#154 - Neal Brennan

Neal Brennan joins the pod to discuss being the youngest of 10 siblings, conduct some high level media analysis, offer hope to incels, swear off food and temptation, advocate for a futuristic monastic lifestyle, explain why actors doing pods is a snake-eating-its-tail situation, and much more. Neal and Stav help callers including a guy who almost hooked up with a C-list celebrity, and a woman who seeks to make quicker intellectual connections with the men she’s dating. See Neal Brennan live and follow him on social media: https://www.nealbrennan.com/ https://twitter.com/nealbrennan https://instagram.com/nealbrennan https://www.facebook.com/nealbrennanofficial/ ☎️ Have a question for a regular episode? Call 904-800-STAV and leave a voicemail to get advice! 🎟️ See Stavvy live on the Dreamboat Tour 🛥️💕!!! https://stavvy.biz/ for tickets ‼️ Bonus episodes every week! Unlock exclusive, Patreon-only episodes at https://www.patreon.com/stavvysworld

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

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• 0:46Speaker 00

  and toes. Common side effect is nausea. For full prescribing information, call 1-833-4-NURTC or visit Nurtac.com. All right, back to your podcast, playlist, or whatever's keeping you going today.

• 1:02Speaker 01

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• 1:28Stavros Halkias?

  Welcome, everybody, to Stavi's World. 904-800-STOP. Call in, we'll solve your problems. We're coming at you live from the Manhattan studios, our permanent base here in the old CBGB's. We took over the John Varvato store that is now in, and now it's Stavi Baby Studios.

• 1:54Speaker 03

  Do you have an issue with that? When they like...

• 1:57Stavros Halkias?

  I'm not like...

• 2:00Speaker 03

  I'm not... I'm like, kind of anti-nostalgia. If it's like, really historical...

• 2:05Stavros Halkias?

  Sure.

• 2:06Speaker 03

  Cool.

• 2:06Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 2:07Speaker 03

  Like if it's, you know, over a hundred years old, save it.

• 2:11Stavros Halkias?

  Do I have an issue with it?

• 2:12Speaker 03

  Like, I'm not saying it should be a, what's the right thing to do with this? If CBGB is no longer a viable business.

• 2:19Stavros Halkias?

  Right, right, right, right.

• 2:20Speaker 03

  What's the landlord supposed to do? I own the building.

• 2:24Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:25Speaker 03

  And this, this club, which they didn't treat it great, by the way.

• 2:30Stavros Halkias?

  Right, right, right, right. I don't know, yeah, I wonder what that place smelled like. You know what I mean? How much?

• 2:35Speaker 03

  I'm not, look, I don't think the landlord did a lot of like upkeep.

• 2:38Stavros Halkias?

  No, no, no, no, no.

• 2:40Speaker 03

  He's like, what's supposed to happen?

• 2:43Stavros Halkias?

  Okay, that's a great question. I think, here's the, here's the issue there is, once we, landlord is very interesting point there. Because do, do I love the symbolism of something that's a cultural landmark? Being turned over to a brand that, does anyone give a fuck about John Varve? Like, it'd be one thing if it was like, something useful that people go to. I mean, even a fucking Chipotle on some level, it's like, you know.

• 3:07Speaker 03

  Completely agree.

• 3:08Stavros Halkias?

  People go in and out of that place, it's gonna get you, we're talking about.

• 3:11Speaker 03

  And also a great, very salty chip.

• 3:13Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, oh, when they.

• 3:14Speaker 03

  An incredibly salty chip.

• 3:16Stavros Halkias?

  When you get the batch that's fresh.

• 3:18Speaker 03

  Oh, fuck.

• 3:19Stavros Halkias?

  And you get that translucent. When you get the translucent chips completely, where the salt is stuck to it, like it's honey.

• 3:26Speaker 03

  Go live on Instagram already.

• 3:27Stavros Halkias?

  Good Christ almighty. But here's the thing, that's a brand, and nobody gives a fuck, John Varve.

• 3:32Speaker 03

  Yes, John Varve.

• 3:33Stavros Halkias?

  And it's like stupid shoes and bullshit.

• 3:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:35Stavros Halkias?

  And in fact, I would.

• 3:36Speaker 03

  He thought it was gonna be the coolest.

• 3:38Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 3:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:39Stavros Halkias?

  Well, and I would venture to guess, because here's the thing about those stores, a lot of the places in somewhere like New York. Like this happening with the REI in Soho, right? It's closing down, and part of that's because it's unionizing. And so they're like, well, you're a union now, we can't afford it. Stores like that in high rent places like Lower Manhattan, they almost never make money. They are there as advertisers and show, for these brands. So basically, we live in a society where we value.

• 4:09Speaker 03

  People like you and me.

• 4:11Stavros Halkias?

  Right.

• 4:11Speaker 03

  Can make them a part of our lives.

• 4:13Stavros Halkias?

  Exactly, exactly. Where's, the paparazzi photographed me getting a helmet at REI. So I look, I mean, if you've never seen a guy look stupider than me with the largest bike helmet in a place.

• 4:23Speaker 03

  This is true?

• 4:24Stavros Halkias?

  I bought my bike helmet at that REI, yeah, yeah.

• 4:26Speaker 03

  And, and someone?

• 4:27Stavros Halkias?

  No, no, no, I'm just saying, I'm just saying, like, it's, so basically. There is no, there is no, the, like, as a business, it might even lose more money than CBGB's, but the value is an advertising value. And so I do have a problem that we, cause to me, there is inherent cultural value to keeping a shitty rock club that was famous, like, I would have loved to do a show there.

• 4:51Speaker 03

  For a movement that no longer exists, cause it's basically like punk and new wave in the late 70s.

• 4:57Stavros Halkias?

  Sure, but it's like, I think that it could, like, I, I think it's cool when you go to a, a place that has multiple lives, right? Like, um, uh, like, you know, it would have been cool if it just kinda became a venue that like, like, we're doing, you know, look what's going on with these beautiful theaters, we're playing fucking places that were built for opera.

• 5:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 5:17Stavros Halkias?

  Do I belong there?

• 5:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 5:19Stavros Halkias?

  You know, you know what I mean? Like, but even like the fucking in, um,

• 5:23Speaker 03

  That, I, I guess it's, I, I know what you mean. I guess it's just certain places, it's like, can't they serve the, what they served and then move on? Like, can't it just be like, there's something about like the turnover, in the same way that new wave was a response to what came before it.

• 5:42Stavros Halkias?

  Mm-hmm.

• 5:43Speaker 03

  Can't a Chipotle?

• 5:46Stavros Halkias?

  Sure, sure, you're.

• 5:47Speaker 03

  Be the new wave?

• 5:49Stavros Halkias?

  And my answer is no.

• 5:52Speaker 03

  Can't Chipotle do to CBGB what punk and new wave did to fucking glam rock?

• 5:59Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah. No.

• 6:02Stavros Halkias?

  Although, symbolically, the answer's unfortunately yes, where it's like.

• 6:06Speaker 03

  Yes, but I'm saying like, I can defend it.

• 6:08Stavros Halkias?

  People love Chipotle, I bet you there's people who, the fandom is like, there's people.

• 6:14Speaker 03

  Talking heads and Chipotle with a, with one bullet?

• 6:18Stavros Halkias?

  There's unfortunately people who would kill, you know, they'd be like, do I erase Chipotle or the Ramones from history? And a lot of people right now would have obviously picked Chipotle, but I would just say that that's a, that is a problem that brands have sort of taken a, people think brands are their friends and you see how brands are tweeting and, you know, they're like, you know, just that kinda, they're doing memes and shit. And I fucking hate, and so yes, I think ultimately it is bad and I think it, we would be better off if, um, you know.

• 6:50Stavros Halkias?

  Like, they're charging a higher rent probably to this corporate, you know, store or whatever. But I think we'd be better off if there were certain places, there were like cultural landmarks, whatever, that generate a value that is not dollars, that is like, it is cool that this is still here. That's as simple as that. And is that making money? Probably not, but I bet you shit around there would make more money. You know what I mean? Like, I bet you it would just be, it would keep sort of the character. And I think if, uh, I mean, that's the problem with me, like, it does feel like New York is shrinking culturally and that you do.

• 7:27Speaker 03

  But I feel like if the government ha- or some-

• 7:30Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, I think the gov- I honestly think the government- Office of Culture, I mean, look at, look at, uh, Europe where they have-

• 7:36Speaker 03

  You want the government in your arms, what you're saying?

• 7:38Stavros Halkias?

  I a hundred percent want the government in my arms. Without, and that's, I'm no exaggeration because other foreign countries have, uh, offices of film that support- like filmmakers and are like, hey, it's really hard to get here, you make one cool indie movie and they make you make a fucking Spider-Man movie immediately. If you're a cool Belgian, you know, I mean, you know, Lantimos, I was just in his movie, it's like, there's prob-

• 8:00Speaker 03

  You get to, if you're from Belgium, they make you, they let you make two more cool movies, then you gotta do a Marvel.

• 8:04Stavros Halkias?

  Then you get to go do Mrs. Marvel. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. A lesser Thor or whatever. Uh, I guess that is Taika Waititi, New Zealand and then fuck it.

• 8:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, he made cool, yeah.

• 8:15Stavros Halkias?

  Although Ragnarok's awesome. The newer one sucked. Uh, Love and Thunder.

• 8:20Speaker 03

  I think I saw Ragnarok.

• 8:21Stavros Halkias?

  Ragnarok I thought was actually good.

• 8:23Speaker 03

  I find this sort of like, they improv that and it ends up being like three lines, you're like, okay. I also find it really disrespectful to screenwriters whenever they're like, you know, he improvised that line. It's like, there's a person who improvised the whole script.

• 8:42Speaker 03

  The, the problem is he's ugly. But there's a fucking guy somewhere at a fucking coffee.

• 8:49Stavros Halkias?

  Hemsworth is getting a much bigger laugh because he's a jacked, beautiful man.

• 8:53Speaker 03

  Because we, because we expect him to just like groan beauty noises.

• 8:57Stavros Halkias?

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 8:58Speaker 03

  And he, he was, he's cogent enough to like have situational awareness. We're like, fucking, this guy's incredible.

• 9:05Stavros Halkias?

  Whoa, he's hilarious. Um, I will, I actually do have a, a like point about why Ragnarok was funny. And it is because the Thors were very self-serious. Uh, they were like, they tried to make it sort of shake. Two preceding Thors.

• 9:23Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 9:24Stavros Halkias?

  The original Thor movie and the, I don't remember what the other one, the second one was, but there were no jokes in it. It was very dour. They tried to, because you know, Marvel likes to do this thing where it's like blank for idiots, right? Where it's like, like they were claiming Captain America, it's a Cold War espionage thriller. It's like, no, it's fucking not. It's a fu, it's fucking Captain America, right? And the same way, like, I liked the Joker movie, the first one, because it was Taxi Driver plus the King of Comedy.

• 9:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 9:53Stavros Halkias?

  For idiots. And I love those things and I'm stupid, right? And so it was a good, I'll never see it again, but I had a good time at the movies.

• 10:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:00Stavros Halkias?

  And so they tried to do it as like a Shakespearean drama for idiots. And it was all like, you know, um, like, you know, they have Anthony Hopkins playing fucking Odin or whatever. And it's all like, they're all talking like this, you know, and it's supposed to be like that. And nobody gave a fuck about that.

• 10:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:18Stavros Halkias?

  Because idiots don't like Shakespeare.

• 10:20Speaker 03

  No.

• 10:20Stavros Halkias?

  You know? And so the third one, Taika Waititi was like, why don't we use those two as the setup to a punchline? And completely change the, um, the tone of this and make it this, the least funny Marvel shit that never went for that. He's right behind me, isn't he bullshit that they would always do? We never tried that. Why don't we actually make, and Taika Waititi is funny, you know, what we do in the shadows was really funny. Why don't we take that sensibility to Thor? And I think it worked. I also, I've talked about this a lot on the podcast, in a very dark period of my life, when I was housebound, would take mushrooms every like three weeks and watch Thor Ragnarok.

• 10:59Speaker 03

  How many mushrooms?

• 11:00Stavros Halkias?

  Oh, man.

• 11:03Stavros Halkias?

  That was the time I, I didn't do the math right and I thought I took an eighth and I took a quarter. The first time.

• 11:08Speaker 03

  That's two hundred, that's two point five.

• 11:11Stavros Halkias?

  That, an eighth is three point five. So a quarter would be seven. Seven grams of mushrooms. And so, oh yeah, brother. I did not know where I was. I experienced like, I thought I was existing in a two dimensional plane for a while. I, I saw myself as like a little dot, getting like eaten up by some fucking monster.

• 11:30Speaker 03

  Were you scared or were you like accepting?

• 11:32Stavros Halkias?

  I was really scared and it was exhilarating though. It was really scary.

• 11:35Speaker 03

  Did you have a feeling of exhilaration the whole time?

• 11:38Stavros Halkias?

  It was, I'm not a roller coaster guy, but it felt like what I, you know, it's felt like a roller coaster where you're like, it's a thrill, but this, I, I would never willingly sign up for this. But I'm like, the fact that it was like, like if you told me right now, take seven grams of mushrooms, I'd be like, no, I'm not, it's fucking crazy. But it was an accident. And also it was the kind of thing where I kept getting so much higher. I was like, whoa, these are good mushrooms. And then I, and then I just got to the point where I was so high, I was like, something's really wrong. And it was only afterwards when I weighed the rest of it, that I was like, holy fuck.

• 12:08Speaker 03

  Did you, when you finally kind of came to, was there like a werewolf moment of like, what have I done? Like, was there like, you could see what you'd done?

• 12:19Stavros Halkias?

  No, because I literally, I had torn my, the bottom of my foot. I had torn the plantar fascia.

• 12:26Speaker 03

  I, I think I saw a video about it or something you talked about.

• 12:28Stavros Halkias?

  Very famously happened at the Skanks Fest basketball tournament. At this point, probably like seven years ago. I don't even remember when it was. Six years ago. It was a long time ago.

• 12:36Speaker 03

  Which by the way, very competitive tournament.

• 12:39Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah. No, I've talked about it before. I couldn't hang with the athleticism of Ari Shaffir and Steve Ranzisi.

• 12:46Stavros Halkias?

  That pushed me to the brink. You know what it really was? I wanted to wear cool shoes. I was, that, that probably looked cool. I wore these Ewing's, those like fucking big blocky ass shoes and I hadn't really worked out or exercised in that long. And it fucked up. And I went on a, I remember I walked from

• 13:08Stavros Halkias?

  carrot, from midtown. Uh, over the, I mean, it wasn't that long, but I walked from midtown to Astoria, like over the bridge. Um, but it was-

• 13:17Speaker 03

  I mean, the bridge gives it a level of humiliation.

• 13:19Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 13:20Speaker 03

  And cinema.

• 13:21Stavros Halkias?

  The night before, I was, I was walking, I was talking to a girl, uh, and I was like, wow, this is fucking New York. I'm, you know, me and this cool girl, I'm talking to this cool girl. I'm gonna be in the Skanks Fest basketball tournament tomorrow. My career's going great, right?

• 13:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. My ewings that I, when the guy, when Ari sees them, it's gonna be fucking lights out, bro. Well, I'm gonna come around the corner and when Ari real-

• 13:50Stavros Halkias?

  Stefano's eyes are gonna light up and I'm gonna earn his respect.

• 13:55Speaker 03

  Fucking game over.

• 13:56Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah. Um, and so anyway, I was actually, it was this really insane thing where it was an out of body experience because I could not move. I was, I, I remember actually specifically, the way I got around the apartment, we lived, you, you lived there at the time, didn't you?

• 14:12Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 14:13Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 14:13Speaker 04

  That was around the time I got fired from my job.

• 14:15Stavros Halkias?

  That's right. So you were there a lot, actually. Oh, that's when we were started playing Mario Tennis all day.

• 14:19Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 14:20Speaker 03

  It's a great game.

• 14:21Stavros Halkias?

  It's awesome. It's fucking awesome. Um, and so Hugh were gone, everyone actually was gone and I had set myself up where I was like, oh, I got my little snacks. I got a drink. Cause I would take Eldis's fucking office rolly chair and use it as a wheelchair essentially. And, um, I was on the fucking couch and actually, we had a finicky audio AV system and sometimes the sound wouldn't work and I just couldn't, I was, I was trapped where I was watching Thor Ragnarok, no sound, uh, until I figured out I could plug in my headphones into the PlayStation controller. And so I was just like holding a PlayStation controller with headphones in, no way to get up. And I, and so I was trapped on this couch. So there was no werewolf moment. It all had to take place

• 15:06Stavros Halkias?

  in my head. I couldn't move and it actually gave it this really psych, it was even more psychedelic cause it was not about my surroundings at all. I'm in a shitty Ikea couch in Queens, in the apartment I share with three other of my friends, the three bedroom I share with three other people and it was just me versus my brain, me and my brain versus mushrooms.

• 15:29Speaker 03

  Are you a different person because of it?

• 15:34Stavros Halkias?

  Not, honestly, no.

• 15:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:36Stavros Halkias?

  I had, there have been mushroom trips where I do think it changed the course of my life because it made me think about certain things. And it made me came to like decisions about like where I should live, honestly, who I should date, like shit like that. But this one was just fucking awesome. It was just sick to be that fucking high. Like, it really comes down to just that.

• 15:57Speaker 03

  I did a gram, uh, in February that busted my ass so bad, where I was like, I'm not coming back.

• 16:05Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, dude, don't get me wrong. If I did that amount right now, I would be fucking destroyed.

• 16:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 16:12Stavros Halkias?

  I think there's just too much going on in my head. Like, I've also had mushroom trips where, uh, I was just not in the right headspace and it was atrocious. It was, it wasn't like, people talk about bad trips and it's not like I was hallucinating anything horrible, it was just that it brought out how bummed out I was. I was trying to like, I was trying to pretend I was having a good time, it's on vacation. It was a good time, I mean, but I was just, it was in the middle of a really stressful

• 16:35Speaker 03

  What would bummed out, what would it, what would, what would it be like? What, what would it make you? I've, I wanted you to answer the question of what, what's a bummed out mushroom trip feel like? Or what does it make you realize? And then what did it tell you about who you should date?

• 16:51Stavros Halkias?

  Okay, so the first, these are two different trips. Um, the who I should date, I re, I was in a, I was in a park in Seattle. That was a, I was, I was having a great day. It was me and my, my, uh, best friend from college. Uh, shout out to Straight George, he's become a, a character in the, in the Stavro, in the Stabby Baby, uh, cinematic universe. He came on tour with us, so the listeners are familiar. Me and Straight George went on what we call the hero's journey.

• 17:17Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 17:18Stavros Halkias?

  Which is where you just leave your apartment completely unprepared. It's like, you're almost like, hey, should we go out and get a water bottle? Like, should we just go get some gum or something? And then you're like, somebody's like hero's journey, and then you just have to go about the whole day with whatever's on you. And so I didn't have-

• 17:31Speaker 03

  From the minute someone says hero's journey, you cannot grab-

• 17:34Stavros Halkias?

  You just decide, it's not like, there's no formalized way, but someone who's like, hero's journey, and if you're like, and we had just taken mushrooms, like, so it was kind of, I- They just taking mushrooms? I don't think he was, I think George has been our chaperone on a lot of acid and mushroom trips. But I think he proposed the hero's journey, and this was our first one ever, in Seattle years ago. And ever since then, I love going on here, where you just like leave, I didn't have my, I literally left my phone in that apartment. So we're going off his phone, and I don't even think he had that much battery, and I'm on mushrooms. And we're just walking along Seattle, we just would hop, we hopped on random public transit, wherever it took us.

• 18:13Speaker 03

  Were you doing stand up at this point?

• 18:14Stavros Halkias?

  I was, yeah, I was doing shows and it was like on an off day. He was working in Seattle. And so it was kind of this thing where I was crashing with him, I was working laughs in the university district of Seattle.

• 18:26Stavros Halkias?

  And anyway, so we're just, it was a really fun day where it's like, I'm getting fucked up. And in Seattle, you know, it's beautiful, it was like the summer, it's green, it's lush, we're riding bikes, we're doing, you know, we're just going all over, having a great time. And we went in this park, which I thought was like Central Park, I thought it was like giant. I've since been back, it's literally maybe like four by five city blocks, Ravina Park in Seattle, it's so small. But in that park, I just fucking sat down by, in my head, a babbling brook with a huge tree and a huge wise tree was like, "Why don't you date the girl you've been seeing? Like, what are you doing? Like, you clearly really have feelings for her.

• 19:09Stavros Halkias?

  You're scared of commitment." Like, it was just, all my issues laid bare that I think probably were bouncing around my subconscious, were manifested in like a, like an ent from fucking Lord of the Rings. Like, it appeared to me like, like a talking tree, and it was just like, "What are you doing, man?" And straight George, George was there, but I'm ignoring him and I'm like, and I'm not speaking verbally, but it felt in my head like I had a full conversation with a wise old tree. So that, and they told me like, "Date the girl you've been seeing."

• 19:37Speaker 03

  And then you dated her and it was, it didn't work, but it was nice?

• 19:40Stavros Halkias?

  It was nice, it was the closest I've ever had to like a real, I just fuck things up too much. Before for us to ever really get on a nice footing.

• 19:49Speaker 03

  How, walk me through, how's it, how's the style we fuck up a relationship?

• 19:52Stavros Halkias?

  Just, just didn't, you know, we, you're seeing somebody casually, you don't, I didn't think she wanted to, to like be serious with me, so I just treated it as like, oh, we hook up every once in a while. And she was into me and, I don't know, I think it was probably the first time, I was back, when you get to New York, I don't know if you had this experience when you move, first moved, but the first couple of years are horrific. You're like, you go back, you go back, you sort of like, um, you know, regress in a lot of ways, like, uh, and I had no self-confidence, you know, you get here, you're like, for me anyway, I was like a big fish, small pond, then you get here.

• 20:34Stavros Halkias?

  Not only do people not like, not, not only is it like not welcoming, but if you're actually good, the really good comics like you, everyone else hates you because they're like, fuck.

• 20:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:44Stavros Halkias?

  Another guy that's good at comedy moved, you know what I mean? And I think I was getting a little bit, not to suck my own dick, but I do think I was getting some of that, you know, some of that treatment, um, at least, I'll tell you this much, other fat guys who shtick was having a little ass dick, they were not happy to see me move to New York, you know what I mean? That, that corner, cause that's a very heavily, it's like when there's, when like, if a really funny neurotic Jew moves here, it's like, fuck, another, you know what I mean?

• 21:09Speaker 03

  Have you ever heard the thing that black dudes wanna be the only black guy on a show?

• 21:13Stavros Halkias?

  No, that's hilarious.

• 21:14Speaker 03

  Like, I didn't know, and then I started hearing it, and I was like, of course.

• 21:18Stavros Halkias?

  Dude, that, well, they let a black guy in here, opener, that just crushes no matter what.

• 21:25Speaker 03

  House money, you're playing with house money.

• 21:26Stavros Halkias?

  If you're the second black on a show, you're like, I wanted to do that. You can't be like, well, second black guy on the show, it doesn't have the same, doesn't have the same kick. Uh, and so I was just like, I had finally gotten out of that, and I actually believed in myself again, and I, and like enough to just date, and I was like, great, and I don't know, and to the, now in hindsight, I'm like, That's when you should have been in a relationship. When you believed in yourself.

• 21:54Speaker 03

  Right.

• 21:55Stavros Halkias?

  When you could actually give yourself to it. But at the time, my thinking was like, well, I have to fuck whores in New York. I can't settle down with this girl who I really like, who clearly likes me, who were aligned on so many things. God forbid I do something good for me. I'm finally mentally stable enough to act out in other ways. You know, like I've, and so it was fucking stupid and I, you know.

• 22:19Speaker 03

  So that's the, so you find yourself, I'm not a self, I don't think I'm a self sabotaged person within relationships.

• 22:26Stavros Halkias?

  Interesting.

• 22:27Speaker 03

  Which may tie into our bigger theme.

• 22:30Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 22:30Speaker 03

  That we'll get to, but the, so the, I'm, that's, that's interesting that the tree told you to like date a specific girl.

• 22:37Stavros Halkias?

  And that's, and maybe psychologically, that's the thing where it's like, I'm a coward about making these decisions. And I just manifested my own beliefs in a symbol of.

• 22:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:48Stavros Halkias?

  Ancient wisdom.

• 22:49Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 22:49Stavros Halkias?

  You know, like, I don't want to take the risk. I'm like, well, if I'm, it's not me who's wrong. It's the tree who's wrong. You know what I mean? Like.

• 22:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:57Stavros Halkias?

  I think, I never thought about it, but that's probably what happened here. This episode is brought to you by Visible, the smartest upgrade this season isn't a new phone. It's a better wireless plan. Switch to Visible, the ultimate wireless hack. You get unlimited 5G data and unlimited hotspot powered by Verizon. We have Visible here at Stobby Baby Enterprises. We love it. We just got a new assistant. She loves it. She's taking all our sushi orders. They're going through the Visible network brought to you by Verizon. It's fast, it's reliable, it's so sick. They sponsor the Stobies World hotline, as you know, and make it possible for us to help all our callers out. Oh my God, they're the best. Switch today at visible.com. The Visible plan starts at $25 a month or get the premium Visible Plus Pro Plan

• 23:41Stavros Halkias?

  and save $10 on your first month with promo code STOV. Terms apply.

• 23:48Speaker 00

  This podcast is supported by Nurtac ODT. Remedy Pant. We know you didn't ask for an interruption, but migraine doesn't wait for the right moment to interrupt either. It just barges in, takes your time and throws everything off. So when migraine takes your time, take Nurtac. It's for the acute treatment of migraine with or without aura in adults. Nurtac can provide pain relief in two hours, which can last up to two days. Ask your healthcare provider if Nurtac is right for you because your time is for you, not migraine. Don't take if allergic to Nurtac ODT. Allergic reactions can occur even days after use. Get help right away for trouble breathing, rash, swelling of face, mouth, tongue or throat. High blood pressure and Raynaud's syndrome can occur. Get help for high blood pressure, numbness, coolness, pain or color changes in fingers and toes.

• 24:33Speaker 00

  Common side effect is nausea. For full prescribing information, call 1-833-4-NURTC or visit Nurtac.com. All right, back to your podcast, playlist or whatever's keeping you going today.

• 24:48Stavros Halkias?

  But yeah, that's, that's really what it was. That's, that's really what it was. And then, um, wait, what was like, what was like when you moved here? Cause you-

• 24:54Speaker 03

  I moved here for school.

• 24:55Stavros Halkias?

  Oh, NYU.

• 24:56Speaker 03

  NYU, yeah.

• 24:57Stavros Halkias?

  Film?

• 24:58Speaker 03

  Film school, yeah. And then, uh-

• 24:59Stavros Halkias?

  What was the, the dream was just like, you wanted to be a director?

• 25:02Speaker 03

  Dream, yeah. I wanted to be like a, like a Spike Lee. It was like Spike Lee, when I heard like Spike Lee, Scorsese, they all went to Oliver Stone, all went to like one school. It's like, what? And then, like going to it? And then I got in, I was like, this is fucking crazy.

• 25:21Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, that's insane. So, cause I, I obviously wanted to go to NYU for the same kinds of reasons. And it actually pissed me off when I, I was listening to, I think Donald Glover on Maron. And he talked about like, cause I just wanted to go because it was cool in New York or whatever.

• 25:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 25:38Stavros Halkias?

  And then he talked about, there was a comedy writing program there. And when I was like, that existed? I was pissed to hear that, that even-

• 25:46Speaker 03

  Like the Harvard Lampoon was the big, like when you're like, wait a minute, there's like-

• 25:50Stavros Halkias?

  Well, that I never, I was, I'm never-

• 25:51Speaker 03

  No, I was never gonna get in that either. But like the existence of it, you're like, wait a minute, so there- Incredibly rich, connected, and then they all, they all come together before.

• 26:01Stavros Halkias?

  Don't get me started on the fucking lampoon.

• 26:03Speaker 03

  Before they can start working.

• 26:04Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Everything is, it's like even the Illuminati gets this.

• 26:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 26:10Stavros Halkias?

  They even get this bullshit. It's like, I mean, I'm sure there are some.

• 26:14Speaker 03

  You know what was started by William Randolph Hearst, the Harvard Lampoon?

• 26:17Stavros Halkias?

  Of course.

• 26:17Speaker 03

  Literally started by, by Citizen Kane.

• 26:20Stavros Halkias?

  It's fucking crazy.

• 26:21Speaker 03

  The guy that Citizen Kane's based on start, and it's like a mason, it's a Masonic building.

• 26:27Stavros Halkias?

  And no one's, it's like, was Conan in it?

• 26:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, Conan was the president, Mike Schur was the, like, I know guys that are like.

• 26:33Stavros Halkias?

  There's probably, but the percentage of who's actually funny.

• 26:36Speaker 03

  Like, actually, like, good, funny dudes, like, I can't.

• 26:39Stavros Halkias?

  That motherfucker got, he was basically from the Lampoon to the SNL writing staff.

• 26:45Speaker 03

  And they, he got a car straight to SNL.

• 26:47Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, it's like, even though he is funny, it's like, suck my dick getting to do that, you fucking piece of shit. At least, you know, like, Conan and I will just.

• 26:54Speaker 03

  He was ugly back then, though. I will say that.

• 26:57Stavros Halkias?

  That's fine. It's not even about that.

• 27:00Speaker 03

  Not like he was ugly, he didn't know how to, he didn't know.

• 27:04Stavros Halkias?

  So, that's a wash.

• 27:06Speaker 03

  But, okay, it doesn't help that at one point, he was ugly.

• 27:11Stavros Halkias?

  But, but anyway.

• 27:12Speaker 03

  He didn't know how to groom himself. He had a giant disgusting beard.

• 27:15Stavros Halkias?

  Interesting, oh, really?

• 27:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 27:16Stavros Halkias?

  Interesting.

• 27:17Speaker 03

  He like, it's like, he was twenty one, two, so he just looked awful.

• 27:20Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah. He didn't lean into sort of like the, like, just looking like he was a Harvard pluck.

• 27:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 27:26Stavros Halkias?

  He was trying to be kind of countercultural. But, anyway, but it just never, I just also, and also it pissed me off because I was already in school when I listened to that, I think, and I was like, wait, Donald Glover's not, because I always thought you had to be rich and connected to do that shit, and then Donald Glover was just like not, he was just a fucking, and I was like, fuck, I could have tried. I don't know if I would have gotten in, but I could have tried to do that, but there was no part of you that was like, because that shit was probably expensive, and you, you had a very Irish.

• 27:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, I, the fact of my, I had to pay. I think I paid 20% of it.

• 28:00Stavros Halkias?

  You have 400 siblings?

• 28:02Speaker 03

  I'm one of 400. I'm the youngest of 10.

• 28:04Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, I mean, that's fucking crazy.

• 28:05Speaker 03

  So, yeah, so they, but my dad, it, my dad was a lawyer, which, so he was like, not, like, but if you have 10 kids,

• 28:14Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 28:15Speaker 03

  it doesn't help.

• 28:15Stavros Halkias?

  Like lawyer with 10 kids is your fucking guy who works at a gas station.

• 28:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly.

• 28:19Stavros Halkias?

  You know what I mean? Like you've,

• 28:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 28:20Stavros Halkias?

  you've taken yourself out of the upper class.

• 28:23Speaker 03

  So like, so, but eventually they, they were able to get rid of some, they would like just shed kid, like we would move. They were so far, I swear to God, we moved and shed Joey, Sheila. They would move and then they'd,

• 28:42Stavros Halkias?

  They'd buy houses with less bedrooms?

• 28:44Speaker 03

  They'd send a message, yeah. They go like, look, we, we divvied them up. You weren't around.

• 28:50Speaker 03

  They, we moved from Philly to Chicago and Joey, Sheila and Kevin stayed in Philly and we went to Chicago and they were like, Kevin was 17 or 18, like, it was just the 70s and it, like, they, there was no, and then we moved from,

• 29:03Stavros Halkias?

  He's the oldest or the,

• 29:04Speaker 03

  No, he's toward the,

• 29:05Stavros Halkias?

  So, but he, that's the cutoff. He's 17. They're like, good enough for us. You're an adult.

• 29:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 29:10Stavros Halkias?

  Wow.

• 29:10Speaker 03

  They would give you, they, I remember them giving my brothers and sisters like a, a calling card, like an AT&T card. Like if you need to call me,

• 29:19Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 29:20Speaker 03

  here's, you get one phone call.

• 29:22Stavros Halkias?

  We'll save you the quarter.

• 29:23Speaker 03

  I mean, I,

• 29:23Stavros Halkias?

  We'll save you the quarter. That's what we'll do.

• 29:25Speaker 03

  Insanity. So, the fact that I got in and then they were like support and like they, I only went for a year.

• 29:32Stavros Halkias?

  Okay.

• 29:33Speaker 03

  Cause I was going to school and like working the door at the Boston Comedy Club.

• 29:38Stavros Halkias?

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 29:39Speaker 03

  And like Louis, I worked on Louis' short film when I was in college. I'm in the, his first film.

• 29:47Stavros Halkias?

  Wow. Wait, which one? The, what's it called?

• 29:49Speaker 03

  The one Caesar salad, I believe. I, I'm pumpkin. I'm crazy pumpkin.

• 29:54Stavros Halkias?

  Oh, hilarious.

• 29:55Speaker 03

  And I stabbed Nick DiPaolo in the foot.

• 29:57Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 29:58Speaker 03

  But like Louis, Marin, Sarah, Attell, Chappelle, Johnson, like,

• 30:03Stavros Halkias?

  Yes.

• 30:03Speaker 03

  regular, like they were around. So I was like, I think these guys are better than film students.

• 30:07Stavros Halkias?

  I think, yeah, yeah. I'd rather be around these people.

• 30:09Speaker 03

  Yeah. So I just, uh, started working the door.

• 30:13Stavros Halkias?

  You dropped out?

• 30:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 30:14Stavros Halkias?

  And you were just like, I'm gonna live here?

• 30:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm just gonna be,

• 30:16Stavros Halkias?

  And then your parents were like, nice. The last one can figure it out.

• 30:20Speaker 03

  They didn't really press, they were like, all right, figure it out. Like they were,

• 30:23Stavros Halkias?

  I mean, being the youngest of, Ten.

• 30:26Speaker 03

  I think at a certain point.

• 30:28Stavros Halkias?

  I can't imagine how much they didn't give a fuck by the time you were around.

• 30:31Speaker 03

  There wasn't a ton of oversight.

• 30:33Stavros Halkias?

  Crazy. Youngest of ten.

• 30:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, when I hear it.

• 30:37Stavros Halkias?

  Cause when you hear about the youngest of three, it's like, oh, they barely cared about me, but ten?

• 30:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was real, it was.

• 30:45Stavros Halkias?

  How much older is your oldest sibling?

• 30:46Speaker 03

  Sixteen years older than me.

• 30:48Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 30:49Speaker 03

  So.

• 30:49Stavros Halkias?

  And that's not even that cra- that's as close as it possibly could be.

• 30:52Speaker 03

  Ten kids, sixteen years, it's crazy. She was in, she was in labor with me, not kidding, forty-five minutes. It sounds like a joke, but apparently she said like, this is coming out quick.

• 31:02Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah, you fucking crawled out.

• 31:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, and they looked down, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 31:08Speaker 03

  The, uh, so, so yeah, so I, then I just, then I was like in comedy, but you're right about like feeling you, it's you're such a fucking loser. That's what I tell anyone.

• 31:19Stavros Halkias?

  Totally.

• 31:19Speaker 03

  In terms of like, what do you want to do? Are you prepared to be a loser?

• 31:22Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 31:23Speaker 03

  For, I don't know, five, ten years?

• 31:25Stavros Halkias?

  Totally, totally. Yeah, I mean, I'm happy that it was all like, the really, really depressing period was only like, three years, really?

• 31:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 31:32Stavros Halkias?

  But I mean, the, the first two were fucking atrocious. Um, but also for you, that's kind of nice. You're young, that's the time you gotta be a piece of shit.

• 31:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. But I didn't, I wasn't really being a piece of shit, cause I didn't have any means to be a piece of shit. Like, I had no money, I had no, I had no where, I had no gain, I had anything.

• 31:50Stavros Halkias?

  Of course. So you're, that first year you're probably living in dorms, what was the living situation once you drop out and you're like, I'm gonna pursue being a doorman?

• 31:58Speaker 03

  I was subletting the guy Jay Moore, that hit his apartment. Tony Woods was my roommate at one point.

• 32:05Stavros Halkias?

  I love Tony Woods, dude, come on. One of my first weekends at Magoob's.

• 32:09Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 32:10Stavros Halkias?

  Opening for Tony Woods, and he did not care for me.

• 32:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, I don't, I'm not sure he cares for me anymore either. Um, but yeah, Tony was my roommate and then, uh, and then Ja- me and Jay lived together for a while and then I, then I moved to LA and that's all.

• 32:26Stavros Halkias?

  Okay, okay.

• 32:27Speaker 03

  But like, but it was, there was no, just lo- you look back and you're like, no, you're just lost. You have no, especially then there was no, like, there was. You could make it, you like get on Comedy Central.

• 32:40Stavros Halkias?

  Of course, yeah, yeah.

• 32:41Speaker 03

  Like host short attention span theater or something, but.

• 32:44Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 32:44Speaker 03

  There was no, and I also didn't know what I was gonna do. I was like gonna be a writer vaguely and then I started writing for like, when I got to LA, I started writing for shit. I would give people tags here and then I moved to LA and.

• 32:56Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, that would, that's sort of like the, you're sort of like a freelance intern is being around and being like tags, tags.

• 33:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:04Stavros Halkias?

  Think of me if you have a fucking writing job or something like that.

• 33:08Speaker 03

  And then you, but it's not a bad, like Ed Solomon, who wrote Bill and Ted's, did that at the Comedy Store. There's a few guys that did that at the Comedy Store, like.

• 33:16Stavros Halkias?

  Oh, yeah.

• 33:16Speaker 03

  In LA.

• 33:17Stavros Halkias?

  Totally.

• 33:17Speaker 03

  And then got, you could sort of.

• 33:20Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, I think some of the best advice is just like legitimately, I mean, it sucks, but it's like work, basically work for free, show your value to people. Cause I definitely did that thing too where it was like, I would, whoever I was opening for, I mean, not that they really gave a fuck. They had their own shit going, but I was like, I would work hard. I would watch and I would like try and get, I would try and like, be like, oh, here's what I think about this.

• 33:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:42Stavros Halkias?

  Some tag, here's some ideas there, that kind of thing.

• 33:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, just be of some valuable.

• 33:47Stavros Halkias?

  Be valuable.

• 33:48Speaker 03

  Value if it's not, it's not gonna serve you like now.

• 33:51Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 33:52Speaker 03

  And people don't really like it when you give them tags.

• 33:55Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, no, totally.

• 33:56Speaker 03

  But like.

• 33:56Stavros Halkias?

  That's actually very high risk.

• 33:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:58Stavros Halkias?

  It can be kind of high risk.

• 33:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:59Stavros Halkias?

  Like, fuck you.

• 34:00Speaker 03

  If they're good, like then they're like, then it's a different kind of resentment.

• 34:04Stavros Halkias?

  Totally, totally, totally, totally.

• 34:07Speaker 03

  So, yeah, so I had no, but looking back at like, I, I didn't have any relationships to fuck up.

• 34:14Stavros Halkias?

  Mm hmm. Yeah. You're just a fucking free age. Was that, do you think there is something psychologically there about the no oversight of being like the fucking youngest of ten? Cause it's like, what does that even do to your, do you even form attachments? I feel like you were probably raised by committee almost where it was like, you probably didn't get that much face time with your parents. There's probably an older sibling.

• 34:35Speaker 03

  Brothers ended up being like pseudo fathers, which is great. Like Kevin, like, so I'd come to comedy shows in New York in high school.

• 34:43Stavros Halkias?

  Okay, okay.

• 34:44Speaker 03

  And then I had a brother who, in Chicago, who worked like at Wrigley Field and the Chicago Stadium. So I would go to Bulls and Cubs games.

• 34:52Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 34:53Speaker 03

  So that shit was fucking awesome.

• 34:55Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 34:55Speaker 03

  But in, I think it. You know what? I think it made it like you can do shit. You like can be, there's like, you go to a comedy club and it's just like, yeah, there's just a staff and like, it's pretty open if you just apply, kind of.

• 35:08Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 35:09Speaker 03

  It wasn't that impossible.

• 35:11Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, that's interesting.

• 35:13Speaker 03

  But then the next level was impossible, like movies.

• 35:16Stavros Halkias?

  Right.

• 35:16Speaker 03

  Or like TV shows. People used to wear, in LA, people would wear production jackets.

• 35:23Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 35:24Speaker 03

  From the TV show they're on.

• 35:25Stavros Halkias?

  I think they still do that.

• 35:27Speaker 03

  A little, not as much. Dude, they used to do it like street gangs.

• 35:31Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 35:33Speaker 03

  Like the fu- if you saw a guy in a Mad About You jacket.

• 35:36Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, fuck. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 35:38Speaker 03

  Fucking like, Chris Rock had a Beverly Hills Cop 2 jacket. And I still will, I, I couldn't believe.

• 35:47Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 35:48Speaker 03

  I, like, how did you get near?

• 35:52Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 35:52Speaker 03

  Beverly Hills Cop?

• 35:54Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 35:55Speaker 03

  How did that fucking happen? Like, how?

• 35:57Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 35:57Speaker 03

  That shit was impossible.

• 35:59Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 35:59Speaker 03

  Um, so, so it was like a completely different landscape. It was back when there was like actual showbiz instead of now when it's all disintegrating in front of us.

• 36:07Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, I mean, I wonder if stand-up also was just like such a, I don't know, cause I, a lot of shit did feel impossible to me. Like, almost everything felt impossible. And the only thing that didn't, I guess, was stand-up, but like local stand-up? I don't know, I really put that shit on a pedestal in a way that, I don't know, I was just very nervous about for years. And then it just, you realize like, oh, this is the lowest form of show business entertainment.

• 36:34Speaker 03

  Right, but I, I think that's all different now.

• 36:36Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 36:37Speaker 03

  I think there, every other form of show business is like.

• 36:39Stavros Halkias?

  It's lowered itself?

• 36:40Speaker 03

  Is, it's over.

• 36:42Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 36:44Speaker 03

  It's like actors now?

• 36:46Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, they have podcasts. That's, that's.

• 36:48Speaker 03

  Ideally.

• 36:49Stavros Halkias?

  That's sad.

• 36:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 36:50Stavros Halkias?

  I'm almost like, you're too good for this.

• 36:52Speaker 03

  I, they're not.

• 36:53Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 36:55Speaker 03

  They're not, a lot of them are gonna not be good enough for them.

• 36:58Stavros Halkias?

  You're right, you're right. That is true. That is actually a funny point.

• 37:01Speaker 03

  They're not, like, when you see acting, you're like, so what are you gonna do? Why are we talking to you?

• 37:06Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 37:07Speaker 03

  Do you have any points of view, like, no, I have two funny anecdotes?

• 37:11Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 37:12Speaker 03

  Okay. It's the fucking Hemsworth thing again, where you're like, if you're not good looking.

• 37:18Stavros Halkias?

  Of course.

• 37:19Speaker 03

  None of this is happening.

• 37:20Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 37:21Speaker 03

  No, I would, so now that we have points of, now that the only thing that's like-

• 37:26Stavros Halkias?

  You're forced to develop a point of view because you're fucked up looking and you have different psychological issues. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 37:33Speaker 03

  Wonderful medley.

• 37:34Stavros Halkias?

  Of course, a nice medley.

• 37:36Speaker 03

  Of problems, and then you, and, and, and now they, people realize that that's valuable.

• 37:41Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 37:42Speaker 03

  And they, but I always thought it was valuable. I literally always, I, even during, like, doing TV shows, I was like, stand-up schooler in this.

• 37:51Stavros Halkias?

  Interesting.

• 37:51Speaker 03

  I always thought that.

• 37:53Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, I mean, I certainly had, I, I like it more, I actually, that's something I learned, is that I just love stand-up.

• 38:00Stavros Halkias?

  Like, acting and shit is cool, but it's like, it's really close to feeling like a real job. And I don't like that. You know what I mean? Like, I don't like that there is a really strict schedule. You do, on some level, I like feeling like you're part of a team, that's kinda cool.

• 38:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 38:15Stavros Halkias?

  That's nice, but this really is bullshit. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 38:20Speaker 03

  I mean, I, I'm kidding, but also, like, income, friendship.

• 38:24Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 38:25Speaker 03

  It's like, pretty fucking good.

• 38:27Stavros Halkias?

  It's pretty sick, yeah. It is hilarious how it's become the only-

• 38:30Speaker 03

  But you, but I, when I, when we first spoke, you were, like, a year ago, it seemed like you were more interested in it?

• 38:37Stavros Halkias?

  I'm more, I honestly am more interested in acting creatively, only because it's new to me, right? Like, that's what it is. It's that it's like, I, I love stand-up and I, there's definitely more for me to do. I don't think I've made a great special. I think that's really, but if I make a special that I feel is the best I can do, even if it's not received as like the, an all-time great, if I feel like I maxed what I, my potential out, then I'm kinda like, what else do I need to do for stand-up? And then I, and what I'm realizing is, nothing, and it's, it is the enjoyment of it that matters. And I like the day-to-day lifestyle, but from a, like- The joy I felt getting good at comedy, because there's something about, and this is advice we give to callers all the time where it's like,

• 39:21Stavros Halkias?

  pick something and get better at it.

• 39:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:24Stavros Halkias?

  And you'll feel good about yourself, no matter what it is. Like, that could be working out, that could be trying to lose weight, that could be writing, drawing, even your job, really. But like, if you're somebody who struggled with self-esteem, there's something, there's just something so rewarding about just getting good at something. And I think I'm not good at acting and I want to get good at it. And it's like, figuring that out is really interesting. And then, movies, I love, you know, when you're a kid, the first, your first, like, the first thing you fall in love with,

• 39:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:53Stavros Halkias?

  entertainment-wise, is movies, whether you like, like, I liked movies and then I branched off into stand-up. I found what I really, and then I found, you know, comedy, you know, The Simpsons and like other shit that's related, Saturday Night Live, all this other shit. But the first thing you watch is fucking a Disney movie or like some classic and you're like, this is sick. And there is, and I think also that,

• 40:14Stavros Halkias?

  the la, I don't like how disposable everything is. And I don't like that, um, you know, people come up to you and they'll say, I love your content. And I like, I like, I know what they're saying.

• 40:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 40:25Stavros Halkias?

  That's nice.

• 40:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 40:26Stavros Halkias?

  But I hate that content is the, that's the word for your stuff or your art or your stand-up.

• 40:33Speaker 03

  Do you like the term creator? I'm a creator, or I'm a creative. I don't, I personally don't like it.

• 40:38Stavros Halkias?

  Those both are bad. Those are both bad.

• 40:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, I agree.

• 40:40Stavros Halkias?

  Creator is just creative for, creator is millennial creative. Creative is like Gen X, we're like, he's a creative, you know, and it's like a guy who works in advertising or whatever. But I think in a world where things are disposable, and I think that's affected my output too. I mean, I think, first of all, what's rewarded is, is constant churn and being disposable.

• 40:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 41:00Stavros Halkias?

  And I'm struggling with that a little bit because I think I, I don't know, I'm trying to figure out a way to do that that is artistically fulfilling, that's not just sort of the same beats over and over again. But I think movies are the last thing. Even though the, what, it's kind of dwindling in popularity.

• 41:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 41:19Stavros Halkias?

  It's, it's the last thing that you actually have to watch how it's intended and like.

• 41:24Speaker 03

  On a phone.

• 41:25Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, right, right, right. On a phone, on the train.

• 41:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 41:28Stavros Halkias?

  While you're shitting and then maybe you move it to the iPad if you really like it. At least a segment of the people who watch it, watch it how it's supposed to, right?

• 41:37Speaker 03

  Uh huh.

• 41:37Stavros Halkias?

  And it's still the last thing.

• 41:38Speaker 03

  Less every year.

• 41:39Stavros Halkias?

  It's less every year, but there's still, there are some critics.

• 41:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 41:42Stavros Halkias?

  Who engage with it critically. And I do think movies are becoming, they're, it's sort of becoming like, like, young kids are into movies in the way that I think.

• 41:50Speaker 03

  They're like art installations now.

• 41:52Stavros Halkias?

  I know, the way people were into vinyl or something.

• 41:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 41:54Stavros Halkias?

  And that sucks for the general culture, but I think I'm okay with that. And even if it's a small community, it's like, it still is the one medium that people will interact with. And judge in the way that you want it to be seen, not necessar- even though some people are watching it in chopped up verticals on their phone. And so anyway, long, a long answer.

• 42:13Speaker 03

  This is a different argument or a conversation? Sorry, sorry.

• 42:17Stavros Halkias?

  But the long answer is that that's what interests me about movies too, is like, it feels like the last type of entertainment. That people are willing to contend with the way the artist wants you to look at it, right? And then, and then also, I'm not good at it. I don't know how I'm, what I'm doing. And so it is fun to get better at something. And it's also, the, the final thing is, I love comedy so much that getting a laugh in every different medium is interesting to me. And so figuring out, being a funny actor is a lot different than being a funny stand-up, being a funny movie filmmaker is a lot different than being a funny actor. And so. That's kind of why that.

• 42:54Speaker 03

  So you see him as like the rings in Avengers, like you, you're gonna get laughs in every different.

• 43:01Stavros Halkias?

  Exactly, exactly. It's like, it's at least, and again, maybe I never achieved that, but it's like. It's the, you know, the corny, the, the odyssey is the, the, you know, the journey is what it's all about. It at least gives my life some purpose to be like, this is what I want to chase. You know creatively, and then obviously there's purpose to be found in your personal life, which I'm way far behind.

• 43:23Speaker 03

  This is kind of similar to what I'm saying about CBGB.

• 43:26Stavros Halkias?

  Okay, let's get back to it.

• 43:27Speaker 03

  In that the, the reason you love, you said when you're a kid and you see a movie and then you go, I want to do movies.

• 43:36Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 43:36Speaker 03

  It's a bit of like a fetish in that like, I saw my mom's friend's feet.

• 43:43Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 43:43Speaker 03

  And now I jerk off to feet.

• 43:46Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 43:46Speaker 03

  Cause that's what I saw first.

• 43:48Stavros Halkias?

  It hit me just the right day.

• 43:49Speaker 03

  And yeah.

• 43:50Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 43:51Speaker 03

  And similarly, when there was a thing 20 years ago, when people go, no one wants to be famous from YouTube.

• 43:57Stavros Halkias?

  Hmm.

• 43:58Speaker 03

  That was like literally like, trust me, no one wants to be famous. And now it's just generationally like, they absolutely want to be famous through YouTube.

• 44:07Stavros Halkias?

  Now, not only do they want to, but now that's old and they want to be streamers.

• 44:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly.

• 44:11Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 44:11Speaker 03

  So, so, and then there'll be a new thing and a widescreen film. Okay, we're gonna go all the way back. Silent film.

• 44:19Stavros Halkias?

  I do actually think we are going, we are regressing and that this is closer to vaudeville, that what, that TikTok and stuff is vaudeville because it's the simplest and everyone's plagiarizing off each other. And it's like, you know, people are making, getting huge views off the dumbest.

• 44:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:37Stavros Halkias?

  Most simple jokes that it's kind of like, whoa, that guy did a backflip. It's, you know what I mean? It's like, we've kind of regressed to the point where it's vaudeville.

• 44:44Speaker 03

  The fact that that dude does backflips is so fucking funny to me. Cause it's so like, uh, like literally, it's like, if you could throw down fucking smoke and disappear like, like, like the, like the, like the Batman, like the fucking Riddler.

• 45:00Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, but that's a great, yeah, he is like a, yeah, that guy, uh, Speed is just like, it's so funny that he's just entertaining in such a, uh, you know, sort of like, um, uh, base way. And also it's not just him, it's like, it's like, entertainment has regressed to the point where it's like, is this cool? Will this hold your attention? And that's what, that's where it all started.

• 45:23Speaker 03

  Have you ever seen that guy outfits? He just tries on outfits.

• 45:25Stavros Halkias?

  No, but that's, yeah. That's fucking hilarious.

• 45:28Speaker 03

  Fitz, my man Fitz. You gotta get him. You gotta follow him on Twitch.

• 45:32Stavros Halkias?

  I'll check out Fitz.

• 45:33Speaker 03

  Yeah. Um, but yeah. So what I'm saying is. You're fetishizing film because of your age and when you so I meaning because I don't I kind of and it's similar to CBGB like do we need to protect CBGB do we need to protect cinema because I stand up is amazing but I also think like Grand Theft Auto is better than anything I've ever experienced as an entertainment product.

• 46:00Stavros Halkias?

  Oh, I mean.

• 46:02Speaker 03

  Do you know what I mean like so I can't.

• 46:04Stavros Halkias?

  But that's not they're not in the same, you know, category and they don't stimulate you the same way. You know what I'm saying? Like, do we need to get rid of books?

• 46:15Speaker 03

  No, no, no, I'm not saying we get rid of them. I'm just saying this idea of like that is the highest form. The idea of this hierarchy of form to me is a bit like random and and even film is like a thing when you compare it to video game money. It's like, like GTA is the most successful franchise of anything of all time.

• 46:38Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah. No, that's a good point. I mean, I'm sure there are people who look at film and even look at who look at that as very low who look at film as like a moron's art form, right?

• 46:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, like I don't decide where he goes.

• 46:50Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah. No, I meant like.

• 46:52Speaker 03

  I don't decide what Michael Corleone.

• 46:54Stavros Halkias?

  I didn't even mean kids now. I meant like probably in like when film became the dominant, when it became.

• 47:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, authors were like, what is this?

• 47:04Stavros Halkias?

  Playwright, right? Playwrights like I'm sure philosopher like I'm sure there was a lot of theory and philosophy.

• 47:09Speaker 03

  Were too dumb to even know who it was.

• 47:11Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, exactly. Probably fucking, I don't know.

• 47:13Speaker 03

  Fucking out like Plato. When was Plato?

• 47:15Stavros Halkias?

  Poor Kymer and Adorno, what the fuck were those guys' names, Al? Is Marshall McLuhan, those motherfuckers? Yeah, I don't know. You're probably, listen, you are right. You're right in that this shit is fluid and it keeps changing. But all I can do is like, this is who I am.

• 47:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, you have to listen to who you are. Yeah.

• 47:33Stavros Halkias?

  Because it's also like I've streamed. I don't think it's interesting to be a good streamer. I think.

• 47:39Speaker 03

  That's what I was also gonna say. What does it mean to be a good comedian like in it doing it like what, what, what are you? What do you, what service, what, what service are you providing or whatever?

• 47:53Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 47:54Speaker 03

  Versus directing a movie, you've been around enough movies like I, I've directed movies, I've been directed a bunch of shit and it's like what? Is what am I doing? The thing you have to do is a lot of logistics.

• 48:09Stavros Halkias?

  For sure, a lot of.

• 48:09Speaker 03

  And it's a weird talent cluster to like, I'm good at logistics and getting DiCaprio to make a noise when he comes through the door and I gotta get the light. It's just like a weird.

• 48:25Stavros Halkias?

  Well, but here's the thing that does, similar to stand up, something that attracts me like directing in particular is that there is actually no exact way to do it, right? Stand up, you can go to, you can take a class, I guess. But you have to figure out what works for you. Everyone has their own talents. Directing is a similar thing. You can read books about it. You can go to fucking film school, but there are directors who are incredible at getting emotional performances out of their actors. There's directors who are, who are great at the logistics and they're essentially like the most talented producer. And they get everything working at the right time. There's also, you know, I've, even now, I've only worked with a few directors. The personality types are so different. Some people have incredible taste, right? And they don't, you feel like they're not doing much.

• 49:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 49:09Stavros Halkias?

  But they put the whole fucking thing together and they're like, I don't need to fucking do it. Because I picked the right, exact right people for every fucking role. And this is gonna be awesome. Some people do their shit. Some people, you know, the Coen brothers are famous for like, they storyboard every fucking frame. There is, you wanna talk about how it's disrespectful to ad lib? There's maybe two ad libbed lines in all of their history of their movies. And then there's people who are like, the magic happens on the day, baby. Like, you know, and so something that's interesting to me is that there is no, there is no like roadmap to that. And it's like, you decide, you become who you are. And that's cool to me, too.

• 49:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, I totally agree. And the, but if people don't wanna watch it, I also completely understand.

• 49:55Stavros Halkias?

  Oh, yeah, no, I don't have, I mean.

• 49:57Speaker 03

  If like, if, if they're interested, it's diminishing. Other than like K-pop demon hunters, which god bless.

• 50:03Stavros Halkias?

  I agree with you. I'm not really a, I'm not talking about this from like a media, I'm not a fucking media scholar, right? It's not, I'm not trying to decide, I'm not trying to preserve art forms for the good of society. I'm not trying to do any of this shit. I'm recog, I'm even saying, I'm recognizing movies are diminishing and I don't think they're coming back in the way they ever were, right? Because how can they really come back? The reason they were so fucking. They were so popular, like, there was no TV. People would go to the, the way we just fucking throw on Law, Law and Order, watch it four times. You would walk to your movie. There's a movie here on every fucking corner. You would pay 14 cents and you would watch three sick movies.

• 50:44Stavros Halkias?

  And by the way, some of them were trashy, so the, the more stuff got made because there was just a market for it, right? That's never coming back. And I'm admitting, it's, I even started this by saying, it's become like vinyl was when I was a teenager. There was some weird kid who would go to a vinyl store, like you see it now, film Twitter, Letterboxd people. It's like, there's a small community and what I'm saying is, I'm okay. I am a man of my time. My life is ending relatively soon, right? I'm midway into my life, right? And what will make me, what I'm interested in, what I know will fulfill me is like, I'm just gonna, I like that this corner exists where the thing that was important to me still matters.

• 51:25Stavros Halkias?

  And this is what will drive me artistically. There's at least, there's a smaller pool for it, but there's still a pool for it. And then I'll even say from the sociopath's part of your brain, that everybody who wants to be successful in entertainment or politics or whatever has, which I'm actively trying to fight. There's a little part of you that's also like, at the end of the day, even though there's fewer of them, a movie star, even in our current society, is still, I think, the highest form of fame.

• 51:55Speaker 03

  I agree, but it's really interesting to watch them get reduced.

• 52:03Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, no, it's polar bears fighting for this much fucking ice. You know what I mean? It's not that polar bears aren't cool.

• 52:09Speaker 03

  Like where DiCaprio was doing podcasts and people were like, fucking RIP.

• 52:13Stavros Halkias?

  That actually broke my heart.

• 52:14Speaker 03

  I hate to see it. You literally hate to see it.

• 52:17Stavros Halkias?

  Come on, no disrespect, but come on.

• 52:20Speaker 03

  We love the Kells, we love.

• 52:21Stavros Halkias?

  I know, sorry. You know, I'm sure you directed them in a fucking Lowe's ad or something, but.

• 52:27Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 52:27Stavros Halkias?

  Literally.

• 52:28Speaker 03

  Last year, yeah. Two years in a row, guys.

• 52:32Speaker 03

  Two years in a row and I directed Jason in a charcoal commercial in Philly. Great guys.

• 52:41Stavros Halkias?

  But come fucking on.

• 52:42Speaker 03

  No, but, but fucking.

• 52:44Stavros Halkias?

  Retired athlete podcast with DiCaprio.

• 52:46Speaker 03

  For the, yeah.

• 52:48Stavros Halkias?

  Broke my heart. Broke my heart. And that movie's incredible.

• 52:51Speaker 03

  Totally agree. So, but it is funny to watch it get, it's the polar bears on ice where it's, it's terrifying.

• 52:58Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, because.

• 52:59Speaker 03

  And, but I, but as being in comedy, our, I don't want to say our ice is getting bigger. It seems like it.

• 53:05Stavros Halkias?

  I would say, actually the, we stumbled into this metaphor. I think it makes sense.

• 53:09Speaker 03

  Perfect metaphor.

• 53:10Stavros Halkias?

  Because it doesn't mean the, the polar bears are still cool. They're just dying. And the coolest thing could be is a fucking polar bear. They'll kill anything, whatever.

• 53:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 53:19Stavros Halkias?

  But we're in a world where now it's like fucking, streamers are like.

• 53:23Speaker 03

  We're in a world of climate change.

• 53:24Stavros Halkias?

  Little sea mollusks or something. You know, like, I guess what bothers me about it, and I said, I'm not, like, we've basically done media criticism this whole podcast.

• 53:32Speaker 03

  I know. I've never, I don't know if this is gonna be a very lucrative episode. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fifty a year.

• 53:37Stavros Halkias?

  This might come out in January for Christ's sake. You know, this is, this is in the vault, folks. We don't know. You could hear this in November. You could hear this March 15th for all I fucking know.

• 53:46Speaker 03

  Twenty twenty seven.

• 53:47Stavros Halkias?

  This is, this is actually, this is good because you're, you're, you're the person who most encouraged me to just be like, dude, fuck, who gives a fuck? Put it in the vault. And our conversation is evergreen because no one will care about it, no matter when it comes out.

• 53:59Speaker 03

  I think the word you're looking for is never green.

• 54:06Stavros Halkias?

  I'm having a good time, but we literally could just not have the microphones on right now. Anyway, whatever. It does, all I was gonna make was, I was gonna say something about streaming is just like, um, what it rewards is that constant churn. It's literally like, we would rather watch a live feed of guys hanging out than a movie.

• 54:25Speaker 03

  I know. It's so weird.

• 54:27Stavros Halkias?

  But it doesn't fucking matter.

• 54:29Speaker 03

  Can we talk about incels?

• 54:30Stavros Halkias?

  We can absolutely talk about incels.

• 54:31Speaker 03

  I sent you a link.

• 54:33Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 54:34Speaker 03

  To a subreddit. I think it's called It's That Bad. And it's basically, I should know, I'm the moderator.

• 54:41Stavros Halkias?

  Well, we, yeah, yeah. Well, we have also on Come Time, we did an episode about the our small penis problems one, one episode, and that's a, that's a real tough one. But anyway, go ahead. It's that bad is similar.

• 54:54Speaker 03

  It's just basically just like, guys, it's like, whatever. It's, I don't, I don't know what pill it is. I don't know what, I don't know, yeah, but like.

• 55:01Stavros Halkias?

  Black, red.

• 55:02Speaker 03

  Yeah. Um, it's, uh, but it was basically, the guy was espousing that incels are sort of wasting their time in some ways like deifying women as this, um, something to aspire to. As like the highest male aspiration is to be a good man for a woman.

• 55:29Stavros Halkias?

  Okay, yeah, yeah.

• 55:29Speaker 03

  And I sent it to you because you were talking about giving incels hope.

• 55:34Stavros Halkias?

  I think it's very important.

• 55:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, but I'm, I'm trying to give them hope in a different way.

• 55:39Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 55:40Speaker 03

  Um, which is like, it's not, it's a, it's an option.

• 55:43Stavros Halkias?

  Sign up for AI girlfriends. You want them to get fuck robots and you want them to completely give away their humanity instead of, instead of doing some lat pull downs and learning how to be polite to a woman.

• 55:58Speaker 03

  If you want to do lat pull downs and be polite for a woman, do that. But what I'm saying is, what's the, what is the aspiration about? Like, what's the, why do you think that men are automatically better if they aspire to female companionship?

• 56:21Stavros Halkias?

  Well, it's like saying, it's, it's like saying, do you aspire to fucking? Eat food or see the sun. I think a part of humanity is like, like, basically you're saying like,

• 56:33Speaker 03

  Both things that I clearly don't care a lot about.

• 56:35Stavros Halkias?

  I know. You would fucking probably drink Soylent for every meal.

• 56:38Speaker 03

  Give me a better example.

• 56:39Stavros Halkias?

  Maybe that actually does explain this because I am a, I am a man who likes to enjoy worldly things, you know? Clearly my issue is fucking gluttony and fucking having too good a time, whatever. Um, I think there is, your basic humanity is in, you know, looking for love, companionship, these sorts of things. In the same way that there is something, there is something kind of like human and not noble, but what, what you're meant to do is, is look for these things, like look for the right person, have a, have a romantic relationship. In the same way that like going outside and fucking looking at a beaut- don't stay under fluorescent light, go outside.

• 57:19Stavros Halkias?

  There's a beauty in, there's a natural human beauty in like touching grass to put it in internet terms. And even the food thing, it's like, yeah, it's this equivalent of like, could you survive off of fucking Soylent? When something that they bought.

• 57:31Speaker 03

  Soylent kinda went left.

• 57:32Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, you're right. Huul.

• 57:34Speaker 03

  Where I'm a Huul guy.

• 57:35Stavros Halkias?

  Soylent's palm pilot.

• 57:36Speaker 03

  Promo code Neil, obviously.

• 57:38Stavros Halkias?

  I like Huul too, you know, after workout, sometimes it's nice. It has everything you need. But it's like, that's what I'm saying is that to be human are these things that you don't technically need.

• 57:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 57:50Stavros Halkias?

  Right? And that like, I also think Amer- I mean, this is all, now we're really getting into shit no one cares about, but like, this is bred because of American capitalism and the way our society is put together where we've lost community. We've lost touch with our fellow man and they are pushing, we, incels are kinda getting pushed to sort of like, you have less money, you feel like a loser because you don't, there's no fucking good jobs, um, you know? And then, and then it's like, everything is haves and have nots, the point where it's, it's even gone to basic humanity of dating. And if you're a fucking ugly loser with no money, it's like, yeah, it is fucking hard to get pussy. I say, I'm saying that as a former Enzo, that's why, that's why I'm an expert here, is I spent my teen years like this, right?

• 58:34Stavros Halkias?

  Me and Eldis, that's why we speak on such authority and I think like.

• 58:39Speaker 03

  But what I'm saying is what have been the most valuable?

• 58:43Speaker 03

  Moments of your life, or and I don't mean like name them and I'm just mean like were they cuz you know the history of romance and all that's just like a new thing. It's a new thing. It was mostly just like property and farms and dowries and like and like just having a like women, women were sort of like chattel. So this idea of like romance is new. So I'm wondering.

• 59:10Stavros Halkias?

  But how, what was the quality of life like when people lived like that?

• 59:13Speaker 03

  Awful.

• 59:14Stavros Halkias?

  That's what we're talking about.

• 59:15Speaker 03

  I mean, but the quality of life was awful cuz there was no running water. There was no like, I mean, there was just like, it was a very shitty quality of life.

• 59:21Stavros Halkias?

  Because of in general inequality, I think. I would say the quality of life was that bad cuz you know who had that was aristocracy. Like they got the people that got to have concubines, like the thing rich people have had forever and have hoarded is the thing everybody deserves. So at the time we're talking about serfs who had to marry their daughter off for fucking cows or whatever. It's like.

• 59:44Speaker 03

  But also like, but the aristocrats are doing the same thing for with like just a bigger payoff.

• 59:49Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, but they got to experience companionship and like, yes, of course, there was political marriage and there was all this stuff, but they got mistresses. They got to have like, you know, human.

• 59:59Speaker 03

  I'm not, but I'm, I don't think you're talking about like pussy, for lack of a better word.

• 1:00:03Stavros Halkias?

  No, I'm not.

• 1:00:04Speaker 03

  You're and or like, or like, like, there was basically like the reason there's monogamy now and and and is like so that everyone can get, it's not just all going to the top one percent.

• 1:00:17Stavros Halkias?

  Totally. I do love that. Like, I do love when women will flip that on guys. They're like, you know what? Let's have, let's have multiple marriages. It's like, you think you're getting multiple wives?

• 1:00:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:00:27Stavros Halkias?

  No, the NBA will get, everyone in the NBA gets fucking, our pal Blake Griffin.

• 1:00:32Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 1:00:32Stavros Halkias?

  He gets as many wives as he wants, you know?

• 1:00:34Speaker 03

  Absolutely correct.

• 1:00:36Stavros Halkias?

  Fucking podcast producers, no disrespect. Actually, others could probably pull two.

• 1:00:39Speaker 03

  You know what?

• 1:00:40Stavros Halkias?

  On this, on this salary, on his W, he's making a WNBA max right now. He could probably get through.

• 1:00:45Speaker 03

  He's got fucking, uh, pretty, he's got next level frames, eyeglasses. You got nice frames.

• 1:00:52Stavros Halkias?

  He's tall. He's kept his head of hair. He'll be, you could, you get two.

• 1:00:55Speaker 03

  You did, yeah.

• 1:00:56Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, but anyway.

• 1:00:58Speaker 05

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• 1:01:30Speaker 00

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• 1:02:15Speaker 00

  and toes. Common side effect is nausea. For full prescribing information, call 1-833-4-NURTC or visit Nurtac.com. All right, back to your podcast playlist or whatever's keeping you going today.

• 1:02:29Stavros Halkias?

  No, I'm not talking about just pussy, but I'm talking about, I really am talking about, let's define what it means to be a fucking human being. And I think like, for example, if somebody came to me when I was getting, when I was like, when I would have sawed my fucking left leg off to get pussy at 19 or whatever, and was like, hey, we'll get you a fucking robot girlfriend. You know what I mean? Like, don't even worry about this. Like, you can focus on whatever. But it's like, I all, you know, but that's the thing, if somebody did that to me, because the other thing is, what was a driving force in me getting good at comedy? In me getting confidence?

• 1:03:07Speaker 03

  I like that you're whispering, go on.

• 1:03:10Speaker 03

  What was it?

• 1:03:12Stavros Halkias?

  Lean in.

• 1:03:13Speaker 03

  Am I even in frame anymore? Am I in your frame now?

• 1:03:17Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, get in here, dude. It was trying to get pussy. There is a, that's also a basic human sort of like motivating factor.

• 1:03:27Speaker 03

  It's a drive. It's a huge drive. What I'm.

• 1:03:30Stavros Halkias?

  Why do you want to release that?

• 1:03:31Speaker 03

  I don't want, what I'm saying is.

• 1:03:33Stavros Halkias?

  Yes.

• 1:03:34Speaker 03

  The drive's not going away, right? If you can, if you can make peace with masturbating and not seeing it as a failure.

• 1:03:45Stavros Halkias?

  Sure.

• 1:03:46Speaker 03

  Right?

• 1:03:46Stavros Halkias?

  Sure, okay.

• 1:03:47Speaker 03

  It's just like, just something that you're doing like eating by yourself or eating.

• 1:03:52Stavros Halkias?

  Right, having lean cuisine, having a microwave.

• 1:03:55Speaker 03

  It doesn't even have to be like lesser. It can just be like high end Uber Eats, right?

• 1:04:02Stavros Halkias?

  Okay, maybe. I don't know, it is lesser than, but go ahead. I, it's necessary, but lesser.

• 1:04:08Speaker 03

  There are certain dinners that are, it's there. I would mostly like to eat with people.

• 1:04:13Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:14Speaker 03

  The issue is.

• 1:04:15Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:15Speaker 03

  It takes too long. The metaphor still works.

• 1:04:18Stavros Halkias?

  True, it does, it does, actually.

• 1:04:19Speaker 03

  It takes too long.

• 1:04:20Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:04:20Speaker 03

  And there's too much social and too much texting ahead of time, afterward and whatever. So what I'm saying is if you can make masturbation more of a, not even like post not clarity of just like, not making your horniness your god, because I think we take the horniness and then build this romance infrastructure around it when it may not, I think there are guys that don't want families.

• 1:04:46Stavros Halkias?

  Sure.

• 1:04:47Speaker 03

  I think there are guys that don't want the, that they may want the day to day of having a girlfriend. They may not want it. Like, I think we're starting from, from horniness, right? And then we're, we're building all this stuff around it. So what I'm saying, I'm not saying like therefore robots. I'm just saying I, I don't like the idea that guys are, I never liked the thing of like, you complete me as a romance, as a line of dialogue.

• 1:05:13Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, okay.

• 1:05:14Speaker 03

  Like as like, without my better half, any of that shit. I, I resent it. And I think if you gave your incels more, it's like, it's fine. It's just a thing you can do. And I know the most rewarding parts of my life. Some were with, in, were romantically connected and some were not. Like, a lot of them were not, if I'm honest.

• 1:05:38Stavros Halkias?

  But that is the big, you're saying-

• 1:05:40Speaker 03

  And I feel bad saying that. Do you know what I mean?

• 1:05:43Stavros Halkias?

  But I don't think you should feel bad. But all I'm saying is, I don't think it should be your end all be all. By no stretch of the imagination. In fact, I think what you just said is, I think you, we don't even have time to get into it, but like, for a number-

• 1:05:54Speaker 03

  If you cut out the hour and 10 minutes of media criticism.

• 1:05:58Stavros Halkias?

  No, that's staying, baby. The thing about podcasting is you don't ever cut anything out.

• 1:06:02Speaker 03

  No, you can't. It's malpractice.

• 1:06:06Stavros Halkias?

  I, look, is there an argument to be made? Like, I think that everything is a, um, there is a sort of, uh, ratio that works well for people. I would say probably, we, we kinda touched on it a little bit, your chaotic family environment, like, maybe that kind of intimacy, because to you, and I have this problem with like, romantic relationships, like, I didn't know anybody who had a good marriage.

• 1:06:39Stavros Halkias?

  So it took me a while to even realize, oh, a mona- what people think about when they want a marriage, is some, the person they love the most in the world being around forever. Not someone they liked for a year.

• 1:06:52Speaker 03

  An ongoing, uh, not a Hatfields and McCoys, but they, yeah.

• 1:06:56Stavros Halkias?

  Yes, yes, not two people that-

• 1:06:58Speaker 03

  Absolutely despise each other in their marrow and it's an ongoing war that they're-

• 1:07:04Stavros Halkias?

  That's not what they're dreaming of, right?

• 1:07:05Speaker 03

  Dying for the next battle. Go ahead.

• 1:07:07Stavros Halkias?

  So I think that, you know, that-

• 1:07:08Speaker 03

  But I think that's, how many, what percentage of people do you think should be married?

• 1:07:14Stavros Halkias?

  I don't fuck, you know, I, uh, I don't know.

• 1:07:18Speaker 03

  10%?

• 1:07:20Stavros Halkias?

  No, I think it's, I think it's actually a lot more than that.

• 1:07:23Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:07:23Stavros Halkias?

  I think actually, like, this is, I think there's a-

• 1:07:26Speaker 03

  I think the thing that you explained, like, the, the pitch battle thing, I think that's the norm, more than the exception. I think like, I grew up chaotic, you grew up-

• 1:07:35Speaker 03

  What people are looking for, I think is like, should this even be happening?

• 1:07:36Stavros Halkias?

  Sure, sure.

• 1:07:36Speaker 03

  I think that's more, that's, I think that's the norm, I really do. I think that's the lion's share of relationships, and it is, so-

• 1:07:40Speaker 03

  Other than like the future of humanity?

• 1:07:44Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah. Well, I guess the...

• 1:07:47Speaker 03

  I'm on Peter, I'm with Peter Thiel on this. I'm not sure.

• 1:07:51Stavros Halkias?

  Right. But that's what, I see what you're saying almost, that there's a chaos to, we, romance and whatever is a relatively new way to run a society. That it's way more orderly to look at it as a business transaction if you find some romance in the, in the, you know?

• 1:08:07Speaker 03

  Or arrange marriages with very low expectations.

• 1:08:10Stavros Halkias?

  Right, right. That actually, that is better in terms of running a society. And I would say, you're not wrong, because you made a very good point. A lot of people who lead with romance when they're young and stupid, end up in these fucked up, now, should you have had 10 kids with those people? That's, maybe that's, maybe we can keep that to, you know, three, you know?

• 1:08:31Speaker 03

  My mom loves the podcast.

• 1:08:33Stavros Halkias?

  He's a big, stop, he's a old fan. But I would say, that yes, just because it's orderly or whatever, it's like, I go back to this, what does it mean to be human? What does it mean to feel? And to, you know, you have to take that chance on being fulfilled with somebody. And the fact that, you know, you might skew lower, and 30% of your stuff has been in romantic, whatever, and 70% has been, but, but, you don't, what would happen? You, I think your existence would be a lot worse if you take that 30 away. Like, my counter would be, for what are we?

• 1:09:13Stavros Halkias?

  Why is this more efficient? Who cares? So you can be better at your job? So you can be better at creating money? Who fucking cares? That's not what's important. It's like, it's like the Kurt Vonnegut thing, where he's like, he needs the short story about like, buying an envelope? Do you know that one? Where he's like, I have to go buy an envelope, and I tell my wife, I gotta go to the envelope. She's like, why do you go to the store every time? Buy fucking a hundred on Amazon, or whatever, I don't know if it was Amazon at the time, but buy a hundred, and every time you need an envelope, you have an envelope? And he's like, because I get up, I go outside, the... Fucking birds are chirping. I see a fucking weird guy at the bus stop. I'm like, nice pants, you know.

• 1:09:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, I do some crowd work. Where the fuck are you from?

• 1:09:52Stavros Halkias?

  Totally, totally. I buy a fucking candy bar. Oh, that's fun. I had a little treat like, and he's basically like, that's what it means to be alive. It's like, yes, I could efficiently purchase this. It would be cheaper. It would save me time. But what am I doing with my time?

• 1:10:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:10:07Stavros Halkias?

  And I think that's my argument is that like, we are not here to be efficient robots and to create fucking shareholder value for whatever mega corporation we're all inevitably working for. We're here to just have a good time. And maybe this is the, this is like me being Greek and having like, our whole society has no economy and it's a very hangout based society. But I would, my argument is like, we don't, I don't, I want, I want people to have those experiences and to just have these messy things and experience love and like, I don't want you because you don't have enough money and you're ugly and maybe your, your family was bad because like, look, there's ugly motherf- you know, I may be a, like, if I had a mom who didn't believe in me, I might still be a fucking incel, right?

• 1:10:52Stavros Halkias?

  Cause it's like, I, she did instill something in me that I had to unlock. And I don't want you, just because your circumstances are bad, to be like, you know what, man? It's really inefficient for you to try and get pussies this long. Like, like, you should give up on it and have fucking the huul of pussy and just, just, you know what? You'll be better at coding and you can get more, you can gain more and you can watch more streamers, right?

• 1:11:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:11:16Stavros Halkias?

  You know what I mean? It's like, no.

• 1:11:17Speaker 03

  Backflips, backflips.

• 1:11:19Stavros Halkias?

  What are they doing with their time?

• 1:11:20Speaker 03

  My man Fitz on Twitch.

• 1:11:21Stavros Halkias?

  Check out Fitz. He's got, he's probably wearing some corduroy now.

• 1:11:25Speaker 03

  Fucking sick, it's fucking sick.

• 1:11:27Stavros Halkias?

  But anyway, that is my argument. It's like.

• 1:11:28Speaker 03

  Right, but I'm not, you think I'm talking about efficiency. What I'm talking about is the amount of anguish

• 1:11:35Stavros Halkias?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:11:35Speaker 03

  I've experienced. Trying to be in relationships that I should not have been trying to be in. And because I thought the highest ideal was.

• 1:11:48Stavros Halkias?

  Right. So you're saying they're better off not even trying to get pussy?

• 1:11:51Speaker 03

  I'm not saying, I, I, I want to give them the option.

• 1:11:55Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:11:56Speaker 03

  That it's, that you may be in, and again, maybe it's my special brand of chaos that I grew up with. But I just would find my, anytime I went to therapy, it was because like, why don't I like this more?

• 1:12:07Stavros Halkias?

  Sure.

• 1:12:08Speaker 03

  Why don't I like this relationship more? I wasn't in the right one. I'm, I actually am now.

• 1:12:12Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:12Speaker 03

  But like.

• 1:12:13Stavros Halkias?

  Okay, that's my, so maybe you just made my fucking point. All that bullshit.

• 1:12:17Speaker 03

  I really hope I didn't.

• 1:12:19Stavros Halkias?

  All that bullshit led you to the right relationship and you're happy now and you're in a situation where things are fucking stable and good.

• 1:12:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. But a lot of what's right about the relationship is me finally acknowledging what I'm capable of, instead of having this ideal of taking their word for what I should be capable of. And then being upset all the time that I'm not, and they're upset, but I'm secretly upset there.

• 1:12:47Stavros Halkias?

  Right.

• 1:12:47Speaker 03

  I resent them. We've all been there. So.

• 1:12:50Stavros Halkias?

  You let resentment build. You pretend you're okay with something and then you're like, that fucking bitch. She should have known what I fucking actually wanted to do, even though I didn't say it. I was making it pretty clear. Even though I said the exact opposite of what I feel to get out of an awkward conversation.

• 1:13:06Speaker 03

  She betrayed, either way, it's a betrayal.

• 1:13:08Stavros Halkias?

  Either way, it's a betrayal. I'll choose a bitch. I'm gonna do this for two more years.

• 1:13:13Speaker 03

  No, I'm not gonna break up with her.

• 1:13:14Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, no, no.

• 1:13:15Speaker 03

  I'm just gonna fucking go on other girls' Instagram and fucking like, I'm gonna like and then unlike quickly.

• 1:13:23Stavros Halkias?

  Cause ultimately I'm still a coward. I won't even, I don't even have the guts to cheat.

• 1:13:29Stavros Halkias?

  I prefer this.

• 1:13:31Speaker 03

  Oh, man, my fucking stomach hurts. I wonder if this is in any way related. Probably not. But that's what I mean, like, that fucking cycle of nonsense. I could have gotten to where this good relationship sooner.

• 1:13:48Stavros Halkias?

  No.

• 1:13:48Speaker 03

  If I'd acknowledged my own.

• 1:13:51Stavros Halkias?

  You would never learn it. You would have never learned it if you didn't do, if you didn't go through all that bullshit. And it probably took you longer because your little family is so fucked up.

• 1:13:58Speaker 03

  That rhyme where Jay-Z and Kanye has done the same rhyme where it's like, well, if I didn't deal drugs.

• 1:14:04Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:04Speaker 03

  I wouldn't have been able to know not to deal. Then you're just like, shut the fuck up. You like dealing drugs because there was money in it.

• 1:14:11Stavros Halkias?

  But I would say, and yes, that's also true. You liked fucking all those insane women at the time, right? You like, on some level, you liked it, but I.

• 1:14:20Speaker 03

  One of them, Bobby Lee said, that girl's the cra- that girl's got the craziest look I've ever seen in a woman's eyes. And from Bobby.

• 1:14:30Stavros Halkias?

  But I was like, so do you have her number?

• 1:14:32Speaker 03

  No, I mean.

• 1:14:35Speaker 03

  It really speaks to the level of what I was.

• 1:14:38Stavros Halkias?

  That's the craziest woman I've ever seen. Do you think she watched Mad TV?

• 1:14:43Speaker 03

  Uh huh. Yeah. So, so, so, yeah.

• 1:14:47Stavros Halkias?

  How do you, okay, how do you think you would have figured this out if you weren't dating? You think you would have been meditating?

• 1:14:53Speaker 03

  I had been more open with my, what I'm saying now, which I don't know that it's the highest aspiration for a human male. Because, by the way, like, as, as discussed, romance is like 100 years old, 110.

• 1:15:11Stavros Halkias?

  He's a little older than that.

• 1:15:12Speaker 03

  It's not.

• 1:15:13Stavros Halkias?

  You ever fucking read ancient Greek poetry and shit like that? I mean, it's, it's always been there. Societal structures have taken it out of our lives, would be my point. I think since fucking cavemen, there's been romance.

• 1:15:24Speaker 03

  True, I fundamentally disagree.

• 1:15:27Stavros Halkias?

  Well, there we go. That might be the root of our disagreement.

• 1:15:29Speaker 03

  Troubadours were not, troubadours were hired by men to play for their lady. Like, eh, fucking, this is what I think.

• 1:15:38Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:15:39Speaker 03

  It's like, so, so this idea of like, guys were not romantic. I don't, I think even emotions are new besides anger.

• 1:15:48Stavros Halkias?

  You've, you don't even fucking feel emotions. You're just talking about yourself in the most clear way I can ever think of. You came from an angry family of fucking ten. That's what you know. You know nothing but anger.

• 1:16:00Speaker 03

  Uh huh.

• 1:16:01Stavros Halkias?

  And no love. We're all, and I came from a fam- I mean, we're just talk- I mean, this is the other problem with everything.

• 1:16:06Speaker 03

  We're just projecting our own.

• 1:16:07Stavros Halkias?

  Everyone is projecting with that, where it's like, I come from where it was all chaos, but the good times were good.

• 1:16:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:16:13Stavros Halkias?

  And that like, there were, like, there is things I, you know, even in my fam- even in my parents-

• 1:16:19Speaker 03

  My brothers and sisters, my fucking, I had, I also had great, like legitimately.

• 1:16:25Stavros Halkias?

  But I don't know.

• 1:16:26Speaker 03

  But I was furious, I'm kidding.

• 1:16:27Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, I don't think, I mean, I don't think the idea that emotions and romance-

• 1:16:34Speaker 03

  I think it's all related. I'm gonna be, check your phone, you're gonna be getting a lot of links from me.

• 1:16:39Stavros Halkias?

  This is so funny, because the podcast we did before, I mean, I won't say what, but we recently had a conversation where it was like, we were having almost the exact opposite conversation where it was like, isn't it crazy how human beings have been the same forever? And literally, I think we have all had the same exact thoughts and feelings and emotions since language was developed. That's my belief, is that humanity has been fundamentally the same, and that we do have these feelings. And maybe we weren't, we weren't good at like expressing them, whatever, but I think people had the same feelings we've had fucking cavemen have had.

• 1:17:10Speaker 03

  You think, okay, so let's take a village, we'll put it in like Brazil.

• 1:17:16Stavros Halkias?

  Sure.

• 1:17:17Speaker 03

  In a thousand years ago.

• 1:17:18Stavros Halkias?

  Thousand years ago, okay.

• 1:17:19Speaker 03

  Do you think that they, that all the men and the women that were together were in love? And you think that it was like, they were loving to the children? And it was like what we would call a stable, loving environment?

• 1:17:34Stavros Halkias?

  Okay.

• 1:17:34Speaker 03

  And I, and it sounds like I'm being sarcastic, but I'm legit.

• 1:17:36Stavros Halkias?

  I really don't. I would say no, because, because of what I said before, where it was like, societal structures and the ability, like survival-

• 1:17:45Stavros Halkias?

  Sometimes dictate that you have to order your society in a different way, right? So, do I think those emotions were in those people? Yes. Do I think that if you grow, if your society's in a very violent place? And that like you're gonna act a cer- you will adapt to your surroundings and like, you know, if things are harsh and violent, then like, you're probably, you know, there's probably less about love and more about survival and power? And like, people just kidnap the woman they want? But I would say, in even ancient civilizations where there was order, you see it, where you see ancient works, and I will just say Greece, because we have the most, you know, you look at ancient Greece, you look at Rome, they're fucking writing about love and feelings and all this shit. That was a big part of it.

• 1:18:29Stavros Halkias?

  And so I think the second humans get a little breathing room, these emotions exist. These emotions exist and these feelings exist. And that like, inceldom is the way like, if you were in a harsh environment and like some tribe, where it was just like, you know, there was no time for romance? Because it was like, you just had to align yourself with the strongest, most violent man?

• 1:18:50Speaker 03

  I think that's most of human history.

• 1:18:51Stavros Halkias?

  Sure, absolutely. But we, we are very lucky to live in a time where that's not the case, right? And I, and, and I'm saying like, let's not let the fa- like, I think inceldom is a version of those things, has stripped some people from their ability to connect and have this like, the joy of humanity that we get to live in, because we're in a civilized time. It's almost so civilized and we're so comfortable, that it's kind of taken that, taken it from them. And I'm saying, let's not do that. Let's get back to, you know, let's enjoy the fruits of the time that we are, you know, that we're living in. And you can get over low self-esteem and like, you know,

• 1:19:34Stavros Halkias?

  our food is too calorically dense, no one's starving, you're getting too fat. Let's triumph over that. It's not that you're starving and you don't get to have a wife because you die at 12. It's you're too fucking fat, because all your food is too nutritious or whatever. It's like, let's fucking, we can, it's new circumstances, but ultimately, we can defeat those two. And I think like, and again, I just stick to my point of like, that is what it is to be human. It doesn't make sense, and it is emotion-based, and it's like, having a good time and companionship, I just think that's part of it. I really do.

• 1:20:07Speaker 03

  I agree. I would prefer... I'd wanna give these young, these beautiful young men, the option that it, it's just an option. It's a way to go.

• 1:20:19Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:19Speaker 03

  Similar to like, it's a type of music, or a, or like a-

• 1:20:25Stavros Halkias?

  What does that life look like to you?

• 1:20:27Speaker 03

  Which?

• 1:20:27Stavros Halkias?

  What is this option, right? The, like you, right? You're saying you could have figured it out if you hadn't been in these relationships. What are you doing instead of dating these women? Just beating off?

• 1:20:41Speaker 03

  CrossFit.

• 1:20:43Stavros Halkias?

  But then inevitably you get jacked and you meet a girl at the CrossFit gym and you fuck her.

• 1:20:47Speaker 03

  Uh, no, I'm, I don't, I don't know. I, I like read, I'd like just my life, just without the nonsense of feeling like a failure cuz I'm not meeting the romantic needs-

• 1:21:00Stavros Halkias?

  Well, you know what's interesting though-

• 1:21:02Speaker 03

  Of, of a, of a woman.

• 1:21:03Stavros Halkias?

  Well, you know what's interesting is that, that is kinda the advice we give people. It's like, for a while, don't worry about it and improve yourself.

• 1:21:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:21:11Stavros Halkias?

  But I think if you do that, you will not stay in incel. Because then you-

• 1:21:15Speaker 03

  I totally agree, but what I'm saying is-

• 1:21:17Stavros Halkias?

  So maybe we just agree on this. Maybe we just, maybe we've just had this hour conversation and we are actually on the same page.

• 1:21:23Speaker 03

  When you take the robots out of it-

• 1:21:25Stavros Halkias?

  You want them to have robots, or you don't want them to ever fuck robots? Cuz that's, that is a hard line. I say do not go down that path.

• 1:21:31Speaker 03

  Here's, it's similar to my, it's a Grand Theft Auto argument I've had, which is, if, if I'm playing Grand Theft Auto-

• 1:21:39Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:40Speaker 03

  And I'm having like, an incredible experience.

• 1:21:45Stavros Halkias?

  Why go out and drive a real car afterwards?

• 1:21:47Speaker 03

  Yes. What's the difference? What's the difference between, uh, um, if the, if it's the exact same flavor of protein? If it's the same, it's the same grams-

• 1:22:02Stavros Halkias?

  If we can make lab grown meat that tastes like ribeye.

• 1:22:04Speaker 03

  What's the difference?

• 1:22:05Stavros Halkias?

  Oh wow.

• 1:22:05Speaker 03

  I get the, I get the aver- the human aversion to it.

• 1:22:09Stavros Halkias?

  This is the, this is a good one. I like this a lot.

• 1:22:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, but like, what is the, if you can get from a, the thing you can, that you're talking about in this utopian relationship?

• 1:22:21Speaker 03

  That I think some people have. Can you get it? If you get it from a robot? And don't worry about humanity. We can lab grow, we can lab grow people. In the next, in the next, in the next warehouse over.

• 1:22:34Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe they can all be blonde and six five with blue eyes. All the ugly people get sex robots, everyone.

• 1:22:43Stavros Halkias?

  This is what we're talking about.

• 1:22:44Speaker 03

  Eugenics, it's time, maybe it's time.

• 1:22:49Speaker 03

  So, so what I'm saying is if the, if the same endorphins are being fired, the same, the same chemicals are being fired by this robot. I, it's a bit like.

• 1:23:01Stavros Halkias?

  I have an answer. I have what, what would bother me about it. It's that this robot exists to serve you. It is a fully one-way relationship. And I think part of, part of the experience is that it is not perfectly suited to you. It's like people going to chat GPT and they're like, dude, you're the fucking man.

• 1:23:20Speaker 03

  Great answer, great question, yeah.

• 1:23:20Stavros Halkias?

  Exactly, it's like, if that's all you have, and kind of like.

• 1:23:23Speaker 03

  Deep seek is doing it now too. Deep is like the Chinese one. It's like I expected from Silicon Valley, but the Chinese, I thought they'd be fucking ice cold, like, like, like the kid.

• 1:23:32Stavros Halkias?

  Go, go practice violin.

• 1:23:35Speaker 03

  Why are you on here? Yeah, that's hilarious.

• 1:23:37Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. You have time to ask me about what Larry Bird's statistics were?

• 1:23:41Speaker 03

  This is frivolous. Your life is frivolous.

• 1:23:42Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, go do your fucking equations.

• 1:23:46Stavros Halkias?

  I, that's my problem with it, is that maybe you can trick yourself into firing the same synapses, but again, you have, you have opted out of humanity in a much more pleasurable way than like just not getting pussy. Now you've lab grown pussy, but I would say like, part of the joy of making, you know, of achieving that is that it is hard and that it is a, it's, it's you're combining forces with another person who's a completely separate entity. And it's not just pleasing yourself, it's actually pleasing someone. Now, if you say the robot can, we can program that in and it can pretend to be mad at you until you figure out to do, you have to do the dishes to, but then it just becomes a

• 1:24:28Stavros Halkias?

  video game that you can, then you'll go on fucking Reddit and be like, what's the cheat to get pussy on Thursday? You know what I mean? Like, A, X, Y, double, double tap her nipples, fucking, you know what I mean? Like, it's just like, bop, bop, bop, bop. And it's like, you get, she'll fuck you whenever. Like, that's my problem with it, is that it just. You just get whatever you want too easily. And my hunch is there is no way that that that opiate is used on disaffected men in any way that's good. Any society that sets that up, instead of saying, hey, why don't we have jobs programs? And like healthcare so that, you know, you're, you don't, you're, you don't, you're not all fucked up and you can make money.

• 1:25:10Stavros Halkias?

  You know, and, and infrastructure and cities where young people like go to Europe and it's like there's places people congregate. There's places people see each other. And it's like, instead of designing our cities where kind of to go back to our, to the, our cultural conversation where it's like, it's like, where we value human connection, because America has gone away from valuing that in the way we design our cities, the way we organize our life.

• 1:25:33Speaker 03

  Although I will say the, the amount of bikes and the like, New York's way better than it was 10 years ago.

• 1:25:39Stavros Halkias?

  I love it. I mean, living here is fucking, I love, you know, being in Manhattan. I, I literally bike everywhere. But it's like, um, yeah, that, that is really it is that like, it, because that to me is a, is a like, nice. We can control people easily this way instead of just giving them a worthwhile.

• 1:25:54Speaker 03

  I guess it's just, I don't, I don't, I, I, obviously it goes to like a mechanism of control and, and blackmail and all that shit, but.

• 1:26:02Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're Joey Pant, you're Joey Pants in the Matrix.

• 1:26:07Speaker 03

  I haven't seen it in a while, but.

• 1:26:08Stavros Halkias?

  Where he's like, he's like, I don't even care that this is a fake steak. You know what I mean? Yeah, that's kind of who you are here.

• 1:26:14Speaker 03

  It's a bit like, what's the?

• 1:26:17Stavros Halkias?

  If everyone can have a matrix where their, their life is good, is that better than being a peasant in whatever, whatever fucking cyberpunk future?

• 1:26:27Speaker 03

  Like, yeah, like.

• 1:26:28Stavros Halkias?

  Is it better than being an incel cyberpunk loser?

• 1:26:30Speaker 03

  What is, is human flourishing? Because I would see it as like, I had, this never gonna happen, but like, there's that. And I get to be a comedian and all that other shit.

• 1:26:42Stavros Halkias?

  Right, right, right, right, right.

• 1:26:44Speaker 03

  So, and I, like I said, I'm in a great relationship, but I, for that, I, I want to say to the, to the, to the, to those guys, like, it's a thing, but it doesn't have to be the highest aspiration of your life.

• 1:27:00Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:00Speaker 03

  And again, the same way, it's like, what if you're, what do you do with all that time? I don't know. What do you do when you're single?

• 1:27:06Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:27:07Speaker 03

  You figure it out.

• 1:27:08Stavros Halkias?

  Play Mario Tennis with your boys.

• 1:27:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. And now all of a sudden you don't like Mario Tennis? What a horrible life. Doing drugs and watching fucking Ragnarok.

• 1:27:20Stavros Halkias?

  But, okay, alright, well, I, there is a limit to that because I am up against it. Where I'm like, this has been really fun, but I do feel like there is something else, right? And I do think pursuing personal growth in the form of relationships and in like, community, that's my next step personally. Like, I'm somebody who has maxed out the awesome life of, my life has been chilling with the fellas.

• 1:27:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:27:43Stavros Halkias?

  And having an awesome time.

• 1:27:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:27:45Stavros Halkias?

  And I feel the ceiling of that. So, anyway, either, either extreme is bad for you, I think. That's another thing. You can feel empty when your life's fucking so sick and you're not making real connection, but.

• 1:27:59Speaker 03

  It's just, it's about, it was, I was finding myself putting that value above my own value, or my, the, the values of that above the values of what I think is important in life, or what I, what, the things that I really care about.

• 1:28:15Stavros Halkias?

  That's interesting because I have done the opposite where I have definitely put what my values of like, basically my career over, and this is starting from when I was in college. Like, I remember I would be in therapy and be like, I don't think I can have a girlfriend because I need to be focusing on open mics. And I meant it, and I, you know.

• 1:28:31Speaker 03

  I don't think that's bad advice.

• 1:28:33Stavros Halkias?

  Maybe it wasn't at the time, but now I think I am stunted in the opposite direction where my shit's going great career-wise. I feel really good about it, everything, but I do feel behind in relationships and like, you know, just, and not just even romantic ones, like, the last couple of years I got closer to my family. I'd really drifted apart from them because I was so, and it's, and then the next level is like, relationships and also like, community and finding a place I want to live and putting down roots, because I think all that shit's important. And so, I think the extremes on either end are bad.

• 1:29:03Speaker 03

  Yes, I think that that's also valuable, like, community is valuable and fellowship and all that shit. Like, I just think.

• 1:29:12Speaker 03

  It's a mis- I just, I, I did it. I went too far into that, like, into the extreme, like, of like, I should and I gotta and I'm a good man and what, and it's like, I don't even, I, why, what do I? It's like, you literally, I would have to go like, what am I like and what are my values? It's the hard, it's, I almost have to do it every day.

• 1:29:32Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:32Speaker 03

  And like-

• 1:29:33Stavros Halkias?

  I get that though, too.

• 1:29:34Speaker 03

  And that thing where you're aspiring to, like, boot up. Stavros.

• 1:29:42Stavros Halkias?

  Yes, of course, and I am.

• 1:29:44Speaker 03

  What is, what's he like relative to the, other than just like habits? Or like, if you, if you had a girlfriend who you loved and you, how, and you just did what she wanted? Or you tried to make her happy? What do you think, how would that change you?

• 1:30:02Stavros Halkias?

  I think I'd probably be more grounded. I think like, I would, it helps you understand, even though now I know that, you know, career stuff and everything isn't important. It's like, that's all that really matters to me right now. And I'm trying to fall back on it, but it's like, and it's one thing to intellectually say, that stuff doesn't matter. But when you have nothing else in your life, it's sort of default becomes the thing. Like, some nebulous time off to improve myself is different than, I need to see my, I need to actually spend time with my girl. The same way, I've kind of do that with my family. It's like, I made a, you know, instead of being here and podcasting or whatever, I went to fucking Baltimore, I saw my family. Now, did I sneak work into that too? And I have to work on that, like, it's just making me a more balanced person is really the answer.

• 1:30:44Stavros Halkias?

  And again, I do think there is a beauty in that, in finding that and, and, and, you know, merging your life with a person, I think, if it's done right, it's even better than just being, than the best version of being single. You know what I mean? Cause then it's like-

• 1:31:01Speaker 03

  That I agree with. It's just so hard to fall into ones that aren't that. And you tell yourself they are, cause you have to.

• 1:31:10Stavros Halkias?

  Sure.

• 1:31:10Speaker 03

  Cause that's what the culture is telling you. So it's, you can't even hear what, how you actually feel about it. You won't allow yourself to really feel about it, to feel what you feel.

• 1:31:22Stavros Halkias?

  What if we actually try, I'm sure Elders has been listening to this. Do we have any calls from incels? Cause what if we took this, no, look at him. God damn. Why did I even, why did I even think that you might be doing some, some uh, fucking forward-thinking producing here?

• 1:31:38Speaker 04

  I mean, I'm not gonna listen to calls while you guys are talking.

• 1:31:40Stavros Halkias?

  Uh, but there's, half the people that call in are fucking incels, Aldous. You didn't have any ready to go?

• 1:31:45Speaker 04

  Well, I have one, I have one that is kind of-

• 1:31:48Stavros Halkias?

  Cause we do need to help the people as well. We mean, you could talk for five hours in a row uninterrupted.

• 1:31:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, of course.

• 1:31:53Speaker 04

  But I do have a juicy story we can start with that is kind of ultimately a moral philosophical question.

• 1:32:00Stavros Halkias?

  Great, great. This is good.

• 1:32:01Speaker 03

  It's like SummerSlam but boring.

• 1:32:08Speaker 06

  I'm a raccoon. I'm a moose.

• 1:32:10Speaker 07

  I'm a skunk.

• 1:32:10Speaker 06

  If you're holding your phone while driving, you could hit one of us.

• 1:32:13Speaker 07

  And nobody like wants that, right, raccoon?

• 1:32:16Speaker 06

  Right, skunk. Right, moose? Right, raccoon.

• 1:32:18Speaker 07

  And that's why you should totally get a cup phone from WeatherTech.

• 1:32:21Speaker 06

  It fits right in your cup holder and keeps your phone locked in place. So your eyes stay locked on the road. It's amazing.

• 1:32:28Speaker 07

  It's brilliant.

• 1:32:28Speaker 06

  It's killer.

• 1:32:29Speaker 07

  Oh, moose.

• 1:32:30Stavros Halkias?

  Seriously, moose.

• 1:32:31Speaker 06

  Oh, sorry. That just sort of slipped out. Protect yourself and everything else on the road with a cup phone from weatherTech.com.

• 1:32:40Speaker 00

  This podcast is supported by Nurtac ODT, Remedy Pant. We know you didn't ask for an interruption, but migraine doesn't wait for the right moment to interrupt either. It just barges in, takes your time, and throws everything off. So when migraine takes your time, take Nurtac. It's for the acute treatment of migraine with or without aura in adults. Nurtac can provide pain relief in two hours, which can last up to two days. Ask your healthcare provider if Nurtac is right for you, because your time is for you, not migraine. Don't take if allergic to Nurtac ODT. Allergic reactions can occur even days after use. Get help right away for trouble breathing, rash, swelling of face, mouth, tongue, or throat. High blood pressure and Raynaud's syndrome can occur.

• 1:33:21Speaker 00

  Get help for high blood pressure, numbness, coolness, pain, or color changes in fingers and toes. Common side effect is nausea. For full prescribing information, call 1-833-4-NURTECH or visit Nurtac.com. All right, back to your podcast, playlist, or whatever's keeping you going today.

• 1:33:39Speaker 08

  Hey, Stavi, eldest guest, uh, would love your take on a situation that happened to me about six months ago. Um, about a year ago, I got out of a four-year relationship, uh, with a girl I thought I was gonna marry, um, I found out she was cheating on me. Um, then about six months ago, um, I work in entertainment, uh, I was at an event with a, I'll say, a C-level celebrity, uh, who I work-

• 1:34:08Speaker 09

  Were we there?

• 1:34:09Speaker 08

  Uh, for this work thing, and, uh, this celebrity, she was sort of flirty the whole week that we were away at this event.

• 1:34:19Speaker 09

  Okay.

• 1:34:19Speaker 08

  And then, on the last night of the event, she invited me back to her room.

• 1:34:24Speaker 09

  Nice.

• 1:34:24Speaker 08

  Um, we were both sober, we're both about the same age, in our late twenties. Um, I went back to her room, it got a little flirty, uh, we started to hook up.

• 1:34:36Speaker 09

  Nice.

• 1:34:37Speaker 08

  Um, we were making out, I was in shock, I kinda couldn't believe this was all happening. Um, and then, as we're making out, her phone rings, and it's her husband. And, she sort of shoes me away for a second, uh, so I go sit on the couch, and I listen to her talk to her husband, 'cause she put him on speakerphone. Speaker? And, basically, it was like a, "Goodnight, how was your day? How was, can't wait to see you, miss you so much." Uh, and, in that moment, my heart just tanked, 'cause I thought, "How many times was I this guy?" And, basically, she calls me back over, she says, "Goodnight," hangs up, calls me back over, uh, to continue where we left off.

• 1:35:22Speaker 09

  Hmm.

• 1:35:23Speaker 08

  Um, but I couldn't do it. I, we kissed a little bit longer, and, uh, then I said I had to go, and I left her room, and, uh- Basically, I don't know how to feel about it. I'm never, probably never gonna talk to her again.

• 1:35:39Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:39Speaker 08

  With the way, uh, my work is, it's not like she's someone I'm gonna see again. But it was definitely like a once in a lifetime sort of situation. Uh, definitely.

• 1:35:49Stavros Halkias?

  And you fucking squandered it.

• 1:35:52Speaker 08

  Um, and of course, my, half my friend group thinks, um, a bit, for.

• 1:35:57Speaker 03

  I'll tell you right now.

• 1:35:59Stavros Halkias?

  Fucking piece of shit.

• 1:36:00Speaker 03

  Anyone who knows me knows I would get harder in that situation.

• 1:36:03Stavros Halkias?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:36:04Speaker 08

  Uh, leaving and the other half thinks I did the right thing. Um, just wanted to sort of get your take on it cause now it's been six months and I really don't know how to feel. It depends on my.

• 1:36:14Stavros Halkias?

  Can't watch Hulu anymore.

• 1:36:15Speaker 08

  Sometimes I'm like, wow, what an amazing experience. I even got to hook up.

• 1:36:20Stavros Halkias?

  Watch whatever CW shows, she's the mom on.

• 1:36:23Speaker 08

  And I should have just, you know, gone through with it. Anyway, uh, would love your take on it. Uh, how should I feel?

• 1:36:30Stavros Halkias?

  Hmm. Interesting, interesting.

• 1:36:33Speaker 03

  Uh, so he basically just had like a moral.

• 1:36:37Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:37Speaker 03

  He had moral clarity.

• 1:36:39Stavros Halkias?

  Help a woman cheat on her husband.

• 1:36:41Speaker 03

  I, I think, I think he absolutely did the right, she was famous? Is that the thing? She was C-list?

• 1:36:47Stavros Halkias?

  Some celeb, some, she's probably hot as shit.

• 1:36:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:36:50Stavros Halkias?

  And also, yes, this is part of the problem of like putting fame above it. Cause it's like, you take the famous out of it. And this is almost no, there's almost no quandary at all.

• 1:36:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:36:59Stavros Halkias?

  It's just the general, I mean, we've come up with this question a bunch on the show where it's like,

• 1:37:06Stavros Halkias?

  hey, is how wrong is it to be the person someone is cheating with, right? And you know, again, this is what I talk about where being a human is, it's all about being met, you know, it's not all perfect. Part of humanity is getting slurped off by some bitch who fucking, I don't even, you know, I'm trying to think who.

• 1:37:28Speaker 03

  You leave it there. Some bitch. Getting slurped off by some bitch.

• 1:37:34Speaker 03

  That's part of life. It's getting slurped off by some bitch.

• 1:37:36Stavros Halkias?

  Well, there is the thing of like. You know, should you be, should you extra not cheat because you got cheated on? Or do you take the other thing where it's like, sometimes you're the hammer, sometimes you're the nail?

• 1:37:47Speaker 03

  Look, I was saying, yeah. By the end of life.

• 1:37:50Stavros Halkias?

  Were you owed this? Was this God trying to be like, my bad, your, your, your ex sucked off her guy at work?

• 1:37:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:37:58Stavros Halkias?

  Here, you know, fuck, suck the, you know, fuck this lady on a, straight to Netflix sitcom or whatever.

• 1:38:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:38:03Stavros Halkias?

  Um, and you, you spit in God's face.

• 1:38:06Speaker 03

  Show that you will never watch, but it's in the top 10 for four weeks. And you're like, what is this?

• 1:38:11Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:38:12Speaker 03

  Reno?

• 1:38:13Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:13Speaker 03

  What's the premise? And it's just like a bunch of white people on a porch?

• 1:38:17Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:18Speaker 03

  Like, okay.

• 1:38:19Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah. Whatever Bridgerton knockoff, Bridgerton spinoff, the maid on a Bridgerton spinoff.

• 1:38:25Speaker 03

  Crime and there's, okay, there's a body, there's a boat.

• 1:38:29Stavros Halkias?

  Yes.

• 1:38:30Speaker 03

  Okay. Um, uh, I don't, yeah, yeah, I, to me, I, yeah, I, I'm not a big, I've done it.

• 1:38:40Stavros Halkias?

  Sure, sure, sure, sure, sure.

• 1:38:41Speaker 03

  Uh, and I, I'm not even that ashamed of it. It's like, I don't know. And like, if I'm, have I been, I've been cheated on and I've, yeah, you, you're everybody by the end.

• 1:38:50Stavros Halkias?

  Absolutely.

• 1:38:51Speaker 03

  So, I don't know.

• 1:38:52Stavros Halkias?

  That's another freeing thing about, another incel thing is like, you remember being the loser who got a girl taken from you? And then you become the guy who takes the girl. It's like, it happens sometimes. And so, how should you feel about it? It's about who you are. You're clearly a moral guy.

• 1:39:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:39:07Stavros Halkias?

  You probably wouldn't have felt great about it. Also, the other thing is like, the work element gives it another reason not to do it. You know what I mean? It's like, this is somebody that.

• 1:39:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:39:16Stavros Halkias?

  It's a professional setting, you know, it's kind of a, you could argue maybe, if anything, you could have been like, she lured me into her room and used her power over me as a celebrity.

• 1:39:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, this sounds like the setup for a lawsuit.

• 1:39:29Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah. Maybe you got it, maybe you got her dead to rights, chief. She wanted me to cheat on her husband. She had lost my consent by showing that she's cheating.

• 1:39:38Speaker 03

  She said, wait here and called her husband on speaker.

• 1:39:42Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, that is, that is a crazy psychological power move.

• 1:39:44Speaker 03

  Putting on speaker is like, this woman's a real asshole.

• 1:39:48Stavros Halkias?

  If she's, hey, she's like, hey, can you give me five minutes and just like, takes the call or whatever? That's better. Putting it on speaker is like. It is interesting because putting it on speaker almost kind of ensures you're the kind of dirtbag that'll take this to the grave. You know what I mean? Because like someone who's on the fence and has to listen to this guy. You're like, yeah, the sprinklers are fucked up again. The water got in the kitchen. You have to hear him say that and then fuck his wife? That actually might have affected even me.

• 1:40:16Speaker 03

  It's like a snuff film at that point.

• 1:40:17Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:40:19Speaker 03

  I have a question for you. This, she goes, goes, he goes, sits on the couch, I'm assuming naked. What is the saddest part of the couch to sit on?

• 1:40:29Stavros Halkias?

  Ooh, interesting.

• 1:40:31Speaker 03

  Like lodged into a corner?

• 1:40:33Stavros Halkias?

  I think you want to be, I think you want to be corner furthest, what I would choose is corner furthest away from her. Just to psychically put a little distance. The corner is sort of like, I mean, you know, you're sort of, it's comforting, you're leaning on it for emotional support. Saddest, I think, would be right in this middle divot. Because you're sort of like, you're just kind of fully, it's yourself supporting you. And it's you being like, you're kind of, I'm ready whenever you're, you're ready to suck me. I'm, I'm just your little fuck toy and I'm going to help you cheat on your husband. You know, that's the most sub.

• 1:41:05Speaker 03

  I, I would suggest sitting on the arm.

• 1:41:10Stavros Halkias?

  Arm?

• 1:41:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:41:11Stavros Halkias?

  Arm, I didn't even consider, that's why you're a visionary, Neil. I didn't even consider arm.

• 1:41:16Speaker 03

  Sit on the arm. You gotta use the whole couch, bro. I didn't say cushions. Sitting on the arm gives you, you, you're, you, you keep your self-esteem. I think if you did like a lay down on it.

• 1:41:32Stavros Halkias?

  Lay down.

• 1:41:32Speaker 03

  And if you do the thing that Sudeikis used to do in that Scared Straight sketch where he'd hop onto the desk.

• 1:41:37Stavros Halkias?

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 1:41:38Speaker 03

  You lay down on the bed.

• 1:41:40Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:41Speaker 03

  Full confidence or take it to the next level, sit on top.

• 1:41:45Stavros Halkias?

  Top. Top center is almost like I'm the king of this couch.

• 1:41:49Speaker 03

  Like.

• 1:41:50Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, and I'm keeping my cock at eye level.

• 1:41:52Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:41:52Stavros Halkias?

  So you, now, you try to outdo me by making me listen to your husband? I'm going to make you look down the barrel of my dick while you talk to him.

• 1:41:59Speaker 03

  That, that, that lady's, that's, she's evil. I don't want to say, like, that's so fucking awful.

• 1:42:06Stavros Halkias?

  Crazy. Now.

• 1:42:07Speaker 03

  And married the guy and is going to go home to him.

• 1:42:09Stavros Halkias?

  Now I wonder, very, you're a light devil's advocate, is there some kind of?

• 1:42:16Stavros Halkias?

  She probably would have told him if there was some kind of arrangement, right? Like, cause it's also possible, we're talking about show business people. We're talking about a guy who's a simp to a famous woman. I'm sure plenty of people, like NBA players all cheat on their wives. I'm sure there's actresses who are like, look, I'm hot as shit, I'm an actress. I'm gonna, you're lucky to be with me. I'm gonna, and you do, you, you see that dynamic where even if they don't actually cheat on them, the man is cucked by just, he's almost like her lapdog, her husband.

• 1:42:46Speaker 03

  I think of a woman makes one dollar more than you.

• 1:42:56Speaker 03

  You are cucked.

• 1:42:59Speaker 03

  I guess I'm old, I'm old fashioned? This is where I, where I am on this.

• 1:43:04Stavros Halkias?

  Of course. So there's a small chance, but she probably would have said something before he left. Who knows? But either way, did you do the right thing, did you not do the right thing? I think for you, it was the right thing.

• 1:43:15Speaker 03

  Also, like, what, if you're looking for like a scalp of like, I fucked a famous, it's like, you kinda just want, you did something.

• 1:43:22Stavros Halkias?

  Oh, no, by the way, I've gotten to the age where knowing a girl would, if she would sign a notarized form that was like, I would have fucked you tonight, that would be enough for me.

• 1:43:32Speaker 03

  That's what it is.

• 1:43:33Stavros Halkias?

  Grabbing a bare tit once.

• 1:43:36Speaker 03

  Well, you're gonna love Robot Sex World. She just fell into my trap. This is what the whole lifestyle's about.

• 1:43:45Stavros Halkias?

  It comes with a signed affidavit from a woman you wanna fuck? And then you just fuck the robot?

• 1:43:50Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:43:52Speaker 03

  Yes, they have to honor it. No, but that's, but, but that's what you want. You want another, that's, you want another human being to find you desirable enough to fuck you.

• 1:44:06Stavros Halkias?

  Sure.

• 1:44:06Speaker 03

  And then you want tenderness on the other side.

• 1:44:08Stavros Halkias?

  At a certain point, yeah, at a certain point, if you fucked enough, you're like, alright, I get pussies. It's getting pussies, whatever, but having someone wanna fuck you.

• 1:44:14Speaker 03

  It's also kinda more strenuous than I'd like it to be some, a lot of the time.

• 1:44:18Stavros Halkias?

  I've definitely, I've literally thrown my back out having sex and then I'm like, well, great. I got pussy and now the four days are ruined.

• 1:44:24Speaker 03

  But at what cost?

• 1:44:28Speaker 03

  I did it again.

• 1:44:29Stavros Halkias?

  God damn. Oh, man. The fattest I ever was, I really was just doing every drug and, you know, random sex. And I was just, I really would throw my back out like every, like, there was a stretch where I would just throw my back out getting pussy. Like, I was just like, I know this is gonna happen. It wasn't even like, it might happen. It was like, I'm so fat, I'm gonna throw my back out, I'm gonna go get a massage.

• 1:44:53Speaker 03

  But you'd schedule the massage?

• 1:44:54Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, like, it would be like, when we get back from the road, Eldis, I'm gonna be, between podcasts, I'm gonna go get a massage at the place on Steinway or whatever. You got time for a couple more?

• 1:45:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:45:05Stavros Halkias?

  All right, let's do a couple more, because I'd love to use your wisdom on our fucking, on our callers here.

• 1:45:11Speaker 10

  Hey, Stavi, hey, Eldis, and esteemed guest. So, I'm a long time listener and second time caller. I think I called once, and my first one was stupid, so you guys didn't do anything with it. This one's probably pretty stupid, too, but I just need a little bit of advice. So, I am an uncle to two nephews. One of them is three, the other one is less than a year. The one that is less than a year is definitely the chillist of the two, and the oldest is a fucking nightmare to be around. I used to love him, he used to be

• 1:45:52Speaker 10

  super chill, but once he started turning three and four, he's become an absolute fucking nightmare to be around. I am struggling with the fact that as just a person, I fucking, I hate kids. I despise them. They're sticky, they're gross, they're annoying, they're just overall unpleasant to be around. But I feel like that is coming into conflict with the unspoken rule that as his uncle, I'm, I'm meant to look past all that, I guess, and just pretend that he isn't a little piece of shit, and like, be cool with him, like,

• 1:46:34Speaker 10

  I, I, then I get into all the, all the things that he's done to piss me off. I mean, just existing, honestly.

• 1:46:41Speaker 03

  Fucking nervous.

• 1:46:42Speaker 10

  As horrible that might sound.

• 1:46:45Speaker 10

  I just, I, I, I don't know. I guess, I guess ultimately my question is, uh, is it okay for me to, to kind of, kind of hate my nephew? Like, is he gonna grow out of this? Is there a chance that he's gonna be like, you know, like a shithead his entire life? Like, I don't know. Like, I don't know if it's like the way my brother and his wife are raising him. Cause they don't like, they don't beat him, which is good, I guess, but, you know, a kid that got beat a time or two as a kid, it definitely set me great.

• 1:47:16Stavros Halkias?

  That's the problem. He'd be way chiller if he got hit. Are you out of your fucking mind? You fucking idiot. When is, I mean, no one who got hit is better off because of it. Um, in fact, some of them grow up to resent the weak so much, the resentment that they can't hit children, that they become dickheads about it and, and claim that they don't like kids because they're sticky and loud.

• 1:47:42Speaker 03

  Um, I wanna, let me just, let me stop you right there.

• 1:47:45Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:46Speaker 03

  A buddy of mine has kids and they, him and his wife had a no spanking thing.

• 1:47:53Stavros Halkias?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:47:54Speaker 03

  And, um, and then like they were trying to leave and the, the daughter wasn't getting ready or whatever. Just being like a terror, like a real dickhead. Um, and, and the wife was like, it's time. And, uh, and he, and he spanked his daughter and he said, like, she couldn't believe it. Like, most of the tears were about, like, I can't believe you did that.

• 1:48:20Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, you betrayed me.

• 1:48:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:48:21Stavros Halkias?

  The person who, the person who's supposed to look out for my safety harmed me.

• 1:48:25Speaker 03

  Um, and, uh, but they, they, there was never a problem again.

• 1:48:31Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, and look, now he has a punctual daughter who resents him on some level and,

• 1:48:35Speaker 03

  Or again, when you have kids, dude, it's, my girl's a kid. So it's like, it's,

• 1:48:41Stavros Halkias?

  Hitting is tough.

• 1:48:42Speaker 03

  I'm not, I'm, there's gonna be no hitting.

• 1:48:45Stavros Halkias?

  You know what this is? This is back to our, like, were we better off when there was no romance? And it's like, were we, were kid, did kids listen more when you hit them? Yes.

• 1:48:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:48:54Stavros Halkias?

  But they also then hit their wives.

• 1:48:56Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:48:56Stavros Halkias?

  You know what I mean?

• 1:48:57Speaker 03

  Sometimes, but sometimes they, sometimes they didn't.

• 1:49:02Speaker 03

  And you gotta take that into consideration.

• 1:49:09Speaker 03

  So, so what I'm saying is, I think it's like, you've heard the thing again in the black community, like, I'm going to hit you so that white people don't hit you in the future, and it's gonna be way worse.

• 1:49:21Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:22Speaker 03

  Like, there are useful forms of spanking that are instructive and pro-social.

• 1:49:30Stavros Halkias?

  I don't know that I believe that, actually. I think, I think hitting your kid is probably just abuse on every, most of the time. And I think like, I, I mean, I haven't looked at the literature, but like, I, I looked at it.

• 1:49:40Speaker 03

  I brought it, it's downstairs, so.

• 1:49:41Stavros Halkias?

  I did look, there was like, when I was younger, there was so many, I kinda looked at it a little bit because of how many like, you gotta beat your kids, like, jokes I would encounter, and I almost was like a shitty, you know, early twenties, wide open mic'er.

• 1:49:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, a guy who had a library card and a, and a avid viewer of BET Comic View.

• 1:50:03Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, exactly, literally, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I was like, this can't be true. And I really don't think it's ever good. It's just, it's obviously harder, and it has the more, you know, there's more chaos to it, but what this guy's talking about is, we can table the should you hit your kids conversation, because I think this guy is just like, cause his question is about, like, my nephew's vibes are off.

• 1:50:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, and should I make, can I hit some pods?

• 1:50:30Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, I don't, you can't, I don't, kids are gonna be what they're like.

• 1:50:37Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:38Speaker 03

  And, and, and boys are, are like, a handful.

• 1:50:41Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:42Speaker 03

  That's the other thing that I wasn't even aware of, like, it's, he wakes up and it's like, go time.

• 1:50:48Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:48Speaker 03

  Until he goes to sleep, and he doesn't wanna go to sleep.

• 1:50:52Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:50:52Speaker 03

  That's a fight.

• 1:50:53Stavros Halkias?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:50:53Speaker 03

  So like, it's relentless.

• 1:50:55Stavros Halkias?

  I just experienced, like, yeah, my friend's kid, he's just, he's just getting out of baby and kinda becau, he's like, two and a half, almost, actually, he's almost three, and this is the age where he's like, like, he just, I showed him at like, sword fighting for the first time, she was like, he's tried to sword fight me.

• 1:51:14Speaker 03

  You can't even, you can't introduce it. You can't introduce certain kinds of- Violence or like activity.

• 1:51:23Stavros Halkias?

  And to the point where he saw him, I stopped by their house right before bedtime. He saw me, his fucking eyes lit up.

• 1:51:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:51:29Stavros Halkias?

  He comes, he brings me, I'm gonna get him a sword for his birthday. I'm gonna give him like foam swords. Right now where he has a pizza set and it's like a spat- we were sword fighting with little spatulas or whatever. He sees me, he goes right to the fucking spatulas and he's like, and he's just like, he choreographs a fight we did a month ago. To a baby, a month, a guy who's been alive 26 months. That's one twenty-sixth of his life.

• 1:51:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:51:54Stavros Halkias?

  Ago, but he remembers it. He's like, this is one of my most cherished memories. It's a sword fight with, you know, my mom's friend. So like, and yes, and he's a fucking handful and he's like energetic.

• 1:52:04Speaker 03

  Don't hit him.

• 1:52:05Stavros Halkias?

  I'm not gonna hit him, he's too sweet, he's too cute.

• 1:52:07Speaker 03

  He doesn't need it.

• 1:52:08Stavros Halkias?

  And I did, by the way, I did see, and he started crying and he, they were like, like he didn't wanna go to bed, he wanted to keep sword fighting. And my friend did something that looked annoying, like I saw it, I saw it in their eyes. She was like, she talked him through his emotions and it took like a half hour. And it probably, it would've been a lot easier to fucking backhand them, but he's gonna be better off, you know? Cause he went through that.

• 1:52:29Speaker 03

  What?

• 1:52:32Speaker 03

  What's worked for you in terms of discipline? In your life?

• 1:52:36Stavros Halkias?

  Me personally?

• 1:52:37Speaker 03

  Yeah. In terms of just like, like I'm, I'm, I like, have like locked my computer, I've like done, I had a TV lock. I've like, my, my mom used to lock the TV up, like, I'm not, I don't, I'm not prone to do the, have good work habits. I'm like prone to be lazy, procrastinate, all that shit.

• 1:52:56Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:57Speaker 03

  And I've had to institute shit to make myself better at it. So that's why when I hear about hitting, it's like, it's the next, it's the next level.

• 1:53:06Stavros Halkias?

  You wish you could hit yourself, is that what you're saying?

• 1:53:08Speaker 03

  I do hit myself.

• 1:53:11Speaker 03

  That's what I'm trying to tell you.

• 1:53:12Stavros Halkias?

  Right.

• 1:53:14Speaker 03

  When I saw the Tom Hanks Da Vinci Code, the guy who whips himself, I was like, yo. I didn't know, that shit is wild. I didn't, I like this term self-flagellation I was aware of. I didn't know they had a device.

• 1:53:30Stavros Halkias?

  Right, right. Yeah, what's worked for me is-

• 1:53:31Speaker 03

  And then it was on Amazon Prime.

• 1:53:33Stavros Halkias?

  Of course, yeah. And it's for sex, usually, but you figure-

• 1:53:37Speaker 03

  Not, or, or writing.

• 1:53:39Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah. Banging out that screenplay.

• 1:53:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:53:44Stavros Halkias?

  What's worked for me is literally nothing. I mean, I, nothing ever. It's like, things have to get so bad that like, I just, I, I, even right now, it's like, I, it's cycles of like despair and then like, yeah, I'm nothing, I'm struggling, my biggest, my, the defining struggle of my life will be, um, discipline around food. I mean, I've been able to cut out drugs, I've been able to even like, put together hard periods of like, but if I don't, what's worked for me is like, so solely focusing on something, when it's gotten so bad, it needs all my attention, right?

• 1:54:24Stavros Halkias?

  And I think that's cycles of shame and guilt into like, that's kinda how I'm, so I don't know, I'm not, you know, I have a lot of fuck, I have my own, you know, psychological issues, but when it comes to this guy, his attitude just sucks dick when it comes to this kid.

• 1:54:38Speaker 03

  Oh, it's terrible. I almost don't think he should be allowed near the kid.

• 1:54:42Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah, it's like, look dude, he's a fucking kid. Also, you're like, I hate kids thing, it's like, it's a little corny when I hear people say that shit. Cause like, I'm not even somebody who's sold on whether I wanna have kids, right? Cause it's a lot of work and it's a lot of like, you dedicate, you know, whatever. But I, like, being somebody who wants to be childless and understanding that you don't want to have a kid, is different than being like, kids suck. It's like, no, they, we're all fucking kids. It's a, it's a part of humanity, it's like, even if you don't have kids, it's like, it's nice to be around kids. Also, it's like, there's positives, like, that level of innocence, that level of like, um, you know, someone who's not self-conscious at all.

• 1:55:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's pure earnestness.

• 1:55:24Stavros Halkias?

  Pure earnest, and also like, honest with you about exactly what they're feeling at all times. There's like, things you can like, you can learn things from children too, the way they can learn like, not being a complete fucking asshole, you know, around you, and it's like, and you just have to, by the way, model that behavior and like, who knows, you know, whatever. And it's like, your, your, your brother or sister and their, their husband or wife, uh, like, you know, they might just be overworked, this kid might just be a handful, like, my brother now, who is the easiest guy to get along with and the most dependable member of my family by far, was a fucking terror when he was a little kid, he was just super energetic, hard to like, you know, ha, just, and also kids grow out of it, it's like,

• 1:56:08Stavros Halkias?

  I just don't like that whole vibe of like kids suck.

• 1:56:11Speaker 03

  I wish I should could, yeah, like, uh, and he'll get better. The kid will get, his vibe will get better as he ages.

• 1:56:19Stavros Halkias?

  I also like, by the way, I don't know that your vibes are good. Are you the judge of good vibes?

• 1:56:24Speaker 03

  You're not sure?

• 1:56:25Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah. I'm on the fence.

• 1:56:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:56:29Speaker 04

  This is something that happens in families all the time too.

• 1:56:32Speaker 03

  But you also have to walk the line because he's a fan. So you don't want it, you don't want to lose him.

• 1:56:35Stavros Halkias?

  We're at the point where we can lose him easy. We can lose one or two. What were you gonna say, Elders?

• 1:56:40Speaker 04

  I feel like it happens in families all the time too, where like, you know, from childhood, you just attach certain like characteristics to a kid where like that informs every interaction you have with this kid for the rest of your life. So, you know, check yourself, like, if you're doing that, is this kid gonna be like seventeen one day and just like a totally normal high schooler and you're like, oh, here's this annoying fucking bitch.

• 1:57:05Stavros Halkias?

  Cause he had a bad day when he was four. Now you think he's a piece of shit for life. That's a great point.

• 1:57:10Speaker 03

  It's also a different kind of engagement with a kid. It's like, it's not for you.

• 1:57:16Stavros Halkias?

  Totally. And by the way, this also could mean you're not around the kid enough, right?

• 1:57:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:57:20Stavros Halkias?

  Like you see him every six months and like you said, you barely know who he is. You might have caught him on an outlier day. Like I've been around the, the kid I was talking about.

• 1:57:29Speaker 03

  If you're the kid, call in. Let us know what's happening.

• 1:57:32Stavros Halkias?

  Dial on your little Fisher Price phone and let us know what's going on. But yeah, you know, I've been around my friend's kid enough where I've seen him behave lots of different ways and like now with my nephew, I'm like, I need to be around him at least once a month so that I actually have a real relationship with him, even though I live in a different city. So it's like, you know, I gotta hunch your, your contributor to that. And also the funny thing is, one thing I love about kids too is that they just, when they don't like you, they'll tell you. There's nothing better than when there's like a piece of shit in the fam, like some shitty grandpa or something, you know, and everyone's like walking on eggshells around him and nobody tell, you know, everyone's like just, and a baby's like, I don't like grandpa Marty.

• 1:58:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:58:15Stavros Halkias?

  And then it's like, he has to be like, I mean, that old expression from the mouth of babes or whatever. It's like there's a reason for it. But anyway, we side with the baby. Grow up, dude. He's a fucking kid. Stop being an asshole. Next question, Elders.

• 1:58:30Speaker 11

  Hey guys, hi guys, Elvis, um, girl with a problem and huge shit, so if you could do your thing and bump this to the top, I'd really appreciate it.

• 1:58:40Stavros Halkias?

  We'll be listening extra carefully.

• 1:58:41Speaker 11

  I'm gonna come right to the chase here. I need help finding a way to get to know someone intellectually quicker in like the dating realm. I, you know,

• 1:58:57Speaker 11

  the only requirement I have for fucking with somebody, dating with them lightly, is that they have to be somewhat intelligent and on my level. And you would think, living in Boston, working at a really great university, this might not be hard to find, um, fun, good, is, so unfortunately.

• 1:59:18Speaker 03

  A lot of these universities have gone woke.

• 1:59:23Speaker 03

  So sweetheart, I get it.

• 1:59:26Stavros Halkias?

  We get it, sister. They're telling you, you know, you're making conversation, they're like, uh, you know, hey, oh, you have a nephew, why don't we chop his cock off and put him in a dress?

• 1:59:37Speaker 03

  And that's education.

• 1:59:38Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, and then teach him Spanish.

• 1:59:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:59:41Stavros Halkias?

  You know, a lot of these people, this university, they wanna get rid of English. They wanna make the, pick the American flag, they wanna change to a picture of RuPaul.

• 1:59:50Stavros Halkias?

  Go ahead, Elvis.

• 1:59:52Speaker 11

  Um, confident but not cocky. Um, I don't pick my looks for the problem and, um, I've done the app, I've done C-Dating, I actually host C-Dating events, very social, I'm involved in the startup community for meeting young people.

• 2:00:08Stavros Halkias?

  Startup, is that what you said?

• 2:00:10Speaker 11

  But I just cannot find a way to...

• 2:00:13Stavros Halkias?

  The startup community, you wanna get intellectually stimulating fucking conversation? Is there anybody stupider than tech people in the fucking world? You know, no disrespect to you. You have huge tits, you know, you, you a sigh, and you're a fan. Um, you know, fan is not enough to get you to be, but your fan plus huge tits, that, you know.

• 2:00:33Speaker 03

  Right this way. Oh, a table just opened up.

• 2:00:38Speaker 03

  Oh, it's funny.

• 2:00:41Speaker 03

  Put huge hits on table number four.

• 2:00:46Stavros Halkias?

  I hope it's okay. It's on our most pickarist veranda view.

• 2:00:50Speaker 03

  Is that okay with you? Seventy six degree breeze?

• 2:00:53Speaker 01

  Hey, we've been waiting here a while. Shut up. Shut the fuck up.

• 2:00:59Stavros Halkias?

  Some guy who called in six months ago, hey, my whole family died of cancer.

• 2:01:08Speaker 11

  Not find a way to meet someone and get to know them intellectually enough to be interested in sleeping with them. Um, I'm kinky. I want to fuck. I don't really want, like, I don't care if this is a lifetime thing or not. I really just want to get laid. So, yeah, any advice would be greatly appreciated. I don't think you're gonna have any way to find someone intellectually. Like, there's no app for that or anything, but figuring out how to get to know them quicker intellectually. Uh, any advice, please? Thank you.

• 2:01:40Stavros Halkias?

  I, I'm having a hard time even seeing. Do you have something?

• 2:01:43Speaker 03

  She's contradicting herself.

• 2:01:45Stavros Halkias?

  Okay.

• 2:01:45Speaker 03

  Which is, I just want to get laid, but I want to connect with them intellectually.

• 2:01:50Stavros Halkias?

  Hmm.

• 2:01:50Speaker 03

  So like, if you just want to get laid, then go out, you know, like, it's simple.

• 2:01:56Stavros Halkias?

  Right.

• 2:01:56Speaker 03

  The intellectual thing, I think the fastest, well, the, I think taking shit out of the realm of, you're not gonna believe this, out of the realm of romance.

• 2:02:06Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:06Speaker 03

  Is, is, do you want, if you want to know what he's actually like, like, I was talking the other day, like, I've taken girls, I would take girls on dates to Target. Meaning like, let's take it out of the like,

• 2:02:18Stavros Halkias?

  Yes, yes.

• 2:02:18Speaker 03

  pageantry world. I'm like, what are, what's this relationship gonna be?

• 2:02:22Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:22Speaker 03

  It's gonna be us sitting on a couch, watching television.

• 2:02:25Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:26Speaker 03

  And eating.

• 2:02:27Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:02:27Speaker 03

  So like, the, and it's like, why don't you show, because that's not what the relationship's gonna be.

• 2:02:33Stavros Halkias?

  Courtship is not really.

• 2:02:34Speaker 03

  It's not a, it's not a simulacrum of what the relationship's gonna be. It's like, guys don't. I have lifelong friendships and there was not a good opening line.

• 2:02:44Stavros Halkias?

  Right, right, right.

• 2:02:45Speaker 03

  It was not a good, like, we didn't, I didn't woo them.

• 2:02:48Stavros Halkias?

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 2:02:49Speaker 03

  But, so what I'm saying is try to get it out of that as soon as possible.

• 2:02:54Stavros Halkias?

  That's interesting, yeah, and I think like, I guess she's trying to really thread the needle here where she's like, look, I'm down.

• 2:03:00Speaker 03

  Look, I got huge tits.

• 2:03:01Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, she's like, I got big titties, I want them wrapped around some prick, but I don't want the guy to be a total fucking idiot.

• 2:03:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:03:08Stavros Halkias?

  That's basically what she's saying, and that is, you're right, that is a harder needle to thread than like, you know, just fucking whoever you find attractive pretty quickly, or, but the thing is, it's not as hard as finding a lifelong lasting relationship. So I think you just have to increase your, basically you just have to like, increase your standards a little bit, right? Like.

• 2:03:33Speaker 03

  Or lower them.

• 2:03:35Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, I guess lower them, I guess, I guess, not even standards, I guess the, you know, admissions process, or just like your rubric for who you're gonna hook up with, like.

• 2:03:46Speaker 03

  I think it is hard to find a guy that's interesting, like, whatever, has a good brain and has charisma.

• 2:03:55Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:56Speaker 03

  So I think that's what she may be looking for.

• 2:03:58Stavros Halkias?

  And that also she doesn't, that you want also, that is also cool with exactly the type of, she wants a relationship that's kinda like, more than just hooking up, but not quite a relation, like a serious relationship.

• 2:04:10Speaker 03

  You think it's more than just hooking up? I think, well, I think she thinks it's not, I think she thinks it's just hooking up.

• 2:04:16Stavros Halkias?

  Okay, so she just wants to hook up, but she wants to like baseline respect the person, I guess?

• 2:04:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:04:21Stavros Halkias?

  That is hard.

• 2:04:24Speaker 03

  I mean, some say impossible.

• 2:04:27Stavros Halkias?

  I mean, I don't, I don't know the like, that there's a secret, I think you just have to do whatever you're currently doing, but be picky, it's just, your frustration, I hear your frustration, and yeah, you're doing something that's harder than just hooking up with someone.

• 2:04:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:04:44Stavros Halkias?

  You're doing something that's like, and you could even argue it's harder than dating seriously, because if you find somebody who you hit it off with and you're both aligned, a serious relationship is something more people are interested in than like. No strings attached, but we have a ton in common because.

• 2:04:58Speaker 03

  I don't believe she doesn't want a relationship though. I think she's open to it.

• 2:05:01Stavros Halkias?

  Okay, yeah.

• 2:05:03Speaker 03

  I can't believe we're having to like talk through like, yeah, this girl with the, who wants to hook up. This girl with huge tits who just wants to hook up. We're like, we gotta help her.

• 2:05:11Speaker 04

  I don't think she really like specifies that she wants a real relationship.

• 2:05:15Stavros Halkias?

  But she's open to whatever, but she just wants to find a guy. She's maybe more open to casual hookups than most people, but she really just wants to find a guy who she likes intellectually. She hammered intellectually home a lot of times.

• 2:05:30Speaker 03

  Just keep looking. I don't know.

• 2:05:31Stavros Halkias?

  I mean, yeah, it unfortunately comes up to that. It's like, and I would say look outside of your zones, right? Because that happens a lot, a lot where people just like, you know, dating for convenience. And especially thinking, you think where you are is what you want to find. And I would argue startups and like, we made fun of it, but it's like tech guys are fucking idiots.

• 2:05:54Speaker 03

  It's also the same for people.

• 2:05:56Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah. And it's the same, and they all think the same way.

• 2:05:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:05:59Stavros Halkias?

  Even academics to some degree. It's like, you know, um, and so you just. It shouldn't be that hard, but also there's no magic thing. She's like, she was saying she doesn't want to be on dating apps and that kind of thing. It's like, you kind of have to be on them. In fact, if you, look, if I was like, that's happened, the opposite has happened to me.

• 2:06:19Speaker 03

  Nobody wants to be on dating apps.

• 2:06:21Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:06:21Speaker 03

  Nobody's like dying.

• 2:06:23Stavros Halkias?

  Totally. No, I agree with you. Everyone just sort of, you kind of have to do it.

• 2:06:26Speaker 03

  And it's like, I'm writing an opening line right now.

• 2:06:30Stavros Halkias?

  I've been working on my age profile all day. Like I've been on an app and I've hit it off with somebody and I think we even like, you know, I like met them in passing in person. Then we hit it off and we were, the conversation was going good, but she was just like, you say you want, you don't want anything serious and I want something serious. This is fun, but like, like I seem cool, but what are we really even doing here? And, uh, and I understood where she was coming from. I would say if the opposite happened and a guy was looking for something serious and it was a cute girl who he, who he hit it off with. And she was like, hey, by the way, I see you're looking for something serious. I kind of just want to hook, you seem cool. I kind of just want to hook up. No one's going to be mad at that. No one's gonna be like, no one's gonna be like, oh, come on.

• 2:07:15Speaker 03

  This bitch.

• 2:07:15Stavros Halkias?

  Are you serious? Let's fucking, let's have a formal, you know, Elizabethan courtship or whatever. So I think you just gotta keep pounding the pavement unfortunately because,

• 2:07:28Stavros Halkias?

  yeah, you're just experiencing having standards. Like, that's really what this comes down to.

• 2:07:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's the whole, that's the entirety of the problem and it's not even really a problem.

• 2:07:38Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, I don't know. I mean, was there anything, I mean, do you think, because we also couldn't hear all, are we missing anything?

• 2:07:44Speaker 04

  I don't think so.

• 2:07:45Stavros Halkias?

  We have to work on, maybe we do need.

• 2:07:46Speaker 03

  Plus, we riffed so hard on that woke thing.

• 2:07:48Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, totally.

• 2:07:49Speaker 03

  I mean, it was wild. We fucking broke a sweat on that.

• 2:07:56Stavros Halkias?

  We're not missing anything, are we, Aldous?

• 2:07:57Speaker 04

  I don't think so.

• 2:07:58Speaker 03

  Just keep looking. I don't know.

• 2:07:59Speaker 04

  Do you have any? I think, I think this is the classic, like, I hate when people are like, talk about like, you know, the drudgery of dating. They're like, oh, I hate small talk. Let's get to the big stuff. It's like, small talk is just like part of the process, like part of the flow of dating.

• 2:08:16Stavros Halkias?

  It's a gateway to the big stuff.

• 2:08:17Speaker 04

  You have to talk about, like, oh, what do you do for work? All that shit, family. And it's like, that's how you like warm up. There's other things, there's other things going on while, while like you're talking about that shit. That's like, oh, this guy looks good.

• 2:08:32Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:32Speaker 04

  He's not like fucking weird or.

• 2:08:34Stavros Halkias?

  He's comporting himself in a way I like.

• 2:08:35Speaker 04

  Right.

• 2:08:36Stavros Halkias?

  The pheromones on some, I'm even, you know, even an animalistic way. You're like, I'm, I am getting more attracted to this person just by the way they're, yeah. There's rituals that you have to go before you start.

• 2:08:47Speaker 03

  They're unavoidable and it's also like some, it's your, it's not about what you're saying. It's not about like, oh, you live, it's about, it's about the riz.

• 2:08:57Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah, the rhythm. Yeah, your rhythm, yeah, your charisma, your rhythm.

• 2:09:01Speaker 03

  Like, what do you, like, it really is not about, it's just about like, what do you like?

• 2:09:04Speaker 04

  Also, if I could sound like an incel for a second, it's like.

• 2:09:06Stavros Halkias?

  Aldous's red pill corner.

• 2:09:07Speaker 04

  If you're, if you're on, if you're on a date and you know, it's just some hot guy talking about how he thinks like vampires are cool or something. Is that what you mean by intellectual?

• 2:09:18Stavros Halkias?

  That's what I'm getting.

• 2:09:19Speaker 04

  This is red pill corner.

• 2:09:24Speaker 04

  It's like part of that, you know, it's like.

• 2:09:26Stavros Halkias?

  Believe me, I remember this, this in my twenties where it's like, I want a funny guy and she sucks the guy who says like, you know, who just did Anchorman quotes.

• 2:09:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:09:34Stavros Halkias?

  That's a classic. When I was 20, I had that same, you know, I was like, hey, I'm bombing at seafood restaurants.

• 2:09:40Speaker 03

  Right.

• 2:09:41Stavros Halkias?

  I'm actually funny.

• 2:09:42Speaker 03

  Now imagine they're quoting something you wrote.

• 2:09:48Stavros Halkias?

  Wow, losing pussy to a guy who's like, I'm Rick James.

• 2:09:51Speaker 03

  Hypothetically. Hypothetically.

• 2:09:54Stavros Halkias?

  Holy shit.

• 2:09:55Speaker 03

  If you can imagine.

• 2:09:56Stavros Halkias?

  I didn't even consider, there's a.

• 2:09:59Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, there's a generation of guys saying they're funny because of your jokes is awesome.

• 2:10:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:10:09Speaker 03

  Uh huh.

• 2:10:09Stavros Halkias?

  Oh, fuck, dude.

• 2:10:10Speaker 03

  So, yeah, so I don't, so you're right, like what they consider intellectual is like, mm.

• 2:10:15Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah, it's true. Um, so, yeah, just honestly, it's just gonna take a little more screening. You have to go through that initial small talk bullshit phase and then it's like, you know, see, and then on the, on date two, maybe start floating a little more highfalutin stuff that you, whatever, whatever you think of as intellectual, I don't know, everyone has their own fucking, you know, uh, uh, standards for that, but that's it.

• 2:10:40Speaker 03

  And get to normal as soon as possible, like, we don't have to fucking toss acts, just like, some shit you're never gonna do again.

• 2:10:48Stavros Halkias?

  I like that, I like that, yeah, that's, that is good.

• 2:10:50Speaker 03

  But, and like, in, a girl can demand it, cause it, it seems unromantic if the guy pitches it, but if you're just like, let's just fucking take a walk.

• 2:10:57Stavros Halkias?

  You're like, whoa, this girl's crazy. This manic pixie dream girl stuff, dude.

• 2:11:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, she's amazing, she's like.

• 2:11:03Stavros Halkias?

  She wants to go by the river.

• 2:11:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, and like, she, yeah, she has a ukulele.

• 2:11:07Speaker 04

  Will she suck my dick without me even having to buy dinner?

• 2:11:10Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. These are all pros. Everything you're saying is pro. And I think you'll be fine, you just might be a little in your head. Um, look, I've got a hot shit in the chamber. We've gone on, we've talked quite a bit. This is, uh, this has been a great episode, was, it was, yeah, I love the, the, we're gonna call this the Nevergreen, yeah, this is the Nevergreen episode.

• 2:11:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:11:31Stavros Halkias?

  It's in the, it's in the can, we're gonna record every other one and wherever this goes, it goes.

• 2:11:36Speaker 03

  God bless, I got nothing to promote, or I have a, or I have a very important new project.

• 2:11:42Stavros Halkias?

  No idea. This was great, though, man. Thanks for coming. This was so much fun. And I would love, yeah, the incel discussion is a rich vein. But this is great, Neil. Thank you so much, dude. I had a blast. He has nothing to promote. Go check out whatever, you know, just all the stuff he's done, all the stuff he might do. My library. The library. My, my link tree. That's right. We'll talk to you guys next time. Bye bye.

• 2:12:22Speaker 09

  Oh, look. You just got added to a meeting about coordinating another meeting to prepare for the pre-meeting ahead of the follow-up meeting, which will, of course, require a recap meeting. And then another meeting. Hit your booking point. Book with Southwest in enter airplane mode.

• 2:12:49Speaker 12

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