyer obsessives out there
that is a weirdly valuable document where we just get the it's like those yeah i don't know if
you've seen those fan cuts of like every frame of the Joker from The Dark Knight.
But it's just scenes that have him in it.
So there's these weird jumpiness where like if they cut away to someone's reaction, that's gone.
They just want every frame of him.
Give me more Joker.
It's nuts.
I want to mainline that Joker.
Yeah.
Before DC, where were your different hometowns?
Before we moved to uh northern virginia
slash dc which basically was dc it was norfolk virginia which i barely remember and then ohio
which i kind of remember and then tustin meadows california which i very much remember
the reason i very much remember that is because when I was five years old, we moved to Virginia, but we moved on Halloween.
So as we left the neighborhood to go to the airport, all the kids were starting to come out to go trick or treating.
And I'm just watching this fade in the back window.
It was if there was ever a supervillain origin story of like missing out on Halloween.
It's so brutal. brutal yeah did you dress up
for the move i don't remember dressing up but i do remember and i remember this very vividly
the attendance on the plane tried to give my brother and i like a halloween and put together
goodie bags for us but it was like a deck of playing cards those little plastic wings yeah um a a napkin like it
was just it made it even worse yeah it literally was like the the attendants going let these poor
kids let's give them a halloween so they tried to gather every fun thing that was on the plane
this is the early 70s it wasn't a lot of fun on planes so they just you know oh look it's a little
it's a little plastic cocktail thing.
It looks like a sword.
That's fun.
And he's like, oh.
It just was so painful.
It is true that I think a candy-obsessed supervillain,
a great origin story would be driving away on Halloween.
Yeah.
On Halloween.
I mean, he's like, I'm going to wear a costume someday.
Like, that's how he becomes a supervillain i will have all the candy yeah when you were in those places was your dad
traveling a lot for his job or would he stay put he would travel a lot in fact at one point even
when he took the desk job in dc there was one year where he was assigned to japan so there was a year
when he was away when i was in middle school it was my mom was raising us where he was assigned to Japan. So there was a year when he was away.
When I was in middle school,
it was my mom was raising us.
Our dad was obviously sending back money and stuff like that,
but he had been assigned to Japan for a year and it was really rough.
Yeah.
That was weird.
I cannot even imagine.
Yeah.
What did he come home for holidays or he came home for the holiday and
then he came home for good later in the summer
but it was like there was a um summer and a bunch of stuff without him like there was a first day of
school without him you know that kind of stuff so it was like i had the 1970s raised by a single
parent experience it was almost like a simulator for that. And so, I mean, would you talk to him?
But I imagine those were like in the days of this is long distance.
And so, yes, it was.
So talking to him was a big deal.
Like, come here, your dad's on the phone.
Quick, quick, quick, quick, quick.
Like we had to keep it all under, you know, because it was crazy expensive.
And he would write letters when he could, but he wasn't a big letter writer.
I think I wrote way more letters to him. Cause I was a budding writer,
but you know,
he was just like,
he must've treasured those letters.
That must've been so great.
Yeah.
He must've,
he loved them,
but,
but his letters back were very,
they're,
they're very loving,
but you know,
miss you having fun.
See you soon,
dad.
Like that kind of thing.
Yeah.
I just like a barracks roll call where there's multiple letters from
Patton.
Just like the mailbag is half Patton's for his dad.
Oh, hey, Oswald.
Hey, Oswald, your son Shakespeare just filled the mailbag again.
Look at that.
There you go.
We have something in common.
We are all sons of Larry.
Our dad's a Larry, too.
Your dad's a Larry.
Yeah.
It's the best.
Did he go by Larry or Lawrence?
Larry.
That's Larry.
He's Lawrence on the birth certificate,
but he's Larry or Lair to those more familiar.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Hey, Larry.
I think that's a real unique,
being a child of the seventies and having a Larry for a dad,
those are a lot of puzzle pieces clicking together.
Yes.
They very much fell together. And Larry is one of those great dude names. Larry, you know, and you can put a lot
of emotion into saying Larry. You can do it. You know how someone feels about you when they say
the way they say your name. Yes. Or what kind of trouble you're about to be in. I encountered a child named Larry recently.
Everyone's so delighted to meet a child named Larry.
The confidence, or I don't know what it is that the parents have to be like,
we're naming this child.
And it's probably Lawrence, but little Larry.
Larry is such a funny.
Makes everybody happy.
I guess because the military, not an option.
But our Larry, not to brag, also mustache our entire lives.
There you go.
But like what kind of mustache?
Like 70s mustache, did it come down a little bit?
Not really.
Ends at the corners and he chews off the end bits.
Yeah.
Whoa!
Yeah.
Okay.
That's a 70s dad.
The money he saved, not having to get it professionally trimmed,
just millions, and millions at this point, of was he a smoker never smoked yours never smoked my dad smoked for a
while in the 70s and then he gave it up my mom smoked way longer than she should have but then
she gave it up too which was i was very very proud of her good for her and by the way my mom had the
the box of cigarettes but then the little
decorative leather box to put them in like remember that thing that people would do back
in the 70s it was like a separate a box to put over your cigarette box oh because that was a
little class it up a little classy yeah yeah now did you guys were you a trip family obviously i
wonder with you know when you have one parent that travels that much,
if they then don't have the energy to actually go on vacations with their family.
No, in the summertime, we would always drive up from Virginia up to Delaware
to go to Rehoboth Beach.
That was the big family trip.
Get in the car, go to Rehoboth Beach.
And oh boy, that was our thing.
Were you guys East Coast kids?
we were East Coast kids and we have a
cousin with a liquor store
Rehoboth Beach does that sound about right Josh?
I'm sure he's doing fine
because my god people like to drink at Rehoboth Beach
holy shit
I mean we've got family in Bethany Beach
I've been to Bethany Beach
Bethany Beach is like the low key
Bethany Beach is the hipster Williamsburg to Rehoboth Beach is like, you know, touristy Manhattan kind of thing.
Gotcha. So what is a Rehoboth? First of all, how long is the drive?
Drive was about two hours.
That's not bad. Yeah, it wasn't bad, except the closer you got to Rehoboth, the more traffic got slower and slower because everybody was going there.
Right.
And so there was a lot of like sitting in the car.
And, you know, when we were little, little before the advent of the Walkman, it was, you know, whatever your parents would play on the radio.
And then every now and then you would go, no, no, no, leave it there.
But also it was our first experience of, I'm sure you've experienced too,
when you drive and the radio stations you're used to suddenly fade out.
And then you're listening to new ones.
Oh, okay.
There's other radio stations.
That was always fascinating to me.
And then there was also a lot of like your mom, let's turn the AC off for a while.
It's not that hot.
Let's conserve gas.
Like there was a lot of that going on.
I don't know if you, were there car trips for you guys?
We were a car trip family.
Yeah, so were we.
Yeah, we drive up to like Northern New Hampshire
and our grandmother lived in Marblehead, Massachusetts.
So we drive down there a bit.
We did some longer trips as well
to see our grandparents in Pittsburgh.
And yeah, but we drove around but I do
remember for me it was always when a baseball game would just like a Red Sox game would slowly
crackle out of existence because you realized you you had now driven into an area where they cared
not yes that yeah exactly and you would feel that but it was weird because I had trips with my mom
and dad and my brother up to Hobart Beach And then when my brother and I got a little older,
my brother and I would fly to Arizona where my dad's father lived,
his grandfather, who was very much more military.
And then he would plan trips, car trips for us up to like the Grand Canyon
and the Painted Desert from Arizona.
Those were longer, but it was my dad driving the car. It was way more gentle and
mellow. My grandfather driving the car was, we're up at 5.30 a.m. We're going to hit the road early.
We'll have breakfast three hours in. My brother would be throwing up the whole time because he
got really bad car sick. And my grandfather made him nervous because he would yell all the time.
It was these weird, like, oh, this is how my dad was raised.
Okay, I get why he's rebelling with mellowness.
I get it.
Hey, we're going to take a quick break
and hear from some of our sponsors.
Family Trips is supported by Marine Layer.
Hey, Pashi.
Yeah, Sufi.
When we see each other,
there's going to be a brotherly hug right off the bat.
Oh, yeah.
And recently, they're the best hugs ever because both you and I have been wearing our incredibly soft Marine Layer clothing.
Yeah, those are some soft hugs right there.
They're soft hugs, and you can get all of it, all of your closet shopping done at Marine Layer.
They got amazing staples for guys and gals, tees, sweaters, pants, socks, you name it.
The tees, look, you and I are both t-shirt guys.
Yeah.
The tees feel like old shirts we've washed a million times, yet they look new.
It's like magic.
Also, a lot of times you really want a perfect fit on a t-shirt.
Marine Layer has between sizes.
They've got, like, mediums and marges.
I'm not sure if that's what they call them, but that's how they function.
I like the way you said it. Yeah. So they got a
perfect size for you. Mackenzie recently
reached out to me and she said,
hey, you're away.
I found four things on Marine Layer
I want to get. Do you guys still have
a code? Do you still
have a discount code? And I said,
yeah, honey. And I sent it over to her
because for a limited time you can get 15% off at marinelayer.com slash trips. That's marinelayer.com slash trips
for 15% off your entire order. Dear, saving your closet one shirt at a time.
And real quick, just for our listeners, we don't have a different one. The most we ever get off
is 15% too. You're getting podcast hosting discount rates.
Yeah.
Take advantage.
And I think we can all admit that great clothes can be hard to find.
Look no further than Marine Layer.
This episode of Family Trips is brought to you by Nissan.
Hey, Pashi, ever wonder what's around that next corner or what happens if you push further?
Seth, I know that's something you ask me every day.
Sure do, and that's why we're excited to partner with Nissan,
because Nissan SUVs have the capabilities to take your adventure to the next level.
We love celebrating family adventures on this podcast called Family Trips,
and one thing that has been a through line, a thread, if you will,
through so many of these stories,
is having a car that is comfortable
for your whole family when you're taking the adventures that you'll remember for a lifetime.
So take a Nissan Rogue, Nissan Pathfinder, or Nissan Armada and go find your next big adventure.
With the 2024 Nissan Rogue, the class-exclusive Google built-in is your always-updating assistant
to call on for almost anything. No need to connect your phone as Google Assistant,
Google Maps and Google Play stores are built right into the 12.3 inch HD
touchscreen infotainment system on the 2024 Nissan Rogue.
So thanks again to Nissan for sponsoring this episode of Family Trips.
Now go find your next big adventure and enjoy the ride along the way.
Learn more at NissanUSA.com.
ride along the way. Learn more at nissanusa.com. Yeah. And so my wife, my sister-in-law, my brother-in-law, they don't want them to get rid of it.
And they said, why don't you consider it as an Airbnb?
They're traveling a lot in their retirement. They're enjoying the world.
But don't give up a beautiful home. Let that beautiful home be an Airbnb.
Make money while you're gone and do not lose a house that your children are desperate to inherit.
I think people worry about, is this going to be too much work? And it's not too much work.
If you've made your house into a lovely place to be,
then someone's going to Airbnb it and they're going to be delighted to be there
and they will be lovely, nice guests.
I mean, mom and dad often will come to stay with me
and that's fine,
but I'd rather they Airbnb our home.
See a shrine to Josh Myers
and one solitary photo of me.
That's what you'd be getting if you Airbnb'd their house,
and you know it's true.
Yeah, and again, another comfy, cozy house
that anyone would be delighted to be spending some time in.
And remember, you don't have to Airbnb your whole house.
It could be a guest house.
It could be a spare room.
There's a ton of options.
Your home might be worth more than you think.
Find out how much more at airbnb.com slash host
that though is cool that your grandfather obviously embraced the idea of taking his
grandkids on trips oh yeah yeah the start of the trip notwithstanding obviously he liked the idea
that you guys would fly all the way out there and he would make adventures for you guys oh he loved
that yeah and the adventures were fun but then there was that weird like he'd put on like uh
like a lawrence welk station or something like this is what we're listening to like this big
defiant we're like i didn't say anything either way, but okay. You know, but then the trip itself was always amazing.
Like we would see the Painted Desert.
We would see the Grand Canyon.
It was kind of amazing, you know.
Where would you stay on those trips once you left his house?
With our grandfather, we would always stay in.
I should have paid more attention.
I was too young.
So the impression, it's more impressionistic.
But I know that we stayed at the cheesiest,
theme-style roadside motels,
like the rooms that look like teepees, but they're metal,
or the ones that look like a weird alpine village for no reason,
and you're living in these little alpine cabins.
So I know there was a lot of that.
He really thought that was nifty.
Like, oh, it's like we're staying in teepees, but they were all like weird, rusted metal and super. Oh boy.
So did he think it was niftier than you guys did? Cause it seems like that would appeal to kids to
sleep in a teepee. Exactly. But we just did it. It didn't hit us mainly because we were car sick
and exhausted and, you know know but he loved the uh
the just that and also i think in his mind like you're seeing some culture this is how
the indians lived and we're like i don't think they live this way like it was it was very i i'm
not painting a good picture but he was a really sweet guy you know he was just very much a any
kind of like roadside come on would get him
excited. Ooh, an Alpine village. Whoa. Like here we go. Okay. How are you and your brother, Matt,
as traveling companions in the backseat of a car? Were you, do you consider yourself teammates or
adversaries? Uh, we were definitely adversaries. we were definitely try to like tease each other
i mean we loved each other but there was a lot of like this is my side this is your side we would
if they would get us things if we played like i spy or road trip bingo we'd get really really
competitive about that like who saw what also we'd fight like, well, which side of the car?
Because if this is the side that's looking out onto the desert or the woods,
then that person's going to get to see all the cool stuff.
But then sometimes we'd be where suddenly
this side was the better side.
So there was just always, you know,
but why does he get to see this?
Oh man, it would just drive me crazy.
That really speaks to the pre-iPadding of road trips.
The very idea that
children the children would want to would care what window they were on yes oh that was a huge
deal who got what window because you had to figure out where will the cool stuff be we're holding the
line very well I should note on no iPads and cars so really yeah and you know we we're trying we listen to you know we're
currently listening to harry potter book on tape nice good but there was a real meltdown the other
day because we were driving and there was a dog fully one of those great dogs that has the
confidence to basically have half its body out the window. Oh, no. And the boy who had the dog, the rest of the drive,
it was a great crime of unfairness
that Ash had been closer to the dog out the window.
Oh, no.
But I was glad.
You want your kids to still be looking out the window.
How old are your kids?
Seven, five, and two.
Wow.
Josh, do you have kids?
No, I don't.
You have not experienced the wonder of driving with kids so al your daughter
is 14 is that correct she is 14 so what we've done is she likes to listen to her music in the car and
i get that so but my my compromise is you can't listen to it on your headphones plug your phone
into myster and we will listen to whatever you're listening to, but we'll, and I won't judge it. So, but because of that,
I have been exposed to a lot of really genuinely great new music.
That's exciting.
Yeah.
Boy genius and Phoebe Bridgers.
Like I know all their stuff and I actually kind of think it's brilliant.
Yeah.
And then she will weirdly be into stuff that I was into without me
discovering it for her.
Like she really loves whole,
she loves bikini kill
you know and a lot of bowie so there's stuff all over the place that she really that i'm kind of
like okay good what age do you think she started developing taste that was she actually developed
her um i mean she she developed taste a because i wasn't playing her little kiddie versions of
stuff.
I never played her kids bop.
I just played her,
the Beatles played her Bowie played her,
you know,
breeders and,
and pixies and stuff like that.
And so she kind of dug that stuff.
And then,
um,
I think it was around middle school that she really started getting into
like Taylor Swift and,
and like,
she would suddenly start playing songs that I'd never groups.
I'd never heard of new ones that like,
Oh,
okay.
This is really cool.
I got it.
Yeah.
Is there anything,
has she ever veered into a sort of auditory landscape that you find harder
to get into?
I feel like Phoebe Bridgers and boy genius is like,
we could play that for our parents.
They love it.
I feel like that.
Oh yeah.
That's generations.
Not really.
I mean,
I've been very, very lucky in that she has the stuff that she has found has tended to be pretty
or she likes stuff like she likes the smiths and she likes um you know but uh no for the most part
she has not veered into there hasn't been any really awful and there's a lot of great hip-hop right now
there's also a lot of for some reason i think hip-hop's going through a weird phase of kind of
empty bragging it's like it's it's almost like influencer hip-hop and it's really really hard
to deal with but luckily she hasn't quite veered into that area yet. Yeah. But I, but then again, I raised her on De La Soul and the coup.
And like,
I,
I tried to raise her on really good stuff.
So,
so far,
thank God.
Yeah.
I managed to turn my boys on to the Beastie Boys just by telling them,
these guys are troublemakers.
And they were very excited about the idea of them being troublemakers
i don't want you listening to this these guys i don't know about this yeah yeah yeah but your
kids are also still very much like i love bumping up and down in my little red they do they're still
pretty high on oh really they like the little raffi stuff they do and they like it too because
now their sister is like finally can understand things and they like to be rappy stuff they do and they like it too because now their sister is
like finally can understand things and they like to be able to sing the songs that she likes she's
a good audience oh that's sweet oh that's so cute my daughter definitely growing up loved
yo gaba gaba and little einsteins and would sing those songs to herself. She thought those were amazing. I just never had them on tape.
You had, obviously, she's 14,
Ratatouille she's seen.
She has seen Ratatouille.
And when she saw it, was she,
because I've heard this from a lot of friends of mine who do voiceover work,
and I'm curious what the answer is with you,
was she into it or not into it, that it was her dad?
Well, first she was just into the movie,
but she got really sad watching it when he gets separated from his family.
She did not like that part.
She loved when the family comes to help out.
It took her a little while to realize it was me.
And then once she realized it was me, then it was like,
were you actually cooking stuff?
There was a lot of questions about that.
First, there was the little kid questions.
Now that she's 14, she's like, how many years did you work on it?
Did you know it was going to be huge?
What's it like being, you know?
But also, I've been very lucky.
I got to take her on a tour of Pixar.
Oh, that's great.
She saw all.
I don't know.
Have either of you ever toured Pixar?
No, I've never done.
Oh, my God.
If you ever get a chance,
that's an amazing family vacation.
Go out to, stay at a nice hotel in Emeryville.
If you have an inn,
go and do a trip to Pixar because it's amazing.
It's truly amazing.
I want all your daughter's questions now to be like,
do you have backend?
Yeah, exactly.
What were your points? She sees some ratatouille
hat am i any money we're seeing anything from this did you get a piece of the merch we were
just we just went to disneyland we took her and a couple of her friends and she bought a bunch of
ratatouille merch and i was very open about like i'm not making a dime off i did not have i did not have the sway i'm sure hanks makes
some uh you know hanks does okay yeah he makes a sheriff woody stuff he's fine but uh there's no
there's no rat bucks coming our way so uh save your save your pennies back to arizona was your
grandmother alive was she in the front seat of the car oh Oh, yeah. She was very much in the front seat.
She was trying to be the peacemaker between us complaining and Grandpa grousing and her just going, you know, oh, look, there's some deer.
Or there's some, you know, she would try to.
And then also our Aunt Debbie would go with us, which was really fun.
So it would be Aunt Debbie in the back seat and then one of us in the center seat and the other one on the left.
And so that caused a fight sometimes when Aunt Debbie would would come along yeah because aunt debbie got a window
aunt debbie got a window oh man so that now it's not even who's got the better window if there's a
middle seat there's a real loser in this equation huge loser and he's very very angry and he's
completely he's got that really uncomfortable back, we hated the shoulder belt. That's what was in the center seat.
You got the shoulder belt.
Yeah.
Oh, I don't like this.
Oh, yeah.
So, oh, God.
We were whiny kids.
Whiny 70s kids.
Was Aunt Debbie your dad's sister?
Yes.
Okay, gotcha.
So she's the between generation.
Yes, exactly.
She is the boomer.
She's a boomer in the car with two of the
greatest generation and then two little gen xers that was the that was the dynamic going so in
reality no matter where she was she was the middle seat to be squeezed between those two generations
yes exactly where she was is basically the uncomfortable middle. She was stuck in between and oh, dear God.
Yeah, nobody respects her from above.
Nobody respects her from below.
Nobody respects her.
She's just sort of stuck there like, great.
I have a street dog that we found and her name is Debbie
because she looks like someone's aunt.
Really?
Like from the day we found her, it was like,
she just looks like someone's like, she's not your mom.
She's like your mom's sister. And she's like someone's like she's not your mom she's like
your mom's sister and she's like yeah she's along for the ride does she have auntie energy a hundred
percent yes i mean it's very very sort of lazy she's always on the couch and she's got her spot
and she's sort of you know she's regimented in her laziness would you also say this is accurate
josh because she's a very low to the ground dog.
Like when she moves, I feel like she jangles like she's wearing jewelry.
Yeah.
She loves clothing.
Like if you put a dress on her, she will love it.
Or a sweater.
Always finds doggy sweaters at a bargain and then brags about, guess how much I paid for this.
Guess how much.
Nope.
Lower.
You're not going to believe what I tell you.
It's lower.
It's actually lower.
Filene's basement.
I got it at the basement.
Disneyland.
How old was Alice the first time you took a... And first of all, let me ask.
Did you ever go as a kid?
Yes, we did.
When I was a little kid, we lived in Tustin Meadows.
So it was a 10-minute drive.
And we would go.
And this is back again in the 70s we would go
on Haunted Mansion love the Haunted Mansion still love the Haunted Mansion the greatest ride ever
we'd go on the Matterhorn the Matt okay when I went on the Matterhorn as a little kid the
roller coaster part would scare me it's a very fast roller coaster then they had this Yeti
yep this this abominable snowman that would just
kind of go yeah like it was like the statue it wasn't well articulated i just took my daughter
back there they have really updated the yeti i don't know if you've been on the matterhorn ride
recently no that friggin yeti is so terrifying they've added this whole sound element where as you're
driving the ride you hear him stomping around like he's moving around and then you turn a corner and
this it is so articulated and amazing and it just leans out and roars at you and my daughter and
her friends were screaming and laughing and i was like nope i that was not like it scared the crap out of me that's
great it was a yeah they they clearly were like well this thing all these 70s brats were like
throwing gum wrappers at it well like clearly the imagineers got their revenge because the yeti
that's on the matterhorn right now is seriously terrifying i wonder how long that yeti was on the to-do list i don't know
i you know what i should research that and then that they were like it finally was like hey hey
hey we got to bring this up to the front we got to do yeah if you see pictures of the original
yeti like you can do a google search it was like okay it's like something out of a fun house and
then they went nope we are we are jacking this thing up that is i think right
you're there is an arms race with amusement parks oh my god no kids are want the lame old version
no and every year they come out with some new ride that just feels terrifying like they have
the standing up roller coasters what were your amusement parks
growing up you were on the east coast too so where where did you go when you were growing up there
we had a lousy i mean loved it but sort of canopy lake park in new hampshire but that was you know
that was lower end but it was close and great and we would take field trips there so i'm not i don't
want to poo-poo it and then right we did do a disneyland trip yeah we did disneyland trip and then to the west coast or
down to florida west coast i've still never been to epcot in my life oh wow yeah epcot's nice when
we'd go to pittsburgh we'd go to kennywood yeah that's a old wooden roller coaster-y type place. Oh, wow.
But mom and dad did not care for that sort of vacation.
No.
What was their idea of a vacation?
Beach.
Yeah.
I mean, probably a version of Rehoboth Beach,
which was let's get a place where we go to the beach all day
and maybe there's some outdoor-y,
like volleyball-y type stuff.
You would actually get a house at the beach?
We would sometimes stay with our mom's mother in Marblehead.
Did we ever get...
We went to Florida a bunch.
We'd stay in hotels.
We'd stay in hotels.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We would stay in a hotel at Rehoboth called the Dinner Bell Inn.
Sounds great.
Sounds very nice.
Well, it was nice, but it had that,
there's a very specific smell to the bathroom and bedroom
that I actually think is nice,
where because they're dealing with a lot of beach people,
wet clothes and sand,
so it's very, very harshly cleaned.
And there's a kind of sort of scent in the air
of a cleaning fluid that reminds me of the beach like
we're at the beach now like it had that feel to it and also they had to because it's it's it's
virginia in the summer you got it that air conditioner had better be working because it
is hot and muggy so there's that also that air conditioner temperature it's that remembering
coming in from the outside and all the wet heat and then into the air-conditioned room i've always remembered that it's such a shock and that's a huge sense memory
for me it's one of the reasons i hate beach vacations is that thing of being wet and hot
yeah and then going inside and being freezing i just don't believe it's healthy or good yeah
you're like you're waiting for your lung to collapse from the different temperatures.
And as I get older, I'm more fragile.
And I just think this is how I'm going to go.
Yeah, my wife still loves the beach.
And I'm like, look, I appreciate that people love it.
And I know that because she grew up in Malibu.
But for me, hiking all the way out in the sand, and now I'm stuck out here.
Bathroom couldn't be further away.
Shade couldn't be further away. It's only the water and food I'm stuck out here. Bathroom couldn't be further away. Shade couldn't be further away.
It's only the water and food I brought with me.
The sea is all slimy and like it just,
I don't understand it.
I don't get the appeal.
Also, I know you to be a voracious reader, Patton.
Yeah.
People will try to sell you on it.
I would argue the worst place to read on earth is the beach.
Absolute worst place.
I don't know.
It's the idea of it being a beach. argue the worst place to read on earth is the beach absolute worst place i don't know it's
the idea of it of being a beach no beach read is a contradiction in terms a read should be in a cool
shady place inside near snacks near a restroom that's what a read is and a beach read is any
book that's better than the beach in which case every book is a good beach read is any book that's better than the beach, in which case every book is a good beach read.
It's better.
It's a beach read.
It beats the beach.
Yeah, you know what's a good beach read?
Mine come.
You just, you lose.
I'm transported.
Oh, dear God.
Hey, we're going to take a quick break
and hear from some of our sponsors.
We are supported by Squarespace.
Squarespace is the all-in-one platform for building your brand and growing your business online.
Stand out with a beautiful website, engage with your audience, and sell anything, your products, content you create, and even your time.
What do I like about this, Pashi?
What do you like about it?
Flexible website templates right off the bat.
Yeah.
Right off the bat. You. Right off the bat.
You got a lot of different choices.
And then from those choices, you can customize your look, update content, add features to fit your unique needs.
You can make any Squarespace template.
Do what you want so your idea, brand, or business stands out online on every device.
And again, we keep threatening.
I think we're coming up pretty quickly on custom merch
to be available. Yeah, we've been making a lot of noise. We've been making a lot of noise about
custom merch. And you know what? The issue is with us because once we decide to use Squarespace to do
it, it's going to be so easy for us to sell custom merch and create a passive income stream that
engages our, or if you're doing it, your audience and scales your brand. Also, what Squarespace
allows you to do is to create an online store,
which is perfect to sell that custom merch.
You can sell your products in an online store,
whether you sell physical, digital, or service products.
Squarespace has the tools you need to start selling online.
Go to squarespace.com for a free trial.
And when you're ready to launch, head to squarespace.com slash trips
to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
That's squarespace.com slash trips to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
Family Trips is supported by 8sleep.
What do some of the world's most successful people and high-quality athletes have in common?
The answer is deep, restful sleep.
Thanks to their 8sleep pod cover. I use the 8sleep too. It's changed my life. It's time to bring high-quality athletes have in common. The answer is deep, restful sleep. Thanks to their 8 Sleep Pod Cover.
I use the 8 Sleep too.
It's changed my life.
It's time to bring high-tech to the bedroom by going to 8sleep.com.
Slash trips for $200 off the pod plus free shipping.
Their buzz-worthy mattress cover called the Pod can be added to your existing mattress
like a fitted sheet to automatically cool down or warm up each side of your bed
and in turn improve your
sleep quality dramatically. And Pashi? Yes, Sufi. You're in our childhood home right now. You're
sleeping in the bed you slept in growing up. No eight sleep cover. How are you even surviving?
Well, I don't know what my sleep score is every night. Zero? Probably a zero right now? Probably
a zero. And I will say when I'm back in Los Angeles and sleeping on my Eight Sleep pod, I've been getting better and better.
My scores have been getting better and better.
I've been getting more deep sleep, which is where your body recovers.
I've been having more REM sleep, which is helpful for your creativity.
That's when you're dreaming.
And yeah, I feel like I have scored a couple 100s recently.
Look at you. I and I look at you.
I know. Look at you reclaim your sleep by going to eight sleep.com slash trips for $200 off the
pod plus free shipping on their high tech pod three cover. That's eight sleep.com slash trips
for a better, smarter sleep and poshy. Yeah. Yeah. I just saw you for a couple of days this weekend and all three of my
kids said, is he getting better sleep? Because he was great. Yeah. I was well rested and I was
ready to hang out with those little hellions you got. When you go to Rehoboth Beach as a child.
Yeah. And I don't know if you already didn't like the beach, but what would your days be like?
What would occupy your time? Well, when I was a little kid, I loved the know if you already didn't like the beach, but what would your days be like? What would occupy your time?
Well, when I was a little kid, I loved the beach because you've got adults handling all the –
like your only job is to run, run in the water, run around, hop out, and then someone else drives you off.
But as an adult, the beach isn't fun.
So when I was little, I loved the beach.
I also loved – Rehoboth Beach has this place called Dolly's, which is this saltwater taffy place.
And it's huge.
The sign is like this iconic sign.
And my mom, love, we got to go to Dolly's and get a box of taffy.
And I've never understood the appeal of taffy at the beach.
Oh, taffy's the worst.
It's this thing.
It makes you thirsty.
It melts.
It's awful.
I don't get it.
But there was also this amazing place called Thrasher's Fries.
And Thrasher's Fries at Rehoboth Beach, they would take potatoes, run them through some slicer, throw them in hot grease with the peel still on, and you get a big lemonade.
That, to me, was the beach.
The salt, the lemonade, perfect.
I didn't understand the taffy but those two things thrashers fries
i get those and then you go to the arcade there was this massive video arcade and this is in the
early 80s it was all that golden era that first wave of great beta video games moon patrol defender
space invaders galaga i mean all of them i'd be playing those so would you spend hours like would
you get how much money would you get?
Would you get, did you have your own money?
Or was it like, here's five bucks or here's a roll of court?
They would give me like five bucks and I would try to make it last.
I mean, in the morning.
You could make it last.
You could make $5 last.
You really could.
Well, especially if you got good at one game, you could play it forever.
So I got really good at Galaga and that would make it last.
And also, again, this was the 70s and 80s.
This is when your parents were like, just be back in like four hours.
And they had no way to contact you.
No cell phone, nothing.
Just go up and wander on this boardwalk.
God knows what's up there and go have fun.
There is this place.
My wife's from New Mexico and we just went for two weeks for Christmas.
And have you heard of meow wolf
this sort of artist installation in santa fe i think george rr martin is somewhat involved but
it's this you would love it it's this giant it feels like a giant airplane hangar where inside
different artists have built different rooms and so you go inside wow and it seems like a house
you walk inside a house and you're with your,
I was with my seven year old.
And then you can like crawl through the fireplace and you come out inside
what looks to be the skeleton of a dinosaur.
It's all this esoteric,
cool art stuff.
That sounds amazing.
And yet they have one tiny little room.
That's old video games.
And my son found Galaga and he's like, I won't do anything else.
He literally was all these art.
And he, I would just, I would say, let's go,
but let's explore through this little tunnel.
And he would just go through the tunnel, come out the other side,
walk back.
I'd find him a Galaga.
I get it, man.
But, but in a weird way,
those are now esoteric works of art because video games have been rendered so close to reality now that when you see something represented in primary color eight bits, there's something kind of avant-garde and artistic about it.
It would be a little bit if my dad brought me to one of those and I just kept going back and listening to Glenn Miller on a Victrola.
He wouldn't be mad.
He'd say, oh, look at this.
There you go. He likes the old stuff.
Yeah, but it is weird how sometimes that can end up having so much more charm than something newer, you know?
Yeah.
I was once with, you know, Mike Schur.
Yes, I know Mike Schur. Because you had one of the great parks and rec yes monologues maybe i mean the most memorable parks and rec monologue of all
time for my money thank you thank you so much but mike sure and i once were with a group of people
on nantucket and someone came in and said i got the best saltwater taffy you're ever going to taste.
And I remember we both think saltwater taffy stinks.
Yeah, I don't get the appeal.
Sure.
Said, you know what the best saltwater taffy is?
A cookie.
He's right.
He's right.
Mike's daughter and then this other girl, Lily, and then my daughter, Alice, would go climbing all the time at this place called the Strong Arm Gym or the Strong.
It was this gym in downtown L.A.
It was a climbing gym.
It used to be like an old brewery.
And they turned it into this whole art center.
And then there's the Stronghold Gym.
And these kids would just, they loved going up these walls and then rappelling
down they would climb all the time but i just remember uh mike sure and i would like be at
the bottom of this thing watching them go so far up and we're like we are so concerned with every
other part of their lives and then we just let them scramble 60 feet up a wall like okay good
luck also it's so nice because i think all you ever hear is the problem with this generation
the problem kids today and then i know so many parents of kids who climb for recreation yeah
no one we didn't know anybody who climbed anything when we were children and now it's just a
generation of climbers exactly and it's very very cool and they love it so yeah now then she's since
moved on to tennis but if there's stuff around to climb she'll still climb it instinctively you don't lose it she looks like riding a bike yeah she's got to go up it's
like climbing a wall crazy real quick on taffy i feel like taffy is to the eastern seaboard what
limoncello is to italy like you go to italy and you're like we should get some limoncello and no
one likes it sucks no and then you buy a bottle of it before you fly home and you're like, we should get some limoncello and no one likes it.
No.
And then you buy a bottle of it before you fly home and you put it in your freezer and it lives in your freezer for 18 years.
It's garbage.
You have that first sip and like, OK, I guess they like this over here.
But they don't.
They sell it to tourists.
And I don't know that people that like live on the coast that live on the Delaware coast, actually eat taffy.
It's for people that drive up and are there for a week every summer.
I think you're right.
Because, again, think of all the stuff on a boardwalk that they have access to.
Funnel cakes and actual good stuff.
Yeah.
Maybe there's an ingredient in taffy that's in a weird surplus and it hurts the environment in delaware so they had to in order to get it out of the ground they can't dispose of it
the only way to do it is to get out of town is to eat it oh my god it's like a weird it's like a
weird shirley jackson's the lottery we just get like out of town even the places the sort of open
air taffy places where they show you they're just like swirling it around. It never looks good.
It always looks like
it's just insulation
for an attic.
It's bad.
The other thing about
Limoncello is
I feel like
there might be
like an Italian word
for like
bottle that catches dust.
I will say though
because that
french fries thing
I have forgotten
and it was very nice
of you to point out
the reason the beach
was better when you were a kid
is you don't have to do
any of the
beach garbage
I remember a place
that was the rockiest beach
we've ever been to
the one in Marblehead
that was so rocky Josh
but they
Preston maybe
yeah they
they grilled
the hot dog buns
oh god yeah
I remember that being
really a nice thing kind of the square dog buns. Oh, God, yeah. I remember that being really a nice thing,
kind of the square grilled buns.
And then also, have you ever had a lime Ricky as a drink?
I don't think.
That I feel like is a New England drink.
I've heard the term.
What is a lime Ricky?
It's just like raspberry lime soda, right?
Oh, is that right, Josh?
I feel like it's like a sparkling water,
like a sugared sparkling water with a
pump of raspberry and a pump of lime probably i don't know how they made it but they were delicious
wow that was good so i think that i'm forgetting that there was the allure of the beach was
to get food that was unique to the beach and yeah there were arcades that was a big part of it back
in the day and they had that all of the games playing at the
same time had a very specific sound that sound mashed together is a very much a memory because
you can your brain could pick out the different games but they were all in a big cacophony
like there's pac-man there's space invaders there's astro but it's all at the same time
and i i've never forgotten that sound it the happy, joyful version of walking into a casino.
It is exactly.
That's what it is.
It's the,
cause they're not out to destroy your life.
They're like,
just give us a couple quarters.
They want to make you happy.
They want to entertain you.
Yeah.
Quarter at a time.
No one leaves a winner.
So there's not a sense.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You never see,
watch a kid walking out with like a bug,
like a big old bag of quarters.
Did you,
were you guys,
and this is a question for you too, Josh.
Were you the kind of kid in an arcade
who would wait in a line for a popular game?
Given the limited amount of time you would be in an arcade,
I feel I would just go to,
I would find a game no one was at
as opposed to waiting for the hot game.
If I was good at the hot game, I would wait.
Yeah, if it was a if i was good at the hot game i would wait yeah that's if i was if it was a
game i was good at but otherwise i would go seek something out also i would always try to try one
new game each time because who knows i could be a prodigy at something and i don't know it yeah
but i also remember playing a game and then somebody coming by and putting a quarter
there like like i'm next and i that always messed up my game because then I now know somebody's waiting and I would disc that was like, clearly he plays pool and that's what he puts down to mark that he's next up.
And then he had a cue and a case on his shoulder.
And then he had a wrist guard that he put on.
And I when my game was over, I was like, you can you can play with whoever you want.
He's like, no, you're next up.
And I played him.
And I actually played him pretty well.
But he tried a full-on English shot coming straight down at the table.
To the masse, all that shit?
Yeah.
Oh, wow.
And it was like, I was there early.
And then by the time I was off the table, it was people that were there to shoot stick.
You're a terrible pool hustler when you bring all that gear.
Like you can't like be gearing up and be like,
so what are you, a thousand dollars a game?
Yeah, you can't announce it.
Like he may as well have had a boom box
playing George Storogut's Bad to the Bone.
Like just really, really telegraph
everything he's trying to do.
Oh my God.
Turns out I was the one that was ba-ba-ba- the one that was bad. Oh, there you go. Did you and Matt
in a hotel room, would you share a bed to twins? It depends. I mean, we were small enough that
sharing a bed or sleeping in twins didn't really matter. We always had enough room,
but then there was always that weird, we'd want to, especially if there were twin beds,
But then there was always that weird, we'd want to, especially if there were twin beds,
oh my God, jumping back and forth on the beds.
That was all frigging night.
That's all we wanted to do.
Just jump back and forth.
We couldn't get enough of it.
Did you have a beach games?
Like what would you play on the beach?
We wouldn't play beach games. We had very specific beach activities.
One was digging for sand crabs.
And we learned the secret early.
When you look for the little air bubbles, you wait for the water to come up.
And then when it comes out, the little bubbles, you dig and there's a sand crab.
Yeah.
So we would get those.
And then we would try to like build a sand castle and then put the sand crabs like in the courtyard.
And then we didn't.
Oh, then they just burrow into the sand.
They're gone.
You know, there was that.
So it was a lot of building stuff. Oh, then they just burrow into the sand and they're gone. You know, there was that.
So it was a lot of building stuff.
We love to like build, try to build elaborate sandcastles.
I remember there was a Sesame Street film where they build this little,
you used to do those weird films of just people doing things.
Yeah.
And they're so hypnotic.
There's one of kids building a sandcastle and they put a little drawbridge with a stick and do the little,
it was really, really cool. And, and I, so I would always try to do these elaborate
say, but, but, but you had to pick the perfect spot because you wanted a little bit of wet sand
to build with. You couldn't be too high up because too dry, but if you got too close,
the water would come in and destroy it. But then as I got older, part of the appeal was I tried to
build a castle and then wait for the water to come in and destroy it. But then as I got older, part of the appeal is I tried to build a castle
and then wait for the water to come in
and then watch it get wrecked
because that was really cool watching.
Right, that's the invading army sort of thing.
Yes, oh, I love that.
I feel as though movies and television shows
when I was a kid gave me a false idea
of what kind of sandcastle I was capable of building
because mine always looked like hot shit compared to what...
That was one where there needed to be a lower third,
which is this was built by a professional sand designer.
Yes.
And you are never going to be capable.
Or this is an actual steel structure
that we just put a little bit of sand on top of
for the purposes of this episode of Brady Bunch
or whatever it was.
Well, I remember I was at Ocean Beach for Beach Week, my senior year of high school.
And I remember there were a lot of teens there, but there were also a lot of families, little
kids.
Where's Ocean Beach?
Ocean City.
Sorry.
Ocean City.
Or was it Ocean?
No, it's Ocean City.
And where's Ocean City?
I don't know either.
It's up in Maryland.
It's somewhere on the coast of Maryland.
We went there.
It'd be really funny if it was like, it's in landlocked Nebraska.
It's the most landlocked.
It's that classic Nebraska sense of humor.
But I remember there were all these professional sandcastle builders had set up areas where they would build sandcastles all day.
And they were very elaborate and very, very cool.
But you saw a lot of little kids watching these things and then not building sand.
Like you could see they kind of imprinted like, well, I'm not going to make something like that.
And they just kind of went and swam in the ocean.
It's almost like, hey, don't do this during the big holiday weekend because these kids are looking at going, well, screw this.
I'm not building a sandcastle.
That's how I felt about when they would have professional jump rope teams
come to tell you,
don't do drugs.
You know,
they would show up at like,
you know,
it would be like a school assembly where they're like,
Hey,
don't do drugs.
Learn how to jump rope.
And you'd watch them.
And you'd be like,
I thought I was closer.
Yeah.
I'm not going to ever do that.
I'm going to just go get high.
Like there's no way we'll go buy some drugs.
You're like,
this is a, this is a drag. I feel like if I was going to be a high. Like there's no way we'll go buy some drugs. You're like, this is a,
this is a drag.
I feel like if I was going to be a little bit more fun to watch,
they did this weird thing at my high school.
The one time,
I guess it was some company and they paid for it,
but they put together this,
like,
it was like a film montage of movies,
like better off dead and breakfast club and top gun,
all the scenes of people skiing and being...
It was just this weird, vague
go out there and be awesome.
That was the whole... It was like an assembly
to make kids feel more positive,
but we're just using
different mixed media things.
Then we're all
cheering for, yay, Top Gun, we like that movie.
Then
I always thought that like they it was
some company they just ripped my high school off they just like yeah we do this whole presentation
and the focus is school and they just probably use unlicensed film clips and then showed it and i'm
sure they got shut down but they made whatever money they could and ran with it it was this
weird people the attempts to reach kids when i was growing up were so clumsy and weird but they were
also so earnest because they didn't understand the cynicism that i think our generation understands
with with kids like oh god i know they think i'm a cheese ball doing this like saying it's like
right we're we're much more aware of being a dorky adult yes whereas like when there were
sort of super jacked yo-yo guys showing up to my high school
yeah i think we already knew yeah yeah but they didn't they were like they didn't really thought
they were doing something awesome yeah you know duncan dudes duncan dudes all right we have uh
pat and we have a series of questions that we ask all our guests here we go it's kind of a speed
round but you take your time all right yeah you can only pick one of these is your ideal vacation relaxing adventurous or educational relaxing i i want
the operative word in vacation is vacate i want to be vacated from the world and i need to recharge
so massive family gatherings not a good thing you know one or two people not hey we're calling all the cousins
we're calling on the world no no no no no no we're gonna do an olympics yes oh god no relaxing
vacate great uh what is your favorite means of transportation oh to say, lately, I've been on the road a lot.
And when I have a gig that's only like a couple hours from the next one, instead of putting
me on like a puddle jumper flight, I'll either hire a car or rent a car.
I really do, as I get older, I really enjoy driving.
Great.
Yeah.
And I don't understand this race to make self-driving cars.
I thought driving was kind of awesome.
Yeah.
I like driving. Yeah. I like driving. Yeah,
I like driving. Driving is kind of my thing. What do you listen to when you drive if you're alone in a car? I have different mixtapes, sorry, playlist mixtapes. Yeah. Playlists on my phone or-
You got to get a car that has a tape player. I got to get a tape player. Or there's a lot of
really good podcasts that I listen to.
I can't listen to an audio book.
An audio book is something I have to do when I'm walking.
I can't do it while I'm driving.
I agree with that.
If I'm being driven, I can listen to an audio book,
but I can't listen to a podcast while I'm driving.
Okay.
Weird. If you had to take a family vacation with any family,
alive or dead, fictional or real, other than your own, what family would you like to take a family vacation with any family, alive or dead, fictional or real, other than your own,
what family would you like to take a family vacation with?
Oh, wow. I would like to, but this wouldn't be a relaxing vacation, but it would be interesting
to take a vacation, and this is fictional, but all of the messed up families
from like 60s American novels,
like the Saul Bellow families
or even like the Tenenbaums,
the Royal Tenenbaums from-
Tenenbaums Vacation.
Yeah, like looking at all the weird tensions
and all, but being able to kind of hang back
and so the vacation becomes me observing that stuff.
That would be amazing to me.
Yeah.
All right.
Great.
If you had to be stranded on a desert island with one member of your family, who would it be?
Oh, my brother.
Great.
Because he's hilarious and he is unflappable and he tends to remain calm and chill in situations.
That's the guy I'd want to be stranded with.
Great.
What's your actual hometown?
What is the town called?
Well, your hometown is wherever you go through puberty.
That's my thinking.
Okay.
Because I had a lot of hometowns when I was a little kid,
but Sterling, Virginia, that's my hometown.
Would you recommend Sterling, Virginia
as a vacation destination?
God, no.
Oh, God.
Sterling, Virginia is one of those weird planned communities that was built in the seventies and it's, and now it's expanded
because AOL built out there. So it's like taking a vacation in the suburbs of Houston.
It's not that, I mean, there's stuff to do if you're crazy rich, but no, it's not a good vacation spot.
Oh, God, no, no, no, no, no.
Okay.
Oh, Lord.
And then Seth has our finishers, one of which we know the answer to.
Right.
The first half of this question is, have you been to the Grand Canyon?
We know that thanks to your grandfather, you have been.
So the second half, is it worth it?
Yes.
And I went a few years ago.
I went back, and it is worth it because,
and this is going to sound very cheesy, literally the trickling of water carved this thing out.
And any kind of goals you have, or in terms of like, oh my God, how will I tackle this project?
Anything is doable and tackleable
once you look at the Grand Canyon.
It actually is worth it.
Especially if you have millions of years.
Especially if you've given millions of years,
you can do it.
You can do it.
Well, that is the most philosophical answer
so far about the Grand Canyon.
Really beautiful.
And Patton, thanks so much.
It's always such a delight to see you, talk to you.
You two have brought back, and I'm saying this as a compliment,
so many sounds and smells that I had forgotten about in my growing up.
This was amazing.
I didn't realize family trips are a very formative part of your life.
I had not thought about that.
My God.
I wish the dinner bell in made a candle. Oh.
That gave you that smell.
That smell of the, oh God.
That would be amazing.
All right.
Yeah.
All right.
Thank you so much, Patton.
Be well.
Great talking to you, buddy.
Thank you.
Take it easy, guys.
Bye, pal.
Bye.
Bye.
Patton and Bro, They flew to
Arizona
Grandpa
would yell
Listen to
Lawrence Wells
Yeah, they stayed in teepees
or alpine cabins
right by the road Grandpa was military, was nice but scary
Do what you're told
You wanna sit on the side with the best views
If Aunt Debbie jumps in
then one-eyed's wall boy gets screwed.
Overall, they were pretty good companions.
Saw the Painted Desert
and Grand Canyons.
In Rehoboth Beach
he found a great smell
At an inn named
after a dinner bill
Crashes, fries and lemonade
were so great
Mattel horned, they got a update
The arcade in town was frickin' legit
But saltwater tap is fuckin' bullshit
Saltwater tap is fuckin' bullshit is fucking bullshit salt water
tap is fucking
bullshit