The Milk Carton Kids

Summary

Podcast Summary: "The Milk Carton Kids" on You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes

Introduction to the Episode and Guests In this vibrant episode of You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes, host Pete Holmes invites the popular folk duo, The Milk Carton Kids—comprising Joey Ryan and Kenneth Pattengale—to share their unique blend of humor and music. Released on November 27, 2024, this episode delves deep into the band's creative process, personal anecdotes, and philosophical musings, offering listeners an engaging and intimate glimpse into their world.

Milk Carton Kids' New Album: Christmas in a Minor Key Kenneth Pattengale kicks off the conversation by expressing his enthusiasm for The Milk Carton Kids' latest album, Christmas in a Minor Key. Highlighting the band's knack for emotional depth and musical prowess, Kenneth shares:

“Christmas in a Minor Key. We're gonna listen to a track. I think it'll just set the mood, give you a sense of how incredible these people are.” ([00:15])

He proceeds to play a snippet of their rendition of "What Child is This," setting a festive yet introspective tone for the episode.

Personal Anecdotes and Comedic Banter The episode is peppered with light-hearted banter between Pete, Joey, and Kenneth. A recurring theme is the contrast in punctuality among the trio. Pete jokes about Joey's notorious lateness, leading to a humorous exchange:

Pete Holmes: “I feel like he's going to be on time today because he has a child obligation.” ([02:32])
Joey Ryan: “He growed it.” ([02:52])

These exchanges not only showcase their camaraderie but also set the stage for deeper discussions.

Songwriting and Creativity Dynamics A significant portion of the conversation revolves around the songwriting process and the dynamics within the band. Joey Ryan emphasizes the spontaneity required in crafting their comedic bits:

Joey Ryan: “You can't really go wrong. I don't know how that might take shape in different instances.” ([14:21])

Kenneth adds insights into their collaborative rules, such as not pre-pitching bits to maintain the freshness of their performances.

Personal Stories: Encounter with Peter Dinklage One of the standout moments is Pete Holmes recounting an awkward encounter with actor Peter Dinklage:

Pete Holmes: “I spent that dinner trying to bully him into eating bread.” ([40:08])
Joey Ryan: “That was just bad human behavior.” ([40:32])

This story highlights the challenges of interacting with celebrities and the humor that emerges from such situations.

Metaphysics and Spirituality Discussion The trio ventures into philosophical territory, debating concepts of consciousness, enlightenment, and the nature of existence. Joey Ryan shares his perspective on mindfulness and the essence of being present:

Joey Ryan: “If our true identity is the screen of the movie, who cares what's on the screen? It’s all made of the same thing and it’s all expressing itself however it can.” ([117:15])

Pete Holmes echoes these sentiments, reflecting on the human tendency to seek and resist understanding the profound mysteries of life.

Health and Personal Transformation Stories Pete Holmes opens up about his battle with thyroid cancer and his journey away from addiction:

Pete Holmes: “I went under the knife to get my thyroid removed. And since that day, I’ve never had a craving for nicotine.” ([82:44])

This personal revelation underscores themes of struggle, resilience, and the transformative power of facing one's health challenges.

Songwriting Camp and Group Dynamics The Milk Carton Kids discuss their annual songwriting camp in the Catskills, describing it as a transformative experience for both them and their participants:

Pete Holmes: “We create a safe space for people who are interested in what we do to write songs, and the whole thing unfolds like a magic trick.” ([86:15])

Kenneth reflects on the delicate balance of guiding creativity without imposing, ensuring that participants feel empowered to express themselves authentically.

Ghost Story and UFO Discussion Towards the end of the episode, the conversation takes a supernatural turn as Pete shares a ghostly encounter from his youth:

Pete Holmes: “We saw this glowing white orb hovering above the snow. It was transfixed by this thing.” ([108:31])

The discussion evolves into a debate on the nature of unexplained phenomena, blending humor with curiosity about the unknown.

Conclusion and Wrap-Up As the episode winds down, the hosts reflect on the essence of their discussions—balancing humor with heartfelt insights. Pete Holmes muses on reincarnation and the nature of existence, while Joey Ryan emphasizes the importance of living in the present:

Joey Ryan: “In a world of duality, of right, wrong, I get it. I don't get it. It never happens. You just have to.” ([122:53])

The episode concludes with a playful exchange about upcoming projects and a final nod to their collaborative spirit.

Notable Quotes:

• Pete Holmes on Creativity: “The large part of the way your lot connects to an audience is it's in that moment. It's in the air between people.” ([17:10])
• Joey Ryan on Personal Growth: “We’ve been performing for 10 years, and now we’re on the other side of the equation, experiencing creativity differently.” ([92:33])
• Kenneth Pattengale on Support: “Living Libations is a wonderful way to support your body and support the show.” ([136:20])

Final Thoughts This episode of You Made It Weird masterfully intertwines humor, personal stories, and deep philosophical discussions, all through the lens of The Milk Carton Kids' unique perspective. Whether delving into the intricacies of songwriting, the mysteries of the universe, or personal health journeys, the conversation remains engaging and thought-provoking, making it a must-listen for fans and newcomers alike.

Transcript

[Pete Holmes]

You made it with.

[Joey Ryan]

You made it with.

[Pete Holmes]

You made it with.

[Joey Ryan]

Oh, yeah, you made it with. You made it weird with Pete Holmes.

[Kenneth Pattengale]

What's happening, weirdos? This is a very, very exciting episode because it is. We've had Joey Ryan on the show before, but this is Kenneth Pattenale and Joey Ryan together for most of the episode. You'll see at the beginning, it's me and Kenneth, and then Joey joins late, which is quite funny. But they are the Milk Carton Kids, one of my favorite duos, but also just favorite groups of all time. Who cares if there's two or five? They're incredible. You gotta listen to them. The Milk Carton Kids. One of the. One of the bands I've never regretted putting on. And everybody is always like, who is this? I love this. Or they're like, oh, my God. You love the Milk Carton Kids because they're amazing and everyone loves them. They have a new album. It's called Christmas in a Minor Key. And I'm gonna say it, thank God, because we're rolling into the holidays. If you're like our house, Christmas music starts before Thanksgiving. So I'm glad we have some new ones to mix it up. Christmas in A Minor Key. We're gonna listen to a track. I think it'll just set the mood, give you a sense of how incredible these people are. Because not only are they hilarious and deeply interesting, but they also do this. Let's listen to what Child is this.

[Joey Ryan]

From Christmas in A Minor Key.

[Kenneth Pattengale]

Not the whole song, just a taste. Here's a taste.

[Unknown]

What child is this?

[Pete Holmes]

Who laid to rest On Mary's lap.

[Joey Ryan]

Is sleeping Whom angels greet with anthem.

[Unknown]

Sweet While shepherds watch our keeping.

[Joey Ryan]

All right, everybody.

[Kenneth Pattengale]

So glad you're here. This is the Milk Carton Kids. Oh, yeah. I guess I should say I'm on the road. Pete Holmes Dot com. Yeah, I'll say that. Pete Holmes dot com. I really want to sell out Portland because we're filming that for my next Special that's on December 20th. I believe there's tickets to the Late show still the night before. I'll be in Seattle. We also have my Largo here in Los Angeles on December 11th. Why am I going reverse? Indianapolis is on December 5th. And then I'm also going to be in Salt Lake City coming back to you guys in January and Phoenix, Arizona. So go to PeteHomes.com for all of those and go see the Milk Carton Kids, also on the road at the Milk Carton Kids Dot com. All right, get into it.

[Pete Holmes]

There's no harm in just walking down the driveway. I feel like he's going to be on time today because he has a child obligation.

[Joey Ryan]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

On the back end of it. And he knows.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Like, I think he finally growed up. Growed up?

[Joey Ryan]

He growed it.

[Pete Holmes]

He growed it. Where in. Because Joey was perennially late. We've been together for 15 years now.

[Joey Ryan]

Oh, he was a late.

[Pete Holmes]

He's so late.

[Joey Ryan]

He's got early face. Oh, you have late face.

[Pete Holmes]

That's weird. And you were the opposite.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I know you, so I actually would consider you to be an early person.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, yeah.

[Joey Ryan]

You do have more of a laid back vibe. And he has sort of like. He looks like he's into Shakespeare. He looks like he loves the Globe Theater and getting there very early.

[Pete Holmes]

But see, when I see Joey though, it doesn't look like he sought out Shakespeare. It's that somebody brought Shakespeare around and he went, hmm. And then got interested.

[Joey Ryan]

Maybe he was too inactive to seek it out.

[Pete Holmes]

Definitely. Somebody brought Shakespeare to his doorstep and.

[Joey Ryan]

Then he's the guy that goes around. Have you heard about this Bill Shakespeare guy? He looks like he belongs in a billowing shirt, I'll say that.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, yeah.

[Joey Ryan]

Like if I came to his and he had like the crisscrossing.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, yeah.

[Joey Ryan]

Black string and it's open.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Joey Ryan]

We wrote so many Joey Roast jokes when he was on Crashing. I think my favorite was that he looked like a Jap. A high end Japanese sex robot. I love. There's something naughty about doing these without him.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, it's great. It's great.

[Joey Ryan]

Well, enjoy it.

[Pete Holmes]

I do it on stage from time to time.

[Joey Ryan]

You can have that line if you want. I mean, you need the help.

[Pete Holmes]

My favorite one that I ad libbed, I think in Nashville one time was that he looked like a pencil with hair.

[Joey Ryan]

He does look like a pencil. There's a pencil quality. Sorry I didn't laugh. My full laugh because I was also trying to think of new ones. Full disclosure, he looks like what God would start with and then make it into a person. Like there's something kind of neutral and like, well, this is. We're starting with this, but we'll add stuff.

[Unknown]

But they didn't.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, it's kind of like a newt shape.

[Joey Ryan]

Newt. Which is great because he's kind of a Fig Newton of a person. Like if Joey were a cookie. Original Fig Newton.

[Pete Holmes]

True, right?

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah, very good. But it's a fruit cookie.

[Pete Holmes]

Also an acquired taste. I love a Fig Newton, but they're Very polarizing.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah. People don't like them. I think if you liked Fig Newtons, you were a hungry kid.

[Pete Holmes]

Now hang on.

[Joey Ryan]

Because it's the sandwich of cookies.

[Pete Holmes]

Fair enough. If you end up in a discussion with a person who doesn't like a Fig Newton.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

It's true that 100% of the time you're going to try to tout the health benefits of the Fig Newton as well. Right.

[Joey Ryan]

I love this.

[Pete Holmes]

The, the.

[Joey Ryan]

I'm going to be honest with you. Oh, the, the high fiber content.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Joey Ryan]

I've never, I've never noticed or remembered that.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, I. Sorry. That I spoiled it because I feel like if you did end up in this situation.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

You would actually discover it naturally. You would be grasping.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

So much that you would scream fiber. Yes.

[Joey Ryan]

Or knowing me an hour after the debate, fiber. And then I'd be like, God damn it.

[Pete Holmes]

You would realize when we were kids.

[Joey Ryan]

We were pooping huge, massive fiber induced poops and we didn't know what fiber was. You know what I mean?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Joey Ryan]

Like, not to be weird, but I had a. I said out loud, best of my career this morning. And then I was like. I traced it back to what I had been eating.

[Pete Holmes]

Sorry, everybody.

[Joey Ryan]

I'm sorry. But when I was a kid, that would happen. You'd have like an epic apocalyptic and you'd have no guests.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, yeah.

[Joey Ryan]

No cause and effect.

[Pete Holmes]

Is this our longest career?

[Joey Ryan]

Is this our longest career?

[Pete Holmes]

The career you just referenced.

[Joey Ryan]

Oh, our poop career.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. Is that man and woman's longest career? Yeah.

[Joey Ryan]

Prostitution is not the oldest job. It's been pooping. And we all know you're either paid or penalized based on how it's going. And it's not a zero sum game. Some days start and you're like, I am the king. And some start where you're like, fuck, I'm in a meat suit. And none of this has any design and it's a mistake and I can't control myself. It's a shame bath.

[Pete Holmes]

Is that everybody or is that just us?

[Joey Ryan]

Might just be us. Well, we're mad how you're a young face. You're a young fat.

[Pete Holmes]

42.

[Joey Ryan]

42. So we're similar. 45.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Joey Ryan]

I think PEF post 40, your interest in BMS goes through the roof or down through the floor. Really?

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Joey Ryan]

Sending it through the floor.

[Pete Holmes]

Absolutely.

[Joey Ryan]

But that's up. In our vernacular, amazing.

[Pete Holmes]

But I'd never thought of it. That is. But that is the longest.

[Joey Ryan]

Oh, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Thing that we've been tied to. The thing that has lorded over our lives.

[Joey Ryan]

You're so right. It's the thing. It's not like the funny thing would be like, well, I've been masturbating my. No, you haven't. There were for some people, decades, at least a decade where you weren't doing that.

[Pete Holmes]

A significant portion of my life.

[Joey Ryan]

Hundreds of poops happened. Oh, hundreds.

[Pete Holmes]

And right from the start.

[Joey Ryan]

And when you're little squirt play doh Fun Factory and it's someone else's problem. That's the best part. It's a consequence free experience.

[Pete Holmes]

Absolutely.

[Joey Ryan]

I love that Joey's gonna walk in now, it seems like. And we're just talking poops. Yes, go.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, no, it went blank.

[Joey Ryan]

Oh, I saw yet another Joey Byrne.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Joey Ryan]

He does look like the man in front of the gate to the like ethereal land of all women. You know what I mean?

[Pete Holmes]

He's the gatekeeper.

[Joey Ryan]

He's like in a toga.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Joey Ryan]

We're on kind of like a heaven scenario and it's like the Wonder Woman planet. It's all these beautiful women in toga. He doesn't go in, but he's the man that greets you and tests your virtue to see if you get access.

[Pete Holmes]

And my question is, is it that he's not allowed in or just. It didn't occur to him?

[Joey Ryan]

I really am proud of this because he's definitely not allowed in and he definitely tries to downplay that. That's the arrangement. Like, he's like, I've been in, I've been in there, I've been in there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's no big deal.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, yeah.

[Joey Ryan]

I just opted to help.

[Pete Holmes]

Right?

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah. Don't.

[Pete Holmes]

Don't talk to Sheila.

[Unknown]

You guys thought it would be funny to disable the doorbell and then start without me.

[Joey Ryan]

The emails at Joey.

[Unknown]

That was a. This is a fun hug.

[Joey Ryan]

I'm sorry. I regret not getting up. I regret not getting up, but I did like a low. I like. I had a couple short people riffs and I dropped it. I'm not going down for that. You know what I mean? I'm not going down for that.

[Unknown]

I can't risk it.

[Joey Ryan]

Not rude. It's not worth it. That's the math you have to do these days. You go. It's like if. No, you forecast what the laugh would be. You assess the risk and you make a choice.

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Do you know what I find most interesting about my friend and colleague and partner? Yes.

[Unknown]

Yeah, yeah, it's right here.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah, we did a lot of Joey riffs But they're all kind of about how you're attractive, so you should be.

[Pete Holmes]

Even without saying it, this is the thing I found most interesting. Without teasing him.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

There's no scenario in which he goes and listens to the first 10 minutes of this show.

[Joey Ryan]

Can I tell you something?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Joey Ryan]

That it opened a world of possibilities. When I realized my parents would never listen to this podcast, then I was like, they don't listen. I can be free. Let's not even talk about it. I don't want to look directly at that deer in the woods. Because it's a special thing. You want to be free. You don't want to be thinking, like, what would mother say? Literally, what Freud. Freud would be like, that's keeping you back.

[Unknown]

Oh, it is. My mother listens.

[Joey Ryan]

Oh, she'll listen to this.

[Unknown]

She does. Yeah. If. Yeah. If she finds out about it, she might not be in the information ecosystem to find out about it.

[Joey Ryan]

I don't want.

[Unknown]

I can only hope.

[Joey Ryan]

I'll text her. It's like a vague I'm having sex with your mom kind of joke. I'll text her. I don't like it. I didn't like it.

[Pete Holmes]

I did those for years, and that.

[Joey Ryan]

Was, like, one of your moves.

[Pete Holmes]

So much so that he had to have a word.

[Joey Ryan]

You pulled him aside.

[Unknown]

We were in the van for 10 years sitting next to each other. I didn't need to pull him aside.

[Joey Ryan]

Anyway, we had plenty of time.

[Unknown]

He was right there.

[Joey Ryan]

All the time in the world to kill. That's what that song's about, right? Telling Kenneth to stop insinuating. How did you preach that?

[Unknown]

What?

[Joey Ryan]

How did you preach that?

[Pete Holmes]

I would.

[Joey Ryan]

Hey, can you stop saying you're having sex with my mom?

[Unknown]

Yeah, I think I probably said something like, I think that's over now. I think.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, because I think I would do it in interviews and things.

[Kenneth Pattengale]

Intercourse.

[Joey Ryan]

That's run its. Intercourse. You do it in interviews?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, I would say it publicly.

[Joey Ryan]

Oh, I see. On, like, Good Morning, New York.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, just like me and Joey's mom, Debbie. We're very close. We have a special relationship. A special relationship.

[Unknown]

We decided to reprise that.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

This has been an. It's been an embargo for so long.

[Joey Ryan]

If it's a request, you have to play it.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. You reopened the door.

[Unknown]

This is not meta now. It's not an excuse. You can't. It's still embargoed.

[Pete Holmes]

But I am kind of like my dog because you just cracked the door and I've got my head in it.

[Joey Ryan]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

Wiggling.

[Joey Ryan]

I'm. You know, it's my fault. I did it, Joey.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Joey Ryan]

But we did have a lot of riffs. My favorite was that you're the man in front of the holy city of beautiful women who lets other people in or out. And he doesn't. You know, you're like the gatekeeper, but you're not allowed in the city of beautiful women. And you really downplay that. I thought that was in your voice. That's like your comedy. You could make that very funny. That people are like, do you ever go in there and you're like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. It's just not, you know, I do my shift out here. How long's your shift? Eternity. It's been all of time. Thank you for going with that.

[Unknown]

It has been.

[Joey Ryan]

Because that's a very long setup. Not a lot of fruit at the.

[Kenneth Pattengale]

End of the Newton, if you know.

[Unknown]

No, but you got to. I respect that. You have to go all the way down the road to sometimes.

[Joey Ryan]

Well, can I say that that's part of our relationship?

[Unknown]

It is.

[Joey Ryan]

Is that you, Joey, specifically both you, but mostly Joey, will champion a bit of mine and be like, you have to. And you know what the opening line of my new hour is that I'm about to film. I don't have sex with my wife after shows. This is the performance.

[Unknown]

Yeah. Oh, that's the best.

[Joey Ryan]

And you told me that that was your favorite line. And it doesn't really work, but I was like, it doesn't matter. It's so good. You're. I mean, because you didn't work. It works okay. But when you said I liked it, it emboldened the bit. And now I do with confidence.

[Unknown]

That means so much to me because it really works for. For me.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

And sometimes that's all that matters, right?

[Pete Holmes]

For a silent laugh.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah. A folky laugh. Like an appreciative.

[Unknown]

Well done.

[Kenneth Pattengale]

I don't know.

[Joey Ryan]

Well, you guys have done. What is the new it doesn't matter. I am curious. Talking about you telling him we're done with the sex with my mom jokes because you're a duo and this is a very interviewy question. So we can keep talking about Fig Newtons and bms, but I genuinely am curious.

[Unknown]

I miss the good stuff.

[Joey Ryan]

We're going to get to it. I want to know your thoughts on both of those. But how do you go about crafting a bit? Let's say, Joey, you had an idea that you thought it would be funny to go on and on and on about someone you lost. And then at the end, maybe Kenneth says something. Do you, like, prep him with that? Because the risk that he's gonna jump into early or tip it or what. How do you. How do you craft the comedy part of your act? I'll. I'll take my answer off here because I have to take my jacket off.

[Unknown]

The main.

[Joey Ryan]

I'm back.

[Unknown]

We have a lot of rules for each other. Some are spoken, some are unspoken rules. Yeah, yeah. For, like, you know, for the banter.

[Joey Ryan]

What are these rules?

[Unknown]

Some are. The early rules are kind of a little, like, trite now, but they're still valid. But one that I have developed, which has remained unspoken until now, is you can't run the bit by Kenneth in advance.

[Joey Ryan]

Wow. Because it ruins the freshness. It ruins the fun.

[Unknown]

Yeah. Kenneth is. Well, a lot of reasons.

[Pete Holmes]

It's not that it ruins any experience for us. It ruins our ability to actually perform.

[Joey Ryan]

This is weird.

[Unknown]

Kenneth is way better if he doesn't know the bit on the ride down.

[Joey Ryan]

There's a weird synchronicity, but it's just for me, so I don't expect it to be a big deal for you. I was. I just had an audition. I didn't have time to rehearse, and it went very well. Then I was thinking about. And I've mentioned this before, but Jackie Gleason on the Honeymooners famously said, I'm not good enough to rehearse. If I rehearse, it won't be good. And I was thinking about that type of talent that has to be outside for lack of a better way. So I was thinking about that for, like, 10 minutes this morning. And you're saying that's the dynamic here.

[Unknown]

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Which might be.

[Unknown]

I'm worse, too, if I've told him in advance, because then I have some.

[Pete Holmes]

All the beats are wrong.

[Joey Ryan]

Yes.

[Unknown]

I have an expectation of what I want from him then if I've told him in advance.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

And it's better to just go in with a little kernel and then see how it bounces off of him.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

And then I'm better, too.

[Joey Ryan]

I'm going to join that by saying, specifically at Largo, because I'm usually at my happiest and I feel comfortable and there are other comedians there. If I run a bit by somebody in the green room, it's. Yeah, you should have run it out there.

[Unknown]

Yeah. That's why you're there.

[Joey Ryan]

That's why you're there. What are you doing? It's like masturbating before an orgy. Just go to the orgy. Oh, just a little for me. And that's why it's unholy. It curses it. It's like, you're not. Don't eat anything before Thanksgiving before we're all seated. You know what I'm saying?

[Unknown]

Yeah. You need them to really tell you to be the first ones to tell you if it was good or not.

[Joey Ryan]

That's right. Because if you tell me it was good, then I go out. Now I'm doing it like a guy who thinks it's good.

[Pete Holmes]

See, I think that we're thinking about this like men, though, and that actually the thing that we're digging at, the universal truth, is that maybe there's an inherent folly to either preparation or thinking that we can control the moment. And you are a person in a profession that has mastered controlling the moment, which I think is maybe a result of repetition and. And like finding a rhythm and then channeling it. And then there's other super freaks that can manipulate that. But the way that we connect to an audience, and I think the large part of the way your lot connects to an audience is it's in that moment. It's in the air between people, and there's only so much that you can actually control about it and so much you can actually influence about.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah. Isn't that kind of what you're. This isn't false, but the two ness.

[Pete Holmes]

Of you guys, 100%.

[Joey Ryan]

That manufactures a little bit of that X factor you're talking about.

[Unknown]

Absolutely.

[Joey Ryan]

Like, you alone, the song, and literally, Kenneth, you're kind of. When I say disrupting it, I don't mean it in the bad way, but you're sort of keeping it from being just a gcd.

[Pete Holmes]

Yes.

[Joey Ryan]

Good old time at the campfire.

[Pete Holmes]

And he's keeping.

[Joey Ryan]

I'm not saying that's what you would do. I'm saying either of you.

[Pete Holmes]

Without the output, he's keeping me from being just a wandering toddler noodling on the guitar with nothing, no rhyme or reason.

[Joey Ryan]

That also occurred to me. It's always just right, the patengale of it. And yet that must be a subtle thing. Are there moments. Are you close enough that you can say, keep it simple, Splashy, which is from Anchorman. Like, can you. Will it hurt your feelings if he goes. It's just. What is.

[Unknown]

What is this when we're recording. When we're recording, if we don't get something live, if he's, like doing his guitar afterwards or whatever. Yeah, the way that I say that is there's A lot of good ideas that you're finding in there. And I think once you. Once you decide on them, it's going to be great.

[Joey Ryan]

That's good.

[Pete Holmes]

Even in that moment, he can't be direct. Just.

[Joey Ryan]

You would prefer. Keep it simple.

[Pete Holmes]

Splashy in that one. Yes. Because you're in the studio. Yeah.

[Unknown]

Literally.

[Joey Ryan]

Time is money. And there's no literally on the TikTok.

[Pete Holmes]

He doesn't need a bedside manner. We've been at this.

[Unknown]

But I don't mean it passive aggressively. I mean that very precisely. Like, I'm listening closely. And there's a lot of really good ideas in there. And they're. You know, once they like. It's like a sculpture. Yeah, yeah, it's in there. And you just got to shave away all the excess, all the stuff that isn't it.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. And I would actually disagree because it doesn't like. I edited one of my specials with a friend of mine.

[Unknown]

You edited it? Hey, if you're gonna throw our own lyrics at us, I'm gonna throw your own bits back at you.

[Pete Holmes]

What's the bit? Wait, this is my favorite thing. Hold on, I'm just gonna buy this right here.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Because Joey's greatest pastime in life, and it's been consistent for many, many years, is we'll be sitting in the car yet again for eight hours, driving from one place to another. And he'll go, hey, guys, did you ever hear. Did you ever hear the one George Carlin did about. And then he won't let anybody answer. He'll do a five minute, just verbatim obscure comedy bit, expecting us to laugh, which.

[Joey Ryan]

Oh, no.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, it's never funny.

[Joey Ryan]

Oh, no.

[Pete Holmes]

Now it's in. It's a translation through a guy with a. Like a.

[Unknown]

It's always funny. It's good for a quiet laugh.

[Pete Holmes]

The best ones, which I respect, and I'll be careful how I say this, I respect, but usually he does his best to put it in the voice of said comedian. He'll do an impression, never mind their gender ethnicity.

[Joey Ryan]

He'll do. A prior.

[Unknown]

Kenneth was horrified because for. I can probably do. And I won't do it, but I can do most of the original Kings of Comedy dvd.

[Joey Ryan]

No.

[Unknown]

Yeah. Got really into that for a while, I would say.

[Joey Ryan]

I just watched Earthquake on Netflix. If I were to try and get you to understand an earthquake joke, I would have to be in the ballpark of the cadence. It's not.

[Unknown]

It's true.

[Joey Ryan]

It's not. And Mitch Hedberg, I Was gonna say, it's not Mitch Hedberg. Mitch Hedberg, too, as well.

[Unknown]

If you're voting Mitch Hedberg, you naturally do the cadence.

[Joey Ryan]

And every writer's name I've ever been in. And this is the horror of many actors, the writers pitch the jokes as the actor, you have to really, or it won't get in. You know, you have to be like, or maybe this guy, or maybe. So you're in good company.

[Kenneth Pattengale]

Just not Kenneth.

[Unknown]

I'm not a just.

[Joey Ryan]

Kenneth hates it.

[Unknown]

He doesn't hate it because he's. You're simultaneously, I think, annoyed and impressed.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, I'm very impressed.

[Unknown]

I, like, flatter myself.

[Joey Ryan]

I love it.

[Pete Holmes]

It's not. It's. It transcends that even. He's that way with movies, too. Just.

[Unknown]

It's one of our other great dichotomies is that Kenneth doesn't know the words to our own songs. And I have the weird thing where, like, if I watch a movie once, then I'm, you know, I'll be quoting it the next day.

[Joey Ryan]

Well, then, can I ask you with 10 out of 10 urgency? I was listening. I told Kenneth that I was listening to you on Phil Rosenthal, the wonderful Phil Rosenthal's podcast, and you were talking about Inside Llewyn Davis, and he talks about the scene where he plays for the record producer F Mar Abraham, and then he got the line wrong. Do you remember this? It doesn't matter.

[Unknown]

You probably did the podcast years ago.

[Joey Ryan]

No, Phil. Shots fired. Philly boy.

[Unknown]

Oh, he quoted.

[Joey Ryan]

He goes, this is amazing. This is amazing line. I didn't even know that he was doing it wrong. There's Oscar Isaac. He plays this one. And then at the end of the line, F. Murray Abraham goes, there's no money in that. I'm like, that's not the line. He goes, I'm not hearing a lot of money here. It's a different line. So I thought. I didn't think. I wouldn't have brought that up unless I thought that you also were burning with an intense Coen Brothers.

[Unknown]

I might have been. I forget now.

[Joey Ryan]

There also might be somebody listening. Katie, would you Google that line for us, please? What does F. Murray Abraham say to Oscar Isaac? Because if I'm wrong, someone's having the experience that I had listening to that podcast that. Listening to this one.

[Pete Holmes]

You gotta get ahead of that.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah, I do.

[Pete Holmes]

No, I love that part of human nature that there's things.

[Joey Ryan]

The foibles.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. Are those. Yeah. I don't. Foibles. That's a great word for it.

[Joey Ryan]

If you make a mistake. I was. I was giving a talk the other night. It was like a mediating a thing. And I was talking about how the root of humble and human is the same root and it means low to the ground. It means in the soil. So it's like get low and get kind of natural and kind of get dead a little bit anyway. And then the other person I was talking to was like. Like hummus. And I swear they said that. And I was like, hummus. And Val is still laughing that I thought the root of the word hummus. What's the lot?

[Pete Holmes]

You know, I can't find the exact line.

[Joey Ryan]

I just find a bunch of interviews.

[Pete Holmes]

With F. Mary Abraham talking about see, but that's chatgpt.

[Joey Ryan]

This is what we need her for.

[Pete Holmes]

But this also taps into exactly. The part that delights me is that Phil.

[Joey Ryan]

It doesn't matter.

[Pete Holmes]

Despite misquoting the movie, like he got the sentiment. He clearly he did did all the math and that's important to him. And frankly, that's probably why the scene lands and why the writing works. And it's such.

[Joey Ryan]

I actually agree firmly. Sorry to interrupt. I think great art can be summarized by a knucklehead. Very wrong, but also completely correct. I'm not calling Phil a knucklehead. I'm just saying he sort of turned it into a street joke. There's no money in that.

[Pete Holmes]

Totally.

[Joey Ryan]

He looks to the guy and he goes, I don't. There's no money in this. Like that is unfortunately, Joel and Ethan. That is the line. Even if it's not the line. But that is the line.

[Pete Holmes]

But actually, this is the funniest thing. If that were the line in the movie, there's a chance that it wouldn't land the way that the very well written one.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Connects all the dots and plants in.

[Joey Ryan]

Your heart and also includes the snobs like me that if it was there's no money in that. I'd go like, well, that's bullshit.

[Pete Holmes]

Right?

[Joey Ryan]

But you tricked me into laughing at there's no money in that because I'm the kind of guy that needs it to be called a latte. I don't want drip coffee. Like I'm. I'm just another kind of idiot.

[Pete Holmes]

And I'm surprised he doesn't know the line because do John Goodman and oh brother worth though I don't see a.

[Unknown]

Lot of money here.

[Joey Ryan]

I don't see a lot of money here. I change it to I don't hear a lot of money here because I'm very Literal.

[Pete Holmes]

Yes.

[Joey Ryan]

Thank you, Katie. I don't see a lot of money here.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Joey Ryan]

And now I'm a dork in a coffee shop going like, that's so much better than, there's no money in this. But watch.

[Unknown]

There's no money.

[Pete Holmes]

Go, go. I didn't just start, you know.

[Unknown]

Okay, but hold on, because.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, come on.

[Joey Ryan]

You're out of your element. Donnie, what's happening right now? That.

[Unknown]

That's not the one you wanted.

[Pete Holmes]

No, that's. You can do that one. Did he get it right or wrong?

[Unknown]

Oh, the. The Cyclops.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

In Old Brother Barrett.

[Joey Ryan]

Oh, wow.

[Pete Holmes]

Just go for it. Just start in.

[Unknown]

No.

[Pete Holmes]

Come on.

[Unknown]

No, because. But I want to say something about Joel and Ethan.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

Because that line, I don't see a lot of money here.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

To me is so much meaner than. I don't hear a lot of money here. Because he's taking him as his entire.

[Joey Ryan]

I agree. Being C includes here, but here doesn't include.

[Unknown]

Correct.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

Here is like, you're great. But the song. It could be the song. He's saying, I don't. The whole thing.

[Joey Ryan]

The whole thing.

[Unknown]

Nothing.

[Joey Ryan]

And C even includes feel.

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Joey Ryan]

C includes all of it.

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

He's.

[Unknown]

He's envisioning the whole future for Oscar Isaac.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

For Llewyn Davis. And he doesn't. There's nothing.

[Joey Ryan]

I completely agree. I love this stupid to say. I love this kind of dissection, but I really do. Were you as surprised as I was? I know it's an old movie that Oscar Isaac was good. I mean, do you think he was good, or do you have different ears than I Do you have music ears?

[Unknown]

We were involved in that concert that they put on to promote the movie before it came out. Another day, another time. This was the biggest thing that happened to us in our career, actually, was when we got invited to be on this crazy variety show that the Coen brothers and T Bone Burnett put on at Town hall in New York with everybody.

[Pete Holmes]

Smith, Joan Baez, Jack White, Gillian Welch, Elvis Costello, all these people.

[Unknown]

Mumford Avetz.

[Joey Ryan]

Did he bring his sons? And did they bring their brothers?

[Unknown]

Oh, yeah, the brothers and the sons were all there. It was everybody. And we, us and Punch, Brothers and, like, Ran and Giddins and Secret Sisters were like, the unknown, like, young folk bands that were on the bottom of the bill. And then they made a movie. It went on Showtime. They showed it every day on Showtime. And the Coen brothers put us in it for, like, seven minutes, making jokes and playing two songs, and it, like, Everything we did sold out like, for like three years after that.

[Joey Ryan]

Really.

[Unknown]

It was the biggest moment in our career.

[Pete Holmes]

Perfect example of the. Had we known, we would have messed. Botched the moment because at some point during this insane 36 hours, somebody pulled us aside for a talking head. And.

[Unknown]

Yeah. We didn't take it seriously at all. And using all of it.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

They you.

[Pete Holmes]

And it's like the best. Yeah. Comedy goal. It's seven. Literally all these people that flew from around the world. Like, we're dying to get that much air time in this movie.

[Joey Ryan]

And the two guys.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. There's some superstars that were cut out of it, like, erased from.

[Joey Ryan]

And you're like turning from a urinal. Yeah. Well, that's the thing about a low B string.

[Unknown]

Yeah. We were sitting in the stairwell and we made fun of Simon and Garfunkel is.

[Joey Ryan]

Wow.

[Unknown]

And they put. They sent us the cut of it to, like, see if we would approve it. And they just. And they just put the whole thing in.

[Pete Holmes]

Well. But what people. One of the most.

[Unknown]

We can get back to why this is an answer to questions.

[Pete Holmes]

Pleasant for me. Geek asides of our job that became. Is our relationship with Joel and Ethan who now are friends. Like many years relationship with those two guys. Which is so funny because arguably top five filmmakers of.

[Joey Ryan]

I'm not trying to fluff their nuts because they're not doing this show. They're in my top three.

[Pete Holmes]

Absolutely.

[Kenneth Pattengale]

For sure.

[Joey Ryan]

And just a fancy way of saying they're my third favorite directors. That's what we both know.

[Unknown]

We both know favorite bits, isn't it?

[Kenneth Pattengale]

Yeah.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

Whatever. Someone's ranked.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

He'll say they're in the top. Where he'll be like, this guy. That guy's top 13 in the world.

[Joey Ryan]

So funny. I used to have a bit about that because people used to say to me all the time, you were in my top three. And I'd go, just say I'm your top three.

[Unknown]

Top three is really funny.

[Joey Ryan]

I don't know if they're the third. They might be number two. But Paul Thomas Anderson. Who cares? Keep going.

[Pete Holmes]

Whatever.

[Joey Ryan]

They would love that answer. They would be like, at least I'm not getting knocked off by who's a bad director real quick.

[Unknown]

Michael Bay.

[Joey Ryan]

Michael Bay. Oh, no. I'm up for Transformers. Oh, no. This riff isn't worth it financially. Just kidding.

[Unknown]

Are you really up for Transform?

[Joey Ryan]

No. And then I transform into a briefcase full of cash. Who knows? Love you, bae. I called you BAE when you pulled up.

[Pete Holmes]

Did you?

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah. I said hey, bae. And I was like, that's weird. But then I was like, people call each other bae. Keep going.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Joey Ryan]

I'm the host that interrupts the show. I ruin the flow. Keep going.

[Pete Holmes]

It's okay. I've had a flow ruiner attached to me for 15 years.

[Joey Ryan]

Joey and I relate as both flow ruiners.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm also a flow ruiner. I ruin his flow.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

A large part of the Coen brothers writing is passive aggressively digging the audience for their literateness. It's a common theme through everything.

[Joey Ryan]

Tell me what you mean, because I couldn't be more interested. And we were talking about making fun of Simon and Garfunkel just to keep you on it, because I am a host as well. Hardwink.

[Pete Holmes]

Oftentimes I won't be able to call out a specific character. But oftentimes even the Jeffrey Lebowski characters will make, like, a passive aggressive dig at somebody not being well read enough or.

[Joey Ryan]

Oh, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

That the truth of existence and of life itself is handed down. The wisdom's handed down through the great literates. It's. I think they're making fun of it. No, I think their body of work is devoted to that idea. And the way that I've internalized it as an outsider is that I think they're not only incredible writers, but they're writers first. And that's where I agree the great filmmaking comes from. With that said.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah. This whole time I've been wanting to say the parlance of our time, man. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Joey Ryan]

I just wanted to do it absolutely the whole time.

[Unknown]

Really good.

[Joey Ryan]

I love the milk carton kids. They're doing my 90th birthday in 10 years.

[Unknown]

I didn't know that. You didn't know you put your tongue in the side of your mouth. What he's doing.

[Joey Ryan]

He always has a hunk of sandwich in there, man.

[Unknown]

Wow. Oh, my God. So jealous.

[Pete Holmes]

He doesn't do that voice when he does those lines. Oh, he doesn't.

[Joey Ryan]

You could. Now you know the trick.

[Unknown]

Yeah, Yeah.

[Joey Ryan]

I learned it from Josh Rubin. He does the best one ever.

[Unknown]

Yeah, I'm not good at impressions, but.

[Pete Holmes]

He does try Bernie Mac. What people don't realize is the next thing that the Coen brothers are incredible at. Almost as important as the writing is the editing. They edit their films. It's also why it's so good. And so when Joey and I do this talking head in the basement of Town hall and we're doing our usual thing and it takes 15 minutes when we watch it on Showtime two months later, and Joey, like, is direct into a camera and says, people tell us we sound like Simon and Garfunkel. And then what did you say?

[Unknown]

We never heard of them.

[Pete Holmes]

We've never heard of Simon and Garfunkel. Then they cut to the start of.

[Unknown]

Our song, which sounds exactly like Simon and Garfunkel.

[Pete Holmes]

And then six seconds and it cuts right back to us. And Joey goes, we've heard of Simon and Garfield.

[Joey Ryan]

You're like, oh, yes.

[Pete Holmes]

They watched this thing with all these musicians.

[Unknown]

Yeah, they edited it.

[Joey Ryan]

That's a bit of mine.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Joey Ryan]

I thought, huh.

[Unknown]

It's Pete Holmes bit.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, do it.

[Joey Ryan]

I was gonna ask you, Kenneth, to guess what the bid is. If you know that the punchline is. Edited it. You're pretty. You have 70 of it.

[Unknown]

Because I can't even.

[Joey Ryan]

I can't.

[Unknown]

Isn't it just that we fucked up it. Sometimes we fuck up when we make.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah. Words. Yeah. I don't know how you guys feel about writing, but a good way into a joke is so essential. It's like, I'm not. I'm not trying to pander here, but it's like the pre chorus that sets the table for the course. And I can't think of what the line is because I know it's funny to say edited it.

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Joey Ryan]

But I don't remember how I got into it. And that's kind of the whole thing. But I do remember it goes like, that's too we up. It's too many did it.

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Joey Ryan]

A handful of marbles going down a wooden staircase. I go. And words aren't for just for silly times. They're for serious times too. They go, so you're breaking up with someone. And you're like, I did, Julie. I edited it. I don't know who's breaking up because of a questionable edit, but I edited it. And then it's mostly screaming.

[Unknown]

Did you edit it?

[Pete Holmes]

I did.

[Joey Ryan]

I edited. It's just the fun. Okay, keep going.

[Unknown]

So by the time. By the time we saw the movie Inside Llewyn Davis, we had already done that concert and seen Oscar Isaac do it for real.

[Joey Ryan]

Oh, wow.

[Unknown]

In rehearsals and at Town Hall. So we knew he was legit.

[Pete Holmes]

That's the real deal.

[Joey Ryan]

Oh, this is the best ending to the story. Because I didn't want to take Oscar eyes down a peg.

[Unknown]

No. Yeah. You asked if we were, I think, surprised by it. And so we didn't know, like, nobody really knew who he was at the time. And we hadn't seen the movie. He. He was just There. And he. We knew he was the star of the movie. And then he was this incredible. The guitar parts that he does on Green, Green Rocky Road or whatever. Yeah, the. He does Dave Van Ron version, and it's really complex and hard, and he just totally nails it. He had been a musician and. But a lot of actors had. And. And he. But he's fantastic.

[Joey Ryan]

Wow. I didn't know that. I thought we knew that. He was learned, and I didn't think he was playing the guitar.

[Unknown]

He did do. He was playing the guitar. He did do a full, like, T bone boot camp to get up to speed on the specific parts. But he was. He was, you know.

[Joey Ryan]

Sounds so good. It's not.

[Unknown]

And then I saw him in his play Sidney Burstein's Window, and he plays the banjo on Broadway live.

[Joey Ryan]

Oh, really?

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Joey Ryan]

Huh.

[Unknown]

Guy can do anything.

[Joey Ryan]

I know. And he has guy who can do anything face. You're saying you have late face, but you're early. You have early face, but you're late.

[Kenneth Pattengale]

Deal with that.

[Unknown]

So anyway, I have early face, but I have kids.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Kids make me late.

[Unknown]

Like today someone was supposed to pick up our kid, and then their kid was sick, so they couldn't go, so then I had to go pick up our kid.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah. Kids are the Kramer to the world Seinfeld. You know what I mean? They complicate the story, but they make it a lot funnier. But they're why things are getting weird. We all have Kramers. Some of us have Kramers.

[Pete Holmes]

I don't. We decided not to have a Kramer. No Kramers.

[Joey Ryan]

But you did get married.

[Unknown]

This is my friend Bob Sacamano. My friend Bob Sacramento. Kramer's Kramer.

[Pete Holmes]

I don't know anything about that show, but I know that cadence he takes on when he's about to do somebody else's bit.

[Joey Ryan]

He's doing it. I see it too. Yeah.

[Unknown]

It's one of the most fun public appearances we ever made was on. What was the podcast called, NPR's Wait.

[Pete Holmes]

Wait, don't tell me.

[Unknown]

No, it wasn't. Wait, wait, don't tell me. Oh, ask me another.

[Joey Ryan]

This is funny because you were trying to figure it out and you're like, wait, wait, don't tell me. It wasn't. Wait, wait, don't tell me. No, it was. Give me a second. Give me a second. I'll think of it. It wasn't. Give me a second, I'll think of it. It was. Hold on, Kenneth, hold on. That was the name of the show, was it?

[Unknown]

It was. I think I know this one.

[Pete Holmes]

Was it that great NPR show? Oh, fuck, I forgot again.

[Unknown]

Yeah, it was. Ask me another.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, I do. That one out of Idaho.

[Unknown]

And they made. They. They devised the perfect game show for me and Kenneth, which was. They gave me a car. No, they gave Kenneth a note card on it with, like, a catchphrase from Seinfeld or, like, a Seinfeld reference. And so he has no idea.

[Pete Holmes]

Six minutes.

[Unknown]

He has no idea what, like, sponge worth means, for example. So then he has to get me in, like. Like the.

[Pete Holmes]

Because we did this quiz show now, you know, they handed me flashcards, and I had to get Joey to say the word on it. And I was like, what the hell is sponge worthy?

[Unknown]

And everyone in the audience knows, because everybody. It means when he says, like, this is someone who's, like, deserving of an absorptive pad.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Unknown]

And everyone just immediately cracks up because they know it's sponge worthy and he has no idea what he's saying. That was one of the most fun.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, that was good.

[Joey Ryan]

I love that. So why didn't they put you in Lewin Davis? Let's put them on blast.

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Joey Ryan]

You couldn't have just. Instead of, oh, let's help out Timberlake. That's what they thought.

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Joey Ryan]

Instead of getting the folk duo, let's teach the pop sensation folk.

[Pete Holmes]

I will, man.

[Joey Ryan]

And Adam Driver.

[Pete Holmes]

I will manifest.

[Joey Ryan]

You're practically Adam Driver. You're so close to Adam. You couldn't have gone elder. You couldn't have done that. You couldn't have pretended to be in the Army.

[Unknown]

He's a genius, don't you think? Adam Driver. He's incredible.

[Joey Ryan]

I do. I might. It doesn't matter.

[Pete Holmes]

I will manifest this. Now, the reason that they didn't is that they didn't know us from Adam, not Driver. Literally from Adam.

[Joey Ryan]

They didn't know you from Adam Driver, man.

[Pete Holmes]

They found out about us six months later from T Bone. Well, actually, a manager that worked on the show. They were scraping the bottom of the barrel, and the guy said, how about the milk carton kids showed up and saved the day.

[Joey Ryan]

That's where you guys are, down at the bottom.

[Pete Holmes]

So they didn't know us, but I do happen to think that the Cohens have this, like, 12 to 15 year cycle of.

[Joey Ryan]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

Things that they revisit. Yes, whatever.

[Joey Ryan]

And there's only so many things to get obsessed with.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, you're right. And I think that's gonna have. It was bluegrass.

[Kenneth Pattengale]

We got a time, folks.

[Joey Ryan]

Coming back.

[Unknown]

That's right.

[Pete Holmes]

Can I tell my Most. It might be my most shameful story as an adult that has to do with this.

[Joey Ryan]

Can't wait.

[Pete Holmes]

Is that one time. So you've heard a lot about our close and personal friendship with the Coen brothers.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And that involved. There was one time I went to Joel and Francis's apartment on the Upper west side. A small dinner party. This was back when I was drank a lot.

[Joey Ryan]

I remember this. And they gave you their cat and you lost it.

[Pete Holmes]

No, it's worse than that. The other guest was Peter Dinklage. It was me and my girlfriend, Francis.

[Joey Ryan]

Now I have to say that's a synchronicity, because the joke I didn't make was, I'll give you a Dinklage hug. Ah, I did, but then I was just. I wasn't making fun of him. I was just saying, like, I'm. I'm. We're. There's a height discrepancy. But that's the one that I said wasn't worth it. But now it's worth mentioning. Cuz that's weird.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, keep going. Anyway, I spent that dinner. I got a little drunk and he was gluten free. And I spent all dinner trying to bully him into eating bread.

[Joey Ryan]

Dinklage.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Kenneth Pattengale]

Can't bully Dinklage.

[Pete Holmes]

I know, it was shameful.

[Joey Ryan]

You kept telling Peter Dinglage to eat bread. To eat bread.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Joey Ryan]

Like, what was your. What was your approach like with Fig Newton's the fiber angle? How are you selling American treasure, Peter Dinklage Bread.

[Pete Holmes]

I would like grab a piece of bread from the basket. And he was here, and I was here, and Fran was here, and I bite the bread. The bread. So good, Pete. Oh, no, you don't eat bread. And I put it down and I just did that for a couple hours. I ran into him at a play.

[Joey Ryan]

Alcohol is a hell of a drug.

[Pete Holmes]

I ran into him at a play in the Village a few weeks after that in the bathroom. I was like, oh, Peter. And he looked at me as if we had never met. We had spent three hours having dinner together.

[Joey Ryan]

Oh, so he deleted it.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Joey Ryan]

That was a select all delete right there. He's gonna delete the bread guy.

[Pete Holmes]

That's good.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah, but that's good.

[Pete Holmes]

Well deserved.

[Unknown]

Yeah, he edited it out.

[Joey Ryan]

He edited it out. I also like that you were pretending that you saw him in the bathroom and you went, oh, Peter. Because Peter means ding dong. Never forget. I won't.

[Unknown]

That's true.

[Joey Ryan]

Peter means ding dong in the 70s.

[Unknown]

Do you? Oh, yeah.

[Joey Ryan]

Oh, I've told the story before, but in. Sorry, 32nd aside, in junior high, the teacher of our sex ed class, you know, light, light stuff. It was probably third, fourth grade. They're like, all right, before we even talk about how babies are made, let's get it out of our system. Say all the names, you know, for the body parts. And we started with the women. Boobies, titties, all that stuff. We get to the penis. Every name, you know, for the penis. They're like, dick Packerwood. All that stuff. I know I'm sweating. I'm in a puddle of my own sweat because I know we're drawing closer to Peter, right? I'm dying because my name is Peter. Oh, you name was Peter. That's why we're talking about my name.

[Unknown]

Peter. That's what we're talking about.

[Joey Ryan]

That's why I shortened it. Shortened my cock, too. What am I doing? That's an old Steve Martin joke. Anyway, I'm sitting there and I'm waiting. My heart is beating out of my chest. And he goes, all right. This saint goes, we got them all. Closes the book, puts him down. Nobody said Peter. Everyone leaves. They leave the class. I'm curious. I opened the book. We didn't have the book. Check the list. Peter's on the list.

[Unknown]

Wow.

[Joey Ryan]

He made a call.

[Unknown]

Nice guy.

[Joey Ryan]

Nice guy.

[Pete Holmes]

What was this hero's name?

[Kenneth Pattengale]

Dick.

[Unknown]

Dick.

[Joey Ryan]

Dick Testy Balls. I think so. He knew how it felt.

[Unknown]

Wow.

[Joey Ryan]

Dick Testy Balls. Didn't want me to.

[Unknown]

People have names like that.

[Joey Ryan]

I know. Dick, Tessie, Balls.

[Unknown]

I know a guy. Richard Hoare. Richard Hoare Goes by Dick.

[Joey Ryan]

I mean Double Down.

[Unknown]

You gotta double down.

[Joey Ryan]

Double down on a Dinklage dip. That's the bread. Double down on a dick whore.

[Pete Holmes]

We had a drummer called Jamie Dick. He was in our band.

[Joey Ryan]

And Jamie means I love. Oh, Jamie.

[Kenneth Pattengale]

True.

[Joey Ryan]

I love Dick.

[Unknown]

Month in the bus. We never thought of that.

[Joey Ryan]

Month in the bus. You guys gotta get. I've been telling you, I need to come in for like, one leg. Just be like, what's the kind of stuff you're working with? Yeah, pitch some stuff, get out of the next city.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, Jamie was too busy telling us all jokes for us to do any of the joke.

[Joey Ryan]

Jamie, Is it funny?

[Pete Holmes]

Well, Jamie got married after. After he was on the road with us. And his wife's name, Allie. Wonderful Allie. Their wedding slogan on the invitations. The card, the whole thing was, allie takes the dick.

[Joey Ryan]

Wow. Allie takes the dick. Putting. Getting dick in an alley. Something I'm just workshopping. It's already happened. But I Feel like there's something about like, meet me in that alley for some dick. His was better. His was better. But this is why I feel like I'm better. Like dead serious.

[Unknown]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

No, I think that's their orgy.

[Joey Ryan]

That's the orgy invitation.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Joey Ryan]

We're back to second orgy.

[Pete Holmes]

Ref. Yeah.

[Joey Ryan]

Dinklage abounds. Orgies abound.

[Kenneth Pattengale]

This episode is brought to us by our friends at Armra Colostrum. You guys know I am obsessed with ways to strengthen my immunity as well as gut health, fitness, endurance, metabolism and hair and skin radiance. I like to say this like an old 80s commercial. Imagine if there was one product that did all of that. But there is armor. Colostrum has been a part of our daily routine, both me and Val, for the past like six months or so. And I have seen such a difference, first of all in bloating and gut. Like the feeling of my body. I feel so much lighter. It's also incredible for reducing inflammation, glowing skin, reactivating hair growth, puffiness in your face and your neck, as well as stimulating stem cells to produce collagen and increase elasticity metabolism. It's wonderful. We're going into the holidays, we're eating a lot. Ignite that metabolism. Metabolism, excuse me. And fortify your gut health. So you feel, like I said, less bloated. It also fuels your fitness, performance and recovery. What is it? It's basically just a powder. They have flavored ones. The blood orange is my favorite. They also have unflavored which I throw in my smoothie. And it's a colostrum. It's a proprietary concentrate of bovine colostrum. That's the first nutrition you get in your life. And it is packed with so much stuff that rebuilds the barriers of your body and fuels cellular health for a host of research backed health benefits. It's natural, it's sustainable. It almost has no flavor. The unflavored one has like no flavor. Sometimes I just throw it straight into my mouth. Developed with the highest integrity grass fed in the United States. We've worked out a special offer for weirdos. 15% off by going to tryarmra.com weird or enter weird at checkout to get 15% off your first order. That's t r y a r m r a dot com weird. We're also brought to us by our friends at Alphabrain at onnit. You guys know I'm obsessed with nootropics. I'm obsessed with my brain function for creativity and also just for functioning in my life, I just took two Alpha Brain. I love the black label. That's the one I'm trying now. It's incredible. But for the past, I don't know, years and years, I've been taking Alpha Brain by on it. And it is a game changer. Anytime I'm writing, anytime I'm doing this podcast, anytime I'm just driving and I want to have clear thoughts, anytime I'm going on a date, I wish I with Val, obviously. I wish I knew about it in school. Anytime I'm reading a book and I just want to retain it, it's helpful with concentration, memory, focus. It's earth grown ingredients. It's not a stimulant. It's not like coffee. It doesn't keep you awake. In fact, taking it before bed often gives me really cool dreams. It's awesome. Anything you're doing with your brain is easier and better and clearer, more focused, more dialed in with Alpha Brain. So if you like it as much as I do, you're about to blow your own mind. Go to onnit.com weird you'll get 10% off everything you see on that landing page that's on it.com weird. Support your brain. Support this show. All right, back to the boys.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, but back to my most shameful moment is that then I was in New York. I was living in Asheville. I went to New York, and Ethan knew I was in New York. We had dinner and.

[Joey Ryan]

Can I just interject and say I thought the Dinklage thing was that's why I didn't pursue.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, no, no.

[Joey Ryan]

It gets worse.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, I mean, that. That was just bad human behavior. I was addicted to Peter Dinklage. No good excuse.

[Unknown]

I knew that was your number one.

[Joey Ryan]

Most shameful apologies to Dink Lidge.

[Pete Holmes]

No, the most embarrassing. Just on a holistic level.

[Joey Ryan]

Not a good name to shorten.

[Pete Holmes]

This is a more serious offense.

[Joey Ryan]

Okay?

[Pete Holmes]

And a humble brag is Ethan calls me up. He says, when are you leaving New York? I say, Wednesday. He goes, can you leave Thursday? I said, why? He says, I just finished a movie. I want you to come see it. Be at this screening room in wherever it was in the Village this time on Wednesday afternoon. And I go down.

[Joey Ryan]

Did you say, I got a question? Milk Duds, like some weird ask. Yeah, we can get Milk Duds. You get Milk Duds, I'll be there. And then you hang up.

[Pete Holmes]

No, but actually, I'm just putting this together. This is the first time after the Peter Dinklage dinner that I had Seen Joel. And that had been a year or two.

[Joey Ryan]

The Dinlage.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Joey Ryan]

And I walked into trying to do a Game of Thrones with something with bread. This whole time.

[Unknown]

This whole time, you're not even paying attention.

[Joey Ryan]

I'm here, but Photoshop is open in the background and all I'm doing is Game of Buns.

[Pete Holmes]

I get why it's. You made it weird now because just the entire time you're trying to do jokes while people are trying to have serious conversations, and that makes it weird.

[Joey Ryan]

There's a million ways to make it weird that I've discovered, but this is certainly my favorite. Keep going. So he says, come to the screening room.

[Pete Holmes]

And I'm late. And I show up to the screen room in the Village, and I walk in and there's Ethan, and there's a seat for me. And I see Joel in the back. And I still have guilt for having bullied Peter Dinklage. I wave at Joel and I misinterpret his, like, serious scowl for, like, oh, he hates me. And I sit down and I watch. They had just finished, literally, the night before editing the Ballad of Buster Scruggs. And they're showing, like, us a screening before the visual effects. Anything.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And I sit down and I'm, like, for an hour and a half, just pinching myself. Ethan Cohen calls me to come watch this, like, early version of a Cohen. Like, where am I? What is this world?

[Joey Ryan]

And Joel Cohen is apparently mad at me.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, you're having double Roseback.

[Joey Ryan]

I got one mad at me. I got one in love with me. But.

[Pete Holmes]

So I sit there and I watch the movie, and I have a. I have a. I don't know if it's an unusual brain. I have a really bad memory. I can't remember important things that happened to me. I can't remember important feelings I've had. If there's documentation of it, I can remember it. But I just.

[Joey Ryan]

Same.

[Pete Holmes]

It's a.

[Joey Ryan]

Here's an impression of me. Like, I'll be telling a story to Joey, and then I'll go, oh, you were the guy next to me. You were the nameless, not me guy that was next to me. I hate it. I do it to Val.

[Unknown]

And she's such embarrassing.

[Joey Ryan]

I know people throw her on Saint, but she never gets mad that she's like, I was next to you when that happened. And I'm like, it's hard. It's lonely in here sometimes. Keep going.

[Pete Holmes]

But so I'm watching the movie going, this is absolutely surreal. Yeah, I've been Like, asked into the. You know, behind the curtain, you won't.

[Joey Ryan]

Get this reference, but George. Into the nightclub full of ladies.

[Pete Holmes]

Yes. The lights come up. Ethan looks at me. He goes, what'd you think? I go, oh, I really enjoyed it. It was great. And he goes, that's it. And I'm like, yeah, it was great. Like, that was awesome. I'm so happy.

[Joey Ryan]

He wanted, like, a. He said, treaties.

[Pete Holmes]

He said, I invited you here to, like, give me notes on the picture. Like, is there anything that doesn't work for it? Like, what? And I'm like, you've watched the movie. I just went and enjoyed a movie with my friend and thrown in popcorn.

[Joey Ryan]

It's like, fear. You're smoking a cigar, laughing your ass off, but no notes.

[Pete Holmes]

But it was more than that. It's that my filmmaking hero wanted my input, and I had no input to give.

[Joey Ryan]

Because you couldn't. You probably. Are you. Am I hearing you right? You probably couldn't even really remember it that well.

[Pete Holmes]

I tried to come up with some criticism of the Tom Waits, like, short story.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Because there was one line that didn't work for me.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

That I remembered. I was like, oh, he shouldn't have said that. And I was. And so then I'm telling this to Ethan. I was like, there's a Tom Waits line that. He's like, well, what was it? I got to know. What was the line that did what? I go, I don't. What does he say when he's at.

[Unknown]

The top of the train?

[Joey Ryan]

Really hurting my feelings? I hate this story.

[Pete Holmes]

I know.

[Unknown]

Can I tell you?

[Pete Holmes]

It's why I said, it's one of my most embarrassing.

[Unknown]

Can I.

[Joey Ryan]

Does he know what happened? Well, because now, years later, as you could say, I didn't know. I thought you were like, come watch it.

[Pete Holmes]

This is the other weird thing. I don't know if you have people that are close to you this way. Like, he's not a human being like the rest of us. Like, he. Yes. To go back to our beginning of this podcast, I think, like, all of us, his longest story is also with his bms. Like, I mean, I don't mean to. Saint.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

I don't mean to grant him, like, sainthood in that way.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

But, like, if I tried to reminisce about that with Ethan Cohen, I think his brain's not interested. And we'd be on a different part of the conversation a second later. And I. I could probably be like, no, I want to talk about this, but there's no right. It's not necessary for him.

[Joey Ryan]

Somebody said this and it changed my brain. They were like, when people say, if I could have lunch with anybody, sometimes they pick like Steve Jobs. And he's like, don't you realize that all Steve Jobs would be doing is workshopping his ideas on you? Right. Like he doesn't. That's not to say he's a sociopath or doesn't care, but he'd just be like, so you're saying you would like a watch, like with a touch screen. How big? How big is this? Too big.

[Unknown]

I said, I'm the one who said that to you.

[Joey Ryan]

You are not. I would have believed it. This is sort of the defense of the seemingly self centered. And I do mean seemingly self centered.

[Unknown]

I really self conscious about this.

[Kenneth Pattengale]

I know whenever I do it, I'm.

[Unknown]

Like, oh, I'm awful.

[Joey Ryan]

But I try and I have explained it to Val where I'm like, you can't believe how impersonal it is, how not indicative. Indicative of how I feel about you. It is, because I'll forget I'm obsessed with my daughter. And we were. Our friends from New Mexico were visiting us and I was trying to remember if Leela had ever been to New Mexico. The answer is yes, but I need jogging. And then I see the images, but I'm like, what I'm doing in that panic is I'm picturing a place in New Mexico and then like an animation cell. I'm putting Leela there and going, is that better or worse that happened better or worse? Was that real or is this real? Was she there? And I'm just like. Then I'm fluttered with panic. And then you ever realize you're not even trying to solve the problem, you're just thinking about your own panic and then you're off to the resort.

[Unknown]

Well, tell me what this says. Tell me what this says about me. Because I have the same story as Kenneth in reverse. And I may have never told you this, Pete.

[Joey Ryan]

Oh my goodness.

[Unknown]

But some years ago, when I got a message from our manager and they said they want you to come to a table read of Pete Holmes show crashing.

[Joey Ryan]

Right.

[Unknown]

They did not say why. And I could not figure out why.

[Joey Ryan]

Are you real right now?

[Unknown]

I swear to God, nowhere In the.

[Joey Ryan]

Email it said to read the part of wasn't your character's name Joey?

[Unknown]

Yeah. Eventually I got the script and that's when I found out why you just.

[Pete Holmes]

Thought you were going to Kibbitz, like a hundred.

[Unknown]

I thought I was going to give notes like you were supposed to do at the Coen brothers.

[Joey Ryan]

And you were ready?

[Unknown]

I watched the whole show, all the se. I had everything. I was ready.

[Joey Ryan]

Ready with notes.

[Unknown]

And then I got the script, and it was like, ted, a Joey Ryan like, character. And I was like, oh, okay, I'm reading.

[Joey Ryan]

I'm reading. Ted. Yeah. No, we wrote that for you.

[Unknown]

I wrote that for you, obviously, but. So I don't know why somebody didn't tell me that. But, like, when I. Up until almost the moment that I showed up, I had no.

[Joey Ryan]

Well, this goes back. This conversation really is in my.

[Unknown]

Why did they want me to be there?

[Joey Ryan]

I swear to you guys, yesterday I had an email that said, do you want to meet with the producers on this show? And it said in the email, I'm not making this up. This is not an audition. You don't need to know the lines. It's just a meeting. It said it. I go into the meeting, they're like, are you ready? And I was like, luckily, this isn't. I was like, there's a 15% chance we're going to do this scenes. So I did look at them, and I had them printed out. But other. I. I was ready to just shoot the bridge.

[Unknown]

They just jumped right into it.

[Joey Ryan]

And then I. But this is stupid, but the story's almost over. I was like, glad we did it, because what are we going to do? Just talk. It would be like, let's hear a song, boys. You know what I mean? Like, please play a tune.

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Joey Ryan]

With that in mind, let's hear the milk carton.

[Kenneth Pattengale]

I'm just kidding.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, but it's so sad.

[Unknown]

Bring my guitar. Did you bring your guitar?

[Pete Holmes]

I am so embarrassed. And I tried.

[Joey Ryan]

You didn't.

[Pete Holmes]

I tried. No, you tried.

[Joey Ryan]

How do you try to bring a guitar?

[Pete Holmes]

Well, no, the story is that I forgot the guitar and I was already 12 minutes down the hill. But then I remembered there's a guy who borrowed a guitar from me whose studio is between my house and your studio. And I called him to try to pull in the chip, and he said that an expression.

[Joey Ryan]

Pull in the chip.

[Pete Holmes]

Call in a chip.

[Joey Ryan]

Call in a chip. No, just pull in a chip.

[Unknown]

Cash in a chip.

[Joey Ryan]

You cash in a chip, you pull.

[Unknown]

In a fish, and you call in a.

[Joey Ryan]

Call in a favor. You call in a favor, you cash in a chip, and you pull up.

[Unknown]

This is one of the great.

[Pete Holmes]

No, there's a chip thing.

[Unknown]

My wife.

[Pete Holmes]

And I said, that's totally valid.

[Joey Ryan]

You chip. You wanted to chip away at the chip, his patience.

[Pete Holmes]

I called in a Chip. That's what I said.

[Unknown]

That's what you said. Yeah, but that's not it.

[Pete Holmes]

Where's my say? You guys chat?

[Joey Ryan]

I do want to say. Oh, we're going to check. You texted it. You said, can I check? Can I pull up your fish? I do want you to know I almost texted you guitars, question mark. But then I was like, I had the Ava brothers on my podcast, and I'll never forget it.

[Unknown]

They brought their guitars, I bet.

[Joey Ryan]

Well, we were in their studio and I said, do you guys want to play a song? And look. No. No, I'm not.

[Pete Holmes]

Excuse me. Quote, call in your chat.

[Joey Ryan]

I don't know if they wanted to.

[Pete Holmes]

Quote is an idiom that means to use your social connections or influence to gain an advantage over others.

[Unknown]

No, it's not.

[Joey Ryan]

Call in a chip.

[Unknown]

That's AI.

[Joey Ryan]

Did you ask AI? I was just gonna say, did you ask AI? Well, I mean, I need. I need Google. That's the news.

[Unknown]

Tells you what you want to hear.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah, but that's an AI overview. I believe it.

[Pete Holmes]

Some dumb.

[Unknown]

Cash in your chips. Call in your chips.

[Pete Holmes]

I call in your chips. It's. Here's the Collins dictionary.

[Joey Ryan]

Gemini just told Valerie that Oreos were gluten free. And her stomach ache said, fuck you, AI. So we gotta be careful with that. It's real.

[Pete Holmes]

Wait, that couldn't be the sugar. The copious amounts of sugar and chemicals.

[Joey Ryan]

I wish I could go back in time and smoke a cigarette and be like, yeah, you don't think it's the sugar? How's your. How's your marriage going? How long have you been married?

[Pete Holmes]

It's new, right? Five years.

[Joey Ryan]

That's new. Ish. It's newish. It's newish.

[Pete Holmes]

How long have you been married?

[Joey Ryan]

We've been together for 12 years, but we've been married for seven, so it's not new, now that I think about it. How long you been together, though? Long.

[Pete Holmes]

Seven years. Eight years. Seven years. Okay.

[Joey Ryan]

All right.

[Kenneth Pattengale]

You went right.

[Joey Ryan]

No, you went right for the marriage.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, we got married.

[Unknown]

This is all very cute.

[Pete Holmes]

What?

[Joey Ryan]

This story.

[Pete Holmes]

We got married because my wife's grandpa died.

[Joey Ryan]

Oh, there's a lot of riffs I have right now, but I'm not gonna do them.

[Pete Holmes]

He died in Canada.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah. That. That. That doesn't do anything. That doesn't give me more information to riff inappropriately.

[Pete Holmes]

It was during COVID So we got married so I could cross the border.

[Joey Ryan]

Oh, you had to be married to go to the funeral?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Joey Ryan]

Whoa.

[Pete Holmes]

Yes. So we. I propose.

[Joey Ryan]

Well, how Bad. You want to go to a funeral. This guy's gonna give half of his possessions to a woman, and he'll be like, at least I got to go to that funeral. How good is the finger food? Open casket. And he is handsome as hell. You're not gonna believe how good looking this grandpa was.

[Pete Holmes]

Wait, is this a Seinfeld voice because it's a Seinfeld bit, or are you improvising in a Seinfeld voice?

[Joey Ryan]

I'm improvising in a Seinfeld voice. Great jokes, but it's also to distance that it's me doing it. It's like, I'm not saying this. Seinfeld thought you were giving away your life to go to a funeral.

[Pete Holmes]

I love it, though, because you did those jokes, I feel like were in the Seinfeld vernacular.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Seinfeld's one of my favorites.

[Pete Holmes]

You're number one.

[Joey Ryan]

Well, to two bits ads, right? And I think I've said this before, but when Comedians in Cards was on, I would rehearse what I would say and be like, rear view mirror. All mirrors are rear view. If you look in a mirror and you see in the front, brother, that's a window. That's a front view window. I was so ready to go and never asked.

[Pete Holmes]

He would laugh at that too, eh.

[Joey Ryan]

If I did in his voice. Well, this is also kind of a synchronicity because Seinfeld put out a book called Is that any? Is this anything?

[Unknown]

Oh, yeah, have it.

[Joey Ryan]

And years before, I found out that he was a fan of new material, Seinfeld, this thing we did on the old Pete Holmes show, and that was.

[Unknown]

Wait, is that also, like, a Twitter account or something? It might have been modern Seinfeld.

[Joey Ryan]

No, that's not.

[Unknown]

That's different.

[Joey Ryan]

That's not us. We would write Seinfeld bits and then a puppet would try them. And the one that I remember is Nate Fernald. I'm pretty sure it was Nate Fernlod. It might have been Joe derosa. It might have been Jamie Lee. They all worked together. But they were like, why does macaroni have the clear front? It's the only box that has that lets you see inside of it. Cereals, the headliner. He's in the dark. Why's pasta get a room with a view? And I died. And then Neil Brennan did a commercial with Seinfeld and said that he. He was talking about it and how we would do the bits and then go, is that anything? And then on the ride to this podcast, I was like, wait, A minute. I think he called his book. Is this anything? Because of new material. I can't confirm.

[Unknown]

It obviously doesn't say that. That's not something everybody says.

[Joey Ryan]

It is something everybody says, but because he pointed out that that was the funniest part, which it is. The funniest part is that an insecure puppet is like.

[Unknown]

Is that anything?

[Joey Ryan]

Number two pencils. We already have a thing. That's number two. Yeah. And brother, you can't erase it. P looks like a number one.

[Unknown]

The best one is the mirrors. The best one.

[Joey Ryan]

Rear View Mirror.

[Unknown]

Rear View Mirror is amazing.

[Joey Ryan]

That is the most Seinfeld. How is that not one of.

[Unknown]

Not one of his bits?

[Joey Ryan]

Rear View Mirror.

[Unknown]

All mirrors are.

[Joey Ryan]

Or do it as Mitch Hedberg. Rear View Mirror. All mirrors are Rear view. It's hard to switch. If you look through a mirror and you see forward, that's a window.

[Pete Holmes]

All right.

[Joey Ryan]

It's not as easy to do. It's not as easy to do. All right. Somehow I made this about me.

[Pete Holmes]

What about Norm McDonald? Do this. Norm McDonald.

[Joey Ryan]

Rear view mirror. I'm just doing Mark Norman. Mark. Norm McDonald. Okay, so where are we? You didn't bring your guitars.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, yeah. I. So I couldn't call in the chip.

[Joey Ryan]

In time, as is the parlance of.

[Pete Holmes]

Our time, you know? And you know what? That reminds. This is a complete digression. Not even a digression, because we have not been in this territory. This is a complete aside. But there was this very seminal bass player in the country. Yeah. The history of country music. Doghouse bass player called Roy Husky Jr. That played the most important instrument, the bass, on some of the most important recordings that shaped American culture.

[Joey Ryan]

Take a Walk on the Wild.

[Pete Holmes]

Probably not that, but come as you are. Yes. I'm just kidding. No, I know if I said yes, we'd move on.

[Joey Ryan]

The riff ends if you say yes, totally.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Kenneth Pattengale]

Yes.

[Joey Ryan]

Longview.

[Pete Holmes]

Absolutely. Anyway, the coolest story I ever heard about ruskin, Roy Husky Jr. Was at his funeral. These people. All these people showed up at his funeral and like, 30 of them showed up with upright basses, which are not a small instrument.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And gave them to his wife. And as each one gave the base to his wife, his wife realized that years before, when she told Roy Husky Jr. Stopped buying bases, he would. He never stopped. He would just buy bases and give them to his friends. And so at his funeral, just people descended upon his funeral, giving back the bases that Roy Husky Jr. Bought himself.

[Joey Ryan]

And, like, it's time to quit free basing.

[Unknown]

She does not. Oh, she's unfazed.

[Joey Ryan]

Oh, no. I was mugging to the camera. I was very proud of that. So they were freebasing and they gave him back.

[Pete Holmes]

They were freebasing. But I.

[Unknown]

So, I mean, this is a person, like, in our circles and stuff. So I don't mean to be mean or anything, but when he died, his wife just found out that he had been, like, deceiving her for base deceit for, like, all those years.

[Pete Holmes]

Absolutely. The two things that come to mind are. One, why is a good story.

[Joey Ryan]

But then she found out, like, that's why all the base in debt. But then now I'm also. What I was thinking was, now she has 30 upright bases.

[Pete Holmes]

I know. What a way to spite your wife for just saying, like, you know, cut it with the buying of the bases.

[Joey Ryan]

Wait, you think it was to Spider?

[Pete Holmes]

Not to Spider, but he had intentionally spread. Spat her.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Spited her.

[Joey Ryan]

Spite was happening. Yeah. Unintentional spine.

[Pete Holmes]

But the thing, the big take on, for me, that was clearly a part of Roy Husky Jr. That could not be helped.

[Joey Ryan]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

Like. Because also, if it were little pins or something, I would. But, like, the largesse of the base, I would make the argument that this was not, like, intentional spite. There was a compulsion. This guy was a. What? His entire life was defined by this instrument. And.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And he couldn't escape it.

[Joey Ryan]

Buying Catcher in the Ride. Like, he had to do it.

[Pete Holmes]

He had to do it.

[Joey Ryan]

He had to do it. That is, I. This isn't. I really do want to know. Do you have that with guitars?

[Pete Holmes]

Yes.

[Joey Ryan]

I was going to say it seems like you might.

[Pete Holmes]

It's a problem.

[Unknown]

Kenneth has that with guitars. But you haven't bought guitars in a while.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. Well, you know, it's fun.

[Unknown]

Our studio looks like a vintage guitar shop. The guitars are lining the walls into two rows, one above the.

[Joey Ryan]

I'm gonna take a stab. Is it because when you were a kid, you were like, imagine having all these guitars. Are you fulfilling a child?

[Pete Holmes]

No. I don't know. The only thing that I know is this could change tomorrow.

[Joey Ryan]

It could be right.

[Pete Holmes]

Like, I get the sneaking suspicion that I'm happy in life now.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Like I'm content.

[Unknown]

You finally got enough.

[Joey Ryan]

That's a good lyric.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, no, not the guitars. Just everything. I'm 42.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm. Never mind. In generally good health. I was in poor health and came. That's probably what contextualized it.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

But I'm not wanting for anything anymore, which is, I think, what everybody's after.

[Joey Ryan]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Joey Ryan]

Yes. To put an end to seeking and resisting. Yes. You're bringing us right into the second.

[Unknown]

Buddhist, Kenneth, if you didn't know.

[Joey Ryan]

Yes, but. So that's what happiness is. Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. Except I'm going to Europe on Saturday and I don't want to go. Like, this is some people's dreams to, like, go to a different city in Europe for 30 days and experience culture and history. Whatever. Like, fuck. Not again.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

What are you going on until you're going to work?

[Pete Holmes]

Well, I'm working for my wife, and so it's not really where. Like, if it were just a job, I wouldn't.

[Unknown]

You're not going on vacation, You're.

[Joey Ryan]

You playing with your wife?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, actually, no.

[Joey Ryan]

Not in that way. You mean it's been a bit. Are you saying it's been.

[Pete Holmes]

No, I'm happy.

[Joey Ryan]

Dry times.

[Pete Holmes]

It's all fine.

[Joey Ryan]

Oh, it's fine.

[Pete Holmes]

Everything's good.

[Joey Ryan]

Being sexless.

[Pete Holmes]

Being sexless is fine. You're a religious guy.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah, that's right. We talk about when we started masturbating.

[Pete Holmes]

That's right. After poop.

[Joey Ryan]

But you mean you're. You are masturbating after we did poop, then jerking.

[Pete Holmes]

Yes.

[Joey Ryan]

Which is how you want to do it.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, it's the only way to do it.

[Joey Ryan]

Shit, shave, shower stroke.

[Pete Holmes]

Shit stroke. Shave, shower.

[Unknown]

Boy, I really missed a long few minutes of the beginning of this podcast.

[Joey Ryan]

It was long and free.

[Unknown]

I was only two minutes late.

[Joey Ryan]

You weren't even late. We just thought it couldn't be funnier to start without you. I don't know why. Anyway, wait.

[Pete Holmes]

In N Out Burger. Does it give you the shits or does it constipate you?

[Joey Ryan]

I don't eat it, so I wouldn't know. But I know you. Double lettuce. Yeah, I have.

[Pete Holmes]

And you don't remember. It was.

[Joey Ryan]

I don't remember. It didn't give me shits. Yeah. I took that moment to be like, I don't eat that. But I could have just been like, I have eaten. But I went right to the victory line.

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Joey Ryan]

And I was like, oh, I don't eat that. Yeah. I actually have a. In my mind. It's not a famous story, but I did mushrooms. And earlier in the day, I had eaten In N Out Burger because I was with a girl that I was trying to impress, and I didn't eat meat at the time, but she was eating in and out. So I was like, I'll have in and out. Then I had the worst mushroom trip of my life, obviously. And the punchline When I told the story was the drug that I did that day was In N Out Burger. It wasn't psilocybin. I ate thousands of ground up, factory farmed horrible hormone cows and cheese. And then I had a horrible trip. No fucking shit, dude. You just ate like an orc prison. It was horrible. You guys do drugs?

[Pete Holmes]

He does.

[Joey Ryan]

You do. Are you. So be Noodles.

[Pete Holmes]

No.

[Joey Ryan]

Still on the booze?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

So be Noodles.

[Pete Holmes]

I'll have a drink like once every two months and then it'll give me a headache.

[Joey Ryan]

Really?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Joey Ryan]

So you didn't have the allergy, you were just doing it too much.

[Pete Holmes]

I mean, no disrespect to the people who have a disease and have the allergy.

[Joey Ryan]

Like, you're like, I don't think that's a real thing.

[Pete Holmes]

No, on the contrary. Not only do I think it's a real thing, I probably had it. And for some reason I had an easy pat, easier passive, giving it up than other like, yeah, like that. There doesn't need to be a full stop for me to have changed, a entirely changed relationship with it. Whereas quite literally decades of my life were looking forward to the proverbial like 5:00pm, which sometimes was 2:00pm or like, we don't have a. I don't have a job. I've never had a job.

[Joey Ryan]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

So sometimes that could be 11:00am if you wanted, without any shame or red flags or whatever.

[Joey Ryan]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

And I drank a lot for many, many years.

[Joey Ryan]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

But then, well, it's like, also I smoked two packs of cigarettes a day for 18 years.

[Joey Ryan]

Oh, wow.

[Pete Holmes]

But I had thyroid cancer, which was unrelated. But I went under the knife.

[Joey Ryan]

Well, because you don't think the carbon monoxide had a say?

[Pete Holmes]

Well, no.

[Joey Ryan]

Just because it wasn't the lung doesn't mean the body wasn't taking tolls.

[Unknown]

I was an alcoholic and a chain smoker for two decades. And then I had thyroid cancer. Unrelated.

[Joey Ryan]

It had to do with my lack of jogging. Too many frosted flakes.

[Pete Holmes]

No, it was most likely genetics or radiation exposure. I mean, if you believe science, it could be the smoking and drinking. Anyway, it wasn't.

[Unknown]

But where were you getting all the radiation from?

[Pete Holmes]

Well, no, that's one of the things. Have you ever been to a thyroid cancer doctor? It's a hilariously simple job. We could all learn how to do it in about a 45 minute seminar. You read, I think even easier.

[Joey Ryan]

Really?

[Pete Holmes]

Well, no, there's a flyer they give.

[Unknown]

You so much higher than everybody else. The pharmacist.

[Joey Ryan]

That's a seinfeld you stay down there. I'm counting pills.

[Unknown]

Can't be down there with you people.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, because they have a little.

[Joey Ryan]

It used to be. Yeah, that's so the 80s.

[Unknown]

I think he got that.

[Joey Ryan]

They were like, they're on to us. But it's the same reason why we stand when a judge comes in the room. We need theater to believe this guy knows how to lower my cholesterol.

[Pete Holmes]

Wait, but that. That. If you were a real smart therapist, you'd give. You'd dig a trough and you'd hand the medicine up to the people.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

You would never really get complaints.

[Joey Ryan]

You'd say, this is hummus from the earth. Yes, there you go.

[Pete Holmes]

Exactly.

[Joey Ryan]

So keep going. Oh, so thyroid cancer because of your radiation.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, yeah. We'll skip the part about thyroid doctrine being easy.

[Joey Ryan]

No, I want to know why it's easy.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, because when you get thyroid cancer, they basically give you a pamphlet because this has been happening for so long. There's like a. There's like a. It's like a choose your own adventure book, except you're not choosing the adventure.

[Joey Ryan]

It's just a book, then. No, it's just a regular novel.

[Pete Holmes]

That's not what I mean to say. I mean to say there's a point of departure, and then there's a few different paths it could go, depending on if the cancer is malignant or it's not malignant.

[Joey Ryan]

It is like a choose your own.

[Pete Holmes]

Adventure, but you're not choosing.

[Joey Ryan]

But even in choose your own adventure, were you choosing? You're rolling the dice. It might be a very short page, if you know what I mean.

[Unknown]

And then you go back, and then.

[Joey Ryan]

You got to keep a finger in there anyway. Keep. If you're not keeping a finger in there, you deserve to fall off the cliff.

[Pete Holmes]

So there's about three different paths that could eventually become.

[Joey Ryan]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

And then on those paths, there are various things that could happen. And if you're a thyroid doctor, if you learn, like, those 14 facts.

[Joey Ryan]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

You could answer any question that comes up in the appointment, because does that.

[Joey Ryan]

Mean it's kind of a grim situation? It's not like.

[Pete Holmes]

No, quite the opposite. It hasn't killed anybody in, like, 60 years. They've got a handle on, like.

[Joey Ryan]

But you still get full. The mystique.

[Pete Holmes]

So much so that Joey and our former manager wanted to hinge our entire publicity campaign for our fourth record to Kenneth's cancer story.

[Unknown]

Not only that, we wanted to make a whole TV show about it.

[Joey Ryan]

That's right. We almost did.

[Unknown]

We almost.

[Joey Ryan]

The three of us almost made a TV show, which I still think about. Keep going, and I think would have been great.

[Pete Holmes]

The TV show would be great. But the point is it's. No, it's a. I learned emotionally that it's not a lesser cancer. But if you do all the math.

[Joey Ryan]

Yes, but it was still the brain.

[Pete Holmes]

And the heart is not discerning. They take it seriously, but as rational, like upright walking, email writing people. We can do the math and be like, oh, that's not as dangerous as stage four metastasized breast cancer. Like, these are two different things.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And that's how I got myself through a lot of it. And then. And then I received my comeuppance, which is that my body and my being did not discern between, like a mildly life threatening.

[Joey Ryan]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

Scenario and like a aggressive life threatening scenario to join you. Yes.

[Joey Ryan]

When you. When your wife leaves you, as mine did, and people go, well, you didn't have kids. Like, that is rationally true, but it doesn't help. Like, you're still devastated. So even though you knew rationally your body and, you know, metaphorically your heart was still devastated. So it was rough.

[Pete Holmes]

Yes.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Interestingly unrelated to that whole bit, I went under the knife to get my thyroid removed.

[Joey Ryan]

And this was before every expression you use, I question, under the knife. I'm sorry. Well, how is the knife. The ceiling in that room?

[Pete Holmes]

But. So we did that at a moment where we didn't know if it was cancer or not. I was under. They were gonna take the thyroid out, do the pathology. If it was cancer, they'd take the rest out. If not. This is one of the things you'd learn if you became a thyroid doctor.

[Joey Ryan]

Under the knife, under anesthesia. Take it out. He's over it.

[Unknown]

The cancer's deep enough in there. At that point, the knife's under you.

[Joey Ryan]

Classic. Classic.

[Unknown]

That's the helmet bit. That's skydiving.

[Joey Ryan]

The helmet's wearing you for protection.

[Unknown]

I loved it.

[Joey Ryan]

I heard this, the music of it, but I couldn't place it.

[Pete Holmes]

This is Seinfeld.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Wow.

[Joey Ryan]

Why are you wearing a helmet when you're skydiving? If the shoe doesn't open, the helmet's now wearing you for protection.

[Unknown]

That is human health and helmet safety protocol. Never jump out of a plane without a human strapped underneath you.

[Joey Ryan]

That's very good. It's also in the larger helmet bit where it's like human beings, instead of stopping their head cracking activities, developed tiny plastic hats. Now we can keep doing our head cracking activities.

[Unknown]

The thing I Love is the idea of a brain. That's the helmet laws. The helmet law, yeah. The purpose of which is to protect a brain which is functioning so poorly, it's not even trying to protect the cracking of the head that it's in.

[Joey Ryan]

You ended that like tariff like the movie tar. You're like in the back, but it's in.

[Unknown]

It's just so beautiful.

[Joey Ryan]

It is beautiful.

[Kenneth Pattengale]

Sometimes listeners ask me what is the easiest and fastest and quickest and honestly, kind of cheapest way to support our show. And I always tell them Living Libations because you can get something small or you can get something big. What we did in our house, we did a complete overhaul of our medicine cabinet, our beauty cabinet, our sunblocks, our baby care, our skincare, our teeth care, our eye care, and we redid it. We got a replacement from Living Libations because they have natural, incredible, powerful, effective, but also real, real ingredients that you will recognize that feel great on your skin and get into your body and feel great. Unlike toxic stuff that you get in a pressurized can at 7:11, that's blue goo that you shouldn't be shaving with. I use their best, their best shave ever. I'm sorry, that's not. It's called Zen Shave and I use their best skin ever moisturizer at night. Everything, everything on there. If you want to support the show or you want to get a gift for somebody that you know that has skin, eyes, teeth, nails, hair or has a baby, get them something from Living Libations. It's beautifully packaged. The containers are like beautiful, like frosted glass with like wooden tops. So it's like a high end, nice looking gift idea, but also a gift that you can give yourself to not fill your body with chemicals that get absorbed into yourself skin. Talking about shaving, I'm talking about moisturizing, I'm talking about under eye, I'm talking about your gums, I'm talking about your teeth, everything. They have a high end, natural, real replacement at Living Libations because that stuff ends up in your body and that toxicity level was never intended for humans. And it's also incredibly effective. Their exfoliating scrub, the ginger exfoliating scrub is what it's called, is the most effective badass exfoliant I've ever used in my life. So it's not like some kind of like, you know, soft candy butt version that's natural. It's the best and it's natural. It's a wonderful gift idea and it's a wonderful way to support Your body and to support the show, get 15% off by going to livinglibations.com weird. That's livinglibations.com weird for 15% off. Support your body. Support the show. We're also brought to us by our friends at Magic Mind. Of course you see us drinking it on the show. Of course you probably see me on social media talking about it. This is how it goes. It's right here on my desk. I found Magic Mind. It blew me away. Then I reached out to partner up with them. So this is the most authentic. All of the Pete's picks are this way. They're authentic in that manner. But Magic Mind is no exception. It is nootropics, adaptogens and caffeine from matcha tea. So it's like green tea from matcha. Adaptogens that help you feel calm and relaxed and centered and grounded and also nootropics that help you focus and dial in. So it's like creatorade, like Gatorade for athletes, Creatorade for creators. It is flow state in a bottle. It elevates your mood. It dials you in, gets you ready to create. I absolutely swear by it. I take it before I do stand up. I keep it in a little travel bag. They also have gummies now, by the way, speaking of traveling, the gummies are incredible and they're caffeine free. So I believe you can get them, give them to children. I believe it might be eight or nine years older, which is awesome. So now we have like a chemical free way to help kids focus as well.

[Joey Ryan]

Absolute game changer.

[Kenneth Pattengale]

Go to magic mind.com or magicmind co weird and use my discount code at checkout. Weird for a limited 20 off your first order. Flow state fights off procrastination, brain fog, fatigue and some ADD symptoms. You get dialed in. It doesn't get you jacked, it gets you dialed in. Absolute game changer, you know, I love it. So support it. Try support the show. Support your brain. Try it. Help the show. Maybe give it to a friend this holiday. Magicmind.com weird. Use weird@ checkout. All right, everybody, back to the show.

[Joey Ryan]

Okay, so I guess my cancer story.

[Pete Holmes]

Not that interesting.

[Joey Ryan]

I knew it.

[Unknown]

Back to the. What did you call it? A lesser cancer. It was not a lesson.

[Joey Ryan]

It's a lesser cancer. But his body didn't know.

[Unknown]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

So I was classically addicted to nicotine.

[Joey Ryan]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

I mean in the deepest sense. And I had that surgery and I bought a few packs of cigarettes before the surgery and stashed them away. I said, okay, I'M gonna take a week and a half off back to the smoking. And I woke up off the table and have never, since that day, have never had a craving for nicotine or. It's like they turned a thing off in my brain. This was somebody who. I mean, he endured it for many years. I would just chain smoke. I couldn't have enough. The impulse ruled my life, and in a moment, it was turned off.

[Joey Ryan]

I'm not surprised. I don't understand it, but I remember there's something about trauma or flooding the senses or really shaking you up that is an opportunity to rewire the brain. And the way that Tony Robbins would get people to quit smoking, which I don't think he stands by anymore, but he used to have them go into a room and smoke cigarettes, and when they lit up, he would start yelling at them, like, berating them.

[Unknown]

And you had to keep conditioning.

[Joey Ryan]

Exactly. So you make this association. And first he'd say, like, why do you. Why do you smoke? And they'd be like, because it relaxes me. Oh, can you smoke one? And then so he goes, do you feel relaxed? Do you feel relaxed now?

[Unknown]

Well, not now.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah, exactly. And like, he would make them. It was very old school. Like, he'd forced them to continue smoking, and they really didn't want to.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Joey Ryan]

So you make a new association. So you somehow, I think, physiologically got some sort of.

[Pete Holmes]

That's as bad as, like. I mean, that's definitely cancelable behavior. Right?

[Unknown]

Don't say what you were gonna say.

[Joey Ryan]

Wait, what? As bad as.

[Pete Holmes]

No, no, not as bad as.

[Unknown]

What were you gonna say? Don't say no.

[Joey Ryan]

No.

[Pete Holmes]

It's on the same continuum as, like, conversion.

[Unknown]

Yeah. I knew you were gonna say that. Not worth it.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, you were. Think that's why I stopped myself and didn't say as bad. I'm not equating the two. But, like, you're just taking somebody and giving them new trauma to associate with a behavior. Like, that's not going to fix anything.

[Joey Ryan]

I think that's safe. Yeah. I mean, you're saying both.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, one is our hideous, horrendous. You can't treat other humans like that.

[Joey Ryan]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

Even if you're. And that's why I think pretending to help them.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah. I think Taro has denounced. And that was. That was the height of science at the time.

[Pete Holmes]

Do we like Tony Robbins?

[Joey Ryan]

Tony Robbins has changed my life. And I'm sort of not. I wouldn't say I'm off him, but.

[Unknown]

I. I don't know anything about Tony Robbins.

[Pete Holmes]

Like, Is there. Hold on. Before we get Joey up to speed, like, is there any human.

[Joey Ryan]

The rest of the podcast is just a dry explanation of the Wikipedia of Tony Robinson.

[Pete Holmes]

Is there any human on Earth that possesses that kind of charisma, gathers that kind of power, and is not corrupted by it?

[Joey Ryan]

I mean, JRR Tolkien is that you. Can human beings handle that much money and power? I mean, the answer seems to be in. I'm not even putting Tony on blast. I'm just saying in general.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, yeah. That's.

[Joey Ryan]

Someone has $300 million, they're not a chill hat.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm just saying. We started a. Joey and I started a songwriting camp. We go to the Catskills every summer, and we have 60 people. 60 people. Small potatoes.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

But we do a thing.

[Joey Ryan]

Fingerling. Small potatoes.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, yeah.

[Joey Ryan]

A real fingerling crowd.

[Pete Holmes]

It's a fingerling crowd near the Finger Lakes.

[Joey Ryan]

And you're teaching fingering.

[Pete Holmes]

Yes.

[Joey Ryan]

Whoa. What if I really was blown away by that? Whoa. I start crying. So you get 60 people.

[Pete Holmes]

We create a safe space for people who are interested in what we do to write songs, and the whole thing unfolds like a magic trick. And at the end of it, we've done nothing. But we have this power over people because they think that we're responsible for this experience that they just had.

[Unknown]

Not my experience of our songwriting camp at all.

[Joey Ryan]

Well, but it could be interpreted that way. You're saying you just allowed for it to happen, and sometimes people misappropriate. Oh, you made me write a song.

[Pete Holmes]

My point is this. No. Is that we're engaging earnestly in a thing. Like, everybody's there for a defined experience, but the thing that happens is a really emotionally charged thing because you're helping somebody tap into a deep desire that they have. They show up ostensibly as non professionals trying to do a magic trick. This, like.

[Joey Ryan]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

Deep emotional magic trick. And we help them do it and the power that we help give them, which I think that we're frauds because we just kind of get out of the way. We set an example, and then human beings do what they do, and it's a magical thing. But at the end of that, you can look at those 60 people. And I remember the first year we left, it was like, oh, if me and Joey were bad people, we could take a lot of money and we could start a cult. Like, just.

[Joey Ryan]

It would be corrupt.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. Because there was. We stumbled into this one certain side of this power dynamic thing that just naturally, I think, comes out of human interaction.

[Joey Ryan]

That's Right.

[Pete Holmes]

And my point being, like, I don't even know. I don't. I know just a tiny bit more than he does about Tony Robbins. I just. Every time I catch it, it's like, there's no way that that guy, in his bad moments doesn't take advantage of the way that people look at him and want from him.

[Joey Ryan]

I'm not saying this to defend him. I have a feeling he is earnest. I've listened to hundreds of ads for him talking. It would be awesome. But I'm also going to concede your point to be suspicious of mass gatherings and power and money. You kind of can't really go wrong. I don't know how that might take shape in different instances. I do want to take.

[Pete Holmes]

Especially a yeller, a guy that yells. That's also a red flag.

[Unknown]

So if I may, I have such a different experience of our little songwriting camp.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

Like, the I. I bet you that what I.

[Pete Holmes]

It's not contradicting the things that I've.

[Unknown]

Seen of Tony Robbins and other, like, highly charismatic, kind of culty leader type people with, like, followers is they're very sort of authoritarian and domineering in their style, and they want to take credit for the progress that they're, you know, that people have made.

[Joey Ryan]

Now I am.

[Pete Holmes]

This is a little different.

[Joey Ryan]

Very Tony. To be like, I am not doing anything. I'm just pointing you to something in you that's like the similar.

[Pete Holmes]

Is that if on Wednesday.

[Joey Ryan]

I didn't mean to interrupt.

[Unknown]

No.

[Pete Holmes]

If on Wednesday at 2pm at our. Tony Writing so good. If on Wednesday at 2pm at our songwriting camp, we wanted to do the fire walk, everybody would do the firewalk.

[Joey Ryan]

See, you're not wrong. I mean, there's something going on, and I do think he's tapping into that. Go ahead, Joey. Go ahead.

[Pete Holmes]

You don't think they'd do the firewalk?

[Unknown]

No, because the point is to get. The point is to help other people write a song of their own.

[Pete Holmes]

I know, but if you know anything about the firewalk, the entire point of the firewalk is that you can do it on your own and that you're the person that's helping embolden them by saying it's.

[Unknown]

I don't know what the firework. I don't know anything about Tony Robinson. I don't know anything about the fireworks. I feel a little out of my.

[Joey Ryan]

Out of your element?

[Unknown]

Out of my element.

[Joey Ryan]

Would it make you feel better to walk across the coals, Katie, light the flame? I want to say this, though. The way that you guys are kind of toe rowing it. Tony Robbins ing it is. It's not just that you set an example. You play some songs, you maybe talk about them and then get out of the way. Because human beings don't do. Don't transform with just that. That's the stage. But the true setting is now they're under observation. So it's like. It's a little bit like to be fancy. The Heisenberg principle. They behave completely differently because they know you're there. It's the same phenomenon. As a deadline. It's the same phenomenon. If I told you guys I'm gonna write a song and play it for you on Friday, we need that pressure.

[Unknown]

I just don't feel any degree. Maybe this is just more. It says more about me, but I don't feel any degree of power over, you know, people that come to our camp or people that come to our shows or anything like that. I've never. I've never really been with that.

[Pete Holmes]

If we were bad people, we would acknowledge the power, take advantage of it.

[Joey Ryan]

Hey, Jeff Tweedy wrote a book called how to Write One Song, Guys. It's right there. How to Write Two Songs. Not only is that a great idea, but it's sort of in your tone. Yeah, that's a big book. You write a book called how to Write Two Songs, and then just go see.

[Pete Holmes]

Mine would have been how to Write One Song Better than Jeff Tweedy.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah, that's good. How to Write One Song, but better. Yeah, how to Write One Good Song. We're workshopping now. I didn't know you did a songwriting camp. I do have to imagine that people, power dynamics aside, are transformed by that.

[Pete Holmes]

Absolutely. As are we.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

It's the best. Literally the best experience of the year. Really makes you grow. Yeah, it's soul nourishing. That's a phrase.

[Joey Ryan]

It is soul nourishing, I imagine.

[Unknown]

Yeah. Teaching.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

This camp started in 2019, and it was, like, definitely transformative for us to be on the other side of the equation, where, like, the whole time, you know, for 10 years, we've been performing, you know, and all the. You turn all the lights out, except for the one spotlight on us, and everyone else has to be quiet and we get a microphone, and, like, the whole thing is to make. Is to be the center of attention.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

And so the idea to me of teaching or the experience of teaching was, like, so. So the opposite of that, and it was just a different way to interact with music and the. Our. Our career and our own creativity and Then like, also the people that. The people that like our music, especially since we're, like, a small band, then they all have this weird thing in common, which is that they like this band that nobody knows about.

[Joey Ryan]

Yes.

[Unknown]

Except the Coen brothers.

[Pete Holmes]

Textbook Tony Robbins over here. Why is. He's, like, hypnotizing. I couldn't go that long without being interrupted. He's just.

[Joey Ryan]

Can I say that because we started early, I felt a little more protective of Joey, feeling included.

[Unknown]

Oh, you're just letting me go?

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah. No, I. I didn't feel like I was letting you go then, but I was a little bit more, like, sensitive to the fact that you might not feel as folded in.

[Unknown]

Sensitive? Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

See the blank look on his face? It was unnecessary.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah. I hope so.

[Pete Holmes]

He was. He was unaware.

[Unknown]

Do you think that the psychedelics are doing the. The sort of trauma re scrambling thing and. And giving. That's what's going on with the healing via psychedelics?

[Joey Ryan]

It very well could be, yeah. Because going back to. I had a riff, by the way. Do you think maybe it was your cancer that was smoking because they took it out and you just. You were never a smoker. It was your thyroid cancer. It was like, I do two packs a day, and then they got it out. But there is something. And I'll. I'll speak out both sides of my mouth. I think one of the things that's happening is an overwhelming experience wherein change can happen. Like, so you're having a psychedelic experience, which isn't just visual. It's. It's, you know, sensually very exotic, overwhelming. And you can go in and go, like, I've been so mad at my mother, I have to drop that because you're being flat.

[Unknown]

Do the therapy in conjunction with the psychedelics or are you just.

[Joey Ryan]

I haven't yet, but I'm interested in trying that.

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Joey Ryan]

Because, you know, the difference in efficacy. I believe it's 20% for PTSD. It's 20% is talk therapy. And you add MDMA, which the kids like, you know, vermin like, you would know that as ecstasy or E. Yeah. You guys know E?

[Unknown]

Sure do.

[Joey Ryan]

Molly. You know my friend Molly? Yeah. I bet you do. Suddenly being Danny McBride. I don't know what I'm doing. If you add MDMA, it goes up to 80%.

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Joey Ryan]

That's insane. And there's something about the way our brain's relationship to adrenaline is linked to memory. I've said this a million times. If you're trying to remember something, they did the study where you're reading a book every 15 minutes, some college kids would put their arms in a bucket of ice water, like, and hold it there for 30 seconds and take it out. The people that did that retained, like, I don't want to make up a statistic, but they retained a lot more. This is why we have a hard time forgetting traumatic experiences in our life, because there's something about that state that you hit save more. So there's something going on about the spotlight of intense experience that gives the.

[Pete Holmes]

Brain an opportunity to change theory about paranormal activity.

[Joey Ryan]

Is that right?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Joey Ryan]

If only you were on a podcast that absolutely loves stuff like that.

[Pete Holmes]

Know that, like often ghosts, ghostly apparitions are a physical representation that we're able to perceive of a place that has a lot of energetic trauma. Trauma will have happened there. And it actually physically changed the space. The space, the makeup of the universe in that tiny little place in a way that we could perceive.

[Joey Ryan]

Sometimes I'll say, as someone who just visited my parents, spaces, spaces. Beholding memories, guys, yes. Like, it's fuck ghosts. Because I'll just say I haven't had experience with a ghost, but I have walked into a house and been like, jesus, it's in the walls.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, it's like, who's the person that's came up with if these walls could talk?

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Idiot.

[Joey Ryan]

Is that an exception?

[Pete Holmes]

Definitely can talk.

[Unknown]

Idiot.

[Joey Ryan]

Idiot.

[Pete Holmes]

What idiot? That person was.

[Joey Ryan]

Have you ever seen a ghost? I ask everybody. So it's not just off of that. I did.

[Pete Holmes]

I saw ghost ones.

[Joey Ryan]

Where? Well, was it in a banjo shop? Because that seems like ground zero. Banjo seems like an invoking instrument. There's something unholy, especially if it's a little out of tune. You know what I mean?

[Unknown]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Pete Holmes]

Definitely.

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Joey Ryan]

Keep going.

[Unknown]

Well, I can't start our banjo song without our stage bit about the banjo songs, which are that it's impossible to write a song on the banjo where nobody dies in the song. And then you start the song and it just sounds like, yes, somebody will die.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, tell them about when you started writing it. Tell them when you started writing that song. I was trying to tee him up for the top of the bit was he says, I started writing my first song on the banjo.

[Unknown]

Oh, right, yeah, yeah, the bit.

[Pete Holmes]

Real professional.

[Unknown]

The bit is.

[Joey Ryan]

Any Seinfeld bit, though, he's ready to go. He's picking them up like grounders on Game six. You started writing the bill.

[Unknown]

It said this. This. This song wasn't. This song was supposed to be a love song. After the third verse I really said, holy shit, I think this person's gonna die.

[Pete Holmes]

Imagine how much funnier that would have been if he seamless made you believe that he was just saying that off.

[Joey Ryan]

The C. I did like it as a craftsman.

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Joey Ryan]

You know what I mean? I can see the.

[Unknown]

I like bits being bits.

[Joey Ryan]

Let the bed be a bit comedy president. I say not everyone gets a 30 second light. Not half price on the chicken wings. Full price. Off free. Full price. Okay.

[Pete Holmes]

JS policing the okay. Yeah, yeah.

[Joey Ryan]

Why not? Why do comedy people say it's too hard to do stand up. I say we do it because it is hard. We will put a man on the Comedy Store stage.

[Pete Holmes]

Hopefully a woman.

[Joey Ryan]

And hopefully. Has there been a lady on the moon?

[Unknown]

On the moon?

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Good question.

[Unknown]

Good question.

[Joey Ryan]

We don't all.

[Unknown]

I see not that many people on the moon.

[Pete Holmes]

Only a few people. They stopped.

[Joey Ryan]

A handful.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, many have gone close, but only a few have gone down.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah. And they disappointed to go all that way. Yeah. It's like driving by your mom's house. Just pop in, you're there.

[Unknown]

I don't think they went to the moon that many.

[Pete Holmes]

But also they let a monkey do it.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah, monkey got to do it. And he doesn't even know what happened. No. I was in the place with the bananas and then I was in a place with no bananas and now I seem to be back with the bananas. Everyone's real happy about where I went, but all I remember was no bananas.

[Pete Holmes]

Never mind the zero gravity.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah. He didn't notice that?

[Pete Holmes]

No.

[Joey Ryan]

He was just like, are there bananas in the floating place? Where are the bananas? These are hot revs. I feel like Mulaney could run with that. What were we saying, though? Have there been any ladies on the moon?

[Pete Holmes]

No.

[Unknown]

In space? Yes.

[Joey Ryan]

But six crewed missions.

[Unknown]

Six crewed missions to the moon?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

How many? How many landed on, like, walked on the moon?

[Joey Ryan]

Oh, C, R E W E D. But not all.

[Pete Holmes]

And one extra refined mission to the moon.

[Joey Ryan]

One crash landing. So the crash landing. Imagine going up and just looking at the moon, you dork.

[Pete Holmes]

Did you ever watch, like, my wife.

[Unknown]

Get out of the plane?

[Joey Ryan]

It's the kid that stays in the car with his Game Boy when you're at the St. Louis Arch.

[Unknown]

They had to.

[Joey Ryan]

I know.

[Unknown]

There's one, at least one person on every one of those that went all the way there and didn't get to get out.

[Pete Holmes]

They knew that was.

[Unknown]

I know.

[Joey Ryan]

Oh, they stay.

[Unknown]

Yeah. The third guy in the. In the main one with Armstrong and Aldrich. There's another guy.

[Pete Holmes]

You don't even know his name.

[Unknown]

I know.

[Joey Ryan]

That's like Moses never get into the land of milk and honey. That's the way it goes.

[Unknown]

That's what I see it.

[Joey Ryan]

He only got to see it.

[Unknown]

But Moses, Seinfeld and the Old Testament.

[Pete Holmes]

Moses got his stories.

[Joey Ryan]

Most people think Moses got in. It's a Bible fun fact. Moses never got in, and Moses killed the guy. A lot of murderers in the Bible, famous murderers.

[Pete Holmes]

And who do you impress with that? That's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Somebody.

[Joey Ryan]

I actually hear what you're saying. It does sound like you're fucking with me. No, no, but you're not.

[Unknown]

Whom do you impress with that?

[Pete Holmes]

Right? Whom do you impress with? No, because, like, up probably it's just somebody who's between 12 and 13 and, like, at a specific point in their Bible, I learning knowledge.

[Joey Ryan]

I keep those BFFs. Bible fun facts at the, like. You know how rock climbers have that open bag of talc?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Joey Ryan]

I keep it in an open bag of talc in case I'm ever in a discussion with a fervently religious person.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Joey Ryan]

Who wants to say, like, why should we go to that church? He had an affair. And I'd say, well, why did we listen to Paul? He was a murderer.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Joey Ryan]

That's pretty good.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, that's good.

[Joey Ryan]

Right. But when my pastor, President Bartlett, the church went away. President Bartlett, I can't believe you said that. Because that scene means so much to me. It's.

[Pete Holmes]

I hate that show.

[Joey Ryan]

I mean, season one. Sorkin season.

[Pete Holmes]

I know, but it's. Isn't that the epitome of American exceptionalism? That's like. That's like the face of it. That represents all of the. All of the discord we have in modern.

[Joey Ryan]

You mean the West Wing is the bandaid over the problem?

[Pete Holmes]

The West Wing is like deep, deep pornography for the American ideal.

[Joey Ryan]

And that's why when in 2016, I watched it, because I was like, it was America pornography. To have a guy be like, I know, I could take a grape, but I will not take it without paying for it. And he probably weighed it. I owe you 11 cents, madam. And you're just like, yeah. I also had a joke about West Wing is. I'm like, I need JB Smoove in every show. Yeah. Because JB helps you make sure you understand. So I'm watching West Wing. I just want JB Smooth to be there, to be like, what's a caucus? What is a filibuster? What do you mean? When you say, he's gonna fill it. But what exactly does that mean? Hat. Beautiful hat. What does that mean? Because I'm watching. I don't know what the fuck they're saying.

[Pete Holmes]

See, that's good. I want a different thing from every dramatic program ever. Like, my wife's never seen Mad Men, and I did. We're rewatching it.

[Joey Ryan]

Nice. What seas you on?

[Pete Holmes]

Right at the beginning, season two. But there's a moment where a disillusioned Betty Draper steps out of the bed and cuts herself on a broken wine glass of her own debauchery. You know, like, obviously a very specific metaphor and scripted moment in a serious show. But I always wanted. Because there's these kinds of things that happen in every story. I would love if at that moment, just that incidental cut became gangrene and they had to cut her foot off. And all of a sudden, Mad Men was about an entirely different thing. It was about, like a convalescing, like, I really want somebody. You know, it. It was the first time when they lopped what's his name head off at the beginning of Game of Thrones. Spoiler alert.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah. Seeing Bean.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, that one. That was the first time it ever happened for me in. In real. Where I was like, I got so invested in this character. And now they're going to take us in an entirely different direction.

[Joey Ryan]

I'm going to do you one better. I believe it's called Executive Decision was billed as a Steven Seagal movie. And he dies. Minute 15.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, amazing.

[Joey Ryan]

And the rest of the movie is a Kurt Russell movie, which, looking back, we should have known. But, like, when Steven Seagal dies, we were like, you would.

[Pete Holmes]

But I would like a wireless.

[Unknown]

Pretty good. The Wire is. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

But I'm hoping, like, a guy like Paul Thomas Anderson could do it with genre even. Like, the first 15 minutes is like an action movie, and then somebody gets stung by a mosquito, and all of a sudden it's like.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah. You know, a Slow Dusk Till Dawn.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Joey Ryan]

Have you seen that?

[Pete Holmes]

The Robert Rodriguez.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Movie. Not in so many years.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah, but it, you know, it swaps. It does.

[Pete Holmes]

I've forgotten. Yeah. Maybe I can just go back there.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm with you. But Betty does get her comeuppance later.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Joey Ryan]

But Donnie.

[Pete Holmes]

Spoiler alert.

[Joey Ryan]

Donnie doesn't.

[Pete Holmes]

Do we think anybody's still listening?

[Joey Ryan]

There's. There's a man under a stack of magazines. Like, he was cleaning, and there was a very small earthquake. A stack of Life magazines has pinned him to the ground.

[Pete Holmes]

You made it weird.

[Joey Ryan]

And he had it on a radio.

[Pete Holmes]

So he reached.

[Joey Ryan]

He's got the broom. He's trying to knock his iPhone onto the ground.

[Unknown]

He's not even trying to get out from under the stack anymore.

[Joey Ryan]

No.

[Unknown]

He just wants to die in peace.

[Joey Ryan]

But we know he's like, it can't be three hours. He keeps going. Hey, Siri. Hey, Siri. Imagine being thwarted by. Siri's in attendance.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Joey Ryan]

I do think people are listening. You were just about to tell a ghost story.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, my God.

[Joey Ryan]

It's all just interrupting. I got my finger on the pulse.

[Pete Holmes]

My ghost story.

[Joey Ryan]

Like a choose your own adventure. I got my finger in the page. That's my interview. Style is choose your own adventure, but keep a finger in the page.

[Unknown]

You hit the end of the path, come back to the fort.

[Joey Ryan]

That's right. In fact, if I were to ever give earnest podcasting advice, which is funny on an episode that has been slapdash, but I absolutely love it, is you do want one thing. Because people worry about blanking. So you always keep what you know. In Tetris. You have the next box. Always just have something in the next box. That's all podcasting. The difference between a real conversation and a podcast is. I know the next thing I want.

[Unknown]

You know who will not listen to this podcast is my wife. Because she hates.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

That I. This is all. Every conversation I ever have. I love tangents.

[Joey Ryan]

Me, too.

[Unknown]

And I. And I can. I can keep my finger on the page and I want to come back to it.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

And she. She. If she's telling a story, if I try to ask a question in the middle of the story. Please hold your questions.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Unknown]

Till the end.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, she's right. I think podcasting is the lowest form of art.

[Unknown]

You're the same.

[Joey Ryan]

That's very funny. And I mean, who am I to disagree? But she would, like, stand up. Stand up is. Shut the fuck up. I'm telling the story. Yeah, yeah, she'd like it.

[Unknown]

She loves stand up.

[Joey Ryan]

And she'd love to do it.

[Unknown]

She loves Seinfeld. And Seinfeld, as far as I know, hates podcasts because he goes, the world could use more editing.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, this is my point.

[Unknown]

Never mind the edit.

[Pete Holmes]

I've figured this out empirically.

[Joey Ryan]

Shots fired.

[Pete Holmes]

Jerry and Joey and I are on the right side of history here. Filmmaking among one of the highest forms of art, as far as I can tell, painting even more. Let me tell you why people will dedicate years of their life, spend their hard earned time to making 90 minutes count.

[Joey Ryan]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

And we just wasted more of your time without giving it any more than just real time thought.

[Joey Ryan]

But that's like saying every meal has to be a five star Michelin restaurant. You ever go to one of those and afterwards you go to a Shake Shack. Welcome to Shake Shack.

[Pete Holmes]

But you don't have to eat podcasts to stay alive.

[Joey Ryan]

You do have to listen to podcasts to simulate community.

[Unknown]

No, I mean, this is. We're. Now we're right back where we started when you asked us if we. If we talk about the bit. If we write the bit. Yeah, because we don't talk about the bit. But that's to get the bit off the ground. That's to get it going. But it does then eventually coalesce into, oftentimes into a highly scripted word for word, beat for beat, extended bit which will deliver night after night.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

Now, we have never written something like that in advance, but we have those. And so the podcast is improvisational.

[Joey Ryan]

I just want to interrupt to prove to Kenneth that I do interrupt you.

[Unknown]

Okay, great.

[Pete Holmes]

There was a time where Joey started to try to write those. And it was. Oh, yeah, Because I'd show up, you know, it'd be. At the time I lived in New York, and then Nashville would be a little while since we'd seen each other. And then I'd see him all of a sudden three times in three days. And he kept trying to start. Have this one conversation. And then you felt I'd be like, oh, he's trying to get something going. But it's like a, you know, it's like a stupid.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Self referential, reflexive sign. You know, like he'd start asking a Seinfeld question. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Joey Ryan]

I'd be like, they always tell you when the Uber's coming to get you. Yeah. But after it drops you off it. No more updates. Where'd that guy go? That's not bad for like a. Under the gun in between. Song worthy.

[Pete Holmes]

You know, you didn't have one on deck, Pete.

[Joey Ryan]

I didn't have one on deck for that, but I got two on where we're going.

[Pete Holmes]

Where are we going? Oh, yeah. Ghost. My ghost story. My family has a mountain cabin right on the edge of Yosemite. So across the street is 300 miles of wilderness of ancient wilderness.

[Joey Ryan]

Wow.

[Pete Holmes]

Very loaded, energetic land. One time we were up there. This was now 25 years ago. My immediate family and a group of friends. We were all in our teenage years, maybe early 20s, so there was a little bit of inebriation going. But not me. I was on the younger side. Deep winter. Five feet of snow out in the outside of the cabin. One of the things you do out there is in that deep snow, you get bundled up in sleeping bags and you stare at the night sky because it's unlike anything you've ever witnessed, especially if you grew up in Southern California. So there were about 15 of us looking at the night sky. And one of my older brother's friends sort of like broke into this ultra calm, pristine moment with a what the fuck is that? And everybody's like, what, Dave? And we all turned around and off in the forest was just this glowing white orb. And everybody was like, what is that? And so probably about a half an hour of groupthink slowly moving towards it. Somebody getting brave, trying to go even.

[Joey Ryan]

Further, like, wait, it's sustained.

[Pete Holmes]

It just stood there hovering above the snow, probably 2 meters, this sort of nondescript white orb just emanating energy. And everybody was transfixed by 2 meters.

[Unknown]

About 6ft off the ground.

[Joey Ryan]

Thank you, American.

[Unknown]

You bet.

[Pete Holmes]

And nobody could really dissect it to the point where when we all decided to go inside, somebody had the idea that everybody like render their own artistic version of the thing. So somewhere in our mountain cabin there's a stack of like 20 different versions, first person accounts of this orb that we saw.

[Joey Ryan]

That's fantastic. That's one of the greatest stories I've ever heard in my life.

[Pete Holmes]

Really?

[Unknown]

How do you decide? How did you decide that that's a ghost story and not a ufo?

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah, it could be a UFO story, but guess what? My story, when they say no to the ghost UFO is a receiver ufo. You just got them both. But yeah, yeah, it sounds like a ufo. It sounds like a UFO was in the woods. Assuming it's freezing out. No one's not suitable for human entertainment. And then it starts like doing what it's doing and then a bunch of kids start looking at it. And it was awkward. It was like, see?

[Pete Holmes]

But what?

[Joey Ryan]

I can't just leave right away. When did it leave?

[Pete Holmes]

What I love about humans, I don't recall. I'd have to ask my mom. What I find most wonderful here is that us as humans in this iteration, you and Joey have. I don't know if it's arrogance or audacity, but like that you're drawing the distinction between ghost and ufo, something that we know so little about. How could we, like, deign to have such a strong opinion? Like, it just feels like it's more of a ufo. These Are like.

[Joey Ryan]

I know what you're saying. Otherworldly.

[Unknown]

I do have a little pet peeve about ghosts and UFOs in particular.

[Pete Holmes]

Here it comes. Buzzkill, BK.

[Unknown]

Well, ghosts are like metaphysical paranormal phenomena.

[Pete Holmes]

Says you.

[Joey Ryan]

I mean, I think.

[Unknown]

Isn't that.

[Joey Ryan]

I'm like, your lawyer. No, we agree. We agree. We still agree.

[Pete Holmes]

I know, but now, see what he's going to say about the UFOs.

[Unknown]

Well, a UFO is like. It's not at all metaphysics.

[Joey Ryan]

It's in this realm.

[Unknown]

Yeah. It's not even supposed to be.

[Joey Ryan]

It's not metaphysics.

[Unknown]

It's like some sort of a technological anomaly device.

[Pete Holmes]

Okay. Two wildly different explanations for things that present as a. In very similar phenomena.

[Unknown]

Yeah, but it's.

[Pete Holmes]

Who are we to say that they're not actually one thing and we're perceiving them as two different. We don't know shit about it.

[Unknown]

Yeah, but ghosts.

[Pete Holmes]

The whole fascination is because we don't know nothing.

[Unknown]

Ghost theology, you know, ghosts and God are different from UFOs, says, I know what you mean.

[Joey Ryan]

I know. What is the word? Ethereal or beyond metaphysical. It's not like far away. A UFO is something far, far away.

[Unknown]

It's far.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah. Yeah. Holy shit. Something from not here is here now.

[Unknown]

Right.

[Joey Ryan]

But to join you in your theory, a ghost could be like the collapse of space. Meaning, like it's happening in outer space, but you're seeing it in your kitchen. You know what I mean?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Joey Ryan]

Like, whatever that is.

[Pete Holmes]

But also, I told this story yesterday.

[Unknown]

So you want it to be. You want it to be, like, physical. You want it to be grounded in some sort of physicality.

[Pete Holmes]

This is. My point is you're the person that wants it to be something, whereas the entire thing is that we don't know what it is. And we're obviously fascinated by it. But I think, like.

[Unknown]

But you said. You were saying it's like energy or something.

[Pete Holmes]

That was like. My wife's uncle died. And I wrote a song about my wife's uncle, and he and I were close and also a troubled guy and whatever. And then we played a concert at Red rocks in Colorado. 10,000 people. I played the song for Uncle Peter, and right at the double chorus, the longest, most vibrant shooting star, like five seconds over 10. I'm looking at 10,000. Nobody saw it because I'm sitting there singing to the sky, and Uncle Peter decided to, you know, fire up the engine and take a lap around just to say hello. Like, that guy was pretty extraterrestrial at that point.

[Unknown]

Are you saying that was a ufo. Or that was a ghost.

[Pete Holmes]

He doesn't get it.

[Unknown]

Or that was a shooting star. My point had meaning.

[Pete Holmes]

My point exactly. Pete talks a lot about some pretty enlightened stuff.

[Joey Ryan]

Well, I'll join you in the parlor and it's going to be hard to talk about.

[Pete Holmes]

Come on.

[Joey Ryan]

But ghost, human, alien, if this is all the dream of one consciousness, what's the difference? It's all made of the same thing and it's all expressing itself however it can. So Uncle Peter could have been a star or whatever you want him to be?

[Pete Holmes]

Absolutely, yeah.

[Joey Ryan]

That's fucking cool. That's really cool.

[Pete Holmes]

Like, that is the greatest mystery, eh? The fact that we have, like, concerned ourselves with writing an email and deciding on a time to show up and talk today, that has to be things that plague us of this world.

[Joey Ryan]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Joey Ryan]

You mean emails and scheduling?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. Like when you and I are no longer in our earthly bodies, are we going to have to make polite email replies?

[Joey Ryan]

Hell no. Or hell yes, if you're in hell yes. Hell is mostly planning.

[Unknown]

That's what hell is.

[Pete Holmes]

See, I'd like to take the form of just staying in one fixed place for the rest of eternity and scare people.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah, there's a lot of. If that is your Uncle Peter, what a bummer that now he's still in outer space waiting for you guys to get welcomed.

[Pete Holmes]

Or Joey. Joey's gonna turn into a clanking pipe.

[Joey Ryan]

Oh, right. See, my theory is further out.

[Unknown]

Meaning, like metaphysical assumptions in that question.

[Joey Ryan]

If our true identity is the screen of the movie, who cares what's on the screen? Meaning Joey and a pipe are the same thing. They're both made of the knowing of it. So, like, that's where I'm trying to join you in the oneness of all things.

[Pete Holmes]

It's wonderfully aspirational.

[Joey Ryan]

Joey, please.

[Kenneth Pattengale]

You can.

[Joey Ryan]

You can say. I dare tune down to a B on this one.

[Pete Holmes]

I have a serious question for you.

[Unknown]

I'm completely enamored with all of that type of.

[Pete Holmes]

I have a.

[Unknown]

Can I make thinking. Which, by the way, is not foreign to my own theological leanings. Well, more like upbringing in Judaism. They got a lot of Eastern metaphysics in Judaism. And. And. But I. I think I came to a point in my life at some point, like as an adult, maybe after having kids, actually.

[Joey Ryan]

Your Kramers.

[Unknown]

What? My little Kramers?

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

Where I used to be obsessed with talking about spiritual questions, metaphysical questions, theological questions, and so many times, for me, the sort of conclusion of any of those discussions. Not a conclusion, but, like, it would lead me to a point of being of like that. That the concept that the question or any possible answer was inconsequential. There was always a so what at the end of every avenue of the. Choose your own adventure.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Unknown]

You know what I mean?

[Joey Ryan]

I think that's. I think.

[Unknown]

Which was frustrating to me. Oh, I got frustrated by that.

[Joey Ryan]

Do you want my opinion?

[Unknown]

I do.

[Pete Holmes]

An explanation. It's what? It's his happy place.

[Joey Ryan]

Well, I would say that the frustrating thing. And I'm going to separate you, the spacious field of awareness that you are, that is aware of your thoughts, is aware of your feelings, everything you're sensing. So that spaciousness being your true self, and then your mind being an aspect of that, but you are not. Your thoughts, that's something you observe. They appear in your consciousness. So you are the consciousness. Thoughts appear in it. The frustrating thing is we live long enough that we start to confuse our identity with our thoughts and our feelings, our relationships, even though all of those things, use that word again, are ethereal. So. But we want, as egos, as separate selves, to bring that illusory collection, that mosaic of Joey Ryan that doesn't really exist. We want to bring him to ultimate truth, when really what you are, the spacious field of awareness, is ultimate truth. But the mind isn't invited to the party. Jesus would say, you're kicked out of the wedding feast because you're wearing the wrong clothes. So you can't know it. You can be it. I've made this point a million times. You can settle down and let the sediment of your mind relax. That's kind of what meditation is. You can also do it in your waking state and be wise. But the mind doesn't get to ever say, I am enlightened. It doesn't ever get that satisfaction.

[Pete Holmes]

Are you saying Jesus was a sartorial snob?

[Joey Ryan]

A sartorial snob? What does that mean?

[Pete Holmes]

Sartorial is with regard to clothing.

[Joey Ryan]

Yes. He would boot people out of his way.

[Unknown]

But so you know, not to bring it back down to earth stubbornly, always.

[Joey Ryan]

Please.

[Unknown]

But so where. But. And so where does that lead you? I mean, that's.

[Joey Ryan]

That's.

[Unknown]

That's so fun to think about and talk about.

[Joey Ryan]

But that's why I like.

[Unknown]

You're right. And I've come to that conclusion many. You know.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

As well.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

And I still got to go pick up my kids.

[Joey Ryan]

No, that's why I like your. That's what I. I like that surrender and that sort of like.

[Unknown]

There is no satisfaction to a sense of a bit of surrender. I.

[Joey Ryan]

The ego doesn't seek and resist, which is what you're doing. You're seeking closure and you're resisting mystery. It doesn't just seek and resist. It is seeking and resisting. It has no identity unto itself. This is Rupert spirit, by the way. It is the activity of seeking.

[Pete Holmes]

Pirate.

[Joey Ryan]

Rupert's pirate.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Joey Ryan]

I've never heard that before.

[Pete Holmes]

See a sweet guy or little rough around the edge.

[Joey Ryan]

No. Rert's pirate, he did all the. Rupert's dirty work. He'd make people walk the flank. He'd say, shiver me timbers. When it wasn't cold.

[Pete Holmes]

Gold earrings.

[Joey Ryan]

You know what's funny? Sorry. What? We're almost out of time and we're getting a little bit of a flavor from you. I would say, to put a pin on that, I would say the job is then to surrender. But I actually heard in your answer, like, I gotta pick up my kids. Yeah, just live your life.

[Unknown]

I guess it has. Maybe I just already did surrender.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah, but that's what I thought you were saying is like knowing that you won't know and you can't know leads to, I would hope, ideally, just more spaciousness and more just dropping into what is. And 100%, whatever the answer is, has to be here right now.

[Pete Holmes]

That's what I would say.

[Kenneth Pattengale]

Sorry.

[Unknown]

Yeah. All of the. All of this thought, thinking over and experiencing through psychedelics and everything through all the years has totally led me to a place of just. Of, you know, of a be here now kind of a chop wood, carry water. Chop wood, carry water.

[Joey Ryan]

Chop wood, carry water before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water after enlightenment. Chop wood, carry water.

[Unknown]

Right.

[Joey Ryan]

That's after the Ecstasy, the laundry. That's what it is.

[Unknown]

What's after the exorcism.

[Joey Ryan]

It's a Jack Kornfield book. It's making the same point. It's like you have these rapturous moments, you have these great, but also seeking.

[Unknown]

Those transcendent rapturous moments where you can be sort of phenomenologically in touch with that. Truth is super pleasurable all the time. It is.

[Joey Ryan]

But I think the great disappointment of enlightenment or self realization is that it's not a good feeling that just never goes away. Yeah, that sucks.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

But it's good. It's good to. But it's. Well, because feelings. The. You know, what I like to say about the brain is that it's a. It's the ultimate get used to machine. It's main. Its main function is to get used to whatever is Happening, Right.

[Joey Ryan]

That's brilliant. Yeah.

[Unknown]

And so you definitely, by definition, you can't have ecstasy. Well, you just said it all the time.

[Joey Ryan]

In a world of duality, of right, wrong, I get it. I don't get it. It never happens. You just have to. It's not going to happen here. Right.

[Unknown]

That is the state of things.

[Joey Ryan]

What Rupert's Pirate would say.

[Unknown]

That's why I came here, to get some enlightenment.

[Joey Ryan]

You can't see orange. You can't see white snow through orange tinted glasses. So the mind is the perceiving instrument of this reality and it imposes its own limitations on it. So as long as you think I, Joey, need to achieve enlightenment or achieve peace or get. That's that seeking and resisting. And paradoxically, it's in the cessation of that effort where you realize, like we could tell this room that it is not the four walls, that it's the space. And this space is the same and only space of the entire universe. You know what I mean? And then maybe after it realizes it, that it would just go back to being my studio. You know what I mean? But in reality, there's only one space and it's. It's, it, it's it. Nothing happens. Nothing happens to the room. The space was already enlightened. Nothing happens to you. Your awareness already was divine or God or one, or whatever you want to say. But what's frustrating to us, as the characters in the movie, the characters in the movie never realize they're the screen.

[Kenneth Pattengale]

Let's do some ketamine.

[Joey Ryan]

Kenneth, you go, please. We only have hysterically 7 minutes for you to give us your thoughts on the meaning of life. And Joey, I could talk to you.

[Unknown]

So much of this for me comes from. From drugs.

[Joey Ryan]

Yes, well, ketamine is a great way to. Really? You've never had a good experience?

[Unknown]

No.

[Joey Ryan]

I love that you're dipping into Kenneth's time. No, no, I love it because it's sort of a restoration of the justice of us starting without you. So.

[Pete Holmes]

That's true.

[Joey Ryan]

Feel free. But yeah, Kenneth, now you have.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, no, I already said it earlier. I'm pretty. It's. I'm pretty happy.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And that's as. That's as deep as I'm interested in going.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah, great. I could expound on that, but I love it and I won't touch it. So, Joe, you now have six minutes. Oh, this is like the presidential debate. Oh, who won, by the way?

[Pete Holmes]

Don't give him six minutes.

[Unknown]

Who won what?

[Joey Ryan]

Who won the election?

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, Biden Biden won. No way. Everybody stopped.

[Joey Ryan]

He came out.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, he's still there.

[Joey Ryan]

He's still there. And they're just.

[Unknown]

And nobody is a funny thing that I haven't heard any. Like some. Every night. Every now and then I remember, like this whole time he's been the president.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, yeah. But they stopped talking about him or picking on him.

[Joey Ryan]

You do forget. And the joke would be. Sometimes he forgets. That's the old joke, the standard joke. I got the text that was like, congratulations, your mail in ballot was counted and here's your reference number. And I wanted to reply, who won? Who won? Did it go? Did it go my way? You can read it. Did it go my way?

[Pete Holmes]

That's good. You're trying to entertain a robot.

[Joey Ryan]

I know. Well, they need love too. And they visit us sometimes in the woods.

[Unknown]

No, sometimes those texts are from people.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah, that's true.

[Unknown]

They are.

[Joey Ryan]

I think that's true.

[Unknown]

They are.

[Pete Holmes]

Sometimes Joey really wants to believe that.

[Unknown]

That's.

[Joey Ryan]

I mean, in closing, how. How would you ever sing Michigan's Up My Butthole now, would you sing that as earnestly as you sing it? And could you? I'm not even saying. I'm not even really asking you to do it. Well, do you think you could?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, well, we. We have a pretty standard band response to that.

[Joey Ryan]

You've gotten this question before.

[Pete Holmes]

Variations of it.

[Joey Ryan]

Really? Yeah, like a parody's version of it.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, the question is just how. How much?

[Unknown]

Greg Hess and Holly Laurent and they have their podcast Mega.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, yeah, we did that one for free, but we recorded it in Simlish for thousands of dollars.

[Joey Ryan]

Simlish?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

What's that?

[Pete Holmes]

You know, the.

[Joey Ryan]

Oh, the Sims language.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Joey Ryan]

Wait, are you in the game?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, we're singing Michigan.

[Unknown]

Michigan is like one of the songs you can. That plays when you're playing Sims, when.

[Joey Ryan]

You practice guitar or when you listen to the radio. It's gotta be the radio.

[Unknown]

I have no idea.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm unfamiliar with the game.

[Joey Ryan]

I am familiar enough, so I don't.

[Pete Holmes]

Know that you do things in the game like that.

[Joey Ryan]

The social media is through the roof from this chat, but my hunger and bladder are getting lower and lower.

[Pete Holmes]

I've got a ham sandwich. You want one?

[Joey Ryan]

I am a ham sandwich. I've winked at you a lot today, Joey, and I'm sorry.

[Unknown]

Oh, really?

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah, I've been throwing you a lot.

[Unknown]

Honestly, like Kenneth was the recipient of more winks.

[Joey Ryan]

Wow. I don't think I winked at you. Jealous of just another Joel Cohen. You thought I was mad at you? Like Joel Cohen style. All right, here it is. Michigan for the game. The Sims.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Joey Ryan]

I can't wait.

[Unknown]

It's a long intro.

[Pete Holmes]

No, it sounds exactly like this. The master.

[Joey Ryan]

Well, in the song. It's. By modern standards. It's too long.

[Pete Holmes]

No, they cut everything.

[Joey Ryan]

Wait, this is Taylor's version. You just re recorded it.

[Pete Holmes]

We had to. Contractual obligation.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah. Oh my God.

[Pete Holmes]

That means Michigan's up the butt now is what. It translates up my butthole now.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

Yeah. They sent us a whole like transliteration.

[Joey Ryan]

Wait, it's a real language.

[Unknown]

It's my understanding.

[Joey Ryan]

I wonder if the Minion language is real. Here we go. It's both of you, pre chorus.

[Pete Holmes]

It sounds racist.

[Joey Ryan]

Eh, no, there's something off about it. I'll say that like it's not English. I don't. It's not English. Right. Here's the question. What's Michigan?

[Unknown]

Michigan.

[Joey Ryan]

Michigan.

[Unknown]

You know what's interesting? I realized listening to this. So we. The reason why we're here. Three hours later. The reason why we're here is because we just made a Christmas album.

[Joey Ryan]

Oh, I thought this was for I only see the Moon. No, I Only See Santa.

[Unknown]

No, we couldn't talk about so much Jesus. We made a Christmas album which we'll have to send you, actually.

[Joey Ryan]

Yes, please. I just listened to the moon one, which I have been listening to. But that's what I thought we were talking about.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, yeah. It doesn't matter.

[Joey Ryan]

You did it. Go ahead.

[Unknown]

So my experience of singing the. We did like a lot of the very churchy Jesus y Christmas songs. Yeah, I'm Jewish, he's atheist, I guess.

[Joey Ryan]

Jew atheist.

[Unknown]

And like we sang, you know, Christ the Lord a lot.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

And I realized like, that's our baby, baby. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Also I'm not atheist. I'll reclaim some of my minutes.

[Unknown]

You're not.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, I don't know what the definition is actually. There's a. The. You know how we waste so much of our time staring at this thing like a baby being pacified. One of the things that comes up on it is a really distorted Pete Holmes face. And half the time he's making a jack off joke and then the other half of the time he's talking about some Buddhist philosophy. But Pete has some extended bit that I must have watched once while taking a shit wherein he took down the atheists or the agnostics with some cute little turn of like, how dare you? How could you know?

[Joey Ryan]

Right?

[Pete Holmes]

We're all gonna turn into dust anyway or something. Which I take totally to heart is Fully fair game. Whatever.

[Unknown]

He converted you from your atheism? No.

[Pete Holmes]

Maybe he just clarified my thought, which is actually my religion is just that. I don't care.

[Joey Ryan]

I like that.

[Pete Holmes]

It's not that. I. I just. I'm not gonna say. I know something. I just.

[Joey Ryan]

Can I say something?

[Pete Holmes]

Everything's pretty chill.

[Joey Ryan]

Can I say something? If there is one or. God just means origin. Right. It's just the origin. The first thing.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Joey Ryan]

That's that spawned into everything. And if there is something called God that willed this world, its greatest creation would be someone who's like, there might be something like that. I don't care. That would be a literal masterpiece.

[Pete Holmes]

That would be the masterpiece. But that's what it is.

[Joey Ryan]

It's peekaboo.

[Pete Holmes]

But that's what I mean to fact check. He's Jewish. I'm. I don't care.

[Joey Ryan]

I understand. I didn't think you were atheist based.

[Kenneth Pattengale]

On how you were not.

[Unknown]

Wait, my. From. My friend from college. 3pm My friend from college. Once we have. In our family, we reference this all the time. His father was a pastor, and he was over at our house one time, and my parents asked him if he was, you know, religious still or what. You know what.

[Pete Holmes]

Also, we just go along with him pretending that he had a friend in college. Oh, carry on.

[Joey Ryan]

Hilarious.

[Unknown]

And he said.

[Joey Ryan]

Hilarious.

[Unknown]

He said, I think one of the great. One of the great quotes of all time, he said. He goes, I don't. I don't go to church that much anymore. And they're like, oh, you know, what's. What? Why not? And he goes, I just feel like I don't really need God in my life right now.

[Joey Ryan]

Oh, wow, that's great. Staggeringly honest.

[Unknown]

Like, there is. So he believed that there was something that willed the all of existence and probably, like, was available to him in a. In a Christian sense to have, like, a personal relationship.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

With. But he was like, pass. Not right now.

[Joey Ryan]

Hard pass. Divine reality. Hard pass. But, you know, I think he was.

[Pete Holmes]

Talking about something different.

[Joey Ryan]

I would.

[Unknown]

Yeah, but if you think. If you actually. If you think.

[Pete Holmes]

I think he did the.

[Unknown]

If you think the real stuff, to just say, I don't care is really funny.

[Joey Ryan]

I agree.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, he's very funny.

[Joey Ryan]

If it's all one, which means it's you and you made that and it doesn't believe in itself. That's very funny. That's the definition of comedy.

[Unknown]

But singing the Christian lyrics to me was a lot like singing the simlish lyrics where, like, it's just, like, music works with across languages. It's just. It sounds. The sounds can be made pretty. It was hard and simlish to make the sounds pretty. Some of them are not.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah, right.

[Unknown]

But you're right.

[Pete Holmes]

You can't exactly change the lyric. Christ was born.

[Unknown]

Right?

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah. That's good. People might raise an eyebrow if you do.

[Unknown]

Right.

[Joey Ryan]

But it's bad guy was born.

[Unknown]

And it has meaning like. Like so many different songs. Ones that we've written or not. Like it has different meanings for different people.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

But the songs themselves, the melodies of these Christmas songs that we all know and are nostalgic for. And the words like literally just the sounds of the vowels are so, so beautiful.

[Joey Ryan]

It speaks to the power of music because Christianity nailed it. Who did that? That's a movie that I'd love to like. How did they get 12 bangers? You know what I mean, for a holiday. Dreidel, dreidel, dreidel. Guys, I'm like.

[Unknown]

I know. Can't compare.

[Joey Ryan]

I mean, unless you want to get.

[Unknown]

Everyone is like, you know a lot of the Christmas songs written by Juice.

[Joey Ryan]

Is that true?

[Unknown]

Well, the. The, like the Hollywood ones, you know, White Christmas and. And Rudolph the red nosed Reindeer.

[Joey Ryan]

I knew one. I went to a very progressive school, so I know more Hanukkah songs. Do you know this one? I know. I. I won't even sing it. I know you don't.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, please. Please.

[Unknown]

I know all of them.

[Pete Holmes]

Come on. Yeah, Please sing us.

[Joey Ryan]

You don't know these.

[Pete Holmes]

Please.

[Joey Ryan]

Okay.

[Pete Holmes]

Please.

[Joey Ryan]

We're saying you definitely know these songs.

[Pete Holmes]

How much you.

[Unknown]

I'll be shocked if there's a Hanukkah.

[Joey Ryan]

Window where you can see the glow of my menorah A newly fall.

[Unknown]

That's not a real.

[Joey Ryan]

Send you eight little candles on this the first night of Manuka.

[Unknown]

Okay. Can I tell you something?

[Joey Ryan]

Michigan's up my butthole. He was ready.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

That Hanukkah song you just sang that I've never heard.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

Is the best Hanukkah song I've ever heard.

[Joey Ryan]

It was like in A minor. It's. It's eerie.

[Unknown]

It's pretty Christmassy.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Unknown]

It just set in. They've got snow.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Is it like written by one of the kids parents?

[Joey Ryan]

No, it was in a rise up singing. It was our song book. I know another one. There's a light. The menorah. Let the candle shine on these fine nights.

[Unknown]

Sounds like a Christopher Guest.

[Joey Ryan]

The menorah. It does sound like a Christopher Guest. Eugene Levy White. The menorah. Let the candle shine on these fine Nights of Hanukkah white. It has a real.

[Unknown]

See, that's my problem with most Hanukkah songs is they sound like they're taking the piss out of Hanukkah song. They sound like they legit sound anti Semitic to me. Like they're making fun of Hanukkah songs.

[Joey Ryan]

Well, dreidel, dreidel, dreidel does.

[Unknown]

Yeah, exactly.

[Joey Ryan]

Oh, it's a dreidel, dreidel, dreidel, dreidel.

[Unknown]

I made it out of clay. And they all sound so explicitly, like, Semitic in the melodies.

[Joey Ryan]

Yes, very kind of Russian Ashkenazi. And you sing them in, like, a classic New York Jewish guy. Like, dreidel, dreidel. Why am I doing it? Oh, Dr. Why did I choose to do it? We all knew what I meant.

[Unknown]

Not worth it.

[Joey Ryan]

Full circle. You have to go, Joey305. I'm free for the next two hours, so be clear.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, well, we'll just carry on.

[Unknown]

It's literally another pick up my kid situation.

[Joey Ryan]

Well, let's not be late. Yeah, well, thank you, guys. The new album is called the Milk Carton Christmas.

[Unknown]

Christmas in A minor key.

[Joey Ryan]

Christmas in a minor key. The Eggnog Kids.

[Unknown]

Oh, why? See, we need to workshop every idea with.

[Joey Ryan]

Can we come up with.

[Pete Holmes]

To break it to you, that one was already made in the Instagram comments.

[Unknown]

Eggnog Kids.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah, the Eggnog Kids. Is there anyone. Katie, do you have. No, no, no, no. Oh, no, no, not that.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, no.

[Joey Ryan]

There's a Game of Thrones. Oh, bread pun. Is there a Game of Thrones bread pun? Game.

[Unknown]

Scones.

[Joey Ryan]

Game of Scones.

[Unknown]

I've never, never seen the show.

[Joey Ryan]

You don't need to. We're just going off title, so an hour and 15 later. Take that, dinglage. Guys, would you say keep it crispy? And then Michigan's up my puddle. Just kidding. Just keep it crispy.

[Pete Holmes]

Keep it crispy.

[Unknown]

Keep it crispy.

[Joey Ryan]

Thanks, guys. Up the butthole now. Keep your hands where I can see them.

[Pete Holmes]

Keep the scones where I can see them.

[Joey Ryan]

Double chorus. And you reference another song that has a double chorus, which I thought was your rule, but here they are.

[Pete Holmes]

We thought it was our second Michigan.

[Joey Ryan]

Oh, so you really went for it and then it didn't work.

[Unknown]

Came over to the dark side.

[Pete Holmes]

Wow.

[Joey Ryan]

You kind of lifted up your skirt a little bit and it still didn't work. Oh, no. You know what I mean.

[Pete Holmes]

It's a beloved song.

[Joey Ryan]

Okay. It's a beloved.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it hasn't hit the Michigan numbers, but, you know, we live in a very small sliver of human history.

[Joey Ryan]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

We don't know what it will do. The beauty about songs is that you write them. And as this Christmas album shows you, like, actually, I know we ended the podcast.

[Joey Ryan]

This is still the podcast.

[Pete Holmes]

If you believed in reincarnation, what would you want to come back as?

[Joey Ryan]

Me?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

I think in the Jewish tradition, you come back always as people.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, I'd like to come back as a song.

[Joey Ryan]

Oh, so you knew where he was going because you were like, you can't be a song.

[Unknown]

You can't be. You can't be a song.

[Joey Ryan]

I'd love to be a big wave for, like, a quick incarnation wave. And I'm just like. By the time I realized I'm a wave, I'm already sizzling on the sand.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, no. But what if you're one of those big waves that hurts a surfer? You know, the.

[Joey Ryan]

How intimate to have someone die in you.

[Pete Holmes]

That's true. You'd be honored.

[Joey Ryan]

And we look at each other and I'm like, sorry, dude, I'm a fucking wave. What about you, Joseph?

[Pete Holmes]

This question stresses him out.

[Joey Ryan]

Me too.

[Unknown]

Paralysis by analysis. There's so many choices.

[Joey Ryan]

Let's all say keep it crispy.

[Pete Holmes]

What's that from? I know that you didn't come up with that on your own. It went too fast. Paralysis.

[Joey Ryan]

That's real. It's like compare and despair for this one.

[Pete Holmes]

So now you guys are just letting the phrases fly loose after criticizing me for the ones. What was the one that you said, calling your chips?

[Joey Ryan]

Calling your chips.

[Unknown]

I don't think.

[Pete Holmes]

Literate bastards.

[Unknown]

I know this sounds like I'm being a wet blanket, but I don't think I want to be reincarnated because I'm very excited. Excited for whatever the next thing is that's not, like, right back here.

[Pete Holmes]

Rejecting the fun little hypothetical conversation that was meant to just bring us closer and deeper understanding of each other to.

[Unknown]

Mark out your own disclaimer.

[Joey Ryan]

No, No, I think I like that answer. Because you want it, like, let's see what five dimensions is like. Let's see what a different way of experiencing time is like. Why?

[Pete Holmes]

Be he wants to graduate to sniff and smell.

[Joey Ryan]

Sniff and smell, or two dimensions.

[Pete Holmes]

Scratch and scratch.

[Joey Ryan]

Fewer dimensions.

[Unknown]

Yeah, I wanna. Yeah.

[Joey Ryan]

All right.

[Pete Holmes]

Maybe if you call in your chips, you'll be able to get that.

[Joey Ryan]

That was a callback.

[Pete Holmes]

Calling your chips with the big guy.

[Joey Ryan]

I like that.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Joey Ryan]

All right, we're out of here. Go get your kids.

[Pete Holmes]

Thank you.