(steady hip hop beat) – Welcome to the round table of dim lighting. I’m Micah. – I’m Colin. – And today we’re going to see if we can remain positive about some traditionally frustrating or negative things. – Yeah, you know, there’s a lot of negativity in the world, and most of it comes directly from Micah and I. – From you and I, yeah. (Micah laughs) – So, we thought it would be a fun exercise, and we can just talk for a whole hour about things that we know bothers the other person, but just doing our best to, you know… – Stay positive. – Stay positive about it. – Yeah. – And thanks, Rhett and Link, for letting us do this. This is gonna be fun. – Yeah, it’s gonna be fun. You probably have seen us cooking some foods, some delicious treats with power tools. – Yep, on Power Tool Cooking School. – Tasty. Yeah. I almost called it Cooking with Power Tools, which is what we kind of just call it. – That’s the easier title, but yeah. – It’s not any easier. – [Colin] Well, it’s not. – It’s harder, actually. There’s more syllables, if you look. – Okay, that’s true. – Cooking with power tools. Power tool cooking school. – It’s the same. – Yeah. – Well, Power Tool Cooking School. – Everything’s the same, you know? – That’s the googleable. – Yes. – Yeah, but, so, we came on, and we decided that we wanted to talk… (both laugh) It’s already getting difficult. – People may not know this about us, ’cause we have such great on-screen personas, that we hide it really well, but both of us are like fairly negative people. – I would say we’re the most negative people… – That we know? – At the office, yeah. Or in our entire lives. – Maybe. – Yeah, you think so? – I think we might be. – I mean, do you consider yourself to be an overly negative person, Micah? – Absolutely, yes. I’ve worked on it for the last 10 years. I’ve made a little bit of progress, but not that much. Yeah, no, I’m super negative. A lot of times people… (Micah laughs) I’ll be an accidentally Debby Downer by someone will be like, oh, I had a ham sandwich. And I’m like, oh, ham’s gross. That’s how I react to that. And then I go, I’m sorry, that was really rude. – Yeah, because just let someone enjoy their ham sandwich. It has nothing to do with you and your… Yeah. I get it. So I don’t know why I’m such a pessimistic person. I mean, it’s so easy to just default to it, right? – It is, yeah. – It’s just the easiest thing in the world to look at everything glass half empty and be annoyed all the time and just, like, pointing out everybody’s flaws and stuff. – You know what I think it is? – What’s that? – For me, at least, it’s like I assume that everyone’s gonna be on board, and be like, yeah, that thing does suck, and we’re gonna have a moment, and we’re gonna get to like, vent about it. – Yeah, like you’re… – And it’s us against the world. – Yeah, like you’re gonna be the one that rallies everyone to… – Yeah. Ham sucks, right guys? – We don’t want any more ham. – Everyone’s like, yeah, I hate him. Yeah, but really, they’re like, you just ruined a thing I like. (both laugh) Thanks. – Yeah. So when I was in high school, I saw this book cover, and the name of the book was Power of Positive Thinking. And I didn’t read the book. I figured I pretty much had it. Like, okay, yeah, think positively. – Nailed it, yeah. – Yeah. But that’s essentially what we decided we wanted to do here. We want to talk about things purposely that we know gets under our skin and, you know, just really gets us thinking negatively, and then just… – Have to talk about it positively. – We have to. We have to see the sunny side of the road for one hour, and I can already see you sweating. – Yeah, oh, I’m terrified of this whole experience. I do think… We don’t have any like, formal punishments, which would… – I mean, we can berate each other, I feel like. – Yeah, I think we just have to keep each other on task. – [Colin] You know what? – If you start going negative, I’m gonna have to be like… – Well, you know what, Micah? Actually, let’s incorporate a little positivity into it. Why not.. Why do punishments at all? How about you and I… – Positive reinforcement? – You and I reinforce each other’s positive behavior for the next 40 minutes. – Wow, that is an excellent idea, Colin. – And let’s just… Let’s just be happy and enjoy the situation together. – That sounds amazing, and I love your shirt, by the way. – Thanks, I got it from wardrobe because I realized we were wearing the exact same shirt when we came and sat down in here. – Good Mythical Morning. (Colin laughs) If you haven’t heard of it, check it out. – Yeah, it’s pretty popular. – So yeah, so we’re gonna have to try and be positive about things that… I’ve prepared two things that I think you will hate, and will have a hard time staying positive about. – Yeah. – You’ve prepared some things for me as well, yeah? – Yeah, and you know Micah, I just wanna say, I’m grateful for the opportunity to discuss these things in a positive way right now. – You’ve made it a competition now. – No, I haven’t. – This is gonna get extremely positive. Thank you, Colin, for allowing me to be graced by your presence here today at the round table of dim lighting. – You know what, Micah, I appreciate you saying that, and you’re just super good at making people feel good. – Colin, you’re really good at thanking people. – Okay. – That was such a nice thank you, and you’ve made me feel just so welcomed and appreciated, and you know what? I’m just having the best day I’ve ever had. – That’s awesome. I’m so happy to hear. – So we’ve agreed on a topic that is… – Yes, there’s a parameter that we put ourselves into. – Yes. And we’ve put ourselves into a lot of parameters today, but I think it’s the perfect topic to stay positive on, because everybody has thousand gripes on this topic. There’s so many things to get frustrated about. – It’s almost cliched. – It is. It’s like, exactly cliched. (both laugh) – But cliches don’t come from anywhere. Or, don’t come from nowhere. – Yeah. – You know. So that’s my positive take on the cliche, is it’s universal. – Yeah, it’s universal, and that is why we chose it. And that topic is transportation, the most fun topic in the world. – Yes. Don’t you just love like, going to a new place, though? – I do. I mean, transportation enables us to explore. – Yeah. – And I actually do really love traveling. It’s been a long time since I’ve been out of the country, ’cause I kind of burnt out on it for a while. But it is a great thing to do. I really love it. – Yeah, I agree. I spent the better part of three years working on the road and seeing almost all of the country, and a few spots in Mexico and Canada. It was an amazing opportunity, and I wouldn’t take that time back for anything in the world, you know? – Yeah. – It’s really… Yeah, traveling is really important for the soul, as they say. – It is. It is absolutely important for the soul, and it’s important to get to appointments in the South Bay or something. – Yeah. – And Culver City. – Absolutely. – And it takes about the same time to get there as it does to go to New Orleans or wherever you went. You went to New Orleans, right? – No, I’ve never been to New Orleans. – Great, that’s what I thought. (both laugh) Okay, so, do you wanna… Who should start? Do you wanna try and… You wanna try and make me negative? – Yeah, well, I think I wanna give you the opportunity to see an annoyance in a new light. – Okay. – So what I wanna talk to you about right now is something, just knowing your personality… (Micah laughs) – Yeah? Can’t wait. – Here’s the thing. This is something you guys may not know about Micah, if it isn’t apparent, but Micah loves rules and order and things to be in their place and done a certain way. – Here’s the thing. I do love rules and order. It’s only because I do not understand humans, and I need them to abide by the same set of rules that I abide by in order to function in society. – Okay. – So that’s why. Rarely is it like, this is the best way to do it, but like, I do… I do need people to like… I need a system in order to understand what anyone’s doing. – Okay, you just can’t relate to people on a human level. – That’s pretty much it, yeah. – Okay, gotcha. Well, then, I think this one is gonna be good, ’cause it does involves humans, and in a very… I don’t wanna say intimate, but it’s like, person on person. – What’s this gonna be? Traveling in an intimate way. – Micah, I want to know your opinion of people who stand on escalators. – Oh, God. – Like let’s say especially like… – I love ’em. – You do? – Oh, yeah. – Yeah. All right. – Gotta stay positive. Especially, what? – Well, let’s say they have like a big roller bag or something, so there is no opportunity for passing. – Okay, well a roller bag, you’ve now given them an excuse to be standing there. – Really? – Yeah, roller bag on an escalator? – Pick it up by the handle. – Oh, that’s true. – Well, anyway, this is your time, this is your time. – Well, it depends. Are they, you know, maybe they’re elderly, or they have two broken arms or something. – Sure. Well, that’s nice. I mean, so you’re allowing context into the situation. – Sure. – That’s understanding of you. – There’s always room for context. That’s my motto. Gosh, okay, standing on escalators. Be positive. You know, sometimes you just need to take a load off. And, you know, it can get really exhausting being on the train or whatever, standing there on the train, sitting on the train, and then you have to get onto an escalator. It’s like, you don’t wanna move those legs around. You wanna… You need to take a break, you know? That’s some me time. That’s thinking time. It’s like shower time. ‘Cause I do my best thinking in the shower, so maybe everyone else in the world does their best thinking on the escalator. – Well, I mean, I like to do my thinking on a nice, long walk, which is sort of the opposite of standing on an escalator, because that is a short mobile stand, but… – Not only is it great to stand on an escalator when there are hundreds of people behind you, but what you really wanna do is buddy up. You know, you wanna grab a partner and stand side by side. – Ooh, that’s nice. – Really just ’cause… ‘Cause that way, you can really connect with your friend or with your lover, or children. Whatever it is. You know what? Go parent, two children, three in a row. Just take up the whole… – Three wide. – Three wide. – On an escalator. – Three little ducklings. – That’s true, because that’s bonding time. You know, people are always in such a go, go, hurry ’em up kinda state in the world. So, you know, it’s important to just sort of take like a moment. – That is true. It can be seen as like a… Oh, you’re such a busy metropolitan American, rushing around, taking no time to just smell the roses, et cetera. I actually do understand that, but I can’t have a but because I have to stay positive. But I do understand that point of view, generally. – Do you like sort of having a moment where you have to like, take a breath and just accept… – No. If it’s forced on me, I will be nothing but stressed. It will not be a relaxing moment if I’m stuck in a situation. I hate feeling stuck in any capacity. – Well, can you rephrase that without the word hate in it? – I love feeling unstuck. – There you go. – No, but I… Gosh, positive about escalators standers. I’ve said all I can say about it. – Really? – Yeah. – What if I were to give you… Okay, so. – You’ve really tricked me in this first one. This is hard. – If I were to give you 30 seconds right now to be negative about it, do you think you could fill that 30 seconds? – Yeah. – All right, well, I’m not gonna do that, ’cause that is not the premise of the show. (both laugh) – That’s fair enough. That’s probably a good call. – Yeah. Well, you know what, maybe at the end we could blow off a little steam. – Ooh. There should be a section at the end and like, blowing off steam. – You know what, that’s a good call. That’s a good call that I came up with. – Yeah, but I repeated it back to you, so it’s kind of my idea now. – That’s true, it’s affirmation. – It is affirmation. – Thank you for that. – That was a great idea. – Yeah. But I mean, that’s important. There should be stress relieves and stuff like that. – That’s true. – You have to get it out. – No one can be positive all the time. – Right, and we can be positive none of the time. – Almost none of the time. (both laugh) It seems odd to me that this hasn’t migrated to America, ’cause I’ve seen it other places, where it’s a stand on the right, walk on the left kind of situation. Everyone can do whatever they want. ‘Cause ultimately, I truly don’t care what other people do. It’s just when it affects what I’m trying to do where I start to get negative about it, but I’m not gonna do that now. They could lay down on the escalator, and I would love it. Take a little nap. – If there’s room, if there’s room to pass on the left, you’re saying. – No, I’m trying to be positive. – Well, don’t… You can be positive, but don’t lie. I wanna know your true feelings. – Oh, okay. Well, my true feelings are stand to the right. – Well, there you go. Oh, okay, how about this. Maybe next time you see it, here’s a positive way to look at it. You could take that as an opportunity to educate your fellow travelers as to escalator etiquette. – Don’t think I haven’t thought about doing that. I would love to go around the world and just do that as my job. But I think everyone would hate me, and I would have no friends. – Well, yes, but, that’s like, a sacrifice, an honorable sacrifice to make if one day we could live in a world where escalators are treated properly. – That’s true, yeah. Here’s another positive, genuine positive about escalator standards, is that if there is a staircase, I always 100% take it now. But when there’s not a staircase, it can be frustrating. – No, that’s great, though. – More exercise. – That’s having you get a little more cardio. – This is the same with traffic. I would rather take a long route through neighborhoods that will take me five minutes longer but I’m never stopped at a dead stop than take the freeway. Five minutes quicker, but I’m stuck in traffic the entire time. – Yes. – It’s the same for escalator. – Yeah. I hear ya. I mean, it’s a thing, like, sometimes when I don’t know how to get out of a neighborhood necessarily, like which direction I have to go, but I’m in an area that I’m vaguely familiar with, I know if I get to this neighborhood, I’ll be able to navigate myself home, so I’ll do like Google for the first part of it, and I’ll see that Google Maps wants me to get onto the highway. – And you’re like, no. – Yes, exactly. So then, but that’s great, because I can spend some time exploring a new… Getting lost in Encino. – A wonderful place to get lost. – Yeah, I think it says that on their sign entering town. Encino: a wonderful place to get lost. – Encino: we’re assuming you weren’t trying to get here. (both laugh) – Don’t listen to him, people of Encino. – All right, I have one for you. Let’s see if you can stay bothered about this. I have a feeling that you’re gonna hate this. Okay, again, I think that we probably have pretty similar thoughts about all of these. – Yeah. – So it’s easy to come up with ones for you, ’cause I’m just like, what do I, what do I hate? Colin’ll hate that. (Colin laughs) All right. We live in a packed metropolis. It is… – And what a cultural hub it is. – It is a cultural hub. – An opportunity every day. Sorry, go on. – It is filled with people, and all of those people have their own car. And therefore, there are 20 billion cars in this freaking city, and it can be a lot. So, and all those cars need to go somewhere. They need to be stored somewhere. – Constant motion. Oh, no they need to store. – Be stored. – You’re not. – ‘Cause the other weird thing about LA is that very little, very few driveways and garages, especially for people of our ilk who can’t afford their own houses. – I’m already getting like really upset, Micah. – I’d say about 50 to 90% of every Los Angeleno’s day is spent looking for parking, street parking. But there are some people who apparently haven’t taken the time to notice their surrounds while parking. There’s a rampant issue of parallel parkers leaving too much space between cars so that they take up maybe a two-car spot with one car. They’re positioned weirdly, or they position themselves a little too far from the driveway so that there’s like a half-car’s length in front of them and behind them where a car could have fit if they had just repositioned. So, what do you think of that? – I think there’s literally no way I’m gonna be positive about this. – You have to. – That cuts me to the core of my being. That is the thing. I have fantasies, which, you know what? I like fantasies. And I like superheroes, but I have fantasies almost every night because it takes me about 20 minutes to park when I get home from work because of that issue specifically. – Oh, you do live in a particularly bad area for that. – Yes, and two blocks over, there was a street that was formerly not permit parking only, and about three months ago, it became permit parking. And now the whole ecosystem is thrown into shambles. – Oh, wow. – Because everyone who used to park on that street is now parking on my street, and… – Well, if I may, Colin, here’s a positive spin on this. Buy a permit. – Yeah, I know, you gotta get downtown and do that. – Then you gotta find parking there, and it’s a whole thing. – No, no, I should do that. – ‘Cause then you’d have… – Then I have all of that block, yeah. No, that’s a good… That’s a good problem-solve right there. – Yeah, they’re not even expensive. They’re very cheap, actually. – It’s just going to city hall. That’s taxing on your soul. – It is. That’s like a year’s worth of salary right there. – I would give up one year’s worth of salary to not give up city hall ever again. – You can’t do it by mail? – No, you can’t do that by mail. But I just got my driver’s license renewed by mail. That was kind of cool. I opened the thing, and it said… This is actually really positive. I’ll get to your topic in a second. – That’s fine. – I opened the letter from the DMV, which normally, you see a letter from the DMV, you’re like, oh, great, here we go. But I open it and in big, bold letters at the top, it said, congratulations, you’re eligible for renewing your license by mail. And I like that the… – It’s an eligibility issue? – I guess. I don’t know. – What makes you ineligible? – I did not look that gift horse in the mouth. – You don’t have a mailbox? What could it possibly be? You have to be like an upstanding citizen? – I think it’s probably if you have like points against your license or something like that, or you may need to take a new test, or something like that. – Wow, that’s some really like, paternalistic behavior there from the government. It’s like, oh, you’re a bad boy, so you can’t do this by mail. There’s no actual functional reason why you wouldn’t be able to… – Well, if you need to retake the exam. – Oh, okay. – Yeah, if you have like points on your license and you need to retake that exam… – You said that before but I just didn’t listen to you. – You ignored that. But that’s okay, because I like hearing myself talk, and I got to say the thing I said twice. (Micah laughs) – You’re welcome. – Thank you, Micah. That’s really kind of you. But yeah, so, all that aside, a permit would be a wonderful thing to have in my neighborhood. But I drive by, and I look at each and every one of those cars for blocks around, and I see… It’s a compulsion. I go, three feet in front. I’m like, foot and a half behind. – You just sit in your car talking to yourself. – [Colin] Yeah, exactly. – Like squeezing the wheel. – White-knuckle, like, there’s nail imprints in my steering wheel sometimes. But I had this, like, fantasy that if I were Magneto from the X-Men, I would not be evil. I would just adjust people’s cars for them. All day long, I would fly around the city moving cars a foot and a half, all day. – That is the most altruistic superhero imaginable. – Oh, heck yeah. – So much better than fighting baddies or aliens or whatever. Those fights cause entire cities to be destroyed. It’s like, sure, you’re good, you’re the good guy, but you still destroyed all of New York. This, the only evil you’re fighting is misuse of space. – Exactly. – Brilliant. You should write that comic. – Thank you. I may. I also, when I was a kid, I also wanted to be able to make quarters appear by opening and closing my fist. – That would devalue the quarter. – Well, no, but here’s the thing. It’s kind of a scam, but, you know, we don’t need to talk about capitalism. I had the fantasy of just walking around and just feeding parking meters. – Oh, that’s nice. That would still theoretically devalue the quarter. – Right, but inside the meter, it’d take them a while to figure it out. – Unless you’re… Unless your power is that you can take a quarter out of a bank vault into your hand. – Ooh, yeah, I would be into that. Or just like right out of the mint. Like, brand new… – But it has to be one that they were already making. ‘Cause if you have the power to just manifest money, then it devalues money. – Right. – I mean, money makes no sense. – It doesn’t make any sense. – It’s stupid. It’s a stupid idea. – But we love money. – We do love it. – We love it. – I don’t think we’re doing a great job of being positive. – Okay, so, we haven’t actually been positive about bad parallel parking. – Okay, I’m going to try. But first, let’s take a break and talk about some really cool t-shirts. – Sure, yeah. – All right, you ready for that? – I would love to. – Okay, ’cause this is actually something that I think is pretty cool and is easier to be positive about. – Yeah, you go first. – All right, so this one I like a lot. I like the color. I think this would actually look really good on you, Micah. – It would. This is exactly… This is my color palette right here. It’s like a seafoam green. I don’t know if there’s an official color code for it that we should be talking about, but I love that color. – I do too, and I like it. Personally, it’s not really in my wheelhouse, but neither is this monstrosity that I’m wearing right now. – It looks great on you. – Oh, thank you. – Especially in this lighting. The lighting really… I don’t know, it just makes everything look good. – Yeah, but this is the Good Mythical Summer tank. – Look at this typeface here. – I really like it. I like the yellow on the green. I think this is a pretty darn cool tank top. – [Micah] Standout. – And I think it may also come in our racerback for ladies. Is that a thing? – Yeah, I guess so, and I think it comes in a couple different colors, too. – Oh, no way. – Yeah. – Okay, cool. – And you can get that at… – Nope, it does not. We are getting a no. – It comes in a couple different… There’s slight variants on this shade. The untrained eye wouldn’t be able to tell. – Yeah, so this comes in men’s and women’s sizes. You can find it with all of the summer merch, which is like a t-shirt. – A towel, sunglasses, yeah, at rhettandlink.com/store. – Nice. – That’s rhettandlink.com/store, I’m a mumbler. We’ve also got this guy right here. This is, I want my GMM, as in I want my MTV, if you’re old enough to remember, that was MTV’s slogan in like the late 80s, I think. – Right, and if you’re not old enough to remember, just fake it ’til you make it, kids. – Yeah, now you know, and you can pretend like you always knew. – Exactly. – And that’s very cool. – I had a Firehouse t-shirt when I was a kid, and if you’re not familiar with the 80s hair band Firehouse, neither was I when I bought the t-shirt. But now, I love to hate them. – I’ve never heard of them. – They’re terrible. – This is not terrible. – No, this is great. – This is a very cool retro throwback, I want my GMM t-shirt that you can also find at rhettandlink.com/store. I got through it that time without mumbling. – Good job, man. – Thanks. – That’s incremental improvements. Measurable, too. That’s really… That’s nice. That’s a good thing. – I appreciate it. – Yeah, of course, dude. – Now back to being more positive. – Okay, yes. So. I suppose the good thing about that is it allows less considerate people easier access to leaving their parking spot, and potentially driving away from my neighborhood, maybe never to return. – Yeah, they get to drive away a little quicker. – Yeah, they get to drive away a little quicker. They can head back to WeHo, and I don’t have to think about ’em anymore. (both laugh) – You’re assuming that they all live in WeHo, all the bad parkers. – No, I like WeHo. – I think WeHo’s just fine. – Yeah. – There’s also a dearth of parking there, too. – What is a dearth? – I think I used that term right. It’s a lack, a lack. – Oh, okay. – Yeah? I’m gonna Google it right now. Dearth. – This is fascinating radio. – A scarcity or lack of something. You not knowing the word made me question if I knew the word. – Sure. I mean, I know… I know few of the words in the English language. – I know not all, good, many of the words. – But okay, so yeah. That’s one way to look at it. And I suppose I get it. Here’s the thing. I am a bumper bumper, and I can understand your perspective of not wanting me to just hit your car because I wanna park and be done. – That is what bumpers are for. – It’s like really in the title, isn’t it? – Yeah, they’re for bumpin’. – I think they’re great for bumpin’. – They’re tailor-made. – I don’t know why steel bumpers went away from cars. Steel bumpers were great. – [Micah] Were they? – Sure, like on old trucks and stuff. – Did they not like, fly out through windshields and like, bruise people’s souls or something? – That might be it. That sounds like something, yeah, Ralph Nader probably had a crusade against. – Yeah. (both laugh) – Ralph Nader, what a fun pull. ‘Cause the seat belt thing? – ‘Cause of the seat belt thing, yeah. – He was responsible for seat belts being… – He invented the seat belt, and he’s the co-creator of the internet with Al Gore. – Yeah, yeah, yeah. The original seat belt was a man’s belt that was clipped onto these sharp steel hooks that were just randomly put into cars for no discernible reason. – And you just like slipped your belt into it. – You just strap it into your pants, and then if you got into an accident, you would still go through the windshield, but then you would swing back. (both laugh) So at least you stayed with your car. That’s the important part. When they get to the scene of the crime, the crash, you’re still in your car. (both laugh) And that’s Ralph Nader. – I just had the most… Okay, you just gave me the most horrible memory. Do you remember in driver’s ed when you had to watch Red Asphalt? – I don’t think I ever watched that. – You didn’t watch that one? – I may have, but yes, I know the general idea of it. – Yeah, so, I remember I was in driver’s ed, and our wrestling coach, who taught driver’s ed, of course. – Well, wrestlers are classically great drivers. – Yeah, absolutely. – Everybody knows that. – It’s a thing. (both laugh) – The knowledge base of one areas transfers. – Directly. – One for one. – One for one over to the other, absolutely. They make great health teachers as well. He was describing to the class this idea. It was like, well, I know a lot of people don’t wanna wear seat belts, ’cause they think that if they get into an accident, they’ll be thrown from their car to safety. – What? Nobody thinks that. He thought that. He thought that. That’s why he said it. He used to think that. He still does think it. It’s just, they’re forcing him to teach the opposite. He thinks that. He thinks that. (both laugh) – It just blew my mind, the thought process of flying through a pane of glass and landing like 50 feet away is somehow safer than being in an iron box. – Now I know that when you eject from the car, you can land safely in a patch of grass. (both laugh) A nice soft, pillowy patch of grass, which is directly available. – I mean, I know you grew up in the same place as me, but that is like an eerily good impression of my high school wrestling coach. – Yeah, I know what a high school coach sounds like in Chicago. – There’s gotta be something that I genuinely think is good about this. I’m determined now. – I have an idea. – Okay, please. – It’s not necessarily good that comes from it, but it is a positive spin on it. – [Colin] Okay. – So I was in Minneapolis two Thanksgivings ago. My sister-in-law is from there, so my whole family went, goes every year to her family’s place. – That’s nice. – Yeah, and I went for the first time, joined them two Thanksgivings ago, and one of the most remarkable things that I noticed was that it was a nice city, big city, real city, cool, really cool stuff, cool neighborhoods, et cetera. – This sounds a little… A little condescending. – Like, talking down to… – Like, it was like going to an actual city, you guys! – No, I’m prefacing with this, because what I’m about to say is that there was so much parking. Parking was just abundant and free and joyous. It was a happy moment. It was like, a fun experience. You go and you take your car, and you park wherever you want. You can literally just stop your car, get out. It’s fine, doesn’t matter. In Minneapolis, you don’t need to worry about, oh, how close am I to the curb? Am I gonna be screwing someone over by not pulling up enough, et cetera? Oh, well a Mini Cooper could fit here. Probably Mini Coopers here. Should I leave more room or less room, et cetera. And, you know, do that math. Sometimes it’s like, oh, I can leave this much in front of me, this much behind me. – Well, then, sorry, not to cut you off, but do you get out of your car and repark if you… – Mmhmm. – God, I love you, Micah. Everyone, just get out of your car and repark if you did it wrong. – I have human empathy. – It takes so little time. – I care about my fellow man. – Leave your car running! – I don’t understand them, but I care about them. Yeah, leave it running. Get out and check. – Get out and check. – A quick check. – Two seconds. – It takes two seconds. – You know, and I got eight inches. I’ll take those eight inches. – What are you saying? – I said I’ve got eight inches. I’ll take them eight inches, is what I’m saying. – Okay, but also with the parking. (both laugh) – Sometimes a parking spot is just a parking spot, Micah. – This is a recurring theme with things that you say to me. You said that in our smoker video about a grill being just a grill. – Yeah. – Yeah. Anyway, what I was getting at was that parking like that is a luxury. It means that you’re carefree. You come from a place where this daily stress is not a part of the life there. So they’re almost acting as if LA is a paradise when it’s not. So it’s like bringing a little bit of paradise back to LA. – Okay. So it’s almost like an escape. And actually, as much as this does bother me, I will admit that I have done it. And I’ve justified it in exactly the way you describe. It’s like, I’m exhausted, or whatever my excuse is. There’s no excuse for this kind of behavior, and I don’t wanna seem like it’s something we should be doing, but I remember at one point thinking, like, I earned it today. I’m just gonna go all mirrors, not turning my neck to make this. – I earned someone else’s suffering. – I earned someone else’s suffering for my fleeting, my fleeting happiness. Oh, you know what? – I mean we live in society, so… That is the downfall of our civilization. – Is that when you have something someone else doesn’t? – Well, it’s that excusing bad behavior because I want to. – Oh, yeah, yeah. – Well, it’s something I want, though. – Yeah. Right, right. And look, man, I’m telling you, this is maybe twice in the seven years I’ve lived in LA. – No, you know, I know you. You’re a good person. It’s fine. Everyone makes mistakes. I’m sure I’ve parked like a jerk. – I’ve come back to my car and seen that I parked like a jerk, not realizing it, and felt horrible. I felt horrible. – Yes, of course, of course that happens. One time I parked… This is crazy. Okay. I had lived in my place for like a year. I was in a particularly bad space mentally. Everything was going wrong, for about six months right after I moved into my place. Towards the end of this period, my car got towed. I wake up in the morning to a text from my neighbor saying, I think your car’s getting towed. Or no, no, it didn’t even say that. It said, I think your car just got towed. Cool, thanks for that. – Timely. – Thanks for the timely text. No, it was good that she texted me at all, because… – Oh, no, of course. – Otherwise it would have cost way more, ’cause it’s like, by the hour. – Yeah. – So I went out. Indeed, my car was not there. I called the number, found the place. It turns out that I parked in front of my neighbor’s driveway. – Oh. – I have no idea how that happened, how I achieved that wonderful feat. And I even asked… I was like, I can’t imagine that this is true, that this really happened. – Yeah, not me. – Not me. So I asked the tow truck driver for pictures, and he was like, oh yeah, I got pictures. And he showed me, and sure enough, I was right in front of the driveway. – Wow. – I felt so bad about it. – Like full bore, like. – Like, two thirds of my car, right in front of the driveway. I have to imagine that there’s like this weird situation where there’s like a fake driveway right on the corner and then a real driveway, and so sometimes people park in weird ways there, or like cover half of the real driveway ’cause they live there, or something like that. So I have to imagine I just filled in that space and didn’t realize, didn’t pay attention. But even if I did, I don’t know how it happened. But it cost me like $250 to get my car out and pay the ticket and everything, and I wrote a note and put it on the mailbox. I was like, hey, I’m the guy who parked in front of your driveway yesterday. I’m really sorry. I have no idea how that happened, and anyway, sorry. I just wrote a little note ’cause I felt really bad that they had to deal with that in the morning. – You’re a wonderful person, Micah. That is… – The biggest emotion I felt was stupid, and like, annoyed with myself. – Yeah. – I mean, I was a little embarrassed, but that wasn’t even in it. ‘Cause I think embarrassment can lead to people acting out, you know, to hide it. They’re like, well, I deserve blah, blah, blah. – If I’m indignant, then I probably am right. – But that wasn’t even part of it. It was like… I was like, just kind of at a low, an emotional low, just feeling annoyed with my own behavior. – Yeah, I mean, that’s great. You see, I lived in a house that had a driveway right off of a pretty busy street, right off of Sunset Junction, which is like a lot of shops, a lot of bars and restaurants. Very busy, very popular, and they’re kind of intense about the parking over there, with the ticketing and citations and stuff. So it is a difficult neighborhood to park in, and I’m glad that I had a driveway when I lived there. – Oh, that’s nice. – It was very nice. But people would park in front of our driveway constantly. Day and night, we were blocked in, all the time. And it takes about four to five hours to get a tow truck. – Really? – Yes. It takes about four or five hours. – Aren’t they thirsty to get… – You would think so, but it’s like… Tow truck companies and the city of Los Angeles are kind of like cats. If you pay them any attention, they are looking out the window, but as soon as you’re trying to sleep or eat, they are on top of your chest licking your nose. – Yeah, because when I got into an accident, there were like six tow trucks that showed up before the cops did before they heard in on the radio. They listen in to the cop’s radios, and none of them were Triple A, and the cop was like, before I leave, you’re Triple A, right? And the guy was like, yeah. Then he left. Not Triple A. And so he ended up leaving me, and I had to call Triple A. – Wow. – Yeah, he was trying to take me to his buddy’s shop in like Beverly Hills, which was not where I got into the accident, and it was nowhere near it. Yeah, anyway, so that’s surprising, that they wouldn’t wanna take advantage of money. – You would think so. But here’s my point. So we used to leave… We actually, positive spin. My roommates and I would have a great time drafting passive-aggressive notes for these cars. Things like, hey, I hope you have a good time at, you know, Bar Stella today. And it would be great if you got back here before the tow truck arrives, but it has been called. Stuff like that, we would do stuff like that. – That note, I mean, won’t get to them until they get to their car, so it… – Well, my hope is that the tow truck comes, it gets impounded, that they go pick it up, and there’s the note waiting for it. – Under the ticket, yeah. – Yes. That’s my hope of hopes. But, if I ever receive that note that you wrote, I would be like, instantly relieved of all my aggression and all that pain and turmoil. – I’m sure they were like, what idiot. I’m sure they were mad. Of course, why wouldn’t you be. So yeah, hopefully that alleviated it a little bit. – Yeah. Yeah, no, it’s very frustrating, but yeah, you know what? I’m proud of you, Micah. – Thanks, buddy. – Yeah, absolutely. – See, I exist in a society… (Micah laughs) I think about the way my actions affect other people a lot. Like, maybe too much. – Yeah, could be a thing. (both laugh) – I’m not saying I’m… I can absolutely be a jerk, but it’s just like, I don’t know. It’s a weird thing that is like, always floating around in my head. – Yeah, no, I feel the exact same way. – I understand what you’re saying. – No, no, I feel the same way, man. You know what? When you’re as good as we are… (Micah laughs) – When you’re as good at being positive… – That’s right. – Which we’ve done a great job of doing. Do you have more for me? – I do. I have some notes on the floor I can go for. You want another one? – Yeah. – Are you ready? – Yeah, yeah, yeah. We’ll keep these ones quick. – Okay, yeah, yeah. We’ll do this one. – Lightning round. – Oh, okay, here we go. This is to stay on the tangent of cars. – [Micah] Okay. – ‘Cause it’s just sort of… – A classic mode of transportation. – In LA, it’s one of the only ones. – Yeah. – Yeah. So, how do you feel about… This is another sort of etiquette question, too. Four-way stops? Like stop signs. – Uh-huh. – I find often that when people arrive at a four-way stop sign, they will just drive through it, regardless of who’s turn it may be. – Yeah. (both laugh) I find that as well. I actually find that it’s new. That’s new. That’s a new phenomenon. – Yeah, yeah, no, I agree. – Like, honestly within the last year, four-way stops have become free-for-alls. They’re just anarchy. I don’t know what it is. – I don’t either. – So, this is a good one. It’s, yeah, I’m gonna try and be positive about this. So that happened this morning, actually. There’s one stop between my house and work that this is like the biggest example of this phenomenon, where it’s just like… ‘Cause there’s a school. It’s like parents on the way to or from dropping the kids off at school. So I was at the stop. You know, it’s four ways, and these two cars got here, went as I was arriving. So the… Oh, how do I even. The perpendicular street went right as I was arriving. – Okay. – So then there’s me and the car across from me, facing me. – Do you make eye contact? Are you like, hey, buddy, we’re in this together? – And that car’s turning left. So usually, I actually don’t remember what the rule is for this, but I let that car go first, usually. – Okay. – So that car turns left, and then I go, and as I’m going in the middle of the intersection… And this is full stops. There’s like five cars at each stop sign. The car right behind the car that just turned left starts going. And I was like, in what world is this your turn? – In what world, buddy? – In the positive world. – The positive world. – Where everyone… You know what? People have, you know, some people are having a bad day. They have to rush somewhere. They have… – It’s no fun to rush. – It’s no fun to rush, and you know what? I don’t know what that second left turner was doing. Maybe he or she was trying… They got a text message from their loved one that they’re choking. It’s like, oh, you just dropped off the kid. Well, guess what? I’m at home choking on like, an entire hot dog. – Can you text 911? – I don’t know. Probably not. (both laugh) We can barely call 911, though, right? It takes about 15 to 20 minutes to get through. – When did you have to call 911? Are you okay? – I’m fine. I call it every day, just to check in, make sure that they’re still there just in case we need them. – Yeah, yeah. – No, I’ve called 911… It was a terrible experience. It wasn’t in LA. I was calling on behalf of my friend. I was in Chicago, and my friend was in San Francisco. She called me on her cell phone on her way come from the bar, as women sometimes do for a safety issue. – Okay. – But it turns out, after this happened, I kind of was reading up on it, and it’s not actually the best tactic. A better tactic to remain safe on the streets is just to be alert and not have anything in your ears. Supposedly. But, so she calls me, we’re chatting. In the middle of it, she yells an obscenity, which I will not repeat on this podcast. The bad one, you know, the real heavy one. (Micah laughs) It’s not that bad. The F one. – Oh, okay. – It’s just the worst one. – There’s so much worse than that. – Yeah, I guess you’re right. – You terrify me. – The classically bad one. And drops the phone, or, you know, the phone cuts out, and I’m like, oh my God. My friend just got murdered. – [Colin] Yeah, yeah. – So I call 911, and I get Chicago 911, and I’m like, so, my friend’s in San Francisco, and she just dropped the phone and screamed. And they’re like, okay. Hold on. And I hear the woman kachunk a binder onto the desk. Flip through the pages. It’s about a four-minute process. San Francisco? Do you know where? No. Okay. Flip, flip, flip, flip, flip. Okay, do you have a pen and paper? I was like, no. Hold on. I had to go find a pen and paper. She reads me off a number for the San Francisco Police Department. I call them. They will not open a case. They can’t make a case number unless they have an address. I don’t know why. So I didn’t know where she lived. I didn’t know what bar she was at, where she was going. Nothing. I didn’t even know what part of San Francisco she was in. So I couldn’t open a case. So every time I had to like get new information, like, call friends to find her address, et cetera, I had to go through this process all over again, start from scratch. – Wait, you didn’t call Chicago 911 every time, did you? – Yeah, I just wanted to check in with her, and just let her know what was happening, because she seemed worried. So, so yeah, so this took a total of about 25 to 35 minutes, just to like get, like, any of this happening. And then before they could even send a cop out, she called me from her sister’s phone and was like, I got mugged. I’m fine. My phone, they took my phone. I’m at my sister’s house now. – Wow. – Yeah, so, good thing that’s all that happened. – Yeah, a happy, a happy ending. – But that’s my 911 experience. But four-way stops… (both laugh) I think I said all I can say about it. You know, if your loved one is choking at home, who cares about these other people. You’ve gotta get where you gotta go. – That’s true, prioritize. The people in your life are truly the greatest treasure. – Of course. If you have to piss off a couple strangers in order to save a loved one, well worth it. – Absolutely. And then, just go back to that four-way stop with a hand-written note. – I’m so sorry about my behavior. – Yeah. (both laugh) – Yeah, exactly. – My daughter will be fine. – Yeah, she’s fine. – Thank you for your understanding. – I gotta tell her not to eat whole hot dogs without chewing at eight a.m.. – Right. – That’s more of a lunch item than a breakfast item. All right. I got one final one for you. I’m going to take it away from cars. – Okay, that’s good, ’cause this is… – Into the friendly skies. – All right. – Listen, you talked about how this was a little cliche in general, this topic, but this is the most cliche part of this cliche topic is air travel, right? Every standup comedian’s gonna joke about, what’s the deal with airplanes? They’re so crazy. Why the peanuts. – I gotta tight 25 on it, man. – Well, we got time. Let’s do it. Let’s hear it all. – Listen, it’s not tight. I lied. It’s a loosey-goosey 25. – It is just… – Just a wobbly… – Flip-flamming and zip-zopping around. – I mean, air travel’s a nightmare. I would much rather travel by train if it were a viable option. It takes so long to get through the airport, et cetera. – The thing about train travel is I find that there’s far too many murder mysteries breaking out. – There are, yeah. A lot of murders happen on trains. And they’re all mysteries. They’re not easily solved. – They’re so mysterious. Well, that ’cause they’re going through the tunnels, and that’s when they always strike. – Dark in there. – Yep, yep. But anyway. – Airplanes. – The thing that I wanted to discuss is while you’re in the air. Excuse me. I’m getting a little choked up about this. Are you all right? – Yeah, I just got the burps. There’s gonna be inevitably someone sitting next to you. God forbid you have the middle seat, and then you have two people next to you. – Yeah. – But there’s only one armrest, Colin, and that is a battle to be fought. Because who gets it? How do you split it up? What is the unspoken agreement here between you and your neighbor? Elbow fighting on airplanes. – The unspoken agreement is give it to the middle seat. – Hmm. – [Colin] Yeah. – I like that. – Give it to the middle seat. I’m a firm believer in that. If I have an aisle or a window, I don’t put my arm on the middle armrest. – You’ve got one already. – I’ve got one, and, you know, I’ve either got a view, or I’ve got easier access to the bathroom. Like, whatever, you know, there’s like compromises and stuff. So I believe that the person in the middle should have it automatically. – This should be an announcement on the plane before it takes off. – Oh, my God, like in the little… – This should be established law. There should be a law about this. This makes so much sense. The middle seat is the worst seat. They should get two. – Everyone’s bummed. Everyone’s bummed to have the middle seat. ‘Cause a lot of times I travel a lot, and I actually, I don’t like necessarily the act of flying, but I love having access to airplanes. (both laugh) – You have so much access to airplanes. – I have a lot of access. I have more access to airplanes than a lot of people. – You could go get on an airplane right now, right down the street. – Dude, we are like seven minutes from an airport right now. – That’s access, right there. – That is access to airplanes. So, although, the one that we’re close to doesn’t fly anyway. – It does. It just costs a lot of money and stops in Phoenix. (both laugh) – Yeah. So basically, it’s a bus to Phoenix. – It’s a bus to Phoenix to get an on airplane to go to Chicago. (both laugh) Yeah. – What if they just taxi it all the way to Phoenix? No, but I have had that situation. I mean, so, I went to… I went to Ireland about six, seven months ago, I can’t remember why. – That’s where you got that shirt. – That’s where I got this lovely Irish shirt, traditional Irish garb. – For the listener, he’s wearing a green tie-dye t-shirt that has appeared on the mannequin, I believe, in GMM episodes. – That’s right, it has. And our body-swap episode. – Yeah. – But, so, that’s a long fly. And with the time change, time change and layover, it took me exactly 24 hours to get to Dublin from LAX. – That’s a trip. – So, like, I took off at 8:45 in the morning, and I landed at 8:45 in the morning the following day. – But it wasn’t actually 24 hours of travel. – No, it wasn’t. It’s disorienting, right? – It is, for sure. – So then I’m there for a while. I was there for like two weeks, and it was wonderful. I had a great time. – Yadda, yadda, it was a magical experience, et cetera. – Yeah, yeah, yeah, air travel. (both laugh) On the way back, you can imagine I’m pretty exhausted. It’s been a long trip, and I’m about to get onto this very excruciating plane. And I draw the middle seat on the way back. I had the window on the way there, so I’m like, that’s fine. It’s a balance. I can be positive about it. – The universe is in balance. – But I was feeling a bit territorial, ’cause it’s, you know, a long flight. – [Micah] You were ready to fight, yeah. – So I established early my dominance over the armrests. Like, locked in, little claws over the end of ’em. – Well, you’re an alpha traveler. It’s right there on your ticket. – Yeah. I just wanted to make sure… Because as much as that should be a rule, that you just, out of the kindness of your heart, give it to the person in the middle, a lot of people don’t. And so sometimes, you just gotta take what’s yours. And so I did. I went for it. And dude next to me, I swear to God, for like nine and a half hours… – Can I guess? Can I guess what he did? – Do you wanna do an act-out? – Yeah. – All right. – No, God. (both laugh) – That would be amazing. If he would have just put his arm on top of your arm as if your arm was the armrest. – As if it was the armrest. – I would love that. – That would be hilarious. No, no. He did this. So you be me, and I’ll… So, instead what he did was just sort of jab my elbow with his, and then took a centimeter of the armrest. So for nine and a half hours, our forearms are just touching. – Just full lock. – The whole flight. – Oh, man. – And I couldn’t budge. I couldn’t give him an inch, because I… – He can’t win. – He can’t win in that situation. Because this isn’t about my ego. This is about like, good versus evil. You know, I couldn’t allow him to have that. And like I almost didn’t go to the bathroom the entire flight, ’cause I didn’t want him to have the opportunity. But I reached this tipping point where I almost like screamed, because, you know, I didn’t really have a bed for two weeks, and like, I was traveling. I was, you know, anyway. There was no creature comforts for the last two weeks in my life, and I wanted so badly to not be touched by another human being for like eight minutes, and I could have like, let it all go, but he wasn’t allowing that for me. If I could have just had my safe little bubble for a few moments, I could have gotten through it. – That’s the worst part about traveling, especially if like, I don’t know if you got like, hotel rooms for yourself, or you were doing hostels. – I was just doing hostels. – It’s exhausting, because you have no… At no point for two and a half weeks or however long you’re there, you know, you have no bubble. You have no personal space at all, and that is really taxing. – But it is taxing, but I mean, that was my entire intention of that trip, was to put myself into a different sort of mind state. – Get exhausted. – Yeah, I wanted to be. I was like feeling a little too good about myself. – I wanted to just be surrounded by people at all times. No privacy. – When I was staying in Dublin, I hated… This is travel-related. – Sure. – yeah. When I was staying in Dublin, I hated the hostel I was in so badly, but it was like the weekend of a big, like, football match, so like there weren’t a ton of options. So I went across the street to Trinity University, and for like two days in a row, I just spent my afternoons taking naps on campus of a beautiful, 200-year-old university, and I was just like, it was lovely. – That’s a really good idea. – Yeah. And I watched the kids playing rugby practice and stuff like that. – Pick up a couple tricks? – I guess this is my positive take on the elbow space thing. No matter what is happening to your elbow, you can always escape into the world of fonder memories. So it’s a practice in stress management. It’s a practice in sort of, just, you know, a zen-like quality, where you can… – When the world, the exterior world, is causing you stress, you can move inside and focus all of your energy on centering yourself. – Or into a fiery ball of rage. – No, no, no. You’re not centering yourself. I once had a guy in a plane… Well, I’ve had a lot of elbow things on planes. I once had a guy on a plane, I was sitting in the window seat. I believe the center seat was open, which is nice. – Oh, I thought you were gonna say he sat in it anyway. – No, no, that would… Well, this is maybe crazier than that. But I actually have had a lot of good luck on planes getting the center seat open next to me. But he was on the aisle, and I’m just chilling in my seat. And he starts to talk to me, and I’m kind of like, I don’t want to talk to someone on the plane. That’s kind of my general M.O.. But he asks me if we can switch because he likes to look out of the window. This is just a man, just a 45-year-old European man. Well-dressed, just a guy. He’s like, hi, can we switch the… Can I have the seat you paid for, so I can look out the window? It was just… – I mean, I guess. – But here’s the thing, is that I am so uncomfortable with this kind of interaction that I was like, okay, and I let him have it for a couple minutes. And I went to the bathroom and I came back. I like, was like, can I get that back? And we switched back. – Oh, well, okay. – Yeah, but my normal inclination would not be to get up. – Well, yeah. I mean, I would never impose myself on someone like that. – It’s a crazy imposition. – It is. But really, if you think about it in the grand scheme of things, it’s not all that horrible of a thing to ask. – Of course not. – And if you’re a person unlike you or I, someone with a backbone, maybe, you could have said no. – Yes. – I mean, obviously, you and I could not have. – But then I have to sit next to that guy for the remainder of the flight. – No, that’s awful. – And it was just weird phrasing. He was like… I don’t wanna do a European accent because it’s maybe offensive, so I’ll just do it in my normal voice. He was like, can we switch? I like to look. (Colin laughs) – I was like, oh, that’s great for you that you like to look. I also like to look. That’s why I got this seat. (both laugh) – Which is great. – That’d be like if I went to Subway, got a roast beef sandwich, and then a guy with a tuna sandwich was like, hi, can we switch? I love roast beef. Well, then get a roast beef sandwich. This is my sandwich. I’m not automatically entitled to all the roast beef in the world just because I bought this sandwich, but this sandwich is my sandwich. (both laugh) Right? I’m not crazy, right? – Yeah, yeah. (both laugh) I don’t think you’re crazy, Micah. – I don’t think we did a great job. – I don’t think so either, man. You know what? So I know we talked earlier about maybe doing like a negative thing to blow off some steam, but I think we got that out of the way. – I think we did. – Do you wanna just real quick before we go just say something that like makes you happy to sort of just like, be like, genuinely positive for a second? – Yes, but I’m gonna need a minute to think of something. – Okay. (Micah laughs) – All right, I’ve got one. Lock and load it. Spending time with my friend Micah. – Aww. – Yeah. – Well, you really put me in a position now. – You better respond the way I expect you to. You had better. – We do spend a lot of time together, ’cause we work every day together and we’re on an improv team together. – Yes, it’s six days a week, occasionally seven. – Yeah, every once in a while, seven. Okay, I’ll return the favor, but I am genuine. I like being in scenes with you. – Oh. – We perform improv together, and Colin’s a real fun guy to be in a scene with. – Aw, thanks, man. – You never know what he’s gonna do, but it’s always a good move. Keeps you on your toes, but he supports the scene and makes it fun. – That is, honestly, really nice and really great to hear. Thanks. – [Micah] Yeah, you’re welcome. – That makes me feel really good about myself. – Good, I’m glad. – Thanks, dude. All right, well, guys, this has been Micah and I’s episode of… – Crew biscuits. – Crew biscuits. Thanks for listening. I hope you were able to make it to the end of this. – Yeah, I hope that we said anything remotely positive. I think we did. It’s hard to remember. It’s all a blur. – It’s like a whiteout of just rage. – Yeah. But I think we tried to find at least one positive spin on every negative thing that we bought up. – Yeah. – All right. Thanks, everybody. – Thanks, guys. – [Announcer] To hear this Ear Biscuit in its entirety so you don’t miss a thing, follow the links in the description to ART19, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and anywhere else podcasts are available. To watch more Ear Biscuits, click the video on the left. To watch more from This Is Mythical, click the video on the right, and don’t forget to subscribe by clicking the circular icon. Thanks for being your mythical best.