IsThatYouTalking?
Whispering sweet nothings into your ear since 2021. All production/engineering by jordyy. All shit talking by comedian Tyler Leeland.
IsThatYouTalking?
Harrington.wav Ep 133
Music has this remarkable way of connecting us - not just to each other, but to ourselves. In this conversation with Connor Dolan (performing as Harrington.Wav), we dive deep into what makes a musician tick and how authentic expression creates the most powerful connections.
Connor shares his journey from a nine-year-old guitar student to performing musician, describing how he navigated band life and discovered his sound. The conversation takes fascinating turns through musical metaphors - comparing bass and drums to the essential "broth" that holds a song together while guitars and vocals float on top like ingredients. This perspective comes from his experience switching between instruments and understanding the foundation each provides.
What strikes me most about Connor is his unwavering commitment to authenticity. Rather than putting on a persona or chasing trends, he creates music that feels genuine. "When I'm unapologetically myself," he explains, "people either immediately connect or they don't know how to handle that realness." This philosophy extends beyond music into his entire approach to creative expression.
We explore how certain songs trigger powerful emotional responses, the challenges of performing for unresponsive crowds, and finding balance between technical skill and heartfelt expression. For musicians and creators of any kind, Connor's insights about using fear as motivation rather than letting it become a barrier offer valuable perspective on the creative process.
Whether you're a fellow musician, aspiring artist, or simply someone who appreciates the creative journey, this conversation offers a refreshing look at what it means to pursue your passion with integrity. Check out Harrington.Wav on SoundCloud to experience his music firsthand follow him on instagram also harrington.wav or See him live at the kinsman in Bristol RI pretty much every Friday night.
Great episode today. Talked to Connor Dolan, aka Harrington Wave, on SoundCloud. I like his music a lot. I enjoy his music a lot. It's cool when someone's been locked in on something for a long time. This is a common theme in my podcast. I love self-actualized people and he's a happy, well-adjusted young man. Great conversation. Can't wait to share it with you. I mean, we really explained most of it in the first few minutes so I don't have to say too much here, but I have the habit of making an intro love, you mean it.
Speaker 1:Bye the mic. The mic was off. Is your mic off? Wow, that is genius, my 15 years in the business uh, four years actually of podcasting, but now we're. We should be good, give me two seconds, like. The other thing is like this is probably this is the second podcast I've done with this stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I'm still yeah like I remember I put in the terabyte like uh sd card, and this thing was not ready for a terabyte sd card, so it's like we didn't save anything from that two hours. You just talked to somebody so I was like, oh my god, it's gone, it's not there, and I was like anything from that two hours. You just talked to somebody so I was like, oh my God, it's gone, it's not there, and I was like I brought it home and it was all there. So that's all cool, and so is it on now.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, we're rolling right now Cool.
Speaker 1:And for some reason mine sounds louder than yours, but I'm the type that, like, thinks he wins arguments by there. I'm the type that thinks I won the argument by talking louder.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's why I like comedy is because I have a microphone and I can just like.
Speaker 1:Well, you know I'm saying just screaming pretty much, but you want to introduce you. It's Harrington, right yeah, that's.
Speaker 2:That's kind of a name that I go by. It's my middle name.
Speaker 1:Harrington dot Y. I actually go by my middle name on stage too, tyler.
Speaker 2:Leland because Levesque is my last name and I don't want to explain asylum S to people yeah saying like we're not in france, so they don't get it yeah, well, my name, my, my actual name, is connor dolan and um, fully doxxed the dolan so brave.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let me turn on the camera real quick.
Speaker 2:Keep explaining yourself the dolan side is like a very small group of people and the harrington side is like a very large group of people. So I kind of like it made more sense to me to represent that and also I just think Harrington is a cool name.
Speaker 3:It's a town in.
Speaker 2:Ireland and that goes all the way back. It's pretty cool. There's a lot of history.
Speaker 1:Also, my middle name is Leland and that's the psychiatrist that introduced my parents in group therapy.
Speaker 3:So it's a funny thing, it that like okay, first name needs to be something generic.
Speaker 1:Everyone calls him like last name is all the ancestral trauma right middle names or they actually get creative and have fun yeah, you know something like meaningful yeah so, uh, you make music. I actually I listened to your demo on soundcloud, thank, you for not rapping. I really like your daughter of music.
Speaker 3:You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:I meet a lot of rappers and it seems like all the glitz and the glamour. Everyone wants to do that, but your shit is super cool. The first one's the one I like the most. It's kind of more aggressive than the second one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the faster one, it's called Balance.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you can check all those out on SoundCloud. Harringtonwave, which is a cool thing. I like that most artists are doing. Mark Little, another guy I interviewed, it's like. Wave is like a good tagline to let people know you make music. Because you actually got to be in the click to understand like that's a wave file. That's how we send the shit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I started doing that a long time ago too, and I've seen more and more of it, which is cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like you do something early and it catches on. It's like it's nice, it's like okay, I'm hitting the right vein on that kind of shit.
Speaker 2:You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:So how long have you been playing guitar and making music?
Speaker 2:Well, I started learning when I was nine and then I switched to kind of focus on bass for a while. I played bass primarily for like a good two years or so, and then I switched back to guitar.
Speaker 1:I fucking love bass, so it's. I played it for like four. I took four years of lessons on it and never did anything with it. Yeah, but it's just such a fun to feel like, because the guitar you're up front and like making a melody. But more often the bass is very versatile, because you can kind of bounce off the drums or there's other people that kind of take the lead on it, and a bass solo is so much more distinct than a guitar solo because every song is a guitar solo and a bass taking over is like yeah, nuts, and the bass is the foundation, like the bass is the guts.
Speaker 2:Uh, it's something that a lot of people don't notice until it's gone, um, and they don't even necessarily know that.
Speaker 1:It's like what's missing when it's not there yeah, exactly, it's like the total line between musicians and like npcs or like with a performance. A lot of people call popcorn eaters like people just show up and enjoy it.
Speaker 2:They don't even know what's happening yeah, well, a lot of people, like a lot of like really good musicians, will compare, uh, music to food a lot, and it's kind of like you know, not having bass or not having drums is like not having the broth in a soup oh yeah, dude, you just got like a collection of fucking yeah, like guitars and vocals are like the spinach and the kale and the carrots and shit, and like the, the beef, but the, the broth and the.
Speaker 2:That's a very good metaphor that I've never heard before, actually, yeah, so um, when did you start recording and performing your stuff?
Speaker 1:because a lot of people I remember even guitar one class is people are like no, you need to play it in front of people. This is a performance instrument. Like amuse yourself all day in your room and pretend to be a rock star.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but it doesn't do anything. Yeah, which you know. Even to get to the point of like feeling like a rock star, you still have to play in your room a lot. Oh yeah, exactly. Yeah, I lost the question, I'm sorry. When did you start performing? Yeah, when I started performing. So I joined a music lesson school when I was in early middle school and they had a program that was, like you know, they taught drum lessons, they taught bass lessons, they taught guitar lessons and vocal lessons, so they would just pick four students that were relatively at the same age and skill level and they'd pair us up in this band program.
Speaker 2:They make super groups, so they would just pick four students that were like relatively at the same age and skill level.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and they'd like pair us up in this like band program.
Speaker 2:They make super groups yeah, basically yeah or starter groups, which is like a cool resource, because it's like you know, that's half the battle. A lot of the time is like finding people that are at the right level and that want to do it.
Speaker 1:Oh, exactly Because, like I said, I played bass and I just had no one to work with and like bass by itself yeah, you're fucking like less clay pool. You're not carrying so we, yeah.
Speaker 2:So we did like a recording through that program and, um, we did like a couple sessions of it and recorded every time because that was like part of the experience. And then we were kind of just like fuck it, like we can do this ourselves, you know, like we can. Just, you know, like our, our, um, our drummer's dad was a firefighter for the city of brockton, so like he he would work like 24 hour shifts but then he would have like a lot of time off, um, so we would just like practice in his garage like twice a week yeah sometimes for like eight hours at a time and like he would just yeah, he would.
Speaker 2:He was like our manager too. Like he would book us shows, like all his firefighter friends had like events, like there was like a chili cook off on the cape that we did every year yeah a few events, um, and that just kind of like got us going.
Speaker 2:And then eventually we started playing around like boston and like we played the middle east upstairs like a billion times. And then, yeah, our peak was the, the middle east downstairs. It was, um, built to spill was the band and we opened for them and it was like a sold-out room yeah and it was like right when we dropped our like full-length album that we had like recorded on our own budget.
Speaker 1:That we made from playing games. Yeah, garage. Yeah, dude, that's fucking awesome. And, as they say, show, but get more shows. You know what I'm saying like, you keep doing that, and so did that band break up. What was it called?
Speaker 2:it was called defret um. Most of our stuff is is kind of wiped and the stuff that you can find now is like the earlier stuff from like freshman year of high school and the.
Speaker 1:That album came out senior year it's so awesome to have like deep cuts like that.
Speaker 2:A few of my friends, a few of my friends have it on cd still and they'll be like, oh, I put it on in my car the other day and it was so good no, the best one is because, like, like I said, my brother had a metal band in high school and, like he has one cd they released.
Speaker 1:It was a band called ashen and it's like metal. It's called victory is not possible and it's all slayer ripoffs and that kind of shit. Yeah, but like, then you dig that up and it's your own lore you know what I'm saying you hear it later. Or like that one rap track they recorded when they were in high school and it's like you bring it to the person and they're like yo, how do you have that? Like I forgot this existed dude, no, I.
Speaker 2:It's funny because I just reconnected with this kid that I went to high school with, because he's um, he's in like three bands right now and he does all the recording and engineering himself, because he's just taught himself how to do that over like the last 10 years.
Speaker 1:That's how you do it, yeah.
Speaker 2:And I always kind of lacked in that, because I focus way more on, like, trying to get good at the instrument.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So I reconnected with him to be like you know, can you teach me what you know? And like working in logic and like trying to get you know, like a good mix going exactly. So I paid him for like an hour and a half lesson. Yeah, um, but one of the things he said he was like dude, like I listened to your album all the time in high school and you were like my hero back then and I was like, oh man, that's crazy.
Speaker 1:And now I'm like taking a lesson from him too it's funny and that sense of community is like the beautiful thing, like you know what I'm saying one hand shaking the other, yeah, and everyone has different skill sets.
Speaker 2:Like I suck at getting gigs I'm getting better at it.
Speaker 1:But like I have friends who will just like book out a summer for their band, and it's like and it's all about like you're good at fucking guitar, you can sing while playing guitar, you can do all the technical things you need to show up. You just need an agent or management right exactly, yeah yeah and yeah, we just got to find people that make up for the things we lack. Trust me, I can't get booked for comedy for the life of me. Dude, I've done like three shows in four years.
Speaker 2:It's a challenge, yeah yep, but um comedy especially, I feel like, is like you know, because it's like you know there's such a high threshold for selling a show like and and like.
Speaker 1:You have to be really good to break that barrier, oh yeah and then, like you could do everything right, like I've been told, people are like I curate the best. I curated the best show. I got my favorite people ever to show up right and the crowd just did not like the content. You know what I'm saying it's like, and they bought drinks. They wanted to keep doing it, but like I wasn't happy with that show, you know what I mean yeah and um.
Speaker 1:So do you ever have like, do you ever worry because you fill time before, like the open mics and stuff like that? How long do you play?
Speaker 2:usually like an hour or so yeah, like an hour, yeah, sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less, yeah, for comedy like we're desperately trying to fill five minutes like fast say five things pace it right, like you know what I'm saying yeah, have you ever?
Speaker 1:like had, like oh, they're like you need to play three hours. Like have you ever like hesitated to fill time or like been like we're gonna flip the cd over?
Speaker 2:yeah, we actually starting so the band that I'm playing with, like under the name harrington, that we played like that's what this demo is, right, yes, um, we played, uh, the marshfield fair this summer and that was like a three-hour set yeah and we only had like maybe two and a half hours of material, and that's being generous so then you go into the fish jam band.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like you start like yelling screenshot, which we do like a fair amount of that anyway, because I love that stuff, like I love jazz and I love jam stuff. So, like you know, I'm down to stretch a four-minute song into an eight-minute song, but we actually ended up recycling a bunch of, because it's a fair too. So people are coming and going, they're only stopping for 20 minutes. They don't care, bro. The only people that were there the whole time were the bartenders.
Speaker 1:And it's like they don't give a shit. Yeah, they're so locked in, they're just happy. It's not like a DJ playing Uptown Funk. Yeah, so by the end it's just like let's just play all our songs, you know like, we know them, and it's also you get a certain freedom when you're like okay, I've exhausted everything that's in the chamber, now I'm going to do a weird cover. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah, yeah, anything I want, like that Exactly.
Speaker 2:to do that like I've been playing aiden's and kinsman and uh, roy bean, and it's like just playing by myself, not having to worry about anyone else I'll pull random shit out of my pocket, like I did a like this past friday I did a loop cover of dock of the bay, which I've never like even tried to play that melody on the guitar, but I just knew the chord progression, so I was just, I just threw it in the looper and I just started figuring it out in in the moment yeah, it's like they don't notice, like they're just there sitting drinking, like no and it's but that's the coolest thing too, and a lot of people like they want to play an arena show of all their original shits.
Speaker 1:But like you're having fun playing in these bars and stuff like that, and that you're putting out that much shit and getting to experiment is awesome, because I remember I was like I think you played clint eastwood by the gorillas yeah, like you don't say like shit, like that.
Speaker 1:I'm like nostalgia trip right there. The best thing is, oh, he's playing a song and I can't remember what it is you know what I'm saying? It's like like those are the best things. Now you're stimulating. Now I'm like looking at the person next to me. What the fuck is this? I know this fucking song and we're all trying to figure it out yeah that's when you're curating and you're honestly like. It's like you're fertilizing the soil for conversation and connection, which is what music's all about yeah, exactly, bang shit.
Speaker 2:I got like the best compliment ever. Um, the other day when I, when I played at aiden's, there was this guy there the whole time and he was just sitting by himself at the bar like listening to me play. He put a couple requests in and like I was playing songs from the 70s, the 80s, the 90s I did Maroon 5 stuff I'm all over the place, but he was the best compliment in the world. He's like everything you played was timeless. It's songs that they're not necessarily overplayed but people know them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like the medium cut. It's not like a deep cut.
Speaker 2:You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:It's like something in the way by nirvana being in the new fucking batman movie. Yeah, like that was at the end of nevermind and if, like you, listen to all of nevermind and then after the 12 minutes of silence, yeah, you got to that, you knew yeah like other than that. It's like you know what I'm saying because it's the same quality no, for sure same fucking good shit, and I love hidden tracks at the end of an album it's one of my favorite things.
Speaker 1:Well, it's kind of dead with streaming and I hate all the things that streaming is killing for people. But like the bridge, yeah, like, let's see, my favorite one is probably at the end of dookie, after fod, which is one of my favorite green day yeah, yeah, I was gonna say dookie has one of my favorite hidden tracks of all time.
Speaker 1:It's fucking uh and I was all by myself like that weird ass track, bro. And I was all by myself and because you know what I'm saying, they got refined and they got, but like it's like they knew in that moment it's like, okay, we make teenage angst music and this is the teenage angst album and this is gonna be the most angsty fucking track yeah, and it's like, it's very like, almost velvet underground in the, in the or not velvet underground?
Speaker 1:sorry um violent femmes oh, in the way that it's like a tongue-in-cheek kind of like corny guy rock like bro I love I actually I've just gotten through this phase with violent femmes like I moved. It was like okay, my current fixation is the white stripes. I'm just listening to their greatest hits over and, over and over. You know what's funny is awesome. Awesome by the way.
Speaker 2:When you were talking about how it's better, you have more freedom when you play a small venue, I was going to say a lot of these big acts now are going out of their way to try to play smaller venues where they can do whatever the fuck. And Jack White, I think, is the poster child of that. Right now. He could sell out stadiums if he wanted to, and he's playing like these tiny little rock clubs for like his biggest fans you know, it's the coolest thing.
Speaker 1:It's also. There are comedians that do. That too is, or even vince staples a rapper. Talk about it. You build your own following and then you can do whatever you want right if you're trying to, if you're chasing the pop music high, if you're chasing that dragon it's always going to fizzle out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're just going to be like oh, now I'm trying to collab with doja cat or make a taylor swift song you're not gonna be you and you're not gonna have that forever I think that's always kind of been in the back of my mind, and the way that I approach it too is like I'm way better off finding a niche, especially in what I want to make, because it just does not fit that context of like the pop zeitgeist in addition to that?
Speaker 1:so, uh, do you have any music that like affects you like deeply and emotionally, like because it's the weirdest thing where I'm like I said I'm listening to the white stripes just because I have their greatest hits on vinyl. I just was like, okay, I'm gonna go cover to cover on this and it's the song I can't tell that we are gonna be friends yeah, it's.
Speaker 2:It was a napoleon super nostalgic, song. Yeah, I fucking almost brings me to tears all the time, because it's like I actually have been thinking about putting that in my set too. So this is you want to see me cry as soon as you play that?
Speaker 1:I'm gonna fucking lose it, dude. It's just it's so crazy because it's it's not sad subject matter. It's just kind of like thinking about childhood and how we'll never go back to that, and that's really what kind of like hits me about. Do you have any music that like makes you feel emotions? Or almost like I almost I cried listening to dear mama by kanye just came on on my phone.
Speaker 2:I don't know ever since I got sober. Hey, mama I'm so proud of you, oh yeah, that song your mom after you're like yeah and it's just ever since I got sober I have so many more emotions.
Speaker 1:It's fucking weird, but like you have any music that hits you like that, like you just heard it and it's like yeah, uh, it's funny too because it's like different, different music hits me in different ways for different reasons.
Speaker 2:Like I, when I was like in middle school, right, I went through like a super big emo phase and like we all did, yeah, mcr was like my shit, like they were like my favorite band of all time. For yeah, for it was like the white stripes for like four years, and then it was mcr for like four years it's like a progression of like okay, we're putting in a little more emo on yeah, and I still know all the lyrics to all their like.
Speaker 2:You know shit like yeah, um. So when I hear, like you know, um three cheers for sweet revenge, like anything off that album, like it, it hits.
Speaker 1:You know the ghost of you is like oh, and it brings you back to that moment where you were wearing the tight jeans and yeah, that stuff I'm saying because and then we see ourselves in that and that's like cancer off the black parade is like that's, that's an.
Speaker 2:That's an insane song, I think my favorite one. I hope I'm not teenagers yep, teenagers, our band used to cover that. Yeah, my those teenagers. Yeah, it's a fucking happy shit. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, it's fun, but the violent femmes I love how like you said it's a fucking happy shit.
Speaker 1:You know what I'm saying? Yeah, it's fun, but the violent fems I love how, like you said, it's a weird ass band, yeah, but it's so fucking good yeah, like the acoustic bass, their biggest hit being blister in the sun, which is about whacking off. A lot of people speculate and shit like that yeah or I remember like I was like, oh yeah, this is 80s music and I tried playing it for my dad and my dad's like yo, this shit's too weird because, come on, dad, give me the car.
Speaker 2:I got a girl I'm trying to like yeah, it's like it's yeah, but uh, it's a little uncomfortable.
Speaker 1:No, yeah, it's awesome but it's like that weird. I talked to sean murray and he talked to me about like to get better at comedy. Like I'm asking everyone for advice all the time, even though best advice is just be yourself. But he said, when you're comfortable with sharing things that are weird about yourself, it opens up a whole new spectrum because people just appreciate, like oh, you shared something that like might not be right, I'm saying like this isn't you putting yourself in the idealistic?
Speaker 2:it earns you like respect in a way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a whole lot of shit, and yesterday I bought the soundtrack for the crow on a cd. I was so fucking happy about it. Soundtracks are so much better back in the day but it's got a violent femme song on it. It's like color me in and he's playing electric bass on it.
Speaker 2:It's so fucking cool and I forget where I was going with that, but it was so fucking fire yeah well, like bouncing off what you were saying, if I've like found that because I'm I'm usually like pretty unapologetically myself, um, because I just can't stand it when people are like putting up a front yeah, it's fake and yeah.
Speaker 2:So I find that like when I do that, you know people either recognize that immediately and it like earns me respect right away, or it's like the kind of person that is putting on that front, yeah, and they don't know how to react to that like realness and it's like. It's almost like they take it as a point of aggression.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when it's like you're not wearing your mask. Bro, what are you doing right now? Yeah?
Speaker 2:And it's like they recognize that I also see through that in a way too, so it's like they feel vulnerable.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I often come back to. It's a quote from a movie Coach Carter or Samuel L Jackson. It's weird card where samuel jackson is we're just, we're all over the place. But it says when you let your light shine, you give others permission to do it yourself yeah and also you're a self-actualized person. You know what you want to do, you're continually pursuing it and you're working on it.
Speaker 1:You know what I'm saying, and a lot of people it brings up frustration themselves when they don't know what they want to do. You know what I'm saying because it's cool man, you figured out what you want.
Speaker 2:Well, I think fear is like the leader, right, like fear. Fear is what motivates me to do what I want. Yeah, you know what I mean it's like. Because I have to. I know I have to work extra hard to be able to do it, yeah, and I think it's the same way the other way around, for for people where it's like that fear is stopping them from doing, whatever it is they want to do.
Speaker 1:And there's a big shame in it too, because, like, a lot of people are scared. Like I'm gonna drop three songs and they're not gonna be the greatest songs of all time, I'm not gonna get laid off of it, like right, I'm saying, yeah, it's all the wrong reasons.
Speaker 2:People are so afraid to fuck up that they won't even start something yeah, exactly like.
Speaker 1:You know how long it took me not to cringe in my sets, like looking back at them. Bro, like you've said, I fucking bombed with you playing guitar behind me at the Kinsman. That was a good set for me, but it was still not great.
Speaker 2:I haven't done a set there where I haven't bombed.
Speaker 1:What do you mean? Like playing music? No, like trying to tell jokes. You've done stand-up. Yeah, oh, fuck, yeah. How was that?
Speaker 2:I got scattered laughs. Yeah Well, that's what you're getting out there. You know what?
Speaker 1:tapped in like and then if people really get locked in like that, like pat o'neill, did you see him do a lot of stand-up, did you hang?
Speaker 3:out. Yeah, he's good.
Speaker 1:It's usually closed out, but like so he starts closing out every show and like doing like the headliner things, and then you move to somewhere where you can actually get big, you know what I'm saying because he just went down to austin and now he's on netflix.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, seriously, yeah, and it's awesome. Yeah, he popped off. Yeah, I always like it. It's funny with comedy too, is like, and I guess it's true with music.
Speaker 1:But you know, I'll, I'll watch people absolutely kill one week and then come back the next week and fucking tank and it's like it's so funny to watch, like you, gotta learn to love the pain yeah I like like having a shitty one, because, like I'm like, oh, next one's gonna be better than this yeah, you have a good one, and you're like okay, I can take three weeks off, lose everything I just gained you know what I'm saying? It's like you lose that discipline, you get fat and lazy. It's just like how you see. All the musicians are like oh, I got successful and I can't write anymore because yeah, yeah, I have limited drugs now.
Speaker 2:it happens to me all the time too, where it's. You know, I'll learn a new song that's like really complicated or whatever, and I'll be like, oh, I'm so good and then I'll just like oh, I'm locked in. And then I'll stop playing for like a week and then I'll be like oh shit, I suck. Yeah, my technical skills are gone entirely. Yeah, it's like it all went out the door.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's agonizing. Was there like a performer or anything that you saw, that really like solidified you wanting to? Make music because like I said, there's a lot of people that, like they learn the instrument and then they're just like okay, I do this by myself sometimes.
Speaker 2:But yeah, would you see that really set you off yeah, so I think that um early on it was like watching videos of people play, like when I started and when I started really getting into shit, like I was watching videos of like jimmy page and like pink floyd playing live and like just like you know, it's like what I imagine, like people who are really into football watching like the greatest you know, the greatest, the greatest highlight reels of all time of like the greatest players you know.
Speaker 2:You know michael jordan in his heyday. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Like that's and, trust me, that's the crazy thing about instagram is because they just show you all that's all you see. Yeah, you know what I'm saying and I like the riff rap.
Speaker 2:I like seeing like people figuring it out I was gonna say that too when we were talking about people like being too insecure to you know, start things like. I see people all the time on, like instagram mostly. Uh, youtube, I feel like, is where I see the most, like just randos yeah you know who are just starting playing guitar. It's like it's some like 45 year old man who like just picked it up after 20 years or something, and there's always some fucking sleaze in the comments. That's just like you suck or like keep trying or like you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:It's just, and it's just like dude, like yeah that negativity is so evil and you know it's coming from you know it's coming from like the worst fucking dj you've ever met.
Speaker 2:You know he's like I can't sample this, so it's trash I can't cut this into my ableton dj set so you don't know, good music like dj DJ Khaled is good music. Be the best.
Speaker 1:Music like oh my god they're really quiet ever since all that P Diddy shit.
Speaker 2:I know dude because also they were best.
Speaker 1:You know what I'm saying that's been crazy, like watching.
Speaker 2:You know, like the story itself and Diddy itself is crazy, but it's kind of like when you listen to his music you can kind of tell he doesn't have a soul.
Speaker 3:I know that's weird as hell to think about.
Speaker 1:But you can tell, oh, he didn't write this.
Speaker 2:These aren't real emotions. It's all corporate, exactly.
Speaker 1:He's like I don't write rhymes, I sign checks Because you can't actually speak to people as yourself.
Speaker 2:It's the same thing Capitalist propaganda, a facade and a mask and all this kind of shit like that. No, it's true. No, but I was going to say true. Uh, no, but I was gonna say, um, watching, watching the other celebrities that have been around him for years like crash out, like the whole justin bieber thing, and watching him go off the deep end, since it's like it just makes you wonder, like what happened there. You know what I mean. It's like like.
Speaker 1:This is kind of a weird take. I did a bit about it once. I was like, you know, like the worst people you know, like, like, and there's nothing wrong with Christianity, there's nothing wrong with religion. I've like, I'm spiritual, I believe in stuff, I pray, right. But it's like when people are publicly saying I found God and all this and that you know they were in some deep shit. Yeah, do you remember that? Like, he's like a general at Child's Soldiers in Africa.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And they're like doing a bunch of like campaigning for him.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Guess what he does? He finds Jesus.
Speaker 3:He's like I'm safe now.
Speaker 1:I stopped doing bad things. I no longer eat the hearts of children before I fucking head out there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he was like the warlord guy, right? Yeah, he was out in Africa.
Speaker 1:It was like a warlord, it was fucking shit.
Speaker 2:I remember watching that Vice documentary.
Speaker 1:Yeah and again. Well, justin Bieber found Jesus, got married. I remember the weirdest one was I don't know if you don't watch football much or you've been to sports.
Speaker 2:Not, really no.
Speaker 1:So it was like the craziest shit. I went to Pittsburgh because I'm a Steelers fan and so I had an Uber driver there and she was like, oh, I was a limo driver. These like pro football players, like I drove around ab and, like it was just his crowd that he grew up with, that kept fucking him up like yeah go to parties with his friends he grew up with. He'd come back fucked up. But he said like so big ben roethlisberger again.
Speaker 1:Another example of someone majorly controversial finds jesus and goes like, like the pr guy just kind of plans out your life from then on, yeah, yeah, you're like okay you did a bad thing, you can say, and when you can say it yeah like oh dude, but it was like this lady told me she was like big ben was from ohio and he like black chicks. They made him marry that white woman for pr I was like what the fuck? Are you talking about five star uber?
Speaker 1:oh, my god this is the best five minutes I've ever had. And like could you imagine being that successful? That like, okay, like you know you need to live your life like with our constraints, like it's like you know, it's like the illuminati deal that's a once in a lifetime story. Yeah, just that lucky coming home from the airport.
Speaker 2:You always get the best, like like uber tangents, like oh dude, I never uber.
Speaker 1:It's like I very rarely do it, but what I do it's always crazy.
Speaker 2:You're always like in another city, like we were talking to our uber in vegas and it was like really really just goofy yeah it's. That's always the case.
Speaker 1:It's so funny, or it's like it's new york, yo can I crush some coronas back here bro he's like, of course, I don't care, or another one in pittsburgh.
Speaker 1:she, like we were like this isn't the car the Uber app said was going to pick us up. She was like yeah, total bad bitch, I'm pulling up in my son's car because I need this money. Please don't report me. Real shit, get me there quicker now because I got some blackmail on you. There's nothing better than having a little bit some blackmail on you. Yeah, there's nothing better than having like a little bit of blackmail on something like you know what I'm saying like.
Speaker 1:That's what it's. The fucked up exchange is like at work everyone just spills tea about the other co-workers they're like that guy's ever been to you. Remind him that he shit himself you know what I mean and it's like I hate that that's how we connect with people.
Speaker 2:It's like dirt yeah, no, but it's true and it's like that is what makes relationships stronger what it seems, is just like talking about other people's fuck-ups.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, spilling tea and being able to like. You know what I'm saying. And then that's also the big marker of professional relationships it's like we're not talking about anything that happened this weekend.
Speaker 2:Bro, we are locked in on this today, yeah or it's like oh, what's the worst job you ever had you know I've been like fairly lucky, so the job I'm working right now is um my third job that I've ever had, the first one I keep forgetting you're young, because I, yeah, I'm pretty young. I also I tend to like stick around.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean yeah, it's funny because I say I've been playing guitar for like 15 years, but I started when I was nine, so like that you know, it's like the Fisher Price piano.
Speaker 1:You know what I'm saying. It's like I was learning Crazy Train in eighth grade.
Speaker 2:I was. I was learning Crazy Train in fifth grade. Eighth grade I was. Well, I was learning crazy train in fifth grade, that's that I was walking around the house playing crazy train. That was one of the first songs I really learned. The phases.
Speaker 1:It's such a good fucking riff though yeah rip randy rhodes and again. All the people dying and playing crashes were kind of coming full circle back to the 80s. You know what I mean, though it's like it's wild because leonard skinner, randy rhodes, all these people get fucking popped off. Yeah, who, would you say, is your biggest inspiration?
Speaker 1:guitar wise oh, and also it's great that you linger at jobs because I had like, if you look at my resume, if I was honest on it was about 20 jobs in the last, like yeah, I was gonna say the second job I worked is really was really like pretty funny um because I worked at a.
Speaker 2:It was like a, a coffee shop. This is a good story. Actually, it was a coffee shop-cafe hybrid. It was right off of a Quincy subway stop. We had constant influx of traffic from the Boston subway.
Speaker 1:You're just getting mailed, no pun intended.
Speaker 2:We usually only had two or three people on, like one on the cash register, one making all the drinks and one making all the food. Yeah, the place is owned by this, like chinese family and, um, most of my co-workers are like middle-aged chinese women and they loved me, but they made fun of me so so bad. They used to call me Guilo and I asked one of my coworkers what Guilo meant and he was like. It roughly translates to thin white ghost.
Speaker 1:Yo, that is such a good name for a band Like holy fuck.
Speaker 2:They had this guy who would come in at 5 o'clock in the morning and make all the bagels downstairs, but he would like actively rip darts while he was doing it so like he'd come in and the whole place would just reek like six because he's in the basement just chains.
Speaker 1:Now that's food service dog and it's getting done, so they don't give a fuck. I fucking love that. You're their token white guy, which is hilarious like that's my big idea. I want to get laid off, move to asia, just be a cool guilo so.
Speaker 2:So this one time I'm working, it's just me and this other kid doing everything and we have a line out the door and this guy comes in and he was a regular, but he has like cerebral palsy or something, so he's like completely wheelchair bound and, like you know, he can't like so he rolls in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he can't speak like completely normal so yeah, so he rolls in and he like really has to use the bathroom, but we have a line out the door and there's a bunch of shit going on. So I'm like, okay, I'll take orders you like get him to the bathroom, whatever. Um, this was a common occurrence here. But, um, one of the local addicts had stolen our bathroom key so we had no way of getting into the bathroom. So this this kid's out in the hallway with this dude in a wheelchair for like a solid five or six minutes while I'm holding down the fort myself longest six minutes of your fucking life, and this, this kid comes back.
Speaker 3:Dude, this kid comes back, tears rolling down his cheeks, and I'm like I'm like what happened and he's like he missed his pants and I was like I was like brother.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry, understand you're upset, but look at what is going on right now.
Speaker 1:I need you to get back to the warfare.
Speaker 2:This basically cannot be our problem. It sucks, but it's just the reality. We have to just continue doing what we're doing. This is no longer in our hands.
Speaker 1:You're upper management right there bro, you walked in you said, hurry up and cream cheese, this bagel. I don't give a fuck about the wheelchair bound man that trained me for my current management position. God damn dude, and what about? Oh yeah, you're a manager, now damn yeah, young man managing. I have some friends that are managers at their jobs. Well, I have one that lasted and one that didn't, and it's like. It's like you said.
Speaker 1:You got to make those hard calls, you got to say this is not our problem right now yeah, because I have a buddy that would be chilling and smoking weed and drinking late at night. You get a call at like nine o'clock from one of his workers I can't come in tomorrow and he starts negotiating with them. Yeah, you have to be like hey man, you're out of pto. All of this other shit can you like? Like what? What is happening? It's just like. You know, the motherfuckers just drunk. I've done it. Before you call in, I took a shot of gin on the phone, so I was gagging on the phone, so I sounded really bad and I couldn't come in shit like that, and so that guy did not last as manager.
Speaker 1:But my other friend who plays no shit, he's like, yeah, I got to fire someone today like I got you because, like he had an argument with someone, they had one meeting up with the boss and they're like, okay, they're gonna tighten up, they're gonna get better and then they had a second meeting and they're like okay, what do we have to change? And he said we're having a second meeting about this person. Fucking get him out of here.
Speaker 3:It's supposed to be working right now I want to get to this fucking job.
Speaker 1:I was like buddy, you are an asshole, but you're god's gift to management. Like you, are literally locked in on that shit.
Speaker 2:That's the curse of food service man it's like dude you could be in the cushiest town in america and it's like you're working with crackheads and you're dealing with crackheads like it doesn't matter. When I was catering.
Speaker 1:There's like they told me stories of people that were on percocets and would nod off in the middle of whatever they were doing. They'd be picking up a milk crate full of beer and just fall asleep standing there bent over and shit and also, trust me, I wasn't managing, but I was supposed to kind of take lead on some things and try telling an 18-year-old about a dab pen to do anything without their AirPods in.
Speaker 2:Oh my God. Or the look you get when they have to take their airpods out and listen to what you're saying that is.
Speaker 3:That is literally my job, right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, it's agonizing. Yeah, it's all like high school and I never had empathy for my teachers before that yeah and I'm my bad. I gotta blow my nose. You got like a paper towel oh, yeah, or something like that my bad, disgusting, yeah I'm gonna blow it in here so that, that they don't get the ASMR of like thank you so much yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let me know if you need anything. Yeah, sure I like the cupcake with the dick on it. Yeah, that's actually an edible. That's an edible. Yeah, one of my coworkers made it.
Speaker 1:Homemade edibles are like a very insane thing homemade edibles are either I remember the worst thing is if an old lady made them because, that's when you're getting like literally dried weed that you have to eat yeah, it's like the worst shit you've ever experienced in your life, like when you don't know what's going on with it, and also it's a lot more of a psychedelic experience. Yeah, like it's like yeah, for sure deep panic attacks where I like, I deleted every episode of my podcast you know what I'm saying?
Speaker 1:like yeah, four thousand milligrams of kit kat like it's fucking crazy, because my buddies like they have like a genetic condition. That's like fucked up, like yeah and so they get the crazy. They've gotten the crazy shit forever with edibles and yeah yeah and also I don't know, as soon as I hit like 27, I started getting anxious. Every time I smoked weed and I was like yeah, I should stop this.
Speaker 1:A lot of people talk about that well, I mean, people are getting with alcohol too. Like, do you ever like wake up the next day and you're like, oh god yeah made a total asshole of myself last night oh yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:I was supposed to be a manager and I took 20 shots of tequila. Yeah that kind of shit yeah, I, yeah, I've had a few moments like that in the last year, so but then I'm also, like you know, I'm at the age where it's like socially appropriate to do that every so often.
Speaker 1:So it's like it hasn't been it's just when you start feeling like, okay, I'm an adult and I pay taxes yeah, oh fuck, I just dropped 400 at the bar yeah, and I'm definitely getting to that point now where it's like, okay, you know, do you ever feel, have you ever been like anxious, getting up there like you want to crush a beer or two and it like loosens you up?
Speaker 2:um yeah, especially like the nights where I did jokes for sure, oh 100 yeah, trust me.
Speaker 1:And then, because that's such the fickle line we walk, because I remember like I drank like half a bottle of johnny walker black and had like my first good set where like things worked.
Speaker 3:I was like okay, this is magic, yeah no, we found the formula.
Speaker 1:I need to drink half a bottle of scotch and go up there and talk abortion I'm hilarious yeah exactly because now people are nurturing the bad things like like that.
Speaker 2:And then if I drank half a bottle of scotch every day, you know I'd suddenly be married and beat my wife there's a thing too it's like the people that, um, it's like the people that encourage, like pothead comedians that only make jokes about being a pothead and it's like I know plenty of people.
Speaker 2:There's nothing more annoying to me than that like, because it's like you get to a certain point with like smoking and it's like, dude, like you telling me that you took a five milligram edible is like you telling me that you brushed your teeth this morning.
Speaker 1:Like fucking congratulations, dude you know what I mean. Like I, I did another bit. I was trying to figure out how to do it right doesn't work. I was like a lot of people are like competitively trying to be good at smoking weed. Like it's like it's. It's not hard, bro, you can get it from the government. Like back when we were young and you had to, like, go listen to a mixtape and like hang out with your local rapper and shit like and like.
Speaker 1:You know what I'm saying. When it was sketchy and like yeah people were hiding fucking eights in their like gas caps so that the cops yeah for the in their waistband in jail like you know what I'm saying? Yeah, oh, dude, like and not because that's what was the bit, it was. Um, people are trying to be competitive with smoking weed. It's really easy to do. It's like I'm the best at getting raped in jail you know, what I'm saying like.
Speaker 1:It's literally like I'm like oh yeah, you're good at something that doesn't fucking matter like you know what I'm saying, like I'm good at kind of fucking myself over I'm good at spending 400 a month on something that is actively making me stupid and trust me, making my life more difficult, like, yeah, I loved it, though I love being stupid, because it's also like, because it's a little like burning sage or a candle no, it's great, it's, it's. The ignorance is bliss, like yeah to a t or it's like if that movie sucks, and then you get a little high and you're like I get it now yeah, like and that's, and someone told me they were like yo do you feel like you're missing out on opportunities because you don't smoke weed?
Speaker 1:like no, it's like yeah. As somebody who smokes every day.
Speaker 1:That is an insane thing to say they're like yeah, you don't show, like uh, it's because like yeah, you're. I will say it happened one time where um a booker at askew walked up to me and my friend, who were like yo, you got any weed? I don't usually smoke, you know I'm saying yeah because like it's like me with cigarettes. It's like I don't smoke cigarettes but like right now I want one yeah and so a booker walked up and he asked me and my friend like yo, you got some weed I'm trying to smoke right now and I didn't have weed on me and I think, forever that will be the turning point where my colleague gotta keep that shit on you, that
Speaker 2:could have been it yeah when joe rogan comes up to you and asks you for a fucking dub.
Speaker 1:He's a very big quandary because you can be successful in some aspects and not Because he's not a good comedian. I don't care Anyone will tell you that, but he has the best podcast of all time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's definitely super interesting to watch, even when it's completely like what the fuck are you talking about? It's like the fact that he'll even entertain some of this is very entertaining.
Speaker 1:Well, it's also thinking about him having Donald Trump, kanye West and all these people. And for me the weird thing is that you listen to a lot of podcasts. Not really exactly because you're a happy, well-adjusted person. Yeah, the more podcasts I.
Speaker 2:It's a direct correlation yeah, to like worrying about things that you don't need to be worried, or like being depressed, like you know what I'm saying the most podcast I've ever listened to.
Speaker 2:I was working a warehouse job yeah, like popping zans here and there, like you don't say, like listening to fucking tim dylan like non-stop yeah, just like, and then I had a friend who went through a big tim dylan podcast, bender and he was just like always upset about something and it's like that's literally. He just screams into the microphone about shit. And it's funny, like don't get me wrong, I I enjoyed listening to it. It would make me laugh. But it's like I get 20 minutes of that shit and I'm like all right I fucking hate everybody.
Speaker 1:I hate, like. You know what I mean. People want a reason to be pissed off or ill content with their life, when gratitude's the key to happiness yeah, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:Well, that's why, like you know, fox and cnn make so much money, because they're just constantly like rage, baiting people the only time I really enjoy it is when I wake up at like 5 am wicked early for work. I'll go into a diner and I'll sit at the diner bar, yeah, and you feel like a normal human being for like 20 minutes, yeah, and they got the shitty little local news broadcast up in the corner.
Speaker 1:And I have like five six-year-old dudes going like talking about that. They're like oh, someone got shot in Warren.
Speaker 2:The whole city's going to shit Pocking up last night's Reds.
Speaker 1:Or, like you know, it's a real diner where, like the chef and the waitress are married and they're both in their 50s. Yelling in Portuguese yeah someone complains about the waitress and the chef chimes in from the back.
Speaker 3:I have to go home with her.
Speaker 1:Alright, one more nose blow. Sorry, these allergies are killing me. Just hold it down for five seconds you can say some dumb shit dumb shit, some dumb shit.
Speaker 2:This man is holding me against my will. Please, somebody, please come help. I'm terrified for my life and I might not make it out of here. Please, somebody, send some sort of service, please. Oh hey, no one can hear you.
Speaker 1:I might not make it out of here. Please, Somebody send some sort of service, please. Oh hey, no one can hear you. I'm just going to play this podcast back to you over and over and over.
Speaker 2:I don't even have a podcast.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm just saying I have all the best horror movie of all time, saying I have a podcast to get into their house or luring them to my studio. Oh, dude, okay, what's the last movie you saw in theaters? Um?
Speaker 2:the minecraft movie fire. Yeah, oh, dude, chicken jockey.
Speaker 1:I have not seen it because I have a full grown. Yeah, well, actually. No, I haven't seen it because I feel like you need a girlfriend. Yeah, I was gonna say for for any virgins out there.
Speaker 2:Uh, there is hope. I went to the minecraft movie with my girlfriend, so there is hope for you. Yeah, go play, everything's gonna be okay. Yeah, learn, learn a practical, applicable skill that you can do something with, even if it's not making money, and somebody will gravitate to it.
Speaker 1:Everyone's like you need to have, like you need to be getting money for something, or I hear a bunch of people.
Speaker 2:They're like 5, 10, 100k in the bank. Yeah exactly, just have a reason for people to talk to you. That's really that it's that easy to fucking talk about besides politics literally be like surface level interesting on on some kind of topic that you at least care about a little bit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if you actually have a light in your eyes. Right If you are not spending eight hours a day scrolling on TikTok.
Speaker 2:Yeah, preferably don't make that topic Apex Legends or something like that. Oh my God.
Speaker 1:Actually, that brings me to another good point. Do you have any like hobbies that distract you from your primary?
Speaker 2:oh yeah, video games for sure, 100 yeah, but I play good ones. That's the problem.
Speaker 1:Like I remember my I'll never forget my first hosting gig. It was supposed to be like my big chance to like get booked and shit yeah it's like, okay, it's three months away, I gotta lock in, I gotta get ready yeah, I gotta.
Speaker 2:elden Ring comes out. Elden Ring, yeah, it's over.
Speaker 3:It's fucking over bro 180 hours.
Speaker 1:If I put half the amount of time I put into video games, into anything. I'd be killing it right now.
Speaker 2:I still haven't beat Elden Ring, but I did beat Bloodborne this year which was a huge.
Speaker 1:yeah, platinum, that's the only one I haven't played.
Speaker 2:Platinum trophy, trophy, yeah, oh yeah, I went in now, when you say you haven't beat elden ring, do you mean you haven't like platinum did, or no? I I straight up, like I got to um the city like the capital capital's a rough one yeah, and then, uh, my xbox broke and then I restarted on ps5 and now I'm back up to um. I'm like I need to fight radon. I'm in Laernia.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I didn't finish on my PC playthrough. I'm actually on the DLC. I'm fighting Mal'Kith and Playa. I love that game. So what do you run? We're going to get real fucking nerdy for a second. What build do you run?
Speaker 2:So I was running a twin A dual twin blade, twin blade build up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, twin um twin blade build up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that shit. Yeah, sellsword twin blades, that's what my buddy ran, yeah, but uh, I, I just like just kind of caved and was like I am having way more fun, just like brute forcing it so I went like I went full strength.
Speaker 1:Um, my first build was a dex intelligence and I was kind of like, yeah, spells and moon veil.
Speaker 2:Like you know, I'm not good at allocating my stats properly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know like balancing everything out where it's like all at the right levels yeah, when I jumped in to my new game plus, you beat the game, then you go in and it gets harder and you do yeah plus and I was like I'm level, like 200, I'm putting 100 into strength, 100 into vigor yeah, 100 into, like you know what I'm saying, yeah, yeah and and then I was like this is how it's.
Speaker 2:You can't go back after that, like you know, I'm saying all the other no seriously, like starting over from that point. It just feels like something with a big club is like just the natural human thing you want to do, yeah, yeah, I'm not at that point in bloodborne too, because I'm at the new game plus and I'm starting to like max out stats.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm so mad because I've been Xbox and PC so I've never, been able to play Bloodborne and it'll never get remastered. I've accepted. I tried Lies of P when it was on Game Pass. That shit sucked though.
Speaker 2:Yeah, They've never been able to replicate it.
Speaker 1:Truly, I'll say right now I'm pretty deep. I'm almost done with First First. Berserker Kazan is my current fixation and it's a Soulsborne. But there's only three weapons Spears, greatswords, dual Wield.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:And it's kind of like a Diablo setup where you can't just pick drip like in the Soulsborne games.
Speaker 2:You got to like wear the armor set. To get bonuses, you have to wear the right stat boosts. Yeah, it sucks yeah.
Speaker 1:But it's also like I don multiplayer games, like I do Age of Mythology.
Speaker 2:It's like I love Age of Mythology Really. Holy fuck dude. Did we just become best friends? Fuck Dude. I played that shit back in the day.
Speaker 3:I got it.
Speaker 2:Like I got a copy from like probably Salvation Army. Yeah, dude, and I loaded and I loaded that shit onto like my grandmother's windows 95 pc and I put I was reading um, so like this. This dates me pretty accurately, but I was reading the percy jackson books at the time because I was in elementary school and I was all in on the greek mythology.
Speaker 2:It's just so fun to lose yourself in that shit it's so good dude, and it's just such flushed out characters especially the way that the percy jackson series frames it, because it's like you know, like the way they frame like the god parent and the cabins and everything. It's like it's like young and like you know, personality archetypes, yes, and it's you know, it's like it like that actually kind of helped me define like who I was as a person. You know what I mean like dude. It's awesome, yeah, so it's like I was all in on that and like that was the only game that I'd ever heard of that had like a greek mythology yeah, like backdrop to it, like and yeah, there's a lot of people that say it's their first interrupt introduction into greek myths and all this kind of shit.
Speaker 3:And, bro, you're sending minotaurs out of that game yeah, so they remastered it recently.
Speaker 1:I put about 188 hours into it awesome. But the problem is I play ranked online and you know how bad it feels to put 188 hours into something and still suck at it.
Speaker 2:Exactly that's how I feel with elden ring too. It's like it's like I keep you try so hard and like it's the line of like okay, I want to be good at something difficult yeah, but it's also at the same time if I get too good at this, I will be a loser there's always going to be somebody no-lifing it a little bit harder than you are deeper in their mom's basement.
Speaker 1:Yeah, on adderall yep twitch streaming jobless person, jobless as hell yeah, one of my earliest bits I tried to do I was like video gaming like stopped being good as soon as you couldn't have a full-time job and be the best tetris player of all time, because like, yeah, they're like if you watch, like the og, like tetris olympics, like the they were playing competitively right next to each other. These motherfuckers were like taking time off from their fucking mining job you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:Like, one of my only good jokes revolves around video games, and it's it's something to the tune of like. Did you guys notice that the school shooting started ramping up as soon as the Call of Duty game started to suck? Exactly?
Speaker 1:Totally though.
Speaker 2:Totally valid. It's like there was a few trendsetters beforehand, but you know.
Speaker 1:It's so bad and like that is like the biggest fall from grace of like. We talked about musicians like losing the itch to be successful as soon as like I mean the like drive. That made them good as soon as they got successful. Because now it's nikki minaj shooting 21 savage with, like sabrina carpenter coming out of the cut right like yeah uh, do you play video games with your girlfriend or do you just hide that whole nerd shit?
Speaker 2:no, we um, we, so I'm really hoping that it's saved in the cloud, because, um, oh, you got a minecraft world they should be sending me my, my new xbox, but it's not gonna have like the same save data no, dude, lego batman. We were oh, 98 of the way through on our profile. We were fucking running that shit yeah, see, that's a good.
Speaker 1:Like the whole girlfriend game is a genre and shit. Like yeah, it's also. It's hard to find good couch co-op games nowadays too, because it's not what they're going for and the classics haven't been remastered.
Speaker 2:The really good ones from like the Wii OG Lego Star Wars got it done.
Speaker 1:But that was like the first Lego, Star Wars and shit, Because I remember during COVID I was like I firmly believe I ruined my friend's relationship Because he kind of had a handle on it.
Speaker 3:Like he hid all the nerd shit from his girlfriend.
Speaker 1:But like kovid happened and it just all comes out. We started getting money bro.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we started getting yugioh cards, yeah, and like there's only like and it became a problem.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you don't say she's cool for like the first, like three weeks, but it's like okay, like yeah, go outside, guys.
Speaker 2:I have a shitload of magic cards magic cards, yeah, that's a good. I never got. I just like collecting them. I play casually, like I'm not like a big like tournament guy. I don't like competing in really anything yeah, I'm not a big competitive.
Speaker 1:It's supposed to be a for fun thing, like yeah, I mean like talking shit to your friend. It's like I want to play. I'll play one game of pool, but I have a buddy that'll say I do love pool. He wants to play like seven fucking rounds.
Speaker 2:You know what I'm saying yeah, but I hate like I'll play pool with people and I'm like, even if I lose, I'm like thanks for playing. That was a great game, you know what I mean like I just enjoy playing it.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean, oh yeah, and it's like, but going at you know I'm saying at game three, or like, if we actually get to like, oh, we need the crazy tiebreaker yeah, like that kind of shit fucking kills people.
Speaker 2:Get tilted over it, though, and it's like oh, dude, I, I really you're not, we're not playing for money like you.
Speaker 1:Have no stake it's also like the ultimate quandary of like everyone wants to get into a bar fight, but as soon as you're old enough to get into a bar fight, you're no longer like you're gonna get charged yeah, yeah, and it's like what's the point exactly? But uh, here you mind, if we take a quick break.
Speaker 2:I gotta piss yeah for sure.
Speaker 1:All right, we're gonna hit stop. It's like an elitist attitude, like people don't want to laugh at things like they're like I need it to be deep, I need it to be complicated especially from other comedians.
Speaker 2:I feel like it's like oh, if I laugh at this, it's gonna make me look less funny when I go up and don't get laughs tell you that it's like oh, if I laugh at this, it's going to make me look less funny when I go up.
Speaker 1:Well, anyone will tell you that it's like the worst people to perform, to but it's also something you need to do, like you know what I'm saying, because if you go for like I don't know, I've only read memoirs of people going to like SNL auditions and that kind of shit and they're like I had to talk to someone on the phone that wasn't laughing and tell them all my best bits over the phone like can you imagine how?
Speaker 3:like?
Speaker 1:brutal that is. It's like telling you to sing acapella with a harmonica, your greatest hits yeah, yeah, yeah it's just like an abstract thing, like or, if I ever did, when I did psychedelics, I was like people asked me to describe it and it's like you're trying to speak in a language you don't understand yeah, you can't describe it. It's just like yeah because, like and that's the other thing I'll be trying to chime in with my co-workers speaking fluent spanish.
Speaker 2:I'll be like yeah no, no hablo like that kind of shit. You know what I mean, yeah it's like it's.
Speaker 1:There's a beauty in that, though, and it's also like my favorite moments with those people is like if we see something and we both like laugh at it at the same time, like when it transcends you know what I'm saying?
Speaker 2:yeah, it's like objectively funny. Yeah, we see that chef hit on a waitress and get rejected it's like oh my god, yeah I saw talking to girls I was in boston a couple weeks ago and I saw somebody try to parallel park in a place that they had plenty of room to parallel park and they hit the curb and instead of readjusting and they're trying again, they just dipped the fuck out at like 30 miles an hour, just like peeled off.
Speaker 1:No, actually that same thing happened. I went to rise brewing company to go to my buddy's food truck yesterday and it was all kind of busy and packed and there was one spot to parallel park in plenty of fucking room, by the way but there was no barrier and there was a small like fall off into a river next to it.
Speaker 1:So you know, I'm just sitting there anxious like making I'm with a girl, which of course that doesn't help at all. I have to hit the fucking 30, double, like quadruple turn, then we get out. She's like you're leaving the car like this. I'm like you're walking home like this.
Speaker 1:It's because really it's parallel parking it's like really if you had a strong father figure or not. That's really what it comes down to. That's so funny. My sister was in Fall River and she had to retake her driver's test. I'm sorry if you're listening to this. I hope you aren't, ashley, I love you, but she failed it because she couldn't parallel park, and in the Massachusetts one you need to parallel park.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And so my dad set up two trash cans in our like in the street in front of my house and made her do it like 30 times. You know what I'm saying. And it's crazy because, like as kids, we feel so like kind of uh, unguided, like we're just floating around and shit like that and like until, like, we're forced to walk. Actually, both my parents tried to teach me to drive yeah and both of them failed.
Speaker 1:Like you know what I'm saying, my dad would like get angry and be like this is life or death d oh my god you do not want to like fucking lock in bro, and then my mom would try teaching me and she would, she would snap every time I did something wrong, or if I was like not slowing down quick enough to at the stop sign, and so that's how they got me a driver.
Speaker 2:Teacher that would pick me up when I was high and I have a rough relationship with driving too, but my mom is like, uh, she's like hyper anxious, so like when I drive, like if I don't, if she sees the car in front of me put their brake lights on and I don't immediately hit the brake, yeah, she pulls one of those, she grabs the seat like it's like it's like there's 45 feet between me and the other car, like I'm going to break in time like my eyes it's like, yeah, exactly what is it about anxiety that we make worst case scenarios all the fucking time?
Speaker 1:yeah, I'm saying or it's, or because we've. Also, I'd rather be driving, because I won't let other people down, but when I'm in the passenger seat with some girls, I feel like, uh, I grab, you know, that little handle above the fucking door yeah, grab that like holy fuck yeah, fuck those curbs babe, I don't care it's all good, I just go whoa but then they're laughing at me, fearing for my life because it's like you want to die yeah oh my god you people are crazy drivers and driving is also the most inherently American thing, I feel like, because, like we get a big fat loan on a cool car, yeah, like you know what I'm saying, it's the ultimate expression of individuality.
Speaker 2:Trying to get everywhere as quick as physically possible. Oh dude. The whole like build another lane, build another lane, build another lane.
Speaker 1:Trust me, have you ever driven, do you? Have you gone to like middletown, newport, like a quinnick island?
Speaker 2:um, I've been there, but I haven't driven myself there actually when I had that driving teacher.
Speaker 1:It's the only time you know how they have a break on the side of the drivers, like the passenger side of the teacher car.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you had to slam that bitch one time.
Speaker 2:Oh my god it was on east main road.
Speaker 1:That's gonna be terrifying in middletown, rhode island, because there's a big ass curb. Yeah, we talk about us being scared with people with their licenses, imagine, because, like you ask him and he's like, yeah, there's some fucked up shit I go through. Oh my god. Uh, that's such a weird job to have.
Speaker 1:I talked to that dude about vinyl records way back then I've been collecting since I was 16 you got a better collection than me, though I'm kind of jealous because I'm kind of falling into like I've got a bunch of classic rock. People gave to me that. I'm not afraid.
Speaker 2:You know what I'm saying yeah, I can't get rid of. That was. That was how all that started was like all of my aunts and uncles and stuff gave me all their classic rock and I kind of filled in the gaps and then started buying a bunch of like jazz and rock and again.
Speaker 1:That's the fun of it, though, is you kind of make an incarnation where it's like okay, the next generation, they're gonna get handed down these 50 king lizard records. They're gonna go. They're like, oh, wait it's kind of crazy.
Speaker 2:Uncle harry was cool yeah, like, uh, like that big live box set. When I bought it was like it was like 200 bucks. This was back when I was like living with my parents and I had no bills, or you know the.
Speaker 1:Yeah, complete financial freedom, Yep, and actually it's a weird question but, why did you leave your parents' house? Where'd you grow up?
Speaker 2:initially. That's a long, that's a whole long thing.
Speaker 1:Do you want to hold back? Save it for the next one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I don't know. I lived in like 10 different towns over the course of my life because, my parents had me really young and they divorced really early, so they all like yeah, so they rented all over the place for like most of my life?
Speaker 1:Yeah, cause I lived in the same house for 29 years.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. A lot of my friends here are kind of like that. Yeah, it's like they're stable, but it's also.
Speaker 1:You get like a much richer and you learn how to like.
Speaker 2:I knew a lot of Navy kids growing up and it was just kind of like. They're like these are my friends for a year and then I'm shipping off and, like we'll say, we'll keep in touch. It definitely helps round you out, like just being exposed to like different places and like slightly different cultures.
Speaker 1:Like, even though it's like all kind of been relatively like suburban towns in the same area of, like you know south of boston.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um a rolling stone gathers, no moss, it's yeah, it's like, yeah, and it's still like.
Speaker 1:These places are very different like town to town and attitude to attitude and yeah, and it's also kind of like I feel like people get weirder if you can let them, like, sit and ferment in somewhere for too long, because they have, like there's no one to kind of call them on their shit.
Speaker 1:They get wrapped up in their own little world like someone told me that like barrington's full of like people that are like, super like I don't want to get political. They say they're super blue and they're super like blm, but they've never seen a black person before like you know what I'm saying? Like yeah, so like, and at the same time they'll make someone uncomfortable more because like right, it's a common trope.
Speaker 2:Yeah, can I touch your hair? Media they're like oh my gosh, I believe you like you know what I'm saying because people want to be taken as the individual they are.
Speaker 1:They don't want you to be like. I empower you.
Speaker 2:You are seeing right now. Yeah, I was at the rally.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just like talk to people like they're people, like literally talk to like yeah, what you want, what you want from mcdonald's yeah, oh yeah all right, favorite fast food place oh, I think wendy's, wendy's yeah, did you try the cajun crispy sandwich? Yet it's a new thing.
Speaker 2:No, I haven't been there in a while because there's not one like around. Like close their breakfast. Low-key bus my first. A lot of people, my first job that I ever worked. The only place that we had time to go to for our lunch break was wendy's, so the guy at the counter like knew my name oh yeah and like that's. That's when you know that it's like you're going to w's too much.
Speaker 1:Being a regular somewhere is the most gratifying thing as a human being. Yeah, but not Wendy's. They're like hey, 10 piece what's good?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, that was back in the glory days of the 4 for 4. Or the piggy bag you would go in and get a 4 for 4, and it was actually really fucking good and warm and it sustains you and it was actually really fucking good, yeah, and like, warm and like and it sustains you and it was like four dollars.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Also, like I hate the app culture. I hate like having an app everyone's like.
Speaker 2:You gotta order from the app and then you get a deal and they're also tracking all the things you watch on your phone in order, yeah and.
Speaker 1:but the other thing is like I ordered taco bell on the taco bell app and I feel like they fucked up my food on purpose. So I was like okay guys, sorry, I want to go up to the drive-thru worker and be like hey man, what can I do to make you not fuck up my food?
Speaker 2:Am I not nice to you? One time I got Taco Bell and they were out of meat and they didn't tell us and they just made the taco with lettuce and cheese.
Speaker 1:Me too. That's a low-key flex they do sometimes.
Speaker 2:It's crazy, it's like, why even bother? At that point, like just close, I'm going to close on my dumb story about fast food. Oh yeah, sorry One of the first bits.
Speaker 1:I no, it's like. So I was like peak stoner, degenerate just high all the time.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I went through the McDonald's drive-thru and my card got declined and I was like oh rough and like, but like. And she was like do you have another way to pay? And I was like no. And I just stared at her. This sweaty, tired woman just gave me my food for free, nice. And I was like. And I was like okay, this is a victory.
Speaker 1:I'm high, I'm eating yeah and I was like you know, that's such a nice thing, I wonder what other places? And so I went to every fast food place on the island and they swiped my declined credit card and they all gave me free food, and that is why I'm going to fucking hell. Oh, my gosh.
Speaker 2:Well, it's not like you were pretending to be broke. Yeah, no, I was actively like you know what I'm saying and we're not ordering like infinite money glitch, human kindness there's like one homeless guy listening to this, like all I need is a declined credit card this whole time. That's all I needed was a bum card.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's the hack of like oh, you don't need money.
Speaker 1:you need to a non-offensive way to show that you don't have money. Or it kind of reminds me of people say you there's free food.
Speaker 2:if you just walk in and say you're DoorDash, yeah, so fucking funny I love those videos that are like oh, can I get like 200 fucking hamburgers For the homeless? For the homeless, and it's like they've got a camera on your face and you're like yeah, you can have it for free.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like forced human kindness, the best kind. And okay, I will let you go home to your girlfriend now. Thank you for doing the interview. Check out Harrington Wave on SoundCloud and I'll try and figure out how to download it illegally and put it on the end of this podcast so maybe they can listen to it Cool, I can also send you the file if you want.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, that works yeah.
Speaker 3:We'll exchange emails after this and, my bad, this thing's dying. That's why I'm cutting. Okay, cool, all right, thanks, man, have a great day. Why do I do the same things every day? So much to accomplish?
Speaker 3:I can't say wherever the hours gone away. When they're gone, where do they stay? Will I find that place someday, at the end of everything? Will there be freedom for my soul, or will I walk this world alone, just an echo of myself Collecting dust upon the shelf Of some suburban avenue? Ignore the dreams that I once grew, and I know that I'm thinking too much, and I know that I'm leaning on my crutch.
Speaker 3:The easier I take it, the more I know I'm gonna make it. So it's fine if I haven't lost my touch. The more I see, the more I know that I don't know that much for sure, and so I struggle every day To find my place in this big maze when everything is up for grabs, but only if you dare to ask what is it that you have to prove? Is there collateral to lose? And can you balance out your power to find some time to just relax? And is it worth it in the end when you don't have that many friends? And I know that I'm thinking too much. I know that I'm leaning on my crutches. The easier I take it, the more I know I'm gonna make. So it's fine, I figured this thing out, thank you.