256: #256 West Virginia feat. Joe Zimmerman

Summary

The Nateland Podcast Episode #256: West Virginia feat. Joe Zimmerman

Release Date: June 11, 2025

In Episode #256 of The Nateland Podcast, hosted by Brian Bates and Aaron Weber from Audioboom Studios, the spotlight shines on West Virginia with the return of guest comedian Joe Zimmerman. This engaging episode delves into a mix of personal anecdotes, cultural discussions, and insightful banter, all centered around the Mountain State.

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1. Nate Land's Exciting Updates [01:40 – 02:38]

The episode kicks off with Brian Bates and Aaron Weber sharing major updates about their host, Nate Land. Nate has been on a rolling "Big Dumb Eyes Tour," delivering incredible performances in Roanoke and Norfolk, Virginia. Notably, comedian Will Forte opened these shows by singing the national anthem, adding a special touch to the events.

Brian Bates enthuses, “Nate is burning the midnight oil. He's doing that on the weekends. And then during the week, he is filming his movie the Breadwinner. He's down in Atlanta shooting that. It's going to be great.” ([02:02])

Despite his packed schedule, Nate continues to engage his audience through the Nateland Podcast Network, offering various specials and podcasts that cater to diverse interests.

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2. Welcoming Back Joe Zimmerman [00:42 – 01:19]

Joe Zimmerman makes a triumphant return to the podcast, warmly greeted by Aaron Weber.

Joe Zimmerman: “It's your boy with my boys. Good to see you.” ([01:05])

This marks Zimmerman's return since the popular "Birds" episode, and he comes prepared with unwavering energy, ready to dive into discussions with presentations and thoughtful insights.

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3. Celebrating Joe Zimmerman's Success [04:00 – 05:42]

Zimmerman shares the success of his YouTube special, "Cult Classic," which recently surpassed 500,000 views.

Joe Zimmerman: “Hit 500,000 views on YouTube a little while ago and a lot of nice comments. Thank you for the comments.” ([05:00])

He discusses the creation of a "greatest hits" compilation of his top 10 jokes, curated based on audience feedback. While Zimmerman humorously admits uncertainty about his personal favorite jokes, he embraces the collective opinion, stating, “The voice of the people is the voice of God.” ([05:43])

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4. Navigating Accusations and Heckling [05:56 – 09:05]

Fan interactions take center stage as Zimmerman recounts being wrongly accused of stealing his own material.

Joe Zimmerman describes a particularly unsettling experience: “I'm three minutes into my set opening for Brian Regan, and it was going great in Durham. Everybody's into it. I'm not even bragging, but then you hear very loudly, this guy is stealing his material, yell, oh, my gosh, from the back.” ([07:11])

This heckler was swiftly removed by security, leaving Zimmerman and the audience in stunned silence. Despite the negativity, Zimmerman maintains his composure, emphasizing resilience and the importance of audience support.

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5. Personal Updates and Weekend Adventures [10:00 – 12:16]

Brian Bates opens up about recent fatigue attributed to aging and the joys of parenthood with a three-year-old.

Brian Bates: “It's age. It's age. And having a three year old. It's a perfect storm.” ([10:07])

He shares memories from trips with Nate to Chattanooga and Fayetteville, North Carolina, including a challenging gig at the Doghouse where overlapping audiences led to subpar performances.

Brian Bates: “So it was just people at the bar. We did a show and then nobody left and nobody came, and we had to do another show.” ([11:18])

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6. Accents and Regional Identity [13:00 – 22:00]

The conversation shifts to the nuances of accents and how regional backgrounds influence personal identity.

Joe Zimmerman explains his unique position: “When I'm in New York, people say I'm from the south; in the south, they say I'm from the north.” ([21:05])

The trio humorously debates the authenticity and perception of various accents, reflecting on Zimmerman's upbringing in Morgantown, West Virginia, and his experiences living in New York and North Carolina.

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7. Emphasizing Mental Health [35:00 – 36:44]

The hosts take a moment to highlight the importance of mental health, featuring a promotion for BetterHelp, the world's largest online therapy platform.

Brian Bates: “Therapy is helpful for learning positive coping skills and how to set boundaries and empowers you to be the best version of yourself.” ([35:53])

This segment underscores the podcast's commitment to addressing holistic well-being, encouraging listeners to seek support when needed.

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8. Deep Dive into West Virginia [62:20 – 107:00]

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to exploring West Virginia's cultural and geographical landscape, dispelling myths, and celebrating its uniqueness.

Misconceptions in Music and Media: The hosts dissect the iconic song "Take Me Home, Country Roads" by John Denver, clarifying geographical inaccuracies.

Aaron Weber: “The Appalachian Mountains are West Virginia. It's the only state that it's all contained in called the Mountain State.” ([71:00])

Folklore and Legends: They delve into the legend of the Mothman, a mysterious creature from West Virginia folklore, discussing its origins and cultural impact.

Cultural Highlights: Discussions around West Virginia's culinary staple, the pepperoni roll, and its significance as a miner's food intertwine with stories of hunting traditions and the state's rich Appalachian roots.

Statistical Insights: Brian Bates presents sobering statistics about West Virginia, noting high smoking rates, obesity, and the state's ranking in life expectancy, juxtaposed with a commendable high school graduation rate.

Brian Bates: “It has the highest graduation rate in the country for high school.” ([74:07])

Famous West Virginians: The episode celebrates notable figures from West Virginia, including Jerry West (NBA logo), Don Knotts, Steve Harvey, Mary Lou Retton, and Randy Moss, highlighting their contributions and enduring legacies.

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9. Listener Engagement and Tour Announcements [107:00 – 110:38]

The hosts wrap up the episode by sharing upcoming tour dates for Brian Bates and Joe Zimmerman, inviting listeners to attend their live shows.

Brian Bates announces his performances at Good Nights Comedy Club in Raleigh and the Comedy Catch in Chattanooga, while Joe Zimmerman shares his appearances at Acme Comedy Club in Minneapolis and Blue Ridge Comedy in Bristol, Tennessee.

Additionally, Zimmerman promotes his new YouTube special, urging listeners to watch his "Top 10 Internet's favorite bits" available online.

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10. Final Remarks and Acknowledgments [110:34 – End]

Concluding the episode, Brian and Aaron express their appreciation for Joe's participation and extend greetings to their absent hosts, Dusty Slay and Nate Land, expressing hope for their return.

Brian Bates: “We miss you. Dusty and Nate. You know we love you. Come back.” ([110:38])

The episode closes with warm thanks and farewells, leaving listeners eagerly anticipating future discussions and guest appearances.

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Notable Quotes:

• Joe Zimmerman on Audience Feedback: “The voice of the people is the voice of God.” ([05:43])

• Joe Zimmerman on Overcoming Heckling: “You don't get respect. You don't get heckled very often, but every now and then you get a guy full yelling mid theater.” ([08:00])

• Brian Bates on West Virginia’s Graduation Rate: “It has the highest graduation rate in the country for high school.” ([74:07])

• Joe Zimmerman on Being Accused of Stealing Material: “People really jump to the steel accusation fast.” ([07:28])

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Conclusion

Episode #256 of The Nateland Podcast offers a rich tapestry of humor, insightful discussions, and heartfelt stories, all anchored by the engaging presence of Joe Zimmerman. Through candid conversations about West Virginia's culture, personal challenges, and the evolving landscape of comedy, the podcast provides both entertainment and meaningful reflections, making it a must-listen for fans and newcomers alike.

Transcript

[Aaron Weber]

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[Brian Bates]

Hello, folks, and hey, Bear. As always, I'm Brian Bates, always Aaron Weber. And that's pretty much all the always we have these days. Nate is still on location shooting the breadwinner. Dusty is in his bunker, but filling in the wonderful. We don't know where Dusty is, but he's not here. Joe Zimmerman's back.

[Aaron Weber]

All right.

[Joe Zimmerman]

It's your boy with my boys. Good to see you.

[Aaron Weber]

Happy to have you back, man. Been a while. I'm trying to remember the last time we saw you.

[Brian Bates]

It was the birds episode, which people loved.

[Joe Zimmerman]

People loved it. Yeah. Yeah. We did the bird. We did the bird contest.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah, I like that. You come ready. Yeah, yeah, you come ready. A lot of these guests, these people come on the podcast. They take it for granted. They go, we're gonna make Brian do the heavy lifting. Joe comes in. He's got PowerPoint slides. He's got an easel. He's got a laser pointer. This guy's ready to go. And I'm excited to get into it. But before that, I know we got some big Nate Land announcements.

[Brian Bates]

Oh, we do. We do.

[Aaron Weber]

Is that a good. I feel like it was pretty good.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah, it's pretty good.

[Aaron Weber]

Donut to you. Like, we're real anchors here.

[Brian Bates]

Back to you, Eric. The big Dumb eyes tour. Nate had incredible shows this past weekend in Roanoke, in. In Norfolk, Virginia. Norfolk. Is that you say it. Norfolk.

[Aaron Weber]

I think the L. Silent like folk, right? Norfolk.

[Brian Bates]

Norfolk.

[Aaron Weber]

I have no idea.

[Brian Bates]

Okay, keep going. Hello, Norfolk. Anyway, they had Will Forte out there on the road with them opening the shows by singing the national anthem, and that's pretty cool. And anyway, the big dumb eyes towards coming to a city near you. So check out nateland.com Nate is. He is burning the midnight oil. He's doing that on the weekends. And then during the week, he is filming his movie the Breadwinner. He's down in Atlanta shooting that. It's. It's going to be great. But Nate is not taking any days off.

[Aaron Weber]

Long days. Yeah, long days.

[Joe Zimmerman]

When I flew into the Nashville airport, I was greeted by his voice telling me to check to make sure I'm taking the correct luggage to his guest Guest house. It was very confusing.

[Aaron Weber]

It's like Nate and Reba and Keith Urban.

[Brian Bates]

Legally, it's just Nate I hear.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah, just Nate's voice all night.

[Brian Bates]

But as someone who's been traumatized by Nate in the Nashville airport, when I hear him just yelling, check your bags, I'm like, oh, my gosh.

[Joe Zimmerman]

He's.

[Brian Bates]

He's here.

[Joe Zimmerman]

I couldn't believe it. You land in Nashville. Hello, folks. Yeah. Come on, Nate.

[Brian Bates]

Yep, he's everywhere.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Get out of here.

[Brian Bates]

He is everywhere. Nateland has a handful of great specials from Greg Warren, Aaron Weber, Nick Th, Steven Rogers, plus Nateland podcast network, the Consumers with Greg Warren every Tuesday, Correct Opinions with Trey Kennedy every Wednesday. And don't make me come back there with Dustin Melissa Nickerson every Thursday. Season three of Nateland presents the showcase big time. Tickets are on sale now. That's going to be here at the lab June 22nd, 23rd, and 24th. If you want to be part of that taping right here in Nashville, get those tickets. Nate Lance producing Ryan Hamilton's next Netflix special, filming at the Neptune theater in Seattle on October 4th. Get your tickets for that now. You're not a fan of Ryan Hamilton, you said, but we love him.

[Aaron Weber]

You two have a very public beef, the two of you.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah, I think it's important to have one arch nemesis, and we're both considered in the clean genre.

[Brian Bates]

Right, Right.

[Joe Zimmerman]

People say he's doing better than me, and so, yeah, we've got a pretty big beef. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We don't talk unless it's just to send each other our current numbers ticket sales. And he's got a lot of ticket sales, and that's why I'm so mad at him.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah, y' all haven't talked in a while.

[Brian Bates]

And Nateland Merch is out there. Natemargetzi.com Go there. Just click Shop at the Top for Nateland Merch.

[Aaron Weber]

Shop at the Top.

[Brian Bates]

Check out the site for new drops. If you're coming out to show, come find us at the merch table. But, Joe, speaking of great specials, you had a great special. Still do have a great special. Cult classic.

[Joe Zimmerman]

I appreciate it.

[Brian Bates]

And it hit a big milestone, I believe.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah. Hit 500,000 views on YouTube a little while ago and a lot of nice comments. Thank you for the comments. And there was an idea to do a greatest hits. And so some folks went through, found the top 10 jokes from the special, and that clip just dropped on YouTube. Greatest hits from my special. And then it's ranked 10th best through best joke according to the Internet.

[Aaron Weber]

So do you agree with the list?

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah, it's. It's according to the Internet. So I'm kind of like, I don't. I don't know. I. I don't have like a. Well, I guess what I'm saying is I don't have like a favorite joke.

[Aaron Weber]

Okay.

[Joe Zimmerman]

You know what I'm saying?

[Aaron Weber]

You know what they say? The voice of the people is the voice of God.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

That's beautiful.

[Aaron Weber]

So let's just defer to them and let them. Let them decide. Do you have jokes in your act that, like, they're for you? You ever think about it? Like, I enjoy this more than it ever gets from the audience.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

And most of what I'm doing these days.

[Joe Zimmerman]

And sometimes those jokes continue to do poorly.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Joe Zimmerman]

And other times those will get drop on YouTube and those will hit the hardest.

[Aaron Weber]

They'll find the little lane that it needs to be in. Right.

[Joe Zimmerman]

So some of those in the top 10 were those jokes I was doing for myself and they found their little lane on the Internet.

[Aaron Weber]

Oh, that's great.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

I love that Joe has one of my favorite jokes of all time. Every tax season, I think about it about filing taxes.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Oh, yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

It's the most stolen joke in the history of the Internet, I think.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Thank you. There are a lot of memes now.

[Brian Bates]

It's so funny.

[Aaron Weber]

Full on sketches of people doing the bit. Basically word for word.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah, yeah, I'll take it. That's the only. The only. The only weird thing for me is a lot of people will tag me and be like, you stole Joe Zimmerman tag.

[Aaron Weber]

That's kind of nice though, isn't it?

[Joe Zimmerman]

All right, so I see. So I see. Get to see everyone.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got accused of. I posted a bit from. For my special, and there's a comment that this is a stolen bit. I just saw it somewhere and I was like, oh, I'd love to see where you saw it. He saw a woman lip syncing my bit.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yep.

[Aaron Weber]

And thought that I don't know. And was like, you stole it from this woman lip syncing my. Yeah, I know. Like, golly, man.

[Joe Zimmerman]

People really jump to the steel accusation fast.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Joe Zimmerman]

On the Internet.

[Aaron Weber]

They love doing it. They love catching you. Oh, you stole it. And you're like, no, it's really not how it works.

[Brian Bates]

And then I love to say, show me where. And then they go silent usually. And that's still not good enough for me. Like, I want to keep badgering them. Oh, yeah, I'm still waiting.

[Joe Zimmerman]

One of the worst heckles I've ever heard in my life was at me in a giant theater.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Joe Zimmerman]

I'm three minutes into my set opening for Brian Regan, and it was going great in Durham. Everybody's into it. I'm not even, like, bragging, but I'm saying that because then you hear very loudly, this guy is stealing his material, yell, oh, my gosh, from the back. And I've never heard a heckle like that in my life. And I was so. Everybody just silent. And I was like, okay, whose material am I?

[Brian Bates]

Who's he?

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah, whose sea lion bit was that? I just did. And he was like. He was silent. And I was like, okay, yeah, well.

[Aaron Weber]

Don'T back away now. You're the one. Yeah, let's hash this out.

[Joe Zimmerman]

And then he was just quickly removed by security three minutes into the show, and apparently, quickly, apparently he was hammered. And to this day I'm like, I wonder if he heard my voice on Sirius XM and just was like, I've heard this.

[Aaron Weber]

This guy's stealing material.

[Joe Zimmerman]

I've heard this sea lion bit.

[Aaron Weber]

Even blackout drunk. He's got a deep sense of justice.

[Joe Zimmerman]

So anyway, you don't get respect. You don't get heckled very often, but every now and then you get a guy full yelling mid theater.

[Brian Bates]

That is quite a heckle.

[Joe Zimmerman]

And then the rest of the show went great.

[Brian Bates]

I was about to ask, did you recover?

[Joe Zimmerman]

People were like, thank. People were literally like, did you set that up? Because that was really funny. Did you set up that heckler?

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. Wow. You have a very distinct voice on SiriusXM. Whenever I listen, it always takes a little time for my screen to update to what the next joke is.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Okay.

[Brian Bates]

So your joke will start and it'll still be saying Angela Johnson. And I'll be like, I don't think this is Angela. But as soon as I hear your voice, I can. Like, that's Joe Zimmerman.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

I like to guess it's just a little game I play in the car.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah. I don't know how to describe my voice because I only hear it how I hear it, so you feel free to describe it. Sultry. I don't know, Sleepy. Like if a sloth could speak English.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

Well, let's get into our weekends. I. We pre recorded last week's show, so.

[Aaron Weber]

We'Ve been gone two weeks now.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

So we got a lot to catch up on.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

But where were you? What have you been doing? How you been feeling?

[Brian Bates]

Tired.

[Aaron Weber]

Okay. Is that just age or things going on?

[Brian Bates]

All. It's age. It's age. And having a three year old.

[Aaron Weber]

It's a perfect storm.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. It's all of it. But where have I been? This is gonna be a quick. Also losing my memory. I was home this weekend.

[Aaron Weber]

Okay.

[Brian Bates]

I'm thinking about last weekend. Oh, I was with Nate.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Oh, yeah?

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. I was with Nate last weekend in Chattanooga and Fayetteville, North Carolina.

[Aaron Weber]

Fayette, Nam.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

So did they call it that there?

[Brian Bates]

No, not to me, at least.

[Aaron Weber]

I don't know if that's a derogatory term or not, but that's what people call Fayetteville, North Carolina.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Gonna guess it's derogatory term. Gonna go out on a limb and guess Fayetnam has a negative connotation.

[Aaron Weber]

That's fair. I didn't know if it was something they've embraced as a city, you know?

[Brian Bates]

No, I've only heard that from you.

[Aaron Weber]

Okay. I didn't make it up. I want to make that very clear. It's not even a good pun. It's Fayetteville. Fayette, Nam. It doesn't even make sense.

[Joe Zimmerman]

You had a gig. Did you have a bad gig there at once?

[Aaron Weber]

I had one of the worst gigs of my life in that city.

[Joe Zimmerman]

That's why you call it Vietnam.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah. I opened for Dusty at a place called the Doghouse.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Wow.

[Aaron Weber]

And it was. It was a bonkers gig. You ever worked bonkers rooms I've heard about? Bonkers with a Z. Bonkers with a Z. Of course, I've only heard.

[Joe Zimmerman]

I've only heard of them.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah. And it was two shows at the Doghouse and they didn't clear the room between the shows, so it was just people at the bar. We did a show and then nobody left and nobody came, and we had to do another show.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Same people.

[Aaron Weber]

Same people. Same people that didn't want the first show. We got to come back and do another hour and a half.

[Joe Zimmerman]

That's. That's like a bad dream.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah. I said, dusty, what do you want me to do? He goes, nah, I don't care. He was like, just open mic it. So second show was terrible. Worse than the first one.

[Joe Zimmerman]

But would you call it your Vietnam?

[Aaron Weber]

I said, we're taking the last, last plane out of here, right, Joe?

[Brian Bates]

Where we been lately?

[Joe Zimmerman]

I.

[Aaron Weber]

Well, how was. How are the Nate shows? Chattanooga. He broke attendance record or something.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. It's like.

[Joe Zimmerman]

It's like every time.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Like, why do we even talk?

[Brian Bates]

He broke the tennis record. Who knows? No, he did.

[Joe Zimmerman]

It's gotta be embarrassing to brag every time he does a show, you know?

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. The Chad nugget show started 45 minutes late because they never had that many people in that arena.

[Aaron Weber]

Wow.

[Brian Bates]

So it just overwhelmed everything. So these people who have babysitters, they loved it when they saw me coming up instead of Nate. They're like, this is. This is what we want. We've been waiting this long. No, it was. It was a lot of fun. I was trying to think of anything unusual from the weekend, but it was just a good, fun weekend.

[Aaron Weber]

Just a good time.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

Where you been, Joe?

[Joe Zimmerman]

I'm coming down from my apartment in New York City. I guess I've been home. I will say that each night, some of you know this about me. I go to sleep using YouTube. Ambient sounds.

[Aaron Weber]

I didn't know that, but it doesn't surprise me.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah. You go to rainfall, of course. Waterfall, brown noise. Pink noise. Space station, green noise.

[Aaron Weber]

You ever do just traffic noises or. You already have that in your.

[Joe Zimmerman]

That's what I have currently. I mean, that's just New York.

[Aaron Weber]

Okay.

[Joe Zimmerman]

So I go to drown out the traffic.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah. So do you guys ever do that with ambient sleep noise?

[Aaron Weber]

I don't use YouTube, but I have a white noise machine that I use everywhere.

[Joe Zimmerman]

I think that's smart, because YouTube, there is a gauntlet I have to run every night where you open it, and I try to keep my eyes on the prize. I try to keep my eyes. Click brown noise real quick.

[Aaron Weber]

Okay.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Because it shows you all the temptation. Temptations below that the robots think that I would click.

[Aaron Weber]

And they know you really well.

[Joe Zimmerman]

They know everything about me based on everything I've ever done. And so it's usually Charles Barkley and Shaq.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Joe Zimmerman]

And I've just. I can't.

[Brian Bates]

Classic tale.

[Aaron Weber]

Please.

[Joe Zimmerman]

But late this week, they. I had a good, clean, sober streak going of not clicking any of the temptations. This past weekend, they found a new corner of the Internet that hit me, which was old people giving life advice. Are you familiar with this?

[Aaron Weber]

Brian has a podcast.

[Joe Zimmerman]

That's your new podcast.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Joe Zimmerman]

I love that for you.

[Aaron Weber]

How old are we talking?

[Joe Zimmerman]

Like, it'll be. It's just a thumbnail of a guy. Looks like he's 100.

[Aaron Weber]

Okay.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Sitting on his back porch, blurry, face close to the camera.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah, yeah.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Like a USS Missouri cap.

[Aaron Weber]

Oh, there you go.

[Joe Zimmerman]

And it'll be like, they do.

[Brian Bates]

They know they're giving life advice.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah. It'll be like, my grandson set this up for me two hours ago.

[Brian Bates]

I see.

[Joe Zimmerman]

And he'll be like, you know, I would love that. There's a lot of different Types of old people. My favorite, I think is the overly modest one. Yeah, it's like, you know, I don't know too much about these device gadgets, but device gadget. But I did invent the steamboat, so I think you'll find some of the things I have to say pretty interesting. Not that I know how this computer works, but I did get nine purple hearts and I've survived four shark attacks. So hopefully you'll find some of this interesting. And the best part is there's no edits. You'll just see him just kind of gaze off and think.

[Aaron Weber]

Think about what he's done.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Take a deep bre.

[Aaron Weber]

I love that.

[Joe Zimmerman]

So Anyway, I love YouTube with no edits. It's my new thing is just the long form, direct to Cam, 30 minute ramble, not unplanned.

[Aaron Weber]

I like that. You know, nothing's candid anymore. I was thinking about this. There's an old video that I became obsessed with for a while from like 1988. And this guy just walks into a 711 at 2 in the morning and he's got a video camera. And it was the time when it was a big deal. Sure. If somebody had a video camera on it and it's just like an hour of continuous footage at the 7:11 and you're like, nothing's. There's no continuous footage of anything anymore. It's all just let me hold my phone, record a video. Stop it. But there's no, like my family videos growing up were somebody just turned the camera on opening Christmas presents. And it's just like an hour of. And you get to really see people how they actually are and they're not just performing for the camera. It's kind of fun.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah. I yearn for the. The lack of. When I see quick cuts on YouTube, the ones with 19 million views, I can't do it with the quick cuts.

[Aaron Weber]

Right.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah, there's. I'm sure it's on YouTube. There was like a public access station or something that would just put a camera on the back of a train and just show it going from behind, going across the country.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

And people would watch it all the time. There's just something mesmerizing about just watching go through up.

[Joe Zimmerman]

That's. That's. That's my kind of ambient. Yeah. Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

Y' all are old man.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Brian's old.

[Brian Bates]

I am old.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Brian's old. My least. By the way, I'll cap your least favorite person is Brian Bates. Yeah, my. My. Ryan Hamilton's my arch nemesis. Brian Bates is my arch Enemy.

[Brian Bates]

Yes.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah. Which is a guy you hate but you're not competitive with.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Exactly. I don't feel competitive toward Brian.

[Aaron Weber]

He just. It's just pure spite.

[Brian Bates]

It has nothing to do with competition. Well, thank you, Jeb.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Appreciate that. Yeah. It's not a sign of respect, but.

[Brian Bates]

Somebody'S feeling comfortable in that seat now.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Third time on you gotta start Three timers Club.

[Brian Bates]

Well, that was great, Joe.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Thanks for sharing, but I just wanted to.

[Brian Bates]

There's more. Okay.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Oh, I didn't. I just wanted to wrap what I was saying. Yeah, sure, sure, sure.

[Brian Bates]

Go ahead, wrap what you're saying about me. How you hate me. Go ahead.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Brian's good at this game. I have newfound respect.

[Brian Bates]

Wow.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah. Ryan Hamilton would never bring the heat like this.

[Joe Zimmerman]

No, I'll just wrap that. What I was doing by saying my least favorite form of the old person advice. Yes, woman, young person. Than. Yes, exactly. Is young person asks old people for life advice. And then you see this 19 year old who wants to be an influencer being like, hey, I'm trying to ask old person advice.

[Aaron Weber]

Somebody like on the street.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

Like, you just find a random old.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Guy and it'll be like some woman that's like, I'm 30. And he's like, perfect. He's like, what's it like? She's just like, I guess. I guess I would have drank. Drank less when I was 19. I don't know. He's like, that's wise.

[Aaron Weber]

Do some of these old guys have accents that you don't hear anymore? I love that old time, like, turn of the century accent.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Oh, yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

That you don't hear. That just kind of died, you know what I mean? I mean, I can't do it, but you know what I'm talking about.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah. It's hard for me to delineate between an old person's voice and then the 1950s accent. I don't know which one's which.

[Aaron Weber]

Okay.

[Joe Zimmerman]

You know what I'm saying?

[Aaron Weber]

I think maybe is it one in the same?

[Brian Bates]

You're thinking about how it's weird, accents excluded, just how as you age, your voice changes. Like you can tell an old person's voice just by hearing it. Like, what's that all about?

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah. Is it in their accent? It's in the sound of their voice. Like our voices change.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah, the.

[Joe Zimmerman]

The vocal become a little. Well, you know, I don't know.

[Aaron Weber]

There's a little patina in it. I don't know what else. You call it the vocal box.

[Brian Bates]

There's something that changes.

[Aaron Weber]

Worn down dude it's just. It goes through some cold.

[Joe Zimmerman]

What are we gonna do when our voice is like that? Are we gonna embrace it?

[Brian Bates]

But don't you. I've embraced mine.

[Aaron Weber]

You don't have an old guy voice. I bet you've sounded like this forever. I bet you were in middle school and you sounded like you sound right now.

[Brian Bates]

You know, I didn't realize it, but when I watch videos of myself when I was younger, I had a much more Southern accent.

[Aaron Weber]

I believe that.

[Brian Bates]

Not that I don't have one now, but I had a really Southern accent.

[Aaron Weber]

Well, Nate had a much thicker one.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

Back in the, like you old Henry Cho clips. It's like crazy Leanne's.

[Brian Bates]

Amazing how she's held onto hers.

[Aaron Weber]

It's been that consistent. Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

Do you have an accent, Joe? Where are you from? Who are you?

[Joe Zimmerman]

I grew up in Morgantown, West Virginia.

[Aaron Weber]

Oh, did you really?

[Joe Zimmerman]

I did, and I've lived in New York City for 12 years. I spent 10 years in North. I've been about eight years in North Carolina. So I'm told in New York that I have a Southern accent. When I'm in the South, I'm told I have a northern accent.

[Aaron Weber]

Okay.

[Joe Zimmerman]

I don't believe I have an accent, but most people don't believe they have an accent.

[Aaron Weber]

I bet I'll hear it in a, like, a few words. You can probably hear it just the way. But just in general, I think it's just kind of nice down the middle.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah. No, I don't think anybody's ever successfully done an imitation of a West Virginia accent because they vary from north to south.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Joe Zimmerman]

But in Morgantown, where I grew up, we're really close to Pittsburgh, and so you'll get a little bit of that Steel town accent where it's like Yin's yens or like, go. Going up to the Stillers game this week, real excited to get. Well, we don't know how Aaron Rodgers is going to be, but we love the Stillers. Could take a leave Aaron Rodgers, but we'll be, you know, best quarterback Stillers have had in a couple years, the Steelers. So that's the closest I can do to a Morgan accent, but that's more Pittsburgh. Okay. And Morgantown's like Pittsburgh South.

[Aaron Weber]

Okay.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah, we're going to get into some.

[Aaron Weber]

We're going to get into a lot more of that coming up here soon. I'm excited to dig into it. As you know, Father's Day is coming up. What do you get the man who has everything or says he doesn't need anything. That's me. I've been saying I don't want anything. You say that and people ask you, what do you want?

[Brian Bates]

No, I list a lot of things.

[Aaron Weber]

You have?

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

You have a list ready to go.

[Brian Bates]

I have a lot of needs.

[Aaron Weber]

I go, I don't know. I'm good. Well, get your dad something he'll love. An aura digital frame. Every year when father's day comes around, I have so much trouble shopping for my dad. We got him an aura frame. We have one for the family, and all the kids are hooked up to it. And you can send pictures to it remotely over the phone. And they can see pictures of all their grandkids and whatever else we got going on. Or frames was named the best digital photo frame by wirecutter. It's easy to see why. Unlimited storage. As many photos, videos, and funny memes as you can find. And it's so simple to set up. Even your parents can do it. For the guy who swore he didn't need anything, let the aura frame prove him wrong. Aura has a great deal for father's day. For a limited time, listeners can save on the perfect gift by visiting auraframes.com to get $30 off their best selling carver mat frame. That's a U R A frames.com promo code. Nate. Support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply.

[Brian Bates]

All right, Aaron, you got your Notre Dame jersey there. Where you been?

[Aaron Weber]

Where was I? I was off this past weekend, but before that I was in. I was in northern Indiana, south bend. Did a show at the Notre Dame reunion at the Washington hall. Beautiful theater on Notre Dame right underneath the golden dome.

[Brian Bates]

Wow.

[Aaron Weber]

Just a great night. The show was great. Then we did two shows in South Bend the next night. And then Fort Wayne. Two shows in Fort Wayne. It was a long, very fun weekend. So thank you to everybody. Came out in northern Indiana. I love it up there. I love it up there. That's God's country. That's what they say.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Which states are not God's country.

[Aaron Weber]

I mean, I think you know the answer to that. We don't have to get into it.

[Brian Bates]

Aaron and I just saw the new mission impossible movie.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Oh, I haven't seen it yet. Heard good things.

[Brian Bates]

Well, I don't want to give away.

[Aaron Weber]

Who'd you hear them from?

[Joe Zimmerman]

Tom Cruise specifically. Said it was good.

[Brian Bates]

Anyway, I don't give too much away. But in the movie, they have to choose a city to wipe out with a nuclear weapon, but they never say which city it is. And we were speculating in the car ride back what city would be. I'm not going to throw out any names now, but we all have our favorites.

[Joe Zimmerman]

That's a fun game if you had to blow up one city. Yeah. Gun to your head.

[Aaron Weber]

You ever do the Nuke map? We've done it on this podcast before. I won't do it again. But there's a great tool online called the Nuke Map and you can pick any bomb and drop it anywhere on Google Maps. It'll tell you the casualty count, what the. The radiation fallout would be, and I mean, it's crazy. Spent hours on there.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Wow.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah. The largest bomb ever dropped. If it dropped on the Batman building in Nashville. I'm burned up in Mount Juliet, 25 minutes away. That's. I mean, that's the. Just the radius of these. I mean, I'm wiped out anyway from the lack of food, the rate.

[Joe Zimmerman]

You better move. You better move further out of town. You're farther. You better move farther away.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah, move to Lebanon. I'm sorry, I didn't know where you were going.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Aaron, which part is tickling his. Which part is tickling him so much?

[Brian Bates]

He said he's out anyway because I said because of lack of food.

[Aaron Weber]

I bet the massive fireball coming from. Oh, that's funny. That's good stuff. Want to get in the comments?

[Brian Bates]

Sure, let's do it. Comments come from Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Apple podcast reviews, and [e-mail]. absolutely love this podcast. It's opened up a whole new.

[Aaron Weber]

Who said it?

[Brian Bates]

Oh, I'm sorry. I apologize. Jeffrey Rollins. Jeffrey Rollins. Absolutely love this podcast. Has opened up a whole new perspective on what truly is funny. It doesn't have to be spoken in vulgar and inappropriate language. It can be done just like this and nobody is offended. Also, I stand with Dusty and everything he believes in. Well, this guy's a loon, but yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

He had me there till the end.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

Good thing we got this coming in while Dusty was not here.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. Well, thank you, Jeffrey. That's very nice.

[Aaron Weber]

He doesn't need the confidence boost at this point. You know what I mean?

[Brian Bates]

Yeah, we agree with you. Yeah, that's what we go for.

[Aaron Weber]

Thank you. Jeffrey Rollins.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

Mike Myers.

[Brian Bates]

Austin Meek. You think that's Meek?

[Aaron Weber]

Meek, probably.

[Brian Bates]

I was driving a rental minivan in LA traffic when bathroom issues hit. I didn't make it.

[Aaron Weber]

Hey, dude, you know what, man? I've been there, man.

[Brian Bates]

I couldn't get the smell out. It was too embarrassing to return, so I was too embarrassed to return it. So I parked it in front of a smoke shop and reported it stolen. I've always wanted to turn this story into a stand up bit.

[Joe Zimmerman]

A rental minivan reported stolen.

[Aaron Weber]

That's so great.

[Joe Zimmerman]

I've always wanted to turn the story into a stand up. But is he a stand up?

[Brian Bates]

I don't know. I think he might be like I might just launch your career just because of this story.

[Aaron Weber]

He probably could. I mean those are your two options, right? You buy the car or you report it stolen. I don't think he had any other choices at that moment. But you know that feeling where you. It hits and you look around and it, you're like, I have. It's happening. Yeah, it's happening right now.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

And I can't do anything about it.

[Joe Zimmerman]

I feel like any, I feel like a decent investigator. Austin would have pretty gotten to the bottom of what really happened pretty quick.

[Aaron Weber]

His DNA is all over that van.

[Brian Bates]

Strong evidence here.

[Aaron Weber]

What did he do? Did he just get an Uber from the smoke shop? What did he do?

[Brian Bates]

Did that Uber driver has to report his car stolen. Just a cycle.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah, he just has to destroy some Uber. Wow.

[Brian Bates]

Mace. Mason Vandy Po.

[Aaron Weber]

I'd like Austin right in with some more details. I would just want to find out like what, I mean just all the, like what you do, you pull over to the smoke shop, you get out. You're obviously not in the best condition. Like what do you do?

[Brian Bates]

Yeah, there's a lot of unanswered.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah, that's a. That's also a shout out to how bad L A traffic is.

[Aaron Weber]

You can't. Can't do anything.

[Joe Zimmerman]

How bad is it? I'll tell you how bad L A traffic is.

[Brian Bates]

Awesome. Yeah, let us know. We want to produce your next special. Mason Vandy Pole.

[Joe Zimmerman]

That's a made up name. Mason.

[Brian Bates]

That's good. Joe, you should try comedy.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Don't hate on me, Brian.

[Aaron Weber]

That's a cult classic.

[Brian Bates]

My wife and I had the pleasure of seeing Aaron in Des Moines last year.

[Aaron Weber]

All right.

[Brian Bates]

And I had him sign his card. All right, now I just need blank Dusty and Nate to create cards so I can complete the page. Why don't more non athletes in the public eye have trading cards? I would think it's an easy merch item to travel with.

[Aaron Weber]

It is an easy merch item to travel with. I'm going to have some, some new baseball cards. And coming up this fall, I think I have baseball cards that I made that, you know, sign them and get my dates on the back. It's a nice little easy thing to sell. I think it's, I say the main reason more people don't do it. It's a little embarrassing to be a grown man or a grown woman and you have a fake trading card that you designed yourself. You know, I mean, so you have to get over that hurdle. But if you do that, I recommend it. What are some fun. Have you seen some fun merch from other comics? Like some crazy things that people sell on the road? I've seen some embarrassing T shirts.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Oh, the most embarrassing.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Comedians, we have to embarrass ourselves with our merch.

[Aaron Weber]

You do have to a little bit.

[Brian Bates]

The more embarrassing they are, the joke, I feel like the better they sell.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Exactly. I know. The cooler the shirt. You're going to sell one, you're going to sell one. It's going to be some hipster person buys it.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Joe Zimmerman]

The more, the more people make fun of it. It's just hotcakes.

[Aaron Weber]

That's right.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Oh, yeah. So I do know. I thought I won. There's a flaming wallet merch. Have you seen this?

[Aaron Weber]

No.

[Joe Zimmerman]

There was an emcee, good comedian, but he was an emcee, was MCing the week at some improv or funny bone. So MC feature headliner at the end of his MC set, he would be like, by the way, I got these wallets for sale. And he opens it up and the wallet catches fire.

[Aaron Weber]

Oh, that's pretty cool.

[Joe Zimmerman]

And then he closes it.

[Aaron Weber]

Has nothing to do with his act.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Nothing to do with that.

[Aaron Weber]

He doesn't even do it in a bit at all?

[Joe Zimmerman]

No, no, no bits. But he has a, like a little joke about the flaming wallet, like pulling it out of the store or something.

[Aaron Weber]

Okay.

[Joe Zimmerman]

He does a bit about the merch. So after the show it is a line longer than you've ever seen just to his table and me and the headliner over here by ourselves, everybody wants a flaming wallet.

[Brian Bates]

Brian Reagan is just sitting there watching. Well, how does it work?

[Joe Zimmerman]

There's.

[Brian Bates]

Well, it seems like a safety hazard.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Well, I can guarantee that many people have set buildings on fire with this merch.

[Brian Bates]

Okay.

[Joe Zimmerman]

So it is. There's no way. It's not. There's no way it's safe. But basically, as you open it, it strikes. Like a lighter strikes. Yeah. I'm not an expert on the flaming wallet, I'm sorry to admit.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

Did you buy one though, or did you. Not out of.

[Joe Zimmerman]

I know you wanted one and I believe the wallet.

[Brian Bates]

Let me ask you this, is it a one time thing?

[Joe Zimmerman]

No, it keeps it doesn't catch it on fire. I think you can keep refilling it like a lighter.

[Brian Bates]

Okay.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah. I bet you can find a video of a flaming wallet. And I. I'm sure there's more people, more comedians in the country selling them, because, I mean, he made. He must have made three grand just on his flaming wallets for the week.

[Brian Bates]

Wow.

[Joe Zimmerman]

I recommend everybody to sell flaming.

[Brian Bates]

Start doing this. Have you ever sold merch?

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah, I got my. I got my two birds one scone T shirt. Um, more recently, I. I have more embarrassing ones. In the past, I have a. I'm trying to think of my most embarrassing one. I just. I. My. Probably my worst selling one was just I heart Matt Damon.

[Aaron Weber]

Okay.

[Joe Zimmerman]

And it was funny to me.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Joe Zimmerman]

And people were like, we don't really need this.

[Aaron Weber]

You sell a lot of.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Didn't sell.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah. What's your most embarrassing. Your cd.

[Brian Bates]

Nice. Yeah, you're probably right about that. The fact I still sell it. We don't have a CD player. Well, just give me $10 then.

[Joe Zimmerman]

You do still sell it.

[Aaron Weber]

Now it's a coaster.

[Brian Bates]

I got a bunch in my trunk if you want one.

[Joe Zimmerman]

I do. I want one.

[Brian Bates]

I only started selling shirts in the last two, three years because in their N Land theme shirts, because I never could. Like, people would always say. My friends would say, put that joke on there that you tell about this. But it's not a standalone. It's not funny enough unless you know who I am. You know what I mean?

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

Like Nate. Nate's had so many. Had one for Hammet Sees or whatever. People know Nate. It's just. You're excited to buy a shirt, but for some no name guy. Unless the joke's really funny.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

Why would they want it?

[Aaron Weber]

And then you have to tell that joke every time you want to sell it.

[Brian Bates]

That's true too.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah. So you get boxed in that way.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

It's tough. It's tough. But thank you. Mason Van Der Pool.

[Brian Bates]

Let's see here. Run.

[Aaron Weber]

You got something.

[Joe Zimmerman]

I just like that. I just think that is the correct way to describe the four of you as non athletes. Just to follow up on what Mason said.

[Brian Bates]

Well, I forgot we're dealing with a college athlete here.

[Aaron Weber]

Oh, yeah, that's right. That's right.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Good memory. Thank you.

[Brian Bates]

Played golf at Davidson Davidson College with Steph Curry.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Division 1 athlete. Steph Curry was basically a teammate. As close as it gets.

[Aaron Weber]

Was he there when you were there?

[Joe Zimmerman]

No.

[Aaron Weber]

Okay.

[Joe Zimmerman]

But feel like he was.

[Aaron Weber]

But if you ever met him, that'd be a Conversation starter right there. Right?

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

I played golf at Davidson.

[Joe Zimmerman]

I played golf with Davis. It would be a conversation starter. I have met him.

[Aaron Weber]

I think it would end quickly after that. Did you really?

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

It'd be weird if you didn't ever bring it up.

[Joe Zimmerman]

It's. Yeah. It also is. It's a little weird that he's probably, like. He's probably a better golfer than most of the guys that were on the team at the time.

[Aaron Weber]

You think so? Is he that good?

[Joe Zimmerman]

No. Sorry. I should just say he's probably better than me because he is like a scratch golfer.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Joe Zimmerman]

And so he could have easily played on the golf team.

[Aaron Weber]

Wow.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

Golly.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Athlete.

[Aaron Weber]

Those freak athletes.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Athlete.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. Men today face immense pressure to perform, to provide and keep it all together. So it's no wonder that 6 million men in the U. S suffer from depression every year. And it's often undiagnosed. It's okay to struggle. Real strength comes from opening up about what you're carrying and doing something about it so you can be at your best for yourself and everyone in your life. It's not just all about you anymore, Aaron. You got a family to think about, so you got to get it together.

[Aaron Weber]

Okay.

[Brian Bates]

Therapy is helpful for learning positive coping skills and how to set boundaries and empowers you to be the best version of yourself. It isn't just for those who've experienced major trauma. Therapy is for everyone. Nate goes to therapy now there's over 35,000 therapists that BetterHelp helps out. It's the world's largest online therapy platform, having served over 5 million people globally. It's convenient. You can join a session with a therapist at the click of a button. Help you fit therapy into your business life. Plus switch therapists anytime. It's the largest online therapy provider in the world. BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a diverse variety of expertise. Talk it out with better help our listeners get 10% off their first [e-mail] Nate that's better. H E L p.com Nate Ron Nunnally. You think that's right?

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

I host a trivia chat where I ask trivia questions for a few times a week to about 30 of my co workers. I debuted fun fact Fridays where I would give a fun fact instead of asking a question. My first fun fact was our 10th president, John Tyler. Despite being born in 1790, still has a living grandson. Two days later, the grandson passed away at the age of 95. Now I know how bad news Bates feels. Well, thank you, Ron, for taking some accountability because everyone still blames me for this because we did. We've mentioned this guy a few times.

[Aaron Weber]

Right.

[Brian Bates]

We mentioned it recently on the Virginia episode. But hey, he's 95. Come on.

[Aaron Weber]

It was time.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

The Lord called him home.

[Brian Bates]

He did.

[Aaron Weber]

Or sent him away.

[Brian Bates]

Somebody called him home.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

We don't know anything about it.

[Aaron Weber]

Left.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. Justin.

[Aaron Weber]

Give it a shot. I really set myself up with Give it a shot.

[Brian Bates]

Squidieri.

[Joe Zimmerman]

That's got to be Italian.

[Aaron Weber]

Squidieri. Squidieri.

[Brian Bates]

I really hate. Dusty's not here for this comment. I recently saw Craig Ferguson live, and he came right out with no openers and did an hour 30 minutes in a theater. The crowd was immediately into it and laughed the entire time. What are your thoughts on this and who else do you think could pull it off?

[Aaron Weber]

Well, a ton of guys. Tell me if you disagree. A ton of guys could do that if they wanted to. Any of these big. Brian Regan, any of these guys, they could go out and do an hour and a half and it's just. They don't want to. It's easier to jump in there when the crowd's already warmed up and, you know, they've been. They've been hot for 20 minutes.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah, I agree. I also have seen musicians that I really wanted to see, and they came out cold. I would say call it cold. They just came out, performed for two hours, three hours, and it was great. I get to see the musician I want to see the whole time. But at the same time, I kind of like the buildup and the anticipation. Like, it's. To me, there's something about the buildup and the anticipation and also getting to see a variety of performers, seeing somebody.

[Aaron Weber]

You'Ve never seen before.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah. That makes it more of a full show. So I would ask. Sure. Craig Ferguson put on a great show for 90 minutes, but it's also possible that it could have been a better show.

[Aaron Weber]

That's true. That's true.

[Joe Zimmerman]

So I don't. I'm not a. I mean, it's. It's just his style. It sounds like that's Craig Ferguson style, and he's capable of that because he's hosted his own show, right? Yeah, he knows how to host 15, 20 years.

[Aaron Weber]

That's right.

[Brian Bates]

I feel like for music, people have really kind of built in. If we don't get there at time or need to go to the bathroom at concession stand, it's just the openers. So I could see how some people would actually be annoyed if the person they. Or group they came to see. Started right off the top.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah. The late comers are going to miss something. But anyway, he's saying this. Justin is saying that. Justin who Squidiery is saying the crowd was immediately into it and laughed the entire time. So he said it was a great show. And what are your thoughts? Yeah, I think that you can do it either way.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah. More power to him.

[Joe Zimmerman]

And if. But I will say, if the whole crowd is there to see just you, that makes it much more doable.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah. Me to a paper comedy club. Yeah. I want a couple overs in there to bite the bullet.

[Joe Zimmerman]

The bullet is almost always the crowd. The laughs aren't going to be feel as big in the first 5 minutes and 10 minutes and then everybody sort of is warmed up after 10 minutes. So it sounds like Ferguson, quote unquote, bit his own bullet and then went from there.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah, well, I think Dusty would agree. Dusty has his owner do five, and then he does an hour and a half.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Is that real?

[Brian Bates]

Yeah, pretty close. Now he. His opener does. I don't know how it does more than five.

[Aaron Weber]

I don't know. Yeah, 15, probably.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah, 15 then. I see you'll do about an hour 20.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Wow. Okay. Is something wrong with. What's wrong with Dusty?

[Aaron Weber]

We were trying to answer that. On this podcast, for over a year.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Now, I've heard Greg Warren, a comedian I respect so much, say that nobody wants to see more than 50 minutes. I've heard him say that.

[Aaron Weber]

Wow.

[Joe Zimmerman]

I don't know if he still agrees with that, but I've heard him say that.

[Brian Bates]

I think people want to see more than that. From Nate.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah, or any. Or, you know, any headliner, I think, in hours.

[Joe Zimmerman]

All right, Greg, you heard it first.

[Aaron Weber]

Call him up. Tell Greg he doesn't know what he's talking about.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Greg, you're wrong. Greg.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Consumers Podcast. Greg Warren.

[Brian Bates]

Ginger Giffen. As a fellow sleep apnea comrade, I'm curious what lotion preface uses on his face to help with the redness from the mask. Aaron, do you use anything? Thanks, guys. Love the pod.

[Aaron Weber]

We found our audience. Brian.

[Brian Bates]

Joe, are you a. Do you wear a CPAP by chance?

[Joe Zimmerman]

I actually wear a little. I do wear a sleep aid, a Breathe Right Strip. It's like a Breathe Right Strip, but it's more powerful.

[Aaron Weber]

It's got the magnets on either side. Pops open. I've seen those. They look pretty exciting.

[Joe Zimmerman]

It feels good.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Joe Zimmerman]

You put the magnet on your nose, all of a sudden you're inhaling all this oxygen.

[Aaron Weber]

You ever just wear it to the store? Or anything.

[Joe Zimmerman]

I. I've seen people with them on podcasts. I don't know why. It's almost like an eye catching thing. But I've worn it around the apartment.

[Aaron Weber]

Okay.

[Joe Zimmerman]

I like it. It's a good feeling. More oxygen I use.

[Brian Bates]

Prescribed by my dermatologist. Keto.

[Aaron Weber]

Ketamine.

[Brian Bates]

It's not ketamine. It starts K, E, T O and then some other stuff in there.

[Aaron Weber]

Okay.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Keto.

[Brian Bates]

And.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah, it's on the bacon thing.

[Brian Bates]

And that's a good joke.

[Aaron Weber]

So anyway, no, I don't use anything, man. Just get in there, you know, because.

[Brian Bates]

You'Re a real man.

[Aaron Weber]

I'm a real man. You're dry.

[Joe Zimmerman]

So you're. So it's some sort of cream you use.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah, because the mask right here especially.

[Aaron Weber]

It'Ll irritate this irritation.

[Brian Bates]

So I'll just rub a little.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Nice.

[Brian Bates]

Really? I used to do a little aquaphor. That's what we put on little beef.

[Aaron Weber]

Tallow, something like that.

[Brian Bates]

I don't know what that is, but it's keto.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Beef tallow is keto.

[Brian Bates]

Well, aquaphor is what we would put on sunburn. Our baby's, you know, she had a diaper rash or something and I'm like, hand me some of that.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah, there you go.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. Jacob Dean. There actually is a Shazam for bird calls. The app is called Merlin bird ID. A good time for all of us 40 plus year olds who have entered our bird watching phase. Love the podcast. Joe, do you know about this?

[Joe Zimmerman]

I 100% have Merlin bird ID. I have called it the Shazam for birds. And I walk around Central park with it and it tells you all the birds that are singing.

[Aaron Weber]

Do you find that it's pretty accurate?

[Joe Zimmerman]

It is very accurate. Unless you have a mockingbird in the area.

[Aaron Weber]

Whoa.

[Joe Zimmerman]

And the mockingbird does perfect imitations of about 14 other birds.

[Aaron Weber]

Is that why they call it a mockingbird?

[Joe Zimmerman]

They do. It nails other bird calls.

[Aaron Weber]

That's crazy.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Exact other bird calls.

[Aaron Weber]

What's the purpose of that? What is it? Does it try to. Is it a camouflage technique or what? Or is it just being a jerk? I mean, what's the evolutionary like, reasoning?

[Joe Zimmerman]

The only. I don't. I can only guess because I've seen one David Attenborough documentary, There you go. Where there was some type of bird that mimics sounds and some sort of wild boar was sniffing around its nest, about to knock down its nest, and the bird made some, like, call, like.

[Brian Bates]

9, 1, 1, like intruder.

[Joe Zimmerman]

The bird made some call of like, whatever predator of that Animal was.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Joe Zimmerman]

And the animal, like, ran away.

[Brian Bates]

Wow.

[Joe Zimmerman]

So I can only imagine it's maybe used in weird cases like that, but I don't know.

[Aaron Weber]

So this app is never usable because you could always just be like, well, there's probably a mockingbird nearby.

[Joe Zimmerman]

The good news is there's only a mockingbird around, like, once every five tries. So you're okay.

[Aaron Weber]

I mean, 20% of the time, it doesn't work.

[Brian Bates]

80% accurate.

[Joe Zimmerman]

80% accurate. I 100% agree that it is 80% accurate.

[Aaron Weber]

Can you. Can you imitate those calls and trick the app?

[Joe Zimmerman]

Sure. You want to hear a tohi?

[Aaron Weber]

I mean, I've been waiting.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Did you want to hear a tohi?

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

All right.

[Aaron Weber]

I'd like to hear a tohi.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Okay, here's a tohi. Drink your tea. That's it. I just did it perfectly.

[Brian Bates]

I don't even know what just happened.

[Joe Zimmerman]

I just did a tohee call. I don't know what else just happened. I told you what I was going to do, and I did it.

[Brian Bates]

Is that a bird?

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah. It says, drink your tea. A barred owl says, who cooks for you? Who cooks for y' all? I'm doing bird calls. Anyway, you wanted it, and now I'm done, so I'm not doing anymore.

[Brian Bates]

Can you verify that area?

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah, I'll take his word for it.

[Joe Zimmerman]

But now, if I did that, the Merlin bird idea I missed would not register.

[Aaron Weber]

It wouldn't pick that up.

[Joe Zimmerman]

I don't do it as well as the mockingbird.

[Aaron Weber]

That's fair.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

Well, I meant to ask you before we even got in this comments, but I forgot, before we read the last comment, you had a follow up on our last previous discussion about birds evolving from dinosaurs.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

And again, I really hate that Dusty's not here today, but we'll play devil's advocate, although he wouldn't agree with that term either. But we'll play. We'll play his role.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Okay. Well, I just. We did. Our last podcast was on birds, and. And I think there was a moment where Nate said, I don't think birds are dinosaurs, and we all kind of nodded our heads, and I hadn't really thought about it that much. I always hear people say. I hear scientists be like, birds are dinosaurs, but I've also heard people say, you know, alligators are dinosaurs.

[Aaron Weber]

Okay.

[Joe Zimmerman]

And I don't know what they mean by that.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Do you guys know what they mean by that?

[Brian Bates]

Alligators. I could see they seem like they come from the same species, so I.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Decided to look into it because I'm like, if Nate said it, it's probably wrong, right?

[Aaron Weber]

Yes.

[Brian Bates]

That's a good starting point.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Joe Zimmerman]

So here's what I found. So here's how birds are dinosaurs.

[Aaron Weber]

Okay.

[Joe Zimmerman]

This is what they mean when they say birds are dinosaurs. And this has only been consensus for the last 15, 20 years. All right, So I learned something different when I was a kid. 65 million years ago, the asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs. Correct.

[Aaron Weber]

We suspect. Right. Is that confirmed or that's how we think?

[Brian Bates]

That's the leading theory.

[Aaron Weber]

That's how we think they died. Yeah.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah. Chicxulub asteroid went 120 miles. 120 miles into the Earth's surface. They found the crater.

[Aaron Weber]

Where, where was it?

[Joe Zimmerman]

Somewhere in what's now Mexico.

[Brian Bates]

Yucatan Peninsula.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yucatan Peninsula? Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

Wow.

[Brian Bates]

If you were in Mount Julia, they would wipe you out.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Speaking of nukes, it was something like a million times the power of a new. Wow. Tsunami one mile high. Yeah. So. So that is our understanding that the dinosaurs went extinct after that. But what's actually true is the big dinosaurs went extinct. The little dinosaurs under 50 pound dinosaurs survived.

[Aaron Weber]

How?

[Joe Zimmerman]

Follow me.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah. And.

[Joe Zimmerman]

So the asteroid that extinct at the dinosaur didn't extinct the dinosaurs. It extinct to the big dinosaurs. The little dinosaurs stuck around. A lot of them had little feathers.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Joe Zimmerman]

And some of those were birds that. That birds today descended from directly. So essentially dinosaurs didn't go extinct. And now the reason they say that birds are dinosaurs is because birds are literally dinosaurs. The way that humans are primates are mammals.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Like, it doesn't mean all mammals are humans, Right?

[Aaron Weber]

Sure.

[Brian Bates]

Right.

[Joe Zimmerman]

It doesn't mean whales are humans.

[Aaron Weber]

Yes.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah, but it means that humans come from mammals. So the way that humans are mammals. Birds are in the group dinosaur.

[Brian Bates]

Now, we did a long time ago, we did an episode on dinosaurs and some of this is familiar to me. I think that's why I knew about the Yucatan Peninsula.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Okay.

[Brian Bates]

Is it because big dinosaurs, they have to eat a lot and most of things were wiped out, but some of the. Is it because smaller animals could just survive because they didn't need as much resources?

[Aaron Weber]

Well, if they could fly, they fly above the tsunami, huh?

[Joe Zimmerman]

Well, I don't. I think it had more to do with the change in the atmosphere. It didn't support bigger, bigger animals anymore. Okay, but if you go back to the previous image, Aaron. So this is another reason it's confusing. What do you see, Brian? What do you see up high there?

[Brian Bates]

It looks like a cross between a bird and a dinosaur.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah. So that's exactly. Thank you. So that's.

[Brian Bates]

I get ahead. Oh, sorry.

[Joe Zimmerman]

That's correct. And what do you see down below.

[Brian Bates]

That just looks like a bird?

[Aaron Weber]

It's a common mockingbird.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Okay, so this display worked because what you see up top is Archaeopteryx, the old drawing of Archaeopteryx. This is what we thought Archaeopteryx looked like. And now what we think Archaeopteryx looked like is that bird. So that helps us with a better understanding of how dinosaurs are birds or birds are dinosaurs. If you look at that lower drawing, that looks like a bird. So it's more believable that birds are dinosaurs. It's more just that we're picturing these old renderings of like green gray dinosaurs.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Joe Zimmerman]

And now all the new renderings are like colorful and feathered.

[Aaron Weber]

Right.

[Brian Bates]

Even T. Rex.

[Joe Zimmerman]

T. Rex. And T. Rex, I think is one of the theropods, which is related. So the T. Rex is more related to a pigeon than it is to Triceratops.

[Aaron Weber]

Okay. Yeah. Just like we're closer to a banana than we are like a lobster. Right. Or something. Isn't there something like that?

[Joe Zimmerman]

I don't know if I can agree with that.

[Aaron Weber]

Hold on. Was there something. We have 98% of the same DNA as a banana.

[Brian Bates]

Is that true?

[Aaron Weber]

I mean, I feel like it's been said before.

[Joe Zimmerman]

I think it's more like 50, but I'll go with you.

[Aaron Weber]

No, it's a cucumber's 98% water. I got a mix. I got them.

[Brian Bates]

Oh, yeah, that's a common mistake.

[Aaron Weber]

I got them mixed up. Yeah. Yeah.

[Joe Zimmerman]

But we do share some DNA with. Yeah, fruit.

[Brian Bates]

Well, that's very interesting. Now, Dusty would, I guess would argue the fact that you just admitted they're changing the way they look. You'll be like, well, sure, 10 years from now they'll say something else. Maybe they'll say it comes from a mockingbird.

[Joe Zimmerman]

And I would say, dusty, that is scientists. That's how scientists work. They like to be wrong because they're trying to get the information correct. So they keep changing the information as they get new fossil records and more DNA records. But yeah, that's. So that's Archaeopteryx. That what we used to think. That's Archaeopteryx, what we think now. And so it makes birds being dinosaurs a little more believable in our heads.

[Aaron Weber]

Totally.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Let's see. And dinosaurs, think about it. Warm blooded, they lay eggs, they build nests. T. Rex probably built nests to lay eggs.

[Aaron Weber]

Really? How?

[Joe Zimmerman]

All the velociraptors, with their mouths, I guess. And so if you look at a cassowary or an ostrich or an emu, you get a vibe of kind of how dinosaurs were on the ground. Feathered, but not flying.

[Aaron Weber]

A lot less fun than they've been depicted in the past, huh?

[Joe Zimmerman]

Well, there were some fun ones that. There were some fun ones. There's just, there's just such a big group. And when you think of the little ones, you can sort of start to figure out why birds are considered dinosaurs. And here's the, here's the other thing. Alligators and crocodiles, not dinosaurs. That's a whole separate thing.

[Aaron Weber]

Okay, what, what, what was their ancestor? Do you know? They came from just in the ocean.

[Joe Zimmerman]

A further back ancestor that's considered Reptilia, which branched off into dinosaurs and lizards. Oh, if I simplify it.

[Aaron Weber]

Okay. Salamanders in there somewhere.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Somewhere. Yeah. But it, but I will say taxonomy, very complicated.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Joe Zimmerman]

And so that's why it is confusing.

[Aaron Weber]

Okay.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah, I think that's it. Look at, if you look at the cassowary feet, they. They pin down their prey, they stand on it till it dies. And that's basically what they think T. Rex and velociraptors do.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah. These feet are terrifying, dude.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah, that's. See, there you go. Dinosaur feet.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah. I mean, yeah, this does look like. So that's a Velociraptor. Is that a velociraptor or cassowary, do you think? Yeah, the feet are disgusting looking.

[Joe Zimmerman]

And then you can start to imagine how some dinosaurs might have had those sort of colors instead of being how we picture them as gray from our childhood. So there you go. I was surprised to learn that birds are literally considered dinosaurs.

[Aaron Weber]

Wow.

[Joe Zimmerman]

And I was surprised to learn that dinosaurs didn't all go extinct.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah. I thought they were all out of there.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah. Pretty crazy.

[Aaron Weber]

Was there a nuclear winter? How did that. What, how exactly did the asteroid kill.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Well, the asteroid changed everything, you know, aside from it killed everything within where it.

[Aaron Weber]

Sure, yeah.

[Joe Zimmerman]

And then on the other side of the planet, it changed the atmosphere. And I'm sure for one of the things was, you know, there's a dark. The sun is blotted out for 10, 15.

[Aaron Weber]

Yes. No plants can grow 20 years however.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Long the sun is blotted out. And for whatever reason, that new atmosphere, the new oxygen levels didn't support big animals. And the little ones, A few of the little ones. Well, a lot of the little ones survived. Some little mammals survived.

[Aaron Weber]

They Just had to breathe real heavy.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Some little mammals survived, some little dinosaurs survived, some little reptiles survived, etc. What little mammals survived a little shrew like creature. If you imagine a shrew, you can sort of imagine. I'm sorry to make you think of that. Let's see. I'm not an expert by the way, but I'm okay. But I looked into it a little bit.

[Aaron Weber]

A little pointy face mouse essentially.

[Brian Bates]

That's very interesting.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah. So I mean, you could also say we're closer related to that shrew than a T. Rex is to a Triceratops as well.

[Brian Bates]

I guess we could say that.

[Joe Zimmerman]

I don't know.

[Brian Bates]

Or a banana, but.

[Joe Zimmerman]

But I was kind of blown away by that. And I'm sure Dusty and Nate would be sitting here disagreeing vehemently that birds are dinosaurs, so probably.

[Aaron Weber]

Oh, but that's okay.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah, that's okay.

[Aaron Weber]

Not everyone has to agree with what's scientifically obvious. Yeah.

[Joe Zimmerman]

So when you're looking at a. Kidding.

[Aaron Weber]

I'm kidding. When you're 60% of the. We share 60% of our DNA with bananas, by the way.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Also.

[Aaron Weber]

So not that far from 98.

[Joe Zimmerman]

It just occurred to me. Chicken. A lot of our diet is dinosaur.

[Aaron Weber]

How about that?

[Joe Zimmerman]

Damn.

[Aaron Weber]

We dinosaurs. Dinosaurs every day. That's crazy.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Egg laying, warm blooded nest making. That's my. That's my. That's what I had to say.

[Aaron Weber]

I love that.

[Joe Zimmerman]

That's what I had to say about dinosaurs.

[Brian Bates]

What do you think about them bringing back some of these extinct animals?

[Joe Zimmerman]

Oh wow. That is ethically complicated. For sure. I. From a. From a fun standpoint.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah. Which is how we like to operate here on the land podcast.

[Joe Zimmerman]

From a fun standpoint. I would love to get the woolly mammoths back. I would love to get the dodo bird back.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Because.

[Aaron Weber]

And can you imagine the app on your phone picking up the dodo?

[Joe Zimmerman]

Dodo?

[Aaron Weber]

I mean, wouldn't that be incredible?

[Joe Zimmerman]

That would be so sweet. Because my argument would be it was humans that early. It was early humans that wiped out the woolly mammoth and recent colonists that wiped out the dodo. So if. If humans killed them, maybe. Maybe humans should. Should bring them back.

[Aaron Weber]

Passenger pigeons too. Bring those back, start using them again.

[Joe Zimmerman]

If we could bring them back, I say that would be fun. But. But I'm sure. But also there's all sorts of ethicists that are confused about it.

[Aaron Weber]

Right?

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

It's a complicated thing.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Dodo, by the way, new evidence says was a smart bird. Not as dumb as we just assume. Oh, it Died. So it's dumb.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Which is kind of mean, if we're being honest.

[Aaron Weber]

We didn't name it the dodo bird till after it was extinct. What do we call it while it was still around?

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah. How do you. Well, how do you feel about them bringing them back? Woolly mammoth?

[Brian Bates]

The same. Yeah, I think it'd be fun.

[Joe Zimmerman]

I was disappointed that that dire wolf was a completely false story.

[Aaron Weber]

Oh, was it really?

[Brian Bates]

Well, it's not really a direwolf, is it?

[Joe Zimmerman]

It's. They just brought back some other. Some other type of wolf.

[Brian Bates]

But even woolly mammoths, aren't they just trying to breed some hairy elephants?

[Joe Zimmerman]

Well, the reason. Oh, no, no. The reason they might be able to bring a woolly mammoth back is that woolly mammoth could maybe cross breed with African elk or African or Asian elephants. I forget which one. So you might be able to impregnate an African elephant with a woolly mammoth. Baby, that's great.

[Aaron Weber]

We don't even know if they get along.

[Joe Zimmerman]

And then you have a half woolly mammoth.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Half elephant. And eventually you could get to a full woolly mammoth. I'm creating a lot of silent response.

[Aaron Weber]

No, no, no. How would you get bored with it?

[Brian Bates]

I don't understand, though. How would you get to a. Oh. If you had multiple woolly mammoth.

[Joe Zimmerman]

If you had multiple half woolly mammoth, multiple half.

[Brian Bates]

But that would still just keep splitting them more.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Eventually you could hit on a. You might get lucky and hit on a full woolly man. Hey, you can't win if you don't play.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah, well said, Joe. Well said. Okay. Anything else?

[Joe Zimmerman]

That was my birds or dinosaurs notes, and it really kind of blew my mind. So I thought it was worth bringing back.

[Aaron Weber]

It absolutely was. I appreciate that. That's what I'm talking about. This dude comes ready to go.

[Brian Bates]

I know. I'm gonna need you to come back next week for the counter, but.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah, next week. Also, the way that we're in the category mammals, do you know the category that birds are called? It's called AVEs.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Joe Zimmerman]

AVEs are within the avian flu. AVEs are within theropods, which are within dinosaurs. Okay, so there you go.

[Brian Bates]

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[Aaron Weber]

Just in general too, right?

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. Well, I mean, I got a flow.

[Aaron Weber]

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[Aaron Weber]

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[Brian Bates]

Go to vori.comnate and discover the versatility of Vori clothing exclusions apply. Visit the website for full terms and conditions. All right, speaking of which, one more comment.

[Aaron Weber]

West Virginia. Oh, yeah.

[Brian Bates]

Jay Cook. Aaron's already moved on on the Virginia episode. Y' all bring up Travis Stritton, Bonnie Clods, Bonnie and Clyde's Travis Trit's Bonnie and Clyde song. Not making sense about i95. But don't bring up John Denver's Country Roads in the first line. He says the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Shenandoah river in West Virginia. But they are both in Virginia. The song is a lie. Wow. All right, so now that we get into our topic of West Virginia.

[Joe Zimmerman]

All right.

[Brian Bates]

Joe, answer that first. Is there a more iconic song for a state? Then take Me Home, Country Roads by John Denver.

[Aaron Weber]

Now, John Denver has two. He has Rocky Mountain High for Colorado and Country Roads for West Virginia.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yep.

[Aaron Weber]

So you got two, I'm sure, like, Tennessee has some, you know, the Tennessee Waltz, Rocky Top. You can probably put those up there. But Country Roads is, I mean, what a great song.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Thank you. Thank you.

[Brian Bates]

What did you ever.

[Aaron Weber]

Have you ever heard Alabama for Alabama?

[Brian Bates]

Yep.

[Aaron Weber]

Come on.

[Joe Zimmerman]

If you Go to a jukebox at a bar in Morgantown, which I've. If you go to a bar in Morgantown, Country Roads will play about one, every seventh song on the jukebox.

[Brian Bates]

But did you know the part about Shenandoah?

[Joe Zimmerman]

And. And so I learned that, yeah. In the lyric, they talk about the Shenandoah Valley, which is mostly in Virginia. Western Virginia.

[Aaron Weber]

Right.

[Joe Zimmerman]

And what else. What's the other thing?

[Brian Bates]

Appalachian Mountains.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Well, the Appalachian Mountains are West Virginia.

[Brian Bates]

What was it? Blue Ridge Mountains.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Oh, yes. Blue Ridge Mountains are mostly in Virginia and I think Maryland. So some of the lyrics are representing places that are kind of on the border of West Virginia, but most of the lyrics, they also talk about coal miners. And. And. And. And most lyrics do represent West Virginia. So West Virginia adopted it as our. As our anthem. But. But the other fun fact is that they wanted it to be about Massachusetts, and Massachusetts didn't. Just didn't sound good.

[Aaron Weber]

Take me. Yeah, yeah. Massachusetts now, I think so they're like.

[Joe Zimmerman]

All right, West Virginia, let's tweak the lyrics.

[Brian Bates]

I think it was Maryland, actually.

[Aaron Weber]

Maryland. Yes.

[Brian Bates]

I read. I thought. I read that when they wrote the song, they had a road in Maryland in mind.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Okay. I. I don't.

[Brian Bates]

Maybe both.

[Aaron Weber]

But even if all those things are mostly in other states, all the things mentioned in the song, I always picture the song was about a guy driving home to West Virginia. Yeah, that's country roads. Take me home.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yes.

[Aaron Weber]

So he's seeing all these other things, and they're a reminder that his home is not far away.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Exactly.

[Aaron Weber]

He's almost there. You know, it's like when I see. You know, you see the buckies coming back, you think, take. Take me home. Bringing me back to Nashville.

[Joe Zimmerman]

So.

[Aaron Weber]

Thanks, Brian.

[Joe Zimmerman]

So the people. Yes, you're right. So people that are saying he got it wrong geographically, you could push back and say, actually, the Shenandoah Valley and the Blue Ridge Mountains do touch West Virginia. Yeah. And yeah, if you're driving home, you might drive through there.

[Aaron Weber]

Those are all the landmarks you see. And you go, I'm almost there.

[Joe Zimmerman]

So. Plus, John Denver's dead, so he might have nailed it. And he's dead. You're right. He might have nailed it.

[Brian Bates]

So you grew up in Morgantown, West Virginia.

[Joe Zimmerman]

You said grew up in Morgantown and.

[Brian Bates]

Then was there till you went to college.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yep.

[Brian Bates]

So you. You're a real West Virginian.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Grew up in. I guess. Yes, you could say that. I grew up in West Virginia.

[Brian Bates]

It's the 10th smallest state by area, 12th least populous state. 1.7 million capital and most populous city. Aaron, you want to guess?

[Aaron Weber]

Huntington. Charleston.

[Brian Bates]

Charleston.

[Aaron Weber]

There you go.

[Brian Bates]

49, 000 people talking to me.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Speaking of 1.7 million, I got to hit you with my population. Fun fact.

[Aaron Weber]

Sure.

[Brian Bates]

I love these.

[Joe Zimmerman]

This might blow your mind, Brian.

[Brian Bates]

I bet I'll. Okay, go ahead.

[Joe Zimmerman]

So would you believe that the northernmost tip of West Virginia is as far north in terms of the latitude as. Guess how far north?

[Brian Bates]

Canada.

[Aaron Weber]

Come on. Come on.

[Joe Zimmerman]

You went too far. You went too far.

[Brian Bates]

Well, you said it's gonna blow my mind.

[Aaron Weber]

New York City.

[Joe Zimmerman]

It is as far north as on a latitude. If you. If you allow for the fact that the. That the Earth is. Is. Is a sphere.

[Aaron Weber]

Okay.

[Joe Zimmerman]

It's as far north as New York City. And there are more. There's. So there's a greater population in New York City south of the northern part of West Virginia than all of West Virginia.

[Brian Bates]

Wow.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Because. So basically, Staten island and some of Brooklyn are south of the northern tip of West Virginia. And. But you can only. You don't see it on a flat map. You'd have to do the spherical map to see that it's slightly north of New York City.

[Aaron Weber]

Wow. But this little. I don't know what you call this. This little finger.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah. Panhandle.

[Aaron Weber]

Is it called the panhandle?

[Brian Bates]

It is now.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Oh, I believe so. Yeah. I won't do the hand gesture that West Virginians use to point to where they live.

[Aaron Weber]

Okay.

[Joe Zimmerman]

I believe it's called the Panhand hand.

[Aaron Weber]

Have you been up here before? How much would you say you've traveled around West Virginia? You think you've explored every crack and crevice of this place?

[Joe Zimmerman]

I have not been to southern West Virginia that much. Southern West Virginia is kind of a long way from Morgantown. But I have been to a lot of West Virginia, thanks to high school golf tournaments.

[Aaron Weber]

Okay.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yes. You get to play on a lot of mountainous backwoods golf courses.

[Aaron Weber]

Is it the most mountainous state in the country?

[Brian Bates]

I wouldn't think so.

[Aaron Weber]

You don't have the states ranked by mountainousness?

[Brian Bates]

I don't, but I'm going to guess it's one of the Rocky Mountain states.

[Joe Zimmerman]

You're going to guess it's what?

[Brian Bates]

One of the. One of the Rocky Mountain states. What do you think I said?

[Joe Zimmerman]

You're still saying Rocky.

[Brian Bates]

Rocky.

[Joe Zimmerman]

I do. All I know is that West Virginia is the only state that.

[Brian Bates]

Why are you laughing at me?

[Joe Zimmerman]

Well, because you said rocky and you kept saying rucky.

[Aaron Weber]

Oh, man. Rocky road.

[Brian Bates]

Go ahead.

[Aaron Weber]

You ever see Rookie 4?

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah. How would you say Rocky 4?

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah. Rock and roll Rocky 4. It's getting better.

[Joe Zimmerman]

You have a real accent. I like it.

[Aaron Weber]

But I picture West Virginia, the whole thing is in the mountains. Right.

[Joe Zimmerman]

It's all contained in the Appalachian Mountains. It's the only state that it's.

[Brian Bates]

All of it is in called the Mountain State.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yes.

[Aaron Weber]

The Mountaineers. I thought that thing's starting to fall into place for me over here.

[Brian Bates]

Here's something. Yeah, I did.

[Joe Zimmerman]

What thing is starting to fall into place?

[Aaron Weber]

I'm starting to connect all the dots.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

I never put it together why they're called the Mountaineers.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

It's because they're in the mountains.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

You don't think about that. You know, I don't think about the name for the University of West Virginia that often. Or wvu. Sorry.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah. You went to Notre Dame? Sure. What's Notre Dame's mascot?

[Aaron Weber]

The Fighting Irish.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Because they're Irish people who fight.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah, the bar Fighting Irish.

[Joe Zimmerman]

That makes sense.

[Aaron Weber]

It was a pejorative term that we co. Opted.

[Joe Zimmerman]

There you go.

[Aaron Weber]

Spun it to our advantage.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah. West Virginia mountains. I grew up going to football games and the Mountaineer would come out and shoot a big shotgun into the air.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah, it's awesome.

[Joe Zimmerman]

We would go, whoa.

[Brian Bates]

Was he wearing like a. Some type of skunkin hat?

[Joe Zimmerman]

Skunkin cap.

[Brian Bates]

Skin cap you got.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Something like that.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. I did not know this. It became a state during the Civil War when Virginia seceded. Did you know this, Aaron? Oh, okay.

[Aaron Weber]

But keep saying it. Maybe the listeners.

[Brian Bates]

Virginia seceded.

[Aaron Weber]

You want me to pretend to not.

[Brian Bates]

Have heard it from the Union? I was just. I thought I was going to impress you guys.

[Joe Zimmerman]

This is important. This is important.

[Aaron Weber]

I was just impressed by Mountaineers. You just keep going.

[Brian Bates]

When Virginia seceded from the Union, the western part of the state did not want to do that and their lawmakers strongly were against it.

[Aaron Weber]

So they just lazy or what? They were like, they feel like doing.

[Brian Bates]

The paperwork, so they broke off on their own and became a northern state.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah. Went with the north, one with the.

[Aaron Weber]

Union, and they're still with the North.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Stayed north.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. I was going to ask you, I mean, we talked about this earlier, but I was going to ask Aaron this. What do you think of as far West Virginia, as far as what part of the country it's in?

[Aaron Weber]

I think of it as its own thing.

[Brian Bates]

That's not a fair answer.

[Aaron Weber]

But I don't group it in. It's. I don't group it. I don't consider it part of the Southeast. I don't. It's not part of the East Coast. It's not. It's not the Midwest. I don't know what else to call it.

[Brian Bates]

What do you call it?

[Aaron Weber]

It's like Cincinnati. What would you call Cincinnati as a city? Is it a Midwestern city? Well, I don't know. Right on the cusp.

[Brian Bates]

I say since Ohio. Yeah. I'd say Cincinnati is. Louisville is the place I use. What do you call Louisville? Kentucky?

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Joe Zimmerman]

I call Louisville South. I call Cincinnati Midwest.

[Aaron Weber]

Okay. What do you call West Virginia?

[Joe Zimmerman]

I think you're. I think you nailed it, actually, because I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out what I am. Because when I'm in New York, people say I'm from the south, and when I'm in the south, people say I'm from the North. It's. It's. Some people say it's in the Mid Atlantic with Maryland and Delaware.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Joe Zimmerman]

But I think a lot of people call it just Appalachia. It's not part of the north or the South.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Joe Zimmerman]

So it's either Appalachia or it's the Midwest. Midwest or it's its own thing.

[Aaron Weber]

It's the acc. That's how I think about it. There you go. So I think about it. Yeah. Group them up like conferences, but that doesn't really happen that it makes sense anymore now.

[Brian Bates]

I know I had a joke about that.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah. All these USC's in the Big Ten now and all this stuff, but. Yeah, I think of an ACC area.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah. Yeah, it does. Yeah. It's hard to. When. But the. The annoying thing is people, like, disagree with me. Like, if I'm in New York, they're like, you're from the South? And I have to be like, well, I grew up near Pittsburgh, but they.

[Aaron Weber]

Mean culturally, not locationally.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Brian Bates]

All right, let's get into some of the stats about West Virginia. It's the.

[Aaron Weber]

These are gonna be brutal.

[Joe Zimmerman]

This sounds fun. Come with fun facts.

[Aaron Weber]

Start with the fun ones.

[Joe Zimmerman]

You're doing fun facts?

[Brian Bates]

Yeah, fun facts. It leads the nation in smoking rate.

[Aaron Weber]

There you go.

[Brian Bates]

All right, 21 of West Virginia harkening.

[Aaron Weber]

Back to a better time.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. You know, it's the most obese state in the nation.

[Joe Zimmerman]

I mean, I'd like to fact check that, but. Sure.

[Aaron Weber]

I mean, I think it's close. I think it's a. I think it's a real.

[Joe Zimmerman]

I think. I don't see. I see a lot of skinny people around West Virginia, but. But I. I don't know, but you, you found these facts somewhere.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. From U.S. news & World Report. It has the shortest life expectancy.

[Aaron Weber]

Golly, Brian.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Geez, Brian.

[Aaron Weber]

What.

[Joe Zimmerman]

What are you trying to say?

[Brian Bates]

I'm sharing the facts here, guys.

[Aaron Weber]

I think all these things are connected. Smoking rate, obesity rate, and life expectancy.

[Brian Bates]

Can you click on the life expectancy, see if that works?

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah, let's see if this one.

[Brian Bates]

All right, there's your top ones.

[Aaron Weber]

Okay. Hawaii. Hawaii's got the best life expectancy, almost 80, 79.9. I love that bottom. Oh, this one has. This has. Okay, Mississippi edging out. West Virginia here. 70 years. You're only 49th.

[Joe Zimmerman]

49Th, baby.

[Aaron Weber]

Tennessee, not far behind him right there. Average life expectancy, 72.4 here in Tennessee.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah. You guys only got a year on me.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

That would group think about how much.

[Aaron Weber]

More we get done in that year than you ever do.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah, that's. That is a lot. Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

I'll end on a positive one though.

[Aaron Weber]

Okay.

[Brian Bates]

And I mentioned this when we did episode a few months ago in school.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

Highest graduation rate in the country. High school.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Wow. I don't know how any of this. I don't know how any of this adds up.

[Aaron Weber]

Highest graduation rate for high school.

[Brian Bates]

That link I sent you, I think it's the same one I showed. We showed a few months ago.

[Joe Zimmerman]

That is shocking to me.

[Brian Bates]

Now, after we showed that the first time, a teacher wrote in and said it's because their standards are so low and she was a teacher in West Virginia, so. But 91% and Tennessee second.

[Joe Zimmerman]

You gotta see, even when we do something good, people are still ripping us.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Joe Zimmerman]

We do something good.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Unbelievable.

[Brian Bates]

Well, speaking of West Virginia having a bad reputation, Aaron, have you seen the movie Deliverance?

[Aaron Weber]

I have seen Deliverance.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Okay, thanks for bringing this up as well.

[Brian Bates]

The or it said it.

[Aaron Weber]

I thought it was Georgia.

[Brian Bates]

Okay, well, you're just destroying my theory here. I feel like most people think it's West Virginia. Do you think that?

[Joe Zimmerman]

I never really thought about it, to be honest.

[Brian Bates]

Okay.

[Aaron Weber]

California.

[Brian Bates]

I always thought. Now, part of the reason. Rick Roberts. Do you know Rick Roberts, Stand up comedy, Nashville based, plays guitar.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

And he used to have a joke where he'd say. And he would play the first few chords of Sweet Home Alabama and like, you know, that's the coolest state song. When he's like, gdc, Every song, you know, every state has its song. Like. And then he would do the chords to Deliverance and he would say, what? West Virginia? What?

[Aaron Weber]

I said the chords Are on. Oh, it couldn't matter less. Dcg. Okay. Okay. Sorry. Anyway, there you go. I heard at that time. I heard your age that the just.

[Brian Bates]

Coughing into the mic.

[Aaron Weber]

We were talking about the voice. Sorry, dude, I'm getting distracted here. Keep going.

[Brian Bates]

Anyway, that West Virginia. Yeah. He would do the thing through Deliverance. He said. I asked him about it. He said he used to do it for Georgia.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

And everyone would argue with him. No, it's. It's western Virginia. He finally just changed the joke to say West Virginia.

[Aaron Weber]

Wow.

[Brian Bates]

But I always thought it was set in west. I've never seen the movie. Yeah, but it was set in northern Georgia.

[Aaron Weber]

I wonder why that is.

[Brian Bates]

But you didn't think that. And you didn't think so.

[Joe Zimmerman]

It was set in northern Georgia, and in the movie, it's considered northern Georgia. Okay. Yeah. I'd never heard of it being based in West Virginia.

[Brian Bates]

Well, I guess it was just me then. And maybe from.

[Aaron Weber]

You're saying the connotation for West Virginia is so bad that people assume that the Deliverance took place.

[Brian Bates]

I googled this, and it said. Because the hillbillies and people associate it with.

[Joe Zimmerman]

They probably said it in the mountains. Right. It's probably in the same Appalachian mountains. Maybe. But just keep in mind, when you're watching Deliverance, it was written by Hollywood outsiders.

[Aaron Weber]

Was it really?

[Joe Zimmerman]

It was not written by anyone from that area. It was written by Hollywood outsiders who wanted to use the stereotype to make.

[Aaron Weber]

A movie sound like a device.

[Brian Bates]

Hollywood insiders.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Exactly. Hollywood insiders. Thank you.

[Brian Bates]

People in Georgia would be Hollywood outsiders.

[Aaron Weber]

Okay.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

Matteo. West Virginia is the setting. I don't know if they filmed it there, but the setting of one of my favorite movies from my childhood, October Sky.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Oh, yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

Which is a great movie about Homer Hickam and the rocket boys. Have you ever seen that movie?

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

No, I don't think I have.

[Aaron Weber]

In spite of Jake Gyllenhaal, few others. Laura Dern.

[Joe Zimmerman]

And that's based on a true story.

[Aaron Weber]

It is based on a true story. Homer Hickam. Very active on Twitter. You can go check him out. He's on there. All right. The time.

[Joe Zimmerman]

What's he doing on there?

[Aaron Weber]

Mostly tweeting about NASA and stuff.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Okay, nice.

[Aaron Weber]

Still works for NASA, but he's a group of four boys from a mining town called Colwood that has since been disbanded. And. And they get inspired by Sputnik. They. They see Sputnik over their town, and they decide they want to build a rocket. So they build a rocket, and they enter the science Fair. And they win the national science fair. And these four kids from a coal. A coal mining town where the only way to get out was to play college football. They all got scholarships to. To go to college. Great movie. Great movie.

[Brian Bates]

I would have thought that West Virginia was by far probably the leading coal state in the country.

[Joe Zimmerman]

It probably was in the early 1900s. Right.

[Brian Bates]

Maybe it's second now, but by far number one is Wyoming.

[Aaron Weber]

I would have guessed Pennsylvania.

[Brian Bates]

Pennsylvania's third.

[Aaron Weber]

Okay.

[Brian Bates]

Wyoming does 41%. West Virginia is second with 14% coal.

[Aaron Weber]

Good for them. Good for Wyoming.

[Joe Zimmerman]

I think we already extracted a lot of our coal.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. And I also always thought diamonds came from coal, but I read that that's not the case at all.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah, that's confusing. They say. Yeah. What do they say makes diamonds?

[Brian Bates]

Pressure.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Pressure makes diamonds.

[Brian Bates]

There's more there.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Aaron, what makes diamonds?

[Aaron Weber]

It's a little more beautifully worded than that. Pressure makes you diamonds.

[Joe Zimmerman]

What makes diamonds there?

[Aaron Weber]

Coal plus pressure equals diamonds.

[Brian Bates]

The largest diamond, AV diamond ever found in North America was found in West Virginia. Jones Diamond. They don't know how it got there. They think a bird maybe dropped it.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Are you serious?

[Brian Bates]

Joking. Yeah.

[Joe Zimmerman]

That feels like you're joking.

[Brian Bates]

It does feel like I'm joking based on who I'm talking to. But no, that's, that's true.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Okay.

[Brian Bates]

Have you ever heard the term west by God Virginia?

[Joe Zimmerman]

Oh, I've heard that a lot.

[Brian Bates]

People say that a lot.

[Joe Zimmerman]

I've heard that a whole lot. People in West Virginia say that.

[Aaron Weber]

Okay, what does it mean? What's the expression? What is it?

[Brian Bates]

West by God, Virginia.

[Joe Zimmerman]

I feel like I should mention a lot of West Virginia's kind of have a self deprecating sense of humor about themselves.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Joe Zimmerman]

I would compare it to the way if you ever go to Ireland or Scotland, they'll also kind of make fun of themselves and just be kind of a funny, funny people. West Virginia's are self deprecating funny people. And they'll be like, yeah, I'm from West by God Virginia, man.

[Aaron Weber]

Oh, okay.

[Joe Zimmerman]

But they're doing it in a joking way, right? Yeah, yeah.

[Brian Bates]

Now according to its origin, there's two different origins. They say it first appeared online publications, online accessible publications. Which in 1926 OAPs, it says online accessible publications. I don't know what that means. When students the University of Virginia wrote an article claiming that west by God Virginia women could consume corn liquor on it on its own without having to mix it with other liquids. So it was about the West Virginia women could handle their Liquor.

[Aaron Weber]

All right.

[Brian Bates]

And then history professor at West Virginia, wvu, was called a Virginian. And he got annoyed by it. And then he claimed he yelled, I'm from west by God, Virginia.

[Joe Zimmerman]

There you go. Yeah, I mean, it's got a nice ring to it.

[Aaron Weber]

It's like saying frickin or something. Yeah, it's just the rhythm of it.

[Joe Zimmerman]

The rhythm has a nice little ring. I have never said I'm from West by God, Virginia, but I've heard it a lot.

[Brian Bates]

I think it sounds a little sacrilegious.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Good thing I never said it.

[Aaron Weber]

Good thing I never said it's God's country. Dude, you can say it.

[Brian Bates]

Okay.

[Aaron Weber]

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[Brian Bates]

Mother's Day. We talked about this recently. A mother's episode. Mother's Day started in West Virginia.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Brian Bates]

The woman that started it, remember, she later tried to stop it because it became so commercialized. Yeah, but she originally started it to honor her mother in West Virginia. There's never been a president from West Virginia, but there has been a candidate. Democratic nominee for President, 1924. John W. Davis.

[Aaron Weber]

John W. Davis. Never heard of him.

[Brian Bates]

He lost to Republican incumbent Calvin Coolidge. He lost his home state of West Virginia.

[Joe Zimmerman]

That tracks. Yeah. Probably lost. Probably lost most states, let's be honest.

[Brian Bates]

Probably. So. That happens more often than you would think.

[Aaron Weber]

You lose your home state.

[Brian Bates]

Al Gore lost Tennessee when he ran.

[Aaron Weber]

Did he lose Tennessee?

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

I mean, Clinton won Tennessee, didn't he? So gorgeous. Kind of stunk, huh?

[Brian Bates]

That's just when the shift happened. Yeah, I think it's happened a few times. The oldest and youngest governor.

[Aaron Weber]

Oh, new. I mean, Trump lost New York. That's. That's an obvious one.

[Brian Bates]

Okay. You know, in 2016, I think.

[Aaron Weber]

Both times.

[Brian Bates]

But he was running against Hillary, who was also from New York or.

[Aaron Weber]

Oh, that count? Yeah. I thought she was from Arkansas. Arkansas.

[Brian Bates]

But she was a senator in New York.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Joe Zimmerman]

I think New York and California have always gone blue.

[Aaron Weber]

No, I mean, Reagan won both of them.

[Brian Bates]

I think Trump ran.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Really?

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Joe Zimmerman]

I didn't know that.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah, he had to, because Mondale.

[Aaron Weber]

I think Mondale only won Minnesota, right? Yeah. 1984. Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

It's a long time ago. All right, so let's get into some. Well, the famous people from West Virginia. Aaron, who would you say is. What do you think of West Virginia? Who's somebody famous from West Virginia?

[Aaron Weber]

Homer Hickam.

[Brian Bates]

Okay. I don't have him on here.

[Aaron Weber]

Joe Zimmerman. I think of. I don't know. I would just. I watched Dopesick recently.

[Brian Bates]

You watch what?

[Aaron Weber]

The movie about the opioid crisis.

[Brian Bates]

Okay.

[Aaron Weber]

A show about the opioid crisis. I have no idea. I can't name another person I could name. Not John Denver.

[Brian Bates]

Some of these I forgot about until. But I think I could have named it Brad Paisley.

[Aaron Weber]

Oh, yeah. Okay.

[Brian Bates]

West Virginia.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

Randy Moss.

[Aaron Weber]

Oh, yeah.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Wide receiver.

[Aaron Weber]

Was committed to Notre Dame. Then they revoked a scholarship.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

What a shame.

[Brian Bates]

And then there was one other one. There's a lot more. Oh. Chuck Yeager.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Jerry West. The NBA logo.

[Brian Bates]

There's a lot more on here, but I'm thinking about people I could have told you were from West Virginia.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

Chuck Yeager. The airport's named after him.

[Aaron Weber]

The Chuck Yeager Airport.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. In Charleston.

[Aaron Weber]

Okay.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah, I think I knew this. Jennifer Garner's from West Virginia.

[Aaron Weber]

All right, so y' all are churning them out now.

[Brian Bates]

Here's some I didn't know. Don Knotts.

[Joe Zimmerman]

We got Don Knotts Boulevard, Morgantown, West Virginia.

[Aaron Weber]

Really? Oh, that's cool.

[Brian Bates]

Steve Harvey.

[Joe Zimmerman]

I didn't know that.

[Aaron Weber]

I feel like he. I think of a few.

[Brian Bates]

He was born there, at least.

[Aaron Weber]

Cleveland. And then he spent some time in Birmingham. I think.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. He was born in West Virginia. He probably moved.

[Aaron Weber]

Okay.

[Brian Bates]

Some after Nick Saban.

[Aaron Weber]

Oh, wow.

[Brian Bates]

That's another one.

[Aaron Weber]

I didn't know that.

[Brian Bates]

You didn't know he was from Western.

[Aaron Weber]

No, I had no idea.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yep.

[Brian Bates]

He was from Fairmont, West Virginia, and so was Mary Lou Retton.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Oh, yeah. Mary Lou Ren.

[Aaron Weber]

Who would you say the signature person from West Virginia is? Like, I think we determine on here some point. Tennessee is. Dolly Parton is kind of the. The signature celebrity that represents the state more than anybody else.

[Joe Zimmerman]

I'm in Morgantown. It's Jerry west and Don Knotts.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Joe Zimmerman]

I can't really speak for the rest of the state.

[Aaron Weber]

Thanks for coming on this episode about West Virginia.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. See yourself out over there.

[Joe Zimmerman]

I don't think we.

[Brian Bates]

Well, Aaron and I'll take it from.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Here to answer you.

[Aaron Weber]

If we do a Morgantown episode, we'll call you back.

[Brian Bates]

Just speculate.

[Joe Zimmerman]

I don't think we have a celebrity that. But it might. You know, I don't think we have a single celebrity that we're like, that's our person.

[Brian Bates]

I can think of one that in sports. That's pretty. Bob Huggins is pretty universally loved, right?

[Joe Zimmerman]

Is he? Well, I don't know. Until all the scandals.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

He's one of the winningest basketball coaches of all time. Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

He's a lot of.

[Brian Bates]

Grew up in West Virginia, Coached there for many years. A legend, at least.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Sure. I don't think people in West Virginia would be like, that's our guy.

[Brian Bates]

Okay.

[Aaron Weber]

But.

[Joe Zimmerman]

But he is a guy.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah, he's a guy.

[Brian Bates]

I would think maybe. Yeah. Of the people. I don't know.

[Joe Zimmerman]

I think. I think Jerry west comes close. He's the NBA logo.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah. I always thought he looks like he's about to. I never liked the pose of this NBA logo, the way he's been like, what is he doing?

[Joe Zimmerman]

He's.

[Aaron Weber]

What are his feet doing?

[Joe Zimmerman]

He's making a move to the right. He just crossed you over, Aaron.

[Brian Bates]

That's how they moved back then.

[Joe Zimmerman]

He just crossed you over.

[Aaron Weber]

That's this. Yeah.

[Joe Zimmerman]

He's about to do a little finger roll.

[Aaron Weber]

I mean, it's iconic.

[Joe Zimmerman]

That's a fast break. That's a fast break. Fast break, Aaron, come on.

[Brian Bates]

A few more before we decide who's the most. I mean, I think we have Bill Withers.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

Slab Fork, West Virginia. It was the inspiration for the song Lean on Me.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Lovely Day. He wrote Lovely Day.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Bunch of songs. A bunch of good songs. Bill Withers.

[Aaron Weber]

It's about The MLB logo. I don't know who this is based on. I don't think that's supposed to be any guy in particular.

[Joe Zimmerman]

No big.

[Aaron Weber]

But I always thought this is bad because that guy, there's no way he hits that ball.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah, it's going to hit him in the shoulder. Give me a big, big old bruise right there.

[Aaron Weber]

The ball, even if that's. Let's say that's a strike. You had to. He didn't even have his arms. He didn't have the bat pulled back yet. He hasn't even started the swing.

[Joe Zimmerman]

I guess he's about to take a ball high maybe.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah. So why would your logo be a guy taking a pitch?

[Joe Zimmerman]

This is how boring baseball is. Here's the logo to represent exactly how much fun you'll be having at a game.

[Aaron Weber]

Now, do you think that that guy's a right handed batter or a left handed battery? It better.

[Joe Zimmerman]

That looks very right handed to me.

[Aaron Weber]

But.

[Brian Bates]

But now that you say it, I can see the left hand.

[Aaron Weber]

Could be. Could be either one.

[Brian Bates]

Now that you say it, I could see it more. Left hand.

[Joe Zimmerman]

I don't see left hand.

[Brian Bates]

You don't.

[Aaron Weber]

I mean we'll just try to.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Because it's facing. He's facing this way.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah, but that could be the front of his face and yeah, he could be facing either way.

[Brian Bates]

That's a softball he's hitting.

[Aaron Weber]

That's.

[Brian Bates]

There's a lot of problems here.

[Aaron Weber]

The point is the Jerry west was not as bad anyway.

[Joe Zimmerman]

That's supposed to be Babe Ruth, but didn't quite come out right.

[Brian Bates]

Lou Holtz is from West Virginia.

[Aaron Weber]

Oh, that rules.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Lou Holtz feels like an accurate representation of West Virginia to me.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah. Just the way he talks.

[Brian Bates]

Michael W. Smith. Oh, Charles Manson grew up in West Virginia.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Thank you for bringing that up.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

Are y' all proud of that or do you talk about it a lot?

[Joe Zimmerman]

I actually not.

[Aaron Weber]

Proud is not the word, but I.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Did not know that. I knew he was a Scorpio. I did not know he was. I did not know he was also from West Virginia. So we share a few things in common.

[Aaron Weber]

He grow up there? He just go to like juvie there or something?

[Brian Bates]

No, I think he grew up there. I think he.

[Aaron Weber]

When did the CIA went to live.

[Brian Bates]

With his aunt, uncle or something. He had a bad childhood.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Okay, that tracks.

[Aaron Weber]

Oh, I thought he had a great.

[Brian Bates]

Now what do you know about the Mothman?

[Joe Zimmerman]

Mothman? I know that's like our version. It's kind of our Bigfoot.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Joe Zimmerman]

I don't know A lot about it other than it being in Mount Pleasant. And Dusty types would love the Mothman. That's about like. Dusty probably knows everything there is to know about the Mothman.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah, he probably just thinks he's a demon.

[Joe Zimmerman]

But there was talk of it being some sort of alien.

[Aaron Weber]

In fairness, this looks like a demon. I mean this, this drawing of it right there, it looks, if I saw that in the woods, I think that that's, you know, that's Satan sending one of his, one of his boys.

[Joe Zimmerman]

But I know that Mount Pleasant, it was a foggy. I know it's a foggy area, a lot of fog. So it tracks that you would just see something in the fog that looks scary. That your explanation, especially if you're drinking a lot of moonshine, like, you know.

[Aaron Weber]

So that's what it is, moonshine plus fog.

[Joe Zimmerman]

I think that that's the combination with pressure creates if it's not an alien. If you want to believe in the non alien theory.

[Aaron Weber]

Okay.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah, but I don't actually don't know the story very well. Well, Brian, if you know the story.

[Brian Bates]

In West Virginia folklore, it's a humanoid creature reportedly seen. This says Point Pleasant, but Maybe it's near Mount Pleasant.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Okay.

[Brian Bates]

Point Pleasant from November of 1966 to December 1967. And a lot of people claim they saw it. But then it was introduced to a wider audience in 1970 with a book and then another book in 1975 called the Mothman Prophecies. And then it was later adapted into a film story. Richard Gere.

[Joe Zimmerman]

I'm guessing it wasn't a great movie. I'm guessing it wasn't a highly reviewed movie.

[Brian Bates]

I haven't seen it. I've heard of it, but I haven't seen it.

[Joe Zimmerman]

I bet it has.32% on rotten tomatoes would be my guess.

[Aaron Weber]

This is the movie the Mothman Prophecies, 2002 Supernatural horror mystery film. Richard Gere and Laura Linney. I mean, that's a great cast.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Laura Linney. Love Laura. Lenny.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah, yeah. This must have Deborah Messing. I mean this is like a star studded cast.

[Joe Zimmerman]

I'm going to go 28% critic.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah, well, it lost. Well, it made $20 million in the box office. I'm going to look this up real quick. Mothman prophecies, 52% on rotten tomatoes.

[Brian Bates]

So critics or audience?

[Aaron Weber]

Well, let's take a look.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah, I want to know how far off I am.

[Brian Bates]

Oh, it's pretty close.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Okay, so I'll give that a watch. I'll give anything over 50% a chance.

[Brian Bates]

Sure.

[Aaron Weber]

That would be the most critically acclaimed movie we've ever talked about in detail on this podcast.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

Nate will come in and go, hey, I watch this Snowboarding movie from 1982, and it'll be 4% on Rotten Tomatoes. It'll have, like, a whole breakdown about it. I go, nobody's seen this movie.

[Brian Bates]

And he'll love it. He'll think it's the greatest thing ever. All right, here's some other movies set in West Virginia.

[Joe Zimmerman]

You.

[Brian Bates]

We are Marshall.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Okay.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah, that, you know, that's for. People don't know. That's kind of a. It's crazy story. The deadliest tragedy of any sports team in US History. It was the second college football team plane crash in a. In a month.

[Aaron Weber]

I didn't know that. What else happened the.

[Brian Bates]

A month earlier, Witchita State had a plane crash that killed 31 people.

[Aaron Weber]

Go. You kind of feel for Witchita State that Marshall came in right after. Kind of stole the thunder.

[Brian Bates]

Yes.

[Aaron Weber]

Thundering, thundering herds.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. Nobody's ever. Wow.

[Joe Zimmerman]

What? That's impressive.

[Brian Bates]

This guy's a comic.

[Joe Zimmerman]

I didn't know how you're going to turn two plane crashes into a joke, but you did it. I was really worried we weren't going to get anything funny there.

[Brian Bates]

Now, I have seen this.

[Aaron Weber]

You better put those fears aside for this podcast, Joe.

[Brian Bates]

Well, I've seen this movie. We are Marshall. It's good.

[Aaron Weber]

We are with Matthew McConaughey.

[Brian Bates]

Yep. I can't remember who else, but I remember Matthew McConaughey.

[Aaron Weber]

That's. Well, that's all you need is that. Was that that model for that kind of movie? You just need, like, one star.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

And then just like kind of an emotional sports story.

[Brian Bates]

But how crazy is that for an entire football team to get wiped out and just start all over?

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah. When Was that, the seventies?

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. Maybe 1970.

[Aaron Weber]

Okay.

[Brian Bates]

When I was in college in the early nineties, Marshall was one double A, like my school in Middle Tennessee State University was. And they were kind of rivals because they were both good. They weren't in the same conference, but often in the playoffs, they would meet each other.

[Aaron Weber]

Okay.

[Brian Bates]

Because Marshall's had a lot of good ready Moss, obviously.

[Aaron Weber]

So you were happy that it happened?

[Brian Bates]

Well, that was before I was even born.

[Joe Zimmerman]

There's definitely. There's a famous NFL quarterback that played for Marshall, but I'm spacing on him.

[Aaron Weber]

Byron Leftwich.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Thank you.

[Aaron Weber]

Yes.

[Brian Bates]

And Chad Pennington, too.

[Aaron Weber]

Right. He's the head coach somewhere. Right. Was he a coach in the NFL?

[Joe Zimmerman]

By the Bay West Virginia University has Geno Smith starting QB in the NFL right now. Yeah, Geno Smith. I forgot another famous person.

[Aaron Weber]

Tavon Austin. Greatest highlight tape of all time.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yes. Love tape on Austin.

[Brian Bates]

Pat McAfee.

[Aaron Weber]

How about that?

[Brian Bates]

West Virginia.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Perfect. Yep.

[Brian Bates]

Mike Vanderjagt. You guys know Mike.

[Joe Zimmerman]

How long is this list?

[Brian Bates]

I got one more after it. Mike Vanderjek was a great kicker.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Oh, my God. What is Brian doing? He's just trying to.

[Brian Bates]

Well, we're almost at squelch. A lot of my West Virginia stuff. Mike Vanderjag was a great kicker for the Colts.

[Aaron Weber]

Right.

[Brian Bates]

And during the Pro Bowl, I think he said some stuff. And then they interviewed Peyton Manning on the sideline and he said our liquored up kicker, like, he totally, like, blast.

[Aaron Weber]

Oh, that was one. That's a great moment. Yeah, he just trashes them.

[Brian Bates]

And I think Jeff Dye has a joke about stealing his jersey.

[Aaron Weber]

Oh, okay. So look that up.

[Brian Bates]

And the last one was Pac Man Jones, who played for the Titans.

[Aaron Weber]

Nashville legend.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Pac Man Jones. Love Pac Man.

[Aaron Weber]

Big comedy fan.

[Brian Bates]

Yes.

[Aaron Weber]

He used to come to stand up.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

Not nice to people.

[Brian Bates]

All right, so a few more movies set in West Virginia. The X Files, one of their movies was in West Virginia.

[Joe Zimmerman]

X Files.

[Brian Bates]

I want to believe Silence of the Lambs. Clarice Starlin was from West Virginia.

[Aaron Weber]

Wow.

[Brian Bates]

Remember when Hannibal. He could tell her accent?

[Joe Zimmerman]

Oh, yeah.

[Brian Bates]

Kind of broke it down. Was your father a coal miner?

[Joe Zimmerman]

I'm trying to remember her accent. I think she did a. I want to say she did a good job with the West Virginia accent, but. But I don't know if that's. It's been a while since she was.

[Aaron Weber]

Great in the movie.

[Joe Zimmerman]

That was a great movie.

[Brian Bates]

Jody Foster.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah. I think she did a good. Pretty good West Virginia accent.

[Aaron Weber]

Don't you think? Sometimes you just watch a movie and they have, like, a bad accent. You're like, just don't do an accent. Because there are people from everywhere that don't have accents.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Thank you.

[Aaron Weber]

Just be a guy without an accent instead of trying to do this crazy, like, what are you doing?

[Brian Bates]

Who's one that you're thinking about?

[Joe Zimmerman]

The British guy in White Lotus this year trying to do a North Carolina.

[Aaron Weber]

Jason Isaacs.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah. His North Carolina accent was all over Lucia's Malfoy.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah. And I. I warmed up on Parker Posies throughout. Like, I thought it was terrible at first, too, but I was watching Catch Me if youf Can. Tom Hanks's character, crazy, crazy accent for no reason. And he's playing a fictional Character. So you can just do any voice. Why. Why are you doing a crazy voice?

[Brian Bates]

What was he trying to be?

[Aaron Weber]

Carl Hanratty? I can't even. I mean, it was like insane.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Ooh, worst accent. Worst accent I've ever seen. Was Twister. The bad guy in Twister.

[Aaron Weber]

Okay.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Cary Elwes, who I love, and you can say Yules. That's fine.

[Brian Bates]

People think it's Elway. It's not John Elway's brother.

[Joe Zimmerman]

It's Elwes. Elways. That's how you pronounce it? Elways.

[Aaron Weber]

Where is he from? The Rocky Mountains.

[Joe Zimmerman]

He's from somewhere in the uk. The Rookies. Yeah, he's from the Rookies. Kerry Hughes.

[Brian Bates]

Just go ahead.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Kerry Ewell's from the.

[Aaron Weber]

What's the accent? So he's trying.

[Joe Zimmerman]

He's a British guy trying to do, I believe, a southern accent. He sounds like. He sounds like the rooster from the cartoons. What's the southern rooster?

[Aaron Weber]

Foghorn Leghorn.

[Joe Zimmerman]

He sounds like Foghorn Leghorn and he's trying to be a southern guy.

[Aaron Weber]

I say there's a tornado approaching.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yes. People like, what are you doing? Please stop. They cut. Apparently they cut so many of his scenes. Twister.

[Aaron Weber]

Because it was that.

[Joe Zimmerman]

And I love Carrie. Always Yules. I love Carios.

[Brian Bates]

I'm talking about a different guy. My guy's name's Carrie Ules. Okay.

[Joe Zimmerman]

But Carrie always kills it. He killed it in Princess Bride. He killed it in Robin Hood. Men in tights. But his accent.

[Aaron Weber]

Oh, this dude. Okay.

[Joe Zimmerman]

I wish you could play. Can you play like a 30 second?

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah, I'll find it. I'll find it.

[Joe Zimmerman]

You just type bad accent. Twister. Bad accent. Twister. It's gonna be worth it.

[Aaron Weber]

I just found a clip of him from Twister on here.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

If it's not. Yeah.

[Joe Zimmerman]

And this is pro video.

[Brian Bates]

If you're listening. Video unavailable.

[Aaron Weber]

The. The Zany's Wi Fi network that we're on doesn't want us to have fun. I mean, they take work very seriously. Here they go. You better not be wasting time on.

[Brian Bates]

Any more than the CIA.

[Aaron Weber]

I know, it's crazy.

[Brian Bates]

A couple more movies. Dark Waters.

[Aaron Weber]

Dark.

[Brian Bates]

You seen that?

[Joe Zimmerman]

I have. I think I've seen Dark Waters.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. Do you know this movie, Aaron?

[Aaron Weber]

No, I've never heard of it.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Is there a lawyer? There's a lawyer in that. Is it George Clooney?

[Brian Bates]

I think it's Mark Ruffalo.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Okay.

[Aaron Weber]

Same thing.

[Joe Zimmerman]

That tracks. Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. It's the Hulk. And yeah, it's about. I think it's based on a true Story about dupont chemical plants.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Good movie. That was a good movie.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yes.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. It's. People are dying. Cattle are dying. And it's because they're poisoning the water.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Evil dupont Corporation poisoning the water of West Virginia for sure. A lot of people got cancer. Terror.

[Brian Bates]

Like in real life.

[Joe Zimmerman]

A lot of people got cancer. Yeah. Because the corporation was just ruining a terrible toxic water and then hiding it. Hiding it, hiding it, hiding it. And so, yeah, that was one of the biggest class action lawsuits, I think.

[Aaron Weber]

Wow. In the US it's like Aaron Brockovich.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

But in West Virginia.

[Brian Bates]

So the. Catch me if you can go back to that.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

Frank Abigail's as Abagnale.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

He's a real person.

[Aaron Weber]

He is a real person. Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

But Tom Hanks character was it.

[Aaron Weber]

I think it's an amalgam of a bunch of different people that worked at the. The FBI or whatever organization. But I think he's playing like it's a made up guy.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

So why choose a crazy voice? Just be a normal guy. Why do you got Carl Hanratty? It's like, who talks like that?

[Joe Zimmerman]

I mean, Tom Hanks, he was like, this is my 73rd movie.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Joe Zimmerman]

I want to take a risk.

[Aaron Weber]

He's probably. Yeah. I got to make it interesting for me. I'm too good at this. Let me just do a crazy voice.

[Brian Bates]

Patch Adams. Adams is a real person.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Okay.

[Brian Bates]

Still alive.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Robin Williams.

[Brian Bates]

And no, Pat. Robin Williams is not.

[Aaron Weber]

How did Patch Adams outlive Rob Williams? Isn't that crazy?

[Joe Zimmerman]

That is wild. That is insane.

[Aaron Weber]

To outlive the guy who played you in a movie.

[Brian Bates]

Yes.

[Aaron Weber]

That doesn't happen that often.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

Tiffany Chalamet died.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. That's what I was thinking. So Patch Adams basically had a kind of a philosophy. Laughter is the best medicine. I don't know if you say the best, but definitely helps.

[Aaron Weber]

I hope it wasn't that recovery.

[Brian Bates]

So he started the Gedzutite Institute.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

And it was originally called the Zanies. Interesting.

[Aaron Weber]

That's really cool.

[Brian Bates]

But then they changed it to Gazutat Institute. It's in West Virginia.

[Aaron Weber]

The club sued him.

[Brian Bates]

Brian, Dwarf those sick kids. Go somewhere else. But it's a hospital. Envisioning fun, compassion and community. Offering free health care, integrating various healing arts. So. All right again, Joe, jump in anytime.

[Joe Zimmerman]

I don't know everything about everybody from West.

[Brian Bates]

Well, we need you to. We need you to. What do you got there?

[Joe Zimmerman]

Are you gonna do your. Are you gonna mention any tour dates?

[Aaron Weber]

Look, Patch Adams not happy with. Not happy with how he was portrayed in the movie.

[Brian Bates]

Really? Joe's wanting us to wrap it up. He's.

[Joe Zimmerman]

No, I just didn't know if you're gonna do them. I just want to check.

[Brian Bates]

Yes.

[Aaron Weber]

Heavily criticized the film. He said, out of all the aspects of his life and all his activism, the film only portrayed him as a funny doctor. And then he said, Rob Williams made $21 million in the movie and didn't give a dime to his hospital.

[Brian Bates]

Wow.

[Aaron Weber]

So he called out Robin Williams. Whoa.

[Joe Zimmerman]

I would not have seen that rivalry.

[Aaron Weber]

And then after he died, he walked it back a little bit. No, I think he's great. Too late, Patch.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Well, he is depicted as having some sort of bipolar or something, if I remember.

[Aaron Weber]

Keep chugging along, Patch.

[Brian Bates]

Is he wearing a wig there? Is that.

[Aaron Weber]

No. I think he was just a bit of a kook. That's part of his. Part of his thing. So he's got. He's got blue hair in that and some Cruella de Vil glasses and giving somebody a hug.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

But more power to him. I've never seen the movie. Is it good?

[Joe Zimmerman]

I remember it's been so long since.

[Brian Bates]

I've seen it, I don't remember it. Huh. That's interesting.

[Aaron Weber]

The artwork is very funny.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Putting the nose on Patch is like, come on.

[Aaron Weber]

Laughter's contagious. I mean, that's a good line. There are good writers in Hollywood.

[Brian Bates]

All right, so that's it for West Virginia, I think.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Okay.

[Brian Bates]

There's anything else you wanted to add, Joe?

[Joe Zimmerman]

I think you covered everything. Yeah. I'm trying to think if there's anything we missed. Oh, you know, a lot of great Appalachian roots music, A lot of great musicians from Appalachia.

[Aaron Weber]

Bluegrass. Like a bluegrass music.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Hammer, dulcimer, banjo. A lot of good roots music. A lot of good musicians from West Virginia, but. But that's all I can think of that we didn't hit.

[Aaron Weber]

And a great place. You like it there? You're proud of it? You like it?

[Joe Zimmerman]

Oh, yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

Okay.

[Joe Zimmerman]

It's a great. Morgantown's a great college town.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Joe Zimmerman]

And there's a lot of beauty.

[Aaron Weber]

It is beautiful, man.

[Joe Zimmerman]

The newest state park is. Is New River Gorge. The newest national park is New River Gorge.

[Aaron Weber]

Wow.

[Joe Zimmerman]

So, yeah, a lot of. A lot of wildlife growing up in West Virginia. The most West Virginia things probably were eating pepperoni rolls.

[Aaron Weber]

Pepperoni rolls.

[Joe Zimmerman]

That was a coal miner food that became a staple. Pepperoni rolls. Delicious. You got to try a homemade pepperoni roll.

[Aaron Weber]

Okay.

[Joe Zimmerman]

And let's see. We had the PRT in Morgantown first ever.

[Brian Bates]

What's that?

[Joe Zimmerman]

Transit. Public rail transit. First ever. Built in the 70s. Went around campus, and it's still there. It looks kind of like it's built in the 70s.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Joe Zimmerman]

And I would say one of the most West Virginia things about growing up in West Virginia was day one of squirrel hunting season. About half the kids would not show up to class.

[Brian Bates]

Wow.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

Oh, I love that.

[Brian Bates]

No. Rod Hamilton had a similar story about Idaho potato season. They would.

[Joe Zimmerman]

There you go.

[Brian Bates]

Take off and actually make money by working in the potato fields.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah. So spud money.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah, spud money. That's right. Oh, that's interesting.

[Joe Zimmerman]

I made a lot of money shoveling snow as a kid. A lot of. A lot of snow in West Virginia. Got a lot of snow days off because steep roads. Buses can't drive on steep roads. A lot of snow days. Those were best days. I feel bad for the kids that have zoom days now, because those were sweet.

[Aaron Weber]

Think about that.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Snowball fights, sledding. The best sledding you'll ever find. West Virginia.

[Brian Bates]

I had a corporate a couple years ago in West Virginia, and my connecting flight through Charlotte didn't make it, so I had to rent a car and drive from Charlotte to there. And so I got to see West Virginia. I got to go through the. The mountains there. And then.

[Aaron Weber]

It's amazing.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. Very pretty.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Joe Zimmerman]

There's a big span where there's no Internet, no WI fi, because of the observatory. There's a. Yeah, that's why there's a.

[Brian Bates]

The Green Bank.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Green Bank Observatory.

[Aaron Weber]

So, yeah, that's why there's no Internet, because there's too much science going on there.

[Brian Bates]

They're just too sciency.

[Joe Zimmerman]

That's the reason. Thank you.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. What goes on at the Green Bake Observatory?

[Joe Zimmerman]

I think they chose it as a good place to where WI fi wouldn't be a problem. And. And.

[Brian Bates]

Oh, they don't want WI fi there.

[Joe Zimmerman]

They don't want WI fi because it interferes, I guess. Telescopes. I guess it interferes with. With something.

[Aaron Weber]

But I believe you.

[Joe Zimmerman]

But a lot of people have moved to that area that believe that WI fi is giving them headaches.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah, 5G and stuff is bad.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Yeah. A lot of those people move to that area anyway. A lot of beauty. Go visit.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Joe Zimmerman]

See some great birds.

[Brian Bates]

All right, let's plug some dates. I'll go first.

[Aaron Weber]

Yes.

[Brian Bates]

July 6th. I'm at Good Nights Comedy Club in Raleigh.

[Aaron Weber]

Beautiful.

[Brian Bates]

July 9th, the Comedy Catch in Chattanooga. I was trying to think of anything else I want to plug right now. I think I'll just stick with those two for now.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Nice. Okay.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah, go ahead.

[Joe Zimmerman]

I will be at Acme Comedy Club in Minneapolis.

[Aaron Weber]

Awesome.

[Joe Zimmerman]

At the end of July, beginning of August.

[Brian Bates]

Okay.

[Joe Zimmerman]

And Tennessee. I will be in Bristol August 30th. Blue Ridge at Blue Ridge Comedy.

[Aaron Weber]

Awesome. Dude. Have you been there before?

[Joe Zimmerman]

I've been there a couple times, yeah. Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

I haven't been in the new venue, the new room, but I've heard it's great. Yeah, yeah, it's awesome.

[Joe Zimmerman]

About that. And also the end of July, Chad Daniels country. I'll be in Fergus Falls and Battle Creek up in Lake Cabin country in Minnesota.

[Aaron Weber]

Nice.

[Joe Zimmerman]

You got a lot of listeners up in Lake Cabin country?

[Aaron Weber]

I think so. I think it's a bit of a hot spot for us.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Cool. Only other one to mention is October. Salt Lake City, wise guys.

[Brian Bates]

Nice.

[Joe Zimmerman]

I feel like you guys got some Utah listeners.

[Aaron Weber]

And if you enjoyed. Joe, check out the. The top 10 video that just came out. Top 10 Internet's top 10 favorite bits from his new special produced by Nateland cult classic. Check that out. Available now.

[Joe Zimmerman]

You let me know if they got the order correct on those jokes.

[Aaron Weber]

Okay? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Make your own ratings on there. Aaron Weber here. Going to round this thing out here. I'll plug one day. I got a bunch of dates coming up. August through the end of the year, but kind of the one before that. July, middle of July, I'm at the Comedy Catch in Chattanooga, Tennessee. I'm there for a weekend. It's, you know, go see Brian on the 9th and then come back out the 17th through the 19th to see Aaron Weber there. What?

[Joe Zimmerman]

Something seems off here. Why is he doing one night and you're doing three?

[Brian Bates]

He's doing five shows though, right?

[Joe Zimmerman]

Why are you doing five, Brian? Why don't you do five shows?

[Brian Bates]

Well, talk to the Comedy Catch. I said Aaron's doing five. They're like, okay, you can do one.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Listeners, you gotta pile into Brian's show. So they add four more shows to.

[Brian Bates]

Be like, aaron, we need so many people there. They're nowhere. At another show, like, just go ahead and add four.

[Aaron Weber]

But come see me in Chattanooga, Tennessee in July. Get those tickets now so we can add more shows. I'd like to do. I'd like to do seven shows there. That won't happen, but please come out and see me and Brian there in Chattanooga. And this was a great episode and I love you all.

[Brian Bates]

Joe, congratulations on 500,000 views.

[Aaron Weber]

Keep it up.

[Brian Bates]

Climbing.

[Joe Zimmerman]

Thank you for having me. Great to be here.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah, you're welcome anytime.

[Brian Bates]

All right, folks.

[Aaron Weber]

We miss you. Dusty and Nate.

[Brian Bates]

Yes.

[Aaron Weber]

You know we love you. Come back.

[Brian Bates]

That's it. Yeah. Well, hopefully they'll be back soon.

[Joe Zimmerman]

I look forward to hearing their dinosaur takes. Hopefully at some point.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. Yeah. We'll have to have you back to counter what they say. It's that's, that's smart on your part to. We'll have to have you back. That's it, folks. See you next week. Bye.

[Aaron Weber]

Bye.

[Joe Zimmerman]

We interrupt this program to bring you an important Wayfair message. Wayfair's got style tips for every home. This is Styles MacKenzie helping you make those rooms sing. Today's style tips. When it comes to making a statement, treat bold patterns like neutrals go wild like an untamed animal. Print area rug under a rustic farmhouse table from Wayfair. Com Fierce. This has been your Wayfair style tip to keep those interiors superior.

[Aaron Weber]

Wayfair, every style, every home.