Adam Rippon (0:00)

Hello, everyone. I'm Adam Rippon, and this is the podcast by Adam Rippon. Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the podcast. Now, I did kind of the unthinkably stupid thing right before recording this episode, and I want you to know what it was. It was, I spoken to this microphone before you for about 50 minutes, and, oh, was I having a good old gay old time. I was having a blast. I was telling jokes, I was laughing, I was hooting, I was hollering, and I was also not recording a dang second of any of it. So let the record show that if anyone were to see what has recently transpired in this room, you would go, you're not well. And that's okay. We all make mistakes. We all make mistakes. I don't even care. I don't even care that I already recorded the episode, but never hit record on the camera or the microphone. I don't even care about that. It's all water under the bridge at this point. Point, I actually feel like, you know, I'm human, right? I feel human, and that's beautiful. So let's get into a few things that I already talked about, but I'll talk about them again because like I said, it's water under the bridge. I had such a good time the first time where I didn't record a single thing. Kind of like, as I said before, not a single second of it. But I'll talk about it again because I love it. I love to talk. A time I felt thrill was watching the Oscars this past weekend. And the Oscars reminded me that I need to watch more movies. And I don't know what it is about movies that I just don't watch a lot of them. And if I had to guess, I'm assuming, you know, if I had to kind of analyze myself up and down, I'm assuming that it's the length of time. Actually, I know it's the length of time. So I don't know why I'm playing coy. It's the length of time, you know, if I'm watching a show. Say, for instance, Bridgerton, okay, When I first started watching Bridgerton, I was quite late to the party. The show was already over. But I was watching it from season one, and I just got very into it. And when I was going to sit down to watch Bridgerton, I knew that I would be booked for the next four to five hours. Not busy, but booked. And that didn't intimidate me. But when I'm looking to watch a movie and I see that it's anywhere between 90 and 120 minutes, I start to get cold feet. I don't know if I can or should commit to that. And I don't know why I don't feel the same when it comes to a television show. Maybe because when they're episodic, I feel like I can kind of tap out at any time. And in theory, the same is true for a movie. But I just don't feel that way. And I think I need to get over that because reasonably, one movie is shorter than five hours of Bridgerton. Right. I could have so many more hours in my evenings if I just watched a movie. But when you're in it, like when I was watching Bridgerton for the first time, I just needed to know who Lady Featherington was. And then when I found out it was Penelope, I mean, yeah, of course I was going to be busy. And of course that was going to take hours upon hours well spent, I'll say, regardless. And I've done this with multiple shows. You know, I've mentioned I love to watch Love Island. When you're starting a season of Love island, you are about to sign away a good 60 hours of your life because those seasons are 60 episodes. And you, a normal person, might go, I do not have time for that. I would rather watch a movie. But I go, I can't wait for that. And I have nothing but time to watch islanders read text messages around a fire pit. I've got nothing but time for that. And something I have nothing but time for is the movie Wicked. Wicked was one of the only movies that I did watch that was Oscar nominated. And I loved Wicked. I loved it. I loved every single second of it. But if I had one note to make to the director, John Chu, and, and I know he's waiting for this note from me. He's waiting to go, what is Adam Rippon's note on Wicked? And it's this. I need you to turn the brightness up. And I know that might be tough to do. I do think Wicked2 is done, already filmed. But I need you to get into the editing bay and I need you to turn the brightness up. And I'm going to tell you why I need that. A few years ago, I wanted to get LASIK eye surgery because I was just so sick and tired of wearing contacts. And my Warby Parkers love Warby Parker. I just had had enough of the glasses. When I went to the optometrist, they took pictures of my eyes and they said, you're actually Not a good candidate. And when they said that, I thought, okay, for, like, office or, like, what? And they did mean for Lasik, because I had the early stages of cataracts. Yes, these are the same cataracts that your grandmother gets that old dogs have. In my early 20s, I was young. I was thin. But above all, I was tan. And that tan wasn't natural. It was from a booth. And sometimes it was from a bed. But one thing that I just would not do was I wouldn't wear the glasses that you're supposed to wear, because you can damage your eyes, as they say. Ugh, please. They're for the weak, and I am strong. Or so I thought you might ask. Why wouldn't you just put on the glasses? Well, the glasses have a string that kind of, like, goes behind your head. And I was there to get a perfect, unclockable tan. So I'll be damned if I'm putting on these glasses that just came out of that barbershop blue liquid and then get some sort of elastic string tan. That's not gonna happen. I'll just close my eyes. I thought to myself, the light of the bulb can't penetrate the thin lid skin of the eyeball. It can't do that. It's impossible. Well, it doesn't even matter if it's possible or not, because curiosity does absolutely kill the cat. And in this scenario, I was not the cat. My eyeballs were the cat. And they did get, in a way, killed because I did need the cataract surgery. Anyway, what was I doing in there with no glasses on? Well, I was every once in a while, kind of peeking one eye open and then the other and just thinking to myself, well, my eyes aren't getting hot, so maybe it's not all that bad. Fast forward. You know, I'm in my 20s getting cataracts surgery. So, yeah, maybe it was actually that bad. But, you know, you can't change the past. You can only focus on the future. And Wicked 2 hasn't come out yet. So back to you, John Chu. There is still time to kind of, you know, bring the saturation up. I know it's too late to refilm anything. I know it's too late to kind of close some of those windows in the back of Shiz universe for my sake of just being able to make out the features of Fiyero. I know it's too late now. My vision is great now I got the Lasik. I can see great. The only time that I don't see well is in low light. And that's why I make this plea. And I know that you might be thinking, well, the only reason you're asking this is because when you were in your twenties, you looked tanning bulbs straight dead on. And to that I say, yeah, the movie's still dark. You could spare a little light is all I'm saying. And it doesn't matter why I can't see in the low lights. It just matters that you turn them up a little bit. Just a little. Please, John, please just turn them up a little bit. It's not too late. I feel like you'd get it if you heard my story. Somebody please get this story to John Chu and tell him about how when I was in my 20s, I kept my eyes open in a tanning booth or bed and stared at the bulbs directly head on. And then eventually I needed to get cataract surgery. And now it did make it hard for me to see a few of the scenes in Wicked. Please get this story to him. It's so important. I just, I feel like he would get it and he would hear me. And I just know that when I go to watch Wicked 2, it'll be brighter. It will. I know it. I know he'll fix it. I know John can do anything. Now, enough about Wicked and enough about the Oscars and more about me. This past weekend I went and I visited one of my very best friends and in Minnesota, in the Twin Cities. We've been friends for 20 years and I love going to visit her. I love the Twin Cities. I always have an amazing time. I went there obviously to visit her and her husband, but to see their three year old daughter who I really am heavily invested in emotionally. And I'll tell you why. When you're three years old, sometimes an adult will say something to you and you will hang on their every word. And as the adult, you'll realize I have so much power and I want to tell you a little story. My friend's 3 year old daughter did not want to wait to eat this frozen treat. And me being 35, knowing that if we just wait a few seconds to let the frozen treat thaw, it's just gonna be a better experience all around. But when you're three, you don't know that, right? Nobody's ever told you. You just think the frozen treat is just frozen and there's nothing to be done. But I have years of experience when it comes to frozen treats and I felt like I should relay this to my friend's three year old daughter. Who calls me Uncle Adam. And my friend who is the mother said, why don't you just wait before you bite into the frozen treat? And her daughter said, I don't want to wait. And she was getting frustrated. And I could feel that there was a lot of emotion behind this. And she was starting to almost cry. And as she's starting to almost get the tears together, the eyes are getting smaller, the, the mouth is turning into the cry mouth. And I looked at her and I said, if we just wait a second, it will be so much easier to eat because then you can taste all the flavors and you can just enjoy the experience of eating this sweet frozen treat. And I could feel that the longer I kept talking, that the deeper she was listening and the deeper she was listening and the more I kept going on and on and on about the delicious flavors of this sweet treat. I could see the face unfolding, I could see the eyes opening. And I could see that her mind went to a new dimension because she's three years old. I'm looking at her, I'm going, you've never even thought of the flavors. You've never even thought of the experience. And it was kind of in that moment that I realized I really do have the gift of gab. I really can be influential. And I went, this is. And when I think about that, I just go that for me, it's just. That's so much power I felt in that moment. It's almost too much power. It was scary. It was scary. Something else that was scary on that trip was, was since I was coming to visit, there was one night when the three year old daughter stayed at her grandma's house, which meant that we could go out for the night. And the night started with us going to dinner. Me, my friend, her husband, we had an amazing dinner, but we thought that the night shouldn't end there. When we were thinking about what should we do next, we decided to do what I wanted to do, which is always risky, but we did. And you might be thinking, what did that route entail? Well, what it entailed was earlier in the day we drove past a pinball bar and I just couldn't get it out of my head. And I kept saying, I need to play pinball today. I don't know why. I just, I felt it in my bones that I needed to be in that pinball bar. And who is my friend to deny me of what I want After I basically hypnotized her daughter. And today, just waiting a few seconds before she bit into her frozen treat. She owed me this. And so we went to the pinball bar and we had a few vodka sodas that turned into a few Vodka Sprites and we played pinball for a few hours. I don't know, there was just something about the bright lights and the shiny silver balls and the multi silver balls that it was an unbelievable experience. And I got so into it that I was gripping the side of the pinball machine so tight that my forearms are still to this day sore, which is so terrifying that I was holding onto the machine so tight, so tight. And I didn't know it at the time, but I, I could feel that the forearms. I was getting hard to kind of move my hands from like the wrist. And I didn't know exactly why, but in hindsight I know it was because I was kind of gripping that side of that machine. And I don't know what got into me. But after a few hours of playing pinball, we thought, why should the night end now when this perfect day can continue at a gay club? Now, the last time I went to a club was probably a few years ago. I am not a club goer. I never really was in my 20s. I probably went to the club, I don't know, maybe two or three times in a whole year maybe. Now, before I go on, I want to say I've lived in California for 12 or 13 years now. So when I was first going to the clubs, it was here on the West Coast. Now again, in this story that I'm telling, I'm in the Twin Cities, Minnesota, and you know, it does get chilly in LA at night, but it doesn't get cold, it doesn't go below zero. So my experience of waiting in line at the club is very different from somebody's experience of waiting to get in the club in a place that does absolutely freeze over. And so while we're standing in line to get into the club, I'm looking around and I'm reflecting and I'm looking at these young kids around me, some even so young that they have the two giant X's on the back of their hands. Because this is an 18 and over club. Again, we're coming from the pinball bar. We're not in the best frame of mind. All we do know is we need to be near loud music, very loud music. But if you don't know what the two giant X's are, they are the X's of absolute generational family shame. That you should be ashamed for being either 18, 19 or 20. And in this club. And there were a lot of those black exes, which did signal to me I probably wouldn't be welcome in here, which is absolutely fine, because I don't need to be welcomed in there. I need to be again, like I said, near very loud music. But it made me reflect that. I don't know if I ever would have had what it takes to be a young person going to the club in the Midwest in the thick of winter. Because as I'm also looking around, I'm seeing a lot of crop tops, a lot of no jackets. I'm seeing miniskirts, open toed kitten heels. And, you know, then I pan over to me and my friend who she's in a thick wool sweater. I'm in a half zip sweatshirt and a winter coat zipped all the way up. And I am realizing that I'm not built the way these people are. They're built tough. So we finally go into the club, and it isn't three to five minutes of dancing in that we realize that maybe the thick wool sweater and the zipped up winter coats aren't the way to go. And so we do kind of have to tap out of the dancing at that point, because we do realize that we might have a heat stroke. So we stop dancing and we go to another floor of this club where they're having a drag show. And so we sit down, and at this point, I feel, okay, we totally fit in now. This is great. And I felt that way until I see my friend take her phone out and click the side button and say, hey, Siri, what song is playing in the middle of one of the drag performances? And it was sort of in that moment where I went, okay, I think we need to pack it up. I think we need to kind of get this show on the road. I do believe it's three strikes and you're out. And I don't know what our first two strikes are, but I do know that this has to be the third one. And I do think it is time for us to call it. And so we did get our things together at that point. And I want to remind you that we had things to get together because the winter coats were kind of tied around the waist at that point. We weren't dressed to impress. We were dressed to be absolutely ignored. And we were, by everybody, rightfully so. And that's just the way the cookie kind of crumbles on that one. Needless to say, I had the time of my life. I had the absolute time of my life. But it did make me reflect on being young and going to the club. Now I'm going to put everything I said about the weather aside because seeing all of the kids at the club in their best outfits really made me reminisce about me when I was in my early 20s, going to the Abbey for the very first time. Now the Abbey is a gay club in West Hollywood where dreams are made and people are broken and cell phones are stolen. Don't put your phone in your pocket if you're going to the Abbey. Hold it in your hand or like put it in a different place because they're ripping those out of back pockets. I want to paint the picture of I'm 22 years old, like I mentioned before, thin tan, in a T shirt, in a pair of jeans. And I'm going over to the mirror and I'm going, maybe somebody will ask me to go home with them tonight. And that never did happen. And I'm gonna tell you why, because I now, after having, reflecting on it, do know why Now I was going into the club feeling my absolute hottest going, tonight's the night. Tonight is the night. I'm going to meet somebody. I'm going to meet somebody at this club in West Hollywood. And the night always started at the Abbey. But in West Hollywood there is a street where all the gay clubs are. And so I would kind of bop and pop around. I was never going by myself, right? I was going with other people. All it would take would be one or two drinks in my system before I would think to myself, I should go into the middle and dance so that I can burn calories. And it's just, it's so sad that I thought that way. But it's also genius because I turned a night out into essentially a Zumba class. And I can imagine that seeing a 22 year old in the middle of the dance floor kind of moving nonstop for the sake of, of burning a thousand to two thousand calories before one a.m. might now I see it be enticing to a potential suitor because I'm sure that they were going, that kid is not in a good place. But I'll promise you, never doing drugs. But it was probably looking like it because when I'm telling you I wasn't moving, I knew the secret to burning the most amount of calories was to get the heart rate up. So I was really trying to get the heart rate up. But the more the heart rate would go up, the lower the chances of going home with somebody were. And I just, I didn't see that at the time, at the time, I thought, I'm going to leave here in the best shape of my life. And yeah, maybe I did leave the club in good shape, but that really wasn't the point. That's not what I wanted to do. But yeah, I never met anyone at the club because I was dancing kind of wall to wall, but I was having the time of my life. And I was also not walking around with two giant Xs on the back of my hands. So it wasn't all bad. Why don't we get into some voicemails? Please leave your message after the tone.