Stop Podcasting Yourself - Episode 99 - Gary Jones
Episode Date: February 1, 2010Improviser/actor/Stargate technician Gary Jones joins us to talk commercial auditions, tarantulas, and dog whispering....
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Hi, he's Dave Shumka.
And he's Graham Clark.
And together we host Stop Podcasting Yourself.
Woo!
Woo!
Hello everybody and welcome to episode 99 of Stop Podcasting Yourself, the Gretzky episode. My name is Graham Clark and with me as always is my co-host, somebody I consider to be the great one, Mr. Dave Shumka.
Oh, that's nice. Thank you. This is the last time we can actually use the number of the episode to reference a hockey player's number.
That's true.
But this new era, we're going to be able to reference the entire first century.
Sure.
It's going to be great.
And our guest today on the last of the hockey player episodes, a very funny man indeed.
Longtime improviser.
You may know him from his role on Stargate.
He plays the title character.
Yeah.
Captain Gary Stargate.
Quincy Stargate.
Quincy Stargate.
Our guest today, Mr. Gary Jones.
Thanks for joining us.
It's so great to be doing this at GM Plays
The last of the Hockey Player episodes
Well, you know what, when you mentioned it was
You said it was episode 99
I really thought it was the Barbara Felden episode
From Get Smart
Oh, right!
It was Agent 99
When you said Barbara Felden
Did you think of
the person from
Tonight's Jeopardy?
Or did you think?
Yeah, there was
a Francine Futterman.
Francine Futterman.
Or did you think,
Barbara Felden,
what team was she on?
Well, yeah.
What position did she play?
I thought maybe
Team Canada,
the women's team.
Should we get to know us?
Sure.
Get to know us.
So, Gary Jones, you are like a long time member of the improv scene here in Vancouver.
Would you say legendary status?
How often do you say legendary status?
How often is your status legendary well legendary when i when i order food inside my own house give me the legendary ribs
um uh yeah well i've been in the in the improv scene been around forever like yeah yeah i mean way back i was i was uh i went to school
for advertising and and and and marketing and i i was working in advertising back in like 1983
the madman era the madman era sure yeah where we smoked while having sex yeah yeah yeah and um what ad campaigns did you work on in 1983 uh super
socko uh those uh i can't remember those jammers sunglasses sure um slap bracelets no that was
later yeah i lost those accounts um now you uh and anyway i got i got hired by second city and and uh and was with the
touring company for like uh two years and then you've also you've been with uh theater sports
yeah well that happened when i came out to vancouver because i because um sorry uh second
city set up x set up a theater on the expo grounds oh and ran for six months and there was 86 expo 86 so that's when i came out
here and it was very cool because i'd only been involved in acting like for like like i said like
two years and that was very you know the touring company they go around and do like corporate gigs
and that kind of thing and they do uh shows on the on the weekend at the matinees at the weekend at the old fire hall you know it's like the hallowed ground fire hall here
no no the fire hall in toronto oh okay where john can because we also have a fire yeah
i think everybody has a fire hall they go hey hey let's turn it into a theater
we just need to get rid of the firemen. They keep hanging around.
And what's that bell that goes off during the scenes?
You just have to incorporate it.
Yeah, you got to incorporate it.
And so then- For whom the bell tolls, go.
Then I just was working every six nights a week
for the duration of the fair, which lasted six months.
And then when the fair ended
and all the pavilions got packed up and sent back to ikea i stayed yeah wow and and it got involved like i said ryan styles was one of the guys that
was that i was on stage with uh um whose line is it anyways whose line is it anyway carrie show
yeah ryan commercial yeah commercial it's him with a kid yeah yeah ryan and ryan said to me
ryan said to me Hey you should come
And do theater sports
Because he was involved in that
Right right right
So I came and stayed
And just
It went from there
So I've been just
Doing improv
You know in Vancouver forever
Now we
We had you
Booked for the podcast
We were
We were ready for you
To show up
We were like
It was even on your
Facebook page
Gonna go do a podcast
And then we're sitting around No Garyary jones i know busy guys we were we were confused yeah and then and
then i called you yeah and then it was turns out that you were drawing you're just having a draw
i know i know i've combined sketch comedy yeah and that i was sketching at home
and i'm a guy involved in comedy so that's i put a new slant on sketch comedy yeah and that i was sketching at home sure and i'm a guy involved in comedy
so that's i put a new slant on sketch comedy and i completely entirely it like i said to you when
i was apologizing on the phone the the podcast didn't exist for me at that point and it only
exists now because i'm here i'm here on a couch on a leather couch yeah with graham leatherette leather rat leather
i'm calling it leather man it feels like leather now see uh here's the thing is dave is we were
talking earlier before before you arrived and uh we had a little time before you arrived and we
were like what are we going to talk about with Gary? And then I said, I remember a weird thing.
Somebody sent me an email
and it wasn't, it had nothing to do with you
but I discovered you through the email.
It was somebody said, you should do
this for one of your friends for their birthday.
And it was a thing where you can
get a celebrity to call your phone
Oh my God!
For like
a certain amount of money. And it was like guys like lou farigno
and greg evigan ron palillo yeah i know what you're talking about dennis haskins you're talking
about hollywood is calling hollywood is calling and you were and then as i was scrolling through
and i was like holy shit gary jones is one of the guys that you can have call you i know i know it's
like how did you get involved with something like that i don't know i you know because i did stargate one
of the big i did stargate for like 10 years right right so and i did but the time they got to the
200th episode what is your stargate character's name his name is walter sergeant walter harriman
okay and and and i'm one of those secondary character actor guys in Vancouver who totally lucked into
like my ass landed in butter when I got this.
That is lucky.
Yeah.
My ass landed in butter when I got this role because my agent had said to me, oh yeah,
go audition for this role.
It may be recurring.
I was like, oh, okay, whatever.
So I show up, didn't know the the show the show hadn't even started yet and they hadn't even shot the pilot this was
for the pilot episode 10 years like now it's like 12 years ago wow and so i just show up and i do
my thing and i and for anybody out there who has seen the show who is because you're either sci-fi
fan or you're not i either get people going yeah that's true we both are in the not right category and that's totally cool that's what i've
discovered yeah and p and what i also find is that is that most of the people who are in the not
category when they find out i was on a show that's a sci-fi show they always apologize for not watching
it oh really yeah so i'm waiting for an apology for both you guys. Well, you can keep waiting all night. Now, are there conventions or anything?
Yeah, that's the thing.
So I'm in this show, do like 100 episodes, and then I get calls like, do you want to come to these conventions?
And I was like, well, what?
I didn't even really know about them.
Right.
And the first one that I went to in Vancouver, I was like, why do you want me to come?
Like,
nobody knows who I am.
They go,
oh yeah,
they do.
I was like,
are you serious?
They go,
oh yeah,
the fan,
do you,
do you not know about sci-fi fans?
I was like,
no.
So they go,
just show up.
So I showed up and I got like mobbed in the lobby of like some hotel in Burnaby.
I was mobbed.
That's pretty great.
And at that point, way back,
my character didn't have a name.
I wasn't Walter Herrmann.
I was just a technician.
So the fans had just called me,
because when they were doing
all their message board stuff,
they just referred to me as Chevron Guy
because I lit up the Chevrons,
which were around the Stargate, up to Chevron 7 because I lit up the Chevrons which were around the Stargate
up to Chevron 7.
We know where the Chevrons are.
Yeah, your Chevrons, your Essos, your Shells.
You got it.
Right.
So I walk into the lobby of the hotel
and they're like, Chevron Guy!
And suddenly it was like hard day's night
and I'm like running.
It was crazy.
Except you got to run a lot slower
because they were all out of shape being Stargate fans. Yeah, I meant I walked like running. It was crazy. Except you got to run a lot slower because they were all out of shape
being Star King fans.
Yeah, I meant I walked.
Yeah.
I walked away from them.
So have you ever called anybody
from the Hollywood Is Calling?
Yeah, I've had, like, leave.
Really?
Yeah.
How does it work?
We're fascinated.
Okay, they send me an email,
like it hasn't happened in a while, but they send me an email. Like, it hasn't happened in a while.
But they send me an email from Hollywood Is Call, and they go, so-and-so is having a birthday, or they're having some kind of event that's, you know, and their friends have bought them a message from you.
Right.
And so they send me a little message that says hello this is gary
jones from stargate and i'm supposed to really just read that oh okay let's say let's say uh
you know i just want to wish you a happy birthday and you know so you know i i do would do it but
i would did you leave a message on their voice sometimes but sometimes i would because i'd phone
the number and it's one of those like, make sure you dial.
I think it's like star 67 because then it blocks out.
Right.
You can't trace the call, right?
Right, right, right.
Otherwise, they're calling me back on, hey, Walter called me.
Yeah.
Tell me more about the Chevron.
I don't know if Chevrons work.
Yeah.
So I would call the people.
And once in a while, they would pick up.
And I would say, hey, is this so-and-so? And they go, yeah. And I go, it's Gary Jones from Stargate. They go, Oh my God. You know? And then I just talked to them because I didn't care for 45 minutes.
Like three or four minutes and just, you know, tell them something about the show. And, you know, they loved the fact that, that I called.
I was like, I was, but, but I also, you know, what made me laugh is I also went on that
website when I first got asked and I, cause it was like, the person was like, you know,
why don't you be part of our roster?
And I went, well, let me just check it out.
So I went on and I just scrolled down and it was like, you know, the guy from like saved
by the
bell and dennis haskins yeah and lou ferigno and guys that i just i was like oh my god but then i
thought oh it's kitschy i want to be it is it is uh the the weird thing is he's a friend of mine
cliff nesterhoff a past guest who passed on this to me he passed passed on? Oh, I'm very sorry to announce it on this podcast.
But he has, and I have a couple of them at home,
and it was like an older version of that
where it was like a tape cassette,
and it was famous people just with very standardized
birthday greetings or anniversaries.
But on one tape it would be like,
Shelly Berman, Dom DeLuise
and the one that does Lamb Chop
would be all on one tape.
And then you would just give the tape
to somebody for their birthday.
Oh my god.
Shelly Long. No, it's not Shelly Long.
It's Shirley
Futterman.
It's the worst. Shirley Bassey.
Yeah, it's Dame Shirley Bassey. Yeah, Dame Shirley Bassey.
Yeah.
Goldfinger.
So, yeah, well, I was just fascinated by this Hollywood is calling business.
Well, I was, too.
And it's really, I mean, even the title, you know, Hollywood is calling.
Right.
Hollywood.
It's like lame.
It's so, it's me calling from like my kitchen.
Hello, this is Walter Herr.
Have you ever talked to someone for so long that you've ended up losing money on it?
Like through long distance searches.
Right.
No, no, that doesn't, that doesn't, that's never happened. Like we're through long-distance churches. Right. No.
No, that doesn't happen.
That's never happened.
So what else is going on?
We like to keep it casual.
This isn't an interview.
An interview.
It's not a biography show.
Oh, because I thought I was going to be taken over from Dave.
Oh, no.
I thought this was for Dave's position. No. No, because I thought I was going to be taken over from Dave. Oh, no.
I thought this was for Dave's position. No.
This isn't making the band.
Yikes.
Because I've got something over at IBM
that I've got to get to.
What's her name? Shirley
Lamb? Was that it?
Yeah, Shirley Lamb
and Lamb Chop.
Yeah. I can't remember her name. Shirley Chop.
She had red curly hair.
She's not with us anymore.
No, she's not.
She's passed to the...
Lamb Chop's still with us.
Yeah.
Did you...
Her children's show, Lamb Shop's Play Along.
Yeah.
No.
Did you ever see that?
Lamb Chop got cancer.
Oh, come on.
Oh, please.
Too soon.
Yeah.
Or something.
Too something. Shirley Lamb, certainly. Too soon. Or something. Too something.
Shirley Lamb, certainly.
Shirley Lamb.
Yeah.
Because you know what?
The respect is just oozing out of you guys.
Yeah, right.
I like that we do get so easily offended.
We do get a little indignant, yeah.
So there was Lamb Chop.
There was Charlie Horse.
Oh, right.
And then there was a third character. was Charlie Horse. Oh, right.
And then there was a third character.
Finnegan.
Finnegan and Kermit.
And those were the four superheroes.
I really don't remember.
Are you going to look it up?
I'm going to look it up. Yeah.
Well, why don't we...
No, go ahead and look it up.
Gary and I will kill time in the meantime.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, why don't we... No, go ahead and look it up.
Gary and I will kill time in the meantime.
Yeah, yeah.
So we were talking before the podcast started about how you have a talent.
Like, because you were drawing.
That's why you were late for the podcast.
You were drawing.
And how this is an ability that you just have.
Yeah.
You don't ever have to work at it.
You're just good at it.
Yeah.
And so...
Sherry Lewis!
Sherry Lewis! That's's what i said isn't it
sure well you had that you had the sl yeah so like uh we were just got like
do you have something like that where it's because you can dave you can play the guitar
and you can play the keyboard and not really sort of of. Yeah. Enough. You can MIDI up a soundtrack if you need to.
Well, wait a sec.
Dave, so when you play guitar, how easy was it for you to learn the guitar?
It was very...
It was not easy at first.
And then I played for a year.
I got a lot better.
I played for two years.
I got a lot better.
I evened out.
You plateaued. Yeah. So I'm about as good as I was two two years. I got a lot better. I evened out. You plateaued.
Yeah.
So I'm about as good as I was two years in.
And how long have you been playing?
17 years.
No, it's probably closer to about that, yeah.
16.
Let's say 16.
So you've been playing for 16 years, and you're as good as a two-year-old guitarist.
A two-year-old baby guitarist.
You've been playing for 60 years and you're as good as a two-year-old guitarist. A two-year-old baby guitarist.
Someone who doesn't even know how to use their fingers properly.
With tiny little girl fingers.
So music, maybe not.
Was that not something...
Do you have something that was just effortless?
Where it was something you were just naturally good at?
Maybe you didn't follow it up?
Oh, fucking.
But you didn't go for a world record.
No, I don't want to go pro.
You want to keep your amateur status so you can compete in the Olympics.
You haven't plateaued?
What is that supposed to mean?
No, I don't know if i have anything where
yeah no i i like when i was a kid i had a bunch of activities yeah and they all sort of i stopped
doing them because they stopped i stopped getting better at them yeah i think it was phyllis diller
who said like her secret to keeping herself sane was if she tried something and wasn't instantly good at it, she would just give it up.
Because trying to get good at something that you're bad at is only going to lead to nonstop aggravation.
Well, what do you think of that?
Or accomplishment.
Yeah, but it depends on it.
Yeah, that's true.
There's got to be a period of time where you have to kind of let it breathe for a bit to find out
if you really are bad at it.
We're still talking about fucking, right?
Yeah.
Dave,
what's going on for you?
Well, I mean, because we have a combo
story. Yeah, why don't we do that?
Okay, alright. This week
we
got a call.
Oh, I thought we were going to do one word at a time.
Oh, sorry.
Yeah.
We got a call. At our podcast number.
So someone who only knows us through the podcast and only knows how to contact us through the podcast gave our number to a casting agent.
Yeah.
gave our number to a casting agent.
Yeah.
And they wanted to see us for a commercial for us to act in.
Yeah.
And we both are not actors.
Nope.
A.
I filed that under column A.
And B, we're still not actors. No, we're still not actors even after this experience.
And also, I think we only did it because out of pure curiosity.
Yeah, sort of.
Did you do it?
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
What was it?
It was for –
It was an ad for a lotto commercial?
It was for a new style of lottery.
Like it was a new betting, sports betting.
Yeah.
Oh, just for convenience store owners.
Yeah.
If you own a convenience store, how you can win.
The odds are incredible.
And it was underwritten.
There was one line in – there were three ads, each with one line.
But the ads were only 15 seconds.
Yeah, and so we went in.
We went in and...
One word at a time.
We
went in and
the...
We walked into the audition
and I got there a little bit
before Dave and so i filled
out the thing you know your shirt size and your name and we don't neither of us have an agent
and uh and then dave came in and the first thing he said was can we leave
before we even before we even went in and then uh we filled out i filled out a form a few people
after you.
Yeah.
And so then they were like, Dave and I were standing in the hallway,
and we were both just rolling our eyes.
I think Dave's on his lunch break.
And we're just like, this is going to be awful.
Because we just assumed we're going to go in,
and we're going to be horrible, and they're just going to hate us because we don't know what we're doing.
And so then they called in.
They were like, Paul and Graham. And I was and i was like no no no okay look sorry guy who's running
the show but him and i were brought down together and that's it's that some of someone has requested
the two of us that information of course didn't trickle down to you yeah but we are martin and lewis all of a sudden yeah
we are suddenly a comedy duo i get 70 and he gets 30 because i'm the straight man
and so they the and and to my shock the person in charge was like oh my apologies like all of a
sudden like rearranged it so that we went in together. So I was like, well, we certainly showed them.
But then Dave whispered on the way in.
He was like, oh, if you didn't make that happen, I was just going to go.
I was just going to leave.
So then we went in, and we actually did the thing.
And they actually laughed, and they thought we were funny.
They told us to have fun with it.
So we did.
Yep.
So much fun. We didn't learn the lines. Well, we were never. They told us to have fun with it. So we did. Yep. So much fun.
We didn't learn the lines.
Well, we were never...
The line.
Well, we didn't even have that.
Yeah, we were never given the line.
The only reason we have the line is because I told Abby, and she works at a talent agency,
so she got it for us.
But the people in charge never gave us any script or anything.
So we just muddled our way through it, but they liked it.
And then that was that, I thought.
Yeah.
We were like, we didn't get it.
Let's go get a burrito.
And we did, and it was delicious.
The burrito was great.
We shared a burrito, and we met in the middle like the lady and the tramp.
I was the tramp.
I was the straight man.
So you got 70% of the burritoener so you got 70 of the burrito so then uh yeah and then uh on sunday uh they we we got a call back for it and we're like
it's sunday it's the lord you know the lord's day. Yeah, Yahweh's Day. And they gave us the wrong address of the place to go to.
And they...
Oh, yeah.
We were basically thinking,
well, if we're not getting this,
don't drag us along.
Don't lead us on.
And we thought we were...
We thought we were weak at the initial audition. But they liked us and they thought we were uh we thought we were weak at the initial audition uh but they
liked us and they thought we were funny but then we went in and it was yeah i don't know the
original audition could have been anybody right it could have been a yeah you know it's cattle
call right yeah yeah but now it was actually actor guys that were all in there uh and some cattle
yeah there was one cow there's one guy in a cow they weren't sure if
they were gonna go that way with the commercial or not and then yeah we went in and we did the
thing again yeah and uh they liked it again they laughed and stuff they liked one of us more than
the other yeah but uh because then they said oh and then they made me go in with another guy
and uh that felt like I was cheating.
It felt dirty.
It meant nothing to me.
Well, it hurt a lot.
And they put you on hold.
They said, Graham, you don't have it yet.
But you're on hold, which I've never.
First of all, I think maybe I've been to one audition.
And so I've never been a callback. I've never been on of all, I think maybe I've been to one audition. And so I've never been to a callback.
I've never been on hold.
And I made it.
I was all the way down to me and another guy.
And then they went with the other guy.
They even called.
They were like, will you trim your beard?
That was the, like I said, that was a decider.
And I was like, yeah, I don't give a shit.
I'm not.
This isn't a religious beard or anything.
Like you can trim it.
It'll grow back
I don't care
and then
she was like
great
then
well you know
trim it
but then like
probably the other guy
was like
no you can't
and that was the decider
like King Solomon
divide it in half
trim my beard
you can't trim my beard
then you are the true
commercial
actor or something uh so yeah
neither of us got it so that was a lot of fun but uh my favorite part was hanging out with actor
types actor type which were not here's my thing was i thought it would be hilarious when we walked
out of our audition to say they've said you can all go home and everybody looked at me with the angriest
skills did you say that yeah oh is that an old is that an old it's the oldest but we don't know
to us it's fresh okay well you probably delivered it in a fresh way yeah we did it we did a whole
big number yeah they hated it they The other actors. But my favorite guy
was this one guy
who showed up. Apparently
they didn't like the eight
people they had called back for the
callbacks. So they called
another six guys in and they
all got the call. Does that happen a lot?
Let's ask Gary because Gary
you've done commercials, you've done TV shows.
You've done track here? Yeah. TV shows. Got the inside track here.
Yeah, you're Quincy Stargate.
Yeah.
Is anything that we described out of the ordinary?
No. Or is this the usual track?
That's the usual.
And the only part you're missing is that a lot of actors just come to the callback.
What?
They don't go to the cattle call.
They go, I'm not going to the cattle call they go they go i'm not going to the
cattle call and so what how does that work and so what they go how do they get called back if
they're never well well because they because they are you know right for the category of the of the
commercial right but they just they they've done enough work that they go, well, I'm not going to the cattle call.
Oh, okay.
We should have done that.
Yeah.
That's what guys do.
And I've actually had my agent call me and go, so-and-so requested you to come in for the callback because they didn't like who they saw in the cattle call.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
And so I end up just going to the call.
And the callback is always like there's less people, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The cattle calls are like insane.
Yeah.
At the cattle call, it was you, me, another guy our age, and then children.
Yeah, well, because there was two different commercials
casting out of the same office.
Oh, yeah. So there was – yeah, it was. It was two different commercials casting out of the same office. Oh, yeah.
So there was, yeah, it was.
It was literally.
Where was it?
Where did they get it?
Over in West 2nd?
Yeah.
West 7th.
West 7th.
Yeah.
Okay, that place, they have like little rooms.
Little rooms.
Little rooms.
Little hallway running down the middle.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's just like this massive spillover.
You walk in and it's just people.
Yeah, it's like when you think of a hollywood film
and you see an audition where there's like fat kid skinny kid weird guy handsome guy yeah
kid with chicken pox yeah that's what it is it's it's all description of people and yeah
hilarity and sometimes they and a lot of times they don't uh the the people
casting they don't know what they what they want so they just so they just they just send out these
these audition calls and they just go and a lot of times you sit at the bottom you know open ethnicity
uh we don't care what they look like you know whatever like just send us a bunch of you know
must be a good comedic actor must have have good timing, this kind of thing.
Right.
Strong comedic character, that kind of stuff.
Meaning ugly.
Yeah, ugly.
I show up and I see a lot of the same guys at the commercial.
I don't really go for commercials.
No, you're above that.
Yeah, you're a star guy. No, it commercials anymore. You're above that.
No, it's not that I'm above it. It's just that I...
I'm telling you you're above it.
You don't have to say it.
But here's the little
wrinkle in the story.
A couple days after that
that I didn't get the audition.
We've been getting...
And this call also came to our...
Through the podcast. Through the podcast line the we've been getting and this call also came to our through the podcast
through the podcast line we've been getting tons of calls to the podcast line lou ferigno called
to wish you a happy birthday there was a call that said hey uh would you uh this is such and such
from uh this voice acting place give us a call we're looking for gra. Give us a call.
We're looking for Graham.
Give us a call.
Yeah, this one was just for Graham.
So, yeah.
So I called.
It hurt a bit.
But I was used to it from earlier that week.
So I called them and they said,
can you come down?
Trim your beard.
Yeah.
Our microphones are very sensitive to beards.
Will you trim your beard?
We don't have any work to offer you it just bothers us and uh so then they hung up
they say or we're gonna send lou ferrigno to beat you
can you come down and do uh a reading for thing? And I said, yeah, sure.
They didn't say what the thing was.
You were like, do you have it in Braille?
No, I just, because I wasn't doing anything.
Work is work.
Oh, right.
Well, that's not work.
Well, it sounded like work.
It sounded like an audition for work.
Listen, we're a bunch of country bumpkins.
We're rubes.
We just arrived in the big city.
Okay, you guys, next time you get calls like this, you got to call me and I'll tell you.
Yeah?
You'll tell me what?
Well, I'll tell you.
You'll tell me.
I'll be there in an hour.
Oh, wait.
I forgot.
Zingo.
Go on.
So they said, yeah, come on down.
And I said, okay.
So I went down and then they gave me the things.
They're like, just read over these really quick, and then we'll bring you in to read in the booth or whatever.
And then I looked at them, and it was for the exact same product.
What?
Yeah.
It was the radio version of the TV commercial that we had flunked out of.
It was the exact same thing.
It was the betting over under.
I think the writing's on the wall for my acting
career.
What? To be a sports?
Well, no, the fact that they didn't call
me for that. They didn't give
me the second callback.
So what, you're handing in
your acting papers? I'm handing in my
acting resignation.
When I just, the second city had uh had finished at expo and i was like i was kind of hanging out in vancouver going i want to live here i want to you know i need to
work but i need to work i yeah you know and i didn't have an agent and i like i gotta start
an umbrella store yeah something so i met i so i snagged an agent just because I was on Second City.
I had enough of a name.
But I'd never been to an audition.
Yeah.
I'd never been for TV or anything like that.
It's terrifying.
Yeah, it was.
Terrible.
It was.
It must be terrible.
And so back nowadays, you just get your sides sent to you by –
Now, for people not in the business, sides is like a shortened script.
It's like a couple of pages of the script to give the people an idea of what you would do with the character.
It's like they're called sides, like just pages.
Do you ever go in with something like you come in in a full costume?
There are people who do that, right?
Yeah. Where you're sitting in the room and? There are people who do that, right? Yeah.
Where you're sitting in the room and somebody's dressed exactly like...
And they're knobs.
Really?
They're just tools.
Yeah.
They never get it?
No.
Didn't Harrison Ford get the role of Han Solo by being a carpenter at George Lucas' house?
Yeah.
Yeah.
He also used a lightsaber for hammering in a lot of the no for no for cutting
for cutting wood yeah and the george lucas like i like what he's doing with that yeah i'm gonna
write that well product my favorite guy at the audition was uh the the audition said uh just
jeans and t-shirt regular slob guys and this guy shows up wearing like these expensive designer jeans
uh really clunky dress shoes and the t-shirt uh from the the movie the hangover with the baby
in the the baby bjorn with the sunglasses on it and he walked in and all the other actors loved it they were like dude yeah where'd you
get that t-shirt i was at a commercial i was at a commercial audition years ago for for this
for this commercial for uh kokanee beer sure the beer out here. It's the beer out here. The beer out here. And the idea was, the premise of this commercial, was that there were three cavemen.
Okay?
Cavemen.
Co, can, and knee.
Oh.
Wow.
Who makes this garbage?
Right?
So let's just start with that premise already.
They're all sitting around the campfire, but they're talking English.
They're like, hey, you know, know the other tribes coming over uh we need to
have beer let's go get beer who's gonna go on the beer run co can and knee and they take off right
and you know whatever it's like horrible this happened after the budweiser frogs right i i
can't remember one can only assume but what i but what i do remember is that they told us to show up in
uh in a t-shirt in like tank tops and shorts they said show up in it because they wanted to see what
our bodies looked like right like body hair and stuff so so it's like okay fine whatever so show
up in there's no way to fake that you can't't fake it. You can't fake it. You know, if you've glued something on, they're going to see it.
Yeah, exactly.
Right.
Today's cameras.
Right.
But this is a pretty bad story.
But I got to tell you.
So I'm sitting outside waiting to go in.
And we're going in in groups.
Yeah.
Okay.
They're all crammed into a tiny room.
And what they didn't want to do is they didn't want to explain to each group every time what they wanted.
So what they would do is they would have one group in doing the audition.
One group cold, another one group as can.
No, while another group stood against the wall watching them so that each time they
came in, you'd see what – they only had to explain it to one group at the beginning
and then they just kept – one group with the group standing watching would go, okay,
I get it.
Then that group would leave and then they'd sit down they bring a new
group in so but but before i got called in i i met this other guy from my agency who was a caveman
and his name was his name was cory dagg and he was like he got work yeah his name was cory dagg
we're sitting outside and he goes and of course course, you want to increase the odds that you're going to get cast, right?
Yeah, of course.
So you killed him.
Well, I kind of killed him.
I kind of killed him because he said to me, I'm sitting there in my tank top and shorts.
And he goes, hey, guess what?
I brought a fur uh fur uh
coat that i'm gonna wear as a cape and uh and and a leopard skin speedo and i go oh yeah and he goes
i think i should wear it and i go oh yeah so he goes like he goes really really got oh yeah yeah
you should wear it and i and and so and so he went off to change in his car nice and and uh and and
while he was gone we all got called in so it was like three of us and cory dagg was like the fourth
guy he was like the fourth guy and and the door was closed and i was standing next to the door
and they're filming they're filming the guys auditioning and there's a knock at the door
and i and i sort of move over and i open the door like
about two inches and he's standing there and it like so like with a fur coat wrapped around his
neck and a leopard skin speedo and he just i'd open the door and he just goes like this
like this he makes like some of this caveman sound and i just close the door
i close the door and then i moved to the other side of the
room right and uh and and the casting agent was kind of looking at the door like who like what
the hell is going on because they want people to be quiet yeah and finally when they when they
finish taping then they open the door and he comes in and all the other guys are like oh my god
and he's standing there we're all all just in regular khaki shorts.
Yeah, regular Speedos.
Regular Speedos.
Yeah, Olympic.
And he looks nuts.
He looks completely insane.
And I basically told him that that was the coolest thing to do.
Catty.
So catty.
So catty.
Just the worst.
So when we had to introduce ourselves on camera,
hello, I'm Gary Jones.
Hello, I'm so-and-so.
Hello, I'm Og.
It gets to the end.
He goes like this, me, Corey Day.
I would give him the role.
Oh, yeah.
Nothing worse than a method commercial actor.
Must stay in character.
He lights the place on fire.
Yeah.
Oh, it was just insane.
I remember there was,
when I was way, way back in film school.
Oh, right.
You were in film school?
I was in film school.
You wouldn't know it by my career.
Or by the way you have no idea how a film works.
But I remember sitting,
we had to do auditions for the films that we were making during the course of film school.
And there was this one guy who was notorious for showing up for every audition for every student film.
And he would make these crazy character choices that had nothing to do with the role and the one that i saw which was became the stuff of legend was the scene required it was took place in i think in an office or
something very kind of plain and he decided his character choice was that the scene
took place on a bus and he was a bus driver so So in the audition, whereas everybody came in and just read the lines
and sat down the way they should,
he sat down like a bus driver
and was mime steering the bus the whole time
and delivering the line over his shoulder
like he was a bus driver.
So he had re-orchestrated the whole script in his mind.
When I was at my film school,
we had a similar one
with this one guy who showed up
and the scene was all about,
he had received,
the character received an upsetting phone call
and this guy brought his own cell phone.
Yeah.
And we were like,
oh, you can just, you can do the thing with your fingers to your ear.
And he's like, no, no.
He's like, could you call me, please?
Yeah.
And say the lines to me.
And his big finish at the end of the upsetting phone call,
take the real cell phone, smash it on the ground.
Wow.
Commitment.
And also, I guess he had just gotten out of his contract
he was like a real he was like a modern day cory whatever his name is cory cory died uh now graham
there was something else you did something else this week i sure did i went down to los angeles
speaking all this actor hollywood yeah movie talk i I went down to Los Angeles to watch Pee Wee Herman relaunched his live stage show.
I saw that on Facebook.
Yeah.
I went down to L.A. and I watched the show and it was fantastic.
Really?
It was fantastic?
It was great. It was this very well put together, very smart production and went down to L.A., accidentally stayed in what I think was a Spanish ghetto of some sort.
Sure.
When I booked the hotel...
A barrio?
Yeah, I was staying in the barrio.
When I booked the hotel, because I looked for walking distance to the theater, and this was, but there was no indication on Google Maps or Street View that it was a very, very kind of poor neighborhood.
Yeah.
Which there was no trouble or anything like that.
Oh, poor people like to start trouble. But immediately upon getting there,
I was like, oh, like it's totally... Because where the place was
where they were having the show is...
Don't drink the water.
It was in the Nokia Theater
where the Grammys are going to be.
It's in that complex.
So excited.
Yeah, no, I know, right?
Who will win?
Will it be that one person or the other one?
I don't give a shit about it.
But there's like a Ritz-Carlton there.
It's the Staples Center.
They have, you know, that's where the Lakers play.
The theater is the Staples Center of theaters.
But it's this very, like, super rich complex.
And on one side is downtown L. downtown LA where it's all business.
And then on the other side is this like poor working class,
you know,
Spanish kind of,
uh,
a lot.
Yeah.
It's a real LA enchilada,
but,
um,
yeah,
no,
the show was great.
And it was,
uh,
after the show,
uh,
Paul Rubens did an hour and a half of Q and a,
wow.
Where he told fantastical stories
about his time being Pee Wee Herman,
which pretty much sounds like the best possible job
to have had.
Are they hiring?
Because, yeah, his stories about the people that he's met,
and he wasn't doing the things to name drop,
but over the course
of his like fantastic life he's the best story that he told was that he used to smoke a lot of
cigarettes and because he was a child's entertainer he didn't want people to ever see him smoking
cigarettes so he had always a security guard around him at all times making sure that nobody
was around anytime he had a smoke break and uh this one security
guard was always asking him could you please read my script could you please read my script
and he just always said yes i would and then he never had the time but lawrence fishburne
who played cowboy curtis did read the script and the script uh turned out to be boys in the hood
and the security guard was john singleton and that launched his career and that was because of that
connection and then Paul Rubin said
doesn't matter because there wasn't a role in it for me
it was fantastic it was
a great I was there for 24
hours I went through a shitload of security
in order to see it and
a lot of jet lag and now I have
a horrible sinus infection that I think
I got from the Mexicans.
Well, a baby did sneeze in my friend's face.
Sure.
It's obviously a working class sinus infection.
Yeah, no.
Don't I sound more earthy?
You do.
Yeah, and in touch with my genes.
Sure.
I liked Pee Wee Herman a lot as a child.
But I didn't...
A lot of people carried that with them to adulthood.
You, for instance.
Yes, I am one of them, yes.
But for me, that is like...
The idea of seeing that is like the idea of seeing Alphan Ice.
I think because...
Well, first of all, do not tell me that if Alphan Ice was in town,
you wouldn't buy a ticket.
If it was in town, I would.
But I wouldn't fly to L.A. for it.
I think the thing with Pee Wee Herman, unlike Elf, is that there was no – it didn't carry to full term.
It was like –
It was a preemie?
Yeah.
He got interrupted.
And it just ended abruptly.
I think if it had ended, like if it had just ended naturally,
I don't think there'd be anybody who would...
Maybe, I don't know.
It was just great.
It was great.
You put on a great live show.
I'm not judging you.
Well, it sounds a little bit.
I'm...
No, I'm not judging you.
Dave, do you want to go to see Alpha Nicer, don't you?
I just think I'm better than you.
All right, let's move on to Overheard.
Sure.
Overheard. Overheard.
Overheards.
If you're lucky enough to have a set of ears and a keen sense of something hilarious going on in your atmosphere,
you may be able to submit an overheard.
We like to start with the guest each and every week with your overheard.
Gary, I know you came with one.
I know it has two swears in it.
It's got two swears in it.
But that's great.
Yeah, it was.
You can count along at home.
It was from a long time ago when I was living in the West End of Vancouver,
and I was walking along Burrard Street,
and I passed a woman who's like uh
i don't know she looked like a kind of a tough woman it was in the summer and uh she kind of a
streetwise tough woman but and she was talking to these other couple and as i walked by i happened
to notice that this woman the tough woman has a tarantula on her arm. She's holding it.
She's holding it on her arm.
But the best part was like all I catch as I walk by is she says to the other couple, yeah, I call him fuck.
And as if that – but then as I'm just kind of getting out of here so she goes
yeah it's short for fuck off i was like okay so this woman gets a tarantula and goes oh i'm gonna
call him fuck off but then she got tired of that and shortened it yeah yeah just to fuck. You have to call your tarantula all the time. Yeah.
I had a friend
for a long time in Vancouver
who was
not afraid, but offended
by anybody who would walk around
with an animal on their shoulder
in Vancouver, of which that's a
fairly frequent occurrence.
A bird, a snake yeah a
tarantula i've never seen i'm not afraid or offended but i am uh disgusted yeah i uh
and no i just disinterested angry maybe angry okay interested to the level of anger yeah yeah
i uh no i always remember we were like driving by somebody,
uh,
who had a Python around his neck and my friend was driving and nearly swerved
off of the bridge in anger.
He was just like,
fuck that guy.
I can't believe that guy.
He was just so angry at anybody who would,
uh,
walk around with a bet on their shoulder.
Well,
not,
not a pet on their shoulder. Well, not a pet.
A monster.
Like a modern-day monster.
But you don't know if, as you're driving by,
that guy's being killed.
Yeah, it could be a boa constrictor.
You have no idea.
He could have dropped out of a tree.
Yeah, and it just fell on him,
and he's being strangled to death,
and your buddy's going,
Oh, I fucking hate that.
And he's honking at him.
Fuck you.
But because of his long hair and beard,
you think he owns it.
Oh, what a horrible way to die.
Like you're dressed like a crazy,
you know, fish concert attending hippie
and you're getting strangled to death by a cockatoo.
And everyone thinks, oh, it's just his pet, but no.
His pet's going crazy.
His Gila monster is sucking him.
It's Gila.
Is it Gila?
Yeah.
It's like a Greek sandwich.
I was in an episode of, you know that show Dead Like Me?
I know of that show, Dead Like Me.
Yeah.
So anyway, I got a part in that show where uh where i got a small part where
i get killed you're one of the i become one of the dead dead like me and uh and i got killed by
being bitten by a spider and in the in the script that it's it called for a black widow which is
like you know really the most poisonous super sexy so nobody you know that the night before i
was going to go shoot,
I got a call from the assistant director.
They always call you and go,
okay, so show up at this time and here's the location.
Right.
And I go, okay, great.
I go, hey, by the way,
so this whole spider thing,
like where I get killed by a spider,
I go, so how's that going to work?
Because I'm thinking,
nobody's called me to say.
Special effects? Yeah, I'm like CGI or whatever you know whatever fx and the guy freaks out he goes oh my god did
nobody called you did hasn't anybody called you and i go no no what's going on he goes okay okay
you didn't hear this from me somebody should have called you because they changed the black widow to
a tarantula and it's going to be a man in a tarantula costume. A real one.
A real one.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
And I go, okay.
And he goes, are you okay with that?
And I'm like, it's the night before we shoot.
No, absolutely not.
Yeah, and I'm like, no, I'm not doing that.
So I go, yeah, I'm okay with it.
And he goes, but you know what I heard anyway?
He goes, I heard it's been defanged.
And I go, defanged? He goes, yeah, yeah, they defanged. I go, defanged?
He goes, yeah, yeah, they took the teeth out.
They defanged it.
That's the title of the new Twilight movie.
So I show up on set the next day, and the...
It's been refanged.
It's been double fanged.
The tarantula wrangler, they always call them wranglers.
He rides in on the tarantula.
He's got a rat tail. The thing's huge!
Just like
rears up.
And so I go over
and I go, she says,
and the thing's just
massive. It's like seriously massive.
And it's crawling down her arm
but it's
like
tentacles or whatever
you call legs legs oh yeah legs tentacles oh it was one of those squid tarantulas yeah they're
gross and she says to me are you uh are you uncomfortable with the with this thing and i go
and i go no i'm i'm totally cool because it's been defanged. And she goes, what?
And I go, well, it's been defanged.
She goes, defanged?
Yeah, right.
They took its fangs out.
How's it going to eat?
And I go, oh, yeah.
I don't know.
Intravenously?
I go, I don't know.
So now I'm like I'm on set and it hasn't been defanged.
Yeah. Yeah, that's true. As you were saying defanged, I'm like, I don't think that's a common practice.
Can they take the poison out?
Do they milk the poison?
No, no, no.
Milk?
Is it a milking?
So when she tells me that it hasn't been defanged, I go, well, is it going to bite me?
And she goes, well, no.
I mean, you know, she goes, you got the same chance of being bitten by this as like being bitten by a dog.
That's a really good chance.
That's super high.
Yeah.
It's pretty high.
Yeah.
It's like 50-50.
Yeah, okay.
So now I do the scene and I'm supposed to be this guy putting my suit jacket on.
And somehow this spider crawls out of my suit jacket.
I don't even know how it got there.
And it's supposed to crawl up my neck.
Yeah.
And I have to have this tarantula crawling up the back of my neck.
So in the scene, it's not moving.
Oh, line.
It's not moving.
It's not moving.
And they're like, how do we get the thing to move?
So what they ended up doing was they ended up getting a long piece of plastic tubing.
getting a long piece of plastic tubing and uh and uh one of the uh production assistants would blow warm air into the thing onto the spider's ass well uh now and you're telling me in the generation
where james cameron can conjure up an entire three-dimensional world that a showtime yeah
sitcom can't conjure
a fake tarantula for your neck?
That's exactly what I'm telling you.
I like the old-timey
ass-blowing tarantulas.
Yeah, like Hollywood Secrets.
Get some clear pipe!
Blow some hot air on that spider's ass!
Get it moving!
I like the
old-timey Hollywood effects that aren't that special.
Where they would paint an elephant pink to create that effect.
And you think you hear thunder, but it's just a guy waving a cookie sheet.
Just off camera.
They're doing real-time sound effects.
The coconuts
Stargate was like
being in the
control room
the gate
that's what we called it
they literally used to
create that puddle effect
whenever the thing
operated
yeah it would be a hundred tarantulas with hot air being blown on their ass.
They would just show clips from the abyss.
Yeah.
On tons of TVs.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, what did they do?
Yeah, what did they do?
They just set up sheets of Mylar.
Like almost look like you know
what do you call it?
Mylar is what you use to put your expensive
comic books in. Yeah.
A plastic sheet. A plastic sheet
that was silver. Yeah. And it would be
like a three by three
sheet on a stand.
And then they would just ruffle it?
They would shine a light on it and just like
shake it gently. That was it? And they'd have two of those and that would that would basically cover
the entire gate room and it would all reflect and so really so when the camera was on me and the
stargate was supposed to be active they'd just be they just have a couple of production guys just
like shaking this shaking these things and that was the effect that was it i heard that on the original star trek for
the uh the um teleportation is that what we call it teleporter yeah uh the uh transporter
transporter the transcele uh it was the the effect was superimposing a glass of water with gold
glitter being spun around in it and that's how they got
that effect yeah yeah it was just like this super simple like just overlaying somebody like with a
glass of gold glitter when they when it was like beam me up that's all it was yeah oh yeah pretty
good i really like that old hollywood kind of camera trick thing yeah i know i had no idea
you're such a fan of that well uh the most recent um indiana
jones was supposed to not have any cgi and then they abandoned that yo super fast super fast um
uh dave do you have an overheard yeah i do mine is also pet related oh
there is a guy in vancouver who uh runs a dog training slash walking company.
I think it's called Dog Talk.
You've got major attitude in your voice already.
Do I really?
You do.
The people listening already know that you hate this guy.
I do not like this guy.
There's a guy who runs a dog.
He's got a big van with a picture of him and a bunch of dogs on it.
I thought you were going to say Hitler.
He goes, picture of Hitler.
He's got a big picture of Hitler.
He uses his the kampf.
His kampf way of training dogs.
His dog struggle.
His hund kampf.
And he
his slogan
it's something like
something about talking to dogs
not whispering to them
Basically he's bad mouthing TV's
Caesar Chavez
Caesar Malone
The dog whisperer
Who was I talking about?
Caesar Romero
Argentina or Bolivia or whatever
That's not right either
You're talking about a poor guy from that poor LA neighborhood.
I think you're talking about Hugo Chavez.
Oh, yeah.
I was talking about a blend of Caesar.
Caesar.
What was his name?
The guy from the play The Joker?
Cesar Romero.
Yeah.
And Hugo Chavez.
No, Cesar Chavez is a different guy.
I can't pinpoint exactly what he was.
Oh, he invented the Caesar salad.
Go on.
The Chavez salad um
so yeah i don't care for this gentleman i've seen him around uh but but he bad his slogan
bad mouths the dog whisperer who i happen to as a dog owner admire yeah he he he knows how to uh
whisper to dogs. Yeah.
Yeah.
It's great.
There's no other way around it.
And this guy at the dog park, I've seen him a couple times. He brings dogs that are either his or dogs that he's training for other people.
And he talks to them like people.
Okay.
But he talks to them like idiots. Yeah. But he talks to them like idiots.
Yeah.
Like dumb people.
Yeah.
In a Mexican accent.
Yeah.
And he'll always bring a dog to the...
Oh, sorry.
Go on.
You held up a finger.
Yeah.
No, because I was just thinking there's a Canadian version of this season.
Oh, yeah.
There's that.
I've seen that guy.
And he does that.
He talks.
He's garbage.
He's garbage. Yeah. There's a show called I've seen that guy. And he does that. He's garbage. He's garbage.
Yeah.
There's a show called At the End of My Leash.
Yeah.
And he's supposed to be the Canadian equivalent of Cesar Millan.
But he does that same thing.
He talks to the owners as if they are misbehaved children.
Sure.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But this guy doesn't even talk to the owners.
He just talks to the dogs like they're idiot humans.
doesn't even talk to the owners. He just talks to the dogs like they're idiot
humans. And
he'll bring the dogs to the park
and just let them
run around. And as soon as the dogs start running
around, he's mad at them. Yes.
And he starts telling
them, like, he threatens
them with things they can't
possibly understand. Like,
stop that or I'm putting you back in the
van.
What does that mean to a dog?
Nothing. It means blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah, van.
Or stop, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And basically
you need to let a dog work out all of its energy before
it'll even listen to you. That's what Cesar Millan has taught me.
Oh, yeah. Anyway, so this guy's yelling at his dogs, and one of them, they're not even really misbehaving.
He's just mad at them.
That's just the attitude he comes with.
Such a jerk.
A doesn't understand dogs, and B doesn't understand the internet, because what he says to one
of those dogs is,
you need to take that attitude and download it.
Oh, man.
Really?
Yeah.
Onto an iPod of respect.
Yeah.
Come on, dogs.
You understand technology, right?
Come on, iDog.
Oh, man. That's the the worst it is the worst i uh i there's a place not
far from uh where i lived it's a dog boutique and also place that takes care of your dog
because you're a piece of shit dog owner that doesn't yeah but you have time for that dog that
you bought yeah exactly and it's got these uh like chaise lounges for dogs and such,
chandeliers.
You know what I'm talking about?
Do you think chaise lounges and chandeliers are the same thing?
No, no.
The chaise lounges are for the dogs to sit on,
but the place has chandeliers in it.
But it's also maybe in a mini mall.
It is in a strip mall, yes.
Okay, sure.
And it is called, i don't know your dog
is better than you or something like that something to that effect i just hate it i hate it that's the
culture there's a lot of that in vancouver there's a lot of people who have dogs that are huge dogs
and they're dwelling in these tiny little apartments and they have they hire people to
walk them well that's the only thing you do with a dog, really,
aside from them tearing apart your shit.
Walking it is the only thing you do.
And you do that so it doesn't tear apart your shit.
Yeah, and so if you're not doing the one, and I don't know.
So your dog, how often does your dog have to get walked?
Oh, half the time.
Grandpa?
Yeah, he gets walked several times a day. And then on the weekends, we really let him go buck wild.
And, you know, this is a good size spread.
Grandpa's got a lot of room to move around. We've got a nice little hallway here
for fetching. Yeah, but I'm talking, you know, you go down to the
Yale town, and some of these dogs are like marmadukes.
You know, and they're all,ukes You gotta let a Marmaduke
Put a cake on his head
Or whatever a Marmaduke does
Getting all sorts of crazy shit
We have a miniature poodle
Oh yeah
So that's tiny
She's about the size of your dog
Has a lot of energy though
No this dog's like the best
Like combination She will Like I don't walk her every day.
No.
Like once in a while, I'll take her out for a walk.
You're like, whatever.
A couple of times a week.
Wow.
Sometimes you'll call her on her birthday.
And she will run like at about, seriously run at like 90.
I've never seen a dog run this fast.
When she, when she, uh, turns, she bangs.
Oh, wow. Like I've, and I've seen, I took her out. I was in North Van she turns, she bangs. Oh, wow.
And I've seen, I took her out,
I was in North Van the other day, and I took her...
She bangs, right? William Hunt.
And I took her out for a walk,
and there were these, and she'll
run up to other dogs,
and basically get them to chase her.
Yeah. Like, she does the same
strategy. Yeah, she does the whole thing. She's like, come on,
you know, you've got to chase me. So the dogs go, go okay they chase her and she got chased by by uh you know those
dogs though weimaraners yeah those dogs they're big very handsome dogs beautiful they're like
they're like made or velvet you know weimaraners are they the william wagman dogs yeah yeah yeah
if calvin klein designed a dog yeah yeah big floppy ears and a hound, right?
Oh, yeah, beautiful.
Okay, this dog, this Weimaraner couldn't catch our poodle.
Oh, because she bangs.
As you said, she's got the speed.
All right.
Good dog.
Hey, what's up?
Nice to see you.
Yeah, it's good to be here.
How'd those auditions go?
Well, one of them not so good.
One I'm waiting on.
Hey, I got a part.
I got a part recently.
Was it for?
And I'm working tomorrow.
What?
Is it for?
Yeah, I did.
Will you be your own working actor?
Yeah.
Are we supposed to be impressed?
No.
Tell me about this part.
It's a part on a movie called 16 Wishes.
Ooh, sounds like a Zac Efron.
Yeah.
Kind of.
17 again.
It's about a girl who turns 16, and she's been saving up all her wishes.
Like, she's been wishing, you know, doing her birthday wish every year.
To get one phone call from Gary Jones.
And then on her 16th birthday, all the wishes start to come true.
And it just goes downhill from there.
Here's a, like, just, sorry, springing off of that.
There's this movie out, I think, this week.
And it's similar to that because it's about a wish.
It's When in Rome, I think, is the name of it.
Yeah.
That movie has the weirdest goddamn advertising campaign I have ever seen in the history of a movie.
Ever?
Yeah.
Really.
Like, honestly, honestly, because usually a movie will just show clips from the movie and then you're like, oh, I get the essence of this movie.
But in this movie, they have the actors.
Have you seen this commercial?
Do you know what I'm talking about?
I know the movie.
I don't know what you're talking about.
It's Kristen Bell and Josh Duhamel.
Duhamel.
Duhamel.
Béchamel.
They appear as themselves in the commercial explaining the plot of the movie,
as themselves in the commercial explaining the plot of the movie.
Only then, at different points,
the actors then are playing their characters that they play in the movie outside of the context of the movie.
So at one point, the girl goes,
I'm Kristen Bell, and he goes, I'm Josh Duhamel,
and this is a movie called da-da-da,
and this is the basic setup of the plot and then it cuts to some
action from the movie and then it cuts back to Kristen Bell and she goes I go to
Rome and I meet a guy and I'm like wait a minute you were Kristen
Bell a minute ago now are you the character from this movie
and Josh Duhamel goes some crazy things happened and I was like wait
which are new now, yeah.
So, but obviously...
Aren't you married to Perky?
They made the movie and were like, oh, this plot is too complicated.
Yeah.
We need to get the actors back to explain what goes on in the movie.
Because what it is, is she goes to a thing.
She makes a wish.
It kind of comes true, but not not quite and it fucks up but somehow also
marriage in rome but it doesn't actually take place in rome dax shepherd is there yeah dax
shepherd is somehow in the movie sorry i didn't mean to derail the thing but it just reminded me
of how confused i am anyway so what i'm saying is, guys, I'm Josh Duhamel. Go see
When in Rome. Sure, yeah.
Well, what I find weird, too, is that
there are plots to movies
that I would go, well, I would
never pitch that.
Like, you're like, that sounds terrible.
Who would make that? Like, I would
never come up with, hey, what about this idea
where this girl gets 16 wishes and
then I was like, and yet, here I am. I'm in the'm in the film it's being made yeah you play tarantula guy yeah um you know
it looks good and i i may have already come out and uh been gone is uh the tooth fairy starring
dwayne johnson oh uh my favorite slogan of that is uh you can't handle the tooth. Oh, nice.
My overheard comes courtesy of Hollywood, California.
Oh, Lollawood.
Yeah, exactly, right?
What is it?
Hollyweird.
Yeah, Weirdowood.
Originally called Hollywoodland.
Hollywoodland?
Yeah.
Really?
Yeah, and they shortened it.
Yeah, you saw the black dahlia.
I took a shuttle from the airport to the hotel.
And the weird thing is the shuttle made an entire trip around LAX before it left LAX.
So we got on at one point and made a trip all the way through every station that you pick up.
And then we ended up back at the same guy that we got on. But there were these two gals who got on young ladies both from new york and if i was
writing a teen sitcom it would be based on these two gals because they were great uh they got on
right away one was the sensible one and one was the uh the crazy one yeah the one from the bronx
that's got the big attitude she was well they. Well, they caught on, and right away, the one was going like, oh, I can't believe how rude that, I think it was a stewardess, had really set her off.
And then somebody at the baggage claim had also set her off, and her friend was like, don't do anything.
Just relax.
And she's like, if anybody says anything to me, I'm just going to lose it.
And then our guy who was driving the shuttle not crazy
about driving a shuttle it wasn't his calling in life so he uh she tried to sit on the lap of her
friend and he disagreed with this and said you have to sit in a seat with a seat belt and so he
closed the door and went around again and then she was like i'm gonna lose it on that guy the girl's like don't just relax so the whole time we're driving she the
the sassy one kept turning around and making like crazy bug eyes at her friend like can you believe
this guy no matter what he did yeah and then at one point he got on the phone to his friend
and then she says very loudly loudly enough for him to hear, oh, he's Russian.
That's why.
It was great.
They were great.
Russian as in from Russia?
Yeah.
Not Russian to the next shuttle station?
What I love is like if you were going to write that show, that would be the catchphrase.
I'm going to lose it on that guy.
Don't.
That's the T-shirt.
Don't.
Relax. Trying to have a nice holiday when i
was a kid and we went on holiday i remember the first time i heard we had to take a shuttle i was
so excited because i thought space shuttle yeah obviously wrong wrong could not be more a place
to put your bags place with many this... Bus with two-inch clearance.
This man in the back
had... This guy had
banded together with an elastic band
about 12 different air
freshers that he had hung on the back.
We've got some listeners who sent in some
overheards. Sure we do.
And if you want to send in your overheards,
you can send them to
stoppodcastyourself at gmail.com Okay. sure we do and if you want to send in your overheards you can send them to stop podcasting
yourself at gmail.com okay this first one is from ashwin s which i mean really if there's more than
one ashwin kick it around yeah you know who you are yeah exactly i heard this while on the bus
to the quantland university surrey campus There was a woman sitting next to me
Who looked to be around 26
Talking to some other girl on her phone
Her end of the conversation was audible
Over the podcast I was listening to
And she seemed to be having trouble
With a guy
I didn't take much interest until I heard the phrase
Maybe I should just tell him I'm a lesbian
The phrase echoed through the bus
and everyone stared at her while
she kept blabbing on obvious
or oblivious to the attention she had
just attracted. Do you think that would work
if you told somebody
you were a lesbian? I think it depends how
far he's gotten with you.
You've been together for three years.
By the way, I'm a lesbian That's a card you gotta carefully pull out
Yeah, you can only do that a few times
You do it once
A few times
Otherwise you start to get a reputation
Because the first one is like, I'm a lesbian
Okay, just kidding
Yeah, I was a lesbian with that guy.
All right.
This one had some pictures included in it.
It's a bit of a... I would say this would be a 14 plus.
What is it?
Is that...
Oh, this is a PG-13.
Yeah, this is at least a PG-13.
Sure.
This is Nancy S.
I manage 12 apartments in the heart of the best neighborhood in San Diego.
It is the urban gayborhood of the city.
All right.
I've never heard gayborhood used.
Have you ever heard that phrase before?
A gay neighborhood, I imagine.
It's a portmanteau.
Our building has the most disgusting alley in the city.
Well, well, okay.
The building has two utility closets. As the plaque
proves. Yeah, as voted by
the free weekly.
The building has two
utility closets that face the alley.
When checking the water heater closet,
I found a folding chair and some
lube. I called the management
company and told them the lock must be
broken. A week later, the lock
not fixed. i check again and
found heaps of porn three dildos two cucumbers with condoms on them four bottles of lube hand
sanitizer well you got to be clean a jug of water a jug of urine and another folding chair
uh i can only imagine that our water heater closet must have been used to turn tricks.
I should have put a camera in there.
Well, maybe not.
And made a Dirty Alley sex website.
Well, no.
No, please don't.
Yeah, please don't.
She says, P.S. All the porn was straight.
Odd considering our location proves that straight folks are way dirtier than gays.
But you know what?
I would have made that assumption right
out of the gates. Just on my own.
Sometimes straight people say they're a lesbian
and they're not.
Fact. I like that she said
that she first found it and it was
just a folding chair
and some lube. And I would have thought
oh, okay, the folding chair is squeaky. It's squeaking. Yeah, I'm gonna buy some and some lube. Yeah. And I would have thought, oh, okay, the folding chair is squeaky.
It's squeaking.
Yeah, I'm going to buy some folding chair lube.
Every time I fold it, it squeaks.
This is from Chloe S.
I was studying in the library,
and a notoriously ditzy girl was sitting in front of me.
She is ditzy to the point where 90% of her weight is mascara.
Well, that can't be true. I don't even know math but come on um anyway i guess she was studying for history and she
turned to her friend and said i'm christian so i'm a muslim right
uh correct i love it it's pretty good. Um, this is from Dallas C.
I was driving home one day, and while at a stoplight, I overheard a man on his cell phone say,
Wow, he's lucky those kids didn't beat him up or rape him.
Fact.
It's from Las Vegas.
Yeah.
So.
All right.
Yeah.
The original CSI.
Um, all right. Sorry, I've just got to find...
Oh, take your time, buddy.
I'm doing it.
Okay, this is from Lisa from Jersey.
I've included two overseens.
The first one comes from a local diner called The Pop Shop,
where they've hung up frame vintage sewing pattern envelopes in the lading's room.
I suppose it whimsical or retro
or perhaps kitsch. The drawing of
a little boy in pajamas in a bathrobe
eating a slice of pie cracks me up every time.
Who eats that much pie before
going to bed? There's no way his mom's going
to let him do that. You'll have bad
dreams. And also
come on, he's going to get chubby.
He'd feed him right before bed.
Yeah, this is the worst time.
The second one comes from the Museum of Patriotism in Atlanta, Georgia.
Oh, God.
There was a September 11th memorial with a notebook where visitors to the museum could write memories or messages about 9-11.
Most of the messages in the notebook were sincere, but I think a school trip may have come through.
Most of the messages in the notebook were sincere, but I think a school trip may have come through.
Next to God bless Canada, someone drew an arrow with, go back to your maple syrup below it.
And then below it, it said, come on, people.
Smile on your brother. Yeah, and she included a photo of both the kid eating the pie and of the 9-11 notebook.
Did 9-11 happen in Atlanta?
As I recall, it was a little north.
Yeah, but the wind caught.
Right.
Sure.
People got a nose full.
All right.
This is, sorry, this is Eric P.
Eric P. Eric P.
I found it.
This is a overseen.
I found it a month or two ago, and I'm going through.
Oh, sorry.
He's talking about our podcast there.
All right.
Let me just.
Okay.
Anyway, I have a couple of pictures of something I saw in the subway system in Atlanta a couple of years back.
We're very popular in Atlanta.
Oh, we're huge.
Hotlanta, am I right?
Peach State.
I forgot what the whole picture itself was an ad for.
Maybe some kind of liqueur.
So the first picture says, four glasses, three hands.
And it literally is a picture where there's four glasses but there's only three hands
holding them up. Sure, it's a Photoshop disaster.
Yeah, and the second picture is presumably
someone who saw this flaw
pointed out later and wrote
I'm going with the three chicks and
four glasses every time.
And then the guy signed his work
like he wrote that comment and then
that's a Schneider.
I guess you had to be there.
Yeah, but there's photos.
That's the great thing.
It's like being there.
I'll take your word for it.
Okay.
How many more of these have you?
One more.
This is the last one.
This is from Darcy B.
And Darcy B, you know, last week we had a lot of kids say the darndest things.
Yeah.
Darcy B, we got probably about 10 in a row.
I'm not going to read them all, but pick a number between 1 and 10.
40.
Between 1 and 10.
Come on.
Four.
All right.
One, two, three, four.
That one's not the greatest.
Why don't you pick a number?
Why don't you just pick the funniest?
Yeah.
Well, my favorite.
This is from, I don't know if Darcy is a man or a woman, because that's one of those unisex.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But it says, my daughter is two, and these are the overheards from her.
And my favorite one is, oh, where was it?
Daddy is a diaper dinosaur.
There you go.
Fair enough.
That wasn't number four.
Number four was our basement smells like onions.
That's barely worth it.
Yeah.
But if you want to send us an overheard via text form,
and you have the patience to hear my nasally voice read it,
you can send them to stoppodcastingyourself at gmail.com.
We also have called in overheards.
We do.
If you want to call us, call us at 206-339-8328, and you can leave a message, and you don't have to hear Graham read it.
Yeah, I know.
It's unbearable, right?
So many good messages this week.
I had to cut some really good ones.
Talk it to us.
Here's some good ones that stayed in.
Hey, what's up, guys?
This is Jeff in Michigan
calling with an overheard.
I saw an extremely tall man
walking with his daughter
in a shopping mall.
I don't know, daughter's probably like 8, 9 years old,
something like that.
And she goes,
Daddy,
how tall are you?
And he goes,
six,
seven.
She pauses for a minute.
She goes,
did you know that ostriches were six feet tall?
And the dad just kind of
looked at her and said,
that's not so big.
Made me laugh quite a bit.
Thanks guys.
Bye.
That's not so big.
That's not big.
Yeah.
Six,
seven.
Did you just hear my answer?
Yeah.
I think if I could choose, we were talking before about being able to just pick up something
or just having a natural ability versus being able to stick to something.
To have to stick to something.
I think I would rather just be really tall.
Yeah?
That's not really an ability.
I know, but if it was a third choice.
It's not a talent. Oh, now, but if it was a third choice. Or
you're adding something. Or curly hair.
Oh, you want curly hair? No,
but that's like
the choice between having
natural ability and stick to it. Or hair
that you have to work at.
Yeah.
No, but don't curly haired people always want straight
hair and straight, or bald people just want hair.
Well, yeah, that's the whole point, though. That's the whole point of the conversation,
is that it's always the grass is greener on the other side.
Or curlier.
The grass is curlier on the other side of the comb.
Hey, Graham and Dave.
It's LJ from Boston with an overheard.
Today I saw a younger Asian gentleman sitting down in a chair,
and a woman saw him and said,
oh, hello, Mr. Chang.
And he shook his head
and said, wow,
it's Chang.
That's the show, guys. Take care.
Woo!
Wow.
It's like the indignity.
How could you screw up Ching?
Yeah.
Ching?
Where'd you get that from?
Yeah.
It's one of our three possible names.
I've been coming to this mall food court for three weeks.
It's like if I called you Gary Johnson.
Oh, my God.
You'd be out of here.
Oh, my God.
I had that.
Really?
Yeah.
One time I was walking down. I was walking along Commercial Drive, and this guy who was a playwright, he used to be in prison.
I know him.
His name was Ron Sauve, and he was a bit of a crazy man.
And he's sitting there, it was in the summer, and I walked by, and he jumps out of his seat.
He goes, hey, hey man, how you doing?'s me how are you it's me and i was like uh i didn't know who he was
and then he said his name and it just so happened that he'd written this play called i think it was
called minotaur oh and yeah and it was a long time ago and the only reason i know it because
it was like he was he was an ex-con, and he had some federal funding or something.
And so he had bus shelter.
He had bus shelter ads, and it was like, Ron Sauve's Minotaur.
So when he told me his name was Ron Sauve, I was like, oh, hi, Ron.
I knew him.
Yeah.
Hey, Minotaur.
Yeah, and I didn't know him.
But he just went off.
I was saying, you know, and I didn't know him and he was, but he just went off.
And, and you know, remember Dennis Hopper in, um, in, um, apocalypse now when he was like, he was like, he's crazy.
He's a poet.
He's the, you know, he was like that, like talking to me on commercial drive.
And then he turns to these two people who were like, it was weird.
They were like these, they look like vampires.
Okay.
Sunglasses on.
They look like a cross between vampires and the Sprockets.
Right?
They were sitting there
and they were just like
drinking coffee
and he was with them.
He's like,
oh my God,
do you know who this is?
Do you know this?
Have you ever seen
this guy perform before?
And they're like,
they're like,
no.
And they could care less,
right?
And he's going,
you wouldn't believe this.
This guy is unbelievable.
He's like the improv king. I've seen him perform. He's incredible. He's a unbelievable. He's like the improv king.
I've seen him perform.
He's incredible.
He's a legend.
He's this.
He goes on.
And then mid that, he goes, what's your name again?
And I go, I'm like, oh, my God, I'm in hell, right?
These people are just staring at me.
He's like Randy Johnston.
He's going on and on about me, about how amazing I am.
And then he doesn't know who I am.
And I go, Gary Jones. And he goes,
What? And I go,
Gary Jones. And he goes,
What? What did you? What? What's your name?
And I go, Gary Jones. And he goes,
Gary Johnson.
This guy is a legend.
Gary Johnson. This guy, Harry
Nielsen. Let's draw some more
attention to him.
How about another?
Why not?
Hey, guys.
This is Mike from Japan.
I'm calling with an overheard.
I was visiting Vancouver last year, and I was walking around on Broadway Street past my hotel
and wandered upon a Chapters bookstore.
And there was a kind of homeless or nomadish looking husband and wife
or maybe not husband and wife but just a man a woman and they crossed the street when the light
turned and they were mid-conversation and i heard you know you're really smart but you're such a
money-grubbing cunt. And she responded with, yeah.
Take care, guys.
Well, that's how you do it. You deliver
a compliment first, and then the
constructive criticism second.
It's easier to swallow that way.
Like us in our auditions.
Oh, wow.
Is that from Japan? Do you think that phone call
came all the way from Japan?
It sounded like it.
Kudos.
It sounded like either Ching or Chang. That's Japanese.
Yeah.
Judo's is what I meant.
All right.
Some more swears.
Hi.
It's pretty loud.
This is Candace from Halifax, Nova Scotia.
I couldn't even...
I'm drunk, so I won't read the room.
But I just heard a guy say... I couldn't even I'm drunk so I won't read a little bit of this until tomorrow
but I just heard a guy
say with a
pseudo
I can't
get no pussy
I'm gonna get
a poutine
I can't get no pussy
I'm gonna get a poutine
Is that right?
A poutine, yes
Yeah
Which is
In our country
It's one
And then the other
Or substitute one for the other
Sure, yeah
You never get two at the same time
No
Oh god
What are we, kings?
What are we, Caligula?
I like that somebody called that in
Obviously from the bar they were getting drunk at
while they were drunk
double points
drunk call from a drunk establishment
with an awesome overheard
my lovely girlfriend Abby
thought to call us
from the other room?
nope, this was earlier
here's one
hey guys, it's Abby calling.
I haven't overheard.
It was in my office.
I was half listening to a conversation, and I just heard the line.
And then a whole bunch of scorpions eat his dick off, and then blank, blank, blank.
And I don't know what they were talking about.
I hope it's a fictional story, but I just thought that was super weird. Bye-bye!
It's not. It's the new role Gary Jones is going to star in.
Her 16th birthday. I wish a zombie would eat Gary Jones' dick.
Yeah, and these... Was it zombies or scorpions?
Scorpions. But these scorpions have been defanged, so don't worry.
Declod. Your dick's not in any actual danger
yeah um we have one more uh they called it in as a uh we do a segment called neighborhood
jerks neighborhood nicknames yeah she doesn't actually have a nickname for this guy okay but
she overheard a bunch of stuff he said so i'm putting it here sounds good hi this is shannon
from omaha calling
in with a neighborhood jerk uh we've recently had a lot of blizzards in omaha so i've been taking
the bus so i didn't have to dig out my car and the other day a guy got on the bus and instead
of a coat he was wearing a winter olympics afghan over his shoulders. And when somebody asked him about it, he told everyone that he used to train figure skaters
for the Winter Olympics.
And his quote was that the only job you had to teach a male figure skier was to catch
the ballerina, look at how pretty she was, and then throw her back.
And he demonstrated that several times and told us that it was the job of senior citizens
to teach the young people how to skate.
And then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a bottle of hot sauce and drank it.
And then someone asked him why he was doing that.
And he said, this is old school basketball.
Better than steroids.
And then he just chugged it.
And he was perhaps
the most awesome bus man
I've ever seen.
But I can't come up with a proper name for him.
So if you guys could help me out,
that would be great. Thanks.
Bye. Oh, his name is Captain Mysterio.
Yeah. The mayor of Omaha. Thanks. Bye. Oh, his name is Captain Mysterio. Yeah.
The mayor of Omaha.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He's the Obama of Omaha.
Sure.
Obama-ha.
That's his nickname, Obama-ha.
Done.
Done and done.
You're welcome.
Obama's the mayor of America.
Yeah.
Well, that's my understanding
Wow
Thank you very much for everybody who called in the overheard
If you want to reach us
For overheards, you can call us
206-339-8328
It's 206-339-TEET
Is that 339?
Yeah, 339 Did I st stutter no no but i noticed you
said it's so you're so used to saying it that you said it's so fast oh yeah i did say it's like
it's two threes then a nine then an eight and three then a two and then eight yeah two six
oh yeah no it's eight it's eight sorry oh why are we doing this gary johnson
i want you to call me minotaur uh are we ready to wrap this up i think we are um we've got a uh
a boatload of suggestions for what we should do for our 100th episode we may or may not be able to
uh to respond to said a lot of people wanted us to do a live
hey don't even mention it okay really because i just wanted to say that we're not gonna do it
okay yeah we're not gonna do a live feed yeah not for the hundred maybe i don't know is that
something that people need to see maybe we do it in the future we haven't figured out
how to do it yeah we don't know how to do it.
Yeah.
Yeah, but we got something.
We came up tonight with something we feel is much better.
Sure.
But, Gary, if people want to find you online, it's hollywoodiscalling.com.
I don't know what it is.
Where would they find Gary Jones?
Where is the best place to find you? What do you mean? Do you have a website? What do you mean, find me? I don't know what it is. Where would they find Gary Jones? Where's the best place to find you?
What do you mean?
Do you have a website?
What do you mean, find me?
I don't know.
Enjoy your work.
Your work.
Oh, my work.
Well, on the debaters.
Oh, yeah.
Are you going to...
I did a Yam and an upcoming debate,
Ikea versus Apple.
Yeah.
Oh, on the CBC.
Against Morgan Brayton.
Yes.
Against Morgan Brayton.
It was a very very very funny debate
uh so uh and the people can find that at cbc.ca yeah yeah yeah just go and just hit the debaters
and yeah that was a great that was a really really great smooth debate very funny good
points all the way across and i got to call morgan a slut twice yeah which is all you wanted to do
really really this is all i wanted to do i mean. Really, this is all I wanted to do.
I mean, it just came from the fact that in Swedish, the words, the end, is slut.
Oh.
So I worked that into my rant, and I ended up saying, you know, I'd like to now end my
rant by just saying the word slut.
And it was great.
You know?
That's the context. It was a great thing.
We need context for
your slut call.
I mean, that was in context.
The only thing that was out of context was
me referring to her
as a whore.
In the green room. There was no Swedish.
There was no context.
It was just me.
That was just me. That was just me.
I was like, Brayton, you're a whore.
Yeah.
And yeah, so check that out.
You can find that at cbc.ca.
We don't have anything.
Do you have something to plug?
I don't really have anything of my own to plug, but a few of our previous guests...
Yes.
There's a web series going on right now.
Oh, the Staff Room.
Staff Room.
Wonderful web series.
Jason Bryden, our previous guest.
Jane Stanton.
And directed it.
Jane Stanton's in it.
David Milchard.
David Milchard's in it.
That's it.
Brandon Beiser.
Never been on the show.
No one knows who it is.
But wonderful, wonderful series.
You can find it on YouTube.
It's called, it's the Staff Room is the name of the page.
I don't think they have an official website,
but if you go to YouTube, you type in the Staff Room,
you will be able to access it.
Only three episodes are up so far, but they're great.
They're short.
They're punchy.
They're very, very smart.
I love them. And so that's
something to check out. And
yeah, if you like the show,
check out our website, StopPodcastingYourself.com
and like we said before,
you can write to us at StopPodcastingYourself
at gmail.com or you can
call us 206-339-8328.
If you enjoyed the show, tell your
friends because that's how we can make this thing
grow and next week is going to be
we're reaching the century
mark if you can believe it
100 episodes we're going to drink 100 shots of
beer in 100 minutes yeah
it's going to be the greatest so come on back
next week for a very drunken
and belligerent episode of Stop Podcasting
Yourself we're not really doing that.