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There's no place to escape to. This is the last podcast. On the left.

Side stories? That's when the cannibalism started. Side stories. Yeah. Oh, buddy. We really put a stress test down yesterday, you and me. We went down to Dintai Fong.

Yes. Oh, my God.

Buddy, I got to say it's It's been too long since we did something like that. I want to say that our server at Dintai Fung, turned out to be a listener, and we didn't disappoint them.

No, absolutely. No, we went hard.

We went hard at 1:00 PM.

It was such a big meal. I didn't tell my wife about it. Me neither.

I didn't want her to know. We went to do a little Christmas shopping. Yeah, we did. Like good boys. Yeah, like really good boys.

Fed capitalism.

Welcome to Side Stories. I'm This is Ed Larson. Hi. But we went to the fucking mall. The Americana. That's what we did, man.

You give money to the devil during Christmas. You have to. That devil is Rick Caruso.

Yeah. If you guys even know I think about the Americana, first of all, it's one of the... How do I put it? It's a safe haven for all of my depression. I've been there many years. I used to stay when I used to come for pilot seasons. I would go, which was the... That's called normally humiliation season. It runs from late December to about mid-March.

You just come into town and they tell you how fat you are for three months, and then you have to go back to New York.

But then they tell you stay fat because if not, you're losing rolls. Yeah. Literally. That's right. Both in your life and on your body.

Yeah, you're too fat to be a cop, but too skinny to be a mall cop.

You have to choose. Welcome to LA. Choose what fat you are. It depends on whether or not it's castable. But I used to go. I used to stay in the Glendale area, and I used to walk the Americana for hours.

See, when I used to come in to do the burn, naturally, shoot a television show.

Oh, that must have been nice.

I would walk the Grove to feast my depression.

I used to walk around and you got- Which is the same thing. It is. Then there's just something about that Michael Buble pumping in. You see the really, very strange. I'm not sure what... They're never straight up American. It's some crazy group of people that have purchased the apartments above the Americana.

Always strong-face.

It is the people who live up. I mean this. This is a giant outdoor, quote, unquote, luxury mall now. Where you go, it got a big fountain. It's got a place where people It's outside, like this fake Asher turf. It's got a couple of restaurants and stuff like that. But above it, lining in a circle, looking down upon the mall, are these high-end, high-end apartments that look like hell on earth.

Yeah, no.

But It's if Michael Bouboubou ran a Supermax person.

But if you like spending on people.

That's where you got to be. That's prime real estate. We went, we fed the machine, we fed the capitalist machine. We bought some presents for a family.

Walked around Nordstrom's. Didn't spend a dime in Nordstrom's, but we walked around.

I was looking at polos the other day, like Sheeny-Shiny polos.

Oh, you can't do... I can't let you go here.

I'm becoming this, man. I got the new nighttime glasses because I wear nighttime glasses because I can't see at night. They're big and thick. I started wearing the polos and stuff. I look like I own properties in Yeah, the polos are where you really got to draw the line because that's either rich scumbag- Then you have the little pinkie. You have the little pinkie ring. Yeah, no. That come next. Pinkie ring is fine. You're a pinkie ring guy.

I'm okay with the pinkie ring, but the polo shirts, that's when you know someone's fucking a beast of shit or got no personality.

I know. You got to be careful.

If you're wearing a polo shirt right now, listen, let's just tear it. Amen. Tear it open from the neck. It's Christmas, you're getting a new shirt, I promise you.

Somebody else is going to replace it with another new wicking fabric.

If your fucking wife gets you a polo shirt for Christmas, I want you to just open it up and just spit on it. Oh, this is after Christmas.

This is after Christmas.

I want you to go into your drawer where you keep your polos. I want you to open up your own dresser drawer in front of your wife, take your dick out and start pissing in the drawer. I'd be like, You did this.

I would never do that to anything my wife gave me. You did this. I'm pushing to get back. I'm pushing against that.

I know my wife did not get me any polos because she knows better.

Because, again, she doesn't want you to look like a bear at a work conference.

Yeah, no.

Because that's what you'd look like.

I look horrible in one of those.

But also at the same time, it gives you sense of power. Because it covers your tits. Fuck golf. No golf. We're not. Natalie said, I'm not allowed to golf because she said that's the only thing that would truly make me unfuckable.

Yeah, no golf.

No watches. No watches.

We were talking watches when we were shopping. You looked at a couple.

Because they fucking get you.

They look good, man. They get you. I would wear a watch.

Yeah, I could see. But back to the story, we know what saved us?

What?

Those fucking Dumlins. Because when we sat- We showed up hungry as fuck, angry, hot ears. Yeah, we ate- Ready to fucking get pissed at everybody. I'm not fucking around. We ate 45 Dumlins.

At least.

We put down 8. We ordered because then remember the woman trying to talk us out of the fourth dish. Yeah.

And we said no. She's like, No, no, no. I was like, Don't worry, we got Bocc Cio. I think we're going to do this.

There's some greens in here. Yeah, we had some Bocc Cio in there that helped it all slide inside. Yeah.

That's what happened on my chips this morning.

What do you mean?

They were huge. They were flaky.

What? You know how like- Like, Benito?

They were still like, they had a shape, but you could tell- Fluffy. If anything touched them, they'd go into pieces.

Yeah, it's like Gabriel Iglesias. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's fluffy. It did be fluffy. Yeah, I mean, but apparently, I believe fluffy poop is still on the... Because guess what's back on the menu?

What's back on the menu? Shit stories.

Oh, yeah. I'm talking about it last week with Marcus Parks.

I poop all the time, man. I love talking about shit stories.

But shit stories We had some pushback because Marcus and I did several weeks in a row where we were talking about stories about people eating shit, doing various things, and people got mad. But now it's like the mandate came back. Maddie held an actual official poll and shit stories.

The back of the mandate. People like this? Oh, really? Oh, yeah, buddy. Oh, Jesus, Henry. Come on. Oh, God. Come on, Maddie. This is why no one shares your microphone. No, man.

I do it for a reason. All right? I literally... A little piece of Din Tai Fung came out.

Yeah, it just lives in there now.

That was two days ago.

Yeah.

It's coming out, man. But I just wanted to thank you to Din Tai Fung for really doing what you fucking do. Slapping it down, man.

Oh, my God.

Dummies just give me... It's just so good.

There's something special about them.

To eat like Nobody's watching.

What was the? The Wantons were the best, though.

Yeah, the spicy Wantons.

Yeah. I like that they stack them on top of each other. It's like you're hiding a dinner under your dinner.

That's the thing. They put that on there. They basically say they put it all the big stacks of the steaming drawers, man. It's so fun to do.

What was the other thing we got that wasn't... Oh, cucumber salad.

Yeah, you made me get that. It was good, wasn't it? It was.

I lived my life by cucumber salad.

See, I like a seaweed salad.

A seaweed salad's good. I got another one with seaweed salad.

It says here, what causes fluffy poop? Fluffy poop, according to the Bristol Stool Scale, foamy or fluffy poop would be described as it's got fluffy pieces, raggedy edges, mushy stools. It says that the stool is fat content.

Oh, cool. That tracks. Yeah, no, it's leaving my body. That's for damn sure.

Yeah, it's because we ate nothing but pork fat.

Yeah, and shrimp.

Yeah, shrimp and crab. It was great. Yeah, but honestly, otherwise, it's not too bad. But go with your buddy. Go out old-school shopping. That's what was nice. It wasn't online. If I'm already doing this, I'm already part of this fucking massive scam that is Christmas. Yeah. All right, at least I did it the old-fashioned way. I got our steps in.

I was showing up. Yeah, doing it right, getting a big meal, treating us first.

Looking at people, saying hi. I feel like that's the one thing because now, obviously, you probably have guessed, we've prerecorded this. This is out during what we are normally The rest of our staff and everybody else is on break. This is our Christmas break. We're now in the afterglow of Christmas.

Now we're wearing all of our shit that we got. Yes.

This is my... Besides the Halloween, I would say this is the number one one time of year. It's because what's so nice about the 26th, because as far as I'm concerned, that means Christmas should come to a screaming fucking halt.

January third is when that happens.

Sure. But still, I do believe if I had my druthers of if and when I'm in charge of this whole fucking American experiment, I would strip down. I will allow you your Christmas beginning December first, but the 25th at midnight, I want the trees in the public space is coming down. I want the lights coming down. I want the carols gone. I want the gray non-being of the 26th through the 31st.

See, I go November 26th to January third. That's my... As soon as...

See, I don't consider New Year's Eve to be in the Christmas area.

I could be that... You could still wear your greens and reds.

I think it's the rebuke of Christmas.

It's the rebuke of Christmas.

Christmas? Yes, because Christmas is a non-fucking day. Christmas is not a day where a lot of people are getting pipe. Are you sure? Yes.

I don't know about that. You don't think so? You know what? Now that I know, I'm definitely doing it.

Please. Let's fuck on Christmas Day. Let's change it then. Christmas morning, fuck, pancakes. I think that's incredible.

French toast, maybe. That's never happened.

I think it's because I was always with my family.

Yeah, that's the thing is when you fly home, people don't like having sex in the family homes.

No, because my mom has a... She bought this. She's like, Just so you know, because you're not here anymore, it's not like you visit. We made sure I wanted to have a foldable bed in there so I could do it. It's my meditation room, Henry Thomas. She shared my room, your meditation room. It's not relaxing in there.

Yeah, no, never was. No.

She got this- Fucking the ghost of trillions of sperm. So many comes. The Holocaust of little Henrys that have just been laid to waste in that room. Me experimenting with myself.

That carpet became tile.

No, Natalie doesn't want to be in there. She's not sexified in there. Also, she got this futon where the second hat of it lays it like a slant. You do feel like I'm in the Andes Mountains. I feel like I'm gripping on a, literally, like a sliding hill coming down. So it's just not sexy.

But I view that- Do you have to sleep on a futon when you go home for Christmas? No offense, Mama Serrano.

It's just how it is.

Really? Yeah.

In a hotel. It's psychological. You get a hotel. And let her cry. Dude, honestly- Hear it from the hotel. I think the first year, she cries.

The second year, she's mad. The third year, she's used to it.

You're talking about her like she's Annabelle the Pitbull. I don't know if she does. I don't know if she registers these lessons. But we're going to figure out that. I do think that we did declare her a BNB is a necessary thing. But also, Airbnb sucks because it's a horrible company.

I hate that. I got to pay for them to clean, and then I got to clean. Go fuck yourself.

Are they an advertiser? Okay, then we're fine. Yeah. It's hard because I feel like on the 31st is when the fucking starts back up. You know what I mean? You have 26.

Everyone's playing an emotional comma. I think the 29th.

Side story is lpotl@gmail. Com.

I'd love to know if people- I think the 29th is when it starts getting wild. People fucking- Because you want to get some in before the end of the year.

I just did not truly believe that people are fucking on Christmas. Because I just think it's a sexless day.

I mean, if you got kids, you're not fucking.

It's like when you have to wake up early to go to a child's birthday, which is horrible.

Yeah, no. I don't care about your birthday until you're 40.

No, but yeah, honestly, it doesn't matter. Until you're 21, invite me then.

Invite me then. I'll be there, and then I'll be back when you're 40. If I'm alive.

Like you're a real father. Yeah, that's what Real fathers do.

That's why I'm not having kids. I'm still 42 years old. They're not moving out till I'm fucking... In my 60 minimum?

Yeah, dude. Fuck that shit. Old.

Yeah, no.

I'm just going to woo your kids into liking me. That sounds awful. Don't use the word woo.

Well, I mean, you know what I'm talking about here. I'm not talking... What are we talking about? I'm going to be a good influence. I'm going to be a gentleman. I'm going to teach you how to talk to a lady.

I love that idea of introducing a man to another person's kids being like, Don't worry, he's a gentleman. That's the first thing you got to know.

But yeah, I'd love to find out what people are saying because leading up to Christmas, I have issues with Christmas.

One of my truly biggest issues of Christmas, which is an interesting thing we barely have to deal with anymore, which is what we had to deal with in New York. It's still around. I'm certain a lot of you guys have Santa Cons in your towns. Oh, God. In your towns.

I would say, Yeah, we want to talk Santa Con.

I think we will talk a little bit about Santa Con because it is a scourge. I do know, but I also have a distinct issue with yucking someone's young. I know- You have a problem with- See, spring break, I get. I love Billy Joel.

Yeah.

Billy Joel, I've almost gotten to fights of people saying mean things about Billy Joel. He sells out Madison Square Garden every year. Of course. So does Trump. But it's an idea of these guys are, yes, I do understand on some level, it's cheesy. People don't like Billy Joel. They find him to be hack. I think they're stupid. They're obviously not from Long Island. They're obviously not from where I'm from.

No.

To not know what the power of Billy Joel is.

The first time I ever smelled weed was at a Billy Joel Elton John concert. That's incredible. My father was like, You know what that is? I was like, What? He's like, That's weed.

That's weed. Probably being smoked by an undercover police officer who's there just to enjoy the concert. I understand why people don't like hacky things in general, but also I love Billy Joel. I went and I sang until I cried at MGM to go in to see him at Madison Square Garden. It was incredible. But I feel like the same thing about Santa Con, where I would even put Comicon in there, too.

Can I do a quick Billy Joel gripe? I saw him, MSG, his 70th birthday. Do you know what he fucking did? He had his daughter come seeing New York State of mind. You believe that? This is why people flip out. Thumbs down. New York State of mind, 70th birthday. Madison Square Garden.

Because you know what he used to do? Because what he does is that he calls out all the counties normally. He sings it, and I remember when he went, Woodhaven. We're like, That's from Woodhaven. That's his best closer.

Yeah.

He gave it to his stupid daughter.

He gave it to his daughter. She came out dressed like a fucking, I mean, scowooch. That would have been my favorite part.

Let me look her up.

She kept doing the….

It's just like, you're not.

We're not here for this.

It's also, you know what?

That's a special song to me.

She's beautiful.

She's fine.

But I like the idea of them pulling… I also have it.

It's got nothing to do with beauty or not beauty.

I have an issue when you go see a guy that sing and then you went to go see and he hands the audience the microphone for the big song or whatever.

Have her sing some other shit. Have her sing her song.

I got no problem with that. Honestly, she could definitely have her be on the Downeaster Alexa. New York state of mind in New York? She could be on that one. Honestly, she could do the other side of Seans from Italian Restaurant.

Oh, that'd be nice. I could do it back and forth with that.

Yeah, do back and forth versus.

Yes, I'd be into that. Not down Easter, Alexa. We got to get the pure version of it.

Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I said that one. It's definitely not that one.

I've been rolling a Fisherman lately. I don't know what's happened to me.

What else would be wanted? What could she sing?

What could she sing? I mean, Only the Good Die Young. Yes. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. Oh, what's the one?

Oh, wait, no, Rob just got offended. I'm sorry.

The real The Do-up one. All the longest time. All the longest time. She could sing that one.

Yeah, sure. Also, yeah, whatever.

Back to this. Born in the USA. That's what she could sing. She could sing Springsteen. Yes.

Somebody else's song. Sing Like a rock by Bob Seger. All right? But I understand people hate on Santa Con, largely because it's horrible.

You don't like Martian other people's thing. The Santa Con, people love Santa Con.

But the only people who- In the first couple of years, it was hilarious. Yes. The people who actively participate in Santa Con, for those of you that don't know, you're lucky. But for the rest of you, Santa Con is a... Santa It is an unofficial, I want to say it's like a roving party where people dress up as Santa and ruin everybody's night.

You put a piece of shit in a costume, they become such a bigger piece of shit.

That is just an old axiom that remains to be true.

It is so crazy how fast a fucking asshole turns into a major asshole.

In a Santa costume. Yeah. No, but I like the idea of the pub crawl. Yeah, sure. I like you going and doing Santa I like group costumes. I don't even mind it. I don't even mind stuff like improv everywhere. Does it sometimes? Yes. Well, they started it. It hurts me. Yes, they started it. But I don't mind. I think it's fun. I understand. It's like, Oh, good. Let these people let go. I get to let go all the time. I scream all day. It's nice for them to be able to get it out. But the problem with Santa Con has really been is what it brings to places, which a lot of times seems to be mostly public urination.

Oh, I mean, forget public urination. I mean, you're lucky if it's urine. It's everything. First of all, let's go back, back, back, back. I used to be a manager at the Village Pour House in the middle of the East Village. Rip, right next to Webster Hall.

Dude, dead center. Ground Zero.

Third Avenue in 10th Street. Of Santa Con. Not only was it Ground Zero, it was the bar that had started and you got your cup that you could bring to all the other bars because they give you a cup that you bring around to all the bars.

Technically, that's when you got them at the freshest.

Yeah, but I got them on the first bad year. The first year when it stopped being cute and all the fucking drugs from Long Island came out and all the Jersey drugs came out. Then it became a fucking shit show. My poor house, the Village Poor House, it was a great bar. It's gone now. Rip. Taring down the building. Very sad about it. All right? So these Santas, they come in. I show up to work 10 AM. We open at 11. All right? I get there at 10:00 AM, lying around the block of Santa Claus's.

Our poor house, man. So sad it's gone.

We had so many good times there. Oh, yeah. Oh, man. I used to run fucking comedy shows in the back.

Yeah, we did the Crab Boil Comedy Show. Yeah, the Crawfish Boiled Comedy Show. We did dog shit there a simple time.

It was so much fun, man. I show up to work, lying around the block, people waiting to get in my bar before I even show up to open it. In an hour, drinking with pints of Vaca in the street. They're getting hammered. They're already fucking causing a mess, waiting to get inside, literally banging on the glass and shit.

I'm looking at this right now. People are saying they were seeing knife fights. Yes. At Santa Con. It is rough. They just show up. Very interesting. One of the planners of Santa Con talks about how they were at a specific bar in September of 2012, talking about Santa Con with the bartender. They I happen to say, I'm one of the organizers of Santa Con. The bartender was like, Don't you ever bring that here to this bar? And the organizer was like, I would never do that. Not here. This is my bar.

Yeah, man, because they take over. There were hundreds inside my bar at the point where I just stopped giving them real food. I'm like, We're only serving hot dogs and French fries for the rest of the day.

You're being fed children.

I was like, No, you don't get to order off a menu anymore. It's hot dogs French fries and chicken fingers. That's all you people get. All right? Then no more cocktails. I would cut out cocktails.

All right, let me put it this way. How do we fix Santa Claus? Because I like this idea. I think that anything that takes the Christ out of Christmas is great. Have it be binge drinking. You know what I mean? If that's what you need to celebrate for this week, go ahead. That's your lifestyle, right? How do we fix it?

Man, I'll tell you one year, this isn't how you fix it.

Because I do a Mrs Santa Claus, but that's That sounds like something else. Oh, that's just...

Yeah, you're just asking for strippers. Yeah, that sounds like fun. That sounds like a good time. Maybe if they all go to one place and everyone knows where they are, it's the crawling that's the issue.

What if we put a cordon-like area? If there was a big area- The North Pole. That's a great idea. What if we do something like that where they have to go to almost like, not a pen, but you take what's his parts? What's the name of the conference center?

Oh, Javit Center? Yeah.

Put them in the Javit Center.

Yeah.

Then you could spray hose, take all the furniture out of it.

Just keep them all in there. Yeah. Let them go crazy.

Let them go crazy. Lock the doors on it. Maybe they go in there and you lock the doors. They have to stay in. Maybe if you go in, you have to be in for eight hours. They were like rats.

If the basement door opened for too long, they would scurry in the basement. I caught multiple people fucking in the basement of the bar I worked in. It was like, oh, my God. One of the craziest things I ever saw working in a bar, one of my waitresses was sitting there talking to me, and some Santa Claus comes up to me, wretched human being that he was, tiny ass dude, licks his hand and slaps my waitress in the ass. While looking me in the eye, I'm going to think it's fucking hilarious. And I just engulfed him, just covered. And then Looney Toons threw him out of the bar, literally held him by the back of his pants and fucking tossed him into the street. It got like that, dude. It was so fucking great. They took over so hard. I had to open. We had these side doors. I had to open the doors because it just started fogging up intensely in there.

People were like, it was just getting so fucking hot because everyone's in a Santa suit. It's like all of the body heat shooting to the God damn ceiling.

The next day after Santa Con, I'm sitting there and we're across from Webster Hall. I'm talking to the manager of Webster Hall, and he's like, Crazy day yesterday. We're fucking all got PTSD. I'm like, Yeah, man, it was fucking nuts. He's like, You'll never believe what happened to He's like, I'm sitting at home. It's four in the morning. I'm at my girlfriend's house. I'm playing video games. She's asleep. Her roommate comes in. She's dressed like Santa Claus. She's all woozy and shit. She's like, Hey, how are you doing? He's like, Oh, you have a good time for Santa Claus? I was like, Yeah, a good time. Santa Claus, it was fine. And then he's like, All right, well, get some sleep. And she turns around and the back of her Santa suit is all fucking brown from blood, just like fucking calming down the back of her shirt.

Let me have my Billy He's just like, All right, well, I'm taking her to the hospital.

He brings her to the emergency room. He said the entire emergency room was just filled with people dressed like Santa Claus.

Yes, that makes a lot of sense.

It's just like, What the fuck are we doing? He took a picture, they made him delete it.

It's hard because We are a society in America that likes that type of partying. You notice certain other countries do. They do all of that.

I love hard drinking, obviously.

But it's hard when you weaponize it. Because what it makes is that it makes this... It's a fervor that builds. Or maybe it's good for Santa Con. There's something along the lines of maybe you have to do some form of charity work after.

Well, they do. They donate money. They do donate money.

But I'm saying you go to a soup place. You go do something.

Oh, and give soup. You don't want these people giving soup to homeless people.

But you feel like you're... You know that guilt you feel after you've drunk in for days? Yeah. Maybe weaponize that. Use that. Where it's like, you've been out here. All right, good work. You trashed Thompson Square Park. Yeah. Worst than it was before. Now you got to go and put in some hours at the charity thing so that next you're allowed to do Santa Con again.

While everyone's all hammered, you should just get their fucking fingerprints. The cops should just go around and fingerprint everybody and just put them all on record because you know they're committing crimes in the future. These fucking pieces of shit. Deeply evil. Yeah, I know. Here's some stories from Grub Street of Santa Con this year.

I truly don't recommend turning into the information state.

I don't give a fuck about these fucks. Wow. Put them on the list. I want to know who they are.

I think a lot of these guys got clearer Anyway. All right.

In East Village. Yeah, they do. They get through, right? They go right through.

I'm one. The East Village resident who met a puking Santa on her stoop.

Listen, this is from Grub Street. Last year, I left my apartment in the middle of the afternoon during prime Santa Con time. And when I opened the door of my building, I was met by an individual wearing plaid boxers, suspenders, and a Santa hat, no shirt, questionable shoes, vomiting on my stoop. Once he had finished, I guess he had decided to really go for the gold star. So he peed all over his fucking pile of vomit, causing it to somewhat clean the offending area of his stairs. When he realized I was watching him, he went for a high five.

Yeah. It makes a lot of sense. But if you look at this, apparently the original Santa Claus, it started with this thing that was from Copenhagen. It was a protest against American Commercialism of Christmas. It was called. That definitely was what it was called. That's how you pronounce it. It was a four-day demonstration, which they entered Department stores and began handing out books to confused shoppers. It was all about talking about simpler lifestyle, finding joy in the season. It was dressing Santa Claus and was supposed to be a bit of mischievous fun, but it was supposed to be an anti-capitalist move. That has since changed.

Yeah, completely reversed. It started with a thing, I guess. Because they all buy Santa suits.

But there was a group in San Francisco called the Cacophony Society that was doing it a little bit more politically and interesting. They took the streets posing as Santa's on strike. They bantered with locals and disrupted high society parties aiming for a little mucking of a bullshit holiday, which was demonstrably based on an unholy alliance of religious hypocrisy and mercantile lust. Yeah, fuck. Yeah, of course. But then we flipped it because America is just real good at it. We have taken many things that are supposed to be sincere, political things, and we've just turned it into an all day fucking drinking party. It hasn't happened in 9/11 yet.

I was just thinking about that. But it's coming. It's got to come.

It's in the air.

It's over 20 years old.

I grilled a steak this year.

Yeah? As long as you grill two next to each other, two strips, two new...

I'm just saying. That's just the first step towards-It's well done, right? Yeah, it's very crispy. But I one fell off the grill, flew itself It's coming. We're going to be having 9/11 barbecues, I'm going to say, 10 years from now.

You know why we don't? Are you ready for this? Why we don't?

John Stewart.

Labor Day is the week before.

But then that's two.

Yeah, I know.

That's two weekends in a fucking row, dude. Yeah.

Nothing. 9/11 was labor week. We all got off of work the whole week. I remember.

I was in school.

I was in school, too. Well, I was in Tallahassee. I wasn't really going to school.

Yeah, you're going to community college.

Yeah, but not even at that point.

But I think community college, actually, it's completely legitimate.

Of course, it's legitimate. That's how people sneak in there.

Yeah, my fucking dentist went to community college. Uh-oh. Yeah. He says that's why he did it. His whole is doing it on the fly. What does that even mean? Yeah, there was a Santa urinating in the middle of McDonald's in front of a child, according to New York Post. That is my main issue with Santa Con. I guess now there's a new way. They have a list of rules, the six Fs of Santa Con, because they're trying to put this. They were trying to do this after nine.

Fuck, fight, fart. Yeah, fist, fuck.

Don't fuck with one, kids, two, cops, Cribs, three, bar staff, four, New York City, the city as a whole, five- Because we hate it now. Oh, we do. New York City, Bacs requirements. Oh, okay. Then six, Santa's charity mission, because they are saying that they do it for charity.

They do it for charity. Also, do you remember in 2014 when Santa Con was the same day as the Eric Garner riots? Yes, I do. That was a fucking big, fucking massive problem. That was a big It was a big problem. It was like everyone's marching all the way up and down, Santa Con.

Guess what doesn't happen at the Halloween parade? Any of this. Guess what doesn't happen at the Thanksgiving parade? Almost none of this.

Well, it's a parade.

It's different. I'd be saying there's events that people go to. You never hear this about Halloween. Halloween is supposed to be the big nichevious one. Yeah, that's when the gang initiations happen. But I don't think that's real.

Man, I remember when we were... Because I was in the march. I went and participated in the march, I went He participated in the march. I remember seeing some... I honestly felt bad for him. Some Black kid dressed as Santa Claus with a bunch of white guys, and then everyone circled him and just started booing him. It's a bad place. What are you fucking doing? It's a bad place. How did you mess this up?

But then that's why if you're going to do Santa Con, if you're going to do it, just think about the reason why you're doing it. On what level are you affecting your local environment. Because if you're a little town, you can probably get away with Santa and have fun and have it be a genuinely nice night. Nobody breaks an arm. Nobody fucking pinches a child.

Apparently, there was a decent Santa Con in... What's that? A Manhattan, New Jersey. Sure. On the Roundtable Facebook page, someone went to Santa Con, and we've bitched about Santa Con before back in the day. Someone posted a picture. I caught these two Santa Claus smoking weed, and Then you know who one of the Santa Claus's was? Who? My little cousin that I haven't talked to in seven years.

Is the first time you saw your little cousin smoking weed on the Roundtable Facebook page? Yes. That is the most Roundtable thing I've heard. Yeah.

I took it down and I messaged the guy. I was like, Listen, you didn't do anything wrong, but that's my little cousin. My aunt, her grandmother, is on this page.

Oh, my God.

I hit her up. I was I sent her the picture. I was like, I just saved your life.

What does she do?

I'm not bringing that up.

She's like, I'm lucky I even told this story. Yeah, I actually feel like you shouldn't have told this story at all.

I know, but I got enough cousins where no one's going to know who it was.

Yeah, you do have a lot of cousins.

I got a shit ton of cousins.

We know it's a female cousin. We know it's some job where they shouldn't be smoking weed publicly in Santa's suit. That's not good. Because then now I'm actually concerned. Maybe we do need to report your cousin.

We're not reporting my cousin?

Maybe there's something bad. What is your cousin?

Well, my cousin just got a fucking punch cooler in my book. I thought about that.

Yeah, they made it to the Facebook page. But how random is that?

It is. It was terrible. I was looking, and I was like, my mind was like, No way that's her. Then I went and looked at a modern picture of her because I haven't seen her in so long. I was like, That's fucking her.

I have a story that is just like this that I'm going to share with you off the air. You never know what's going to come down the pipe.

I saw a summer school teacher in a porno store once, and I was with another one of my friends who was in the class with me.

Never go to your local porno store if you're a fucking teacher in that area.

Yeah, never.

Don't go in. Never. Just go out of town.

Yeah.

Go to another county.

I remember one time I saw a football coach at a Deadhead store when I was a kid.

See, that's fun.

Yeah, but that was also an hour away. He was just bad luck.

Yeah, and a lot of guys... I mean, Grateful Dead goes a lot of different ways. I find that it's one of those hippie bands that a lot of conservative people also listen to as well. It's weird. It's just they like to groove because they're denying their... It's where they go to go feel things. Yeah. Then they come home and they go, and they let all that. They're just riddled with cancer cells.

It's a baby boomer rave. Yes. It's a deadhead show.

That's exactly what that is.

Yeah. Live from New York Way.

It's Christmas time. I don't know. We're almost here for New Year's Eve. It's Christmas. I know that we technically did our New Year's Eve episode already. You're not going to hear that yet?

New Year's Eve is a couple of days away. It is a couple of days away. That's, I feel, a very similar Santa Con vibe. Don't go to bars on New Year's Eve.

Unless you got... You know what I also miss a little bit about New York, is a quiet local bar, New Year's Eve, where you go to your local bar and you hang out with the same people that you hang out with normally, and you do a real low-key... That's one of my favorite. It's like last year where we rented a little tiny room. That was cool. And we just got drunk in a room, and that was really nice to do. But do you have any resolutions coming? Because we talked a little bit with Marcus about it.

New Year's resolutions? I mean, real ones just double down on stand up. But I would say fun ones or just personal ones. I got this thing where it's just like, I fell off it and I used to do it and I want to pull it back again. Just call someone once a week. Yeah. Just call someone once a week. It's just old buddies, family members.

No one's going to turn on your phone call. No one's going to get it.

Just once a week, just catch up. It could be a five-minute conversation. It could be an hour and a half.

But it's about building it up.

Yeah. Because you want to claim you're close with these people, but you haven't talked to him in years. That's hard to do. I'm going to pick someone every week, an old friend. That's a warning. I'm coming for you, Ron Crasnell.

It's coming for you, Ron Crasnell. Ron's a good guy.

Yeah, great guy. Doing great. But then you go two years without talking to him. You're like, What am I doing here?

But I love about old buddies, though, for the most part. You can catch right up. You can catch right back up. That's the best part. You just pick up the phone, just reestablish that connection. That's one less enemy out there. One less enemy. You're glad I called that guy. To get another guy off the list.

What about you? What do you got?

I think that I want to get back into doing some form of... I started playing pickleball with Cino. Okay, that's nice. I think I'm going to try to do that more often. Stretching?

Oh, yeah. Because those people, I mean- They're too athletic. You're not doing ketamine in pickleball, right?

God, that makes me feel so fucking bad.

I'm sorry. Was that a bad... That's not a joke, really.

No, it's Matthew Perry. It's not. It's just sad. It's just sad, dude. You just can't. No. The only thing I do is pure caffeine, man.

Even that's dangerous. I'm not going to fucking do this to me.

I'm sick of everybody telling me everything I like because something's going to kill me.

I mean, what are you going to drink a bunch of coffee and then go play pickleball and shit yourself?

I bring a coffee with two pickleball.

Really? Yeah. You bring a coffee, two pickleball?

Yeah.

You would have been a horrible athlete.

No, I would have been incredible, but it's 1935. You know what I mean? I'm incredible. A jar of buttermilk. You know a couple of cigars.

I mean, Babe Ruth did it. Yeah, that's me.

Absolutely, you could have done that.

That's the thing. He's one of the best baseball players of all time, and he did it all fucking hammered.

Well, there's a lot of averaging now. It's about his hits. I don't think he could run around the bases. He was a good pitcher, right?

He was a great pitcher.

Yeah.

Yeah. No. He had more strikeouts than anyone else at the time.

It was harder to be a batter than.

I mean, imagine.

They were thinking about the war. All right. That's what's hard. Think about that, how many athletes during that time period went and fucking shot somebody in the head.

Oh, yeah.

Elvis Presley. I was thinking about that today.

Well, he didn't shoot nobody. He didn't shoot anybody in the head. He was shifting and dancing, and he was shaking hands.

They took care of him.

Jimmy Stuart killed people with his bare hands. Jimmy Stuart, yeah. Don Rickles worked on the SS, I have something. He was a Navy man. He fucking shot the gun and shit.

Yeah, but I'm talking about Jimmy Stewart knelt on a fucking German's neck. Yeah, I bet. Right? These guys, and they were just back to acting.

Yeah, I believe. That's crazy to me. I believe that.

I guess if I were going to change anything else, I guess I just can't let anybody dampen my shine.

Yeah, man. It's very important because if anyone's trying to dampen your shine, that means their shine sucks.

Yeah, because guess what, man? If you try to dampen my shine, I'm going to end your shine. Yeah, man. I'm going to fucking knock that candle right out.

You're going to put some poopoo on them.

I can now.

I'm not going to.

Because they were allowed to. It's almost 2024. It's New Year, and this year, I think things are going to be all right.

What was the best shit you took in 2023? Can you go back and think of one? I had one a couple of weeks ago that was like, it like punched the toilet water. It was fucking wild.

Well, nothing is like, so if you really want to get granular, a lot of the times what I'll do is 2-3 shits in a row.

Oh, yeah, when you need it.

Then I'll go like, flimp, flump, right? In a small period of time and get it all out once in that way. But every once in a blue moon, I just get it done in one. When it's like that and it sounds like Santa's coming down the chimney into a living room filled with water, That's how I know I'm healthy. You know what I mean?

When Santa visits Aquaman's house.

It's time for you to go meet Jason Momoa. That's what I call my toilet Jason Momoa. Jason Mamoa.

Jason Mamoa's house. The big ones are really when you're sleeping and it wakes you up. It only happens a couple of times a year for me, but you always know. If it wakes me up-Timing.

My timing is off. I try not to do that.

Yeah, I try not to either.

Because nothing's like... I want to say I had one where it was like I had a dream where my butt was stuck in a bucket. No, it's just like, I can't get out. I can't get out. I can't get out. I can't get out of the bucket. I woke up just violent and I have in his shit. I'm just so glad I didn't shit the bed.

Man, the best thing that ever happened to me was that ever happened to Julie, bathroom, not in our bedroom.

Oh, she was saved by that. Because When you're in there, it smells like this one thing just put on an aftershave.

Oh, my God. But she was in like... She's an activist for ladies rights. She was in a very important meeting.

She must know a lot about woman suffrage.

Yes. But the bathroom is right next to her meeting room. I didn't know how thin the walls of my new apartment were. I ruined one of her meetings.

Oh, yeah, because they're like, Hey, is someone dropping off bags of wet cement behind you in your house? It sounds like, do you have a man working in the house who's stuck in a vent? These are...

Oh, God. It's usually that. It's just like, oh, Jesus.

Did you invite a chaplain over to come to your home to bless?

To bless someone giving themselves last rights?

This is the last time I'm ever going to do this. What an informative episode has been. It is We Have Talked.

Yeah.

We Talked to You. You know why we talk to you? Because we love you. We love our listeners so much. I can't quit you. I refuse. I can't quit you. Listener, I want you to enjoy your fucking life because if you don't enjoy it, no one else is.

I'm also be dead. I hope you had a good Christmas, a happy Hanica, quanties, even just screaming about it. That's fun.

Even just that. Go to Amazon or the iTunes on Apple, but they changed everything with the update. I hate what they've done with the update. What? But on stupid Apple, they changed all the stupid apps. They changed everything.

Mine didn't change.

You ain't there yet. You're going to get there. But go to How to ruin the holidays and rent it. Oh, you're right. Because you're going to help an independent film make a little bit of its money back. We did, I, again, it's a Christmas movie. I'm in. I hate Christmas in it.

I went to the theater. You did? I went and saw it. I was the only person in there, which was I wanted people to be there for you, but it was really nice to just sit there and bootleg it.

Yeah, bootleg it and laugh at it. They go to How to Ruin the holidays, take a look at it by Operation Sunshine. We have those. They go to a local comic book shop, and then live every Every day, longing and knowing that the December 26 through the 31st is coming for you. That's right, baby. That's a time period where you can really just laugh knowing that your boss can ask you for a lot of shit.

Yeah.

You're getting it. That's right. Until January third.

January third. That's when life gets bad for two and a half months.

All the rest of us, it comes the worst it's going to be.

That's why you need good Christmas present.

That's what's horrible, too, is that I was talking about this in therapy the other day. It's the snap back after Christmas break. You might want to start. That's why it's good. I work when I'm not working because then it makes the working time doesn't feel as insane. Yeah. Also, I'm sick.

Do you ever think... Sometimes it's good if you sit on a bunch of tacks so you're never that happy. Yes.

Break a bunch of glass and put it in your shoes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. During the Christmas holiday, just so you don't get too relaxed. Don't get too relaxed. But that's why you got about 72 hours of not being observed. You're going to laugh. You're going to laugh during that time period, and you're going to love the fact that that's who you really are. It's not the person who shows up to work every day. It's not the person that goes and meets with your and shit like that. It's the person in the fucking three-day-old underwear in your sweat pants sitting, playing that PS5, if you got it, you know what I mean? Just in total fucking near sleep, yet still awake, covered in soup. That's you. And that's the person you got to love the most. So the 26th to the 28th, you're going to meet that guy, that girl, again. Yeah. And you just fucking wrap your arms around that person.

I want to propose something.

I'm not getting married to you. I'm already done. I'm not doing that ever again.

Forget it. No, but the... What do you call it? All right, so you know people do dry January? Sure. I think it's a little tough to do dry January. It's so cold. You're coming off a Bender. You stop cold turkey like that. It's tough. I'm thinking dry March 20th to 4:20. It's not too bad. You break it on 4:20.

But then the problem is that if you smoke weed on 4:20, you haven't smoked for a month, you're going to fucking have anesthesia.

How else are you going to not drink if you don't smoke You got to spoke weed the whole time. That's right. I'm sorry. But it's our lives. That's what we do. No, no, no. Anyone who takes out weed during dry January is a fucking psychopath.

Hey, man, you should know that. You should know that we're correct because we're fucking surgeons.

That's right, man. Actually, I have a surgeon in my family, and he probably doesn't agree with any of my life choices.

No, no, no, no. Violently disagree.

January fourth, I'm going to be in Ontario, California, opening for Jermaine Fowler. It's going to be a fucking blast. Come check that out. It's the improv. I'm very excited to be hanging with boy. Because he's got a new hour, right? He's doing a full hour, and I'm doing 20 minutes up top. So it's going to be a lot of fun. Come check us out. We're going to fucking be super bro-y, and he's going to give me a ride there and back, and he's very nice, and I love him.

It's going to be really nice. I'm excited for you.

All right, guys. You all be good to yourselves.

Hale, Henry. Mark is not here. I'll take it.

Yeah, you take it. All right, boys.

Hale, Edward.

Yeah, and Hale, Julie.

See, good. I'm throwing in one for the wife.

Hale, Julie.

That's nice to see. She deserves it. That's all the gift she needs.

That is all the... I mean, we bought stuff for her.

Good. I mean, I was saying that's her guess. There's no way.

She's going to love her Crocs.

You said it.

But this comes out afterwards. I can say whatever the fuck I want.

Yeah, good. I'm glad you already bought it. Yeah, that's fine. You can't just whisper.

Crocs.

She's doing it. Crox. Com. Hey there, buddy.

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