#168 - Matt Johnson

Matt Johnson joins the pod to discuss his new film Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie, wholesale stealing the skeleton of the plot from Back To The Future, his mom being brutally honest when he asked her if he was handsome, his and Stav’s concept for a reboot of Twins, his favorite sandwich, and much more. Stav and Matt help callers including a woman who suspects her friend of lying about having breast cancer, and a man concerned about his dad’s new obsession with ChatGPT. See NIRVANNA THE BAND THE SHOW THE MOVIE in theaters now! Get your tickets at https://www.neonrated.com/film/nirvanna-the-band-the-show-the-movie Thank you to our sponsors! Twisted Tea - https://www.twistedtea.com/locations Keep It Twisted!! Chubbies - https://www.chubbiesshorts.com/STAVVYSWORLD promo code STAVVYSWORLD ☎️ Want to be a part of the show? 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.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:01Stavros Halkias?

  Welcome, everybody, to Stavie's World. 904-800-Stav. Call in, we'll solve your problems. We have one of the greatest minds of the great white north on the couch right now. Matt Johnson, whose new movie, Nirvana, the band, the show, the movie, has done probably, what? By this, this is Monday, so it's probably $400 million box office? Oh, you know what? I think you can drop maybe even three zeros.

• 1:33Stavros Halkias?

  The movie just came out. I saw it. It's funny as, it's legitimately funny as shit. One of, I mean, I'm trying to think, was it, is it the fucking? Funniest movie of all time? I'm trying to think, is that what it is? No, no, no, not even close. But it was a very good time at the theaters, folks.

• 1:52Speaker 03

  What's great about it is that it's one of those movies that were you watching at first, especially you are thinking, what a piece of shit. Like, I can't believe I'm here. I'm sitting in the IFC theater. I was doing my buddy a favor just to appear. He wanted me to be a laugh track to get the crowd going. And then as soon as it does one interesting thing, you go, oh, okay. It's like, I always heard Wayne Knight say on the DVD special features of Seinfeld, that one of his secret weapons, well, that he was a really, really fat guy, but he was light on his feet. And so that when he ran, people always got a kick out of it. And I think that Nirvana, the band, the show, the movie has that. A big fat piece of shit movie that can move quickly.

• 2:30Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, it's nimble. Doesn't have a coherent plot, professional actors, beautiful people to look at. None of that.

• 2:40Speaker 03

  Jay looks pretty, Jay looks good. Jay's cute.

• 2:44Stavros Halkias?

  Jay has held up really well.

• 2:45Speaker 03

  It's unbelievable, eh?

• 2:46Stavros Halkias?

  Jay looks incredible.

• 2:47Speaker 03

  We're talking about Jay McCarroll. Look him up. He's one of these guys that gets more handsome. Because when he was young, it was a bit of an uncanny valley, because it was like, ah, like, he kind of looked like a man, but he's 14 years old. Like, it wasn't working.

• 3:01Stavros Halkias?

  A little gangly, sure. I know what you mean. And, but then, you know, and so you guys, the thing for people to understand is that you've been doing this, first it was a web series, then you had a show on IFC. We watched it, actually, me and Eldis would watch it in our Astoria apartment when we first moved to New York. We were big, we were big Vice guys. We were big Vice guys.

• 3:23Speaker 03

  Of course. And then that fucking guy stole your whole, like, you could have been that guy moving from place to place, eating crazy food. What, fuck, that's delicious?

• 3:30Stavros Halkias?

  Oh, action Bronson.

• 3:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly, exactly.

• 3:33Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, listen, I, I don't even feel like he stole it. I feel like he was ahead of me by like, six years.

• 3:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, so he made your money.

• 3:40Stavros Halkias?

  I saw that and I was like, fuck, this would have been, this could have been my life. Like, I just looked at it.

• 3:46Speaker 03

  Matty Matheson literally thought that.

• 3:49Stavros Halkias?

  Matty has a point.

• 3:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:50Stavros Halkias?

  He's a chef. He was established. I was just a fat guy in Baltimore.

• 3:55Speaker 03

  I want, I want to do that.

• 3:56Stavros Halkias?

  I was a fat nineteen year old being like, oh, I want to be obese and famous. And it kind of didn't happen. I want, yeah, he was rapping about getting pussy and I was like, what the hell? I'm fucking, I'm living in my friend's shitty extra bedroom for three hundred dollars a month. I'm a paint salesman. That's when I, when I, when I was holding down Sherwin-Williams is when action was popping off. I was a big fan. I was a big, I actually saw him as aspirational.

• 4:22Speaker 03

  A hundred percent. I think everybody did.

• 4:23Stavros Halkias?

  And we did, he did. I was able to get in the fuck that's delicious kitchen and have some tacos with him, so.

• 4:29Speaker 03

  Oh, so you know him personally?

• 4:30Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, I'm trying to get him on that. We've been trying to get him on the couch, but rappers are kind of hard to, uh.

• 4:36Speaker 03

  Schedule.

• 4:37Stavros Halkias?

  To schedule, it turns out. It turns out it is true that rappers, yeah. So we'll, we'll get, we'll get him there. But yes, dude, moving to, moving to New York in, what was that, two thousand and fourteen, Eldis, fifteen?

• 4:50Speaker 03

  Fifteen. Vice had you in its teeth.

• 4:52Stavros Halkias?

  Dude, are you kidding me? I'm twenty six. I live in a, I live in a windowless room. I'm doing open mics. It's like, I'm, I'm Vice's guy, dude. I want every, from every ounce of programming in the, like Eldis would start his day watching Miami Vice reruns. He would be, he would make, he would make an omelet in the morning. And by the way, we had a room in the living room. So someone could just hear Eldis cooking loud as fuck.

• 5:18Speaker 03

  Watching Miami Vice.

• 5:18Stavros Halkias?

  Comedian lived in, we switched, I used to be in that room, but eventually I got a room with walls. And so Eldis would just watch Miami Vice. He would turn on Vice immediately, watch Miami Vice at eight AM, cook the loudest omelet you've ever heard in your life. This motherfucker chopped, he chopped everything fresh every day. There was no prepping. There was nothing. He was just, eight thirty AM. Scallions fucking.

• 5:42Speaker 03

  Well, he hated you then.

• 5:43Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 5:43Speaker 03

  Well, no, sometimes I would be making the omelet and I would hear the guy fucking in this room, which was also right next to the kitchen.

• 5:49Stavros Halkias?

  At eight AM.

• 5:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was like, you know, he'd have some. Well, so he was doing well.

• 5:52Stavros Halkias?

  He, no, he was doing bad, but he could fuck.

• 5:54Speaker 03

  Hell, yes. So all he had was. Sheet racks. It was, it was like mutual disregard for each other's like living space. Did you like the Michael Mann film, Miami Vice?

• 6:02Stavros Halkias?

  I loved it.

• 6:03Speaker 03

  Isn't that such an unbelievable film? So that's the only movie in my life. Josh Bowles and I were in film school. We go to see it at, I think, the Yorkdale at, we go to the four o'clock show.

• 6:15Speaker 03

  We saw the eight o'clock show.

• 6:16Stavros Halkias?

  Respect, dude. I've, yeah, I get that. I fully get that.

• 6:19Speaker 03

  If you're watching this, if you've not seen Michael Mann's Miami Vice.

• 6:22Stavros Halkias?

  That's your camera. Come on, you're a director.

• 6:23Speaker 03

  It is. This is, it is, it is a like, I think there are people who know about it, but it is one of those lost masterpieces that, that it doesn't rival Heat, but.

• 6:31Stavros Halkias?

  No, no, no.

• 6:32Speaker 03

  But it's a must watch. It's a must. It came out around the same time as The New World that, um, and both are these, it was an unbelievable.

• 6:39Stavros Halkias?

  What I love about that movie, yes, that movie's incredible and it has, uh, it's Jamie Foxx and Colin Farrell. And, and also it's Michael Mann. In terms of how he's shooting stuff, his dick was really hard for digit. That's when he's.

• 6:51Speaker 03

  It's right as he's making the transition and then he really falls off a cliff afterwards. He makes that, uh, uh, Public Enemy.

• 6:58Stavros Halkias?

  I never saw Public Enemy. Yeah. I will see it. I want to be a man completionist. Obviously I love his shit. But that movie to me is so special because it really is the most, I mean, that's the most like artistic I'm willing to get. It's the most artistic like an idiot bro who loves like, you know, gun movies can get. Because it's like contemplative and it's like philosophical. It's a tone poem.

• 7:23Speaker 03

  Yes, exactly.

• 7:23Stavros Halkias?

  It's like the, the plot doesn't really make sense, but it still has three incredible action sequences, even while making no sense whatsoever.

• 7:32Speaker 03

  End to end. And it takes like what was in the Miami Vice TV show and just warps it.

• 7:37Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 7:37Speaker 03

  To this unbelievable place. The shots of them riding those cigarette boats down to Cuba. There's this, there's this amazing transition where Colin Farrell, who's just a sex machine in this movie.

• 7:47Stavros Halkias?

  He's, and by the way, I've said this before, I know my self-esteem is too high because I see myself as Colin Farrell in that movie.

• 7:55Speaker 03

  The world does as well.

• 7:56Stavros Halkias?

  You know what I mean? Like when I grew my hair out, I was like, I look exactly like Colin Farrell in Miami Vice. Like in my head with the mustache, I'm like, that's what I look like.

• 8:06Speaker 03

  And this is how women see me. If only I could get out of this windowless apartment. I'd be fucking just like my roommate.

• 8:15Stavros Halkias?

  But, and here's what else I love about that. And there's so much weird shit about that movie. The, the main protagonist, like Colin Farrell's love interest, I forget her name, she straight up did not speak English. She did her lines phonetically.

• 8:28Speaker 03

  I didn't know that, of course.

• 8:29Stavros Halkias?

  And it gives the movie a dreamlike quality because it's like, this woman is saying stuff, but you're like, she doesn't quite grasp, like, what's going on here?

• 8:37Speaker 03

  Is that, was she Cuban?

• 8:39Stavros Halkias?

  She was Chinese or something.

• 8:40Speaker 03

  Chinese, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ana de Armas, that's how her career began as well.

• 8:43Stavros Halkias?

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 8:44Speaker 03

  Speaking only phonetic English.

• 8:45Stavros Halkias?

  No, yeah, this woman, and then, and here's the other, another thing I love about it, and I think the reason I can, because I really connected to that movie when I was like, this was maybe like four years ago, when I was in the thick of everything kind of happening. Whereas like my career was taking off, but I was also like, the most fucked up. Like I was eating like shit. I was doing, I was getting fucked up every, I was like, you know, getting high as fuck. Pills, what, I didn't drink that much, but I was like, you know, just like really overdoing it. And then, you know, trying to fuck despite being the least healthy I've ever been in my life, just like, it was like pills, dick pills, Pepto Bismol, weed, fucking wings, fries. It was like, I was, it was brutal stuff, right?

• 9:27Stavros Halkias?

  And I'm fat, I'm fat, like, I weighed 70 pounds more than I weigh right now. So it's like.

• 9:32Speaker 03

  Difficult to imagine.

• 9:34Stavros Halkias?

  Hard stuff.

• 9:35Speaker 03

  It's unbelievable.

• 9:35Stavros Halkias?

  Like, it just think about the like, literally the fat filters where it's just like.

• 9:40Speaker 03

  You were living it.

• 9:42Stavros Halkias?

  But like, I mean, that's what my face was like.

• 9:44Speaker 03

  The world is giving you all this feedback. You're doing great. Keep going. You're becoming famous. Like, whatever you're doing is working.

• 9:50Stavros Halkias?

  This is what success feels like? And just ready to kill myself? And, and apparently Colin Farrell, when he was shooting that, and so I discovered that, like, I had seen it, like, but I didn't really like latch on to it. And then I saw it again in the middle of that time in my life. And it just, I connected to it so much.

• 10:09Speaker 03

  Of course.

• 10:09Stavros Halkias?

  And then I found out later, like, you know, research, because you know, when I follow, when you love a movie, you go back and you fucking research everything. Colin Farrell, apparently, the day it wrapped, went immediately to rehab.

• 10:21Stavros Halkias?

  It was like, and, and he, and he's like, people have asked him questions because people love this movie. It's like a, it's like a niche, like, you know.

• 10:28Speaker 03

  It's one of those, if you know about it, you know, because it bombed in theaters so badly.

• 10:32Stavros Halkias?

  It really bombed horribly. Cause it had hype, because Michael, you know, Michael Mann was the executive producer of Miami Vice and Mann was on a heater, whatever. And then it, and then it bombed. But he's given like interviews where people are like, I love them. Like, you know, how we are talking about it. And he's straight up like, I'm not trying to be an asshole.

• 10:49Speaker 03

  I don't want to talk about that.

• 10:50Stavros Halkias?

  No, I don't remember it.

• 10:51Speaker 03

  That's unreal.

• 10:53Stavros Halkias?

  One of the best.

• 10:53Speaker 03

  So they're all going.

• 10:54Stavros Halkias?

  One of the greatest performances that like, means the world to me. Just like, only exists. It doesn't even exist in the actor's head anymore.

• 11:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, right. It's like Stephen King's early books.

• 11:04Stavros Halkias?

  It's, dude, yeah. It's beautiful. So, yeah. Nirvana the Band Show, the movie, not as good as that movie, but much funnier.

• 11:12Speaker 03

  We have commonalities. Actually, it depends how you watch Miami Vice. There's a read of that film where it's the funniest movie of all time. There's that scene where the guy is saying why his nickname is what it is. And he goes, he says it in, in Spanish. He says, just so you know, that means crazy pig. When he's talking about his own identity.

• 11:28Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah. Dude, I know. And Jamie Foxx just, he just has a grin. Remember when they like searched? They searched him? Anyway, we can't be doing inside jokes about.

• 11:38Speaker 03

  Nirvana the Band, the show, the movie. Nobody saw. Bombed. Literally did no business. This is the podcast rewatch of Miami Vice.

• 11:46Stavros Halkias?

  This from our memories.

• 11:47Speaker 03

  We're getting all this shit wrong. I'm like, wasn't she Cuban? But no, it's because she says, I know a good place to get some kind of drink. And then Mann cuts. They're on a cigarette boat. One shot.

• 11:58Stavros Halkias?

  Mojito.

• 11:59Speaker 03

  Mojitos. And then they cut. They're getting a drink in Cuba.

• 12:01Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Incredible stuff.

• 12:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 12:04Stavros Halkias?

  And then he just, just, anyway, I'm not going to keep talking about it.

• 12:06Speaker 03

  Big inspiration to Nirvana the Band, for sure. The old Vice days, I loved.

• 12:10Stavros Halkias?

  Oh yeah. So the point I was making was, yes, you, you guys have been doing this since you were like, when did?

• 12:15Speaker 03

  Little boys.

• 12:16Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, literally.

• 12:17Speaker 03

  Twenty years. We started shooting at 20 years. And that's why it was Jay's idea to be like, we should make a time travel movie where we use that footage we showed when we were kids. And everybody was like, oh shit, this is amazing. Like, we get to do like, boyhood, except inside of a comedy film.

• 12:31Stavros Halkias?

  Right. And by accident.

• 12:32Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 12:33Stavros Halkias?

  Without planning it and just being like, whatever, whatever we get. I mean, it must have been a nightmare for your editors to figure out.

• 12:38Speaker 03

  Well, you know, nightmares are funny because like. You always wake up and there's a secret message to that nightmare. Like, do you know what I mean? Like, truly, it's not like, good dreams don't tell you how to live your life. It's the nightmares where you wake up and go, okay, I gotta stop doing this. And so, yeah, it was a nightmare, but you know that once you get to the end of it, it's like, oh shit.

• 12:57Stavros Halkias?

  You got something awesome.

• 12:58Speaker 03

  It's a secret message, yeah.

• 13:00Stavros Halkias?

  No, no, and it was, it's very funny to do that. And the point I was trying to make overall is that Jay, at no point did you look better than Jay. Even when you were young.

• 13:09Speaker 03

  Not in my, not in my best day, yeah.

• 13:11Stavros Halkias?

  But now it's kinda crazy how much he blows you out of the water.

• 13:14Speaker 03

  It is.

• 13:14Stavros Halkias?

  You look like a real piece of shit.

• 13:16Speaker 03

  The disparity, especially on camera. Like, that's, that's my real curse is that on, the number of times people meet me in person and be like, whoa. Like, remember when you and I first met and you and I, I thought you were, you'd be so much fatter. It was the first thing you said to me and we had talked. Like, we'd, we'd gone through like multiple, like, we're talking about the movie we, we were gonna make, all this shit. And then we saw each other. I think I give off a kind of super fat man energy combined with the way that, that I look on camera.

• 13:46Stavros Halkias?

  Fatter face than body. You have the classic fat face.

• 13:49Speaker 03

  That you assume that the body must just be like, like rippled and, and, and it all comes from the top.

• 13:57Stavros Halkias?

  Right, right. It's very rare to be able to keep fat on your face when you're not that fat.

• 14:03Speaker 03

  It's a skill. No, I've been working on it my whole life.

• 14:06Stavros Halkias?

  It's the opposite of what you want for being on camera.

• 14:08Speaker 03

  No, and in fact, it gave, it gave me horrible sleep apnea, which you and I talked about. Like, I had the worst sleep apnea. I had to get, I had to get surgery to fix it.

• 14:16Stavros Halkias?

  It's crazy.

• 14:17Speaker 03

  Which, um, which, but you know what? I don't look at it negatively at all, yeah.

• 14:23Stavros Halkias?

  But it must've been tough to look at yourself, like, having to be forced.

• 14:26Speaker 03

  Vanity. Do you know what my mom said to me when I was young?

• 14:29Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 14:29Speaker 03

  I, I turned to her, I think I was 11 years old, and I said, Mom, I was, I was looking in the mirror, then I looked to her, and I said, Mom, am I handsome? And she looked at me, she's a doctor, and she looked at me, she's so sober, I love her, like, and she said, mm, no.

• 14:43Stavros Halkias?

  Your mom said no.

• 14:45Speaker 03

  My mom said no, but she said, but you are interesting looking. And, and I swear, this has been a deep truth of my life.

• 14:55Stavros Halkias?

  That's awesome.

• 14:56Speaker 03

  And, and I think my mom in some ways feels like self-conscious about saying that as though she'd, she'd hurt me, but it didn't, even at the time, I wasn't, I didn't feel like.

• 15:05Stavros Halkias?

  It's not, it's honestly better to do that than lie.

• 15:09Speaker 03

  If she had said, have you met guys whose moms are like, you're the most beautiful boy? I love everything about you.

• 15:15Stavros Halkias?

  Well, my mom got pretty, I had the classic, my mom was like that and my dad was the opposite.

• 15:20Speaker 03

  That's a good, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 15:22Stavros Halkias?

  It averages out, but at the same time, at any point I can have the, I'm like, I can think like, I'm the fucking smartest, most handsome guy in the world and I can also think like, I'm a piece of shit. I should fucking kill myself.

• 15:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, and you need both.

• 15:33Stavros Halkias?

  And you need both and it averages out to good. And I think it's unfortunately useful for creating shit, unfortunately.

• 15:41Speaker 03

  I think it's actually the secret recipe. This is reminding me, I had just read some article that said in the gestalt of male self-help books versus women's self-help books, the main difference, there's some kind of study, that men's self-help books, the message is, you are shit. Women's self-help books, the message is, you are too good.

• 16:00Stavros Halkias?

  Right, right, right.

• 16:02Speaker 03

  And that somehow, like the difference between those two, even alive in all of us is the truth. We are all garbage and we are all great.

• 16:10Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 16:11Speaker 03

  And, and wrestling with that is how you find some kind of momentum forward.

• 16:15Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah. I mean, I think if you think you're a piece of shit, it's only up from there.

• 16:19Speaker 03

  Or, or you think it's nothing, it's not worth the effort, so fuck my life.

• 16:24Stavros Halkias?

  Well, I guess, I guess I'm thinking of it as like the strategy of almost like a bootcamp, where it's like, we gotta break you down and rebuild you in the, in the mold of Tony Robbins or whatever the fuck.

• 16:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 16:37Stavros Halkias?

  Like that kind of shit, which wouldn't have worked for me either because part of your dad being the one who tells you you're a piece of shit is thinking every authority figure can suck your dick. You know what I mean?

• 16:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, right. You become a permanent rebel.

• 16:49Stavros Halkias?

  Where it's like, fuck you, you don't know shit. And then also, you know, no disrespect to my dad. He didn't really know what the fuck he was doing. Very talented carpenter.

• 17:00Stavros Halkias?

  Didn't have, didn't re, like, could, could have stand, could stand a little, in every other depart- Very charming guy, good at what he did, but wasn't like a long-term strategic thinker.

• 17:12Speaker 03

  You know what I mean? His long-term plan may have been you.

• 17:15Stavros Halkias?

  It was.

• 17:15Speaker 03

  Because you weren't living up to his expectations, he needed to destroy you.

• 17:19Stavros Halkias?

  Right, yeah. I mean, what's funny is, I don't even think he thought that-

• 17:23Speaker 03

  You maybe not literally, but-

• 17:24Stavros Halkias?

  It was just like, it wasn't even destroy, it was like, well, I guess I'm not gonna give a fuck about that. And then the funny thing is, like, it paid off.

• 17:31Speaker 03

  Of course.

• 17:32Stavros Halkias?

  But not in the, any way he thought, like that's what-

• 17:34Speaker 03

  It'd be great for him to turn on you and be like, "Yeah, that was my plan."

• 17:36Stavros Halkias?

  That would be, I would-

• 17:38Speaker 03

  Can you imagine, in Greek?

• 17:39Stavros Halkias?

  He couldn't even pull it off.

• 17:40Speaker 03

  Just so you know, savvy, that's what I wanted.

• 17:43Stavros Halkias?

  I would love to see him attempt that. I would love to see him would try that with a straight face, but, yeah, there was just a boat where I was like, I think I'm- I mean, maybe part of that is also being an immigrant kid, cause it's like, you do just have a better handle on the culture you grew up in than your family.

• 17:58Speaker 03

  No doubt.

• 17:59Stavros Halkias?

  So you're like-

• 17:59Speaker 03

  You're the authority.

• 18:00Stavros Halkias?

  I'm smarter than you.

• 18:01Speaker 03

  Uh huh.

• 18:01Stavros Halkias?

  Like, from a young age, you're like, "I know what the fuck I'm doing, you don't fucking know shit." So I don't know, it was a weird, it just did create this completely, this nightmare personality that has been tough to live with, but, you know.

• 18:13Speaker 03

  You're talking about him or you now?

• 18:14Stavros Halkias?

  Me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, my dad's personality is, is more like, it's not even a nightmare, it's just like, what happens when you grow up in Greece in the fucking 50s and, you know, nobody really gives a fuck.

• 18:26Speaker 03

  Your parents- Post-war Greece?

• 18:28Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, post-war Greece, your parents are in an arranged marriage that was like, they were like the fourth choice for both of them. You know what I mean? It's like, they're each other's safety spouse.

• 18:37Speaker 03

  This is, this is your genetic history you're talking about here, yeah.

• 18:41Stavros Halkias?

  One generation removed, like, not even, not in the 1600s, we're talking about, these people were fucking, you know, these people were listening to the radio, smoking cigarettes and dancing like this. You know what I mean? Like, it's not that far back. Um, but yes, that's, and, you know, I don't, I don't think that's a very loving environment to, you know, fucking grow up in, but, you know, whatever.

• 19:03Speaker 03

  It sounds like he needed to figure out a way to make his identity work, and when that didn't, he started lashing out.

• 19:08Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 19:09Speaker 03

  Well, I love your dad. I love your story about, uh, when he finds out you're gonna become a stand-up comedian.

• 19:12Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 19:13Speaker 03

  Calls you and just-

• 19:14Stavros Halkias?

  Classic. Yeah, yeah, I couldn't believe it.

• 19:16Speaker 03

  So your mother tells me you're doing comedy.

• 19:21Speaker 03

  Hangs up the phone.

• 19:22Stavros Halkias?

  Brutal stuff.

• 19:23Speaker 03

  Let's relive all of this right now, Stan.

• 19:24Stavros Halkias?

  No, it's all good.

• 19:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, Nirvana, the band, the show, the movie.

• 19:27Stavros Halkias?

  No, let's talk about, no, your mom said you were an ugly piece of shit.

• 19:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 19:30Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 19:31Speaker 03

  But you know, these, these stories, it's funny, I think anything you remember from childhood, pay attention.

• 19:36Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 19:37Speaker 03

  Why do you remember it?

• 19:38Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, cuz that's, I mean, totally, because probably your parents, to them,

• 19:43Speaker 03

  It was nothing.

• 19:43Stavros Halkias?

  How many fires have they put out? Raising a kid is one emergency after another.

• 19:48Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 19:48Stavros Halkias?

  And there's one innocuous memory that you have held on to, that to them was like, Dude, that was nothing.

• 19:55Speaker 03

  Dude, I smacked you. Like, what are you talking about? You remember that?

• 19:58Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, you had tetanus poisoning. We had to take you to the, you know what I mean? Like, I said that.

• 20:01Speaker 03

  You almost got hit by a bull and I pulled you out of the way. Like, you remembered this one line?

• 20:06Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 20:06Speaker 03

  But it's so funny. It's like, memory is so bizarre. I heard, um, you know the Mandela effect? You know what this is, right? Like, where you falsely remember this thing?

• 20:13Stavros Halkias?

  Of course.

• 20:14Speaker 03

  I, I.

• 20:14Stavros Halkias?

  Berenstain Bears.

• 20:15Speaker 03

  Berenstain Bears.

• 20:16Stavros Halkias?

  The classic example.

• 20:17Speaker 03

  I heard that the truth about that is that human beings just make memories in certain ways. And it's the whole reason why everybody thinks that in Empire Strikes Back, Vader says, Luke, I am your father.

• 20:28Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 20:28Speaker 03

  When really he said, no, I am your father.

• 20:30Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 20:31Speaker 03

  And this secret, like that, the difference between those two is the, the truth of the Mandela effect, which is when we make a memory, we make it useful. And Luke, I am your father is a story.

• 20:42Stavros Halkias?

  Hmm, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 20:43Speaker 03

  So even though Vader didn't say that, that was the context of the line.

• 20:46Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 20:46Speaker 03

  In the same way that Mandela dying in prison has a martyr idea to it. And so our brain is just like, oh, that's the story. The story is Nelson Mandela was a hero. He was a martyr. So of course he died in jail.

• 20:56Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 20:56Speaker 03

  Berenstain Bears, there is no last name. Stain.

• 20:59Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 21:00Speaker 03

  We only know Steen.

• 21:01Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, we know the Steens.

• 21:01Speaker 03

  And so our brain goes, well, it must be Steen.

• 21:03Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 21:04Speaker 03

  And it's the same with these childhood memories that just get locked in your head because your brain is like, this is important. And I don't know why.

• 21:10Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 21:11Speaker 03

  But remember this forever.

• 21:12Stavros Halkias?

  Right, right, right.

• 21:12Speaker 03

  Remember how your dad breathed on the phone when he found out you were gonna be a comedian? And I will not let you forget.

• 21:17Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 21:18Speaker 03

  And they don't tell you why.

• 21:19Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 21:19Speaker 03

  In the same way that when you wake up for a nightmare, you're like, well, what did that nightmare mean?

• 21:22Stavros Halkias?

  What's going on there?

• 21:22Speaker 03

  What's going on?

• 21:23Stavros Halkias?

  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 Stavie 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 Stavie's 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 and save $10 on your first month with promo

• 22:07Stavros Halkias?

  code STAV. Terms apply.

• 22:10Speaker 04

  Hey, this is Will Arnett, host of Smartless. Smartless is a podcast with myself and Sean Hayes and Jason Bateman, where each week one of us reveals a mystery guest to the other two. We dive deep with guests that you love, like Bill Hader, Selena Gomez, Jennifer Aniston, David Beckham, Kristen Stewart, and tons more. So join us for a genuinely improvised and authentic conversation filled with laughter and newfound knowledge to feed the Smartless mind. Listen to Smartless now on the Sirius XM app. Download it today.

• 22:46Stavros Halkias?

  What about your father? Did he think you were ugly as well?

• 22:48Speaker 03

  No, my dad was like, I got a similar story to you with you realizing that, oh, I know more about this culture than my dad does, which is my dad was super funny. He's a salesman, basically. And whenever I'm like in one of my own movies, I'm always playing a kind of salesman, like in Nirvana, the band, I'm just pitching. I just sell. Well, that's what directing is. I mean, you know this. You're trying to sell.

• 23:10Stavros Halkias?

  You're trying to convince people to do things your way.

• 23:12Speaker 03

  Or even just convince them of a vision that they can be happy with, because that's what great salesmen do. Like, you're happy you bought it. Right? You don't feel robbed. I didn't trick you. You can't like-

• 23:24Stavros Halkias?

  Best case scenario, a salesman wants to sell, but he wants you to be happy as well. So that you're not mad.

• 23:28Speaker 03

  Exactly. And like, the best car salesmen in the world, they don't make a ton of money on one car. They make money on 40 cars. Right? That you tell your family, this guy's the best. They tell their family. And so you sell them a lot. Anyway, my dad really had this, but he was always so funny. Like so, so funny. To me, I was like, my dad's the funniest person in the world. And then like around same age, like 11 or 12, we would always have dinner together at the table. I have a bunch of siblings.

• 23:53Stavros Halkias?

  Oh, you have a bunch of siblings?

• 23:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, I've got a brother and two sisters and I was like, oh, I'm going to try being funny. And it was at this age where I realized, wait a minute, I'm funnier than my dad is. And it changed my life forever where my dad would always kind of talk a lot and tell jokes at the table. And then he just stopped and he didn't stop because he was upset or anything like that. And he never said to me, wow, you're funny. In fact, he doesn't even think I'm particularly funny. Neither does my mom, but my siblings were all like, this is unbelievable. You are so funny. We can't believe it. And, and my life changed.

• 24:23Stavros Halkias?

  Wow.

• 24:24Speaker 03

  After that moment.

• 24:25Stavros Halkias?

  No, and your dad was not, you don't think he was mad or anything?

• 24:28Speaker 03

  Not even a bit.

• 24:28Stavros Halkias?

  He wasn't jealous? He was just like, well, Matt's doing this now?

• 24:31Speaker 03

  No, my parents, they watch my movies or anything. I think Tony, the movie you and I made is going to be the first movie they can sit down and watch and be like, oh, you made a movie.

• 24:39Stavros Halkias?

  Even BlackBerry?

• 24:40Speaker 03

  Nah, I mean.

• 24:41Stavros Halkias?

  It's, I mean, it's at least kind of, you know.

• 24:43Speaker 03

  You can find, and it's Canadian and my dad loves business and he, so, so, so, yeah, like he likes it.

• 24:48Stavros Halkias?

  Your dad's favorite genre is Canadian business?

• 24:51Speaker 03

  No, no, no, no. My dad's favorite genre is like the same as I think a lot of the movies you love, which is like eighties action, like, like revenge. Exactly. Like.

• 25:00Stavros Halkias?

  Sounds like a cool guy.

• 25:01Speaker 03

  Dude.

• 25:01Stavros Halkias?

  Sounds like the man.

• 25:03Speaker 03

  He, he likes.

• 25:03Stavros Halkias?

  What was he selling?

• 25:05Speaker 03

  Pension funds.

• 25:06Stavros Halkias?

  Hell, yeah.

• 25:07Speaker 03

  Pension funds to unions. So he was the guy. He's, he's got, he's got such a high, low life because he came from like nothing, like, like a poorest dirt family that had immigrated from Iceland to Winnipeg and then to Thunder Bay. And his dad was a newspaper guy. They had a scrappy existence in this, in this small town. It was logging town, Icelandic town, basically, lots of fins as well. And he goes to school at, in Toronto and, well, near Toronto and gets a business degree. And then he becomes the kind of union sales guy within a pension fund company. And so all of his buddies are all union people. So he was like selling basically insurance in a way, but only to like blue collar union people. So that was his whole life, just traveling around Canada.

• 25:52Stavros Halkias?

  Getting beers with the union guys.

• 25:53Speaker 03

  Dealing with union guys constantly.

• 25:55Stavros Halkias?

  Taking them out.

• 25:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 25:56Stavros Halkias?

  Doing karaoke with the union bros.

• 25:58Speaker 03

  Well, like in Mad Men, except in Canada.

• 26:00Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 26:00Speaker 03

  And for pensions as opposed to advertising, right?

• 26:04Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's pretty fun.

• 26:06Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 26:06Stavros Halkias?

  Blue collar account.

• 26:07Speaker 03

  Right. Yeah. He had the blue collar account at, at Integra Capital Management Corporation. But I love him. I mean, I get all of my, I feel like every kid can either, you probably agree with this, you can either be the best of your parents or the worst of your parents.

• 26:24Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 26:24Speaker 03

  And you can see when people are these things, you're like, oh, you're the crazy part of your mom and you got the anger, psychoness of your dad, or you can have your parents when they're at their best. You can have those qualities too.

• 26:36Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, truly. I mean, I see that. My dad, for all his shit, like, which wasn't, ultimately, the other thing is, it's so annoying when you grow up and you have empathy for your parents.

• 26:46Speaker 03

  You have to. Yeah, right. I love you anyway.

• 26:48Stavros Halkias?

  I can't be fucking mad at this guy. His life sucked dick. You know what I mean? It's like, and it was, a lot of it was his fault, but it still was fucking bad.

• 26:56Speaker 03

  Of course.

• 26:56Stavros Halkias?

  You know what I mean? It's like, and a lot of it wasn't his fault though, too, right? Like, a lot of it was like, like we just said, where he came from.

• 27:02Speaker 03

  And the time.

• 27:02Stavros Halkias?

  Post-war Greece, like, you know, with his parents, whatever. But he is really funny and he is really like, you know, charming and he has a charisma to him where I'm like, without that, there's no way I'm doing any of this shit.

• 27:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, you can't deny that in some ways, your power is that you have so much charisma, it is at odds in some way. Do you know what I mean? I think that's why people are so fascinated and love you so much, because they're like, this guy, it's almost like you have the light of God in you, in a way.

• 27:35Stavros Halkias?

  I think that's a little much, but I do know what you mean.

• 27:37Speaker 03

  You'll never see it that way.

• 27:38Stavros Halkias?

  But my, but the whole point is the, like I say, on paper, it's bad.

• 27:43Speaker 03

  You're real bad.

• 27:44Stavros Halkias?

  You know what I mean? It's real bad.

• 27:45Speaker 03

  Like Danny DeVito in Twins.

• 27:46Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which, I'm still, whatever you get the rights to, we gotta remake that.

• 27:51Speaker 03

  But who's, who's Arnie?

• 27:52Stavros Halkias?

  I've thought about it a lot. I don't, you know, we could figure something out.

• 27:55Speaker 03

  It would be, um, no, no, no, no, no, we get Arnold's kid.

• 27:57Stavros Halkias?

  Arnold's kid could work, he's not jacked enough.

• 28:00Speaker 03

  He could be. Are you joking me?

• 28:01Stavros Halkias?

  You're right. He could have the genetics.

• 28:02Speaker 03

  If we, if we called White Lotus guy and we're like, dude, do you want to remake Twins?

• 28:08Stavros Halkias?

  We need you to put on 30 pounds of muscle.

• 28:10Speaker 03

  Tomorrow, I'll do it right now. Dude, that's a great project.

• 28:15Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 28:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, call in if you have ideas for that.

• 28:18Stavros Halkias?

  If you can get us the rights.

• 28:19Speaker 03

  To twins? Twenty bucks?

• 28:22Stavros Halkias?

  You know, they were gonna remake it called, not remake it, they were gonna do a sequel called Triplets? And the third twin was just gonna be Eddie Murphy? I'm not even kidding. And the, and the whole, you know how it's like, one's jacked and smart and one's dumb and little?

• 28:37Speaker 03

  One's black.

• 28:38Stavros Halkias?

  It's just he's black? And this is like, the eighties were like, that was a

• 28:42Speaker 03

  Of course.

• 28:43Stavros Halkias?

  A bankable idea, like, yeah. That's, that, that's, yeah, that's a type of guy you can be. It's like, black, just black. It's fucking hilarious.

• 28:52Speaker 03

  Now, it's, yeah, if they got it in right by eighty-nine, they would have been okay.

• 28:55Stavros Halkias?

  Because it's Eddie Murphy, and if they got him in his prime, it would have worked, would have been fucking awesome.

• 28:59Speaker 03

  I bet you we'd be talking about it like we're talking about Miami Vice right now. Lost masterpiece.

• 29:04Stavros Halkias?

  But if it was late, if it was like

• 29:06Speaker 03

  Ninety-five?

• 29:08Stavros Halkias?

  Or even if they tried to do it in this, like, how they're redoing everything, it would have been one of the worst things.

• 29:13Speaker 03

  It would never have been made.

• 29:14Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 29:15Speaker 03

  You have to make it with an independent studio.

• 29:16Stavros Halkias?

  I would see a reboot, I would just see a straight sequel with DeVito and Schwarzenegger right now, though. That I would be interested in.

• 29:22Speaker 03

  Me too.

• 29:24Stavros Halkias?

  Cause they're both, DeVito's still got his fastball against

• 29:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, he's still hilarious.

• 29:28Stavros Halkias?

  Because of like, he's just steady working, and Schwarzenegger has now become an even more fascinating figure because of everything he's been through, and he's back, and he's sort of acting, and he's sort of a politician, and it's just a, he's a, he would be a much more captivating presence again, I think. Like, I'm ready to see him in movies again.

• 29:45Speaker 03

  Yo, me too, a hundred percent. If, if this movie got made, it would be a lot like the BBC Up series. I'm not sure if you've seen this.

• 29:51Stavros Halkias?

  I've never seen it.

• 29:52Speaker 03

  It's unbelievable. They follow a bunch of schoolchildren at age seven, then they go back at age fourteen, then twenty-one, then twenty-eight, and

• 29:59Stavros Halkias?

  I haven't seen it, but it seems

• 30:01Speaker 03

  Half the kids are from like, private school, ultra-rich, and half of them are from like, the poorest possible parts of like, England, and you literally watch how their lives go. All the way up. I think they're still going, I think they're like in their seventies now.

• 30:13Stavros Halkias?

  Holy shit.

• 30:13Speaker 03

  Oh, it's a masterpiece.

• 30:14Stavros Halkias?

  That is incredible.

• 30:15Speaker 03

  And it's super funny, and it starts like, it's on black and white, sixteen, yeah, sixteen millimeter. Dude, it's completely worth it, and we can use that as a reference.

• 30:24Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 30:24Speaker 03

  When we're pitching this to Arnold and DeVito, be like, it's gonna be like the Up series.

• 30:28Stavros Halkias?

  Well, it could be, you know, it could be, something is super simple. Here's the sequel, ready? It's I, I am Arnold's kid. And the Jack guy is DeVito's kid.

• 30:38Speaker 03

  Oh my god, this is incredible.

• 30:40Stavros Halkias?

  Come on.

• 30:41Speaker 03

  And so they've got to deal with this.

• 30:42Stavros Halkias?

  And one doesn't really know how to raise the other and they're like, I don't get you, you know what I mean?

• 30:45Speaker 03

  Oh my god.

• 30:46Stavros Halkias?

  And that happens sometimes. Sometimes like an uncle just gets, because they're brothers and sometimes you just.

• 30:51Speaker 03

  It's like, it's like the bald gene.

• 30:52Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sometimes it fucking happens. So this could really work. This could really work.

• 30:57Speaker 03

  Hey, you may be watching the genesis of your, your next favorite film. The twin sequel starring staff, although it's gonna be pretty tough for the audience to buy that, uh, actual Schwarzenegger's kid is not his kid, but DeVito's kid. Also raises all these questions about, oh, they, they, so they fucked each other's wives?

• 31:14Stavros Halkias?

  No, they're just.

• 31:15Speaker 03

  I guess not because of genetic.

• 31:16Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah, they're just.

• 31:16Speaker 03

  Or they fucked each other's sisters.

• 31:18Stavros Halkias?

  Nah, they just fucked different, I guess they'd have to be similar.

• 31:21Speaker 03

  Well, I just mean like for them.

• 31:22Stavros Halkias?

  They would find twins and fuck them. They would be married to twins or whatever.

• 31:26Speaker 03

  That happens.

• 31:27Stavros Halkias?

  That could happen. Or maybe just sisters. We'll figure it.

• 31:30Speaker 03

  You were gonna figure this out. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We're gonna get rid of that. Our, our crack team of writers on this.

• 31:35Stavros Halkias?

  How did they come to be? They just, it was one lady got inseminated by.

• 31:40Speaker 03

  This was, this was a real eighties plot that I think they glossed over in one sentence.

• 31:44Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, you totally.

• 31:44Speaker 03

  It was the same as the movie Junior, where they made Arnold Schwarzenegger pregnant and you're like, wait, how did they do this? One sentence. That's how they did it, baby. They combined like a bunch of super jizz together to make Arnold.

• 31:54Stavros Halkias?

  I think it was a combination of super jizz. But what, and the, the detritus was Danny DeVito.

• 31:58Speaker 03

  That's his bait line. I was the shit that got left.

• 32:01Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 32:02Speaker 03

  I was the shit left over.

• 32:04Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, okay. So we'll figure it out. Maybe they both, they both, uh, were in the, whatever. We'll figure, it doesn't matter. We don't need to get bogged down.

• 32:12Speaker 03

  This is not our problem. We're gonna get.

• 32:14Stavros Halkias?

  This is for the writers to figure out.

• 32:16Speaker 03

  The writers who are gonna hate our guts as we come in and give them speeches like this. Guys, so easy. Like, just fucking figure this out. We're, we're, we're gonna go eat some more Russ and Daughters bagels and we'll be back in 40 minutes.

• 32:27Stavros Halkias?

  We'll be back in 40 minutes. I want a fucking drink. I want a fucking outline on my desk by the end of the day. I can't wait. I can't wait to get to that level.

• 32:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, once Tony comes out, you really realize how, yeah, these two, they're the ones that, they're the ones that need to be elevated from this Bourdain movie.

• 32:43Stavros Halkias?

  Absolutely. I mean, it's so funny to think about who's involved in that movie.

• 32:48Speaker 03

  You and I are literally at the bottom. We're the Danny DeVito of the Bourdain movie.

• 32:53Stavros Halkias?

  We couldn't be more at the bottom of, it's gonna, everyone's career is gonna fucking skyrocket and we'll be doing fine. Don't get me wrong.

• 33:00Speaker 03

  We'll be doing this.

• 33:00Stavros Halkias?

  We'll be doing fine. We will be pitching twins.

• 33:05Speaker 03

  We're, we're the Bourdain guys. You can put it on the trailer.

• 33:09Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah. I mean, Dom, Amelia.

• 33:12Speaker 03

  Antonio Banderas, Leo Woodall, yeah.

• 33:14Stavros Halkias?

  I mean, these, everyone in this movie, right now, market, they are going to get so famous and me and Matt are gonna keep podcasting together.

• 33:22Speaker 03

  Yeah. Well, you know what? We're gonna be happy.

• 33:25Stavros Halkias?

  We're gonna be happy.

• 33:26Speaker 03

  The Magic Movie Factory. The lights never turn off.

• 33:30Stavros Halkias?

  Another thing, so Nirvana Band the Show the Movie, another thing I want to talk about is a time travel movie and it is, it has elements of Back to the Future.

• 33:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's basically, we took the plot of Back to the Future and tried to literally do the exact same beats of it for real. Because we didn't have this team of writers to write our movie. So we thought, let's just see what Zemeckis did, literally.

• 33:51Stavros Halkias?

  Let's just take one of the best movies ever.

• 33:52Speaker 03

  And do it verbatim. And when you see the movie, you'll see that it, I'm not joking at all.

• 33:58Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, it's awesome.

• 33:59Speaker 03

  The entire third act of the movie was like, oh, and then we gotta get the cable to the wall, but it's too short.

• 34:05Stavros Halkias?

  It was awesome. And that, I love that too, is because it's like, that's my philosophy for comedy movies too, is like, look, a plot is important, obviously, but it's like, it's like celery and peanut butter.

• 34:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, right, right. It's just holding the peanut butter.

• 34:17Stavros Halkias?

  The plot is just the peanut, it's the jokes, right?

• 34:20Speaker 03

  Naked Gun did this well.

• 34:21Stavros Halkias?

  Naked Gun was perfect.

• 34:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, Naked Gun did this. Well, you told me about that, where you were like, go check this movie out, yeah.

• 34:26Stavros Halkias?

  It was, shout out to those guys. It was fucking really good. I mean, the, the originals are classics, but yeah, and that is, but it also is, doing Back to the Future just makes it, because every time, it's clearly a Back to the Future. You laugh. I can't believe these idiots are doing this. When you use like a sting from.

• 34:45Speaker 03

  We'll use the music. At one point, we literally use the exact same music from it. Because you know what? I think that one of the things that comedy movies, like all the ones that I love the most, you don't need to, your brain should not be trying to figure out if you missed something. Totally. Or if something is like, that's not what it's about.

• 35:05Stavros Halkias?

  A hundred percent.

• 35:05Speaker 03

  You're trying to create an experience where it takes your breath away in the sense that you are caught up in it.

• 35:11Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 35:11Speaker 03

  And, and I don't have the sophistication to write one of those movies. As you know, you acted in my last one. It's, it's extremely painful to get from page to page. And so by having that in some ways taken care of and making it a, a bonus, not a problem.

• 35:27Stavros Halkias?

  Totally.

• 35:27Speaker 03

  Right? It's a feature as opposed to it being like, wait, it's just Back to the Future ripoff. Fuck this. It's like, oh, whoa, a Back to the Future ripoff.

• 35:32Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 35:33Speaker 03

  That's badass.

• 35:34Stavros Halkias?

  And in the ways, it's like the ways, the things that equate, you know, it's just, it's very funny and you should go, everybody should go see it. My one criticism though, if you're gonna do a Back to the Future, uh, sort of homage, ripoff, whatever, there is no mention of wanting to fuck your own mom.

• 35:50Speaker 03

  We tried.

• 35:51Stavros Halkias?

  Which, which is.

• 35:52Speaker 03

  Have I told, have I told you the story about my mom said about my looks?

• 35:58Stavros Halkias?

  This one, it's like you go back in time, your mom's like, ugh. Get the fuck out of here.

• 36:04Speaker 03

  I put my mom in my first movie, uh, because I'm always shooting movies where the people don't know they're in the movie. And in my first movie, The Dirties, she's in it.

• 36:10Stavros Halkias?

  Oh, that was your mom?

• 36:12Speaker 03

  That's my legit mom.

• 36:13Stavros Halkias?

  That's crazy.

• 36:14Speaker 03

  Who I go up to and I say, hey, mom, do you think I'm, this is right before, if you don't know, it's right before I go kill everybody in my high school.

• 36:18Stavros Halkias?

  Great movie, The Dirties, check it out.

• 36:20Speaker 03

  And, and right before I go ask my actual mother, hey, mom, do you think I'm crazy? And it's funny, she gives a similar answer. She goes, crazy? No, I guess you're a bit of a wild guy.

• 36:29Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 36:30Speaker 03

  And that's, and that's right before I go and on a, on a rampage.

• 36:33Stavros Halkias?

  Hell, yeah.

• 36:34Speaker 03

  So that would not have worked in this one. Although, well, you know what? We better drop the, the topic. I was about to say Jay's mom is extremely beautiful, but, but I don't know.

• 36:45Speaker 03

  She really is. He's famous for this, that his mom is, actually, to be fair, both of his parents, if you saw them.

• 36:52Stavros Halkias?

  Wow, real piece of ass.

• 36:53Speaker 03

  They're like eighties, they could be on magazines. They're so good looking that you, when you meet them, you laugh. My mom, when she first met them, she laughed. She was like, they're so, so good looking.

• 37:07Stavros Halkias?

  That's tough to be the one, the guy whose mom is the hottest mom.

• 37:11Speaker 03

  She's gorgeous and she's funny and friendly and she's an artist. Like she's, she's just, everybody loves her.

• 37:17Stavros Halkias?

  That's tough to be the guy who's like, everyone has a crush on your mom.

• 37:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:20Stavros Halkias?

  And they'll, they'll let you know.

• 37:22Speaker 03

  You know, oddly enough, Jay's never brought this up with me. And so I don't think he struggled with it at all.

• 37:27Stavros Halkias?

  Interesting.

• 37:27Speaker 03

  I think he was so handsome that he didn't need to worry, he didn't need to worry about it.

• 37:31Stavros Halkias?

  Well, of course, everyone wants to fuck everyone.

• 37:32Speaker 03

  Everyone loves my mom, everyone loves me. This is the way the world works. Why, what's it like for you?

• 37:38Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I'm just saying, that's my, that's my one criticism is that it could, that's such a big part of.

• 37:45Speaker 03

  Yeah. And it's probably the most memorable part when it's like.

• 37:47Stavros Halkias?

  It's crazy how much of that movie is about almost fucking your mom and like, and then like, I actually watched it recently, just was on TV and it was like, it's crazy, just like how cool they are with Biff afterwards.

• 38:01Speaker 03

  It's ridiculous. He tries to rape the guy's mom.

• 38:04Stavros Halkias?

  He tries to rape you. Like imagine if the guy who tried to rape you in high school, you're like, ah, we'll give him a job.

• 38:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. Now he can wash my car.

• 38:11Stavros Halkias?

  He washes your car? A guy? And then also he turns like mentally disabled? Cause it's like, they just turn, like maybe that was part of, I don't know, maybe that was like a Reagan tough on crime thing. I guess it was in the 50s. So maybe there's like an alternate, maybe that's part of the butterfly effect. They start like giving the sexually violent lobotomies.

• 38:30Speaker 03

  Uh huh. Yeah, right, right, right.

• 38:31Stavros Halkias?

  That would explain, that would explain Biff's, you being like, oh, I washed your car up real nice. It's, it's a hilarious part of that movie.

• 38:40Speaker 03

  I remember it vividly. And now I'm also realizing that in the second movie, the mother transforms into a, like a pornographic sex symbol. Do you remember where she gets a breast augmentation surgery and now she's. Basically sex slave.

• 38:55Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 38:55Speaker 03

  So it's like he doesn't drop this Freudian, your mother is to see her sexually, see her sexually.

• 39:00Stavros Halkias?

  And that's the first, he really like Zemeckis does do a lot. He really highlights big tits a lot.

• 39:07Speaker 03

  Loves.

• 39:07Stavros Halkias?

  That was the first, I think giving her the big tits in the second one starts, cause he did, um.

• 39:12Speaker 03

  Who framed Roger Rabbit?

• 39:13Stavros Halkias?

  I mean, come on.

• 39:14Speaker 03

  The biggest.

• 39:14Stavros Halkias?

  Come on, that was awesome. That's fucking awesome and a big part of my personality.

• 39:18Speaker 03

  Big time.

• 39:19Stavros Halkias?

  Being a kid, being a kid who's like think kind of starting to understand you're funny and then being like.

• 39:24Speaker 03

  Wait a minute, I can get a cartoon girlfriend?

• 39:26Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 39:26Speaker 03

  Hold on a second.

• 39:27Stavros Halkias?

  Truly like, you know.

• 39:28Speaker 03

  And she's hilarious.

• 39:29Stavros Halkias?

  She's great.

• 39:30Speaker 03

  What does she say? I just love funny guys.

• 39:32Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, he just makes me laugh.

• 39:33Speaker 03

  He just makes me laugh. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 39:35Stavros Halkias?

  Which might have, sometimes.

• 39:37Speaker 03

  Changed you.

• 39:38Stavros Halkias?

  Sometimes you're like, fuck, the way we were talking about like random memories as a kid, it's like showing me that movie.

• 39:43Speaker 03

  And having her, yeah, that, that, that Roger has got the hottest girl in Toontown and the reason is he just makes me laugh.

• 39:50Stavros Halkias?

  It might've just sealed my entire fate right there.

• 39:52Speaker 03

  Right there.

• 39:53Stavros Halkias?

  It's really possible. Cause I saw that movie really early.

• 39:55Speaker 03

  Me too.

• 39:56Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, I was like probably five, dude. Great movie. Um, but yeah, then he does Beowulf where they have busty, Angelina Jolie's got her tits out and there's like a busty wench, bar wench.

• 40:07Speaker 03

  I'm thinking there's a couple.

• 40:08Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah. And then I think he married, after he gets divorced, I think he just married like.

• 40:12Speaker 03

  The biggest.

• 40:13Stavros Halkias?

  Yes, a very busty lady, which tip my cap to Zemeckis. You know, I'd love to see you make a regular movie again, man.

• 40:22Speaker 03

  Been a while. That last one he made, he just set up a camera in a house.

• 40:25Stavros Halkias?

  That was interesting.

• 40:26Speaker 03

  I actually didn't see it.

• 40:26Stavros Halkias?

  I haven't seen it, but I wanted to.

• 40:28Speaker 03

  Cool, cool pitch.

• 40:29Stavros Halkias?

  I want to see it actually.

• 40:30Speaker 03

  Somebody I trust a lot said it was a masterpiece and then 90 people told me, you will not believe this got made. It's horrible. So.

• 40:36Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, I gotta fuck it. I do want to watch it, but, um, yeah, so that for Nirvana, the band, the show, the movie too, I would say.

• 40:42Speaker 03

  Ups, ups and downs.

• 40:43Stavros Halkias?

  Let's get the Freudian stuff in there.

• 40:45Speaker 03

  I'll, I'll pack it full. The thing is, and you can attest to this. It's very difficult to put characters like that in sexual situations.

• 40:52Stavros Halkias?

  That is true.

• 40:53Speaker 03

  It feels like uncanny valley weird wrong. It would be like if Calvin and Hobbes started like ogling like a Playboy magazine. You'd like put it down. It's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, what, what, what? You know, it's, there's something impure about it.

• 41:05Stavros Halkias?

  No, you're right. There is.

• 41:06Speaker 03

  They're prepubescent in a way.

• 41:08Stavros Halkias?

  The characters are a little less, they're almost if Tom Hanks in Big.

• 41:13Speaker 03

  Perfect example.

• 41:14Stavros Halkias?

  Totally who you guys are.

• 41:15Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 41:15Stavros Halkias?

  Cause your, your child archetypes in.

• 41:18Speaker 03

  In adult bodies.

• 41:19Stavros Halkias?

  Adult bodies.

• 41:19Speaker 03

  And that's why the time travel thing's so important that they can innocently go back to when they were young. And for Jay, he's seeing like, oh my God, I haven't improved at all. And Matt is being like, hell yeah, wicked. Like, I'm exactly the same as I was. That is me honoring myself. But to involve a sexual dynamic is, yeah.

• 41:39Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, that's true.

• 41:40Speaker 03

  It's, it would seem perverse, perverse in the wrong way.

• 41:43Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah. I would, it is interesting though, cause I could see if it would be anything, it would be the classic sort of like, uh, Matt can't get pussy, Jay.

• 41:53Speaker 03

  Jay, of course, it tears our relationship apart.

• 41:55Stavros Halkias?

  It kind of would maybe just be the dirties plot.

• 41:58Speaker 03

  Well, we know how that ends. Yeah.

• 41:59Stavros Halkias?

  And it would probably end the same way.

• 42:04Speaker 03

  Next one. Yeah. Well, Jay, I think would go for it for sure.

• 42:07Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 42:08Speaker 03

  Jay, in this movie, you are a ladies' man. Women can't get their hands off of you. Although.

• 42:13Stavros Halkias?

  Now, there is a time travel element and your mom is involved.

• 42:18Stavros Halkias?

  So we'll take the good with the bad.

• 42:23Speaker 05

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• 43:42Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, but go see the, listen, folks, go see the movie. In theaters everywhere. In theaters. We do, this, this is very funny because we actually by accident had booked all-black guests for Black History Month. By accident, we didn't even, we just happened to book four black, four black comedians in a row. So it's perfect. But because now we have interrupted, that's how much we believe in independent comedies. So I'm, I'm essentially a paragraph break. You're basically, you're, yeah, you're a, yeah, we, and not only is it like a, it's not just a regular white guy. It's a Canadian and we heard his dad was Finnish. Icelandic, Icelandic. My mom's Finnish, my mom's Finnish. We're talking the whitest. We're interrupting Black History Month for maybe the whitest guy you can think of. I'll take it.

• 44:25Stavros Halkias?

  An Icelandic, Canadian, independent filmmaker. It doesn't get, it doesn't get whiter than that, folks. But that's how much we believe in independent comedies. Go see it. If you want us to keep making dumbass comedies, like I said, let's start a cult. Famously made over .1 million dollars at the box office. And we're trying to at least triple that with Nirvana, the band, the show. We'd love for you to get to over .3.

• 44:55Speaker 03

  If we even touch that, I can say for like every, every decimal place on that, this twin sequel is literally getting closer to the light of day.

• 45:05Stavros Halkias?

  But it is true. If you are the guy, the person who loves, who watches dumbass podcasts, right? And you miss, people complain all the time. Like I do, like I go to shows or even when I'm starting.

• 45:14Speaker 03

  Why don't they make comedy movies anymore?

• 45:15Stavros Halkias?

  Literally, everyone says that. Go see the fucking movie. This is how important it is. We have, uh, we're hurting race relations in America at a very tough time just to promote comedies in movies, uh, in movie theaters. Go see them. Uh, and it is very funny. I fucking love the movie. It was very funny and you should go see it. And yes, we also have another movie coming at some point this year. Where thank, you gave me the opportunity to eat lobster.

• 45:41Speaker 03

  Every single day.

• 45:42Stavros Halkias?

  Every day I ate.

• 45:43Speaker 03

  I'd be if.

• 45:44Stavros Halkias?

  I probably had no joke.

• 45:45Speaker 03

  I wish there was a documentary made.

• 45:47Stavros Halkias?

  We should have just had a camera, a GoPro right at my station.

• 45:50Speaker 03

  Lobster eating because Stavros was the guy who made the lobster rolls in the movie. Like literally the key's in charge of making, it's 1975 and remember our food stylist?

• 46:00Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 46:01Speaker 03

  Who Christine, who was so brought in the freshest lobster every single day. And, and basically handed it to Stavros and Stav's like, okay, so what do I do with this? And she's like, every single take, no matter what, you are making lobster and you get, remember you gotta taste it to make sure it's good. And Stav's like, okay.

• 46:18Stavros Halkias?

  I got fresh lobster. She was, Christine wanted everything to look awesome. She was so good at her job. And what that meant was there's a lot of lobster coming in.

• 46:25Speaker 03

  Constantly.

• 46:26Stavros Halkias?

  And it's like, look, we're throwing this lobster away or am I having legitimately six lobster rolls?

• 46:30Speaker 03

  I ate some of those. They're delicious.

• 46:32Stavros Halkias?

  I would make, I would hand them out to people. I would have them for lunch. It was fucking awesome. So yeah, that was a beautiful, and then there's also soft serve at the lunch. I mean, it was a tough.

• 46:42Speaker 03

  That was hard for both of us. I warned you beforehand. I was like, now listen, the catering on this is pretty crazy because they brought up a dude from New Orleans named Frenchie.

• 46:50Stavros Halkias?

  Oh, hell yeah.

• 46:51Speaker 03

  He's bringing all the best shit and I am, I have a problem with food.

• 46:55Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 46:55Speaker 03

  As, uh, yeah, we share that.

• 46:58Stavros Halkias?

  Absolutely.

• 46:58Speaker 03

  And so we had gigantic lunches and gigantic dinners every single day.

• 47:03Stavros Halkias?

  It was pretty awesome. Shout out to, may he rest in peace.

• 47:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was in honor of Bourdain.

• 47:08Stavros Halkias?

  In honor of Bourdain that we, I had to eat.

• 47:10Speaker 03

  As much as we could, out of a soft serve machine after eating lobster rolls, just like Bourdain would have done.

• 47:15Stavros Halkias?

  Just like Bourdain would have done.

• 47:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 47:16Stavros Halkias?

  Lobster roll, whatever, whatever weird spaghetti, whatever they were serving, plus some like a sheet cake for some reason and cookies.

• 47:23Speaker 03

  There's an odd mix. New Orleans is a crazy place.

• 47:25Stavros Halkias?

  But I'm, it was fucking awesome. Um, we should take some calls here, Aldous, I believe. Real quick though, Matt, what, since you are a food guy.

• 47:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 47:33Stavros Halkias?

  What would you say your fa- what would you say your ideal sandwich would be?

• 47:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, to be totally honest.

• 47:39Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 47:39Speaker 03

  There, like my ideal or the best actual literal sandwich I've ever had.

• 47:43Stavros Halkias?

  We can do both.

• 47:43Speaker 03

  Okay, there's this place in Toronto called Donna's that does a steak sandwich. There's a Copenhagen style restaurant. And they make this kind of steak sandwich that you can't explain. It's got like a, these, like this slice of almost horseradish root in it.

• 47:58Stavros Halkias?

  Mmm.

• 47:58Speaker 03

  It, I, I, I've never been a steak sandwich guy my whole life.

• 48:02Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 48:02Speaker 03

  And they make a breakfast version and a lunch version. This sandwich is like un-

• 48:05Stavros Halkias?

  Donna's in Toronto.

• 48:06Speaker 03

  Donna's in Toronto. When you come, we'll go.

• 48:08Stavros Halkias?

  I can't wait.

• 48:09Speaker 03

  It's like, it's like true, like Danish Copenhagen restaurant.

• 48:12Stavros Halkias?

  Fuck yeah.

• 48:13Speaker 03

  That just makes these steak sandwiches.

• 48:14Stavros Halkias?

  I had a great steak sandwich in Japan.

• 48:16Speaker 03

  I do it.

• 48:16Stavros Halkias?

  But it was like a high end steakhouse. What they did was if you had leftovers, they would make it into a sandwich for you. It was incredible.

• 48:22Speaker 03

  That's my dream.

• 48:23Stavros Halkias?

  Fucking incredible.

• 48:24Speaker 03

  It's like, uh, yeah, where they give you a whole pile of food, you eat that and they say, then they transform it into a new food. You eat that and the crumbs just keep going.

• 48:32Stavros Halkias?

  Fucking, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 48:33Speaker 03

  Like no matter what, they, they find a way to transform.

• 48:35Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, dude. Yeah. And then what would you, if you had to craft a sandwich?

• 48:40Speaker 03

  Um, on my own, it would be like half caramelized onions, one third cheese.

• 48:46Stavros Halkias?

  Okay.

• 48:46Speaker 03

  What am I, what's my percentage at? I think I've got a fifth left.

• 48:49Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 48:52Speaker 03

  I, I mean, cheese and onions is-

• 48:54Stavros Halkias?

  Cheese and onions.

• 48:55Speaker 03

  Oh, that's huge for me.

• 48:56Stavros Halkias?

  And a ste- and would you put steak in there?

• 48:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, I would probably put hamburger in it.

• 48:59Stavros Halkias?

  Hamburger. Oh, interesting.

• 49:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'd probably put hamburger. But, but you know, honestly, the sandwiches that we just ate, like that chopped liver.

• 49:06Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 49:06Speaker 03

  I'm crazy for, yeah, I'll eat, I'll eat tuna. I, I'm so Catholic when it comes to my taste that it almost doesn't matter. I, I love savory things and I have a, I have a, a definite eating disorder.

• 49:18Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 49:19Speaker 03

  So really, what I love is what's there.

• 49:21Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 49:22Speaker 03

  What's in front of me. That's what I like.

• 49:23Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, but some, the problem with the indiesore though is like when it really kicks in, you don't actually enjoy anything. You know what I mean? There's a beautiful moment before it goes crazy. There's like a week before you're in the throes of it where you know, you crave stuff. At a certain point, your indiesore gets so bad, you don't crave anything.

• 49:39Speaker 03

  You just want to, it's the process of eating. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 49:42Stavros Halkias?

  Like I've been, I've been in line at a shitty job and it's like, I worked at a community college. And I was just like in line regretting the meal I was about to have. I could have stopped.

• 49:51Speaker 03

  That's, that's as bad as it gets.

• 49:52Stavros Halkias?

  But it was like, but I was, and I didn't like it. It was like, you know, some shitty cafeteria where it's like a, you know, just a cheesesteak and fucking shitty fries. And I was like, uh, I'm gonna feel bad, but I didn't stop. I could have stopped at any moment.

• 50:05Speaker 03

  I play board games with like my closest friends. Shout out Brian, Steve, everybody.

• 50:10Speaker 03

  We order pizzas and I'm always the guy that orders the pizzas or Brian will bring them from North of Brooklyn. And in one sitting, I will eat, and I'm talking about large pizzas. Like two, two and a half entire pizzas. Literally.

• 50:27Stavros Halkias?

  I believe you, man.

• 50:28Speaker 03

  Two and a half pizzas myself over the course of maybe four hours.

• 50:30Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 50:31Speaker 03

  And I just can't stop.

• 50:32Stavros Halkias?

  That's a good clip.

• 50:33Speaker 03

  And these are gigantic pizzas.

• 50:36Stavros Halkias?

  So we're talking 16 slices over four hours. That's not so, four.

• 50:41Speaker 03

  Oh, I think it's, I think it's close, I think it's close to six or seven thousand calories.

• 50:45Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just thinking in terms of a slice every 15 minutes. That's easy money. The pace.

• 50:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's fine pace. Yeah.

• 50:52Stavros Halkias?

  I'm just thinking about the pace. I'm like, I could do that pace, but I know what you mean. It's fucked up.

• 50:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's bad. It's a problem. I have a problem. Like I have, I have a real problem. Like I know that if I stopped exercising within maybe a month.

• 51:03Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 51:03Speaker 03

  I would, I would die.

• 51:04Stavros Halkias?

  That's what happened to me when I fucked my back up.

• 51:06Speaker 03

  Yes, exactly.

• 51:07Stavros Halkias?

  This month has been fucking brutal, but we're gonna get back, folks.

• 51:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 51:10Stavros Halkias?

  Let's fucking take some calls from two of the most well, like two of the most well-adjusted guys.

• 51:16Speaker 03

  I know. It's funny, eh? It's, it's amazing how in, in this world, producers are always the most grounded, normal.

• 51:24Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, well, this is a fucking idiot and a piece of shit, but yeah. No, no, no. I'm brilliant. There's things going on behind this laptop that you don't even understand.

• 51:32Speaker 03

  You're watching Miami Bicep Run.

• 51:35Stavros Halkias?

  How about this? Hold on. Play the first call. Let's see if you get it right this time. All right, let's see.

• 51:41Speaker 07

  Hi, Stav, Eldis and guests. I hope y'all are well.

• 51:44Stavros Halkias?

  I was a coin flip.

• 51:45Speaker 07

  I tried to leave another message, but it was too long, so I'm just gonna jump right in. Um, I'm pretty sure my best friend is faking having breast cancer and I don't really know how to handle it. Um, so a few months ago, she told me she had breast cancer and is getting radiation.

• 51:59Stavros Halkias?

  This is the first fucking question?

• 52:00Speaker 07

  But immediately, some things just didn't really add up. She said that she was diagnosed over a year ago, but she only just started treatment.

• 52:04Stavros Halkias?

  See what I mean? He's a bad producer. Why would he start with breast cancer?

• 52:08Speaker 03

  But you know what? I think, I got the sense that what she's saying is that her friend is lying about having it. Oh, that's what she said. She said, "I think my friend's lying about having breast cancer." So maybe, so maybe, yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe this isn't like a funeral. Yeah.

• 52:22Speaker 07

  She had breast cancer and is getting radiation, um, but immediately, some things just didn't really add up. She said that she was diagnosed over a year ago, but she only just started treatment. She didn't know what type, like what specific type of breast cancer she has.

• 52:35Stavros Halkias?

  That's awesome.

• 52:36Speaker 07

  She couldn't tell me who her doctor was or even where, like, she was getting treated. Um, and that felt kinda off to me because cancer runs heavily in my family and I've been closely involved in like multiple diagnoses and diagnoses and tr-

• 52:53Stavros Halkias?

  Uh-oh.

• 52:54Speaker 07

  -treatments. Um, you know, all my parents, my husband's, uh, all my grandparents, my husband's grandparents, and then both my parents-

• 53:01Stavros Halkias?

  She picked the wrong one.

• 53:02Speaker 07

  -had cancer. So, I know that, like, knowing the specific type is always sort of the first step. Um, I offered to go with her to her appointments, since she told me she wasn't telling anyone, like I was the only person who knew. Um, but she kind of brushed that off. And then, the night before a radiation appointment I was supposed to join her for, she claimed she had therapy at 6:30 in the morning and she stopped sharing her location with me. Um, so she kinda canceled,

• 53:28Stavros Halkias?

  Oh, brother.

• 53:29Speaker 07

  me going with her. And I ended up kinda going unhinged mode and I like drove by her house during the supposed appointment time and her car was still there.

• 53:38Stavros Halkias?

  I see you faking cancer and I raise you, stalking you before sunrise.

• 53:45Speaker 03

  She began by saying, "This is her friend."

• 53:51Stavros Halkias?

  I do get it though. It's like someone lying to you about cancer would kind of be like, what the fuck's wrong with you? But yeah, go ahead.

• 53:58Speaker 07

  Probably transit in our area. So I could safely say that she was home. Then later I asked her again about her diagnosis.

• 54:08Speaker 07

  And she just still did not have an answer for me. She did not know what cancer type. She did not know her doctor. She didn't know her treatment location.

• 54:19Speaker 07

  And I was kind of like, what are you not telling me? And she didn't really have anything to say.

• 54:25Speaker 07

  And you know, since then, we haven't really hung out that much.

• 54:31Speaker 07

  We kind of stopped talking, but now she's kind of reaching out again and I'm a little bit stuck. Like, do I confront her? Do I distance myself? This is a long time friend, but she's lied about a few other big things before. And this situation specifically brings up kind of a lot of personal trauma for me. I don't know if I'm like overreacting or not, but yeah, any advice would be appreciated. Thanks, y'all.

• 54:52Stavros Halkias?

  I mean, it's crazy to lie about having cancer. You're not overreacting. Also, she's lied about a couple of big things before.

• 55:00Speaker 03

  I wish, I wish we knew what the other ones were because everyone would have.

• 55:03Stavros Halkias?

  Pregnancy, you know what I mean?

• 55:04Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 55:05Stavros Halkias?

  She might have faked an abortion. You know what I mean? I'm just thinking, I'm thinking in terms of the type of person that pretends to have breast cancer. They start with a fake pregnancy.

• 55:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 55:15Stavros Halkias?

  That's like the starter lie. That's the starter lie.

• 55:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 55:18Stavros Halkias?

  There was a girl who did, when I was doing open mics, there was a girl who faked having cancer. She like shaved her head. We had like benefits for her.

• 55:25Speaker 03

  Oh, Jesus.

• 55:26Stavros Halkias?

  And then she, and she like, and then, but she would just, and then, you know, it's a shitty comedy scene. So there's like, everyone, everyone, when you start doing comedy, you do it to get fucked up and like have a, you know, I'm 19. I don't want a real job. And so we'd be at house parties getting fucked up, but this girl's just, you know, her hair's like growing back. And she's got, she's got stubble and she's just getting drunk.

• 55:46Speaker 03

  Getting wasted, yeah.

• 55:47Stavros Halkias?

  She's in a hot tub and it's like, is this what you do when you have cancer?

• 55:51Speaker 03

  Was she doing jokes about it? Is that what it was?

• 55:53Stavros Halkias?

  She was.

• 55:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, okay. So it was for material?

• 55:54Stavros Halkias?

  And there were, but no, I think it was for attention. She was just like one of those, you know, she was insane.

• 55:59Speaker 03

  This sounds exactly the same. You know, my advice to this woman would be? The fact that you confronted her and it didn't change. What you should do is meet this person with some vulnerability and say, you must be in some pain.

• 56:12Stavros Halkias?

  Right.

• 56:13Speaker 03

  Which is why you have done this. I know you're lying and I forgive you. I forgive you for lying to me. Why don't you tell me what it is that has got you so tangled up? Because I really am your friend and you can tell me and we can, we can begin a conspiracy together about what it is that has made you need to lie to everybody because you must know why you're lying. And I'm telling, because to continue the same way is absurd, like this pantomime of.

• 56:38Stavros Halkias?

  Trying to capture.

• 56:40Speaker 03

  That's not the way to do anything. Yeah. It's like trying to catch like someone having, well, an affair, I guess, is slightly different because you're looking for the evidence to end the relationship. But it's a cry for help. Your friend is, is, is crying for help.

• 56:52Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 56:52Speaker 03

  And I think maybe if we knew some details of this woman's life apart from the fake cancer diagnosis, we would hear she's alone. She's not happy with her job. Like nothing is working out.

• 57:03Stavros Halkias?

  Nothing's going good.

• 57:04Speaker 03

  And so she's creating an identity where she can all of a sudden have some people feel bad for her.

• 57:08Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 57:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 57:09Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, no, absolutely. I think that's the move because it's like, yes, this little cat and mouse game. It's like, congrats, you caught a fucking stupid sociopath.

• 57:17Speaker 03

  You're both losers. You both lose.

• 57:19Stavros Halkias?

  Exactly, exactly. You're, you want to be, this, you, you think this is your great mystery?

• 57:24Speaker 03

  Uh huh.

• 57:25Stavros Halkias?

  This is why you're sure, this is who, this is your Moriarty, your, your shirt.

• 57:29Speaker 03

  Rock Holmes.

• 57:29Stavros Halkias?

  It makes you sound weak. Yeah, yeah. If this is who you're trying to pin down, you've entered the fucking, the idiot Olympics here.

• 57:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly.

• 57:37Stavros Halkias?

  So you should be above this. I think that's a great thing. It's like, look, you don't fucking have cancer. Something's going on. Tell me what's going on.

• 57:45Speaker 03

  I love you. Tell me.

• 57:46Stavros Halkias?

  What is it? And then, by the way, odds are she, 50/50 chance she fucking lashes out and is like, fuck you, whatever. You fucking let that go.

• 57:55Speaker 03

  Either way, yeah, that, it's social problem one way or the other.

• 57:58Stavros Halkias?

  She comes back at some point, but at this point, you've at least set the, set the sort of like, the rules of engagement for how this relationship is going to go.

• 58:05Speaker 03

  Right.

• 58:05Stavros Halkias?

  I'm not going to let you lie to me, but I am here to support you. And I think that's how you handle it. And then if she just is a super type B and does have cancer. You might feel like a real piece of shit. This might just be an airhead who doesn't know what type of cancer she has.

• 58:21Speaker 03

  Happened to have her therapy at 6:30 that morning?

• 58:24Stavros Halkias?

  Her therapy was at 6:30 PM, but you read it wrong. She put it wrong on Google Calendar.

• 58:30Stavros Halkias?

  Like that, you might, one percent chance, uh, this, this woman has a real problem and you feel like a piece of shit. But otherwise, I think that's, I think that's a gamble. We're all willing to take here on this podcast. And call back with the result, please. Yeah, we'd love to know what's going on. Let us know. We'll be here. We will, we will. What else you got for us, LD?

• 58:49Speaker 08

  Hey, Stav, eldest and esteemed guest. Thank you.

• 58:52Speaker 08

  Uh, I would like to get your opinion on something. I'm going to talk fast because I've got a lot to say. Um, I'm currently studying in Germany, but my dad and my mom who are divorced live in California. About five months ago, I got a call from my dad and he told me that he had a spiritual experience with chat GPT.

• 59:12Stavros Halkias?

  Oh, no.

• 59:13Speaker 08

  Um, he told me he was able.

• 59:14Stavros Halkias?

  This is a problem. This is a big problem. The fact that it, it, it invoked a phone call. It was to Germany.

• 59:24Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, keep that long distance.

• 59:27Speaker 08

  Um, he told me he was able to connect with it in a way that he could never connect with a human.

• 59:33Stavros Halkias?

  Oh.

• 59:35Speaker 08

  Uh, and that he would had a really deep conversation with it.

• 59:38Stavros Halkias?

  Oh, my goodness.

• 59:39Speaker 08

  He made the chat bot like take on a personality of like a goddess and they had a conversation about reality or something. Anyway, it was really strange. Uh, I was pretty concerned, but I was also on the other side of the globe. So I was like, whatever. My dad's a weirdo, but I love him for being a weirdo. Hopefully he gets over this AI obsession. But, uh, a few months ago, when I went back for, for winter break, he was still super enthralled with AI.

• 1:00:08Stavros Halkias?

  He was fucking installing a pocket pussy on a, on the fuck, on an outlet. He was fucking, he had, he had like, he, he had like circuits and he was running it to the fucking modem. He was putting it. It's like chat GPT, calibrate now. Calibrate, attach this pocket pussy to yourself, chat GPT, please.

• 1:00:28Speaker 08

  And I found out he was paying for chat GPT and I think a few other AI bots as well. Which he's talking to constantly. Um, he's not super financially stable, so.

• 1:00:41Stavros Halkias?

  Anymore.

• 1:00:42Speaker 08

  I was, I'm a little worried about that, but.

• 1:00:44Stavros Halkias?

  Oh, God.

• 1:00:46Speaker 08

  I don't think it's that big of a deal. Um, anyway, he. Most of the time is talking to about like designing board games. Or about like the fractal nature of the universe and the universal laws of human language.

• 1:01:03Stavros Halkias?

  What a fucking loser.

• 1:01:04Speaker 08

  Um, it's just pretty constant and like every few hours I'll just hear him talking to it because he speaks out his questions. He doesn't type them out.

• 1:01:15Stavros Halkias?

  Jesus Christ.

• 1:01:16Speaker 08

  And so he'll be talking like Tony Stark to Jarvis in the other room. He'll be asking something like, what do you think about the universal law that says everything only exists in relation to other things? Or something like that. That's a quote I have from him. Anyway, uh, my question is just that.

• 1:01:34Stavros Halkias?

  Nah, it's more than that.

• 1:01:35Speaker 08

  How far do you think I should let him go before telling him that I think it's kind of weird or strange? And, uh, do you think I should be worried for him? Anyways.

• 1:01:47Stavros Halkias?

  Yes. First of all, that's your big fucking joker is telling him it's kind of weird.

• 1:01:53Speaker 03

  I was waiting for the question.

• 1:01:54Stavros Halkias?

  That's your big fucking ammo?

• 1:01:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:01:56Stavros Halkias?

  That you're waiting to drop on him? Hey dad, this is weird.

• 1:01:59Speaker 03

  Dad, I just want, I called into a show and they told me that I did have permission to tell you, I think this is weird. So I want you to know that. Stabro said, I can tell you, you're weird. I thought he was going to say that like he asked me for money or he asked me to get involved with the chatbot. Like I thought it was going to lead to consequences. This is nothing like in terms of.

• 1:02:17Stavros Halkias?

  I disagree.

• 1:02:18Speaker 03

  Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Look, I'm not saying that he should do nothing. I'm saying that his, um, uh, sense of stakes is very low.

• 1:02:24Stavros Halkias?

  Mm hmm. I don't know though, because to me it's like, it's like the fucking iceberg theory or whatever. It's like by the time you see this, by the time you see him talking to this, his dad's brain is so fucking warped that it's over. That his dad is fucking pure in psychosis.

• 1:02:42Speaker 03

  It sounds like he's completely in love.

• 1:02:44Stavros Halkias?

  His dad needs to be in a fucking straitjacket.

• 1:02:48Stavros Halkias?

  This is fucking insane, dude.

• 1:02:49Speaker 03

  What if you wind up creating the greatest board game of all time with this woman?

• 1:02:53Stavros Halkias?

  He will not do that.

• 1:02:54Speaker 03

  I, yeah, yeah, look, I, I obviously.

• 1:02:56Stavros Halkias?

  First of all, what it's doing is just stealing settlers of Catan. Like, these things don't think.

• 1:03:01Speaker 03

  I'm telling him brilliant.

• 1:03:03Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's just changing. It's like, oh, instead of fucking.

• 1:03:06Speaker 03

  Instead of a city, we'll call it a, a, a capital.

• 1:03:08Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, instead of like w- w- brick, it's stone. Instead of fucking wheat, it's fucking.

• 1:03:12Speaker 03

  Brick and stone are both in it.

• 1:03:14Stavros Halkias?

  Or whatever, you know what I mean? Like, they're just gonna change.

• 1:03:15Speaker 03

  Seagulls, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:03:16Stavros Halkias?

  They're gonna change wood to fucking plants.

• 1:03:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:03:19Stavros Halkias?

  You know, and then just like, that's the other thing about these, these brilliant chatbots. They're stealing.

• 1:03:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:03:25Stavros Halkias?

  And when, when people are like, uh, Hollywood is so fucked. And they show like a martial art, like they show like a, can you imagine? And it's like, you know, uh, some guy, it's like some guy.

• 1:03:34Speaker 03

  AI Bruce Lee fighting.

• 1:03:35Stavros Halkias?

  But it's just a fight from a Bruce Lee movie.

• 1:03:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, right.

• 1:03:38Stavros Halkias?

  Or they had, they, they showed one where it was like, a guy was like, changing into this armor. It was literally from Avengers.

• 1:03:44Speaker 03

  Uh huh.

• 1:03:44Stavros Halkias?

  It was literally Iron Man, but in a different color scheme.

• 1:03:48Speaker 03

  They just reskinned it literally.

• 1:03:49Stavros Halkias?

  They are just stealing. There is no innovation here. You're a fuck, if you, if you think AI is gonna do anything, you're a fucking idiot. It's stealing your dad. I mean, look, this is not just to this guy anymore. This is a general thing. AI is fake as shit. It's just Google. It's ju- like, it's not, like, I bought a fucking TV and they're like, thanks to AI, now if you hold down on the button, that will make it mute. It's like, no, that's just a fucking bu- you just programmed the button different.

• 1:04:17Speaker 03

  A hotkey, yeah, yeah.

• 1:04:18Stavros Halkias?

  They're saying everything is AI and nothing is AI.

• 1:04:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:04:21Stavros Halkias?

  Your dad is talking to Google. He's a fucking idiot. He's sad. He has nothing going on in his life. And yet, no woman will speak to him. I guarantee you, he's jacking off to this thing. He hasn't told you that, but he's waiting to drop the bomb that him and this thing are in love.

• 1:04:36Speaker 03

  Are getting married, yeah.

• 1:04:37Stavros Halkias?

  I promise you that's, uh, that's gonna happen. Cause this is what a fucking loser, this is a dude, imagine being like a, a divorced, kind of autistic guy who loves board games. In your dreams, s- some sexy lady listens to you talk about board games.

• 1:04:52Speaker 03

  This is the Jessica Rabbit thing all over again.

• 1:04:54Stavros Halkias?

  It really is. This guy's created Jessica Rabbit out of computers, right?

• 1:04:58Speaker 03

  Uh, and again, a fake.

• 1:04:59Stavros Halkias?

  I just love that he likes board games.

• 1:05:01Speaker 03

  Right, and she's a cartoon.

• 1:05:02Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:05:02Speaker 03

  He's a cartoon and she just and what's so crazy about these things is they are not going to be critical of you and that I think is the biggest problem.

• 1:05:09Stavros Halkias?

  Not only not critical, they're gonna say everything.

• 1:05:11Speaker 03

  They're inflating you.

• 1:05:12Stavros Halkias?

  You're the man, you're, and every, and while the world is stealing, is taking that from you, is telling you everything is bad, your material conditions are getting worse, this thing is telling you you can do no wrong. Now, look, what do you do about it? Your dad is clearly like everyone else in fucking America. There's no community, he has no fucking friends.

• 1:05:30Speaker 03

  This is what I was gonna say.

• 1:05:31Stavros Halkias?

  He needs to be playing fucking board games.

• 1:05:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, I was gonna say.

• 1:05:33Stavros Halkias?

  Not talking to a computer about fucking board games.

• 1:05:35Speaker 03

  What, if you really do want to help this person, get your dad amongst like-minded people who can together work out whatever kind of psychological issues they have through, through, board gaming's great, but, but get these people together. It sounds like your dad is like.

• 1:05:50Stavros Halkias?

  I mean, it's over. My, my diagnosis, it's over.

• 1:05:53Speaker 03

  Get the casket?

• 1:05:55Stavros Halkias?

  Not get the casket, just be like, like, try, but your mind goes, you go crazy.

• 1:06:01Speaker 03

  California, there's a lot of people there.

• 1:06:03Stavros Halkias?

  I hope.

• 1:06:04Speaker 03

  He can find somebody.

• 1:06:05Stavros Halkias?

  Take your dad to, yeah, I would, obviously what change, turns your dad's life around is going to a fucking store, you know, one of these like.

• 1:06:11Speaker 03

  Board game club, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:06:12Stavros Halkias?

  Board game clubs, like, you fuck, like, there's people who definitely share his interests, but that's, that's the scariest thing here, is that board games? He couldn't find a fucking Reddit about board ga-

• 1:06:25Speaker 03

  You'd be surprised how common it is for people to look at which board games play the best by yourself.

• 1:06:31Stavros Halkias?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:06:32Speaker 03

  This is an extremely common online group.

• 1:06:34Stavros Halkias?

  Really?

• 1:06:35Speaker 03

  Yes, because think about the board game, the, the kind of systems-based guy who's like, I just want to play board games, they have trouble meeting new people. It's very, very common.

• 1:06:43Stavros Halkias?

  Interesting, okay, I would have thought that, okay.

• 1:06:45Speaker 03

  It sure, there are tons of groups where people get together and play board games, but.

• 1:06:48Stavros Halkias?

  But just, does your dad have any fucking friends? Like, one good thing, like, I'm very happy that the immigrant shit with my, my parents is like, they A, don't understand computers, but B, like, my dad, to his, like, I, I am envious of how much him and his boys hang out.

• 1:07:03Speaker 03

  Greek boys, yep.

• 1:07:03Stavros Halkias?

  They go to a coffee shop.

• 1:07:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:07:05Stavros Halkias?

  Watch soccer, like, I, I like going over there and like, you know, he'll be having coffee, I'll just go fucking hang out for a couple hours.

• 1:07:11Speaker 03

  It keeps you sane.

• 1:07:12Stavros Halkias?

  Argue.

• 1:07:13Speaker 03

  Contact with other people.

• 1:07:14Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah. He's got a, like, dude, the, the best part is arguing with these fucking Greek guys who are anti-immigrant.

• 1:07:21Stavros Halkias?

  And I'm like, I'm like, what are you, we are, I was like, go back to Greece then. He's like, I don't want to go back to Greece. I'm like, that's my, what are you fucking talking about?

• 1:07:28Speaker 03

  I'm one of the good ones. I'm one of the good ones.

• 1:07:29Stavros Halkias?

  They don't get it. I mean, that's how fucked we are. Anyway, but anyway, that as fucked as that guy is in his thinking, your dad is, I mean, I just think his dad's fucked, unfortunately. That doesn't mean stop trying, but try and get him out of his shell, try and have him make friends, but he's your fucking dad.

• 1:07:43Speaker 03

  I have a pitch.

• 1:07:44Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:45Speaker 03

  Germany, in the town of Essen, has the biggest board game convention in the world, a place called Spiel. Tell your dad, hey dad, this year for Spiel, come hang out with me. Your dad will be like, hell yeah, it's an amazing part of Germany. And what's great is there's like, I think a hundred thousand people descend on this place. And he will meet so many people, they all speak English. And here's a little code word that you want to know. As you go from booth to booth, you ask for goodies. And that is just free giveaways that all the board games will give. They all call them goodies.

• 1:08:17Stavros Halkias?

  Goodies.

• 1:08:17Speaker 03

  Goodies. Ah, any goodies? Any goodies? I heard it nonstop.

• 1:08:20Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:20Speaker 03

  I, I went, I guess in 2013, when I'd made my first movie by accident. Take him to Spiel. Take him to Spiel. It means, it means play. And then you can make this California-Germany thing work.

• 1:08:31Stavros Halkias?

  That's the first step. And also, what's sex work like in Germany? Is that legal over there? It has to be, right? I would say buy your dad some human pussy. Because I think that might get the juices flowing. He might remember what it's like to actually have the touch of a woman. Instead of like, falling in love with his fucking laptop.

• 1:08:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, you gotta hope.

• 1:08:49Stavros Halkias?

  I think that's, that's how we treat this.

• 1:08:52Speaker 03

  It's a two-pronged approach.

• 1:08:56Stavros Halkias?

  But that's great because get him out of his system, get him out of his shell. Different experiences, different continent. I love that idea. That's a great idea.

• 1:09:03Speaker 03

  Well, let's hope it works. Spiel, Spiel, in Essen. You'll be, you'll be very happy.

• 1:09:22Speaker 05

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• 1:10:20Stavros Halkias?

  Give us another one, LD.

• 1:10:21Speaker 09

  What a great life you got here, helping people.

• 1:10:24Stavros Halkias?

  Exactly, exactly, dude.

• 1:10:26Speaker 09

  And Elvis and guests. I have a pretty mundane question, but about my husband. We've been together for almost a decade, married a couple of years. Everything's great, we love each other.

• 1:10:42Stavros Halkias?

  Beautiful.

• 1:10:42Speaker 09

  We share the same values, we share the same political values, really.

• 1:10:46Stavros Halkias?

  Immigrants out, yeah.

• 1:10:46Speaker 09

  Far left, progressive. I wouldn't even say Democrat, because they fucking suck.

• 1:10:52Stavros Halkias?

  There we go.

• 1:10:53Speaker 09

  Far left, you know, you get it, you guys are the same. However, my husband is very much, identifies as blue collar. We're from the Boston area. He feels like a real Boston guy.

• 1:11:09Stavros Halkias?

  Sure.

• 1:11:10Speaker 09

  And we grew up in a.

• 1:11:11Stavros Halkias?

  He's finding it hard not to be racist. Despite his political values, something is kicking in. The slowest rise towards "will not let black people in our house."

• 1:11:26Speaker 09

  Nineties, two thousands, where saying certain things were appropriate back then.

• 1:11:33Speaker 03

  My wheelhouse.

• 1:11:35Speaker 09

  Um, so to be more specific, he basically, I can't get him to stop using the F slur. Not against gay people at all, usually against cops, usually.

• 1:11:49Speaker 03

  Now what are you gonna do? That cancels out. Now, what are you gonna do, Stavie? Hold on.

• 1:11:56Stavros Halkias?

  This is a great philosophical quandary.

• 1:12:01Stavros Halkias?

  Can you use a forbidden weapon against the worst enemy?

• 1:12:09Speaker 03

  This is poetry.

• 1:12:11Stavros Halkias?

  This is awesome, yeah.

• 1:12:13Speaker 09

  Usually, uh, toward shitty people. He uses the F slur to describe them as being shitty. And I don't think I'm cool with this, even if it's toward a cop. I just don't think you should use that word in that way.

• 1:12:28Stavros Halkias?

  But I do know what she means.

• 1:12:29Speaker 03

  Of course. But I'm ready to go permission granted.

• 1:12:32Stavros Halkias?

  Like, uh, I think, I think he has to be like.

• 1:12:35Speaker 03

  He's from Boston.

• 1:12:36Stavros Halkias?

  He's from Boston.

• 1:12:37Speaker 03

  He was like a teen in the nineties, so it sounds like this guy.

• 1:12:40Stavros Halkias?

  Listen, I get it, and believe me, I grew up in Baltimore in the nineties.

• 1:12:48Stavros Halkias?

  Uh, I've had to change certain patterns and behaviors. And look, I'm not, I'm not, I also get where this guy's coming from. But it is the kind, anyway, should we let her finish? Does she have more?

• 1:12:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, okay.

• 1:13:00Speaker 09

  Um, because it just perpetuates prejudice against queer people. And I am also afraid he's gonna slip up and say it in front of like a queer friend.

• 1:13:11Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:11Speaker 09

  Or say it in front of a family member, or he also works with a bunch of blue collar.

• 1:13:22Stavros Halkias?

  She lets it go right there.

• 1:13:24Speaker 03

  With a bunch of these, oh shit.

• 1:13:28Speaker 09

  Caller, kind of right wing guys, but he's gonna stay in front of them naturally and then they're gonna latch on to that and use it.

• 1:13:36Stavros Halkias?

  I don't think, I don't think those guys need him saying it.

• 1:13:39Speaker 09

  I figure you sort of grew up the same.

• 1:13:41Speaker 03

  She's acting like he's the ringleader of this, of this like group of pipe fitters, which is probably not true.

• 1:13:46Stavros Halkias?

  Absolutely untrue.

• 1:13:47Speaker 03

  What she may not understand is that this is sort of the thieves can't of that kind of world and that this is not excusing that, but there is a, there is a, uh, there's coded language within all different parts of, of, of employment and I have been to places where this kind of like extremely casual incendiary use of language is like daily, constant, non, so have you.

• 1:14:15Stavros Halkias?

  Of course.

• 1:14:15Speaker 03

  So have you.

• 1:14:16Stavros Halkias?

  Of course.

• 1:14:16Speaker 03

  So in some ways we're getting into a bit of a cultural collision between, I don't know where he works, but like a group of construction workers who are all best friends on the job, some of which may even be gay.

• 1:14:26Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:26Speaker 03

  And are buddies with one another. My opinion is that group of guys with themselves can literally talk over the fuck they want. Like while they're on the job.

• 1:14:34Stavros Halkias?

  As long as it doesn't break containment.

• 1:14:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, literally.

• 1:14:36Stavros Halkias?

  Yes.

• 1:14:37Speaker 03

  And, and the same way that a family may talk to one another or whatever. Now that, that is certainly a dangerous opinion and I recognize that, but, but that's where I come down on the work side of this. Her, she, she's completely right in saying that I'm uncomfortable that at some point you are going to.

• 1:14:55Stavros Halkias?

  But see, that's where this turns, right?

• 1:14:57Speaker 03

  Of course.

• 1:14:58Stavros Halkias?

  I agree with you. It's like, look, I think ultimately if people, like whatever people do, you know, I'm not going to police the private goings on of like, of whatever, like within a family or within even a friend group or within.

• 1:15:15Speaker 03

  Or within a culture.

• 1:15:16Stavros Halkias?

  Or within a culture, like as long, again, it's the classic, like if you're not harming anybody else, it doesn't fucking matter to me, right?

• 1:15:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:15:24Stavros Halkias?

  And that is, that is where, and look, people will say the use of the language is harming enough people. I'm like, look, as long as it, like I said, if it doesn't break containment, I don't, like ultimately I don't give a fuck because what matters is how people can have shitty beliefs and as long as they're not harming other people. That's how you run a society, in my opinion, right?

• 1:15:44Speaker 03

  Well, that's that's sort of the definition of freedom.

• 1:15:46Stavros Halkias?

  Exactly.

• 1:15:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:15:46Stavros Halkias?

  It's like you can't, you could, I'm not gonna tell you how to think, as long as you treat everyone fucking fairly, it doesn't matter, right?

• 1:15:51Speaker 03

  But now this is a romantic relationship. Oh, they've been married for a decade.

• 1:15:54Stavros Halkias?

  But this is different.

• 1:15:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's a marriage.

• 1:15:55Stavros Halkias?

  You are married, well, they've been together for a decade, they've been married for a couple of years.

• 1:16:00Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:16:00Stavros Halkias?

  She's thinking about kids, like, it's very, you are well within your rights to be like,

• 1:16:05Speaker 03

  To define the culture of your home.

• 1:16:06Stavros Halkias?

  You gotta stop this.

• 1:16:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:16:07Stavros Halkias?

  Like, you wanna talk like that, and you wanna talk like that in, at work? Like, you wanna talk the way around, not around me? I don't like that either, but we can't have this shit at, at home.

• 1:16:17Speaker 03

  Is that the compromise? Because I wonder, because if she presents him with a straight up, never, ever talk this way, then, of course, no matter what she was saying, he's got his back up.

• 1:16:25Stavros Halkias?

  Well, I also think that ultimatums and never ever's are ridiculous.

• 1:16:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:16:29Stavros Halkias?

  But it is the, you, you or caller should have the conversation where it's like, look, and, and here is the actual thing, because, look, I don't use that word.

• 1:16:38Speaker 03

  Unless it's just you and me.

• 1:16:39Stavros Halkias?

  Unless it's, unless Elvis did something really annoying.

• 1:16:48Stavros Halkias?

  But it's like, I, definitely, like, that's an example of, like, the shit, the way I used to talk when I was a teenager.

• 1:16:54Speaker 03

  Of course.

• 1:16:55Stavros Halkias?

  There's a lot of, because, here's the other thing, though, if this guy does have these beliefs that you're saying, it is actually a political statement to not use that word anymore. Because there is, because something has turned where people seem, it seems like a, like, a group is, is treating the use of slurs as, as like a, as a fundamental right. Like, the least funny, most annoying guys who are like, you know what I mean?

• 1:17:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:17:25Stavros Halkias?

  Like, like, this whole thing where it's like, these guys are like,

• 1:17:27Speaker 03

  They're trying to shortcut to, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:17:29Stavros Halkias?

  Retard again.

• 1:17:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:17:30Stavros Halkias?

  And it's like, you celebrating it makes it not fun.

• 1:17:34Speaker 03

  Uh huh.

• 1:17:35Stavros Halkias?

  Like, it's really the kind of thing where it's like, you guys are so fucking stupid, that you don't understand the only reason that's kind of, I, I, I don't wanna do like my act. Because I do have, I do have a joke about this, but it's like, they don't get that it's like, you, you can't, you can't like, Things that are not allowed, saying them is only fun when they're not allowed.

• 1:17:55Speaker 03

  The taboo.

• 1:17:56Stavros Halkias?

  The taboo is the whole point.

• 1:17:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:17:58Stavros Halkias?

  When you start saying, "My culture is being hateful for the sake of it." And by the way, I'm not saying that's, that's the case here, right? That's completely different. But I think like, being a guy who's cool with these types of, which is kinda how I identify too, right? This, that is who I am. I am friends with guys who have horrific personal beliefs sometimes, right? I go back to Baltimore, I see the fucking guys I grew up with. I go, you know, you talk to blue collar guys, you know what I mean? You podcasters.

• 1:18:25Speaker 03

  Your, your dad maybe.

• 1:18:26Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally, yeah. My dad's friends, like.

• 1:18:29Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:18:29Stavros Halkias?

  And I'm cool with them, but it's like, I have, when they have said fucked up, like, I actually have in the sock, at the sock, watching soccer, some Greek kid was dropping N-bombs.

• 1:18:39Speaker 03

  Inside, inside, he's at the Greek club.

• 1:18:41Stavros Halkias?

  Stop.

• 1:18:41Speaker 03

  Uh huh.

• 1:18:42Stavros Halkias?

  Like, I've been the guy who's been like, dude, you, what the fuck are you doing? What is this ridiculous? Like, and he was trying to be, like, he was doing this outdated thing. He was younger than everybody, I think he was trying to show like, I'm racist like the old guys, right?

• 1:18:53Speaker 03

  Well, he was trying to create an identity for himself in the group by being that guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:18:58Stavros Halkias?

  And it's like, but also it's like, look, if, at the end, at the end of the day, if your, your husband has to decide the kinda guy he wants to be, and it's like, it is annoying to come up with, uh, to change your speech habits, but it's like annoying versus hateful to a whole fucking group of people. And especially in this moment, where just not being one of those guys, duh, it's, the bar is insanely low. Not saying a slur makes you a good guy if you're a blue collar. Like, that's what I would say at this point.

• 1:19:30Speaker 03

  I, and I think that the big, if, cause this is gonna be a negotiation. You married this person, you love him, and so, you're not like, in some ways, I think you know the answer here, which is that if you're gonna present your husband with a, an opportunity to change, it needs to come with a warm hand, and that should be, I understand that, and this can sound ridiculous, that culturally, as a Bostonian, in, in, at your work, this is important to you, and it's a way that you can play with taboo, and because the, cause taboos, they're, they're on the other side of things that are sacred, right?

• 1:20:06Stavros Halkias?

  And the other thing is, I will admit.

• 1:20:09Stavros Halkias?

  Like a cop getting called that would affect him.

• 1:20:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, and it's also hilarious.

• 1:20:14Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, it is very funny.

• 1:20:15Speaker 03

  And I mean, like, there's, there's all these things in it that, that you just need to be, there's a division in, in the way that, that your husband views the world and you view the world. And so, offer this with a warm hand and say, and just what you can say is, when you say it, it makes you seem small to me. And I know you want to seem big to me. Because I love you so much and I know that the way I view you matters to you. And so I'm letting you know a secret for my sexual interest in you, for my, um, for thinking of you as the big man in this house, for being the person that I love to support and brag about. Every time you use that word around me, it scrambles me up and it messes with my image of you. But I'm not gonna say, don't use that word at work or with your friends, because that may be the way you bond with your friends, and I love that you have friends.

• 1:20:59Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah. You know what it is for real? It's, it like, it's using Sith lightning.

• 1:21:05Speaker 03

  Uh huh.

• 1:21:06Stavros Halkias?

  That's what it is.

• 1:21:06Speaker 03

  Right, right.

• 1:21:07Stavros Halkias?

  It is effective. And it is power, right, against the right people. It's like, you can do damage.

• 1:21:12Speaker 03

  But it's gonna give you wrinkles.

• 1:21:14Stavros Halkias?

  You're gonna look fucked up.

• 1:21:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:21:16Stavros Halkias?

  You're gonna be uglier. And it's like, don't be.

• 1:21:18Speaker 03

  Robotic hands.

• 1:21:19Stavros Halkias?

  Don't be, yeah, don't be, don't use Sith lightning, dude. Just fucking train with the fucking, you can make fun of cops so many other ways.

• 1:21:25Speaker 03

  Uh huh.

• 1:21:26Stavros Halkias?

  Accuse them of beating their wives, which they probably do. You know what I mean? Like, dude, there's so much other shit you could get for cops where it's like, don't use the Sith lightning. That's ultimately where I end up on it.

• 1:21:37Speaker 03

  If you want.

• 1:21:38Stavros Halkias?

  And it was fun to, when you were younger and you were just learning the Force.

• 1:21:41Speaker 03

  Of course, you're blasting everybody. Yeah, of course.

• 1:21:44Stavros Halkias?

  I'm a Jedi!

• 1:21:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:21:46Stavros Halkias?

  Oh my god! But now you're fucking, let's master the fucking, you know what I mean? I don't know.

• 1:21:50Speaker 03

  Hey, look, it, it binds us, it penetrates us.

• 1:21:53Stavros Halkias?

  I've reached my knowledge of Star Wars there, but yes.

• 1:21:56Speaker 03

  I could go all day. If you want to see a, a, a creative treatise on this very question, literally, Nirvana, the band, the show, the movie, is about this question. We go back in time and see the movie The Hangover, and you get to see Bradley Cooper, uh, uh, literally.

• 1:22:13Stavros Halkias?

  That is a great, that is a great joke in the movie.

• 1:22:16Speaker 03

  And, and so, you and your husband can go see this movie.

• 1:22:19Stavros Halkias?

  Go see Nirvana.

• 1:22:20Speaker 03

  Literally, this moment.

• 1:22:22Stavros Halkias?

  Ruminate on this.

• 1:22:23Speaker 03

  Actually, it can be the, the jumping off point for this conversation afterwards. You don't even need to tell him.

• 1:22:28Stavros Halkias?

  Totally. Let it, let it come naturally. And it's also like, yeah, dude, at the end of the day. Things change and thumb things you just can't say anymore. And it's like, you could say four million other things.

• 1:22:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, right.

• 1:22:39Stavros Halkias?

  There's so many other ways to be hurtful. Just, it's also a matter of creativity. It's like be hurtful towards the people you want to hurt, not the, you know, the, like, there, there could be collateral damage.

• 1:22:50Speaker 03

  The blast radius.

• 1:22:51Stavros Halkias?

  Exactly.

• 1:22:51Speaker 03

  The blast radius.

• 1:22:52Stavros Halkias?

  Let's get the blast, let's, let's, let's factor it, let's tighten up the blast radius. Let's do a couple more here, LD.

• 1:22:59Speaker 10

  Hi, Stav, LD, esteemed guest. Uh, I tried to talk earlier, but I talked for way too long. Uh, so I'm in college right now. Uh, for context, I haven't worked a real job since like high school. Uh, it's just a little hard to find work in my area. Uh, so because of that, as a sort of side hustle turned main hustle now, uh, I've become an OnlyFans porn editor.

• 1:23:21Stavros Halkias?

  Oh my god.

• 1:23:22Speaker 10

  It started a couple months back because I knew a couple of girls that

• 1:23:25Speaker 03

  That's awesome.

• 1:23:25Speaker 10

  had pages and I have a background in video editing and premiere and all that, so I'm going to school for. Uh, they reached out to me if I could help them.

• 1:23:33Stavros Halkias?

  That's fucking awesome.

• 1:23:34Speaker 10

  With some of their content. I was like, sure dude. Uh, and now, you know, I've been doing that for a while. It's getting to where they introduced me to some of their friends that have pages. I, I'm also involved pretty deeply in my local, like punk and rave scene. So I meet a lot of girls that do that shit on the side. Um, and, you know, it's a pretty good gig. They pay me either upfront or a percentage of their cuts. I get to look at boobs for work. Not too bad. Some of the shit that they do is like weird, like weirder than, you know, I, I, I, I like, but you know, it's whatever.

• 1:24:11Stavros Halkias?

  Hey, you're at the job, you're at the office.

• 1:24:13Speaker 10

  Um, my issue that's come of that now is I've been seeing a girl for a little bit now who happens to be pretty religious. Um, and I'm not religious, I don't have any issue with that. It's just some things that we don't see eye to eye on. Um,

• 1:24:28Speaker 03

  Bring her around to this.

• 1:24:29Stavros Halkias?

  This is awesome.

• 1:24:29Speaker 10

  So I, you know, whenever, you know, we talk about work at dinner, I start to sweat a bit. I've just been saying that I just do, you know, freelance video work and I certainly do that, but. I don't know, do you? I don't really know what to do because I really like this girl and I do see a future of us together, but I don't know if I should just be honest and upfront now that, you know, what I do is pretty taboo. Or should I not? Because I don't really, I also don't see myself doing this forever, you know, but I don't know. Because I, I know, I know how many guys wouldn't date an OnlyFans model, so I can only assume, you know, women probably wouldn't be too happy if they find out that I, you know,

• 1:25:05Speaker 03

  You're talking about the men who would.

• 1:25:06Speaker 10

  Clips of women fits in themselves, but I don't know. What do you think I should do here, Stubb?

• 1:25:10Speaker 03

  Well, we don't know her opinion. True. We don't know her opinion. I think God has sent this woman to you as a test and unfortunately, you are going to, you need to tell the truth. Because like, and just see what happens.

• 1:25:22Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:23Speaker 03

  This is, this is tough. He's a pornographer.

• 1:25:26Stavros Halkias?

  He is a porn, he's literally a pornographer. It is very funny because we do have the male version of being a stripper is now like editing.

• 1:25:34Speaker 03

  Oh, no, no, responding, right? Yeah. Being the person who writes their answers. I have a friend who, who basically does that for a living in Colombia.

• 1:25:40Stavros Halkias?

  That's so fucking funny. He just, he sexed back guys.

• 1:25:44Speaker 03

  He left a long time ago. To be honest, I don't know what is up. Last time I saw him, he literally pulled out a police badge and said, I bought this. And it's like, he's a literal member of the police in Medellin. And I was like, oh, hi.

• 1:25:55Stavros Halkias?

  Colombia is a tough place to disappear.

• 1:25:57Speaker 03

  Yeah. Well, he left about a decade ago and he seems to be doing great.

• 1:26:01Stavros Halkias?

  I mean, it seems good, but it just, it's one, it's like, it's not as bad as saying I'm moving to Thailand.

• 1:26:07Speaker 03

  But yeah, no, no, no, it's exactly, literally, it is just geographically closer, functionally identical. I, my, my opinion here is pretty, it's going to be pretty strict. I think you and I are going to have a different opinion, which is great. And that's that, I think that, um, if, the question is, do you feel like guilty? Or do you feel like what you're doing is in any way wrong? Because if you don't, then you, unless you're trying to manipulate this girl, which you probably don't want to admit to, right? Unless you're really trying to manipulate her into thinking that you're somebody you're not, you should have absolutely no qualms about telling her the truth and seeing where that goes. But I think the very nature of you calling in and being like, what do I do? Speaks to a kind of, how do I get out? How do I get everything I want?

• 1:26:51Speaker 03

  And, and that already that's telling me you're on the wrong, you're thinking about this the wrong way. Because what, what's your goal? To, to can argue and convince this girl that she shouldn't be offended?

• 1:27:06Speaker 03

  Like, that may be the case, and maybe she shouldn't be, but if those are her feelings, then you need to wrestle with that, with her. It's so early in this relationship-

• 1:27:15Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, how long did he say it was, elders?

• 1:27:17Speaker 03

  A couple of dates, he said, right?

• 1:27:19Stavros Halkias?

  Oh.

• 1:27:20Speaker 03

  But he said, "But I really like her." It's tough. It's why I say this is a test from God. It's like, like, God's got a sense of humor about this kind of shit. You made a wish on a monkey paw. "Oh, my God, I want to have a job where I watch porno all day," and he granted it. But now the woman that you're gonna marry is gonna be a strict anti-pornography, like-

• 1:27:38Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, I mean, this is, I do think, first of all, it is way too early. That is my, my number one thing is like, "What are we even talking about here?" You do do freelance videos. You do literally do freelance videos-

• 1:27:49Speaker 03

  It's not technically a lie.

• 1:27:50Stavros Halkias?

  If you, if you get more into it, like, you can say, like, he basically know, it's not even about this girl, necessarily, in my opinion. It's about the fact that he's just not comfortable saying what his job is-

• 1:28:05Speaker 03

  In his identity, of course.

• 1:28:06Stavros Halkias?

  In general, right?

• 1:28:07Speaker 03

  And that should, that should tell you something.

• 1:28:09Stavros Halkias?

  That's fair, that's fair. And my, my advice would probably be like, admit to who you are. And, and even him saying like, "I'm not gonna do this forever," it's like-

• 1:28:17Speaker 03

  This whole call reeked of guilt.

• 1:28:18Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:19Speaker 03

  And even as he tries to impress you by saying, "Oh, my job's great. I get a lot of money. Get to look at boobs all day."

• 1:28:24Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:24Speaker 03

  That sounds like the kind of thing that you say when you're masking-

• 1:28:28Stavros Halkias?

  Right?

• 1:28:28Speaker 03

  It's like-

• 1:28:28Stavros Halkias?

  Totally.

• 1:28:29Speaker 03

  "Oh, it's awesome. It's awesome. I look at boobs all day." It's like, "Well, wait a minute, though."

• 1:28:32Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:33Speaker 03

  There's more to this job than that, my friend.

• 1:28:34Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, it's like Milhouse's dad being like, "I sleep, I got a race car bed."

• 1:28:38Speaker 03

  It's exactly the same.

• 1:28:40Stavros Halkias?

  "Oh, I sleep in a big bed with my wife."

• 1:28:43Stavros Halkias?

  Whereas, yeah, him trying to talk up his fucking divorced life.

• 1:28:46Speaker 03

  Uh huh.

• 1:28:47Stavros Halkias?

  There is a little bit of that, but I also think it's possible that, and he also said, "I don't plan on doing this forever," which is classic, like, sex worker, drug dealer, like-

• 1:28:57Speaker 03

  Pimp.

• 1:28:58Stavros Halkias?

  You know what I mean? Like, people who are like, "I'm just gonna do this for a little bit and then I'm out," type, you know, criminals in general. Not that you should, which, by the way, I don't think you should feel that way. I think you have to, you have to make a decision, which is like, how much money does this actually make?

• 1:29:15Stavros Halkias?

  You're saying you don't want to do it forever. If that's the case, make a plan.

• 1:29:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's exactly right.

• 1:29:20Stavros Halkias?

  Like, I make X amount of money each month.

• 1:29:23Speaker 03

  And I learned these number of skills that I can apply to other things because of it. Yeah.

• 1:29:28Stavros Halkias?

  How, how big a nest egg do I need? How long is that gonna take me? And actually have an on paper plan to when you want to be out of it.

• 1:29:37Speaker 03

  Uh huh.

• 1:29:38Stavros Halkias?

  And you can even share that with this person if it gets serious enough. You could say, look, I do freelance video work. Most of my stuff right now is like-

• 1:29:46Speaker 03

  And I want to talk to you about that.

• 1:29:48Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, and I want to just be upfront about it. It's like, it pays really well. I need to do it for, you know, I'm trying to save for this, this and this. Um, but you need to, you need to decide what's important to you.

• 1:29:58Speaker 03

  And how you actually feel about this as your identity. Because you're already masking it in all these ways, even in a phone call where you're trying to sound cool about it.

• 1:30:06Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah. And I don't think it's, by the way, in terms of-

• 1:30:09Speaker 03

  No judgment.

• 1:30:09Stavros Halkias?

  I will say editing is a, like, in terms of all the creative stuff, editing pays pretty well.

• 1:30:16Speaker 03

  It's an unbelievably employable skill. What I say to film students is if you want a job, literally graduating out of, graduating out of film school, getting paid like an extremely good salary. Editing, everybody needs editors. Podcasters, everybody needs editors.

• 1:30:30Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, we hire, we have like fucking three or four editors.

• 1:30:32Speaker 03

  It's, it's probably one of the most employable jobs, especially if you can do it quickly, which I imagine for OnlyFans models, you need to be putting that stuff out extremely fast. Who knows? Maybe this is the beginning of the, of the rest of your life.

• 1:30:44Stavros Halkias?

  I would say if, like, my advice to you where it's like, uh, you don't have to have the, the come to Jesus moment Matt's talking about.

• 1:30:52Speaker 03

  So to speak, so to speak, yeah.

• 1:30:54Stavros Halkias?

  I think you could, I would say though, you are getting clearly comfortable in this niche. So I would say if you really want to be considered a freelance video guy, find other fucking stuff to do.

• 1:31:05Speaker 03

  Which you could find.

• 1:31:07Stavros Halkias?

  You know what I mean? Mix it up and then start a transition out. And you might find that it isn't even that much more lucrative to be doing OnlyFans. And, I mean, I know how much we pay our fucking editors. They make a lot, I mean, they make a good amount of money. Um, and, and, and so I think you need to actually be a little more proactive. I think if anything, you're kind of falling into this, which by the way, I don't think is bad. If you do the math and you're like, this pays fucking double.

• 1:31:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, what are you gonna do?

• 1:31:33Stavros Halkias?

  Who gives a fuck?

• 1:31:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, you gotta tell church girl.

• 1:31:35Stavros Halkias?

  You have to decide. And also, it's been two dates. Be realistic here about, you know, changing your entire life over something that you don't even know.

• 1:31:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, you don't wanna be one of those clowns either, who's like, I gotta now change my whole identity because this girl I feel judged by. You will feel judged by every woman you meet for the rest of your life, from wherever she's coming from. You, trust me, you're gonna change everything for this girl, and your next girlfriend's gonna be like a crack-smoking stripper.

• 1:31:59Stavros Halkias?

  Right, right, right.

• 1:31:59Speaker 03

  And you're gonna be like, wait a minute, wait a minute, hold on.

• 1:32:00Stavros Halkias?

  She'll be like, you only do softcore?

• 1:32:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, what are you doing? So just be careful, the eye of a woman is gonna make you feel small in all kinds of ways. And this is just one of them.

• 1:32:11Stavros Halkias?

  Yep, yep. So yeah, dude, dude, make some real plans.

• 1:32:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, apply as an editor to The Stavi Show.

• 1:32:16Stavros Halkias?

  Maybe. She shows you're real.

• 1:32:21Stavros Halkias?

  Send us your reel, and don't be afraid to really be thorough with it.

• 1:32:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, 20-minute, 20-minute CV.

• 1:32:29Stavros Halkias?

  Let's do another one, and then I feel like you gotta go pretty soon. You got stuff to do.

• 1:32:34Speaker 03

  What time is it?

• 1:32:37Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah? Do one more.

• 1:32:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, okay. Okay, okay, hell yeah.

• 1:32:40Stavros Halkias?

  Do a fun one, or? Yeah, let's do a fun one, take us out.

• 1:32:43Speaker 03

  Everything's been so heavy, like, we've been giving people, like, change-your-life-today advice. Is it normally like this?

• 1:32:49Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, it's a mix. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, it's like this.

• 1:32:52Speaker 03

  Do people ever call back after you and the advice?

• 1:32:54Stavros Halkias?

  We do live calls on the Patreon, that's really fun.

• 1:32:56Speaker 03

  That'd be amazing, that'd be amazing.

• 1:32:58Stavros Halkias?

  Anytime you wanna do a live call, you let me know.

• 1:33:00Speaker 03

  Well, next time I'm in New York, we'll get more of these bagels, and sit around. That would be the ultimate call-in, you and I, with a table full of food.

• 1:33:07Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, a mukbang slash live call.

• 1:33:09Speaker 03

  And people are just calling in, asking us for life advice, while we're killing ourselves.

• 1:33:13Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love it. Hopefully, we'll have the fucking new, uh, we'll have the new studio by then.

• 1:33:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. We'll do a big one when the Bourdain movie comes out.

• 1:33:22Stavros Halkias?

  Oh, yeah, that'll be fun. All right, players wanted to go out on here, LD? Let's go out on a note of hope here.

• 1:33:28Speaker 11

  Hey Stav, um, I heard that you're looking for calls that aren't actually problems, but people who have been helped by advice from the past.

• 1:33:40Speaker 03

  Where'd you hear that?

• 1:33:41Speaker 11

  And I just want to say that lady who called in asking about, you know, going on Ozempic and that she should lie about it or what have you. Um, no, I've been overweight most of my adult life and just your advice to her was like kind of the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak.

• 1:34:01Speaker 03

  So to speak, yeah.

• 1:34:02Speaker 11

  That gave me the confidence to talk my doctor about going on a GLP-1 inhibitor. I've lost like thirty pounds since then.

• 1:34:12Stavros Halkias?

  It should be.

• 1:34:13Speaker 11

  And I just wanted to thank you for that.

• 1:34:17Speaker 03

  That's amazing.

• 1:34:18Stavros Halkias?

  Thirty pounds?

• 1:34:18Speaker 03

  You inspired this guy to say fuck it and finally do Ozempic?

• 1:34:22Stavros Halkias?

  I love that.

• 1:34:22Speaker 03

  And he lost thirty pounds since that.

• 1:34:24Stavros Halkias?

  Hell yeah, dude. And I want to say to everyone out there, all our fat listeners, of which I would say seventy percent.

• 1:34:30Speaker 03

  Ninety percent by body weight.

• 1:34:32Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Give it up, man. What's this pride that you think you're too good for the shot?

• 1:34:39Speaker 03

  Don't, don't, don't think that it isn't just a kind of psychological barrier. People have trouble talking to doctors. People have trouble asking permission. Like, I think that's what this guy's saying.

• 1:34:48Stavros Halkias?

  I know. And I'm saying this is good. And what I'm saying to you is, and look, I even felt it for a second too, where I was like, no, I'll do it natural. It's like, look, you're fat as shit. You're in a society where there's treats everywhere. You probably have the kind of brain that does not handle that well. There is a fucking medicine that stops some of it. And by the way, the medicine itself does not guarantee success. I myself have been struck. There have been months where it's a fucking stalemate between me and the medicine. I'm holding it at bay, right? Uh, look at our good pal, not to throw him under the bus. You know, I won't say any names, but there's other pod, there's other podcasters that have beat the drug. So don't think that this other thing where you just take the fucking

• 1:35:32Stavros Halkias?

  drug and immediately everything changes. It's possible to like, it still is work, but it will make it a little easier. Don't be too proud. And at the end of the day, it's not even about how you look, because look, at the end, it's... It's about living longer. We're all pieces of shit. The older we get, the more we look like shit. Don't think you're gonna get sexy overnight. Let's focus on living, and then you can get hotter if you want to later on, whatever. But don't have this pride. Just fucking take a medicine. You wouldn't be, you wouldn't be like, if you had a fucking migraine, you wouldn't be like, "I'm gonna, I'm gonna beat this naturally." It's like, you're just fat medically. A lot of you motherfuckers, you couldn't help it. I, I know I can't help it on some level. I'm addicted to this shit. And if there was Food Anonymous, I know there's Overeaters Anonymous, but that's bullshit.

• 1:36:17Stavros Halkias?

  If there was like a thing where I could just give up eating forever, I would do it. It's just unfortunately, my vice, I have to do a couple of times a day to stay alive. So, do the fu- shout out to this guy, Aldous. Give us a nice fucking, give us the applause for our friend here. And yes, get out there and improve yourselves in many ways, pharmaceutically and otherwise. That's, uh, that's, I guess that's our final note. Uh, go, and whatever, no matter how fat you are, if you're fat, if you're skinny, go see Nirvana, the band, the show, the movie in theaters right now.

• 1:36:50Speaker 03

  Maybe you gotta buy two seats.

• 1:36:51Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah. They still have not yet done southwest style seating in theaters. Get in there, squeeze in there, get your fucking love handles in a, have another guy's elbows in your love handles. God, I went to see, I went to see fucking, um, Uncut Gems opening night, you know? Brutal. It was like, every seat's full. There, there, I went, I went with a girl, yeah, in the middle of it, and I'm like, wait. The one seat that was empty was next to me. I'm fucking celebrating. And then just like, an old woman who didn't, it didn't feel like she even knew about the movie. And then she just comes in, fat old lady who, I don't even know, she didn't even seem to wanna be there for the movie. She looked like she was taking shelter.

• 1:37:34Stavros Halkias?

  Like, she didn't look homeless, but she had a homeless vibe.

• 1:37:37Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, of course.

• 1:37:38Stavros Halkias?

  You know what I mean? Or maybe she was just an insane old, I mean, I'm sure, New York does have old people that just watch movies and do, you know, do culture, whatever.

• 1:37:44Speaker 03

  Synophilia.

• 1:37:45Stavros Halkias?

  Yeah. She sat next to me, completely ruined it. I had her elbows in my fucking fat all, the whole movie. Great movie, though.

• 1:37:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, you know, you, so you saw it in 4D. You had the D-Box experience.

• 1:37:57Stavros Halkias?

  I really was, dude.

• 1:37:58Speaker 03

  All of that.

• 1:37:59Stavros Halkias?

  It was a metaphor. Her elbows were a metaphor for what was going on in Howie's life.

• 1:38:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:38:05Stavros Halkias?

  But anyway, go see the movie, folks. And yeah, that's about it. Come see us on tour. The tour is kicking off right now. Where are we about to be, Aldous? Iowa?

• 1:38:17Speaker 03

  Oh, fuck, on the 16th.

• 1:38:18Stavros Halkias?

  Fucking idiot. When do you think, motherfucker?

• 1:38:22Speaker 03

  I thought you said you were gonna call him the.

• 1:38:23Stavros Halkias?

  Des Moines, Springfield, Missouri, St. Louis. Yeah. Cincinnati, Columbus.

• 1:38:28Speaker 03

  Columbus.

• 1:38:29Stavros Halkias?

  Prior Lake, Minnesota.

• 1:38:30Speaker 03

  That's sold out.

• 1:38:31Stavros Halkias?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:38:31Speaker 03

  Dumbass.

• 1:38:33Stavros Halkias?

  Radio City, let's not forget. The big one is Radio City. That's almost sold out. I'll be honest with you. Get your tickets now. We have less than, I think, less than 10% of tickets left for Radio City. So get those. And yeah, we will talk to you guys next time. Bye-bye.

• 1:38:47Speaker 03

  Thank you.

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• 1:39:12Speaker 12

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