DOD243: Tom's Hunt for Friendship

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:28 Tom: Welcome to Dear Old Dads, the podcast that's hunting for a good intro. I'm Tom Curry. I am joined, as always, by Thomas Smith and Eli Bosnick. Hello, gentlemen.

0:00:38 Eli: A -ching -ching, ching -ching! Merry Christmas!

0:00:42 Thomas: What?

0:00:42 Eli: It's December 1st.

0:00:43 Tom: It is December 1st.

0:00:44 Thomas: That's when Christmas is?

0:00:45 Eli: They know what that means.

0:00:46 Tom: Advent calendars?

0:00:47 Eli: That's right.

0:00:48 Thomas: Wow. No.

0:00:48 Tom: Yeah.

0:00:49 Eli: Advent calendars of advent calendars.

0:00:51 Tom: Did you guys put your trees up?

0:00:52 Eli: Of course!

0:00:54 Thomas: Jesus Christ.

0:00:54 Tom: No.

0:00:55 Thomas: What is happening? The kids were home for nine straight days through Thanksgiving, and we're coming out of a war. We're just like, what? And the end of the month coincided with that, our horrendous work thing.

0:00:58 Tom: Oh,

0:01:05 Eli: And he's Thomas. His children could have been at boarding school for the last seven years and he'd be like, I fucking leaned a ruler up against the fucking stairs on December 27th, man.

0:01:18 Thomas: Well, we get amazing Christmas trees, I'll have you know. Do you remember last year? Every year for the past, well, I don't even know. It's been a while. Each year, I'm like, Like I could go bigger on the Christmas tree. I love

0:01:28 Eli: Oh, yeah?

0:01:29 Tom: You get a real tree. You're a real -tree guy.

0:01:29 Thomas: The Christmas. Oh, oh, we get a fucking massive tree.

0:01:35 Tom: Okay, that's braggy.

0:01:35 Thomas: I like, I started reasonable. And then each year, yeah, I'll fucking brag about it. What are you going to do about it? Each year I'm like, wait,

0:01:40 Tom: I get a smaller, girthier tree, but whatever.

0:01:43 Thomas: There's nothing technically stopping me from getting a bigger tree, like each year. But like, I'm still like, okay, I can't go too big, you know? But each year I'm going at like another foot, because we have this weird layout where our main room that we put it in, it doesn't have, like, the first floor of it, so it's like our two

0:02:00 Tom: It's like a great room.

0:02:00 Thomas: -story house. It's got one big room and It's, it's a weird design. It's echoey and I don't love it, except it has the benefit of, I can put such a fucking huge-ass tree in there. And so each year I'm like a little bigger. I asked the guy too, at the Christmas tree place we go to, I've got it, here's how much I like this whole thing to perhaps go a different direction than you might think of me. I've got a Christmas tree place that

0:02:03 Tom: Yeah, right.

0:02:24 Tom: Right, oh, you got a guy, you've got a guy.

0:02:24 Eli: Ooh. Mm -hmm.

0:02:24 Thomas: We found when we got up here. Yeah, I got a guy. And there's one that I saw that was closer. I was like, I don't care. We've gone to this one for five years now, or whatever. It's been four years.

0:02:32 Tom: To strap it to the roof of your car and drive it.

0:02:34 Thomas: What I was going to say is they strap it. And this last year, when I keep going bigger each year, I'm like, Hey, is this going to fit on my thing? And he's like, Oh yeah. And I'm really, he's Like, yeah. I Was like, how big of a tree do you think I could fit on this car?

0:02:48 Tom: Thomas's roof collapses in inward, like a fucking whale head on RFK's car. You

0:02:51 Eli: Mm -hm. Yep.

0:02:50 Thomas: And He's like, I don't know, like fucking 30 feet. He said something insane. I was like, no way. There's no, but like, they do it a million times a day. They're strapping these trees. I'm kind of inclined to believe it. Like, you can get a bigger tree than you think, I guess. Apparently so. We'll see this year. We'll

0:03:06 Tom: Know. I mean, with enough breathing and lube, sure.

0:03:08 Thomas: Sea, we'll seaman's guys the

0:03:08 Tom: Yeah, gotta relax a little first, maybe get a back rub.

0:03:12 Eli: It's all about wreathing.

0:03:12 Thomas: Fucking limit. Oh.

0:03:14 Tom: Eli, are you a real tree or are you a fake tree guy?

0:03:20 Eli: We have a fake tree.

0:03:21 Tom: Yeah, fuck real trees, man.

0:03:23 Eli: Thomas,

0:03:22 Thomas: So you Christmas fucking brag. People, people don't even experience a real Christmas with a real tree. Okay. Gotcha. There's something wrong with you.

0:03:29 Tom: I've never in my life had a real Christmas tree.

0:03:31 Eli: I can't explain the amount of money I would have lost if an angel had come down from heaven and paused time and been like, does Thomas have a real Christmas tree, one of the most time and labor -consuming objects on the planet?

0:03:44 Tom: Yeah, this blows me away

0:03:41 Thomas: Oh, it's the best. I love it. Fucking rules. Fucking rules. You're all wrong.

0:03:46 Eli: You arrive to each recording like you've woken from, what's that, Passenger's Movie? Like fucking Chris Pratt just shook you awake so he'd have someone to fuck the rest of his life. But you're like, I want to babysit a spruce for the month

0:03:53 Thomas: Oh man. I never saw that one. I do want to babysit a spruce.

0:04:01 Eli: Of December. Dude, just know from my experience how insane that is.

0:04:06 Tom: I'm just like picturing Thomas' house exactly like National Lampoon's Christmas vacation. Fucking dogs drinking the water out of the fucking Christmas bowl. The thing's on fire. There's a cat in there chewing on the lights. I cannot imagine how this goes well for you at all times Thomas, I'm being bullied for you for having it.

0:04:12 Eli: Mm -hmm. Yeah.

0:04:20 Thomas: You are crazy. I don't know what's wrong with you people. I would never, I would would never, and I know, like, obviously a lot of people do fake, fake trees. I know a lot of people who do fake trees, so obviously any opinion here is going to have some people who are bizarre. I would not even consider Christmas having happened if I had a fake tree.

0:04:24 Tom: Never, never, never. Get a nice box of tree.

0:04:38 Thomas: Like, that's how far, take Eli's insane but hilarious bit about the spooning.

0:04:38 Tom: What?

0:04:42 Thomas: That's me with the Christmas tree. I don't believe you should be able to vote if you have a fake Christmas tree, you shouldn't be allowed to vote. I found, I find, I know. Yeah. You fucking, I'm not as good at coming up with slurs as Eli is. I need your help, Eli. Eli, please come up with a slur for you. I know you

0:04:42 Eli: Ooh. Come up with a slur for him. It feels really good. Tree first. Tree first? I'm kind of a slur savant. Um,

0:05:02 Tom: Here,

0:05:03 Thomas: Won't be able to help yourself.

0:05:03 Eli: My best quality, I would guess, it's probably that whenever someone needs me to make up a slur, I can do it just kind of off the top. Oh, I should see myself out of this Taco Bell interview. Well, let's just say you will not be living Moss. All right, I am taking these packets of fire sauce. They're in my shirt. If you touch me, it's salt.

0:05:21 Thomas: Why do

0:05:26 Tom: Whatever vestiges of respect you may have had left for me, Thomas, our Christmas tree isn't even green. We have a white Christmas tree.

0:05:33 Eli: Oh, yeah, no, that's terrible.

0:05:35 Thomas: You hate joy?

0:05:36 Tom: And it's glorious. It's awesome. It goes in a box, throw the lights on, you throw the thing, and put it right back in a box when you're done with it. It's perfect. It's glory.

0:05:41 Thomas: I don't understand it. I I don't understand it. This is so funny.

0:05:46 Tom: What's it, it looks like it's always snowed. It looks like it always snow just in one place in the corner of our living room.

0:05:49 Thomas: I just, the smell, the Christmas tree smell. I can't imagine wanting to give that up. It's so nice. God, I love it.

0:05:54 Tom: Oh,

0:05:55 Eli: Oh it's a great smell. It's a Great smell.

0:05:57 Tom: But you could replace that with the smell of plastic.

0:05:59 Thomas: Sure can't. Man, I can imagine. Who would have thought?

0:06:01 Eli: The smell of fear. But gentlemen, before we move on to Christmas, I should plug our Patreon, which you can find over at patreon .com forward slash dear old dads. Get rid of all those auto ads you hate so much. Give yourself the gift of podcast without commercials over at patreon

0:06:24 Thomas: He did it. He got through it.

0:06:24 Eli: .com forward

0:06:25 Tom: You did kind of sort

0:06:25 Eli: Slash dear old, I broke my pattern of, do you know what's worse? Yeah.

0:06:30 Thomas: You have a weirdly timed stroke that happens at this point in the show every time.

0:06:33 Eli: What? Happens is I get so in my head, I'm like, do the format, and then I'm like, break the format, you comedy genius. And what happens as I go, hello, Dale, it's me, Uncle Christmas Tree, patreon.com forward slash dear old dance, like Tom.

0:06:54 Eli: And I into the Christmas tradition, rip into it never experienced Christmas.

0:06:52 Tom: Of Uncle Christmas tree

0:06:54 Thomas: You have never experienced Christmas, you never, you've, you've never had a Christmas.

0:07:01 Tom: I've never, I've never had a Christmas tree. No, never had a Christmus tree. Never had Christmas.

0:07:11 Ad: [Ad break 1 — ad music]

0:07:12 Eli: Gentlemen, before we get to Christmas, because there's so much Christmas to talk about, and maybe people fucking plastic, we'll find out, how was your Thanksgivings?

0:07:23 Thomas: Ever. Go ahead, Tom. Yeah, so

0:07:24 Tom: My Thanksgiving was good. Yeah, our Thanksgiving is always very chill, so it's just the six of us, and, like, we didn't do the turkey, we did a big beef roast and made, like, pretty easy sides, and it was just very, very relaxed and very, very chill. So I, I had a very nice Thanksgiving. I had a whole break, though. Like, I took almost 12 days total off of work.

0:07:46 Thomas: Does Tom's demon celebrate Thanksgiving then? Is that what that means? Like, Tom Dean, Tom's Dean was like, hey, I, do you mind torturing yourself for the, you know, if you can for the weekend. Yeah, if you don't have family, you don't, you don't have anything. I mean, really.

0:07:49 Eli: That's a great question. Yeah. I kind of get together with my family around this time of year. Me and my brother, me and my brother don't get along. He's JD Vance. And I just, I know I try not to bring work to it, but I just think he's a real piece of shit.

0:08:10 Tom: Dude, I had a remarkably chill, very easy, I actually caught up on my sleep while I was gone

0:08:19 Eli: You did, we saw.

0:08:19 Thomas: Okay, to be fair, when your sleep is the plank length, there's only one direction you can go, which is the smallest unit of time for the, yeah.

0:08:26 Tom: Yeah, it has absolutely collapsed today. So I'm back at work today.

0:08:30 Thomas: Jesus.

0:08:31 Eli: Right.

0:08:31 Tom: I got three hours and 31 minutes. So like a little, little light today, but you know,

0:08:33 Eli: I wanted to check in about which of your beliefs you still held, or if you were like, I don't know, guys. I think ChatGPG is just kind of like a bad app that's going to go away eventually. I'm not really worried about it. And then the next week you were We're like, I had to destroy the stabler. It knew too much. It saw.

0:08:55 Tom: I have been itching to tell you guys about my hunting trip since I got back. I have be itching. To tell you about my haunting trip. I do not have ticks.

0:08:58 Eli: Yes.

0:08:58 Thomas: Is that because you have tics or something? Or, oh, okay, so not literally a mosquito. And

0:09:04 Tom: No, no, thank God. Thank God. A little, little cold for that. But like, first of all, I want to laugh laugh at myself a little bit because of course I decided to take some time off. And at the front end of my time off, I pick the one activity that requires you to wake up at four 30 in the morning in order to do it.

0:09:07 Thomas: Poison Ivy. Yeah, uh, wait.

0:09:19 Eli: Yep.

0:09:20 Tom: So like for four days, I'm like, yeah, I don't have to work. I don' t have to podcast. I'm getting up at 4 30 in morning every day. Like this is kind of stupid. Like I I am not a, uh,

0:09:28 Eli: To wash yourself in a crick.

0:09:29 Thomas: What do you mean every day? How many fucking days are we we hunting?

0:09:33 Eli: Twelve.

0:09:34 Tom: No, I did, I did, uh... I did Friday, Saturday, Sunday. So I did three days. I did three days, because that's what... So Illinois has only two seasons. So Illinois, they'll harvest, like, 171 ,000 animals this year. Like, give or take. That's what they got last year. So this should be about the same this year, but, like... In Illinois, we've got two seasons where you can use a gun. The first one is three days long, And that's the one I went to first season.

0:09:35 Thomas: Here, why did you... The ease with which Eli just lies. He just says stuff. Okay, that's not terrible. That's a lot, man. That many animals? Second one is purge.

0:10:05 Tom: The second one is four days long. So there's only seven days where you can actually gun hunt in Illinois. Although all the rest of the season is archery and archery has a much lower success rate. Yeah.

0:10:06 Thomas: Season that sounds fun. But what do you give a shit? Are you actually like, oh no, I'm devastated if I don't kill an animal? Like the archie would be fun.

0:10:21 Tom: Well, I mean, no, I don't, I don't have time for archery. No.

0:10:22 Thomas: You just don't arch.

0:10:24 Eli: Do you not know the story of, I think he was doing this podcast with Tom's story about the deer and the fridge breaking? It's some of the demon's best work, Thomas.

0:10:32 Tom: Oh, it was

0:10:29 Thomas: Uh. Man, what was that? It sounds, sounds vaguely familiar.

0:10:35 Tom: Real quick for those who didn't hear it. Like I've only been able to go hunting twice because hunting is a whole thing. So like I can't do archery because I do not have the time to learn to get good. Like, if you want to to be a good ethical hunter, you have to be able to practice diligently and all the time, and I can't do that. I don't know who's got fucking time for that. I've been shooting my whole life, so I'm very confident with any firearm. Like, hand me a firearm, fine. So like that is not an issue, but like archery

0:10:40 Thomas: Yeah.

0:10:50 Eli: All right. Relax, Peter Singer. Singer, you get

0:11:01 Thomas: No, I will not. I'm not giving him any firearms. I believe you, but I don't. I'm going to test it.

0:11:07 Tom: Well, I mean, I would be accurate with it, I would say, but like archery is a whole, it's a whole skill that you have TO TAKE A LOT OF TIME TO LIKE LEARN AND and develop, and I just, I literally don't have the time for it, so it's gun season for me or nothing. And I've wanted to go deer hunting for a really, really long time, but none of my family deer hunts. I live in the suburbs around Chicago, so there's no deer hunting really around here. You got to drive someplace to go, and it's like a whole thing. And I also don't want to go on public land, because if you go to public land, there's every other yahoo that's out there on the fucking public land, right?

Yeah, I don't need that shit. I don'T NEED THAT SHIT. And then also, like, to do it well, you'd have have to go ahead of time and, like, scout the land. It's like a whole thing. So like, I've been trying to angle for an invite, and I have a friend of mine and her husband who's 15 years older than I am, right? So I'm 40, 70, 63. He's been hunting with the same guy down in the very southern portion of Illinois in the Shawnee National Forest. He's got a bunch of lanes, got 150 some acres of land down there, and I've Been Angling for an Invite for years, and finally this year he's like, yeah, get get you an invite.

0:11:16 Thomas: Sure.

0:11:36 Eli: Shot by someone who looks like you

0:12:11 Tom: And so I was able to go this year. I Don't mind it at all. Actually, it turns out, but I did go a couple of years ago. This freezer story literally doesn't bother me at all. Like, I did nothing to me, but like, two or three years ago, I went hunting, and the only way for me to go and to learn it was to pay for a guide. So Cecil and I went, and I Went down to Pike County, Illinois, against Southern Illinois. I shot two deer, I got them, like, the meat processed and packaged up and put in the freezer, and like, no bullshit, like a month later, my freezer fucking died and all that was garbage.

0:12:15 Thomas: Yeah,

0:12:12 Eli: Sure. Do love killing, sorry. You were saying something about your granddaughter's ballet recital. I would do it ethically though, with a gun, if you're wondering.

0:12:47 Eli: Yeah.

0:12:47 Tom: It was all fucking garbage. It's

0:12:47 Thomas: Okay. I feel like maybe you did mention that on this show. It's sounding familiar.

0:12:51 Eli: Right. If you've never hunted deer before, by the way, when you get the deer processed, you get at 50, 60. I mean, it's a tremendous amount of meat. Right. Yes, it is.

0:13:00 Tom: A huge amount of food.

0:13:01 Thomas: It's like a year's worth of food, right?

0:13:03 Tom: It

0:13:03 Eli: It's a year's worth of food, yeah.

0:13:04 Tom: Is legitimately, I had a, I had a full, because I had, I had two deer, they were both medium-sized animals, so like, like, I had probably 80 pounds of food in the freezer, and it all just got thrown right in the garbage. Yeah.

0:13:04 Thomas: Or more.

0:13:14 Eli: And the demon was just like, I'd plug! God, this one was easy this week. It was great.

0:13:23 Tom: I got to unplug something. There's nothing.

0:13:25 Eli: I'm gonna go see my cats.

0:13:27 Thomas: I want to go to Thanksgiving break early. I'm already done. Wait, why does this demon sound like him? I was doing a different demon voice. Is demon Tom sounds like Tom?

0:13:34 Tom: It's

0:13:34 Eli: It's all part of the Tomiverse. You gotta... Yeah. You know how at the beginning of, like, the Shakespeare collections they show you the order of the animals so you can understand, like, the worldview Shakespeare had at the time that he was writing? That I have one of those for the Tom-of-hers, where it's just like, where the Tom demon resides and in relation to Club Tom. It's, it's a whole thing.

0:13:35 Tom: All in there. It's in there, it's all there. I am my own demons.

0:13:58 Tom: So the whole hunting experience aside, like, I, I had a great time. I thought it was really fun and interesting. I learned a lot of stuff. It was great experience for me. But what I wanted to tell you guys about was I went down with my close friend's husband, who I've been trying to get to know better. So they've been married a long time, but he's worked a lot, I've worked a little. They live about an hour away. I've always wanted to connect with them. He and I have a lot of points of intersection, but we've not had an opportunity to really, like, hang out and be buddies.

0:13:56 Thomas: Sorry, can you explain this to me? You want to get to know someone better. For what?

0:14:28 Eli: What is this "better" you speak? Oh, you're in a lawsuit.

0:14:30 Thomas: Are you trying to steal from him or something? I was like, yeah.

0:14:33 Eli: I got it, Tom. Quick

0:14:35 Tom: He seems to have good demons. I may be hoping his demons will like rub off on my demons. He's got, yeah.

0:14:36 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Step one, get to know the person. What's step two? Like, what does that lead to? Just help me. I just

0:14:45 Tom: Well, you'll love this. So I'm 47. He's 15 years old. Puts him at 63. He gets me this invite. I go down there. I meet him down there, I drove separately. I meet them down there to about a six hour drive. So it's pretty fucking far. Right? It's about 300 miles from where I live.

0:14:59 Eli: Question, quick interjection, if I may. What are you jamming out to in the car? Books on tape, a little music, a little dad rock, podcasts?

0:15:00 Tom: Yeah, yeah. All right. It's a little embarrassing. On the way there, I made...

0:15:07 Eli: Your own screams. Just crying with an open mouth.

0:15:15 Thomas: Don't demon core. It's just the demon gave him, "Hey, I've been haunting you a long time. You want to check out my demo? My band's pretty good." I mean, and it's separate from the demon work, like, you might love my demon work, not like the band, vice versa. It's separate. It's totally different.

0:15:26 Eli: I'm not going to play you the first track, because the first track, you kind of got to know our stuff. Just give me a second.

0:15:36 Tom: Give the EP a listen. It just, it's a four-track record. But no, like, I made work calls the whole way down, on the way down there, which is why it's embarrassing.

0:15:43 Thomas: Me that can be good though. That can be good. Well,

0:15:44 Eli: How

0:15:44 Tom: I didn't want to, but then I had stuff pop up and I'm like, you know what, I'll get it.

0:15:48 Eli: Could that be good?

0:15:49 Thomas: I'll tell you, it's good if you're like, sometimes you're like, okay, driving's boring, working's boring, get two boring things done at once, and then it feels like when you get there you're just like, oh, I just got a bunch of work done and I'm here. Like, I've had that experience before where it's like, oh, that feels great, you know? But it's...

0:16:04 Tom: Yeah.

0:16:04 Thomas: Tom, so he probably killed someone on the way accidentally, had to deal with that. The demon helped him bury the body.

0:16:12 Eli: Sorry, could you speak a little louder? There's a guy in my tire well, and he is just screaming.

0:16:15 Tom: I really

0:16:17 Thomas: The demon's like, oh shit, oh shoot, I've never actually killed anyone for real before.

0:16:22 Eli: I have just the song for this. Yeah.

0:16:25 Tom: Just wanted to get this shit out of the way so I could actually relax. I had a stuff that was kind of lingering. Yeah, yeah. So I was like, okay, if I button all this stuff up, then I don't have to think about it. And like, I didn't look at my phone. I didn't answer a single work text message, I didn't return a single voicemail the entire time I was off.

0:16:29 Thomas: Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Yeah, it can be good. I like that.

0:16:46 Thomas: Damn. Yeah.

0:16:46 Tom: I don't remember the last time I did that.

0:16:49 Thomas: Probably because it's never happened, Tom. That's probably why.

0:16:51 Tom: Don't know—it's been some amount of time ago. Like, I don't remember. It's been fucking forever so

0:16:52 Eli: I bet they had a funeral for you at the office.

0:17:01 Tom: Like, I get down there and I guess I didn't really think about it, but like my friend Kevin—because he's so much older than I am—most of his friends are not 15 years younger than him. Most of his friends, because he lived down in Southern Illinois

0:17:11 Thomas: Right What? I was just—I was gonna ask: you said this is like a friend's husband? Are you chilling with like an 80-year-old lady? Or like what's uh yeah that's what I

0:17:19 Tom: No, she's, she's my age, she's just, she's married to a guy who happens to be 15 years older. So I get down there and I am the youngest guy. Like, Kevin is the youngest man in the world among his peer group. So when I get there, it's like me, 47, then there's my buddy Kevin he's 63, I'm 53, and then yeah, dude, everybody else is in their 70s But here's the thing. I was, at first, I was like, this is gonna be crazy, but like, these guys have it fucking figured out. Let me tell you a little bit about these guys, because this is actually fucking impressive. First of all, unbelievably, none of that shit, dude, none of that shit. And I was kind of like, I don't know, man, like, these are Southern Illinois guys, this might be a little weird, but they're also friends of Kevin, so they're They're not going to be that weird, right? And they've known each other for like 25, 30, 40 years, whatever it is. One of the guys had had a stroke a

0:17:35 Thomas: Figured. Then there's Dick Van Dyke, Mel Brooks, they all get their dicks out in the locker room and leave them out the whole time. First off,

0:18:12 Tom: Few years ago. I know, but listen.

0:18:14 Eli: He's got it all figured out.

0:18:17 Tom: So here's what the other guys do.

0:18:17 Thomas: He doesn't even feed himself. It's fantastic, fantastic, it

0:18:19 Eli: This dude never uses the right side of his body.

0:18:24 Tom: The other guys go visit him every week. They pick him up and they brought him to the deer camp at night for dinner and for drinks and to smoke him up. And to have a good time with him.

0:18:33 Thomas: Does sound nice, actually.

0:18:33 Tom: The guy is clearly struggling, but this is their guy. This has been their guy for 40, 50 years, however long, longer than that. Some of these guys have known each other since second grade, they're in their 70s, so these are people that have known each other for actually well on 60 plus years. They are fit. They see each other several times a week, you know, all the things that science says to do to be happy.

0:18:37 Thomas: Yeah. Wow.

0:18:59 Tom: To have strong, deep social connections, to have hobbies that are important to you and that you can share with other people that you like. It's like Yeah, yeah, to be white. These guys are doing all of that stuff. I hung out with these guys and, like, these are happy people, you know. We didn't talk about, once, we didn't talk about politics, we didn't talk about the news, we didn't talk about any bullshit. We talked about, like, they really were like talking amongst themselves and being like, it

0:18:49 Thomas: Jesus. Wow. To be white, sorry.

0:19:08 Eli: If

0:19:27 Thomas: Yeah, man, they're boomers. You're being friends with boomers. They don't have to care about anything.

0:19:32 Tom: But like, they're not shitty Fox News boomers. What I'm trying to say is, like, these ARE men who do not have a crisis of identity. These are men who do not have a crisis of friendship. These are men who don't have any of that. These are guys they've just met and we're having like real talk conversations. Like I'm asking him because a couple of them were just getting ready to retire. The guy who's hosting is a dentist and he's literally sold his practice just this last Wednesday.

So when I was down there, he was having his practice valued and he was going to sell his practice and it was a big meeting coming up and he was very open. He's telling me all this stuff. He doesn't know me. He just met me, but he's like wide open. And he's telling me stuff about like, look, we're talking about like Hey, what do you think it's going to be like to retire?

Are you worried about losing your sense of self and your sense of identity when you retire? We're asking each other real questions and having like genuine deep conversations within a handful of hours of meeting each other because

0:19:34 Thomas: Oh, that's nice. Damn.

0:20:26 Thomas: Yeah.

0:20:27 Tom: Like these guys aren't insecure about any of that shit. All that insecurity stuff is gone. It's dead. It's over. They're going to bed in 15 minutes. It doesn't matter to them. They don't care.

0:20:32 Thomas: Hey, I don't care. Yeah, exactly. That's great.

0:20:36 Eli: They don't die, someone will wheel them out by the fire and smoke them up.

0:20:38 Thomas: Yeah, sounds

0:20:39 Tom: We sat around, we listened to music, and like, funny enough, like, they're listening to, like, really current stuff or really old stuff. They don't care at all.

0:20:46 Thomas: Nice. Oh, I was gonna say, like, the same stuff I like.

0:20:48 Eli: Funnily enough they had the same radios that I do.

0:20:49 Tom: Yeah.

0:20:51 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, it was their current stereo setup.

0:20:52 Tom: We're listening to Like, well, actually, we did compare stereo stuff. We totally did, it was actually really funny. These guys are in amazing shape. They can outwork physically, they can not work almost anybody that I've met. They're out all day on their farm, they're off fishing, they're out and they have professional jobs. They move their bodies every day. They see their friends all the time. They have real and deep connections with each other as guys and as a social circle and the same social circle that they've had for decades and decades. And I'm sitting here and I'm like, I thought I was going to feel weird for different reasons, but I feel a little weird because I'm jealous because I'm seeing a group of guys who have some shit about life figured out out here. You know what I didn't see any of them do pick up their fucking phone at all.

0:20:56 Eli: Hell yeah, you

0:21:11 Thomas: But Jeez. Because they don't know how to use them. Yeah, no, I'm just kidding.

0:21:43 Eli: Did, yep.

0:21:43 Tom: They do though. That's the thing, but I know it's so easy, but like, that's the thing. It's So easy. But like when it came time to do other stuff, cause like one of the things I brought, I downloaded a GPS app. Cause I don't know the property and like the property owner, Tim, he's like, picks up my phone. He immediately starts putting way points all over the GPS app where all the tree stands on his property are. He's very tech proficient. No, no, I know. But that's an easy yes.

0:22:07 Tom: Right? Like that's, and it's usually true. I guess what I really was struck by that I couldn't wait to tell you guys about is like here's this group of guys that are doing all the stuff that we all know works and you know what it does, it fucking works.

0:22:03 Thomas: No, I'm just kidding.

0:22:19 Thomas: Why?

0:22:19 Tom: They're fucking happy, and they love each other, and they're supporting each other. I was

0:22:21 Thomas: Don't you start a fucking podcast with them? Huh? You just fucking, I guess, fucking, how's your podcast? Is their podcast funny?

0:22:27 Tom: Just blown away, too, at the level of support.

0:22:28 Thomas: Is it bigger? Is it big, bigger than ours? Yeah.

0:22:30 Eli: How girthy is their audience?

0:22:33 Thomas: It's not, it's not necessarily the size of the audience, though. It's the reach, in

0:22:36 Tom: It's the motion of the podcast, that's what it is. I can podcast again in 20 minutes just like I could. But yeah, I just need a Gatorade.

0:22:41 Eli: Yeah.

0:22:42 Thomas: The, yeah, yeah, yeah, we could do

0:22:49 Ad: [Ad break 2 — ad music]

0:22:51 Eli: It's interesting when you find people, because that's my Cleveland family, right? Is that they have it figured out in a similar way, right? In a similar sort of mystifying way. And what I find fascinating, I'm interested in your thoughts on this, Tom, is like, when you see someone like that, you go, like, okay, that's the thing. And then for me at least, I just, I don't still do that

0:23:10 Thomas: More. Okay.

0:23:11 Tom: Dude, I want to do that so bad. It's all I've been thinking about.

0:23:13 Eli: In my case, like, I have the friend group and I have the regular meetup. I just don't do so much of those things that I know are good for

0:23:23 Thomas: And we're three bears, because I'm nowhere near, I mean, I'm so far away from this, but I recognize it would be better. It's not, it's not that I don't think it would be better system, I'm just not

0:23:27 Tom: You know, I had a lot of opportunity to sit in a tree and reflect because that's mostly what hunting is, is sitting in a tree stand and just sitting.

0:23:36 Eli: Me Hey, Tom, I'm glad you're here, but you're crying really loud. We're not, we're We're not going to catch any deer.

0:23:44 Thomas: There. Oh,

0:23:47 Tom: You're not, they're not going to.

0:23:47 Eli: And the stroke guy keeps rolling away from his oxygen tank. We think it's an attempt to escape.

0:23:54 Tom: I talked about this on a show not that long ago, but there's a pretty good body of science that says, you know, during these periods of your life, and we're kind of in it right now, this is the low point because this is the highest stress point of your life. Your kids are at an age where they maximally need you. Financial stresses are higher. Career stresses are higher. We're working more, we're doing.

So like we're at a place in our lives where I think like it would be unrealistic for me to expect to live the same kind of life or lifestyle that these guys have, right? They have grown ass kids like their kids are adults.

Many of them have grandkids. Like, they're done doing the intensive day-to-day work of that stuff. They're also at a different place in their career. Like I said, a couple of them are retired, others are winding into retirement, so they're not like grinding and trying to build a career the same way that you do again your 30s and 40s, even early 50s. But like, it feels really important to me, and I was talking to the guys about this when I was down there

0:24:50 Thomas: The guys. They're the guys.

0:24:51 Tom: Because, like, it feel really important that you don't become your work. We've talked about this before on the show, but I meet a lot of people, especially in my business, who, because they're so financially successful and because that requires so much grind, they become their work. And like these guys, all professional people, all college educated, professional people. I just don't want to paint the wrong image of these guys like as the sort of like, you know, hillbilly hick boomer doesn't know technology, you're stuck in the past. That's not these guys at all. But what they have done is they figured out like, yeah, I don't have to do that anymore. So I'm not going to.

0:24:52 Eli: They're the guys now.

0:25:31 Tom: Instead, I have interests. I have things I love and I have people that I love. And when these people in my life need me, I can be there for them because I've structured my life in such a way that there's still connections. None of these guys work together.

0:25:44 Thomas: Now, oh wow.

0:25:44 Tom: None of them work together at all. And I'll tell a real quick story because I think it was really interesting. This guy, Tim, and this guy, shit, I forgot his name. It doesn't matter. You guys don't matter anyway. I'm

0:25:55 Eli: You're not one of his people. That's okay. Yeah. Hell yeah. What's my name?

0:25:56 Thomas: Fuck yeah, score one for us. I think he remembers our names.

0:25:59 Tom: The worst, I'm the fucking worst. They had drifted apart for like decades, and Tim just one day thought about this other guy, and he's like, you know, I'm gonna look him up, I'm gonna try to find him, and he tried to find him, and he found out that the guy had retired from his regular day job and was working at the TSA in order to get like a pension and benefits, like go-forward benefits that he could carry on, and so he got on an airplane and he flew to where he knew this guy was a TSA agent, so He could get in line and reconnect with him in person.

They hadn't seen each other for 25 years, but he's like, you know what, that guy, I love that guy, and I haven't seen him in a long time, and our lives got too busy, but like, I want to reconnect, and how much fun would it be to do this? And so he got on an airplane, he flew, he stood in line, he stood in the fucking security line, and he's like, yeah, that's my guy, and he stood there and they reconnected and they've been fast friends again ever since. And I listened to that story, and again, I just like, I'm like, these guys have their shit figured out, and I hope that when I get to that part of my life I can get that same kind of shit figured OUT, you know what I mean?

Because like when you're in the grind all the time, that's where we have this like crisis of friendship, crisis of male friendship, crisis of male identity, because like if you don't do all that groundwork, if you don't lay those foundations, then there's nothing to return to. That's the conclusion I came to, sitting in a fucking tree, is like if you don't, if you don't do that foundational work, then like when you get to the end and like, okay, the kids are a little older and they're not as intensive in terms of their needs, and your career is maybe less intensive in terms of its needs, and it's like, okay, well, cool, who am I? What do I like? Who are my friends? What if I need help? And these guys have that shit figured out and

0:25:59 Thomas: Yeah, wow. True. Love, right?

0:27:42 Eli: And

0:27:42 Tom: I really, like, I just—that's been living rent-free in my head ever since I got home. I'm curious what you feel about that or if you think about that stuff at

0:27:50 Eli: When you see that, you think, am I building that? Right.

0:27:53 Tom: All, yes.

0:27:54 Eli: Because that's a very real thing that comes in for you. Because like, it's very easy to be in the now and to be like, oh, I'll do that when I'm older. Or I'll take it. Like, this is something that I noticed like a lot with taking care of my body is that I'm like, ah, I'm going to be one of those old guys, like moving around. I'm going to have like a, I mean, I have good energy.

I mean I have take good care of my body. So I'm still hopping when I'm 80 and I'm like, Ah, am I putting in that work now? And that's often what I feel in those situations is I have to check in with myself and go, am I actually doing that work now? Or am I going to be one of those guys who's got like a million excuses? And I want to point out a habit that I I noticed in myself while you were talking, Tom.

And look, partially it's because we're on our comedy podcast and I'm thinking of jokes, right? But it was amazing to me how much of that pretty simple, lovely story about friendship you were telling that the internet had trained my brain to genuinely negate. And I don't mean in like a jokey way. I mean that my brain literally kept being like, well, you know, most people can't afford to. And like, look, there is certainly some validity to that little gremlin voice in my head.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't be conscious of the world or scenarios or privilege or all that kind of stuff. But the fact that I was so unable to listen to nine sentences without a Twitter unbidden in my brain to be like, actually, you're only possible if you can afford it. The idea that I can't just let someone else be happy, that I have to chime in with the world's most boring, uneducated finance and economy takes.

Like, I think that's part of the reason why I don't do that prep. Like when I really seriously self-examine like why I'm not doing the work on that, why I haven't laid the groundwork to have that in my life.

I think it is because, not to blame the internet because I'm the one looking at the thing, but, like, I think it is because the internet has trained that nihilism about those positive experiences so deeply into my brain that attempting to strive for them, even listening uncritically to another person talk about their success in them, makes me feel like I am somehow out of touch with, like, the gritty reality.

0:28:35 Tom: Yeah, yeah.

0:30:10 Thomas: There, there. Wow. Yeah.

0:30:10 Eli: Does that make sense? All right. So it's just something I noticed in myself while you were talking. And again, I know it's a comedy podcast, and I'm thinking of jokes, and negativity is obviously a funnier place than like, well, gee, man, that sounds lovely. There's not going to be any funny there. But there was a genuine part of me that was debunking another person's happiness, and it felt bizarre.

0:30:29 Thomas: Yeah,

0:30:21 Tom: Right, right. Right. Yeah, yeah, but I, I think you're right. I think we have a tendency to do that and I think we have a dependency, specifically, I, I want to say, like, this is a very male-centered weekend, right? Like for me it's all dudes and we're out in fucking middle of the woods hunting and fucking cutting animals open to the whole thing.

0:30:45 Thomas: It's not like you're saying you have to do that. It's just like having the, yeah, right, right.

0:30:53 Tom: No, no, but I'm saying this was, but it contained none of the toxicity. None of it, none of it.

0:30:54 Eli: I killed an animal.

0:30:55 Thomas: He killed some animals.

0:30:55 Tom: Well, whatever—that's nothing like it's not toxic to kill an animal.

0:30:59 Eli: It's fine. It's fun. Hey, hey, look, I'm yes-ending. We're here. It may or may not be toxic to kill an animal for fun together.

0:31:06 Thomas: Yeah.

0:31:08 Tom: Well, you know, I mean, you kill it individually anyway. You sit in a tree by yourself, Eli. Yeah, there

0:31:10 Eli: That's right. I'm not here to yuck your yum. I'm not here to yuck-your-yum.

0:31:17 Thomas: You're

0:31:18 Tom: There were so many pieces of this weekend that I was like, uh, you know, like I'm a little worried about how this is gonna go, I'm a little worried who these guys are gonna be, I'm a little worried if I'm gonna feel odd man out, like I had a lot of concerns going down. I don't know these guys, the one guy I know, I don'T KNOW THAT WELL, I'm trying to get to know this one guy, so I'm like, I really want to have this experience but I'm a little worried about the social piece, and I'll tell you what, like when you strip all the insecure bullshit just away and all that's just gone and none of that matters, it's very easy to connect with people, like it was there. It was remarkably easy. Like it was literally nothing. It was no effort whatsoever. And there were huge parts of the evening where they're talking about people I don't know. And I just got to sit in like, be quiet and listen and laugh at their stories together.

0:32:05 Eli: Yeah.

0:32:05 Tom: And it wasn't weird. Cause all that insecurity is just like, no one's posturing. Yeah.

0:32:10 Eli: Yeah, the default is to get along. And again, the internet does a really good job of making us forget that. But the truth is, like, if you hang out with people, 99 % of the time, unless someone is experiencing, like a pretty serious episode, it's going to go fine. Right? Most people get along most of the time, and it's really just the stratification of the internet that's convinced us, like, if I was out in the woods with those guys, we never would have gotten along.

0:32:37 Tom: But I, I will say that, and this is maybe different, but like a lot of the experiences, a lot of the social experiences I have that are not with people I already know and have a good, strong social connection with are through my work. And I have a very different experience. There is a lot of posturing through work.

0:32:54 Eli: Of course. Yeah.

0:32:54 Tom: There's a lot of jockeying for a sort of position, even in these sort of social hours and all that stuff. Yeah.

0:32:59 Thomas: Kind of in competition with each other in a way though, right? Whereas, like, here you're just not, so it's a little bit different in that way. But it's also like, I think it's the age thing is a big part of it, because I don't know if the default is to get along necessarily. I'm not sure if I agree with that, because I do think that it can have a lot to do with where people are coming from. If they had a, um, intense family situation, there's some people who just seem like destined to stir shit up for some reason, like, I don't, never understand it. There will be different situations you see, like if we do, you know, back Back when Lydia and I had the time to do theater, where it's like, "Oh, so and so is saying so," and I'm just like, "What?" Just no, I don't fucking care. Just not not doing it for a second.

0:33:08 Tom: Yeah, I think it is.

0:33:36 Tom: Yeah, and I think it is an age thing, Thomas. Yes, and that. Because I feel like with younger men specifically that that don't yet know who they are and don't really feel truly confident in who they are. And what their worth is. They're jockeying for position in some way all the time. Like they're constantly sort of vying for something. Yeah.

0:33:52 Thomas: And I guess my point is it's that plus some people also are just that way naturally, like based on their psychology or their upbringing or whatever, where they're always have a chip on their shoulder in that way. And that can be very unpleasant. That unpleasantness can can leak into any social situation if someone's dedicated to it.

0:34:02 Tom: Right.

0:34:13 Eli: And I will also say that some men, and I really do think this is a male problem more often than it's a female problem, are so underdeveloped socially, right? Like, the level of underdevelopment socially you can be and still be a quote -unquote functional male in society, unable to, like, interact at even a basic level, is buck wild.

0:34:22 Tom: Yes. Yep. Yeah.

0:34:23 Thomas: Right. Yeah. Yeah. Oh boy. Yeah. So true.

0:34:35 Eli: Child, but it's hard to make it to 70 if you're not that developed, right? And it's certainly hard to make it into a group of friends who see, right, a successful 70 and a group of friends who see each other all the time. Like, there probably are those 70-year-old cranks who never quite socially adapted, but they're not on hunting trips with their buddies, right? They just lose track of everybody over the years and then sort of reap those rewards, right? And blame other people for their problems, and then their son reads their diaries on a podcast.

0:34:35 Tom: Right. Right. Yeah.

0:34:40 Thomas: A successful 70. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah right.

0:34:54 Thomas: Totally. I bet that's true. Blame other people for their problems. That kind of thing. Yeah I

0:35:04 Eli: And it, it's our most downloaded episode.

0:35:04 Thomas: Don't think my dad blamed anybody else. I think I think to be fair to him.

0:35:09 Eli: Oh, he was like, "Ah, it's on me."

0:35:12 Tom: I want to also point out something else that I noticed that I didn't notice. And I thought this was really cool. Not one person, one person. And there was a rotating group of people kind of coming in. Now, there's only three of us that were hunting, but there were other people that come in and just hang out in the evening and like have dinner and drinks and smoke up and like listen to music. So there's probably six or seven people that I met across the weekend. Not one of them had a shitty thing to say about women or their wives or anything along those lines.

Not one bad joke like that. Not one. Take my wife, please. Not one, the old ball and chain, none of that shit. And like, I will tell you too, and this is just kind of funny, these dudes fucking partied so hard. Like, I'm 15 years younger than the youngest guy and I was like, guys, I've been, I was, I'm up, it's 4:30 in the morning, it's one in the mornin', we gotta get up It was crazy, dude. It was, I did, I was like, we gotta get up in three and a half hours, and they're just like, yeah, let's listen to another

0:35:40 Thomas: Wow.

0:36:02 Thomas: You got pancakes teethed and sit in a tree. We gotta do a bunch of tree sitting. Yeah.

0:36:11 Eli: Yep, right.

0:36:11 Tom: Song. Yeah, I also thought that was really remarkable that, like, here's this group of dudes, never met him before, don't know who they are. These are southern Illinois guys, say what you will. Not one of them, like, like the one guy who had the stroke, like, he got pretty drunk, he got pretty high. We helped kind of carry him out to the car of the guy who was driving him home. So like, we kind of had, he was laughing and having a great time, but like, he wasn't particularly mobile, and so like, me and another guy helped kind to carry him, like, out to his car, drove him back back home, and like, helped him get into his house and helped him get into his bed with his wife there. And like, the joke was like, oh, it was like, you know, Janine or whatever, Matt, and they're like, no, Janine wasn't, imagine was happy to see him out having a good time and being taken care of, you know, like, oh, tell her I said, hey, you know, I saw her last week.

0:36:56 Thomas: Hmm. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's nice.

0:37:01 Tom: There's none of the shit. There was none of that stuff, and I just feel like, how often can you say that? It was so remarkable, and it was so refreshing, and it just, like, gave me this blueprint, blueprint for what I don't expect to build today. Right. But like, to your point, like, what I really want to lay a foundation for as I get older, like, I want to have this same group of guys who's like, shares these same common values and, like, does stuff with each other and sees one another regularly and cares about, like, the wellbeing of each other's, like, wives and families and a real and genuine way. Cause, like, these were men, like, these were guys, guys, there's nothing not masculine about any of this stuff, for sure.

0:37:08 Thomas: Not often.

0:37:09 Eli: Right.

0:37:31 Eli: You

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0:37:57 Eli: Have to ask yourself the question of, like, okay, great, who's in my life right now that I'm putting in the work with, that 30 years from now it makes sense that we're doing this kind of stuff? Who am I putting that time in for? And it's certainly for me it's a hard reality check for, like, oh, am I focusing in the right ways? Because, you know what? Nobody does in their 70s. Nobody goes, "And then I got that promotion."

0:38:06 Tom: Yeah.

0:38:21 Eli: And it was like, "Or I spoke out on that Zoom call, and I made sure everyone understood that the stack was actually in the wrong," right?

0:38:21 Tom: Yeah, yeah.

0:38:21 Thomas: You know.

0:38:31 Tom: Wait.

0:38:31 Eli: So like, it's refocusing your

0:38:33 Thomas: I just had a random thought that I think goes with this, and maybe, Eli, this is something you know, but, you know, it's one of the most depressing things. No, no, I'm trying to, I'm going with you. You know that, like, Marlon Brando when he died spent all his time arguing with people online.

0:38:37 Eli: Fuck you.

0:38:47 Thomas: Did you know this?

0:38:47 Eli: Guys, yeah. Yeah, yeah, email.

0:38:48 Tom: What?

0:38:49 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. And like forums and stuff. Like, cause it was early, it was early two thousands, I think. But like, yeah, he was a political guy, but like, isn't it weird to have been the most, like for a period of time, the most successful and in my opinion, hottest fucking human being to ever live for a time. And then in the end, he's arguing with people online, like that's how he went out. Like he's just like fucking bitter, bitter arguments with people offline. It's like, fuck, it makes me think of this where it's like that. That's not that's maybe not the answer

0:39:17 Tom: That's not it. Yeah, that's what I mean. Like, these guys haven't lost their connection to the day-to-day world at all. They're not like anachronistic, but what they've decided is what really matters to them and what their values are, and it's people. And like, it was really remarkable too that what we did at the end of the day, so you, you know, you finish up hunting when sun goes down. If you shoot anything, you got to deal with it. It takes an hour or two, but like by six o 'clock, six 37 o 'clock you're changed out of your hunting clothes. You're back in like the building or whatever, where you're at. Like this was an unbelievably beautiful building that we were able to stay at, but like, Oh,

0:39:17 Eli: Yep. Oh.

0:39:17 Thomas: It's maybe not it I don't know yeah

0:39:53 Eli: Did you have, like, a nice place to sleep? That was my question.

0:39:56 Tom: This guy, Tim makes me feel like I've never done anything in my entire life. So this guy Tim, he's a dentist down in Southern Illinois.

0:40:01 Eli: The whole group makes me feel like I've never done anything in my

0:40:02 Thomas: I haven't done anything my entire life I just feel like that cuz I am like that

0:40:07 Tom: I was told I was going to stay in something called the party barn. And I was like, oh, cool. I brought a sleeping bag, a pillow. You know, I'm like, it sounds like I'm going to be kind of roughing it. And that's fine. I don't mind. This was one of the most gorgeous places I've ever walked my feet into.

0:40:08 Thomas: Nintendo

0:40:08 Eli: Childhood

0:40:25 Tom: He built the entire thing himself by hand. And when I say built it by hand, I mean, he went out in his property, cut his trees down, hewed the trees into trusses, learned to build a truss -style home. He built actually an entire home, and then he built this party barn. This party barn is gorgeous. I was sleeping in this loft. I mean it was unbelievable. Believable. Like he had pictures of it from architectural digest and he built the whole thing himself, but not just himself.

And this is the other thing I want to mention. So he says like, Oh, I built this thing myself. He's like, but I had a lot of help from my friends. And then he's got a book that he keeps and he, and he hands it around. He shows it to me. And it's all the people, all of his friends that helped him. Oh, this person came out and helped showed me how to do the stained glass.

Cause I didn't know how to use stained glass。 So I have a great friend and she's so good at doing that. So she helped me do the stained glass.

And this person came out on, you know, 10 occasions and helped me hew these logs. And, you know, we busted our ass and we got this thing done. And he kept a list of all the people that helped him and all the things they did specifically to help him build his home and to build this outbuilding that was extraordinary. So like, that's also a guy who's got six pages full of people that, like, when he wants something, they're like, "Yeah, let me help." And that's not an accidental life. That doesn't happen just because Tim's a good

0:40:18 Thomas: Yeah Wow

0:41:39 Eli: Yeah.

0:41:44 Tom: Dentist. I was so struck by these men and the intentionality with which they live their lives and what that, like, reaps at the end, you know, and not at the beginning. They're not fucking dead, but like, what that reaps in that back half of their lives. Yeah, well,

0:41:45 Eli: Right.

0:41:57 Eli: Yeah, it's, it's this idea of, like, and forgive me because it's going to sound woo-ey as shit, hopefully it comes across in somewhat sensical No, but it's idea of spiritual genius. Like, if Fred Rogers had ever gotten on the TV and been like, "Kill Bill Nixon," I would have done it, right? And a

0:42:06 Thomas: They're close

0:42:04 Tom: I'm fucking waxing. Poetic about it, so it's fine.

0:42:16 Eli: Bunch of people would have done it. And instead he had this sort of spiritual genius to do and be the thing he was, and nobody else could be and do that thing. And You meet these everyday people who are just spiritual geniuses. I wish there was a word that didn't so heavily connotate with religion, but you know what I'm saying. That they're just like, they're a genius of human relationship, right? My buddy, I've talked about it before, my buddy Barack is one, right? Like, he's always just doing something incredible, right, for his community. And

0:42:16 Thomas: Yeah yeah

0:42:18 Tom: Yeah. Yeah.

0:42:36 Tom: Yeah, yeah, I know what you mean. Yeah, I mean, obviously Obama's

0:42:46 Thomas: Sure

0:42:46 Eli: And with... Yeah, my good friend Barack Obama.

0:42:46 Tom: We all know him. It's a big deal. Like, very charismatic. We've known, it's obvious.

0:42:50 Eli: But like he's always doing something like that. My close personal friend, Barack Obama, but you meet

0:42:51 Thomas: Let me just emulate Barack fucking Obama thank you Eli for the actionable knowledge Knowledge. Yeah.

0:43:00 Tom: Yeah.

0:43:00 Eli: These people, and it's, it's interesting because they don't do anything, like, it's not like they're like, "And that's when I paid everyone a million." It's not George Clooney thing where he paid all his childhood friends a million bucks or some incredibly lucky stroke of luck. They just sort of put in the work and were kind in a way that we all understand. It's easy to be kind and generous in a way that it was easy to be generous and thoughtful, and it's just, it's just fucking, I don't know, it makes me, and perhaps I'm gonna be a little bit of a Debbie Downer, it makes me wildly sad.

0:43:32 Tom: Why? Tell me why.

0:43:34 Eli: It makes my wildly sad because I just know that I'm never gonna do that

0:43:32 Thomas: Yeah,

0:43:37 Tom: Okay, but Eli, hear me out. Hear me all the way out here. So I know you're not, you're not trying to build a house. Into the house, and this is a metaphor for, but like, he built that house five years ago. He's 72 years old. He started that shit when he was in his mid-60s because it took a lifetime. I am a mad, it took a lifetime for him to assemble all of those friendships and all of those connections and all of those people to where he could say, "You know what?

I want to do, I want to build a house by hand, and I want it to be fucking amazing, but I can't do it alone." But, you know what? I've got six pages' worth of people that love me that'll help me. But he didn't do, do that in his 30s, Eli, or his 40s, or his 50s. He did that in his 60s. Don't sell yourself short, is what I'm saying. Like, you are a person who I think is, you know, to borrow Malcolm Gladwell term, like, you are something of a maven. That's, it's very often the term I would have thought about you.

0:43:55 Eli: Hmm, right Hmm

0:44:32 Thomas: I would have thought that too. Like you do always say you collect people and all that stuff. Like, you do have a lot of friends. Just you're not outdoorsy, I guess, is the only thing.

0:44:38 Eli: Yeah Yeah, right

0:44:36 Tom: Yeah. But like, you shouldn't But like, you shouldn't have at 36 what a man has at 66. That would be absurd. Right, you've got a strong and full erection still, you know, I like, at least that's how it's what I, it's like what I comfort myself with because I look at like, I'm like, yeah, I can fucking

0:44:48 Eli: Right. Well, I mean, don't be crazy. It's never been strong.

0:45:03 Thomas: My strong erection.

0:45:03 Tom: Get a heart on, you know? No, but I look, Tim, look at this. You want some beam and truss construction.

0:45:09 Thomas: Petting it to sleep, like spooning with it.

0:45:11 Eli: Just tripodting against the wall of his trust barn. I built this myself, Tim.

0:45:16 Thomas: Crack an egg on it. Look how hard it is.

0:45:19 Eli: Notice my forehead isn't touching the barn. It is funny because I had a similar Thanksgiving experience.

0:45:23 Thomas: What the fuck?

0:45:26 Eli: So I know, oh, I know. So I killed an animal for fun. It was pretty cool. No. So I've talked about this and I want to protect my family's privacy a little bit because they are definitely not participants in the podcast. But I go to my aunt and uncle's every year and my uncle has been unwell. My uncle's been very, very sick. And the last time I saw them, he was very, very sick and my, my aunt and uncle are sort of the center of our family. They have been for For literally 40 years, they host Thanksgiving and she is also the matriarch and he is the patriarch. Their kids all live in the same town. I've talked about this on other shows. Everybody knows it's the Cleveland family. And so watching them go through this sort of weakness thing or this tough time, this is really the toughest time I've ever seen them have. And I didn't know how Thanksgiving was going to be.

0:45:29 Tom: How was your hunting trip? Do you get anything? I

0:46:17 Eli: And then I learned that atheism is wrong and God is real. Now, I know, I know, seems like a strong claim,

0:46:21 Thomas: Hmm that

0:46:24 Tom: Should write a note. I should make a

0:46:24 Eli: But hear me out. So, because of how unwell my uncle has been, living in their multi-story house can't really continue. They can't live in their multistory house anymore. And so they have been looking all year into retrofitting their house. And if you have older parents, or if you are an older person, you know that retrofiting your house is taking your beautiful home that you have lived in in 40 years and turning it into an automatic hospital bed nightmare. Nightmare.

0:46:51 Tom: Note.

0:46:51 Eli: Right, it's like, we could take your dining room table and turn it into an elevator that goes, "Old man coming through." Like, it's just the worst possible scenario for you. Every time they put a little slow-moving chair on all the stairs and they have to take down all the pictures of your children so the slow -moving chair doesn't get caught, and it's horrible. And they've been looking, they really didn't like it, and they just sort of said like, "Hey, we do not want to do this to our house. We have been in this house for 40 years. This is not how we want our relationship to this house to end." And their daughter says, "Hey, we were talking to our next door neighbors. They are interested in selling their house. Why don't you come take a look at it?" Sure enough, they go look at the house next door to their daughter. I mean, look, the only way that my aunt and uncle would like to live in a house is if it is closer to their kids, and they have found one next door and

0:46:51 Thomas: Helps

0:47:08 Tom: Yeah, oh God, how

0:47:48 Eli: It is literally the perfect house. It is a dream home. It has the same amount of rooms. It has exactly all the stuff that they need, everything that they want, everything that need, and a bedroom on the first floor. They can live there forever without any of the issues. They don't have to put in the slow moving chairs and everything. And it was so funny because they are, they were so excited to tell everybody, and it was this magical thing of, like, and again, atheism blah blah blah, atheism being wrong is a joke, right? Everyone thought it was very funny when I said it.

But, like, the thing that I realized, if you had asked me how are they going to feel about having to move out of their house, which is something we had already talked about, I would be like, oh, they're going to be devastated. Oh, this is going to destroy them. Like, my poor family who have worked so hard and done so much, this ist a moment where, like, all their good deeds amount to nothing because everybody gets old and everybody gets weak and everybody get unlucky. Lucky. And this little moment just came through and turned it into something beautiful and joyful for them because they have planted those seeds, right?

0:47:48 Tom: Great. Is That, yeah.

0:48:49 Eli: They've planted those seats with their family and they've planted Those seeds with their community that they were able to do these things. It was so joyful and hopeful and wonderful. Also, he's doing way better than the last time I saw him.

0:49:03 Tom: So Glad.

0:49:03 Eli: So that was incredible, but it was just so incredibly lovely. Like I couldn't have, I wouldn't have dared to have wished for that good an outcome for them. It made me really happy.

0:49:13 Tom: Man, I love that. Thank you for bringing that up because it feels like the same culmination Like, it doesn't matter to me, I don't think it should matter to anybody, which life you want to build, like what you're building toward. But, like, I do think it's important to think, I should be building towards something. I should be laying some kind of foundation. I should be building some kind of, uh, groundwork here that I get to rely on at some point. And like, I love that for your uncle. Like, I love that for your whole family. I think it's fucking beautiful.

0:49:18 Eli: Mm -hmm. Mm -huh. Yeah. But,

0:49:44 Clip: DEAR OLD DADS

0:49:50 Eli: Gentlemen, before we go, I have a question for you. If a king sleeps on a king-sized bed and a queen sleeps on a queen-sized bed, where does a prince sleep? On an air mattress.

0:50:04 Tom: Oh my God, oh, that was terrible.

0:50:06 Thomas: Yeah took me a second

0:50:57 Tom: I mean, with enough breathing and lube, sure. Yeah.

0:51:01 Eli: Sure do love killing.

0:51:04 Thomas: Why don't you start a fucking podcast with them huh

0:51:07 Tom: You've got a strong and full erection still. We'll be right back.