Segments - 13: The History Boys

Episode Date: January 29, 2024

In this episode we discuss 1776, 2001, and 2019.Advertise on Segments via Gumball.fm.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is a HeadGum Original. Hey, I'm Jake Johnson, host of the podcast, We're Here to Help. But this episode right now that you are listening to is sponsored by Brooklinen. Brooklinen provides luxury bed sheets, pillows, comforters, and blankets delivered straight to your door. How do I know this? Because Brooklinen delivered me a quilt, sheets, pillowcases, and I love them. Plus, Brooklinen has been tested and awarded by experts, including Good Housekeeping, GQ, Wirecutter, and the hosts of We're Here to Help. So listeners can save a ton by purchasing a hardcore bundle, which includes a core sheet

set, which is the thing I got, extra pillowcases, and a duvet cover. You can also mix and match. They do this stripe thing that's cool, but that's a dealer's choice. So are you ready to build your dream fall bed? Visit in-store or online at brooklinen.com. That's brooklinen.com. B-R-O-O-K-L-I-N-E-N.com. Get 15% off your first Brooklinen order and save extra when you bundle. Hello, if you're listening to this podcast before September 27th, 2024, we're doing a live show in Philadelphia. You can still buy tickets at headgum.com slash live. Hope to see you there. Nice. Try one more where it's clear that I'm like the star. There's a reason I didn't have you say anything. Yeah. Because you're nervous, you're skittish, you're stuttering right now. I'm a little frightened. So I don't want you in this ad

at all. I don't want to be steamrolled, but I want the live live. So no, I won't be recording one. In fact, for you asking that, I'm going to keep this part in. Don't. This part is now. Edit this part out, but let's do one clean ad. No. You will edit this part out. You will absolutely edit this part out. Tell you what, I'm going to say my fucking social security number, so you have to edit it out, okay?

Let's hear it. 0913662. Now you have to edit it out. Keeping it in, but we'll see you guys there. No, no, no, no, no. too. Now you have to edit it out. But we'll see you guys there. Now here's one more effort for only positive motivations. They swear! Second. Another podcast.

Second. Each app different from the last. Second. It's the Swiss Army knife of shows. Now let's. Meet your two emphatic hosts. Oh. Second.

Positive spin on an old classic That's right, Manchi heard the feedback He said, I've been seeing some people Critiquing that the theme song is too negative Which we wrote, we wrote it Yeah It's sort of this reverse of every kind of internet comment Which is like famously negative like these guys suck why is their show so positive this is the opposite people were like

these guys are nice their theme song is mean we don't like it yeah hey they didn't fail that bad yeah and so ferris is like let me update the theme song do a positive version i don't know if this is the new version going forward, but I liked a little something new. Yeah, we can use it interchangeably. It's kind of cool. And the interstitials are going to be nice to us too, aren't they? Yeah, that's the goal. That's the hope.

Instead of going assholes, it's like smart dudes or whatever. That's awesome. That's awesome. Although you can be smart and an asshole. Most smart people are. Because they're so intelligent, they could figure out ways to be mean to you yeah and they think they're better than you because they're smarter than you you know what i mean yeah yeah when in fact they're not like they didn't do anything all they did is just fucking be born with a different brain chemistry or something

yeah and then theoretically maybe they like studied and tried to learn it better themselves. Oh, like they're more knowledgeable. Right. Yeah, I guess there's lots of different ways of being smart. Yeah, that's kind of annoying, actually, now that I think about it. Like, there's only so much time in a day you can't learn about everything.

So this guy figured out how to game the system and be smart in a specific way, and now he's yelling at you about it. Yeah, I didn't study that. I don't know what you're talking about. Economically, I guess. game the system and be smart in a specific way now he's yelling at you about it and like sorry yeah i didn't study that i don't know what you're talking about economically i guess like back off okay not everybody knows finances but yeah i mean i know finances yeah right yeah do you really yeah like i know a lot about everything but i'm just saying in general if someone doesn't like other people we shouldn't look down on them yeah Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Is that what you're saying? So you're saying you're really,

you were just saying that people were smart, were assholes. You're really smart. At finances, the one thing that we brought up. That was me trying to be like humble and sort of game the system in a cheeky sort of wink, wink fashion to be like, hey, by the way, I don't know what I'm talking about. But then actually, I am that smart asshole kind of guy. Right. What do you know about finances? Not finances, but I'm just saying in general, like world history, physics. I basically have a breadth of knowledge.

I'm a master of all trades and a master of all. Yeah. Okay. So, yeah, the saying is jack of all trades, master of none. You're saying master of all trades and a master of all. Yeah. Okay. So yeah, the saying is jack of all trades, master of none. You're saying master of all trades and a master of all. And a jack of none. Yeah. Because everything you even take on even has no trade.

As a hobby, you become kind of an expert. You said history. So I'm curious. Don't be curious. Well, I mean, I was fascinated by history too like yeah okay so you just know it and you don't even care um can you tell me a little like i basically i basically figured out enough in ap us that i can like carry me okay u.s history let's check i know i never really understood who was involved in the war of 1812. Do you want to run through that with me?

War of 1812 happened in 1812. It was between, it was like an extension of a few different battles, like a battle here, a battle there, and then all of a sudden it's like, now it's a fucking war. I think that tends to be a lot of wars so so you're saying and like america was just like starting to be a thing but this was like before everything you're trying to put it in like ultra layman's terms i could like yeah tell me what countries were involved the u.s yeah and for sure and then a few i wonder who was like who was president at

that time in 1812 yeah it was not jefferson yeah you said you were you said it was it was james a hundred percent yeah a hundred percent of course a hundred percent i don't say anything that's like 12 percent do you i'm trusted do you mind if i fact check that fact check it's a fact jack it's a fact it was james addison yes i know yeah and you all right so that's great you said you know a lot about history you did nail who was president in 1812 okay so moving on moving on you did nail the i guess the start of the war was a bunch of battles you said you had a a good segment you were like let's do this thing well i'm curious because you said you were good at history and then what else did you say bio or something or chemistry physics yeah physics okay

do you mind if i ask you a physics question please like i feel like i'm being put on trial here a little bit so like i am defensive and i'm getting like upset but like that's just like chemically i find myself being shoved a little bit where I'm like, whoa. The rate of change of momentum of a body is directly proportional to applied force and takes place in the direction in which the force acts. This is something called second law of motion, the law of inertia, first law of motion, or third. That's not one of the options or third law of motions and i am i can ask for a hint but it would feel i can't imagine you would want one because you're an expert do you want me to repeat so that was a that was a i thought you were

telling me something you're telling that was a multiple choice question yeah right the rate of change of momentum of a body is directly proportional to applied force and it takes place in the direction in which the force object yeah so that's an object in motion will stay in motion right well i don't know if that is what you hear what i'm saying an object in motion will stay in motion that's momentum that's inertia is that's that that's not an inertia it's inertia it's like this body is going there the thing that i just said the thing that i just said which is a question which you didn't know it was a question at first even though i think you did i you did ask me to repeat it i did repeat it and you're not

answering all right start okay give me the reasons because i i did i did i tinkled myself when you were asking me yeah so i was like my I was split between like, okay, Newton's laws. And then also I did a little duty while you were talking. You poo-pooed yourself? I did a little duty in my diapy. So now like I'm trying to like put that away, decompartmentalize where it's like, that's gone. I guess that's good. Because yeah, you don't have to go to the toilet because then you would spend less time studying and learning, knowing shit.

So like, why would you ever go to the bathroom? You just do duty in your diaper. It is the second law of motion, the law of inertia, the first law of motion, or the third law of motion? Inertia. It's, you think it's inertia? That's interesting. Okay, let's see. It wasn't inertia.

Do you want it? Let's say that we narrowed that down to three now from the multiple choice. Because I do still trust the use of motion. Yeah, so is it the first, second, or third law of motion? Second. That's correct. I mean, the thing is, getting it right is all about paying the price. And I feel like I did that to an extent, to an extent.

Yeah. So I was able to do James Madison. I did do the second law of, what is it? Momentum, inertia, emotion. The period of SHM does not depend on the... SHM? Yeah. Why don't we even just make it as simple?

What does SHM stand for? In physics? Yeah. SHM stand for? In physics? Yeah. SHM? I mean, the whole thing is SHM. Nice. What does SHM stand for? And it does stand for something when you ask that question.

It's like, by the way, everyone knows this, but now this is the question. Yeah, that question basically assumed that you already knew what SHM was. Yes. Yeah. And we can still, if you want to just, you know, answer that question. Let's hear the question. And I can sort of ascertain from different context clues with regards to knowing what different words mean and what letters they start with. The period of SHM does not depend on the phase constant, energy, amplitude, or all.

Are you coughing? I'm not coughing. I'm just thinking. It's coming out in like a quick little burst. Boom. Yeah. Boom. So that's probably molecule or particle physics.

I want to say the third one. Well, you can't even remember what it is so i want to say you're just gonna do you want to just guess three i don't want to guess the amplitude yes but the question actually was what does shm stand for and it's i think it has something to do with like particle or molecule or something like that simple harmonic motion so it i think it is still related to that first thing of like i don't know um any of the things you're saying i I find myself guessing, sometimes right, sometimes wrong, and focusing on the good, be the bad, in order to seem smarter slash better. Really? Because I did fucking know that. And, like, the way you, you like backed me down the correct answer was

all it just included amplitude like why did i apologize for getting shit right now i'm like mad at you like you're fucking inceptioning me to think that i didn't know shit but i actually didn't know shit um sorry man did you take you knew the president did you take physics in high school chemistry bio yeah i took physics as a senior with a class of only juniors it was it seemed to be like a class for smart juniors or dumb seniors and i was the only senior in it um and i got a d in that class i gotta see it's pretty hard it's funny because it's like we'll put smart juniors or dumb seniors it's like no they're all just like smart or dumb 16 17 it doesn't matter if like 16 or 17 i'm one year older doesn't mean you would be a smart junior right you're still just a dumb teen i don't have that much more life experience

here yeah like they might as well put the smart seniors with the smart juniors yeah smart sophomores and it was the type of class where the teacher would just constantly talk in question and just call on people randomly. It was so stressful. Also known as the worst kind of class. Yeah. So you're just like standing there like, I don't know. I don't know. And then he says your name.

You're just like, I don't, I truly don't know. I don't know what we're talking about. And like sometimes I would just guess something like refracted light and every people would just like snicker like yeah it's bad when the other kids are laughing like even those students who roll their eyes at education thought that was really dumb yeah it was like wow jake that was a that was a clear guess we're not even talking about light, but. Yeah, well, that's because I'm thinking about baseball. Obviously, I'm not thinking about this stuff.

Hey, I'm pretty good at writing, guys. Yeah. Does that matter at all in this class? But actually, I think I had a D in English, too. Do you care at all that I know what poems mean? Or like, that's like completely not part of this lecture. Wasn't fair. Speaking of high school stories, since this, that, I guess that's what this segment has turned into is high school stories.

In ninth grade history, there was like honors history that I didn't do because I wasn't quote unquote good at history, which is just, I guess, reading a textbook and memorizing it. So it was like regular history. And one of my friends noticed pretty early on that the teachers were Xeroxing tests from a teacher's textbook. And that was our tests every month.

So he's like, I could just buy this book on like Amazon and we can have the answer to every test. We're like, all all right let's do that and we just would literally memorize instead of memorizing history we would memorize the answer choices so i would go in there being like a a b c d a a b d d c d and like just write all that out and like wow you got 19 out of 20 you got an a and right so you literally you'd have to get like one or two wrong. Would you collude with your friends to be like, I'm going to get 17 wrong.

You'll get three wrong or something. So like, yeah, you guys weren't getting the exact same ones. Some people would get 100. They wouldn't be like that. Like, it's not like that difficult. Like some people would get 20 out of 20 and we would just get 19 or 18 out of 20. We don't have to like figure out exactly which one of us would get which one wrong um and it kind of backfired because i got an a in that class and they moved me to ap us history in 10th grade oh which is like a next level of

history we like bypassed honor so it's like all right we're sending you straight to college level history i'm like oh no and like no cheating in that class at all. And that class was just a really boring lady who would literally for 80 minutes a day just be like, all right, let's learn about this thing and just read, like read notes. That was the class. So just like watching a really boring movie every day of high school. And then in three months, they're like, all right, here's your test. Write an essay on the thing I said four weeks ago. I don't remember slash I cheated. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have cheated.

This is all a huge misunderstanding. Punish me. Can I graduate still if I tell you? Like you did so well in ninth grade. We thought like this would be just like a natural next progression. And I remember getting like borderline a C plus, like 80 and a half percent just enough for a b minus to save face in this ap us history class you know it's funny i feel like history i thought history was insanely boring when i was in high school like but now i like history and the idea of a sweet old woman just reading me 80 pages of history text sounds great.

That's like, it's essentially a podcast that I listen to. Yes, it was sort of. It was the original podcast. But like, she didn't do a very good job of like, hey, let's make this fun. Or like, hey, let me teach you about this thing. It's like, whoa, are you telling me about the 1988 World Series? i was actually about the xyz affair and this is why it was just like in 1912 the gilded age started when woodrow wilson i was just like oh this is so boring i don't want to read and listen to you read a fucking textbook at me for a year man history does like there's just there's so much like

u.s history there's too much of and then you like expand that to world history well that was a completely set it was like american history for a year and i was like all right now let's learn about everything else it's like everything else jesus yeah there's no way you could cram in everything else yeah like you we talk about we learn about the revolution 1776 but what else was happening anywhere else in the world in 1770 i've never ever learned what was going on in china in 1776 like it just do they learn about it in china they have to there's no way that they're like, they're learning when our country was formed. Like,

cause I don't know when any other country was formed. So yeah. We're the fucking number one. They're learning about our shit. They're learning English over there. You hate us cause you ain't us. All right. Yeah.

You're not watching your fucking local TV. You're watching friends. Aren't you? I bet you know what Chandler did in 2014. RIP, baby. Okay, that was it. That was, I guess, high school stories, the segment. Let's take a break and come back with another one. Love it. Quick note to let y'all know that we're conducting an audience survey at gum.fm slash segments. And we want to hear from you guys to keep making content you

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Thanks, DraftKings. Cool guys. All right right we're back um yeah here's a slightly related segment that i've been thinking about for a while but makes sense right now right uh the segment is called name one thing that happened this year not so The history lesson continues. I'll throw out a year. Yeah. Yeah. It's very, instead of history, it's just modern current events. But like, let's start with an easy one. Name one thing that happened in 2016.

2016. Yeah. So 2016, that is the election, the Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton election. Okay. Even numbers are always a little bit easier. There's elections, there's Olympics, there's sporting events. Things happen in 2016. Right.

Where I get messed up slash tripped up is if you nudge it one to three years after that. Like, for example, can you, and feel free to play at home it's not that long ago name one thing that happened in 2019 this is five years ago now a lot of things happened in 2019 we were fully formed adults yeah just looking for one thing okay you can sort of talk your way through it back into it like based on like things that happened to you do you like okay what happened to you in 2019 do you remember anything that happened to you in 2019 let's see so i got married in 2018 i moved to new york in december of 2018 so so that is basically right no yeah but as soon as I get to New York, that's that first year in New York City. What was stuff that happened that year? Where did I go? What did I do?

This is pre-pandemic. We didn't quite know. Yeah. COVID wasn't a thing yet. Yeah. All I can think is I went to Paris. What was going on there? Nothing. I think. Was there a revolution there? Didn't Notre Dame caught on fire? Oh, that's a good guess. Okay.

Notre Dame caught on fire. I'm pretty sure that because I went to Paris in 2019. That was when I got food poisoning and I couldn't go to the church when everybody else did. But I remember that it burned down. I was like, wow. So I didn't go when I was there. And maybe I'll never get to see it. The Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.

The fire started April 15, 2019. You nailed it. Yes, dude. You nailed it. Yes. Yes, dude. You got it. That's awesome. I also know just from following Tottenham that they lost their Champions League game in 2019. Champions League final, which is kind of big. So I guess I could say who won it because I believe they lost to Man City.

But that was before you were a fan. You could also basically always, right, I didn't remember that happened. You could basically always say that Manchester City won the Premier League. Yeah, sports is kind of a great cheat of this. Yeah, so you try not to do that. All right, so I'll give you a year.

Give me a year. Okay. Preferably an odd number year. Right. Let's go ahead. Let's say 2015. Okay. Solid.

2015. So, 2015. The year. This is also you describing the War of 1812. You know just as little. And you were 35 for it. Yeah. I was 32.

We were living in that big house on the hill, I think. Oh, we started HeadGum in 2015. I don't know if that counts. Yeah, no. But that's just like to help us place it. Yeah. Started HeadGum in 2015 august uh we were living on that house of course on the hill classic yep the i think we went to australia maybe it was like the first

year the warriors won the championship i remember watching a game in either australia or new zealand yeah i think that was wow when was it i thought the first time i went to australia was either 2015 or 2016 yeah i think we we watched we watched um warriors games i think it was like similar timing in both australia and new zealand yeah um 2015. I think that was that year. I think that was 2015. Yeah, it was the first year because in New Zealand, it was the second time they won.

Yeah. I remember it was a lot less interesting because they had KD then. Yeah, and we were watching Stephen Adams, who's from New Zealand, on the Thunder. Yeah. They were showing those games.

And now in terms of famous world events that happened in 2015 kind of weird that obama was the president feels like yeah that would have happened a long long time ago but no obama was president in 2015 yeah still less than 10 years ago i want to say the notre dame cathedral fire but there's no faulty wiring was installed that would would result in the fire what about a royal baby like wasn't there a royal baby that year i don't know i really don't know that's a solid guess though solid guess because it was like nine years ago kate and will i don't know much was it the was it the royal baby or the royal wedding oh that's a one of those two happened on 2015 which was would be a world event

for sure royal wedding that was what kate middleton and will, Prince William. And everybody fell in love with Pippa Middleton, Kate's sister. The world met Pippa. Show me the royal wedding. Kate and William. Look it up. I'll say July 1st, 2015. Smack dab in the middle of our street. Smack dab in the middle of our street smack dab in the middle of that year smack dab

hold on all right so the royal the the first one i saw was um uh prince harry and megan markle so that doesn't count that's obviously not the one I was talking about. Yeah. William and Kate plus eight. Let's see. Good Lord. It's so hard to find when this happened. Oh, sorry, buddy. It is 2011.

2011. Which is another year you could have given me. Yeah. Let's see. Prince George was 2013. A few years later, they announced the arrival of their daughter, Princess Charlotte. So maybe let's see when Princess Charlotte was born. She was born in 2015. No, that doesn't count.

I don't even know who Princess Charlotte is. It's not what I meant. Yeah, I hear that. I don't know anything that happened 2015 all right is that what you wanted to hear was there a famous plane crash or some shit oh what about the Sully thing oh that was like 2007 yeah that did I think that happened when when we were working at iac still yeah so okay let's think um where were we in 2015 yes i already did this fucking thing we were shooting our pilot tv pilot is that world news when did the syrian war happen the civil war in syria because that really marred our pilot um i think russia launched

its first airstrikes in syria in 2015 so it was was it a civil war though now i can't remember even that there was something happened in syria in 2015 this segment sucks we're too fucking dumb it's so depressing this is only nine years ago and we have not a single recollection yeah i mean i would like all right how about this try to think of anything that happened in the last 10 years okay just one thing that ever happened it doesn't have to be on a certain date. Yes, it has to be. Well, no, let's reverse engineer it. Let's take a look at Miracle on the Hudson. Sully Sullenberger lands his plane in the Hudson.

What year do you think that is? Let's each guess. I will say 2011. Okay, I'll go before that. 2009. And you know what? Fuck it. I think the balloon boy happened in 2015.

How's that for a world event? 2009 is correct. You said 2009, right? Yeah. All right. Nailed it. How many people died? Accidentally.

How many people died? How many people died during the miracle on the Hudson? I thought zero. Like, wasn't the whole thing that he landed in the plane in the water and they all survived? That's correct. Just trying to trip you up. That's actually incorrect. There was a swimmer that night that got fucking sucked into the subterfuge.

Nobody talks about him because he wasn't on the plane. Yes, exactly. A lot of geese were dead. I looked up 2015 just because we couldn't think of anything. And honestly, these things don't even ring a bell to me. Yeah. I mean, there are some years that nothing happens, right? No, there's a lot of things.

I just don't know anything. Like Cuba and re-established ties that was a thing oh yeah i remember that the greek debt spectacle the 2015 nepal earthquake these are large things that happened that changed the world forever and they just nine years later i don't remember any of them i remember the debt spectacle too but i don't think i remember that earthquake what else it can't it kind of makes you think like i don't know any of them. I remember the debt spectacle too, but I don't think I remember that earthquake. What else? It kind of makes you think like, I don't know, maybe we shouldn't be sweating the small stuff or the big really.

Nine years, we'll either be here or we won't. And yeah, maybe the Chinese stock market crashed in 2015 and that was a big deal to many, but does it really affect me now? No. So really we shouldn't be learning slash caring slash doing anything for anyone because none of it really matters is what I'm trying to say. And this is the kind of history lesson that I didn't get in high school.

They try to make shit seem important to me. They do. And you know what? It's really all relative because in 1776, a decade-long period of Pax Sinica for China, a time of relative peace in East Asia, was led by the Qing Dynasty. And you don't know that. We don't know that there was peace in China during our Revolutionary War. Do you? No. Nobody talks about that, at least not here.

Yeah. So let's pitch a movie called 1776, and it's all about that, that peace treaty in China. So like you think you're going in there learning about Washington, Franklin, and the guys, and then suddenly, uh-oh, it's a rope-a-dope. That's right. This 1776 is about a peace treaty in China. And guess who wrote it? Jake and Amir. Did you hear

about their new movie? They wrote about a peace treaty in China. Why? I don't know. They thought it was kind of a funny little goof. Yeah. To name a movie 1776. To show us how narrow our viewpoint is. From the two guys who couldn't remember anything that happened in 2015.

Wrote a history movie to teach you that anything is possible we make our own history that's awesome dude all right let's take another break come back and talk about literally anything else i'm sick of being not knowing shit yeah thank you to squarespace for sponsoring this episode of our show. Hell yeah. Jake, you've been building on Squarespace for decades at this point. Exactly. Eons, it feels like. Yes. So you know how easy it is to use their simple, intuitive, drag and drop design technology? Yes, yes, yes. Easy to create, easy to sell, easy to promote. Squarespace is my all-in-one first stop, one-stop shop. Yeah. It's kind of funny that they have also award-winning customer support because it's so intuitive that even Jake was able to figure it out. But if you have any questions,

they can figure it out for you as well. Exactly. And I did need a lot of help. I needed a lot of help. It's easy for everybody, but I still like to have my hand held. They even have AI at this point. You can update written content, product description, or email with Squarespace AI. You can even buy a domain name through Squarespace. Exactly. Like, you know that movie Freaky Friday? Yeah.

How'd you like to own FreakyFriday.com? That'd be great. Is that available? It's not available. Yeah. But how'd you like to own Freaky Tuesday? Interesting. Freaky Tuesday.

So that's when you run into each other and some parts of your personality change, but ultimately it's not a full body swap. Right. Mostly you're just concussed. Yeah. Which is new. It's kind of like having a new personality. Yeah. It's funny. I consider myself a vision lifter, which is why I recommend somebody buying visionlifters.com. Oh, visionlifters? Yeah, visionlifters with a Z. And not where you think. And it's not biz with a Z. So if you're looking to buy a domain name for yourself or for a loved one,

build a store, an online portfolio, the greatest way to do that is to head to squarespace.com for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch just use that coupon code segments to save 10 off your first purchase of a website or domain hell yeah so again you go to squarespace.com slash segments segments you save 10 off your first purchase and then use the coupon code segments when you're ready to launch that free trial enjoy thank you squarespace Enjoy. Thank you, Squarespace. All right, we've returned. Yeah. And independently of all this history talk,

I also had come up with an idea for a segment that I was just calling Oral History. Okay. But it was going to be an oral history, and each time we'll talk about one year of our lives. Oh, my God, it's about me. So it's about actual shit that i know and care about i'm sick of talking about oil and fucking energy crises enough across the

the u.s but also russia let's talk about what was happening in south america in 2009 i don't know anything about any scandal. Yeah. I don't know about relations. Like, I remember one time just like reading, like I had a long train ride. I think it was like 24 or something. And I was like, I'm taking the train from New York to Connecticut. And I like bought the New York Times. It was the first time I ever read a paper.

And I read it from cover to cover on this train and i was like holy shit there are like four different wars that i didn't know about like i only know about the the main one in iraq but not like there was one in colombia and i was like this is insane there's just there's just like armies fighting each other that i don't know about um putting the paper down and and looking at the guy next to you. Sorry, do you have any fucking clue what's going on in Columbia? Because you're acting pretty nonchalant right now. Why are you so coy? Anyway, this one's about you and maybe me and our freshman years of college.

Okay, which were two different years. Mine was in 2001. Right. And mine was in 2004. I mean, my freshman year started out pretty eventfully because day three of school, we move into the dorms on a Sunday. Tuesday, I wake up and a bunch of people are in my dorm room. And because we have a small TV, like not everybody could bring a small TV to their room. Like some people are just like, I'm just going to bring my computer. I'll just, I won't watch TV. But like me and my roommate are like, let's bring a little TV VCR thing so we can watch TV. Anyway, I wake up and there's a bunch of people watching the news in my room because it's 9-11. That was the big thing that happened like day three of school and that's why i actually do remember what

happened in 2000 i want to say one but it might have been two or three now that i can't think about it easy yeah uh so that's how my freshman year starts is like by 9 11 happening and i'm at berkeley and like everything is so like free speech liberal radical like the real terrorists are in the White House. This is all because Bush, we're going to use this to justify a war. And I'm just like a freshman, like had a candlelight vigil, be like, whoa, these people are really mad. Yeah. Wow.

So that school was like up in arms even before. Yeah. It was like a liberal hotbed even before 9-11. And then that sort of launched an entire other reason for them, everybody there to be upset. Out here in the Northeast, there was a spell where it was just like, everyone seemed so behind Bush, no matter what. So I'm surprised that like, even in September, they were like, Bush is still a bad president, he's going to go to war or something. Well, I remember at one of my friends likes to recall this joke I made at this 9-11, like it literally was 9-11, then that night, a candlelight vigil slash speeches by people who were outraged. And one guy did say at the thing, the real terrorists are in the White House. And then I said to my friend, oh, my God, somebody better tell the president. He starts laughing. Everybody else is quiet.

And he's cracking up at this 9-11 vigil. Of course, the guy meant the president was the terrorist. Right. Yeah. The goof is that, I guess. It was a Kiefer Sutherland-esque 24 expose where there was a terrorist in addition to the president of the White House. Made him crack up. We're at the vigil. Terrible place to be for two white freshmen who are like 18-year-old Jews from the

valley laughing at a candlelight vigil in Berkeley. Wow. I remember that I made a joke on 9-11 to my friends too that was significantly worse. I think I like walked into the cafeteria and I said, they shot the president while he was pooping on air force one that's pretty good actually and then you said hey can you imagine if steve-o stuck a fish hook through his fucking gonads and went fishing with osama bin laden yeah my friend is like oh my dad works in lower manhattan like oh shit did he learn anything about how the president was taking a dump he got shot on air force one they should call it air force number two i'm so sorry is is are you able to get on the phone remember your uh college humor video that we never shot because it was too soon

i think it might be time to shoot it because enough time had passed Guy who won the lottery on 9-11 That's exactly right. I feel like that's a perfect It's like a great Lonely and Horny episode slash Jake Namir-esque sketch Did I write it as an article and then we turned it into a script? Or was it always a script? I don't know. It was a script either way, but I don't know if you wrote it before we shot those kinds of things.

But it was a guy who was trying to get amped about winning the lottery, but everyone was depressed because it was a national day of mourning. But you wrote it in 2006, and everyone's like, well, this is probably too fucked up. Now that it's been 23 years, could be time for us to finally shoot this thing. I just tried to find it in my email. We wrote this. This is the only mention of it. We wrote a script last year called The Guy Who Won the Lottery on 9-11, but that might be a bit dark. It's also only five pages long and we wrote it for college humor

we have okay so it doesn't it doesn't seem injured as a short film five pages long i remember i remember the script though it's like the guy comes down he like has the winning ticket. He comes downstairs like, fuck yes. And everyone is gathered around the TV. At one point, he's just sort of makes a confident remark and bites into a pear. My mom works in Building 7. There was somebody. And there's one of the friends who's like. 11.1 mil.

Yeah. Axes. This is exactly the script. She's like, damn, man, I'm so sad too. God. Well, shit, what else should we do? Like Craig, wasn't the guy's name Craig? I feel like it would be insane not to do something, right?

To celebrate a little bit. We should go out. I feel like otherwise the terrorists win in some sort of weird way. Besides, we can't really stop what happened, but I feel like I just won the lottery because I did. We should try to find that script. I think John Gr grim has it somewhere we're gonna cast jeff as the guy that won the lottery yeah i mean for a long time we were

too afraid um to to make it but i remembered it was funny and i i think like i mean obviously there was there had to have been somebody who did win a daily lottery on 9-11. Right. Or did they do a lottery drawing on 9-11? Or maybe, at the very least, maybe they did it on 9-10. And yeah, he woke up to find out the news. Yeah. It seems possible.

Concurrent with the other news. It definitely seems possible anyway what uh devastating slash earth shattering slash momentous change in human history happened during your freshman year uh george bush re-election actually i think that was that was pretty big um there was yeah because we were like in the the war and it was kind of like four more years felt like it was going to be four more years of that bad stuff. And then it was. But like you were at a school where probably half the kids voted for him because it's like a small school in western Pennsylvania. Yeah, I think I told this story before,

but the big events that I remember were the Yankees lost to the Red Sox in the ALCS. I believe they went up 3-0, and the Red Sox came back and won four games in a row. And you left school. I didn't get out of bed for an entire weekend i was like so depressed and that was like and i was like i can't care this much about baseball like it's just there's it's not worth it i'm so sad and i was just thinking about all of the guys

on the team and i'll just be like they're sad johnny damon is upset jorge posada is unhappy this weekend like i'm so they're like already out there in Miami partying. You're probably much sadder than they'll ever be. But everybody on my floor was like a Yankee fan. All of us were like sad together and we all hated the Red Sox and I like felt

camaraderie with my freshman year like my boys at our dorm. But then like I guess a few weeks later uh the election was happening and there was just all of my these guys were chanting in the hall for more years they all loved george bush one of them called me a kike at one point i was like i can't go to school that was after the baseball game it was like it definitely wasn't 50 50 at moravian it was a i think i was like you know it had to be like 10 or 15 percent liberal i was i think i

was one of the only kids that wanted john carrey to win you're the only one that liked John Kerry and hated John Damon. Yeah. Or was Damon a Yankee? No, Damon was on the Yankees at that point. Oh, God. I believe. Okay, you're the only one that liked John Kerry and John Damon. No, I think Johnny Damon hit a grand slam in that game or something. Or at least he homered.

Did Johnny Damon homer in the 2004 alcs he yeah because i remember i remember um being really amped because johnny damon he had like the caveman look he had like the long hair and the beard um yeah and then when he came to the yankees sign brander made him cut his hair shaved the beard i was like yeah these red socks are fucking crying over that but i think he was on the give them for that i think he was on the socks in 2004 yeah he was he was on boston during that and then he came to the yankees after that yeah yeah god he was good wait but you were at freshman year out of college and then you left after that year or did you stay for the next semester or something i stayed so when i was at moravian i that first semester i like i did the normal amount of fucking up like

i think i skipped class a bunch um i think i maybe like dropped one class or like elected to take it pass fail or something. My grades were not great, but I was, it was, it was all fine. I was like going to some classes, doing decently, fucking up in other ones, partying, had some friends. And then I don't know what happened, but the longer I was there, the more depressed I got and the more I wanted to go home. And then I would like, like on Thursday, I would cut all my classes, drive home. I told my mom and dad that I didn't have class on Friday.

So they were just like, oh, great. And I would stay home from Friday to Sunday. And how long is that drive i was like okay three hours three hours door to door it's a long long yeah to do and then i would on sunday i would leave my parents house and say i was going back to school but i would just go to my friend's house and stay there like another night or two skip all my classes go back to Barabian yeah you know two days or something and then come back um and then by the time the year was over I was like I think I had finals in all of my classes um but you were allowed to leave you know as soon as your finals were over you

could go home uh some people had finals like into late may some people had finals like that ended in the middle of may or whatever you um but i just told my mom and dad like oh my finals i have the first finals and they're all over i'm gonna come home like may 10th meanwhile i just didn't take a single final i like did you have a plan like by the way way, because they will find out. Like, there's no world where you just are invited back to school. Honestly, I would have blamed it on the kike thing. Yeah.

In retrospect, I should have. If I'm going to go back to that school, it's fucking filled with anti-Semites. Yeah. Somebody called me a kike, bud. I loved classes. I didn't have a plan. i mean i knew that i wasn't going to go back when i went home i was like i'm not going back to moravian um so my plan was basically to get into yukon go to yukon and start fresh do a nice a bait and switch of the schools

and then just tell your parents oh that didn't work out but i go to yukon now yeah and would they be like wait a minute what do you mean you go to yukon now i didn't think they would ever even find out and they wouldn't have because like i you had to log in online to get your grades and i could just like lie and tell them what they were and i wouldn't be like i got straight a's i be like, I got three C's and two B's. And my parents would be like, oh, that's all right. Not bad. Not bad.

But I guess I'll pay tuition now. Yeah. Because they still have to write checks to the school. Right. Exactly. So and that is how that's what happened. So they, I guess the financial aid or I had a parcel partial scholarship to moravian and my dad got a letter that said that my gpa had fallen below 0.6 so they had to so i couldn't have the scholarship anymore

so he came to me and he was like you got what happened you had a 0.6 did you take any classes and then he made me log in and he saw that i failed every single class the second semester so there was just not really would love a videotape of that moment to just be like was he mad was he sad were you scared were you laughing were you depressed depressed everyone was everyone was very upset like yeah i think dad my dad yelled at me i was in the basement i was depressed my mom was crying she came down and said your dad your dad was crying uh like we just don't think you could like you've messed up every single year since high school and now and we don't think that you're ever like we like something

needs to change what is it um yeah something something along those lines and actually my mom and dad both they both listen to the show now so i wonder if i wonder if they have the same recollection of this story yeah i would love to interview them actually specifically him because i feel like my mom will just she she will be positive in in remembering uh but i did like i wasn't crying that never happened we were never mad or like were they like yeah that's exactly what went down yeah i think that they both told me before that they were like scared that i was never ever gonna you know make it because i just couldn't i failed everything this is therapy you never talked about this in a professional manner

definitely not definitely not i had to have changed something within you because you didn't you then didn't just become like a guy that works at a lumber yard from 19 to 38. Yeah, but I mean, school never clicked. I didn't like, I didn't get into UConn. Something or other. Maybe, yeah. I didn't get into UConn. Unmedicated X, Y, and Z.

The only school I could go to was Southern because there wasn't an application. You just paid and you can take a class there. So I took like two classes. Yeah, I took two classes yeah i took two classes at southern and i think it happened again like maybe i my parents were like let's not overload you take two classes um and i failed one and i got a c or a d in the other and maybe i even failed both of them um i feel like 9-11 happened during my freshman year and your story is more depressing if that makes sense like

why do you have a sadder freshman year than mine which literally then a sadder sophomore year yeah yeah they were really all bad basically until junior year and then what happened junior year like it's not like you then got adhd diagnosed and started taking adderall and started focusing and went to school yeah well during sophomore year it all started with freshman year when i was depressed alone in the dorm room i was looking at college humor and i read articles. I believe I read something you wrote and I read something Streeter wrote. And then I submitted kind of. And then I didn't submit anything then, but I was home for the summer after I'd flunked out, submitted an article.

It was like you have to submit a writing sample was what it was asking for. And I submitted a writing sample for something I had written. Because I was always interested in writing. I tried to submit something to the New Haven Register. Guy who won the lottery on 9-11. 11 yeah exactly and i submitted and i submitted that as a writing sample to streeter being like could i write college humor articles and he was like uh this is great but it's too specific to new haven because i think the article was like first date ideas that you can do for cheap in new haven and he's like this is great it's pretty too specific and and i was and he asked me to change it and i still remember my first article was something called The Lost Art of the First Date. And I wrote it. And I think it was all in the character of some confident jackass.

It was basically a bad date. It was lonely and horny in 2004. Right. So you did that while in school. Or while waiting to go to Southern. So then I was like fucking up at Southern, but every month or two, I would have an article on College Humor that remember back in those days, the articles were like 500 words and they would sit on the front page for like three or four days.

You could have an article there for the weekend. Um, so I think that like having some semblance of success in something that was going well helped me one keep or one feel like my life wasn't completely failing. But it also made me give up on school fast because I was like, well, why do i need to go to southern i have an article on college humor which you know isn't impressive to my parents because they ever want you to see a counselor or anything like that no no they weren't like therapy slash medication slash something i wonder if that happened this year everything would have been different yeah maybe so maybe they would have made me take medicine but like back then way back then way back in 2004 you were just allowed to

have adhd but i don't think i really had adhd i think i was lazy i don't know what i don't know what that what diagnosis would be be kind of interesting to talk to a therapist about it too maybe i'll go right but everything's fine now everything turned out well so jokes on you i guess i didn't have to learn anything about myself i just sort of backed into a job and then but at college humor did you take it a lot more seriously than school or were you like did you have the same habits at school as you did at the job? Yeah, I feel like one of the one of the excuses I always had for being bad at school was like, I don't want to go to school, I know what I want to do. And I knew that I wanted to write, I knew I wanted to be a writer. But I mean, if I had a kid that was saying that to me now, I would be like, well, you have to do well at everything to prove that you can also do the

thing that you like. But it was, I was just like, well, you have to do well at everything to prove that you can also do the thing that you like well. But I was just like so entitled that I was like, no, I'm going to fail biology because I'm a writer. It's like, well, you're 17. You're not anything. You're not a biologist or a writer, actually. Yeah. You're actually just some piece of shit living rent-free in the basement, stealing the car on the weekends. Do you think if you went to high school or some sort of school now, you would fall back into that negative feedback loop? Or you're like, now I've sort of overcome it and I'm interested and I'm down to learn and blah, blah, blah. I think now I view myself as being like slightly more collaborative and like aware of people's feelings

and efforts like if i went back to school or something now even if i wasn't into it i think i would like value the teacher's time and respect them which was something i didn't do as a as a child as a shitty teenage boy yeah there's nothing there's nothing a teenage boy does less than respecting other people's time slash adults in general especially at school um this is a great segment let's next time not talk about me and we'll like pull out one of your report cards or something did you have like written report cards uh we must have had them just sent to our house but i don't know if my mom like kept any of them let's also now that i admitted to cheating i might get my high school diploma revoked let's get your records just break into the milken community high school database and see how i did

be awesome i'm sure it would be very boring and fine like half b plus is half a minuses right yeah i think in our school we had like the the teachers had to like write paragraphs about us so yeah it wasn't we got grades but we they had to be like explained yes exactly much more holistic ours was very just like you got an 88 that's a b plus bye yeah yeah my when i was in public school the report card was just the letters next to the names of the class but then when i went to hamden hall it was like it was more about the page and a half just yeah yeah don't worry about the b minus we don't like to think about that yeah i want to talk jake got a jake got a b but he's actually pretty bad beyond that don't think the b is fine yeah uh all right interesting episode history slash personal history so yeah maybe next time we could talk about the future

a little bit i love that i'm sick about i'm sick of the past yeah uh speaking of the future a little bit. I love that. I'm sick of the past. Yeah. Speaking of the future, we're still making Patreon videos on patreon.com slash JA. We're watching more and more Jake and Amir videos. We're watching Fired. I guess that is more about the past.

Right. And we watch probably 300 Jake and Amirs at this point, maybe even more. Yeah. And they're all amazing. They're all incredible, each better than the last. So you can check that out at patreon.com slash JA. And of course, we'll be back here next week.

We're doing these on video as well, so you can watch it on our YouTube channel. So watch us, listen to us. We appreciate it either way. And we'll be back next week. Peace. Thanks again, Ferrisris for the positive theme yeah bye everybody

that was a Hiddem original