Hey, come see us for our fall tour dates. We’re gonna be in Houston, Texas on September 4th and then the dates after that we’re gonna be in New Orleans, New Orleans. I was kind of ambivalent how I wanted to– Yeah you need to make a decision. You gotta make a decision. Birmingham, Alabama, Jacksonville, Florida, Tampa, Florida, Albuquerque, New Mexico, Phoenix, Arizona, Sacramento, California, and down in Valley Center, California. Roundin’ out at November 23rd. Go to RhettAndLinkLive.com to check out our stuff. Now let’s do a biscuit. Welcome to Ear Biscuits, I’m Rhett. And I’m Link. This week at the round table of dim lighting, we’re asking the question do we consider Los Angeles home? What makes a house a home? What makes a state or a city or a new place that you didn’t always call home a home and do we do that with Los Angeles at this point? Mm, and I do wanna just go ahead and apologize. This week I’m gonna be the guy who apologizes for being sick. I don’t even know if my voice sounds different. To me I sound like I’m inside of like a barrel. Well first of all let me say that if this is just you saying that you’re gonna be apologizing for all sorts of things over this episode, then I’m all for that. I’m only apologizing for if the sound– Look at you. Of me being sick. See now you’re saying you’re not gonna apologize for anything else. Don’t shut it down. If I do something that’s apology worthy, I will apologize. Good. But secondly, you do sound like you’re in a barrel. I always, in my own ears, I feel like listening to myself now that I’m not completely out of the barrel because I’m not completely over the thing that apparently I transferred to you. I don’t believe that you gave it to me. Well how did it start? Sore throat? Yeah but as we discussed on a previous Ear Biscuit, all of my colds start with a sore throat. What is it right now? It’s moved to just stuffiness– Headache. I would have a headache if I hadn’t taken Ibuprofen yet. Okay, all right. But what I’m saying is that– It’s not like I wanna take credit for– But you haven’t been contagious for, you had not been contagious for what I would consider at least a week before my symptoms showed up. I don’t know how colds work. I’ve had this for three weeks, maybe– But you had a residual sinus infection which I don’t think I can catch a sinus infection. I can catch the initial viral cold situation. Which maybe was on something. Maybe you put it on something and for some reason it lived and then I ended up licking something by accident. I have been randomly licking objects in the office. Well I told Christy that you weren’t coming in, you were just coming in for this this afternoon, not this morning because I apparently gave you a cold and she was like, “I’m not sick. “You didn’t give it to me,” and we sleep together. And I didn’t give it to my wife and we sleep together. And my kids who– But most likely– Especially my– If you’re gonna get something, you’re probably gonna get it from me ’cause the stuff we end up eating and– We’re trapped. Yep, we’re yelling at each other right now. I think we’re trapped in the same room. Imperceptible particles. Yeah. Being fired at your orifices right now out of my orifices. We’re trapped in the same room more often. My mouth. Because obviously, I share a bed and a bedroom with my wife but I have a special air purifier in there. It’s like constantly catching things. We got a weird one that we won, that our wives got from Ellen, remember that? Yeah. We have a weird one from Ellen in our office. Christy and Jessie went to a taping of Ellen and it was one of those days that she gave everyone in the audience a weird air purifier. And we’ve got it and it’s always on but I do not believe that it works ’cause it’s never been, filter’s never been changed. But Jessie always faces away from you when sleeping because there’s a distance between the two of you. It’s palpable. No actually, you know what, this is interesting because you know this because you and Christy shared a very, very small single bed. Double bed. It was a double bed but a double bed to me, a person of my size, that’s a single bed, that’s a twin bed. If I get into a double bed with someone, I am making full contact with them. Also ’cause I sleep on my side so I take up a lot of lateral space. I do not like to be, I’m such a light sleeper, I do not like to be touched while sleeping ’cause I will wake up. And so, but Jessie is a deep sleeper and she’s also like a super cuddle monster. And so– Cuddle monster. So she, usually we wake up and I’m on the edge of my bed and she’s in my spot. She has moved me all the way to the side. That’s usually how we wake up but also, she’s like, and I think you’ve done this, you’ve accidentally struck your wife while sleeping by moving around– On a weekly basis, I wake myself up realizing that, in flailing my right arm, I’ve either struck her or almost struck her. And the thing is is that I am probably, if there was a spectrum of accident avoidance, like how much accident avoidance do you have, and I don’t know if it’s just something about being really big and feeling like I take up a lot of space. I believe that I am on the complete upper end, almost off the spectrum of accident avoidance. I hate to accidentally bump my head into things. You sleep like you’re mummified. I don’t step on people’s feet. A lot of tall people just step on people, my wife will step on your foot if you spend more than four hours with her, she will step on you. That’s just what she does, I think it’s ’cause she’s just little and short and so she feels like she can’t do any harm and so it transfers to the bedroom and she’s never really clocked me in the face but I have this phobia of her elbowing me or punching me in the nose. And so subconsciously, I sleep on my side, facing away from her. You’re like flinching. But now that I’ve got this cold and I have a deviated septum, I’m giving you all kinds of information. Take and do what you will with it. My left nostril has a lot more air flow than my right nostril, when I get sick, my right nostril is almost useless. But in order to lay on me, you know when you lay on one side and then the drainage goes down and one of the nostrils opens up when you’re sick? Yeah. That’s facing her ’cause I sleep on the right side of the bed so now I am completely in it and while I’m sick, I’m sleeping on my right side, completely exposed. I’ve been thinking about wearing a hockey mask but I think that the hockey mask would work against the air flow. So I really don’t know what to do basically, maybe a catcher’s mask. A catcher’s mask lets a lot of air flow through. Yeah like a lacrosse helmet. Or that. Yeah something like that. A football helmet would allow quite a bit of breeze as well, like a kicker’s helmet that just has– Just has the one. Like the old school kickers where it’s just one. They don’t do that anymore. If I was a kicker– They got a full thing now. If I was a kicker I’d have the one thing. But kickers tackle now, kicker’s gotta tackle. Gotta do it all, it’s very competitive. The world’s a competitive place now because, I don’t know. Because of the internet. Because of the internet. Well I mean, I had to resort to the neti pot. I was like I’m going back to this thing. And then– Had you done it before? Many years ago and then there was the thing where it’s like oh don’t use the neti pot because you’ll get a brain-eating amoeba from the tap and now when you buy one it’s got this big warning on it that says use– Distilled water. Distilled water. I don’t use distilled water. You use tap? Yeah because it’s just a hassle. I’m surprised, of all people that you’re using tap. From one nostril, boy and that feels weird. I did it right before I came so if I start going cross-eyed then you know I got the amoeba. Just be ready for it. So I do have distilled water and I had– Did something come out when you did it? Yeah just a little snot, but not a lot of stuff. I love it. I mean I had the full-blown sinus infection. I had colors coming out of my nose that, I don’t know, you could paint a mural with it. You got brown stuff coming out? I mean there was bright red action. Oh well that’s blood. Huh, that’s blood, yeah, I was bleedin’, and then there was– Hmm, I don’t wanna talk about this anymore. Sometimes I put more spinach in my breakfast smoothie and it goes a little greener and it’s typically brown. You need to see a doctor. I don’t think spinach, I don’t think chloroform or whatever it is that makes, chlorophyll. A little green action. Makes its way into your snot but I use the tap water because those instances of the people getting the brain-eating amoeba is like, it’s so unlikely. I bought a jug of distilled water. And you know what, you should use it. It is the wisest thing to do. You can have the rest of my jug, homie. It also depends on your water supply. We have the same water supply. No no I don’t think that, I think that most of those instances, I don’t think any of them have been in Southern California. Also I have a filtration system built into my house and– Oh yeah listen to him. And I have a UV light– Oh listen to him. I have a UV bulb, this is the previous homeowner, they installed all this and I just maintenance it. You got a central vacuum? Yes, but we took that out. You don’t need that. It was very old and non-functioning. The guy, the family who had this house before, they were all about the central vac, the UV treatment. Yeah well it gets dated. But listen, about that neti pot, if you’ve never used one, let me tell ya, you throw that thing on one nostril and then you start leaning to the side and first of all, if you try to follow the instructions on the back of the thing it says weird stuff like rotate your chin but don’t move your chin out beyond the neti pot, it doesn’t make sense. It’s intuitive. Just do it until it feels right. Do it until it feels right but if it feels wrong, it could feel very wrong and even when it feels right, it feels wrong because you’re filling up that– Until you get what you like– My recommendation is to watch a YouTube video, but what’s the worst that can happen beside the brain-eating amoeba? The first time you do it– You could get water going down your throat. You feel like you might be drowning yourself the first time you do it but then after that, once you adjust and get the angles right, ’cause I made my, I made Locke do it. Shepherd wouldn’t do it. Made him do it. You just grabbed him by a head full of hair and shoved the neti pot in his nostril. Tilted his head. I was like dude, you gotta get where you can be in control of this. Own it. It’s weird. It’s a weird feeling. It’s not that the feeling goes away, it’s just that you learn to expect it but the first time you do it and it had been many years so it was very fresh to me, it was like, I felt like I was fillin’ up my whole brain cavity with salt water ’cause you mix in that salt water solution. Yeah. And nothing’s coming out the other side so I’m like ooh, and it’s just half the pot’s going up my nose, nothing coming out and I’m like where is this going? You’re blocked. Is it gonna come up my ear? You’re blocked. And I started hearing a weird thing in my ear. It started to burn a little bit, but it felt like– It’s all connected. Felt like my eyes were gonna float out. And it’s just, yeah, you feel like you’re drowning yourself via one nostril. That’s weird, ’cause all that happens to me when I’m super stuffed, I can feel it trying to go into the other side, and then just going down the back of my throat and coming up my mouth. Ugh. So it’s like pushing up against all the stuff that’s in there but it can’t get through. But if a glop comes out, that feels, that’s satisfying. That’s what you want. I think I became dependent on it last time I got sick. There are people who– I was doing it morning, middle of the day and night. They got a new one that’s powered, have you seen the commercial for the one that, you don’t even bend sideways. You just put it on your face and it powers the water in one side and just out the other side. Not necessary. It literally takes it out and then puts it into like a reservoir so it’s like putting on a mask. So what, you can drink it later? You could save it and you could see the blood. You can see all the nasty things and know exactly what happened instead of having to look in the sink. Oh gosh, it’s a weird feeling. Why we are talking about– Getting your whole head filled up with saline solution. Anyway. I feel like I’ve still gotta shake it out. I hope I don’t have, I hope what happened to you doesn’t happen to me. I am doing– I don’t think you could take it. I am doing the neti pot ahead of time so that I don’t wait until I get the sinus infection to do the neti pot, however some people say that the neti pot actually contributes to sinus infections because it gets rid of the mucus and the mucus is what’s doing the job, just don’t mess with it, don’t try to treat it, but it just makes me feel good, okay? And livin’ on the edge, living right on the edge of a brain-eating amoeba makes me feel alive. Every time I wake up the next day after doing the neti pot, I’m like another day, I made it. You sound like an anti-vaxxer. Another day, I made it. I know I’m not right about this. I’m glad I made it another day. Shout out– So I could seem right about it. Shout out to all the anti-vaxxers listening. You’re out there, we know you’re out there. Way out there. Jessica Biel’s a big fan. Okay so we’re gonna answer some questions that you asked us. But first we’re gonna let you know that you can get a number of grooming products. Look at this. We’ve got lip balms. We each have one. I’m gonna hold up both of ours. Link’s Peculiarly Perfect Peanut Butter Peppermint Lip Balm and Rhett’s Wood and Berries, wondrously wild. You can get these in all types of packs. Mythical.store, put ’em on your lips and think about it. You could also put my beard oil on your beard and think about me or Link. You can put the Mythical Pomade into your hair which is what we do every day. You can also spray what Link has in his hands on your body. Mythical Number Nine, this is some good-smelling stuff. I’m very proud of the way that this smells. You know what it should say on the back? Smell of that. It’s– We should call it Smell of That. And it has, we tried to do a perfectly balanced unisex scent. I love it on a woman. I love it on a man. Yeah. I love it on animal, nah, I’ve never put it on an animal. No in fact, it’s never been put on animals. Never tested on animals. Not tested on animals. Don’t you, you make your wife wear that when she wears perfume. I don’t make her wear it. She likes it. No no no no no but what I’m saying is that your wife doesn’t wear traditional perfumes because it gives you a headache but this is, I think it’s a traditional cologne slash perfume but– It doesn’t give me a headache. But it doesn’t give you a headache. So if you get headaches. The majority of perfumes and colognes give me a headache. There you go. This does not. I don’t know why it works but it doesn’t give Link headaches so maybe it won’t give you headaches. Mythical.store, don’t get headaches. Let’s start with a question that– So we’ll do the home question second. Yeah we’re gonna start with a question that actually comes from my wife. Oh really? Yeah. My wife has a rather vibrant Twitter account. Really? @losfamgeles. A little pun. Okay, shout out. Speaking of seeing Los Angeles as home, she decided to call her, you get it, Los Famgeles, Link? You get it, you get it? Yeah fam. But she didn’t respond to us by asking a question. This is just something she tweeted that you’re commandeering for our conversation which is fine but I don’t want to insinuate that she’s shamelessly responding to our prompt. She did ask me this question as well though. So technically I feel fine about commandeering. You may have seen awhile back, it was already a couple weeks when we were recording this but Barbra Streisand, she had a dog named Samantha that was like a poodle, kinda looks like Barbara but hairier. Meaning Barbara your dog. Yeah. Kinda looks like, yeah, and incidentally Barbara, my dog is not named after Barbra Streisand, she’s named after Barbara Mandrell. But Barbra Streisand has cloned her dog at least three times because three of them are currently alive and she posted this picture, you may have seen it, where she took the three clone dogs to the grave site of the original dog and they, and the funny thing– Did a family photo? Did a family photo. She put the three dogs on top of the grave. Okay. And as you might guess, they all look the same, and then there’s a picture of the original dog, the– Identical. Yeah, the original dog has a picture, like a color picture of itself on the grave, so you’ve got basically four identical dogs in the picture. Well which costs more, a full color rendering gravestone of a dog or a clone dog? I think a clone dog considering that she claims to have paid $50,000 for it to have been done or the news claims that that’s what it was. And just a few years ago it was $100,000 to get it done. It’s gettin’ cheaper. Price is coming down. That’s good. And so– Bye bye bye. Jessie and I have seriously discussed the question before and I’m really surprised that as attached as you are to Jade and how perfect you think that she is, why you haven’t talked about it, now I’m not gonna be– Well her question is– Happy Sunday, is cloning your dog sweet or creepy? She made a poll. Oh she made a poll. Over 1100 people responded to my wife’s poll. The two options were, the sweetest, with some dog and heart emojis. When’s the last time she responded to your pole? Ugh, well, not while I’m sick at least. And then the other option was that mess is creepy. 76% of people as you might guess said that mess is creepy. 24% said the sweetest. Well I mean once you set up the whole Barbra Streisand does a photoshoot at the graveyard with three dogs dancing on their forefather, foremother, that obviously seems creepy. Well yeah. But so– It’s unnatural. Let’s detach from that, let’s forget that we know about that and let’s try to analyze this question fresh. Now, the 199th episode, so a couple back, I mean we did, we had a truncated conversation about our dogs. And what we would do if they died. So thank you for your feedback, being part of that conversation, #EarBiscuits. But we didn’t talk about, at least in my recollection, we didn’t talk about cloning dogs as an option. I think we may have talked about it at some point but not in that episode. It gives me pause, I mean I think about it. Jade, I wonder if the personality would be exactly the same. I mean it’s genetics plus environment, the environment would be exactly the same so I guess so. I’m sure there’s mutations that take place anytime there’s a clone but– I might do it just to find out that, just to see if it’s– Well let’s just assume that the price is reasonable. I’m not gonna pay $50,000 to have this done but by the time Barbara’s in the market for cloning, maybe it’ll be 25, maybe it’ll be 10. Would you pay $10,000 to save Jade’s life, if there was a life-altering, a lot of people pay thousands of dollars if their dog gets in trouble. We adopted our dog so we didn’t pay anything for ’em. Actually they do still charge you. Well they charge an adoption fee. A donation. A donation fee. To keep stuff going. But a couple hundred bucks, whatever. But if you had to, Jade has this life-threatening condition, you have to get surgery. I assume that you’d pay thousands of dollars for that surgery to be done. I’d do that for Barbara. I’m in a position financially where I can afford to do it and it’s not a irresponsible decision. That makes the decision easier. If you’re all of a sudden choosing between feeding your children or saving your dog at that point, okay, it’s a different story. I mean another factor is if, if we’re talking about the surgery. What are the chances of success versus the quality of life afterward, ’cause we talked about before, and how old is Jade at the time versus her life expectancy– Yeah of course, all that take into account. Ah man, I was likin’ the overlap idea which I’ve since pulled back from, but now I’m going back in with overlapping with an identical. I would not pay 10 grand, that is steep. Well it’s 50 right now. I wouldn’t pay 10. Okay, all right, let’s take finances off of the table. Is it creepy or not? It’s free, you can do it for free. Of course it’s creepy because cloning is creepy and if we don’t have a slightly creeped out response to cloning then we’re probably not in touch with ourselves. It’s weird, right, it’s weird to be able to clone something or someone. It’s not natural. But the process is not that unlike twins. Genetically, which twins are creepy on their own, I do admit that. Definitely. But I think I would do it. The main reason I wouldn’t do it, the main reason I would not clone Barbara is because of the judgment that I would receive and I just would feel like I’d have to defend myself and I don’t really have a defense other than I just really like Barbara. Yeah, I don’t think– I don’t know what I’m gonna get next time I get a dog. I think it should be secret but if it got out, it should be unjudged. But there is also sort of the lottery of– Why is Jade living so long? Well she’s– She’s 75. She’s amazing. I’ve been telling you. But I do like the idea, first of all, okay– Why is she a puppy again? Maybe here’s a reason not to clone the dog from an ethical standpoint, because dogs need to be adopted, right, so by cloning a dog, you’re bringing another dog into the world as opposed to adopting another dog, so I could adopt another dog that needs a home next time just like we did with Barbara. Yeah and I think– So there’s a reason to not do it. There’s something to pair with that which is it is a relationship. I mean, our dogs are family members. They’re dog family members but they are family members so it’s a relationship that then, you just don’t wanna have, you don’t wanna fabricate just for your own convenience a relationship with a clone. It just seems like you’re just trying to perpetuate something and deny something that is a part of life which is death, and an opportunity to forge a new relationship with all of its challenges and joys. Yeah, what if the new dog’s a? Figuratively? Then– Yeah. Yeah that’s the risk. So we got somebody working on our house right now, the contractor who, of course, Barbara loves because he is a person. And the way he described her the other day, this may be weird to have a relationship with your contractor in this way but he was talking about Barbara and he was like she is pure love. She is pure love. She’s is pure love. That’s what Barbara is, Barbara is just like, again– You’re not gonna get more pure love out of another dog so that’s, the risk is, it’s a guarantee that with your next dog, you won’t get that much love. Right and so I mean I’m just like okay, well this is such a good thing. We got such a good thing going. Am I willing to take people’s– It feels weird– Sideways glances at me. It’s not like she’s gonna wear a doggy shirt that says I’m a clone, not the original. That would be funny though. I mean what about cloning– People? Yeah let’s clone our wives if they pass untimely. I mean I think that’s why it’s so weird, it’s like you’d never do that. You’d never do that to a human. It’s unnatural. There’s other reasons why we wouldn’t clone our wives because they would be a baby. Yeah, you gotta, well that’s what I was trying to tell you about– It’s like this is gonna be awkward for quite some time. That’s why I was trying to tell you about Twilight that I didn’t get to. Was that that wolf guy, he made a connection with the baby and then waited for it to grow old and then they became, they hooked up. That’s creepy. With the vampire’s girl’s baby. Don’t think of it in the context of a relationship because that’s– I’m telling you, there’s so much in that Twilight. I could go back to it. That’s creepy. But let’s just say there’s, okay, there’s a great mind, like a person who does incredible things, right. I don’t know, name someone who we consider to be incredible that does incredible things. That Ryan’s ToysReview. Okay exactly, somebody who has just impacted culture for the better and we’re like well when Ryan from Ryan’s ToyReview dies. What are we gonna do, we need him. We could get, and when he’s a baby, it’s like you don’t have to wait long for him to do his thing again. That’s right, like within three years basically. Instant gratification almost from a clone perspective. The channel would be dark for just a couple years. Right. For that time you could just do videos that are just like retrospective, like this is what you’re gonna get, don’t forget. Toddler toys, they could start much earlier than they actually did. Start him as a baby. Put him as just a newborn. Newborn toys. Are there channels where parents just get their newborns to review products? Just throw a rattle in the cage and see what happens? Well there should be. There should be. I mean I think you can exploit your child from a very early age if you want to. Did I answer your question? I don’t think you have to wait until they’re five. With our Ryan’s ToyReview thought experiment, did we reach a conclusion? Well first of all, can human cloning be done? I don’t think human cloning can be done as effectively and reliably, right, or is it just unethical at this point? But could they really do it and they wouldn’t be screwed up in some weird way? Where is the science of cloning these days? There was the experiment, I think it was in China a few months back where they were doing genetic mutations for medical purposes but it wasn’t creating a clone. It was using CRISPR on people. But then there were– Oh yeah gene edited kids, yeah. Gene editing kids and there wasn’t– That’s happening. There’s side effects. There’s genetic side effects. You try to get rid of this one thing, but then other things pop up. Well okay so what if they could create a clone for you that didn’t have a head? Of a dog? No of yourself. Okay. And they were like okay, we’re growing this clone of you that doesn’t have a head and we’re gonna harvest the organs as needed. You need a heart, oh we got your heart over here. That’s cool. In this baby. In this baby without a head, you’re gonna get a baby heart. You have to wait for the baby to get old enough. The headless baby’s gotta grow up, gotta review some rattles. I haven’t really spent a lot of time thinking about the ethics of this but it does sound like a can of worms that we probably don’t wanna open. We don’t need more people, we’ve got too many. We don’t need to clone the ones we have. All worms are cloned, by the way. That is true, isn’t it? Are they asexual? They all look the same. Worms are not asexual, I’m sure some worms are. Oh, I was messin’ with you. Let’s ask this next question. Jennifer Hadorn asks how do you know when a new place you move to finally gets that feeling of home? In quotes. What are the types of things you experience that make it a home? You both had to move far from North Carolina which you have many fond memories of but do you still consider it your one true home or do you get the same feelings about California now as you did with North Carolina? Just as a side note, I find myself watching our Mythical road trip videos. From Fuquay to LA. This is Rhett and Link’s America. And so it begins. The Mythical road trip with Rhett and Link. I can’t remember exactly, I think in preparation for VidCon and a potential bit about being on YouTube for over a decade ’cause that’s how long VidCon’s been going on too. 10 years, it’s the 10th year. I ended up going on a rabbit trail of our own videos after looking at other people’s, but I watched our, if you don’t know, our Mythical road trips, when we moved out to LA, we had fan meetups at rest stops all across America and we documented the whole thing and we made all types of videos, some on the Rhett and Link channel, some on what ultimately became the Good Mythical Morning channel, it was just our second vlog channel at the time. But we captured conversations about our expectations of moving to LA and our hopes and fears were kinda peppered into the story of meeting Mythical Beasts and seeing parts of the country, having never driven across the country. Mm-hmm. It was a sweet time in our friendship, Rhett. I’m glad we documented that. And some people commented, I’m glad I found this, it’s edited really well. We didn’t edit it. Chris McCaleb did. Yeah shout out to him but anyway, it brought back memories of that moment when we’re, yeah, it was a big deal to finally uproot both of our families, throw all of our possessions, actually we threw all the possessions that we needed to move into furnished apartments so we shared a U-Haul and then we towed my minivan and then you and I drove out and our families flew out once we got to Los Angeles. But I mean, that was a huge milestone and yeah, as we did discuss in a number of those videos, we just didn’t know. We were coming out to make Commercial Kings for IFC, not knowing if it would last more than a season and it didn’t. Anyway, if you wanna watch those, you can. They’re still out there, the Mythical road trip but– I know that I was probably more than all four of the four of us, probably more than anyone else, I was of a mind that we’re not going back. I was like we’re going out there, I don’t care how this goes, we’re staying. You know what I’m saying, my mentality was we’re gonna go out there and even if Commercial Kings doesn’t work, we’re gonna do something. We need to make it happen out there. I was just kinda committed to it and I think Jessie was in a different way committed to that happening, not a this is where your career is gonna take off, but more I’m just ready for something new, ready for a change. She had grown up, we lived in the house that was across the street from the house that she came home from the hospital in. Really? Her parents’ house was across the street from our house and she went from living with her parents to being in college for just a couple of years until we got married and we were in Chapel Hill but then quickly got back down to Fuquay so I think that she was just ready for a change, that’s her personality so, but– I think there was a bit more trepidation on the Neal side associated with the unknowns of uprooting our entire family, moving ’em out there. Lando was in a crib. Yeah Shepherd was two, I was talking to him about this the other day, I was like you don’t really, your whole life has been in California. Yeah Lando doesn’t– And even more so with Lando who was a year. He remembers, maybe nothing. I don’t think Lando remember anything because Shepherd was two. And he doesn’t remember anything. No. Very, very sketchy stuff but– So the risk was low with them. But they would go back, we would go back. We were out here for six months, then we went back for a few weeks before we came back out again. To get the rest of our stuff. I would say that where it stands now, we moved in 2011, it’s 2019, so we just passed our eighth year, so we’re in our ninth year of being here. And interestingly, when you listen to this, we’ll be about to go back. We’re gonna go back to Buies Creek to create something that you’ll find out about later. But we’ll spend some– Oh snap. We’ll spend some time, it’s gonna be related to the book. Bleak Creek, because Bleak Creek’s based on Buies Creek loosely. More tightly in some ways than others but we’re gonna go back not just to where we last lived but to our home, where we grew up and whenever I get to North Carolina, especially when you go during the summer and you’re immediately hit with this blanket of damp, muggy air. I don’t think I’ll ever lose the sensation that I am home, that I’m really, really, this is home. Yeah. This is where I grew up. This is where I became a man. The roots, man, you tap into the roots. It’s like gettin’ back on a bicycle. It just, it feels right. And I don’t think there’ll ever be a time where I’m driving around Los Angeles or hiking in one of these very deserty landscapes around town when you go into nature where I don’t feel a little bit like a visitor. And I just don’t think I’ll ever get over that because if you moved around a bunch of different places growing up, which we didn’t, we were basically in Buies Creek for our entire adolescence, I don’t think you can lose that, so in my deepest core, I definitely still consider North Carolina home, and I still feel like a visitor here and I don’t think that I can overcome that, but I have different feelings just in a general way. I can get into that after we hear your perspective. Well I agree and 100% relate to tapping back into my roots when I go back home, like I just said, it is going back home. This is where I’m from, this is where my people still are. Family, old friends, landmarks. You leave the airport and you drive back home, I got grandparents still living in the same place that they’ve always been in. I got Mom in the same county that when I grew up, same place, you know, so it’s like you travel those same roads and you access all of those memories and nothing’s gonna ever take that away and nothing’s ever gonna replace that, but I do consider in a different inflection of the word home, maybe a slightly different definition, but I do have a feeling that Los Angeles is my home now. It is legitimately home for me and I think the question is how long did it take for it to get to that point. I think a lot of it has to do with my kids absolutely consider this place home. This is the place where they’ve built all of those memories and Lincoln is hard-pressed at 14 to have a ton of memories back in North Carolina. Lando has none and so it was Lily who had to make more of a transition but she was still young enough that it wasn’t that big of a deal. She had a best friend that she’s still in contact with, she has a best North Carolina friend Lizzie who was in the Pimp My Stroller video. Yeah, right, right. She probably had the funniest voiceover. Who’s to say, there were so many voiceovers. But anyway, I think our kids considering this home goes a long way towards me considering it home ’cause we’re making our lives here and every day is more memories that you’re putting your roots down. But I also think it has to do with settling in physically to a house that, when we first moved out, that first six months we were living in Los Feliz, which is super cool in my opinion, neighborhood. You got these hills where I think Katy Perry lives up there in the hills and then you go down to the shops and you got the, hey let’s go to Little Dom’s. Let’s go to Little Dom’s and get us some Italian food. But we stayed in this furnished apartment. We knew nothing about where we should be, it was just– It was not decorated, it was very cold the way it was decorated, like super modern, gray, under-lit. It just wasn’t how I wanted things to be. You like a bright– Well I would go in the bathroom and look in the mirror– Antique, bright environment. I couldn’t see myself in the freakin’ mirror. I had to buy a mirror with a… I had to buy a vanity mirror, like one of those makeup mirrors in order to be able to see my face in my own bathroom. It just didn’t, you know me, I really like things to be how I like ’em to be. Oh really? So that wasn’t home. I mean it was a furnished apartment. Then we go back and get our stuff and we come back out, we moved into a house, we had a yard, but I didn’t really know anybody in the neighborhood and a couple of the neighbors that we met, it was kinda like, I feel like you don’t like me. There was a weird vibe in the place where we were. Yeah. And we were, it was from a financial standpoint, things were tenuous for a number of years there as we were moving into a painful amount of rent at these places. If you are in the greater Los Angeles area with a family, you better get it together very quickly. Yeah. Because you will be run out of town just because it’s so expensive to live here, yeah. There was definitely a year or two there it was like I don’t know if this is sustainable. The furnished apartment that we rented cost over three times my mortgage back in Fuquay. It cost over, it cost seven times my mortgage. I think you’re just bad at math, dude. No, I had bought my house much later and my house back home was pricier than yours. Yeah, I got a really good deal on my house but yeah, the rent for an apartment that was smaller than the house that I owned. But it was furnished. Seven times my mortgage. Yeah. That’s painful. We were fortunate enough to purchase homes and I think psychologically, you’re really putting your roots down when you’re saying I’m buying this place. It’s interesting– So that’s where we’re at now. And I think that you, with your personality, getting everything the way that you want it is a big part of your personality, less of mine, so when I thought about this question, I didn’t think at all about– Physical home. Physical homes and where we’re at and being and where we were before and where we’re at now. It was much more just the vibe that I get from the city, you know what I’m saying? And I do remember a very specific point and that actually was pretty early on. It definitely wasn’t while we were in Los Feliz. It was after that. And where I’d flown back home, and we still say flying home to North Carolina, that’s what we say. We’ll probably always say that regardless of how long we’re here. But I remember arriving back at LAX which, it’s not the most, it’s not the most welcoming airport. When you get to RDU, you’re like do people actually fly out of here? Yeah. Is it shut down? Because there’s not literally a crowd of people that you have to work your way through and a million people honking their horns as soon as you get to where you’re gonna get picked up. But anyway, every time you get to LAX, regardless of what time of say, regardless of what day of the year. It’s a circus. It’s absolutely bonkers how much traffic there is. But I remember getting back to LAX, walking out and waiting for a ride home and feeling like… And I wasn’t trying to feel this, it just hit me, I was like, I’m home. This feels like home because– But can you link it to something? I feel like I am now returning to basically, the momentum has shifted. There is a, what do you call it when you get enough– Tipping point. Tipping point, but you’re like there’s enough momentum, what is that word that we’re looking for? Inertia. Yeah, we’re not saying the word, I don’t know why I can’t remember it at this point, but basically critical mass. There’s enough critical mass in Los Angeles now and I think it does have to do with familiarity and comfort and so that does have to do with the physical home or whatever, but it just felt like the critical mass of where I kinda considered my home to be had moved, had come with me on the plane back to Los Angeles and now I was stepping into this environment that I felt like I knew, understood and could thrive in. Do you know what I’m saying? I know a couple of specific factors at least for me so try these on for size. In general sense of community, actually having friends, people that if something goes wrong, your impulse is to call somebody who also lives in Los Angeles to get help or advice as opposed to calling someone where you used to live. I think that’s a telltale sign. Who do you call in need? And then do you have friends? Are you making connections? Are your kids and partner doing the same thing? I think also it’s like at the moment you feel hungry and you’re sittin’ on your couch and places come to mind that you can just get in the car and drive to. That are not Bojangles’? Yeah. Right. You start thinking of, you know what, I’m gonna go and get a so and so. I’m gonna get a sub from this place. I’m gonna get some Mediterranean food from this place, not the eight other places, ’cause I’ve tried ’em all. I’ve got my favorites. I know where I’m gonna get the cheeseburger and I’m gonna go to the pizza place and when I go in there, the guy’s gonna know me by name. I mean that’s really home when the pizza guy knows you. I think another point is– We went to the pizza place, they were closing and he said, and we’re like, “I’m sorry, you’re closing.” And then he was like, “You know what, place your order. “I’ll deliver it to your house,” and he knew, he knows where our house is. Yeah that’s a good sign. I’m home, baby, when I can almost telepathically order pizza, I’m home. And trust me, I think that’s probably Christy’s first measure of home is do I know my pizza guy. I think being able to navigate– That probably took six years for her. To being able to navigate the landscape and not need– GPS. GPS, I think is, now, if you live in any city, you probably always have your GPS on because you never know when you’re gonna run into– Variables. Traffic and accidents and stuff like that but– But you won’t get lost if your phone dies. Yeah ’cause LA is huge and I remember, we used to come out here, before we were doing Commercial Kings we would come out here ’cause of course we did that amazing hit show on the CW in 2007 called Online Nation. So good it got canceled after four episodes. But we would come out to work on that and then to come out and pitch other things and we were trying to make things happen here and we would stay at the Beverly Garland Hotel on Vine. What is that on? Vineland. Vineland. I just passed it the other night where you’re on Ventura ’cause we went to eat with some people in Studio City. We were on Ventura, took a left on Vineland and you go past that little shopping center that had the City Walk that we would walk to the City Walk down from the Beverly Garland. Yeah. Our world was– That block. That block and then if we were to drive, we’d take the 101 through the mountains down to somewhere in Hollywood to do something, to have a meeting, maybe go all the way to Beverly Hills. Yeah that’s all we knew. But that was it and that’s just a very small sliver of Los Angeles and then once you can kinda like, oh I can draw, for me, I know this is, Jessie couldn’t do this because I annoy her to the point that I try to understand the geography in my mind. Yeah. But for me that was a big point. ‘Cause in North Carolina, of course, when we were in North Carolina, at least up until the end, there was no GPS. You didn’t use GPS to get anywhere. You could get everywhere you needed to go by just, you just knew the environment and you kinda always knew where you were. So when that happened to me in Los Angeles, it started to feel like home. That was a big moment. And Britton’s been living with us for half a year. He’s traveling a lot with the opportunities that he has for making music. But our home is his home base but… I don’t think I’m going out on a limb here to say that he doesn’t consider Los Angeles home. After six months– He’s also living with you. He’s living in my closet. Yeah in a very small area. And we ask him, I’ll ask him, “So where’d you go today?” And he’s like, “I got lunch at Jack in the Box.” And then the next day, I’m like, “Where’d you go today?” He’s like, “I went back to Jack in the Box.” I was like, “Britton, there’s other places “besides Jack in the Box. “You gotta branch out.” So he started to do that but he also pointed out, there’s a lot of different menu items at Jack in the Box. Yeah it’s like seven restaurants in one. They got egg rolls at the frickin’ Jack in the Box. Yeah they got tacos. It’s crazy. Jack is crazy, he can’t be boxed in. Jack is out of the box, man. He is out of the box. Jack out of the box. Missed an opportunity there for the name. But it takes time and you gotta meet people and you gotta, you just can’t eat at the Jack in the Box if you’re gonna make this house a home. Yeah. Egg rolls aren’t bad there though. I’m a fan but I’m the only one in my family that’s a fan. I don’t need to be eating fast food on a regular basis so it’s fine. All right let’s move on. So. So we both feel like it’s home. Oh yeah. And a lot of people ask, do you ever think you’re gonna go back to North Carolina? And there’s no default, okay, when we’ve done our time here in Los Angeles, yes, the default is that we’re gonna go back to North Carolina. At this point there is no, there’s nothing like that in play, it’s like this is where we’re at, this is where our lives have been established, this is where like Link said our kids’ lives have been established so I don’t see that happening. But who knows what’ll happen. I love North Carolina. I love living here. And I don’t, I miss things about it but I don’t miss living there given the home that we’ve made here. Very happy. I agree. Russell Oehlert. Pft, Oehlert. What’s your favorite song to sing in the shower? Hmm, favorite song to sing in the shower. Listen, I don’t sing in the shower because I got too much on my mind. Every single thing that I’m doing perfectly which I’ve spoken about at length in an underperforming episode of Good Mythical Morning. If it hides, expose it. If it flops, lift it. Oh God. I haven’t thought about that. Your routine is so detailed that you don’t have time for singing. And listen, if you watch that episode– What a missed opportunity. Except the part about peeing on your feet, stop snorting into the microphone. Tay Zonday your nose away, dude. I did a second ago but then that one was just out of nowhere, I just had to do it. Just right into the microphone. Yeah don’t we have a filter for that? That’s what it sounded like. Kiko, we got a filter– I was talking, man. For that right? Tay Zonday that thing. Okay turn away from the mic to sniff? Britton saw Tay Zonday in Jack in the Box. I’m lying, he did see him somewhere. He came home and he told me, he was like, you know that Chocolate Rain guy, I was like yeah Tay. He’s still around, he’s still in LA, calling it home. Yeah. What was I saying before you snorted all over myself? Oh, except for the peeing on the feet part which I was suggesting that you do in the shower, pretty much everything else that I talked about in that episode I legitimately do and every time I take a shower, there is a majority of my brain power is directed towards just… What’s the verb I’m looking for? Doing, I’ll just say doing my system. I ain’t got time to sit there and just like– Here’s the thing though. Pleasurably sing stuff. That’s the sad fact. I think that we have pin-pointed the weakness in your system and I think that this is a metaphor or an allegory for many different areas of life. I don’t wanna have a deep introspection. I don’t wanna– No, if you’re too committed to the system. Don’t do this to me. If you’re too committed to the system you can’t stop and enjoy other things that could be happening. You might be right so I’m not gonna listen. ‘Cause singing in the shower which I definitely do, because as everyone knows, the acoustics, they make you sound a lot better than you actually sound. I’ve done it since I was a kid. Now I will say that I have a window in my shower and I look out at the, I got a beautiful view while I’m naked and washing, I’m looking out the window and I’m affirming myself and I’m doing healthy things. Affirming yourself? Yeah remember? You were there. Yeah I didn’t listen to a lot of what you said. I was just kinda the prop for that episode. That’s fair. That was late in the episode, you had glazed over. Here’s the thing. So you sing in the shower now as well as throughout your entire life. And I wouldn’t say it’s a, I would say it’s like a 30% of the time. That seems like a lot to me for a grown-ass man. What’s the last thing you sang in the shower? Well the thing I love about this question from Russell is that I have a song that I only sing in the shower and I would not have been able to tell you that until somebody asked me. I am shocked. I would have bet, I would have bet the amount, the clone of Barbra Steisand dog that you would not sing in the shower. Why would I not sing in the shower? It just seems so vulnerable. People can hear you, man. I don’t know. You got lots of misconceptions about me, man. I think that– You’re perpetuating these misconceptions. No I– I’m a very vulnerable person. No it’s a specific– On average. I’m not saying that you’re not vulnerable, I’m saying it’s a specific… I don’t know, it’s like we both have a level of self-awareness that I think would prevent, I’m putting myself in this boat. Yeah but I’m in a shower in my own home. It’s not being broadcast. But like if– To the neighborhood. If Christy’s walking in and out of the bathroom, I don’t know, something, on a psychological level, I’d be like it’s kinda ridiculous that I’m singing in the shower. Sometimes I will sing in the shower and Jessie will join me from outside of the shower and we will sing songs together. What is this, a Disney movie? I’m just telling you, that’s the way it goes down in the McLaughlin bathroom. You know what, that’s beautiful. Jessie and I sing songs in the bathroom, try to harmonize with each other. It’s not an uncommon thing, it’s not like half of the time but it’s not unusual for us to start singing. You know what, all right. Let me, maybe this will turn over a leaf for me ’cause I’m– ‘Cause you seem like the kind of person who would want to sing in the shower but you’ve gotten in your own way. That’s probably true. You need to let go– What is your song? I don’t even know if I’m gonna say the right, the name of the song but it’s by Dobie Gray. What are you talking about? It’s not Give Me the Beat Boys. ♪ Give me the beat boys ♪ No it’s not– ♪ And free my soul ♪ I think it’s called– ♪ I wanna get lost ♪ ♪ In your rock and roll ♪ So it’s no that one. I have sung that song in the shower but that’s not it. It’s the Lovin’ Arms song. Sing it. ♪ If you could see me now ♪ ♪ The one who said that he’d rather roam ♪ ♪ The one who said he’d rather be alone ♪ ♪ If you could only see me now ♪ ♪ Oh I been too long in the wind ♪ ♪ And too long in the rain ♪ ♪ Takin’ any comfort that I can ♪ ♪ Lookin’ back and longin’ for ♪ ♪ The freedom of my chain, from my chains ♪ ♪ And lyin’ in your lovin’ arms again ♪ I do not know– You don’t know the song? I don’t even know it. You don’t know that Dobie Gray song? It’s one of the best, man. Ah. It must– It sounds so good in the shower. Better in the shower. Well I’ve got a cold. It didn’t sound bad but I would hope it sounds better in the shower. ♪ Lyin’ in your lovin’ arms again ♪ Huh, now– That’s my shower song. In high school I would sing at the top of my lungs in the shower. I’ve lost that part of myself. I need to get it back. I would sing Clint Black. I sing Clint Black in the shower. ‘Cause we were both going through a Clint Black phase and we’d sing a lot of Clint Black. Lately I been singing Diamond Rio in the shower because I started listening to Diamond Rio. That’s good. I saw– Pick a part. I start walking your way and you start walking mine. I would sing the sad Clint Black songs. ♪ Maybe I took for granted ♪ ♪ You’d be around ♪ ♪ To pick me up on my way down ♪ See, I can’t sing that low. In the shower I could. Yeah. You know just killin’ time in the shower. ♪ Just killin’ time ♪ And I would get out of the shower and my mom, our house was so small. You could be anywhere and you’d hear me in the shower. And my mom would say– You sound good. You sound so good. So good in that shower. You sound so good, I love it when you sing in the shower. And you’ve let go of that, man. I’ve let go of it. You left that back in North Carolina, you gotta bring it to California. It makes it more home. Maybe I need to move back. No I think you can just start singing in the shower. ♪ Give me the shower boys and sing my soul ♪ I wanna do one more quick, very quick one. I know you have a Rec in Effect but Tam Brand asks, what is the correct answer to what’s up? This made me laugh. What’s up? Because I thought about our college roommate Gregg. ‘Cause typically you would say nothing. Well I think normal responses to this are nothing, nothing much, what’s up? How ’bout you? Or you could just say, what’s up, what’s up? You could say what’s up back to somebody, you could throw it right back at ’em. All those would be– I know what you’re gonna say. But literally every time and Gregg wasn’t being funny when he did, it was funny, but he wasn’t trying to be funny. This is like right when we first started, one of the first things we noticed about Gregg when we first met him. Yeah yeah, you say what’s up Gregg? And Gregg says, “Good.” Good, he would say it like that. What’s up, Gregg? Good. Good. Good. And he had this, it was like this carefree kinda bop to it, like his head would bop and his bottom lip would come up. I mean he was good, man. Support the upper lip in kind of a smirk. Good. Yeah, ’cause he was under the impression that that was– He was under the influence of– Not at that time. Of joy, man. He was under the impression that this is the correct response to what’s up. And I don’t know if we ever talked about it. I don’t know 100% that he didn’t do it for effect but we never discussed it. There were a lot of things about Gregg that we didn’t wanna pull back the curtain. Just let him be Gregg. Yeah it’s like it’s better to just take it at face value. Yeah. Just like whenever we’d talk about studying and he’d say, “Man, you know what you know. “You don’t learn anything.” Yeah. That sounds like a sound reasoning, foundation, to not do my homework. And I think, I’ve gotten– And you fell for that a lot. I’ve gotten many tweets from people who say that they are employing Gregg’s philosophy. You know what you know. I sat down to study and then I just remember what Gregg said. I don’t think that’s great advice if your goal is to make good grades. If your goal is just to enjoy yourself while you’re in school and not really use the degree that you’re getting, then that’s good advice. I’m not using my engineering degree so it worked for me. We did a RhettandLinKast and we had Gregg call in and we had a discussion with Gregg. I don’t know if that one’s been posted to the Mythical Society. I don’t believe it has but I do remember that happening. Hmm. Okay that’s all the questions, we– Gregg with three Gs, love you man. We took some time on those questions. We’ll get to more questions next time we do an episode like this. ♪ Rec baby rec baby one two three four ♪ ♪ Rec baby rec baby one two ♪ Rec baby rec baby one. I forgot I had to give a rec so I’m like– Scrambling. Racking my brain. I was coming home, I was gonna leave for work yesterday and Christy sent me a text, she was like, we got a teenager party happening over here. Lily had a bunch of her friends over. And we’re trying to be that house where the friends come over and hang out ’cause we think that, that way we can be in the mix, you know. We can have our pulse on what’s happening and the friend group. You can have your finger on the pulse. I don’t think you get to have the pulse. Right, right. Yeah we’re not, Christy tells me to keep my distance, not to try to bop, get in there and be cool Dad. Just stay on the fringe. Right. Or be the guy who picks up stuff that they need and they wanted to roast marshmallows on our fire pit. I was like you know what, we’ve been needing to get these. And so I went to the REI and I’m recommending that you go to the REI and get, they got these fancy skewers. Oh wow. I love it when someone has thought about everything associated with something that you can just get a dumb metal version to poke your eye out with. It’s fully retractable. It’s like a pointer, it retracts in and out. How much is this? $13. Apiece? You get two of ’em. Well how many did you buy for this group of 20 kids that were at your house? Well you know me, well– You probably got four of ’em. I got two packs which is four total. And I told Lily, I was like– So they’re doing four at a time and just sitting around watching each other? Well it’s a party, man. That’s part of it, you watch. You should have gotten enough skewers for people to pack into your fire pit which I think 12 people could be in the fire pit. I told Lily– It should have been 12. I was like I think, when I brought ’em home I was like, I think you should, I was like bragging about look what I got, they’re retractable, they got the fork on the end and look, you can hold the handle and rotate your thumb and it will twist the entire thing for perfect marshmallow roasting but with these four that I’ve got, I would recommend that you choose– You didn’t even get enough for your own family. Designated roast. You didn’t even get enough for the Neals. They’re expensive, man. There’s five of you. $12. This is a, what are you gonna do when your family’s roasting marshmallows? There’s gonna be one odd person out. Everybody doesn’t need to roast. Someone’s on graham cracker duty. Somebody’s on chocolate duty. Somebody’s an assembler and some people are roasters. I make everybody do all their s’mores. Some people are better roasters than others and if you give everybody roasters, eyes are gonna be poked out. It’s all part of it. Marshmallows are gonna be burnt. One person going to the emergency room is part of your first camping trip. It’s a rite of passage. I found an awesome thing and I ain’t buying too many. So you’re recommending this but– Yeah, four man. I’ll add a rec to the rec, I think you should get one per family member. Then if I had to, there are two in a pack, so I would have had one extra. That’s wasteful. Give it to Jade. Or it’s back-up for when one breaks. They sound like they’ve got a lot of moving parts. I’m the designated roaster. Well then you only need one. Two hands, two back-ups. So is this an official REI brand thing or you just can get it at REI? You just get it at REI. You can’t get it at the grocery store which is where I was gonna go until Jenna told me to go to Ralphs. This is Jenna’s rec. Ralphs? REI. REI. I was gonna go to Ralphs. But you got– But she recommended REI. Did you get the marshmallows at Ralphs or did you get marshmallows at REI as well? I didn’t get marshmallows. They already had ’em. Oh. You’re welcome. There you go. Home is where the heart is and your home in your ears is with us. #EarBiscuits, let us know what makes a home a home to you, homie. And we’ll be right back here again next week. To watch more Ear Biscuits, click on the playlist on the right. To watch the previous episode of Ear Biscuits, click on the playlist to the left. And don’t forget to click on the circular icon to subscribe. If you prefer to listen to this podcast, it’s available on all your favorite podcast platforms. Thanks for being your Mythical best.