Share & Tell & Feel Bill Walton, with Ian Karmel and Katie Nolan

Summary

Pablo Torre Finds Out – "Share & Tell & Feel Bill Walton"

With Ian Karmel and Katie Nolan
June 13, 2024 – Le Batard & Friends

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Episode Overview

This episode serves as a heartfelt and whimsical tribute to the legendary basketball player and broadcaster Bill Walton, blending personal stories, mystical conversations, Pacific Northwest eccentricities, and broader reflections on identity and comedy. Pablo Torre is joined by comedian Ian Karmel and sports personality Katie Nolan, who, through humor and openness, explore Walton’s distinct persona, the nature of existence (as understood by Walton and his friend Jeb Barton), and the complexities of growing up "different"—whether as an Oregonian, a sports-loving oddball, or a "fat kid" in America.

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Key Topics & Insights

1. The Mystique of Bill Walton (03:53–04:45; 05:55–07:36)

• Field Recordings & Walton’s Legacy: Pablo sets the table for a Walton remembrance by sharing a clip from a previous interview, showcasing Walton’s wandering, storybook monologues.
• Walton’s Oregon Connection: Ian explains how Walton epitomized the spirit of the Portland Trail Blazers and the state of Oregon more than any other player.

Notable Quote:
"I don’t know if he’s the greatest Blazer ever… but I do believe he’s the most Blazer-est Blazer ever. There’s no one who more epitomizes the Blazers or sports played in Oregon than Bill Walton."
—Ian Karmel (04:11)

2. An Encounter with Jeb Barton — Mysticism & Reality (08:36–12:15)

• Jeb’s Background: Walton’s friend Jeb Barton, who runs tp.com and has studied human consciousness for 55 years, shares how he and Walton bonded over conversations on mysticism and reality’s "invisible realm."
• Life Beyond the Ego: Jeb explains that Walton’s exuberance and unique presence came from living "grounded in this deeper invisible realm" beyond personality or ego.

Notable Quote:
"The exuberant personality… the aliveness… was a result of being grounded in this deeper place… Bill didn’t hang out in the ego."
—Jeb Barton (09:22)

3. Pacific Northwest Vibes & Walton’s Influence (11:17–14:08)

• The Oregon Coast: The trio fondly discuss the wild beauty and weirdness of the Oregon coast, touching on everything from bonfire beaches and marionberries to elk and, comically, geoducks (giant Pacific clams).
• Bill Walton’s Sense of Place: Reflections on how Walton and his friends felt at home and in tune with this magical, liminal landscape.

4. Social Media & Remembering Bill Walton (16:28–18:37)

• A Unique Kind of Mourning: Both Ian and Katie share that Walton’s death felt like the earth missing out on his vibrant energy, but also found comfort and rare "algorithmically heartwarming" moments as the sports world celebrated his life online.

Notable Quote:
"He represented for me… the whimsy that sports should be embracing more and that we don’t…"
—Katie Nolan (17:30)

• Walton’s Whimsical Gravitas: Pablo reflects on how Walton could simultaneously imbue sports with high seriousness and complete absurdity, often referencing historic artistic greats (like Beethoven), and how this duality made him irreplaceable.

5. Death, Consciousness, and Continuity (19:45–23:14)

• Jeb Barton on Death: Pablo plays a moving voicemail from Jeb about how Walton viewed death not as an end, but as a transition to a new "email address"—a metaphor for changing forms without true annihilation.

Notable Quote:
"You simply change email addresses. No one dies. Your essence cannot be annihilated… Bill knew that, so I’m sure he was looking forward to a new adventure."
—Jeb Barton (20:10)

• The "X of X" Concept: Katie jokes about being scared by the idea that "The Pablo of Pablo" will always continue, as Jeb asserts everyone carries an untouchable inner essence—the "Bill of Bill," the "Pablo of Pablo," etc.

6. Nature, Perspective & Grounding (23:31–25:25)

• A Pacific Northwest Worldview: The group rhapsodizes about the grounding effect of ancient trees, wide beaches, and a natural world that puts human concerns into perspective, echoing the mysticism Walton and Jeb espoused.
• Urban Disconnection: Katie laments the difficulty of "touching grass" in a big city, contrasting her own environment with the Oregon landscape.

7. Sharing & Telling: Ian’s Book & Growing Up Fat (28:11–32:47)

• Ian’s Story: Pablo congratulates Ian on the release of his memoir T-Shirt Swim Club: Stories from Being Fat in a World of Thin People. Ian shares how representations like Fat Bastard (from Austin Powers) and "Truffle Shuffle" jokes deeply affected him growing up—and how his own comedy often became a kind of defense.

Notable Quote:
"You walk on stage… you want to demonstrate some level of self-knowledge… One of my first jokes was… my name should be Shlomo Pudding Tits."
—Ian Carmel (34:16)

• Media Representation: Together, they analyze how fat characters in media are so often defined solely by their size and rarely given roles where weight is incidental rather than essential.

8. The Complexity and Pain in Comedy (39:01–41:16)

• Comedy from Pain: The panel discusses how jokes about fatness, while undeniably funny at times, often come from genuine pain—and how social attitudes are (slowly) evolving.

Notable Quote:
"If the world didn’t suck so much for fat people, I think it’d be easier to make fun of fat people… but the pain is still there.”
—Ian Carmel (40:47)

• Moving Forward: Suggestions include writing roles for fat actors not centered on weight, and naming them before deciding their body type.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Bill Walton's Whimsical Nature:
  "You ask one question and suddenly you’re in Narnia."
  —Pablo Torre (04:31)

• Reflections on Death:
  "Now you can live uninhibited. Because Bill knows… no one dies. You simply change email addresses.”
  —Jeb Barton (19:55)

• Comedy’s Double-Edged Sword:
  "I eat because I’m sad and I’m sad because I eat… and then two seconds later he farts."
  —Ian Carmel (40:47)

• On Being Remembered:
  "I want to continue to cultivate friendships with people that I will carry literally forever—whatever is beyond space and time.”
  —Pablo Torre (44:58)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Bill Walton Stories: 03:53–07:36
• Jeb Barton & Mystical Conversations: 08:36–12:15
• Oregon Coast & Pacific Northwest Eccentricities: 13:01–14:08
• Social Media Tribute & Sports Whimsy: 16:28–18:37
• Jeb on Death & The “X of X”: 19:45–23:14
• Nature and Perspective: 23:31–25:25
• Ian’s Memoir & Growing Up Fat: 28:11–32:47
• Media Analysis & Representation: 32:47–38:16
• Comedy, Representation, and Pain: 39:01–41:16
• Final Reflections: 42:53–End

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Tone

Warm, witty, deeply human and occasionally mystical—this episode weaves high-spirited banter with genuine reflection and a bit of Pacific Northwest psychedelic energy. The panel’s mutual affection and openness allow them to tackle big questions (death, identity, comedy, nature) through both humor and vulnerability.

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For Listeners

Whether or not you knew Bill Walton beyond his basketball career, this episode invites you to consider the multidimensional lives we all lead, how we’re remembered, and what it means to truly inhabit the world—in Portland or Peoria, as a "fat kid" or a sports legend, as "the Pablo of Pablo" or as a friend.

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For further exploration:

• Ian Karmel’s book: T-Shirt Swim Club
• Jeb Barton’s site: tp.com
• Previous Bill Walton interviews on Pablo Torre Finds Out and ESPN.

Transcript

[Pablo Torre]

Welcome to Pablo Torre finds out. I am Pablo Torre. And today we're gonna find out what this sound is.

[Jeb Barton]

One of the reasons that Bill has such great exuberance, because when you no longer fear death, now you can live right.

[Pablo Torre]

After this ad.

[Katie Nolan]

You'Re listening to Giraffe Kings. It's actually why I'm reading the Bible, because I don't think I ever read anything in the New Testament and I feel like I want to get to the crazy stuff. I want to get to the wild.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah, there's some like, look as, as a Catholic school educated, all boys product. There are some books where it's like, do you know about the book that's too dangerous for the Bible? And there are some like lost books.

[Katie Nolan]

Huh?

[Pablo Torre]

Lost books of the Bible. What? Lost books of the Bible? Yeah.

[Katie Nolan]

So I'm gonna read it and I'm not even gonna get the good stuff.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're gonna have to get to like the director's cut version, the Snyder cut.

[Ian Carmel]

I'm so glad.

[Katie Nolan]

Hi. I should get up. But I didn't. But I didn't. Nice kicks.

[Pablo Torre]

Come on in.

[Katie Nolan]

Fresh kicks.

[Ian Carmel]

Fresh kicks.

[Pablo Torre]

Looking good.

[Ian Carmel]

Fresh kicks.

[Katie Nolan]

We're just talking about the lost books of the Bible. Don't worry.

[Ian Carmel]

Oh, they lost them.

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah, they. They lost them. According to Pablo.

[Pablo Torre]

I mean, there's a whole list.

[Katie Nolan]

Are you saying I should try to.

[Pablo Torre]

Find a whole list?

[Katie Nolan]

Oh, really?

[Pablo Torre]

I'm thinking you may become an evangelical Christian by the end of your journey through books. Are there the lost books of the Bible and the forgotten books of Eden?

[Katie Nolan]

Two different things.

[Pablo Torre]

Two different things. Look, I'm not here to subject religious.

[Ian Carmel]

Are you actually going through the Bible?

[Katie Nolan]

Yes, I am.

[Ian Carmel]

What? No, you're not.

[Katie Nolan]

Slog. Yes, I am.

[Pablo Torre]

It's an incredible thing that Katie's doing for fun.

[Katie Nolan]

Katie's doing it because I'm curious.

[Ian Carmel]

How long have you been on your.

[Katie Nolan]

A couple months. A couple months.

[Ian Carmel]

Your Exodus?

[Katie Nolan]

A couple months. And I. And I. And there's been times where I'm like really into it. And then there's times where I'm like, I don't want to read it today. And so I don't. But it's. It's been a journey.

[Ian Carmel]

Have you entered the New Testament yet?

[Katie Nolan]

No, that's where I'm trying to get to because that's what the religion I'm supposedly a part of believes. And I don't think I've ever. I feel like everything I was taught was old test.

[Ian Carmel]

Yeah.

[Katie Nolan]

So I feel like old test is.

[Ian Carmel]

The big hitter I know.

[Katie Nolan]

It's the good stuff.

[Ian Carmel]

It's the.

[Katie Nolan]

There's also some wild stuff. Like a lot whose daughters were like, we don't have babies. And so when you say. And they get.

[Pablo Torre]

When you say it's a lot, you mean literally talking about.

[Ian Carmel]

Talking about.

[Pablo Torre]

It's a lot.

[Katie Nolan]

It's a lot.

[Pablo Torre]

You're where for Ian to catch up. Where are you?

[Katie Nolan]

I just finished Ruth.

[Ian Carmel]

Yeah, Ruth.

[Katie Nolan]

Which are very short. She's a short book of the.

[Ian Carmel]

She's an old battle ax, huh?

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah, she sure is. She sure is.

[Pablo Torre]

So I want to start and bring order to this podcast by doing something that I've done to Katie a couple of times, which is.

[Katie Nolan]

Could be anything.

[Pablo Torre]

Which is. Which is get you drunk on a series of athlete alcohols. Body slam you through this table. Play some sound of some stuff that I've collected in preparation for this episode.

[Ian Carmel]

Field recordings.

[Pablo Torre]

Field recordings. Because, Ian, you are a. You're an Oregonian. Yes, yes.

[Ian Carmel]

Yeah. Proud Oregonian.

[Pablo Torre]

Okay. And Katie Nolan.

[Katie Nolan]

Beaverton's finest.

[Ian Carmel]

That's top of the food chain, jewel of the Pacific Northwest.

[Pablo Torre]

And Katie Nolan, of course, Boston Zone.

[Katie Nolan]

That's right. Well, Framingham. But Boston can have me if they want me.

[Pablo Torre]

Fair enough. And the Venn diagram of all of these things, plus me, guy who loves here sports. Weird is weird from here.

[Ian Carmel]

Weird to be from here.

[Katie Nolan]

So weird.

[Pablo Torre]

But does sometimes love psychedelics.

[Katie Nolan]

Okay.

[Pablo Torre]

The Venn diagram of all of us is. Was forever will be Bill Walton. Shout out the late, great Bill Walton. And I've been trying to figure out, how do I pay tribute to this man that I loved?

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

I mean, in your blazers guy.

[Ian Carmel]

When he died, I was, you know, contemplating his life and career and time with the Blazers. And I don't know if he's the greatest blazer ever. Cause he was there for such a short period of time.

[Pablo Torre]

Right.

[Ian Carmel]

But I do believe he's the most blazer est Blazer ever. Yes. There's no one who more epitomizes the Blazers or sports played in Oregon than Bill Walton.

[Pablo Torre]

And in fact, I interviewed. I had the pleasure, the great pleasure of interviewing Bill Walton on my show. And I had the experience that so many of us had at espn, Katie, which is you ask one question and sudden you're in Narnia.

[Ian Carmel]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

And so I want to play you a clip of a conversation we had just to set the table for the field recordings. This is how my convo with the great Bill Walton went. Well, I was curious. Now that we're just getting into it, I'm Curious when you got your teepee.

[Bill Walton]

Okay, so my teepee, I am a huge believer in the first Americans, the people who were here before we got here. You know, I grew up in an area that. San Diego is ringed by a lot of Native American tribes. The big overarching family tribe here in San Diego is the Kumeya. There's lots of different ones. There's Barona and there's Saquon. We all went to school together, we played together, we fought together. It was just our lives. It was fantastic. Anyway, so here we were. What was the question again? I got off track there.

[Pablo Torre]

It was just, when did you get it? When did you get the teepee that you're describing?

[Bill Walton]

So I moved to Oregon to play for the Blazers. And one of the first things I did when I got to Oregon, we took a tour of Oregon. We went down to the U.S. geological Service office in downtown Portland, and we got a map of all the natural hot springs in the state of Oregon, and we went around and with the goal, the purpose, to take a soak in every natural hot springs in the state of Oregon.

[Pablo Torre]

Wow.

[Bill Walton]

I was hiking up this river valley somewhere near the Oregon coast, and it was, you know, it's kind of rainy, misty fog, beautiful sunshine, rainbows, calliopes, clowns, elk, eagles, beavers, fish jumping. I mean, if it was, like, spectacular. And I looked up on the hillside as I came around the bend, and there, you know, halfway up the side of the hill, it was this teepee. And I. I said, whoa, this, you know, who's. What's this? And who's in there? I got up halfway up the hill, and this guy comes stumbling out and starts yelling and screaming at me, who are you and what do you want? And I said, oh, just admiring your teepee, man. It's the coolest thing ever. That young man, his name is Jeb, and he and his wife Nicole, they have tp.comt I p I dot com, one of the two coolest websites ever. Bob Dylan's website is very cool, too.

[Pablo Torre]

Bill Walton. I am. I am high listening back to that.

[Ian Carmel]

His first off, his internal monologue is J.R.R. tolkien. There's. There's so much backstory.

[Pablo Torre]

Every clause is the silmarillion.

[Katie Nolan]

What's wild is you guys didn't even put that. That Neil Young music bed under that. That's just what comes out when he starts talking and telling a story. It's naturally set to that.

[Ian Carmel]

And patchouli oil just exudes from his poise.

[Pablo Torre]

If you get a map to Go soak in every hot spring in the state of Oregon. That sound just follows you around.

[Ian Carmel]

That's a lot of hot springs.

[Pablo Torre]

It's so many hot springs.

[Ian Carmel]

It's a volcanic state.

[Pablo Torre]

I also love that he has a power rankings of websites, Bob Dylan's website and tp.com.

[Katie Nolan]

Okay, what's going on on Bob Dylan's website?

[Pablo Torre]

You find that out.

[Ian Carmel]

Okay.

[Pablo Torre]

In the meantime, I want to tell you guys that the aforementioned Jeb, proprietor of TP.com is a man that I called up recently.

[Jeb Barton]

I'm Jeb Barton. My interest in life has been human consciousness. So I taught and studied that for about 55 years. And this was when I lived on the coast in Oregon. Looked across a highway, actually, and saw this little yellow Volkswagen pull up. And then I saw this huge thing begin to unfold out of this Volkswagen, of all things. I said, you know, can I help you? Are you interested? You know, obviously, the teepee. That's what I did. And I said, are you interested in this? He said, yeah. And that. That's how that. That friendship started. And then we, over the years, got into much deeper conversations and very unique conversations about the nature of, really, the nature of mysticism and the nature of reality.

[Pablo Torre]

If you were to try to explain what Bill Walton's view of reality was.

[Jeb Barton]

That'S actually not hard, because Bill and I talked about that a lot. There is what you and I see out here. Streets and people and cars and buildings and things going on. But there's also something else that is way beyond the superficial goings on of personalities and things. And Bill knew about that, and that is where he hung out. He didn't hang out in the ego. And then the exuberant personality, the. The aliveness, the fun, the almost court gesture part of Bill was a result of being grounded in this deeper place, the invisible realm that. That. That he knew about.

[Pablo Torre]

So Bill Walton bonded with this guy, Jeb. And Jeb, when he says he practices and teaches the study of human consciousness and has been doing that for almost 55 years. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Six decades, thereabouts.

[Ian Carmel]

It's a doctorate at this point, right?

[Pablo Torre]

Oh, he is.

[Katie Nolan]

He.

[Pablo Torre]

I just want to tell you that the conversation I had is so long.

[Katie Nolan]

No way. You don't say.

[Pablo Torre]

I learned so much about myself, and it made Bill Walton, the character, into both more and less of one, because I was like, oh, Bill was about this life. This was the dude he was talking to, a dude who, by the way, we'll show this on, like, the YouTube video version of this On Draft News Network as well. The dude has 125 plants in his apartment. You can imagine Jeb. You know Jeb.

[Ian Carmel]

Yeah, you know Jeb. I know Jeb.

[Pablo Torre]

It's the most Oregonian conversation I've ever had.

[Ian Carmel]

Did acoustic guitar music start playing?

[Pablo Torre]

Yes.

[Ian Carmel]

In the middle.

[Pablo Torre]

Yes. Yes.

[Ian Carmel]

When he says he lives at the coast, actually just across the highway. I also know exactly what he means. In Oregon, it's forests right into beach, right in the ocean. There's, like, no membrane. There's no, like, plains or anything like that in between. It's wood. So this is a man who lives in the woods by the misty ocean, which is where you would assume a wizard would live.

[Katie Nolan]

Yes.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Ian Carmel]

He's inhabiting wizard spaces.

[Pablo Torre]

Katie, did you know that in the Oregon coast, Pacific Northwest in general, which I vacationed to, for the reasons Ian is describing, for the reasons Jeb Barton maybe lives. I'm gonna sound like Bill Walton here when I say there are bald eagles.

[Ian Carmel]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

And orcas and humpback whales and geoducks.

[Ian Carmel]

Gooey ducks all over the place.

[Katie Nolan]

Lots of gooey ducks.

[Pablo Torre]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ian Carmel]

Sound thing.

[Katie Nolan]

That's more of a Puget Sound.

[Ian Carmel]

We don't claim that.

[Katie Nolan]

Sorry.

[Ian Carmel]

It's not. Okay.

[Katie Nolan]

It's a Pacific Northwest.

[Ian Carmel]

But we'll work through.

[Katie Nolan]

Oregon.

[Ian Carmel]

Pretty specifically Oregon.

[Pablo Torre]

Okay, well, so you don't claim the penis shells?

[Ian Carmel]

No, we don't claim the penis shells. We do claim elk.

[Katie Nolan]

Okay.

[Ian Carmel]

And some of them have penises.

[Katie Nolan]

Okay.

[Pablo Torre]

Do they have shells back in?

[Ian Carmel]

Some of them have shells. The elk there just wander through the towns as though they have this knowledge that the towns are incidental and unpermanent. And they're like, well, we're just going to keep walking through here, and for the next thousand years, we'll do the same. After you people are gone, are gone forever.

[Pablo Torre]

And that feels like what Jeb was talking about, incidentally. Like the hidden reality, the hidden space that he and Bill accessed. I imagine them in a teepee together, basically doing what you just described the.

[Ian Carmel]

Elk doing, I think. Right. You see, Just meandering through time and everything permanent is incidental. There's this sense, I think it's being on the west coast where you're at the end, you know, and being especially on the coast of Oregon, like, you can be in LA or even in San Diego, where Bill is from, and, oh, there's civilization here. It's city right up into the ocean. When you're at the Oregon coast, it really does feel like you're at the end of something in a way that's kind of fighting back against everything that's tried to take it.

[Pablo Torre]

You know what I love about the Oregon coast also? The beaches are wide as hell.

[Ian Carmel]

Yeah, they are wide.

[Katie Nolan]

Meaning what?

[Pablo Torre]

You know, wide beach, like the. As in, like, you know, it's not.

[Katie Nolan]

Like a little strip of sand. It's like a lot of sand.

[Ian Carmel]

Deep sand.

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah.

[Ian Carmel]

You can drive a jeep on it. You can build a bonfire.

[Pablo Torre]

Oh, riding a bike. Yeah, I rented a bike and rode it.

[Ian Carmel]

Yeah. It's real. It's real fun. You can eat boysenberry saltwater taffy on the coast.

[Pablo Torre]

Marionberry.

[Ian Carmel]

Mary and Barry. Absolutely.

[Katie Nolan]

Barry's having a moment right now. I had never heard of it until recently. Now it's kind of like popping up.

[Pablo Torre]

It is.

[Katie Nolan]

Van Leeuwen has a marionberry.

[Ian Carmel]

Who does?

[Katie Nolan]

Van Leeuwen.

[Ian Carmel]

Oh, Van Leeuwen has a. Marian.

[Katie Nolan]

They have a marionberry cornbread.

[Ian Carmel]

It's the chapel roan of berries.

[Katie Nolan]

I love chapel roan.

[Ian Carmel]

Just found out about Chapel Row.

[Katie Nolan]

I could not see Governor's Ball.

[Ian Carmel]

I did.

[Katie Nolan]

Crazy. So happy for her.

[Ian Carmel]

She's like this musical artist. Yes. Gen Z. Kate Bush, musical artist. She rules who's taking the country by storm.

[Katie Nolan]

You know, she works with the same guy who Olivia Rodrigo works with, who used to be the lead singer of a little band called as Tall as Lions that Katie Nolan was a big fan of in college.

[Pablo Torre]

Now it feels like we're getting a little rural Oregon in this conversation.

[Katie Nolan]

In my mind, I think I've been to Oregon once, and I think it was to go to the comedy club. So I don't think I've been one of. I think one of Dan's favorite comedy clubs.

[Ian Carmel]

I just turned my microphone off or my headphones. What did I do?

[Katie Nolan]

I've done whatever you've done since I'm.

[Ian Carmel]

What did I do? And I'm back. Yeah, the comedy. It's a great comedy club. I would not say it's indicative of.

[Katie Nolan]

No, I didn't get an Oregon experience.

[Ian Carmel]

There's a nice mural behind you which portrays some.

[Pablo Torre]

You go to a Mexican restaurant in Portland that also had a strip club behind it.

[Katie Nolan]

Okay.

[Ian Carmel]

Were they one or were they. Were you downtown? Was it Mary's and then the Mexican food restaurant next to it? And they shared a bathroom.

[Pablo Torre]

Yes.

[Ian Carmel]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've been to one of.

[Pablo Torre]

I've been in the.

[Ian Carmel]

I've been in the bathroom.

[Pablo Torre]

I've relieved myself at either of those establishments.

[Ian Carmel]

Mary's club, which has since moved and no longer shares a Space with that Mexican food restaurant shame. But that's one of the. That was like the oldest strip club in Portland. Famously.

[Pablo Torre]

I mean it was history. That's how I went.

[Ian Carmel]

WW2 soldiers partying at that strip club. Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

Speaking of old, how is Bob Dill's website looking?

[Katie Nolan]

Oh, it just looks like an artist's website. It just says like here's. But you can buy his album, it's being re released or like here sound nearly as good. There's nothing. I think he was probably just trying to say he really likes Bob Dylan. But I, I can't see how anybody would spend that much time. Unless I'm missing something. Cuz I'm on the mobile version.

[Ian Carmel]

He's just like clicking around like, oh, link states. Oh my God.

[Pablo Torre]

Part of the thing about Bill is that I. Every time I saw him, he made me happy.

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

And so when he died, I. I want to ask you guys, like, what was the sensation that you felt? Because he wasn't just, wow, here's a historical figure and he was, by the way, maybe the greatest college basketball player of all time, as well as one of the would have been greatest NBA players of all time. Ian, as our Oregon delegate, thank you. What was your reaction?

[Ian Carmel]

It was sad, but not almost. More like, oh, the earth is missing out on this energy. And not the energy is like missing out on experiencing the earth anymore. I felt like if you're gonna die and you can look back on your deathbed at that kind of life, it's almost not even sad anymore. Right. I'm sad for the people around him. It's sad for his family, obviously, that kind of thing. It's sad for us who aren't gonna get to hear him popping on that. Well, there's no Pac 12 anymore, so what would he even pop onto?

[Pablo Torre]

Right. The conference of. The Conference of Champions.

[Ian Carmel]

Yeah. All Cal's track team would magisterial performances on the steeplechase out there, but like the echoing of Menken's approach to philosophy, but portrayed through a pole vault. I don't know, man. It wasn't really sad as much as it was. It was also so nice the way social media came together, Katie.

[Pablo Torre]

It was like one of the few things that happened on social media recently where I'm like, this is heartwarming.

[Ian Carmel]

This is what it's for.

[Katie Nolan]

Very rare when you log on and your algorithm is serving you up a lot of heartwarming, kind, loving, thoughtful, introspective retrospectives on a guy's life. I felt sad in the sense that like, we. We miss that energy. I feel like he represented for me, and I never met him, but represented for me, like, the whimsy that sports should be, like, embracing more and that we don't. And I know it's because he came from a place of, like, I also am very good at this sport, so you really can't discredit anything I'm saying.

[Ian Carmel]

Right.

[Katie Nolan]

And I so appreciated what he brought. And I hate whenever I use social media so stupidly that whenever somebody I really like, respect or admire or care about dies, I'm like, how do I even say anything here that makes any sense and isn't just, like, I liked him too? Like, I never know what to. So I just retweeted what other people said. That's where I've. That's where I've netted out on my rips for people, is like, finding people who knew the person and amplify their voice. That's me letting you know that, like, damn, I'm bummed about this.

[Pablo Torre]

But what you just said, I think, actually is, for me, one of my big takeaways also, which is he was somebody who took sports so seriously that he compared random athletes to, like, you know, Leonardo, like, the ancients, the greats. When I watch Boris DL, I think.

[Bill Walton]

Of it was 201 years ago today.

[Ian Carmel]

Yeah.

[Bill Walton]

Both Beethoven's Symphony number three and E flat, which shuffle shut. Which escorted. In the age of Romanticism. And when I look at Boaz dlc, I think of Beethoven and the age of the Romantics.

[Pablo Torre]

And at the same time, he was so the opposite when it came to his whimsy. Like, taking something so seriously and also not at all at the same time is something that only a Hall of Famer can pull off with credibility, to Katie's point. And is also, like, why I want to figure out, like, the right way to remember him. Because he was all of these things.

[Ian Carmel]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

He loved the pack fill in the blank number so unironically while also being so absurd about it.

[Ian Carmel]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

All of which made me want to ask Jeb Barton how he and Bill, in their voyage through mysticism, talked about death.

[Jeb Barton]

Deb, I'm just curious how you think Bill may have viewed death, how you and he may have talked about it. Yeah, we did discuss that, because it is a integral part of the mystical understanding about how to live. One of the reasons that Bill has such great exuberance, because when you no longer fear death, now you can live. Now you can live uninhibited. Because Bill knows, and I And I know that really, no one dies. You only if I maybe kind of flip it here. You simply change email addresses. No one dies. Your. Your essence cannot be annihilated. Yes, your biology will stop. It will stop functioning. But it's like a car. We are the driver of the car. The car is our. Is our neurobiology. And we'll drive this car around for a while and then when we're finished with it, we'll go somewhere else and get another car. Bill knew that, and so that's. I'm sure that he was, you know, looking forward to. Well, this is going to be a next really great adventure, you know, so I definitely still feel very much like he's sitting across the table. Somebody. I can feel Bill's essence. The Bill of Bill. The essence of Bill Walton. There is the real you. I can talk to Pablo, who am I speaking with now? But there's also a Pablo of Pablo. The Pablo of Pablo is the one that keeps going on and that is untouchable and is beyond time, space. So in a way, he's not gone anywhere. The Bill of Bill.

[Pablo Torre]

I love Jeb.

[Ian Carmel]

Yeah, Jeb.

[Pablo Torre]

I hope you guys all still.

[Katie Nolan]

I also found myself feeling relieved when he was talking about the Bill of Bill. And then when he brought up the Pablo of Pablo, I felt, I felt scared. Yeah, I was like, oh, Pablo's going to continue. The Pablo of Pablo will stay here.

[Pablo Torre]

The Pablo of Pablo is still going to be podcasting. That's the rub. My essence is podcasting.

[Katie Nolan]

Content, content, content.

[Pablo Torre]

But in the sort of like hippie, dippy mysticism, there is like a fundamental thing that I felt resonate with me, which is that when you either get super high and. Or zoom out in your brain on what is the. What's happening here? It's the idea that all of us, if we believe in anything, it's the idea that there is something truly essential, in essence, about us that is not about our. The meat sack we inhabit.

[Ian Carmel]

Right.

[Pablo Torre]

It's weird to have talked about websites with Bill Walton and email addresses with his buddy. When it comes to, you know, mysticism.

[Ian Carmel]

You just changed to tp.org at some point.

[Pablo Torre]

Walt is just on Gmail now, you.

[Ian Carmel]

Know, but you know, that dude, you know, Bill Walton wasn't on Gmail. He must have had the early. He was on like AOL account. Yeah, AOL Earth Link. The redheaded stranger Earthling.

[Pablo Torre]

A third party email address.

[Ian Carmel]

Well, more like the missing link dot com.

[Pablo Torre]

But there is something to these Oregonians where I'm like, I Am not at the level of transcending consciousness that they are at, but I want to be. The more I hear from them. And I, too, feel like we are. We are indulging both the absurd and also, like, the very sincere. Like, that is how Jeb actually feels.

[Ian Carmel]

Yeah. Right.

[Pablo Torre]

He thinks Bill Walton, and he knows Bill Walton is at the table with him. And I want. When any of our loved ones pass on, I want to have the conviction that Jeb has about, like. No, they're just. They're just on Yahoo.com.

[Ian Carmel]

The grandma of grandma is still out there. Yes. We still want that grandma of grandma.

[Pablo Torre]

Yes.

[Ian Carmel]

I honestly think. I mean, going back to the Oregon of it all, I think there. And this is probably true in any area where it's more natural than industrial or commercial. Right. Which is true at the Oregon coast. I think there's something about having the biggest things around you be trees.

[Pablo Torre]

Oh, I love building. Yeah. Like, trees love this take.

[Ian Carmel]

Being able to walk through them and. And having that be the thing that makes you feel small rather than other.

[Katie Nolan]

People'S accomplishments rather than industry.

[Pablo Torre]

But putting yourself. I mean, having yourself put into perspective.

[Ian Carmel]

Yes.

[Pablo Torre]

By these things that are also infusing you with life.

[Ian Carmel]

Yes. At the same time returning. I never feel better than when I'm walking through a forest. And I know that feels corny.

[Pablo Torre]

No, truly same.

[Ian Carmel]

I feel amazing. I feel like my blood pressure go down and my pulse low and just like, feel really, like, at peace.

[Pablo Torre]

It's why Jeb Barton surrounds himself and why I on my own small New York apartment level.

[Katie Nolan]

How many plants do you have?

[Pablo Torre]

I only have, like, 25.

[Katie Nolan]

That's a lot of.

[Pablo Torre]

I'm no jab, but four fake trees.

[Katie Nolan]

I'm afraid to kill anything.

[Ian Carmel]

Have you named them?

[Katie Nolan]

No. God, no.

[Ian Carmel]

No, no. To attach.

[Katie Nolan]

Yes.

[Pablo Torre]

Katie's going to name them after the books in the Bible.

[Katie Nolan]

All right. Possibly. I'm just reading it out of curiosity.

[Ian Carmel]

Leviticus.

[Pablo Torre]

We're all searching for answers as to what's going on.

[Katie Nolan]

I feel like the world's about to end.

[Ian Carmel]

Are you building an ark?

[Katie Nolan]

I could.

[Ian Carmel]

You should.

[Katie Nolan]

I could. On the Oregon of it. Although the thing about you said about trees, the thing that brought it home for me was when they started talking about how every day you should go outside and ground yourself by, like, touching. Literally touching grass. I know it's a thing we say to people now to be like, go touch grass. But when I realized how far I would have to go from where I live to try to find grass and not just like, like grass that was like, kind of shipped in like naturally occurring grass. Kind of bummed me out.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah, yeah, me out.

[Ian Carmel]

Pretty hard brush. Astro Turf. Is that.

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah, go to the dog run on my. On the second floor of my building, which is actually just a giant piss pad and smells as such, especially in the warmer months.

[Ian Carmel]

O oh, God. Bouquet.

[Pablo Torre]

Open the door.

[Katie Nolan]

Oh, God. There's dogs that have peed here many times.

[Ian Carmel]

The piss winds of New Jersey.

[Katie Nolan]

That's right.

[Ian Carmel]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

So speaking though, of sensing something, smelling it, perhaps feeling it, perhaps something in the air, I got a voicemail.

[Katie Nolan]

Oh my God.

[Pablo Torre]

From Jeb.

[Katie Nolan]

Okay.

[Pablo Torre]

And Jeb again has studied human consciousness mysticism for 55 years. And after we had talked and had this conversation, he left me a voicemail. And as an update, we have a bit of breaking news.

[Jeb Barton]

Oh, good morning, Pablo. It's Jeb Barton in Bend, Oregon. Well, Bill Walton did show up. Showed up at 5:40 in the morning. This morning I was completely in a dead sleep and all of a sudden I just woke up and I was looking in my mind at Bill's face and with that big smile on it, only there was more than a smile. It was like a grin. It was even bigger than a smile. And his eyes were squinted. And it's a kind of a grin that a person has when they know they know something and something's about to. To be said or something. But very, very interesting. I've got A list of 34 of such things that have happened to me in my life through the years. All, you know, very anomalous like that. Some of them, you know, much more extreme. But I thought that was very interesting. And it's not uncommon that that kind of thing happens. It's not really that uncommon at all.

[Pablo Torre]

So I am currently on another investigative quest to get the full list from Jim Morgan.

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah, 34. Four encounters.

[Pablo Torre]

As many encounters as Donald Trump has felony convictions, which is a remarkable statistic.

[Ian Carmel]

It is.

[Katie Nolan]

I feel like years ago we society met Jeb with an exclamation point. And now we've met Jeb with a question.

[Ian Carmel]

That's right.

[Pablo Torre]

Followed by an exclamation point.

[Katie Nolan]

Yes. It's an interrobang. He's an interrobang of a man followed.

[Ian Carmel]

By a comma and then several hieroglyphs. Yeah, yeah, yeah. @earthlink.net.org now he's in Bend, Oregon. So now he's on the other side. Now he's in the mountains. Oh, God.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah, we're going to get into a yellow Volkswagen Bug and go visit Jeff.

[Ian Carmel]

I would Love to get into the yellow Volkswagen bug.

[Pablo Torre]

My dream for all of us.

[Katie Nolan]

Let's do it.

[Pablo Torre]

All right, Ian. So when does it come out? Actually, tell me today. Today?

[Ian Carmel]

Yeah.

[Katie Nolan]

Congratulations.

[Pablo Torre]

Okay, so we're congratulating Ian because he's at this table to share and tell, and also because his book is out this week. Author of T Shirt Swim Club Stories from Being Fat in a World of Thin People. It's by you and your sister.

[Ian Carmel]

Yeah. Dr. Eliza Carmel.

[Katie Nolan]

I have.

[Pablo Torre]

I have an advance, uncorrected proof.

[Ian Carmel]

You do?

[Pablo Torre]

Full of, full of, full of. Of things that have been uncorrected.

[Ian Carmel]

Innuendos, threats, rumors. Just all sorts of stuff that could get me in legal trouble.

[Pablo Torre]

Lawyer review. Ian was talking all sorts of shit.

[Ian Carmel]

All sorts of stuff. I saw the Kennedy assassination in there. You think it's just about being fat? No, no, no, no, no. That's just a jumping off point.

[Pablo Torre]

So what did you bring us today, Ian, in terms of how you want to share with us, something from this book?

[Ian Carmel]

Well, the book is about growing up as a fat kid and turning into a fat adult and then eventually trying to get healthier. But one of the chapters in there, and the thing I wanted to talk about the most is my experience with the character Fat Bastard when I was a kid.

[Pablo Torre]

So we got to explain for those who are. I think we're just old enough where we need to do the thing.

[Ian Carmel]

I think so.

[Katie Nolan]

That's crazy. That's crazy.

[Pablo Torre]

It is.

[Katie Nolan]

You all don't know who Fat Bastard.

[Ian Carmel]

Is, which is both terrible and, I guess, wonderful and probably good.

[Katie Nolan]

It's progress. Maybe that's what progress looks like.

[Pablo Torre]

But you used to be able to do call and response with these jokes. I mean, like, get in my belly.

[Katie Nolan]

That's right.

[Ian Carmel]

These were the memes before memes. Right. These became 100% movie quotes, Simpsons quotes. These were, like how people communicated with each other. They had these big monocultural moments. And when the sequel to Austin Powers came out, Austin Powers, I think it was the Spy who Shagged Me was number two.

[Pablo Torre]

I think I'll double check, but that sounds right.

[Ian Carmel]

They introduced this character, Fat Bastard, which was Mike Myers playing a Scottish character, which is, you know, well within the. But done up in some of the most sweaty. Sweaty, but also unfortunately, realistic looking fat makeup I've ever seen portrayed on, like, better than the whale.

[Pablo Torre]

It. I agree. Brendan Brynden Fraser, you are a pale imitation of the prosthetic sag.

[Ian Carmel]

Hurt in every way. It was amazing.

[Pablo Torre]

It feels like this. Shouldn't have been able to air uncensored it shouldn't have.

[Ian Carmel]

They greased the wheels. They greased a lot of things. It felt like there was a they. The only way they get one that accurate is if there's a call coming from inside the house. There had to be a fat person on the inside being like, no, make the breasts.

[Katie Nolan]

No, make it like this. Move them out to the sides a little bit rather than forward, right?

[Ian Carmel]

Yeah. Put them over here. They should be in the.

[Katie Nolan]

Too Burky.

[Ian Carmel]

No, he's been fat a while. And it was horrible because it was so funny. And it was so funny. Like Michael Myers. This is Michael Myers at the peak of his powers.

[Pablo Torre]

Yes.

[Ian Carmel]

But you're sitting there in the movie theater watching Fat Bastard, like, at some kid's birthday. You're laughing, Everyone else is laughing. And then as you're leaving that theater, you're filled both with, oh, man, that was really funny. I love that. And because you know how the world works at that point, you're like, oh, no, I'm going to hear get in my belly. Yelled at me for the next two, three, four years. And it wasn't just that. When I was, you know, I was born in 1984, so when this came out, I was 13. I was still catching, like, Fat Albert and truffle shuffle demands. Like, I would, like. I don't even remember Fat Albert.

[Pablo Torre]

But you were getting the hey, hey, hey, hey, hey.

[Ian Carmel]

And I'm like, it's probably the one thing we will preserve from Bill Cosby's legacy is people doing the Fat Albert noise. That's gonna be weird. Like, people will be.

[Katie Nolan]

It's far enough removed.

[Ian Carmel]

It is still holds up. It's like, well, we can still use that to bully fat kids, right? We're not getting rid of that.

[Pablo Torre]

Let's not get crazy.

[Ian Carmel]

People demand I do the truffle Shuffle. And I'm like, I have not seen the movie you're referencing, but I will.

[Katie Nolan]

You know, what is that?

[Pablo Torre]

Goonies.

[Ian Carmel]

The Goonies.

[Pablo Torre]

But it's basically. I mean, for those who are uninitiated, it is the chubby is kid doing it to himself.

[Ian Carmel]

Doing it to himself.

[Pablo Torre]

Right? Like, lifting up his shirt and then, like, grabbing his rolls and just shaking them around.

[Ian Carmel]

And people would do that. I'd be on the football field. Other people would come up and, like, do that. Like, do the truffle shovel kind of thing. Yeah. And they would laugh about it. And I get like, the kid doing it to himself is actually pretty representative of, you know, the whole reason I got into comedy.

[Pablo Torre]

Right. So what is the Evolutionary adaptation. Here, how does this work?

[Ian Carmel]

Yeah, it's. So you think it's gonna get better? You know, like, Eric Cartman was another one. Even like Star wars, like killing Job of the Hutt. Jabba the Hutt is the only. There's two fat characters in all of Star Wars.

[Pablo Torre]

That name alone.

[Ian Carmel]

They could have called him Jabba the Space Lug. We would have got it. Or like Craig the Hutt. And they still would have been like, you mean a fat guy? Okay, we got it. But he's a fat guy. And he's a slobbering, disgusting space gangster who commits like, sexual assault on Princess Leia.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah.

[Ian Carmel]

And then the only other fat character in all of Star wars is named Porkins.

[Katie Nolan]

Oh, that's right.

[Ian Carmel]

He's an X Wing pilot who lives for three seconds, blows up. He's just fat. His name is Porkins. And then he dies. And meanwhile, you have Darth Vader, who is fat guy. Cultural appropriation.

[Pablo Torre]

Explain.

[Ian Carmel]

He's. He's asthmatic. He loves magic.

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah.

[Ian Carmel]

He'S got a deep voice. He's got James Earl Jones, a fat king. They used his voice, but they.

[Katie Nolan]

Not his body.

[Ian Carmel]

Not his body at all.

[Pablo Torre]

You should have been a big, thick.

[Ian Carmel]

Dude walking around like, what? What?

[Katie Nolan]

Culture is not a costume.

[Ian Carmel]

It is not a costume. But they had this skinny British actor play him, right? So they couldn't even do us that favor.

[Pablo Torre]

Damn. By the way, pork. I'm in the Star wars wiki. His nickname was Piggy.

[Ian Carmel]

Yeah, yeah.

[Katie Nolan]

What? But you're already porking.

[Ian Carmel]

They don't even have pork in space. It's Star Wars. There's no pigs, there's no pork. Anyway, so this was your reality growing up. And I, as I got older, I was like, okay, I'm sure it's gonna get better. It's gonna get better. I started getting into stand up comedy. I started by making fun of myself. Because you made. That's what you do. You walk on stage, you want to demonstrate some level of self knowledge. You want to say, I know what you're thinking, and then you get to some joke. One of my first stand up jokes was me going on stage and saying that it's ridiculous that my name is Ian Carmel because I'm a 6 foot 3, 350 pound Jewish man and my name sounds like a whimsical British candy store. My name should be Shlomo pudding tits. And my catchphrase should be better put.

[Katie Nolan]

Some butter on it.

[Ian Carmel]

You know, like. And to me, that was like turning it on its ear a Little bit being like acknowledging the role that fat people play in stand up comedy. But that's not why they were laughing. They were laughing because a fat guy was up there. Maybe some of them were. So you start to get involved in your own self immolation. Which continued to this point where I played. I got a audition for the show I'm Dying Up Here, which was a show about stand up comedy in the 1970s on Showtime. On Showtime. And the audition was for a character called Tubbs, the obese comedian.

[Katie Nolan]

Jesus.

[Pablo Torre]

I mean that's a hell of an IMDb credit.

[Ian Carmel]

It's like Jabba the Hutt but worse. Right? Tubs, that you could call them Tubs and we get it. Or you could call them again, Craig the obese comedian. We get it. And I went in thinking like, okay, this is a funny smart show. They're going to be doing some kind.

[Katie Nolan]

Of send up of the idea of.

[Ian Carmel]

Exactly. And then he's gonna come off stage and be like, you know, like a smart person who understands what he's doing up there. They wrote like in the script was some bit about like, I'm so fat that when I get off a bus, it catches on fire. Which I don't really understand as a joke.

[Pablo Torre]

Trying to diagram that is it because it goes.

[Ian Carmel]

It had to work so hard.

[Katie Nolan]

I don't know.

[Ian Carmel]

I don't know.

[Katie Nolan]

I'm not sure.

[Ian Carmel]

They didn't let me punch it up.

[Katie Nolan]

Right.

[Ian Carmel]

And I get up there thinking and you don't know. Like they send you your scene so you don't know what else is happening. I go up there and do it and I, when I do the audition, I'm like, I'm gonna get, I'm gonna make them choke on Tubs the obese comedian. So you know, I weighed 420 pounds at this point. So I went full like, I like gave myself a pronounced double chin and like wobbled my jowls after every joke. Just like, all right, here, this is what you want. And then I got the role.

[Katie Nolan]

Oh God.

[Ian Carmel]

And that should have been like a warning sign, I guess. And I go up and do it and then I film it. And you leave thinking, well, hopefully the other characters are going to be like, hey, he's so much better than that or something. But no, it was just this fat guy Pastiche. He was annoying, dumb. They talked about how he was like one of the worst comedians. And then you watch that and you realize once again, like, oh, I'm someone's fat bastard.

[Pablo Torre]

Right?

[Ian Carmel]

Fewer people saw I'm Dying up here. But I'm still the guy who went up there.

[Katie Nolan]

Significantly fewer people saw I'm dying up here.

[Ian Carmel]

Say what I said.

[Katie Nolan]

I just said significantly fewer.

[Pablo Torre]

Significantly fewer.

[Katie Nolan]

I didn't want to say it out loud.

[Ian Carmel]

Way fewer people.

[Katie Nolan]

Showtime was a tough one. You like, had to pay extra just specifically for show. It was the one. It was the first one to go for me.

[Ian Carmel]

You had to like that show about pirates. You had to be like, really into the black series.

[Katie Nolan]

I really like Dexter or what's the one with the dysfunctional family.

[Pablo Torre]

Oh, oh, such a shameless, shameless, shameless.

[Katie Nolan]

Those were the big. I feel like those were their big vehicles.

[Pablo Torre]

You had a two episode arc on him.

[Ian Carmel]

D. Oh, yeah, baby.

[Pablo Torre]

I went back for seconds.

[Katie Nolan]

He left that bus and it blew.

[Pablo Torre]

Up behind him for some reason.

[Ian Carmel]

I went back in the seconds. Cause you're just, I don't know, man. You're like. You get beat down to where you're like, this is what I am in this town. This is who I am in Hollywood. I've since really not continued acting.

[Pablo Torre]

I was gonna say the title of the show was also in a sense a description for how you were feeling about.

[Ian Carmel]

All right. Like I was dying. Yeah.

[Katie Nolan]

It feels like to me the, the like reaction to like representation is important. It's like it's not just about seeing other fat people in media. It's like seeing other. You need to see other fat people in media whose entire identity and like existence and reason for being is as the fat guy.

[Ian Carmel]

Right.

[Katie Nolan]

It's like there wasn't ever in our childhood this. What reading your book, which I did.

[Ian Carmel]

I did Swift it in between chapters of the Bible.

[Katie Nolan]

Was that. Yeah, I took a little break and read and read My Savior. But like, we didn't have any representations of a character who was something else and happened to be fat. It was all. It led with, like, isn't this person fat? And. And I don't know.

[Pablo Torre]

Dennis Ned in Jurassic park was a very multifaceted character.

[Ian Carmel]

That's true. That's true. He had a lot going on. He was conniving.

[Katie Nolan]

That proves the rule.

[Pablo Torre]

No, he was. He was an evil fat guy.

[Ian Carmel]

Boy, that. But that Barbasol can was satisfying, huh? Didn't you want one of those?

[Katie Nolan]

Yes.

[Ian Carmel]

Yeah. It still had the. With the shaving cream in it. I call it almost called a whipped cream whipped cream.

[Katie Nolan]

It does look tasty though.

[Pablo Torre]

It's like a nicer thinking. Yeah, we were all thinking it. But to Katie, your point, like I. The other part of this is we're living in the era of oic, of course, and the era of like, us sort of like trying to figure out, okay, what are we blaming people who struggle with their weight for? And, and are we at a point where. And again, as a comedian, as someone who wants to make jokes, I also get like, if something is funny, we.

[Katie Nolan]

Want to laugh at it, play it up.

[Pablo Torre]

And so there is this. We're at an interesting inflection point where we're welcoming complexity while also wondering if welcoming complexity is making us lose something about what comedy actually is about.

[Ian Carmel]

I mean, it has to come from pain. That's one of the. It doesn't. Comedy doesn't have to. It can come from absurdity or any number of things, but it tends to come from pain. Or at least some of the origin story of comedy often ends up being pain. And as the world I hopefully gets more comfortable for fat people, then maybe there'll be less pain around that. Like, if we didn't treat fat people differently, like, I wouldn't have a joke about, you know, sitting next to me on an airplane if that didn't suck. You know, like, if the brute of that was, wasn't that it sucked, but. But I don't know, you look at like Fat Bastard, and other than him being absurd, you sit and wonder, like, why is this inherently funny? Like, why is a fat person inherently funny? And the only answer I can come up with is that, like, I guess it reminds us of mortality in some way or that it's. They wear their insecurities on the outside, whereas the rest of us kind of have to dig for them. Like, I still can't really identify that. And there was truth in that character because one of the most devastating things about Fat Bastard, there was a part where he said, like, I eat because I'm sad and I'm sad because I eat and I'm a 13 year old kid watching that, you know, I'm like, oh, man, he just like nailed something I'd never thought of before. And then two seconds later he farts. And it's so.

[Pablo Torre]

Still laughing at the memory of when I first saw that.

[Ian Carmel]

It's so good. It's so good. Yeah, but, but you're right. I mean, as the world gets more accommodating to people and, and more afraid to make fun, I think it would be easier to make fun of fat people if the world didn't suck so much for fat people kind of on every level. Because you'd be like, all right, the joke's okay. I got so Fat that my friends didn't even make fun of me. And that's you. What? You know when you've crossed across the threshold. Right, Right.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah, right, Right. God.

[Ian Carmel]

So what do we do? How do we fix it, the three of us here?

[Katie Nolan]

Let's go. Ideas on the table.

[Ian Carmel]

Right.

[Pablo Torre]

It sounds like what you want to do is at the very least. Ian.

[Ian Carmel]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

Urge Hollywood to come up with better names.

[Ian Carmel]

That would be a start.

[Katie Nolan]

Name the character before you even decide they're going to be fat. Try that.

[Ian Carmel]

Try that.

[Katie Nolan]

Name the character before you know what their body looks like.

[Ian Carmel]

It's like what Katie was saying. Let fat people play just like a school teacher or a barber or whatever. And it's not about them being fat. They can have other even toxic characteristics. Just don't make it the basis of it being fat.

[Katie Nolan]

Can I ask you a question?

[Ian Carmel]

Yeah.

[Katie Nolan]

Because I'm not. I'm. I'm not up on this culture as much, but where do we stand on the word fat?

[Ian Carmel]

I love the word fat. I. I say the word fat. I tend to think that we will take, like, switch out words like their NASCAR tires. You know what I mean? Or F1 tires. I guess it's more hot right now where it's like, we'll put that on. We'll let that soak up all the sin. And then we take it off and then we switch a new word in. So I have been with animosity called fat, overweight, obese, tubby.

[Pablo Torre]

Which one do you love the most?

[Ian Carmel]

I mean, in. I separate each chapter in the book with a different one I do love. Well, upholstered is my favorite. Well, upholstered, that one rules. I feel like a love scene.

[Pablo Torre]

You know who loves that term also? The grandma of grandma.

[Ian Carmel]

The grandma of grandma loves. Well, although she has put plastic over it.

[Pablo Torre]

That's right.

[Ian Carmel]

She has put plastic over the upholstery.

[Pablo Torre]

At the end of the show, Ian, at the end of the show, we say what we found out today.

[Ian Carmel]

Yes.

[Pablo Torre]

And so what did we find out on this journey through human nature and actual nature?

[Katie Nolan]

I found out that geoducks are not from Oregon. They are from Puget Sound. And I should.

[Ian Carmel]

Washington.

[Katie Nolan]

I should get my. Right before I speak on it.

[Pablo Torre]

It's gonna be a real explicit image. Like, of all the things we talked about showing a gooey duck even more profane than fat bastards.

[Ian Carmel]

It is more profane. It is more visually jarring than a shirtless fat bastard. You go to grocery stores in, like, the Pacific Northwest, they'll have geoducks in tanks.

[Katie Nolan]

Crazy.

[Ian Carmel]

And that is not what you want to see around food. Even though they are technically food, they look like a space.

[Katie Nolan]

Have you ever had one?

[Ian Carmel]

A gooey duck? Yeah.

[Katie Nolan]

Do they taste good?

[Ian Carmel]

They're.

[Pablo Torre]

Are they chewy?

[Ian Carmel]

More like. More like. More like a chewy duck.

[Katie Nolan]

Get out. Get out.

[Ian Carmel]

Iancarmel.com for two or.

[Katie Nolan]

What did you learn today?

[Ian Carmel]

What did I learn today? God, I learned a lot. I learned that it's T, I, P I and not T, E, E. Well.

[Katie Nolan]

Don'T ask the New York Times crossword, because sometimes they'll even do like T, E, P, E, E. Well, just one E in the first year.

[Ian Carmel]

I don't know. Between.

[Pablo Torre]

The old relationship continues.

[Ian Carmel]

How to spell tp And I learned that I. That I. Once I started talking, I actually. Pablo, I learned that you have vacation on the Oregon coast and you have just as deep an appreciation for it as I do.

[Pablo Torre]

The air. Oh, I just want that air.

[Ian Carmel]

It's incomparable.

[Pablo Torre]

It really is. Today, Pablo, what I learned is that in my friendships, inspired by Jeb Barton and by Bill Walton, I am honored to get to know people like you guys, for whom the Ian of Ian and the Katie of Katie are things that I am always trying to remember, transcend whatever the is happening right now in this moment, on this planet. I want to continue to cultivate friendships with people that I will carry literally forever. Insofar as forever also encapsulates whatever is beyond space and time. That's what I want, and that's what I found out today.

[Ian Carmel]

Pablo of Pablo has to have somebody to podcast with after the flesh is gone.

[Katie Nolan]

That's right.

[Ian Carmel]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

The Pablo of Pablo will get lonely. If you will.

[Katie Nolan]

Maybe the Pablo of Pablo will pay. The Katie of Katie.

[Ian Carmel]

The Ian of Ian has to leave right now. Ian will stay.

[Pablo Torre]

Wait a minute. We have one more breaking news update.

[Katie Nolan]

Oh, what?

[Ian Carmel]

Huh?

[Katie Nolan]

You got me. You got me.

[Ian Carmel]

Oh, that was a juicy one.

[Pablo Torre]

This has been Pablo Torre finds out a Meadowlark Media production and I'll talk to you next time.