If I Were You - 352: The Biggest Announcement

Episode Date: October 15, 2018

We're back! In this episode we announce our newest, most ambitious project yet: our new Patreon Channel: Patreon.com/JA . We discuss why we decided to launch this channel, as well as the shows currently on it: A video version of this podcast, as well as "Jake and Amir watch Jake and Amir." We're excited. Hope you are too.See omny.fm/listener for privacy information.

This is a headgum podcast. If I were you, time to go, knowledge river overflows, it begins now. Whoa. I love DMB. That was written by somebody named Calvin Yeager, or Yeager, and he's a third year Biochem PhD student. Well, fucking abandon it and do Dave covers, bro. And not only that, he gave us two Dave covers.

There's another one. And about five other originals. So we're going to do the two Dave covers today. That one was satellite. We'll end with crash. And crash satellite. And that was Calvin. So thank you, Calvin, who's going to be a doctor soon.

But look, I just felt like I was waiting for the chorus. That's my only note. You want a full version. Everything was perfect. Everything was great. And then like it's, we're coming up to like winter's cold springer races and the common way by the storm is chasing. Like, yeah, I don't know this song that well.

So like, oh, I'm wearing headphones. You have to give me a warning because it's like really high rating. Yeah. Well, that's not really grating. It's really high. It's really pitch full. It's really great. It's not grating.

It's great. And it's currently great. I should be a singer. Nothing official to promote except for an Instagram that he uploads music to. Calvin.yeger. It's great that he doesn't have anything official to promote because we have something official. That's right. To announce.

Big announcement. And to promote. I wanted to organize my thoughts because I didn't want to just rant incoherently about this thing that is kind of a big deal. Interesting. That was my plan. Right. And so I started writing outline.

I want to hit this point. I want to hit this point. And then I started writing paragraphs. And before I knew it, I have this like five minute speech prepared. I have. No. I have written before me on my text edit doc, a multi paragraph speech, not even a source.

You wrote a speech? I wrote a speech announcing this project. Is this the first time you've written a speech since? Since your best man wedding. Oh. Yeah. Which you seemingly went off the cuff with. Yeah.

But this is more important. Yeah. I don't want it like that one. I can just sort of like wing it and hit the main talking points. Right. But this one's really, really important. So the two speeches that you have in your life are the best man speech you gave at my wedding.

The most important day of my life. And this speech here, the most important day of yours. That's right. The most important day today. Announcing this project. Really excited you wrote a speech. I will read the speech. It will seem off the cuff.

It'll seem like I'm just not even reading the speech at all. Right. Because you probably wrote it for it to seem. Yeah. Like very casual. Casual. Dot, dot, dots. Holds for applause.

Yeah. So this is the speech you can chime in whenever. Okay. But just know that I'm reading. I'm going to make it sound like I'm not trying to read. Can I chime in quickly before you go into the speech? You can chime in whenever you want. Including now.

All right. So this is, I'm floored that you wrote a speech. Of course. This is, I don't know. I feel like everything in our lives, like I get excited by. Yeah. And then there's a couple of magical moments that you also get excited by. And this is that magical.

Whoa. You're reading this off a no card. All right. Okay. Go on. Enough preamble. Ready? Yes.

Before. Oh, wow. Yeah. Go. Sorry. Wow. All right. Here we go.

Yeah. Speech time. Here we go. Before we get into the podcast today, we wanted to announce something new, something big and exciting and nerve wracking. True so far. Yeah. I'm so nerve wracking that you wrote a speech.

That's right. Voice trembling, acting cool. No big deal. Jake and Amir, our web series ended in April of 2015. And in the three-ish years since then, we've kept busy and self-employed by podcasting and building out our network head gum. Yeah. These are the reasons of Lonely and Horny and developed a number of TV and film ideas with

a few production companies. Yes. All to resounding success, as you know, because you've seen us all over television. That's right. These are projects that I guess our fans aren't even aware of because you don't really tell anybody about it until it, quote, unquote, goes. Yeah. Is this part of the speech?

No, no, no. This is me talking. This is riffing. But it's cool that you can't really tell the difference. Yeah. The problem I go back to reading with traditional Hollywood TV and movies and stuff is that the industry moves incredibly slowly. Pitches take weeks and the idea is bought and scripts take months to write and decisions

take years and nine times out of 10, you're left with a sample that nobody will see created for a network that nobody really watches. Right. Our fans don't know that we've had many exciting meetings. Yeah. Meetings and pitches and scripts written that aren't necessarily ours. And we get great calls and bad calls. We get calls that are like, they want the script.

They want to pay you to write a pilot. And then we get a sad call that it's like, they didn't like the script enough to shoot the pilot. That's right. Or you shot the pilot, but they didn't like the pilot enough to turn it into a show. Or you have a really exciting pitch with a bunch of really cool partners and then you're waiting to go into the rooms and then the partners actually realize that they're too busy and they can't do the show.

That's another option. The end result is a script or a show that's been kind of mutated and watered down and ultimately not entirely ours. And that's not very exciting. We've written scripts based on ideas we've had and then they're like, all right, let's do it, but like this. Let's add this character. Let's change this.

The first version of the script is your favorite. And then it gets slightly better, but then after a point there's diminishing returns and they get worse and worse. That's correct. And while we've had, you know, trace amounts of success selling shows and shooting a pilot, like you said, we haven't been able to develop ideas that are unfiltered and unabashedly our own pure ideas that kind of like Jake and Amir, that were conceived and delivered directly from us to the audience without any middleman whatsoever.

Written, shot, edited, posted from us to you. That's right. No note ever given. No notes. Except for Jeff Rosenberg. Occasionally chiming in if necessary. If Jeff laughed, we posted it. That was the rule.

Zero creative compromises, which I think was peak fun for us and peak fun for the audience because they saw a shit that probably wouldn't have ever seen the light of day in movies or in TV. Right. Like Ben sucking my dick. For example, and that was just us trying and sometimes failing, sometimes succeeding. This podcast is kind of close to that, but it's just audio. But our goal is to make funny videos that people can watch and consume directly without

having to sacrifice any of that creative control. Correct. Unless you're incredibly successful already, that's not going to happen in TV and movies. He writes you a blank check and is like, all right, deliver a show. I hope I like it in six weeks because we have no creative input whatsoever. Your eyes are off the computer. You've left the speech. That's correct.

I'm off speech, off book. The back on speech, the people who give you the money make the decisions. And the people that give you the money aren't always funny. That's right. And for the first time, nice. That's also written. That's my speech. You're reading through my computer.

Since we ended Jake and Amir, there hasn't really been a digital outlet that allows us to do exactly that, which is create content directly to the consumers. Yeah. And there's nothing funny about writing pitches. Because it has to just be universal and broad and something that you can sell easy rather than something that you know will be funny. There's more strategy. It's like, how do I get a producer interested?

How can I show a network that this is relatable? But it being really funny is the last thing. Even when we did the Jake and Amir pilot, people were like, why did Jake and Amir hang out if Jake hates Amir? And that's just like, because they just do. Don't worry about it. It'll be funny. They just hang out.

They sit across from each other. Jake tolerates Amir because whatever he does, you sometimes hate your coworkers. You sometimes like them. That's how best friends work. But anytime that we had to actually write a TV show, we're like, oh, OK. So Amir saved Jake's life when he was really little. Yeah, there's a backstory there. And then who's Jake's little sister and does he have a love interest or a crush?

You have to just sort of mold and shape and fit your idea to a traditional medium. Yeah. So Jake has a weird relationship with his parents. He's got this thing with his boss. And Amir wrote a scroll about the best fish to eat. We just shoot this thing already. But our fans, I feel like, prefer the fish scroll. Yes.

And so do we. Yeah. But we're not going to get cash from a channel about a fish scroll. So what's up? Tell me the rest of the speech. Where are we going? So this is now you're 100% on board. Go back to the speech.

I didn't even know that we have this project. I'm finding out about it for the first time, too. So this is what we're announcing today. OK, this is it. This is what we've been leading to, which is our new Patreon channel. Oh, my God. That's what everybody's saying. It's not.

They're finally begging for cash. Begging for mercy. It's a digital tip jar. It's not a show. It's a channel. I wanted to clarify that right off the bat, which is a medium that will allow us to create as many shows as we can and sell them directly to you guys, the fans, for less than $5 a month.

Patreon.com slash J.A. Very sleek. I'm into J.A. What are the shows so far? We are in production on two of them already. Firstly, is a video version of this podcast. If I were you, add free bonus Thursday style, which won't interfere with our Monday episodes, so you'll still get the Monday one for free that you're listening to.

This podcast never changes. But occasionally, on Thursdays, there's a new episode that's available to you as a video on our Patreon. You can also just, so everybody knows, on Patreon, just simply sign up for that RSS feed. That's right. Just on its own, if you want two extra, if I were you,s a month and you don't care about anything else, $5 a month gets you that. Okay.

That's the bare minimum. But we're also creating a new exciting show, perhaps our most exciting show since we left College Humor, something we're calling, Jake and Amir, watch Jake and Amir. The idea being, we're going to watch our old videos that you guys know and love, sometimes for the first time in 10 years, and we're going to give live commentary on them. Correct. We were doing this a few months ago, I think, in a live stream. Yeah, we just started watching an old video and laughing, like idiots enjoying the content

for the first time and coming up like, wait, weren't you this that day and wasn't this happening and wasn't there an alternate ending that we wrote or a beginning that we cut for time or something like that? Yeah, there's all these crazy backstories like, oh, this is the same day that we shot these other four videos. Right. So you can see I'm wearing makeup from a previous video and this video. Right.

I'm hungover on the day that we shot Parkour. Yeah, or like you vomited that day and we included it in a different video. So these are videos that we're going to comment on sometimes alone, sometimes with our friends. We've already recorded a few episodes with Ben and Thomas, for example. Those are good friends. And we... And Jeff, he's a friend. That's right.

And we're just going to look like silly idiots cracking up and recalling memories about making them. Each old episode, we're digging up old emails like there are email correspondences between us and Ben and we're narrating it as we're reading it for the first time since 2009. Yeah, that writes the entire video in the email. Yeah, we did a Milkman part one and two episode with Ben and we looked up the email of him brainstorming ideas and it's us throwing shit against the wall. Yeah, he's like, I should be a surgeon and you say, oh, or a Milkman.

And he goes, that's perfect. I'll be a Milkman that sells expired milk. You get sick and somebody says we need a doctor and then I say I'm a doctor. That is literally the first video. That's right. And we're watching the video while we're talking about it. So you guys are able to watch the videos along with us as we do a deep dive into these old episodes.

Some of them are legit, still good. And some of them are legit bad. And we kind of comment on that. We give these videos a grade at the end of every episode. That's right. It's kind of like the ultimate guide or a complete history of it's like the old DVD commentaries that I used to watch. But more than that, because it's a video of us watching it.

It's not just audio content over a video. Right. So these are new, high quality videos. Those episodes are roughly like 15 minutes each. And it's something we can obviously never do for TV, nor could we afford to do. Nobody would care. No. We also brought back John and John Carlo, the guys who shot just about every single

episode of Jake and Amir. That's right. They're shooting and editing this stuff for us. So it's like fully exciting that we're, it's not just like, oh, we're gonna get nostalgic and watch our old videos. We're like trying to use those videos as a leaping off point to create something new. But we have the whole band back together. And the videos themselves look good.

Like we're spending money shooting these videos in HD. Three cameras. We rented a location. We're not fucking hacking just for cash. We're trying to make it look like an HBO show, but at the same time we're talking about like, what did we use for diarrhea in this episode? We haven't watched that episode yet, but I do remember that we pushed pudding through a hole in khakis.

Yeah. Or like who came up with Oshishalt was a dream. And are we still proud of that line today? Spoiler. We are. For $4.99 a month, you have access to both shows. We don't want to like charge a different rate for every show. $4.99 is for the channel.

And that channel is not going to change. It'll always be patreon.com slash j a. The shows itself will move in and out like seasons of a show will do as much commentary as possible. And then eventually we'll be able to add shows to that channel, depending on how many people sign up. If we do good, we do more. That's right.

For example, if we have 10,000 patrons supporting this channel, we'll launch a third show, which is more of a narrative show, something scripted like Lonely and Horny, if you guys saw that, or like Jake and Amir even, where these two first shows are more nonfiction. It's us as humans laughing and joking around with each other. If we get enough patrons to sign up, we'll start expanding the universe even more. The channel will grow with the audience. That is the most exciting thing to me because as we've been watching Jake and Amir, I'm realizing how much I miss just like writing comedy dialogue and shooting comedy videos.

And like we have that a little bit with the headgum videos, but we don't write those ourselves. We don't edit those ourselves. We're not even in them a lot of the time because we've been busy. But like watching old Jake and Amir makes me so excited to write a new series, to come up with a new series. The other thing I'll say is that Lonely and Horny is really close to what we had with Jake and Amir. It's like really fun to write, really fun to shoot, just a good time across the board.

But even from season one to season two took two years. So like even development that's seemingly not as intense as like giving an FX or HBO or IFC show, it took that much time. We had to find a home for it. We have to wait for contracts for years and years. Yeah. Produce it, edit it, give it, wait for it, wait for the platform. For launch, promote the launch.

You can watch season two on Dropout, we should say, but a lot of it is out of our control. We want to be able to control this ourselves, but we need help. As always, we rely on our fans, the ones that watch the videos to begin with, the ones that write for the show, the ones that are listening to this podcast, the ones that submit theme songs. Yeah. At College Hammer, we had the IAC and the ad sales team and everybody supporting our job.

Now we have nobody. Yeah. We want to just grab you guys, the fans, and create an ad-free, pure, direct from us to you platform. We're so thankful that Patreon is there to help us do that. I should say right now, there are two episodes of Jake and Amir, watch Jake and Amir and a video if I were you on the Patreon. You can subscribe right now.

If you subscribe today, that is one hour of content, no problem. And then there will be a new episode of one or the other coming every Thursday. That's the plan. Every Thursday, one a week, three in the bank right now, and we've been making one episode of something for the last 12, 13 years, so you know we're good for it. Yeah. We like a short movie every single month for five bucks. It's nearly two hours of video, premium video content, and if we get enough people to get

on board, to enjoy it, to spread the word, to watch and enjoy, we'll make more. We'll only make more. We'll never make less. So it's a little bit of a risk on our part. We're hoping that we do get enough support to at the very least fund this current rate of operation, but ideally, we'll get more, grow more, make more shows, suddenly we're at three, four, five. This starts looking like a real channel in our full-time jobs.

Yeah, that'd be sick. That'd be insane. We're posting trailers and clips of this new channel on our Twitter and Facebook and Instagram, so check them out. Leave a comment, tell a friend. Every little bit helps. And even I think at patreon.com.j, we can also just like post the trailer for everyone. And again, this is perhaps our biggest risk ever, so I know we're asking a lot, which

is $5 a month. We spent a lot of time talking about it, too, and we appreciate that. But again, there's no company, there's no corporation behind us right now. It's just us asking you guys for support after relying on you guys for the last 10 years. So we really, really hope- Do us one last solid. And I don't think you'll be disappointed. And there's other tiers, so it's not just the $4.99, though that's the basic one that will let you watch all the shows.

We're doing stuff at $9.99 a month where you can join us for a monthly live stream and suggest the videos that we'll be reviewing so you guys can actually tell us which videos to watch and comment on. Ask us a question for our video podcast, but again, the base rate of $4.99 will get you the content always and forever. We could even watch weird ad sales videos on that $9.99 tier. Watch old branded content that we were in? Yeah, during the live stream, we watched the Shik Hydro tour video.

Oh, God. That could be misconstrued as an advertisement. Well, we'll talk shit about Shik the whole time. We'll talk Shik about them. It's called talking Shik with Jake and a Shik. That was the end of my speech. That's the whole speech? That's everything I wanted to say in roughly the order I wanted to say.

I really could have used a rousing call to action at the end, but I guess it was an impassioned plea. I never asked you for anything. Yeah, though we have. It's a lonely morning. But that money, again, didn't go to us to make the video. That went to Vimeo to prove that we were good enough to make a second season, which you guys did prove, but then they folded their platform anyway.

There's always a middleman. There's always a cost to doing business. No one's going to give you money directly until now, we hope that you guys will. And then we're going to use all the money we're making to just turn around and make that content, send it right back to you guys, content that we don't have to approve by anybody who nobody has to say yes or no, nobody has any creative input. So if you like what we've been doing, if you've trusted us so far, if you're still listening after 10 years of videos and you're five years of podcast, if you're a day one, then I have

no doubt in my mind that you will thoroughly enjoy patreon.com. Yeah, and subscribe and get in on the comments. We're going to be reading them a lot over this next few weeks and help us guide what we're creating for you. That's right. Let us know what you think. Let us know what we should do. We want to do right by you, most of all.

That's it. Is there anything left to say? Should we do a normal podcast now? Should we answer some questions? Feels so strange. Before we go, I'm just overcome by emotion for our earliest fans, if they're even still around. I'm sure that some of them are, but the people that met us in the rain in Washington Square

Park, we have our first ever Twitter meetup, not knowing if anybody was going to go. Or when we do a live show in Australia, and it's like a 23-year-old, I've been watching you guys since I was 12. That's some good shit. I feel like we've had a really unique career in that we've made great fans early on, and we've made a relationship and kept that alive. I feel like every time I meet fans of ours, we have a kinship because we have to have the same weird, dumb sense of humor, which is not a lot of people have that relationship

with their fan base. Some people have just fans because they think they were cute in a vampire movie, and they don't know who you are. God, I would trade it all in to be hot in a fucking vampire movie. Well, I was sort of disparaging that in a way. Get away from that, werewolf! I'm doing sides from the movie if you want to have them on your side. Get away from that, werewolf!

Was that hot guy? Oh, that's the meaner. He's sort of an empty vessel, but he's hot. Now you're doing... A different character. Like a hot girl watching you audition for a part? Or whatever. It could be anything.

It can't be anything because it's so small, petty, and complicated. Why are there bystanders in your audition watching you read sides? It's an open call. You know that you're bad at acting, but you're hot. Why is that your goal? It's not a goal, it's a dream. Let's go to break and come back and try to do a podcast. Wait, while you were talking, it made me think of something else as well, which is that we

will not stop trying to do TV in movies just because that's always an exciting next step and it feels like a fun way to expand our audience, but at the same time, digital and internet just feels more comfortable, feels like home, this feels like the right next step for us. Yeah, that's just... Digital stuff for our fans is what we should be doing all the time. And now Patreon gives us the tool to actually do that. We should be creating weekly content that we like, that our fans like, that makes us

laugh, that makes them laugh. We should be doing live shows, doing all the stuff that we like the most, and then also waiting for executives to give us notes on a movie script, which we always are, and it takes six to eight months to hear back. So we'll keep that up too. So once again, that URL is patreon.com.jaya. We're trying to get as many people to sign up today, so do check it out. Let us know what you think and we appreciate your time.

Let's take a break. We'll answer some questions from the confused youth of this crazy, crazy planet. We call Earth. We call Mars. That's right. Welcome to 2025. It's only 2025 and we're podcasting on Mars. I said we're taking a break.

I don't think so. I don't think that's gonna be the fucking cards, man. Thank you to Aura Frames for sponsoring this Head Gum podcast. You know, Aura Frames is sponsoring not just this episode, but the entire Head Gum network, Jake. Wow. That's correct. I mean, this might be the Goat Father's Day gift.

I think it actually is. Yeah. Yeah, not just Father's Day, but if for any not so tech-savvy family member that you need a gift for soon, these digital photo frames might be the best of all time. Yeah. For me personally, these things are perfect. I'll tell you why. As you know, I am expecting my first child.

We got one for Jill's parents. Oh, wow. We got one for Jill's grandma. Holy smokes. We got one for my parents. So there are three of these bad boys in our family right now, but they're great. Really easy way to stay in touch with your family. You can upload as many photos as you want directly into my parents' kitchen.

It's really nice. Oh, that's cool. This is a photo of anything, perhaps a baby, and then it goes to their digital photo frame. This is actually how we told Jill's grandma she was pregnant. We got her the aura frame. We plugged it in. Jill's grandma was pregnant? Really nice, asshole.

This was actually a really sweet moment for me and my wife, and you're trying to make a joke of it. I was just being goofy a little bit like, this is how I told my grandma she was pregnant. Yeah. She misheard it or something like that, or the way you said it was kind of like, could go either way. By the way, Jill's grandma is pregnant. Oh, my God.

Jill's grandma is 90 and pregnant. It's pretty cool. And you told me with a digital photo frame? Holy smokes. And we let her know with an aura. Yeah. Thank you. The aura announcement.

So you can instantly frame photos from any device anywhere and invite the whole family in on the fun through the aura app. Add me to your aura app. I'd love to upload just a picture of me like at a pool or something. That could be funny. Yeah. Like your banana or your dog alongside pictures of my daughter. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. You deserve that. You can even preload photos and add a personal video message that will display as soon as your dad or anybody connects to the frame. Yeah. It's a great gift. A really, really iconic gift. And right now you can save on the perfect Father's Day gift and visit auraframes.

And our listeners can use code HEADGUM to get up to $30 off plus free shipping on the best selling frames. There it is. Oh, wow. This is timely. The deal ends on June 18th. So don't wait. Terms and conditions apply.

That's auraframes, A-U-R-A, frames.com. Okay. Go get your parents something. All right. And use the code HEADGUM for $30 off plus free shipping. Right on. Thank you, aura. To the HEADGUM podcast you were listening to.

This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Thank you, BetterHelp. If you're finding yourself in a difficult, anxious, stressful situation, talking to a professional licensed therapist is the best way to navigate yourself out of that difficult place. And it's not necessarily easy to find a therapist, especially one in your area, but BetterHelp makes that all easy because it's online therapy designed to be convenient, flexible, and suitable to your schedule.

You just fill out a brief questionnaire and get matched with a licensed therapist. And you can switch therapists at any time for no additional charge. It's incredibly helpful. Therapy has helped millions of people over thousands of years. So give therapy a try. It can give you the tools to find a more balanced life. I've tried therapy. It's been very helpful.

So you can find that balance better with BetterHelp. All you got to do is go to betterhelp.com slash if I were you. You do that today. You can get 10% off your first month. So the prices are already affordable because you're not paying rent for a building somewhere that you have to drive to and wait in a waiting room. This is done entirely online, but you're still getting professional licensed help and it's extra affordable.

That's betterhelp.com slash if I were you. Check them out. Thanks, BetterHelp. And we're back. Jake, do you have any? I always forget that that's coming. I don't know why. Yeah, I do actually.

We have a new Patreon. Oh, actually, my advice does include paying money for shit. But the Twin Innovation live show in Brooklyn, I think everybody that lives with it. I don't know. A few hours of Brooklyn should go to that show. Are you going? I can't because it's in New York and we're going to be in LA. We should live stream it or something.

That seems like a Dave Rosie plan. That would be great. He puts on the Instagram. I can see him doing that, like wearing a headband, putting his phone in his forehead. Livestreaming the whole show. Livestreaming the show from his POV. You should suggest that to him. I think it's going to be really funny.

Their shows are always really funny. I think this is also going to be kind of enjoyably insane because it's their first ever show that's kind of entirely them, done without a festival, done without a big showcase. And it's on Halloween. Yeah. The concept is based on Jeff's earlier pitch of Hallow Main doing Halloween in May when it's warmer. So they're doing a Hallow Main show on Halloween. Wow.

Is that crazy enough to work? A Hallow Main in October. Imagine. The post also says a no-hold-barred costume contest, which I imagine is just sort of like a cage fight with a bunch of people in WrestleMania costumes. Yeah. I guess that's what their live shows devolve into anyway regardless of when and where they are.

So it makes sense that that's the Hallow Main theme too. Yeah. I think it turns into a party afterwards. So everyone should go. You can find tickets on Dave's Twitter. I think we both retweeted him too. This Google Twinnovation live show at Littlefield, Brooklyn, New York, 1031. Easy enough.

That's all. Go to the show. Bye. All right. This question is written by a man we'll call Dave Rosenberg because it's about an uncle. And Dave Rosenberg has one, I think. Fuck, fuck, fuck. What the fuck, fuck, writes Dave.

I'm in a vehicle driving back from a Thanksgiving weekend at my uncle and aunt's cabin. I guess it's a Canadian Thanksgiving thing. Where did he say he was? Driving back from a Thanksgiving weekend. Does he say the word vehicle? Yeah, he's in a vehicle. That's so odd. Driving back.

So he's in a car while this crisis is currently happening. Who says vehicle to describe? I'm in a vehicle. In our vehicle, he writes, it is just myself and my uncle. After about an hour of a five-hour drive, we finally get back to phone service as the cabin in the woods at a lake in northern British Columbia, well out of range of any cellular signal. Okay.

The father of six, married for 30 years, checks his voicemail on speakerphone as he is driving. The first voicemail is a lady's voice. The message says, hey, sweetie, when are you back? And my uncle deletes the message. Turns off his voicemail and the cab of truck fills with silence. Is that a thing? Filling with silence? I don't know.

Don't really care. Fuck. Anyway, the cab is filled with the most awkward silence. It still is. I'm sending you this because I don't know what the fuck to do. The radio's on now and we're having casual chit-chat paired with an eerie tension that's in the air. What do I do?

Is there a world where this is an innocent message? Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobo. I mean, Amir and Josh and Kobe, you're my only hope. Love, Dave. Solid email. Yeah. He's in the car while it's happening. Because I wrote the vehicle.

You're obsessed with the vehicle. And filling with silence, I do think it's a thing. Yeah. Sometimes silence can be the loudest noise of all. This is also like uncle's worst nightmare. He's like, oh my god, that was so, I'm caught. I hope he's not doing anything on his phone. Let's just make casual chit-chat.

This kid is like, meanwhile, writing an email outing the uncle. That's right. He knows all. Oh, yeah. It's like the type of thing where two people are both thinking the same thing, hoping the other one is going to be polite enough not to mention it. And then they both do and they hope they both forget about it. I think it's better to mention it because it's more awkward to let it linger and to

wonder who's thinking what. Yeah. It's like, who was that? You know? It's too late now. Yeah. He should have said it really casually. Did you have said that to your uncle?

Who's that? Yeah. I think I would have. And then he could have been like, he could have given me that lie that smoothes it all over. Oh, so it's like a lie that both of you know isn't true. Right. And that would be the way of smoothing it over.

You don't then do anything about it. No, I don't think you need to investigate. As a nephew, it's important. But it's much more awkward to like delete, freeze up, and then like, oh my god. Five hour drive. I feel like if he's having an affair, why would he check the voicemail? Why would he check that voicemail on speaker? That's right.

Unless he wants to be caught. This nefarious little avuncular addict who's like sort of gets off. Avuncular? What is avuncular? Ever relating to uncles. Really? Yeah. Did you?

Why? Do you know that? It's a fun word. Avuncular? Yeah. Is that a real word? Now I'm not 100% sure, but it felt right at the time. Let me look.

Avuncular. Avuncular. Like, I have an avuncular attitude as an uncle. And if so, is there an ant version of that? Avuncular related to an uncle. Is there a, yes, antuncular? Yeah, female avuncular. A colorast, if there's a feminine version of avuncular.

The Oxford English Dictionary lists material as meaning a characteristic of an ant. Avuncular? Matertural. Matertural. That's right. It's much less fun to say than avuncular. I have no idea why avuncular exists, and why you knew it, and why you said it. It's because I am an uncle, and I am avuncular in my work.

Oh, very avuncular. You're not very avuncular, though. I have an avuncular vernacular. You're more of a maternial. I'm more matertural. I'm more matertural. Matertural. I have a maternal turtle, if that's helpful.

I want to follow up on this, because I'm almost certain that as the car ride finished, they're about to go, all right, drive over. By the way, that voicemail you heard was nothing. It was just so-and-so. If that happened, then he's definitely having an affair. If it doesn't, then he's probably definitely having an affair. Then it could have been his mom or his friend. He is a little weird.

I think the only person that can really call him sweetie are his mom or his wife. So if his mom's dead and that was not your aunt's voice, then he's having an affair. Shit's going down. All right. A question from a lady, a little call her Queen Elizabeth XII. Why? Because can you imagine if that's how long there's been a queen, if there's 12 of them at this point?

Are there 12? Uh, no. Okay. I'm just being a vuncular, I guess. Hello, my fine friends. For the past year, I've worked in a retail for a pretty large and well-known company, and I've absolutely loved it. Despite it being a retail job and having the usual struggles of it being retail, I still

enjoy it there. I'm surrounded by music I love hearing, and I get to talk about topics that I genuinely love. However, a friend I went to high school with voiced an interest in working at the store with me since I would talk about how much I loved it. I offered to refer her to my manager and help her get hired, and sure enough, she did. Everything was fine, except when she started working there, she has had a horrible attitude and is an extremely negative person and just makes everyone dislike her.

It's frustrating because it makes me look bad. And also, I believed in her. Everyone is saying at this point that she's so unhappy she should just quit, and they all want to be the one to talk to her. Sorry, they all want me to be the one to talk to her. Why do I go about this? She likes to victimize herself, so I don't know if she'll take anything I say in a non-horrible way.

Please help. Sincerely, Elizabeth the 12th. Oh, my jeeps. You got people hired at College Humor. Was that ever uncomfortable? Did you ever feel ownership over them? You better do well because I fucking vouched for you, bro. I guess sometimes a little bit, but I also feel like College Humor was a really enjoyable

job, so people generally liked it. Right. Everybody had fun, and if you invited a new friend, it was fine. Yeah. And even the ones that didn't like it stayed for a summer internship and then stopped. At the very least. So, you never dealt with this like, oh, this guy has a bad attitude. I would not fire my friend.

That's crazy that they want her to do it. I don't think they want her to fire her friend. They want her to say to her friend, you should quit. Be different. Yeah. I guess it depends what her level of complaining is. If she's like, I hate this job, then I think it's kind of like, you could definitely use that as an in to be like, oh, you don't have to work here.

It doesn't matter. Yeah. It can help you find another job. In fact, let's both quit on the count of three. Ready? One, two, three. She quits. Yeah.

It's like diving off a really tall thing where you count to three and only one person jumps. Sorry, I got scared. Too scared to quit. Anyway, I love this job. I love the music. I love the idea of loving the music where you work so much. I can talk about any topic I want.

Yeah. I think that's, I mean, isn't that almost any job? No. Well, yeah, for her probably, because she just loves the idea of talking to strangers about anything. Right. For me, that sounds like a nightmare. Yeah.

Listening to music, talking to strangers about anything other than basketball. People don't really listen to headphones at our office. Oh. Do you notice that? Do you notice that? Yeah. Yeah. College humor, the last year or so that we were there, we would go in, everybody was

just on headphones staring at their computers. Interesting. I can't do headphones and work at the same time. Like when I'm listening to a song, I can't zone it out and read something or work on something or write something. This is good for unsolicited advice, but I listen to kind of like focus music. Which is just like white noise, sonic pulsing and classical rock. It's like, no.

Well, maybe. Sort of. It's like folk hip hop, kind of trans like beads, but also like kind of interesting coming of age kind of casts. Yeah. A little bit. No podcast. Neopolitical dystopian books.

No, not books. Future books read by like a robot voice. No, not quite. Actually, there is kind of that in one of the songs, but I listen to a playlist called It's not Siri. Reading to you 1984. It's not lit Siri. Did you say lit Siri?

Yeah. It's like a literary Siri. A literary Siri. Literary Siri. It's, I listen to a playlist called Deep Focus on Spotify. Yeah. And it's kind of like. Your journey after that.

Erie. No, not. Tricking off. Responding to emails. Got it. Don't. Don't active listen to me. Yeah.

If like everything. I won't active listen. Yeah, but you're also always wrong. I'm helping to repeat so that enforces the words in my mind. I know what active listening is. I don't think you do because you're not listening, you're sort of like active interjecting. You're talking at the same time. I'm not talking at the same time.

Yeah. Stop reading that way. I don't know how I got on this diet tribe, but your friend, I feel like she was going to quit on her own. Or you can at the very least subtly suggest it. You could also lie to your coworkers and be like, I did talk to her. She's like, she's just negative, but she doesn't want to quit. Like I don't know what to do.

Like you guys have to fire her. Remember to leave. In 90s it comes subliminal stuff seemed to be like a lot of like stories like placing messages and songs or like on TV and videos where like it would almost hypnotize people. Yeah. I remember like various like teenage drum comms about that. Like it happened on Save by the Bell, didn't it? Yeah.

Where like Zach put a secret message to ask him not to dance in a song where you couldn't even hear it, but it was playing. I remember that. It was inflectrating. Yeah. Anyway, do that. There's music at this store, right? I see.

So it's like, yeah. Quit your job. Yeah. Quit your job. Quit your job. You're not happy here. Please leave. You're not happy.

Get the fuck out. And then you like the music drops and it's just you on the mic. You're not happy here. Oh, shit. Sorry. I mean, I'm clean up on aisle four. I have a friend who's sobbing. It's not that kind of retail.

I see. Unfortunately for me, you have to be not here. So good luck. What would you do if this were you? I would probably talk to the friend and be like, just wait for her to be like complaining a lot and then you suggest quitting. Yeah. But you're not the one who has to push her out.

You just sort of have to hope that she makes the decision on her own. Right. And let her vent to you. And if you see an opening, suggest quitting. Take it. All right. Cool. That's our time.

But again, there's a video version of this podcast available to you right now on patreon.com slash J.A. Is it one or two? There's two Jake and Amir. Watch Jake and Amir's and there's a video if I were you and there's another one coming on Thursday. Oh, well, shit. If you, if you ain't tired of us yet, go do that.

And again, thank you guys so much for listening to that and hearing us out and supporting us as you guys always have. We thoroughly appreciate it. We wouldn't even feel comfortable taking this risk if you guys weren't there to help us. So Todah once again, the opening theme song and the closing one was written by Calvin. Oh yeah. Show me crash, baby. All right.

The first one was satellite. And then this one is crash. Again, we'll be back as always on Monday next week with another episode of If I Were You. That was a headgum podcast.