Welcome to Ear Biscuits. I’m Link. And I’m Rhett. This week at the round table of dim lighting we are going to be catching you and one another up on our Thanksgiving break. I’m thankful. I’m thankful to be here with you, Rhett. Thankful to be back. I’m thankful that you are listening, you who are listening. Man, what if you’re drivin’, you’re joggin’, sometimes I just like to think about what people are doing. Somebody’s on the elliptical ’cause I tend to do a lotta podcast listening on the elliptical. You know, when we were recently do our little tour and we would both go to the gym together. Well, we wouldn’t go to the gym together. We would go to the gym at the same time. We were like ships passing in the night. You would do your gym thing and I would do my gym thing and I noticed, you know I came up to you and actually I came up to you and told you that I’d just seen J.J. Redick on the elevator and didn’t say anything to him because I didn’t realize it was him at first and I kinda froze and then he got off. Uh huh. You, my friend, were on the treadmill, not the elliptical. Yep. Now, I do the elliptical because it’s low impact, right, so you don’t have to worry about any sorta knee, back, all those things. What’s your treadmill thing? My treadmill thing? Well, I’m a little intimidated by the elliptical. I don’t know. I’ve never done the elliptical. The only elliptical. We have an elliptical. We owned an elliptical. Yeah, I remember, back when we were in like the Lillington basement, Rhett shows up one day, he was like, I’m doin’ it, man. I’m ordering an elliptical. And there’s actually an episode of the Rhett and Link Cast Live where we. Great show. Where we were talking about the fact that you had just gotten this elliptical and I think the elliptical was like on the set and I might have used it during that show and I never used it after that. I’m not gonna say you didn’t use it after that either, but you didn’t use it after that either. I used it more than you did. I don’t know, somethin’ about it intimidates me and there’s no. I did 45 minutes on the elliptical just this mornin’. I just did like, well. I listened to what I’m going to wreck at the end of this podcast. Okay. ‘Cause it was exactly that length. Another podcast? Uh huh. That’s dangerous, man. You start to recommend another podcast. They barely listen to this one. You get podcasts in people’s blood, you wanna keep it in their blood, even if it’s other podcasts. That’s my theory. We should be secure enough in what we’re doing here that people can take it or leave it. I am. But, to answer your question, I don’t really have, I mean, I don’t get on a treadmill, much less an elliptical, in my normal workout. That’s not a part of what I do at my gym. I don’t do it when I’m with my trainer. I only do it when I’m trying to get extra cardio. I just, yeah, I just did it as a warm up, but there’s like a screen and you can put. A hike in there. You can put like you’re runnin’ in Rice Canyon. You can run on the elliptical as well. Oh, you can? It’s the same, it’s literally the same except one is like super low impact. And you know what? I’m nervous the whole time, especially when you came up to me and you scared me. All of a sudden outta nowhere you were like, hey, in my ear. But, the other thing is with the elliptical the things you’re holding onto with your hands are monitoring your heart in the moment and giving you feedback, giving you the accurate calorie counts. Yeah, ’cause I don’t hold on to that railing when I’m running. I see no advantage to the treadmill unless I’m missing something. I mean, you maybe look cooler. Did I look cool? No, you didn’t. Okay, well then there’s not that. But, I mean, maybe people in general do. Can I make a observation? I’m also nervous that I’m gonna fall off the elliptical and face plant. So, I said elliptical, but I meant treadmill. I should be on the elliptical. I’m intimidated by the treadmill. Well, next time I’m at a gym I’m gonna get on the elliptical. Can I make an observation? Come join you on the elliptical, me and you on one elliptical? Sure, I bet you we could do it. That’ll draw attention. Do that. What if I showed up at your gym and like, we literally did everything in tandem. It’d be tough for two men to be on an elliptical, but I’m sure we could do it. Okay. Let me make an observation. Hey, by the way, let’s make a note of that. Before we forget, I just wanna make a mental note to add that to the list. You know, we’ve got a running list. You know what I’m talkin’ about. I was already thinkin’ it. We’re gonna go to your gym and we’re gonna see. It’s not 2020 yet, but I have, I’m thinking that maybe in 2020, on the podcast I’m gonna stop wearing headphones. Thanks for noticing. It’s hard to notice ’cause your hair is so, I mean, they could’ve been hiding in there. But, I’m gonna make an observation. You are talking so much louder than you would be if you were just having a conversation with me. Really? It makes me think that I must be talking more quietly than I normally do because I don’t ever think that you’re talking loudly, but like, you’re talking louder than a normal person would talk to a person this close to them and it’s because you have headphones on. And it’s weird because it actually, it really pumps into your ears. I actually, yeah, I would’ve put money on that I’m talking more quietly. Am I talking more quietly than I normally do, Keiko? ‘Cause I’m listening to you through the headphones. I’m hearing you. I feel like I’m talking louder in order to keep up with you. I’ve turned my volume down. ‘Cause I was just thinkin’ maybe I’m gonna do no headphones because I don’t really need ’em. I know how to stay close to the mic. I use my extra long beard as whiskers and it makes contact with it. I know how close I am to it. All right, so if I’m talking at the volume that I would normally talk. You know, this is Link volume at the beginning of a podcast. It’s a little louder than how I’ll be later. You don’t sound too loud in general. Someone who’s listening right now wouldn’t think anything of it. But, I’m just saying, if we were just having a conversation and you are 24 inches from me, you wouldn’t be talkin’ this loud. Well, I took my headphones off. Now, you’re talking quietly. Now you’re talking normally. I’m talking quieter. Yes, definitely. Because you were talking like this. I tend to use the treadmill. I am intimidated by the elliptical. Keep talking. And now, this is, I mean, I’m just talking normally. Well, you’re definitely louder in my ears when I have the headphones on than when I take ’em off. Uh huh. But. Oh, I know you wanna keep those headphones on. I actually don’t know. Really? I don’t. I mean, as long as Keiko has headphones on and can monitor everything, make sure that nothing goes wrong. I mean, we have this mentality that we’re, back in the day it was just us. Nobody was listening to us, so we had to know if somethin’ went wrong. All right fine, I’ll take ’em off. But, listen. Let your hair breathe. The real reason we’re doin’ this is somethin’ to do with your hair. Well, I actually feel more free without ’em on, but yeah, it’s like because I have so much hair now, it does create this problem that then I have to try to correct. Why take the extra time if it’s not doing anything for me? All right, I’m goin’ raw, guys. We’re gonna give it a shot. See, I think later in this episode, when I talk about what happened to me over Thanksgiving, I think I’m gonna get more introspective. I think I’m probably gonna get a little quieter. But, as long as you remain close to the microphone. As long as I remain close to the microphone it’ll be fine. What you don’t wanna do is go back here. As long as I’m not, I don’t do that. I’m a pro, I’m a professional. I mean, sometimes I might go back here for effect, like ha, ha, ha, ha, real effect, and then I come back close like this ’cause I’m also a professional. All right, let’s just see how this goes. See, Keiko’s over there adjusting knobs. Are you making me hotter? ‘Cause yeah, I am talking quieter. Yeah, uh huh. Now that I’ve taken. See, I would’ve thought it would’ve been the opposite. Why do I talk louder with the headphones on? I don’t know and I don’t know if I also do. Let me see. I guess I gotta do it now. Well, you gotta really put yourself. Man, there’s cords. In a neutral place. Don’ overthink it, just start talking. So, right now I’m just talking normally. No, you’re quieter. If I was having a conversation with you, okay, maybe if I’m emphasizing a point I would be like okay, I’m making a point now. Keep talking. I’m making a point now and now I feel like I don’t know, maybe I talk the same exact level. I feel like I’m talking the same exact level that I was. Yeah, that’s because it’s not a blind experiment. You’re biased. No, but I’m trying to respond to what I was just hearing. That’s not how science works. No, I’m responding to, I’m putting myself into the mood that I’ve been in for years with these things on. It’s inconclusive. That’s all I’m saying. Well, what is conclusive is that you talk louder when they’re on. Well, they’re off. I don’t wanna talk louder. I’ll tell you somethin’ else that’s conclusive. You messed up your hair. Yeah, see what I gotta do now? You didn’t mess it up. It’s constantly messed up. No, no, if I kept it on for longer, and honestly, that’s not the primary reason. I just sat down and I looked into the monitor and I was like, we don’t need headphones. We don’t need ’em. Until we realize we do. You know what? Let’s move on ’cause I got a milestone that happened to me this morning, I wanna share it. Okay. And then, at the end maybe we can come back and say, you know what, this is good. This morning marks a moment in my life, a culmination of a project that I’ve been investing myself in for months, over six months of investment has led up to this morning and what happened. Okay. And, I’m extremely proud of myself. I finally achieved it. My daughter drove herself and her brother to school themselves, herself. That’s right, my daughter, Lily, 16 years old, has a bonafide driver’s license. She got in a car. Her brother, Lincoln, got in the passenger seat and they drove to school and I didn’t take ’em, Christy didn’t take ’em and no one had to come back with the car because she drove it. She parked it. She got out of it and she walked into school. I’m so proud of myself. It took a lotta work. This was not easy. Now, I know that you had resistance initially, in this, the same resistance that I am currently experiencing, which is. Way to go, me. It’s a different time, right? And LA is also different than where we grew up, but it has been difficult to get our kids. I cannot get Lock, who will be 16 in February, I cannot get him to begin Driver’s Ed. Oh, gosh. Yeah, and he could’ve, I think at 14 and a half you can start takin’ the class. So, by 15 you’re eligible to get your learner’s permit and you have to have it a certain amount of time. And I’m the only person in my family who is an advocate for this. For some reason Lock doesn’t care ’cause he takes Uber. Lily was not motivated, but I was very motivated. I mean, I got two more kids in the house. And, I’m not the one doin’ most of the runnin’ around. Christy would be like, I feel like I’m a taxi driver. She would make that complaint and I would get it. ‘Cause I mean, even on the weekends or when I would get home it would be, you gotta pick up this kid from here and you gotta take this kid here. Yeah, it’s bull crap. And we didn’t do the hop, skip and Uber thing that you did, so we never got into that because it was wasn’t for our family, okay, whatever. So, we were takin’ ’em around. It’s like, I gotta stay on it. But, she wasn’t motivated. She’s got a friend who I heard her friend say it herself. She’s like, at this point, I’m just waiting until I turn 18 to get my license because at that point you can just get a license and there’s no restrictions on it. You don’t have to go through all the rigamarole. I just don’t understand that. Freedom, automobile represents freedom. I know, and I had a really hard time, I was not successful at giving Lily, to transfer any excitement, any vision for that freedom that we experienced when we turned 16. We’re just chompin’ at the bit. I mean, in October, when you turned 16. I was at the DMV on my birthday. Oh my gosh, man, and I was waitin’ for you, you came to my house and picked me up and we just rode nowhere. It was wonderful. The only thing that I thought about for months. Yeah, and we just drove around. The idea that it’s not a priority, again, I know it’s a different time. I’ve heard this from many parents, they’re having trouble with their kids, getting their kids to care about, even kids back in North Carolina. Yeah, it’s not just an LA thing and you easily just reduce it to like, well, it’s the screens. And I think there is a level of connectivity that defrays the need to get in the car and meet up with people or show up places because you’re constantly into each other’s feeds, so you’re constantly in each other’s faces or you’re constantly in each other’s video game thingies. Video game thingies. But, even once we got in the car and we started driving around and realized we had nowhere to go, we weren’t complaining. We were reveling in just driving nowhere for hours listening to tapes and I never really transferred that passion to Lily. I just started to institute. What do you mean trans, you can’t. That’s not how it works. No, I just started instituting levels of bribery and control. Yeah, there’s many ultimatums that I’ve made. Once you wouldn’t be able to drive yourself somewhere, at that point you’re responsible for getting there and that means financially, too. You know, that’s what I’ve said. Okay. I think this is where you shot yourself in the foot because among many other things, like I said, bribery, if you make it, you gotta do like a 40 or 50 hour course and then pass the test before you can get your learner’s permit. Then you gotta go to the DMV. It’s never simple at any point in the process. But, because we never did the Uber or there was never any way for our kids to get anywhere unless we took ’em, and so I started to say, when Lily would say, I need to go here or I need to pick up a friend or I have to show up for this thing or can you pick me up here, I would be like, no, but I will point out, if you had your license you could do this. So, she started to feel the pain of not being able to do some things that she wanted to do. It didn’t happen a lot, but it did happen some. So, you don’t have that card to play because of the Uber thing. He’s not gonna pay, he doesn’t have any money to pay for it. Okay, so you just, then that does work. He might be able to go what, one place. Have you been doin’ that? No, I said when it, I’m gonna, I don’t know what the timeline is. Right now. For when it’s like, okay now at this point I’m not taking you to this place and if you wanna go you have to pay for it. Now. Okay, I have to get my wife onboard with this. Here’s the thing. I don’t know how your wife thought about this. My wife is so concerned about their safety that she’s like, you know, I don’t know if I want him driving in LA. Like, what, he’s gonna drive in Los Angeles at some point. Yeah, but the thing that Christy told me was, she was like, well, when she does get her license she can’t drive that Sion, she’s gotta get a car with a backup camera. And I’m like, backup camera? I backed up, if you look at all the times I’ve backed up over the years, you could back up around the moon twice in the amount of times I’ve backed up and I never once had a camera. It’s questionable, but you backed up a lot. Never once had a camera. In fact, you should learn to back up without the camera before you start using the camera. ‘Cause I can tell you right now. Cameras sometimes it doesn’t work. Sometimes it’s raining and it gets blurry, it gets foggy. You gotta know how to back up a car without the camera. In fact, if you give your kid a car that’s got a backup camera. You’re handicappin’ ’em. At the beginning you need to put tape over that backup camera. Put tape over the backup camera until they prove that they can back up and then take it off. Like Stevie’s webcam? Stevie puts a Post-It note over a webcam. Right. Now, I am exclusively reliant upon the backup camera. I mean, I can back up like at 78 miles per hour. Like a grandma. You can back 70? I come down my driveway, you know my driveway’s kinda steep and nuts. Yeah, you don’t give it a bit of gas and you’re going, you’re accelerating like a rocket. Put the pedal to the metal going downhill backwards. Man, if there was a trashcan down there you would obliterate it. So, why was today the first day that she drove? She’s had her license. She hasn’t wanted to? She’s had her license for a few months and she’s been well, to park at school, it’s all curb parking and they do not teach curb parking, they do not require parallel parking or curb parking as part of the driving test. Yeah. So, I had to take her out and start teaching her to park on the curb to prepare her, give her the confidence to park and go to school. There’s no parking lot. It’s just street parking. So, I took her out and first of all, I never tell her, I’m just like, we’re going for a drive. And then, I’m like okay, I want you to park here. It’s like, dad, I don’t know how to parallel park. It’s like, exactly. Now we’re gonna do it. Kids man. It’s like, why do they say things like that? Dad, I don’t know how to parallel park. Why the hell do you think we’re here? And are you okay with just continuing on in your inability? I don’t understand. I don’t think that we were like that. That firm. Kids, these days. And that is the reason why I was the one doin’ it and not Christy ’cause Christy, she doesn’t want to fuel Lily’s anxiety as she’s learning, but I’m like, I’m kinda fed up so I’m very firm. But, she responded positively and she parallel parked. I mean, we did it you know, 10 times. And then, I was like, okay now you can drive to school. She’s like, I don’t feel comfortable. So then, before the break every day that I could I would ride with her to school and tell her where to park and I would just be there to guide her through it. But, we basically found a way, a place where she could park on the curb and be the last car so she wouldn’t have to do the parallel parking thing. So, we found that and we did that for a few days. So yesterday, she was parking, getting outta the car and I was gettin’ in and driving the car back. There was a couple of weeks of that. Did she know that today was the day? Yesterday she knew that, yeah. And she did it and I was, I wasn’t totally ready. I was in the shower and I was like, oh man, she’s about to leave for school and I don’t want Christy to take her. I wanna make sure that she goes, so I put a towel around my waist and I got outta the shower and I run downstairs as she’s yelling at Lincoln, we gotta go, it’s time to go, which is every morning. And they, so then I met ’em in my front yard. I’m wearing nothin’ but a towel and I’m like, you can do this. You can park. You can go to school on your own. Let’s take a photo. She refused the photo. Smart girl. But, I’m very proud of Lily. She did, I am proud of myself, but I’m proud of her, too, because she responded. And you know what? She’s startin’ to get it. Right when we got back from Thanksgiving break, we’re driving back from the airport, she’s like, when we get home I’m gonna go see a friend of mine. Yeah, exactly. I’m like, yes, you go girl, you do that. It’s not just freedom. I mean, first of all, it’s illogical because you are going to need to drive at some point, right? And so, the more experience you have. Most people are going to need to drive and the more experience you have under your belt the better you will be at things. It’s just like starting something earlier, when you go back and like, ah, I wish I had taken up skiing before I was 25 years old because you start doing things that involve coordination on some level. The younger you start the better you are for the rest of your life. Yeah, like learning Japanese. Not exactly, but similar. But then, the freedom isn’t just for them, it’s for you, the parent as well. It’s mostly about me. I mean, I think I made that abundantly clear. I don’t know what it is. I know that our wives have a significantly higher tolerance for just doing things for the kids than we do, but I’m just like, Jessie, doesn’t it just frustrate the pure hell outta you that you have to stop doing something and take the kids somewhere? I mean, for me, I guess I’m more selfish. I’m just like, no, I don’t wanna take you anywhere right now. Right. I’m doing exactly what I wanna do. But, the selfishness lines up ’cause don’t you wanna just go? It’s a beautiful thing when selfishness lines up as a family. I mean, I gotta re-evaluate, man. I gotta get my wife onboard. It did open up another phenomena because she went to her friend’s house that night and then, we’re exhausted because of the time change, and I texted her and I was like, when are you comin’ back? And she was like, I don’t know. And I was like, well, Jade’s been confused ’cause you know I went and picked up Jade from your house, thank you for gettin’ Jade from the place, so I wouldn’t have to wait until the next day to get Jade from the place, from the kennel, the non-kennel kennel. I really appreciate that. That’s bein’ a good friend, gettin’ my dog. It was pretty easy. I was like, Jade hasn’t located you so she’s anxious, she’s worried so you need to come on back home. She goes, well, I can come back in 10 minutes or I can come back right now. It actually worked, but then I realized I went down and I took Jade and we were in her bed waiting for her to get back, just sittin’ on her bed. And so, it was now we’ve moved to the waiting up phase of kiddom and I didn’t think I’d be that guy, the waiting up for you to get home before I go to sleep parent. But, I kinda did it for Christy because Christy was exhausted and she was like, when’s Lily coming back and I know that she would want one of us to stay up, so I kinda did it for Christy. I kinda did it for me, though. So, I don’t know if this is a new thing. It doesn’t sound selfish, it’s weird. I was waiting up for my child to get home. Yeah. I do think that there, I do think we probably apply different standards to how much you worry about Lily being out late as a girl versus Lock being out late as a guy. But, there definitely have been times when Jessie and I have gone to sleep and he’s not back yet. But, it’s part of the plan. Yeah. Does he wake you up when he comes home? He’s like hey, I’m, back. We tend to not be very plan-oriented in the McLaughlin household. He doesn’t have a curfew? Yeah, he can’t stay out until whenever. We know what he’s doing and where he’s going and I can locate him with my phone or whatever, but it’s kinda like I know who you’re with and what you’re doing and there’s a general sort of expectation at when you’ll be back. It isn’t like oh, it’s 1 a.m., I’m back. And it’s not a normal thing. I’m just saying there have been times when we just go to bed and it’s like all right, we know where he’s at. He’s coming home, he’s not spending the night at this house. I’m not saying it’s wise, I’m just saying that we tend to not be real concerned. Okay, no judgment. I’m just thinkin’ I don’t know if that’s where I’m headed next. We haven’t even gotten into our Thanksgiving stuff, so we should do that. We will do that in a second, but first we’re going to encourage you to go to mythical.com and pick up things that you might like. We got that, what are we callin’ the green hoodie? Green wash. Green wash. Is it like a tie dye thing? It’s green, black. It says what on it? Mythical, GMM. I mean, I have seen it, there’s just a lot of things over there. You know how stuff sells out, so get on over there to mythical.com, check it out. Check out all the other stuff. And, you know what? When we do weird things to sweatshirts you guys buy them. And so I don’t know. You like weird things done to sweatshirts, so we’ll keep doin’ it. Maybe. Until we’re tired of it. Until you’re tired of it. We’ll keep you guessin’ though at the same time. Mythical.com. Okay, let’s talk about Thanksgiving. We had pretty different Thanksgivings because you went back to North Carolina, saw family and I did not and I actually, on the complete opposite end of the spectrum, I had people at my house that I’d never met before. Yeah. For Thanksgiving. How did that happen? It was just people walking by, I invited them in. You told me you were gonna fry two turkeys. There’s a woman that walks backwards up the hill. I was like, come on in and tell me why you do that, it’s crazy. Are you? What? Have you ever seen these people who walk backwards? What are you talkin’ about? There is a thing that people do and I think that there’s probably a story behind it. There are more than a few people who walk backwards. Up hills? Some people walk backwards in general, but people, in fact, there’s a person, she hasn’t done it recently, but Kelly Oxford, writer, film maker, she on her Instagram used to show this dude who was walking backwards everywhere and it was just flat surface, walking flat. I haven’t seen that, but there’s at least two people in my neighborhood who walk backwards, but they’re always doing it uphill. I don’t know if they’re like, I feel safe ’cause if I start falling I can catch. I don’t know what it is, but I saw a woman this morning walking backwards. There are two people in your neighborhood who walk backwards uphill. At least two. And I don’t know if one started and the other one said, this is a good idea. I think this is a thing. I think there’s a philosophy to it, to walking backwards uphill. I can’t come up with what that might be. But, it was really just a joke because I didn’t invite her in. Those weren’t the people that I invited. It was just people who came with friends. I think it might be a physiological pain thing, like a knee or ankle thing. It doesn’t hurt my knee when I walk backwards. Yeah, I’m sure we can figure it out. Are they older people? But, not now. Over 40, which is me, I guess I’m old. Well, and you told me that you were frying two turkeys. Three. And I was a little worried about that. Three? Yeah, triple turkey. Triple turkey. Triple turkey. So, you must have invited a lot of strangers to your house. Well, it’s a little complicated. I assume that it’s just people Jessie knew that you didn’t know. No, no, no, no. There were two people who neither of us had ever met. Isn’t this what you said last year that you didn’t wanna do this year? I probably did. I say a lotta things. You were talking about Thanksgiving last year. I don’t like that my kids stay out whenever they want to. Bunch of people and you were like, you know, I think I’ll do it differently. Well, here’s what I’ll say. You weren’t at that Thanksgiving last year, right? Nope, I was at home. I feel like I was playing cards at a gas station. I feel like I can speak more freely about last year’s Thanksgiving now that we’re a year out from it. So, one of my friends invited a lot of people to a Thanksgiving celebration, a friendsgiving, if you will, but it wasn’t really a friendsgiving because it was the majority of the people who were there I felt like I didn’t know, or at least half. I can’t really remember, but a lotta people I didn’t know and I didn’t really mind it, but the thing that really was a problem was that they had gotten this guy who was a chef to make all the food and it was like, the expectations were really, really high, but then he just did a really LA sort of approach to things. He did a dressing that is best described as a deconstructed dressing. It was kinda like pieces of bread that. This is all recap. I know, but I feel like it’s a setup for why I did things the way I did ’em this year. Okay. And I did not, this is all new information ’cause I didn’t talk crap about the food. I’m doing that a year later. Oh. There were some vegan friends of mine who brought a bunch of vegan desserts. There wasn’t even a fricking pumpkin pie that wasn’t, there was no butter in any of the desserts. It’s just like, listen y’all, Thanksgiving, if just a couple of times a year you’re gonna let it all hang out, let it all hang out. Unzip it, unbutton it, unfurl it. I get it, if you’re a vegan you’re not gonna put butter in something, but if you’re not a vegan, put butter in it and put a lot of butter and a lot of sugar and get it to taste good. Let that be the goal. So, you were focused on a traditional, sugar and butter first, menu. There was so much butter and so much sugar. And fried turkey. And a lotta meat. So, yeah, I deep fried three turkeys and the reason I did three turkeys is because when our friend, Jenny, found out that I was deep frying turkeys, she said, do you mind if I bring by just a turkey breast and you can fry that, too, for my leftovers? I love her. And I was like, of course, I don’t mind. Okay, so you’re counting her turkey breast as, you got the vat, it’s hot, you might as well dunk another. Right, it was like, and I was almost like, you know what? I’ll start with your turkey breast because that’ll be, it’s a little bit of a guinea pig. It wasn’t a guinea pig, it was a turkey, but it would be like my test turkey. And she was funny ’cause she was like, my dad has this tradition of completely cooking a separate turkey breast and that is your leftovers, so there’s not a lot of pressure on the main turkey to be left over. Eat it all. Then you have this completely like prime turkey breast that’s ready to go. And she was like, and can you put this poultry magic rub on it? She gave me the rub. She brought me the turkey breast and the rub. I was like, sure, no problem. But, with the other two, and she got, it was like a Butterball turkey. It was a turkey that was nice and packaged, turkey breast nice and packaged. It comes with, it’s already got a sodium and sugar solution in it, so you don’t need to brine it. But of course, my wife gets the Heritage Farm organic never frozen turkey that’s been, this turkey’s been massaged. This turkey’s probably taken calculus classes to get ready for this moment and these turkeys were like $85 a piece for a 13 pound turkey, just to put things into perspective. These were some expensive assed turkeys. And it wasn’t a bigger turkey ’cause the well treated turkeys are smaller. Right, they don’t have those giant antibiotic breasts. They’re just like pulsating, ready to be eaten. These are like a little more natural. These turkeys have, they’ve run around the yard a little bit. So, I was like, I gotta get this right. These are some expensive turkeys. And I did two turkeys because I did the whole, you roughly do a pound per person and you’re gonna get leftovers with that and I was like, you know what? I want a lotta leftovers and I want ’em, if one turkey turns out better than the other, give me two turkeys. So, I did the brining. I brined it two days ahead of time. I did the rub and I did all this homemade and I followed the Pioneer Woman’s recipe. Me and the Pioneer Woman are like this. Pioneer Woman. She did a television show, didn’t she? Yeah, and so I followed her brining recipe and her rubbing recipe and then I injected. I had my way with these turkeys. I rubbed ’em, I injected ’em, I brined ’em. I’m beginning to understand why you invited strangers over. I spent way too much time with those turkeys. You can get away with more bragging when people don’t know you that well, they’ll sit and listen to you brag about what you did to your turkeys for hours. No, I actually had a lot of self-deprecating talk about the turkeys because I was nervous about ’em. Because, what is the one thing that everyone’s worried about with turkey? What is the one thing that people like you ham men complain about? You don’t want a dry turkey. It’s too dry. And, my theory is that it isn’t that people don’t like turkey. It’s that people don’t like dry turkey and that most people and a lot of people who do not like turkey have been deprived of adequately moist turkey and therefore, they’ve come to wrong conclusions about turkeys. It isn’t actually dry if you do it right. So, I’m deep frying these things. I haven’t done that in like 15 years, one time Chris and I did it back in North Carolina, but it was different. I got the electric fryer, so I didn’t do the whole gas situation. I read the statistic that 4300 people a year burn their homes down frying, deep frying turkeys, which sounds like a made up stat, but I saw it on many websites, so it must be true. So, this is basically like a giant deep fryer that has a lid and everything. Got the oil, peanut oil, put it in there. It’s all about gettin’ the right level on that oil. Well, they make it easy. There’s a min line and a max line and it basically said if your turkey is a certain size or certain pounds, if you put it at the max line it’ll be covered, so I did that and it was fine. Finished that first turkey. It looked great. Did the second one and the third one. It was not easy to hold, get the temperature anyway, I was a little bit worried ’cause I thought I went a little too long. But, boy the turkey talk started as soon as people started biting into those breasts. And of course, I had, I did dark meat and white meat on the platter, dark meat on one side, white meat and I did the whole thing. Me and Nick, we sat there and we trimmed it. We took all the meat off. Do you have an electric cutter? Jenny, the way that she paid for her turkey is she let me use her electric knife. And so, I cut it up. It had a little bit of the brine flavor was coming through ’cause I put some orange peel in there, only because the Pioneer Woman wanted me to and I do whatever she says. She’d strangle a wolf. Yeah, all I can say is the turkey was a success and I’m very proud of myself. I mean, it was the moistest breast this side of the Mississippi. I’m sure east of the Mississippi there was some very moist breasts because the people in the south can really cook. The Pioneer Woman is west of the Mississippi as well. Is she on the Plains? Yeah, she’s cookin’ up a turkey this year. And Jessie was like, well, you’re in trouble now because you’ve gotta do that again. You have to do this every year. That we’re here because you’ve shown that you can. Like living, like above the ground. The problem, it took so much time. In fact, I actually had this whole idea that I was going to Instagram this process. I had a whole character, Terry and his Turkey Tutorials, I had a whole character. I had a pair of glasses, a whole thing that I was gonna do. And as soon as I got into looking at the directions, I was like, oh gosh, I don’t have the ability to be entertaining and do this right. Maybe next year, Terry and his Turkey Tutorials will be back, will be there for the first time, because now I understand what I’m up against. Turkey Terry had to tarry until 2020. But, it was a success. But, the phenomenon of, and just so you know, I’m gonna talk about my Thanksgiving and then I’m gonna hand it over to Link and he’s gonna talk all about his Thanksgiving, so I’m not intentionally hogging the conversation. We have a plan. Don’t bring a hog into this. Keep your turkey. You did have a hog on your Thanksgiving, I assume. But, you didn’t have, man I should’ve kept some of that breast behind for you so you could see how moist it is. But anyway, having people. I’m a ham man. I wasn’t particularly, I like to save the ham for Christmas. That’s the thing. I’m a Christmas ham and they’re so close together, the holidays are so close together, they’re like a month apart, so I feel like ham, ham. Can a ham man have too much ham? I feel like they can. I don’t. I wasn’t super excited about having people that I didn’t know because I tend to be a hermit and a loner and I’m the kinda guy that when there’s a bunch of people in my house I go upstairs for a little bit. I’m that guy. But my wife is my wife, as you know, and she’s the most welcoming and hospitable person on the face of the planet and will talk to a stranger into like 4 a.m. And so, I was like, no, this is good. This, meaning what? Having people that I don’t know. It’s great. Well, how do people you don’t know show up? They knew people that I do know. So okay, it’s like bring other people. It’s like, hey. We’re in LA. You invite one, you invite this one family and they’re like, we were gonna get together with so and so, can we bring them? Oh, and she was gonna bring so and so and he might bring so and so. It’s the chain effect. Yeah. And we were like, sure. Must have been 18 people, whatever. But, it was great. And the thing that, it was nice getting to know new people, but it also created this dynamic where we had not planned on, what are we doing? We knew what time we were gonna eat approximate. Of course, we ate later than that. We were eatin’ kinda late. We were eating at 6 o’clock. So all right, what about Thanksgiving night? How long are people gonna stay? People with kids kinda started peelin’ off, peelin’ out. And then, a few people stayed and we were like, let’s watch a movie. And I don’t know who suggested it. Somehow we decided that we were gonna watch Footloose. Footloose. Footloose, Kevin Bacon, 1984, I guess. Have you seen that? I’m an American, yes. I have not seen that. Sounds painful. It’s like your foot’s loose. Is this a medical drama? God, my foot’s loose. Must be with the ankle, I don’t know. I haven’t seen Footloose since that wave in the ’80s where most people were watching Footloose, so I kinda knew, I’ve seen it. I know about the famous speech to the City Council and stuff like that that you see on YouTube and that kinda thing. And of course, the dances. I know about the dances in socks. That’s really at the beginning. In fact, most of that close foot action. Or is that Tom, is Tom Cruz in that? No, you’re thinkin’ about Risky Business probably where he’s dancing with just a shirt. Do you know that John Lithgow is in, he plays the pastor. Because the story of Footloose is that this sort of super conservative Midwestern town, which I actually thought was really interesting in light of Bleak Creek, and this story, I didn’t think about Footloose one time when we were writing Bleak Creek. You know I didn’t. Because you’ve got this super conservative town where the pastor has a lotta control. He won’t let ’em dance? And you can’t dance. Oh. And Kevin Bacon comes in, new kid from outta town and of course, dancin’ is his thing. And it’s a story of him tryin’ to get the town to dance. That’s a Thanksgiving movie. Now, it isn’t a Thanksgiving movie, right, but I discovered something that I’ve never heard anybody point out. I almost tweeted it, but then, that takes a little more effort. Turkey Terry didn’t feel like tweeting. At the end of the movie, spoiler alert, there’s a dance. The town gets to dance. At the dance the camera is moving across the spread of food that’s at the dance and the food at the dance is unlike any food at any dance there has ever been ’cause it’s like whole baked pies and cakes. Thanksgiving. And then, as the camera tilts up and you see in the background at the end of the table, a turkey. There is a turkey on the table. It’s Thanksgiving. It’s a Thanksgiving movie, but it’s not Thanksgiving. It’s just their dance. And I was like, has anybody ever noticed this before? There’s a turkey. And then, I thought about pausing it and rewinding it to make sure that it was a turkey, but then I was like, what if I rewind and it’s not a turkey? That’ll ruin it for me. Plus, there’s strangers watching. Turkey Terry. Who’s this guy pausing the movie at the end and rewinding it? It was funny though, ’cause it’s one of those things, it’s one of those things that happens that feels like a glitch in the matrix because Turkey Terry has spent all this time on the turkeys, getting the turkeys just right. He’s seein’ turkeys everywhere. And then, all of a sudden he’s watchin’ Footloose and there’s a turkey on the table. What are the chances? This is a glitch in the matrix. 100%. And I want that glitch to remain and I do think that it’s true that there is a turkey on the table. There’s pies on the table and there’s a large, brown baked bird at the end of the table. It’s Thanksgiving. So, Footloose is a Thanksgiving movie and you know what? Shepherd watched it with me, watched it with us ’cause Jessie and I and then whoever else was left and he was into it. We learned things. Kevin Bacon, Kevin Bacon has really held up. You know the thing that you do now when you watch movies and you’re looking at an actor and you’re like, it’s 1984, how old was he then? How old is he now? And then you start looking at modern pictures of people. Same. You start seeing how the actors in the movie have aged and you find out, oh, Chris Penn, Sean Penn’s brother, who plays his friend, he’s dead. He died in 2006. Oh, that’s sad. And then, you’re like what does Kevin Bacon look like? Whoa, Kevin Bacon looks good. What has Kevin Bacon been doing to look so good? Not eatin’ bacon, I’ll tell you that. Dancin’. Dancin’. So, and then that. Do you wanna hear about my Thanksgiving? Yeah, the only, the last thing I’ll say is that watching a movie on Thanksgiving night opened up the floodgates and ended up seeing more movies in a shorter period of time. We went to the theater twice, saw Knives Out, highly recommend it. And then, I already told you about this, saw Ford vs. Ferrari, which is the ratio of how much I wanted to see a movie to how good it was. I didn’t want to see that movie at all. It’s like a racing movie, I don’t care. Ford vs. Ferrari, you gotta see it. It’s a great movie. Don’t make that face. Have you seen it? You need to see it because of course, it’s got great actors in it, but it’s just a really compelling story. My kids loved it. I loved it. Jo Jo Rabbit is the best movie of the year so far. We already talked about that. But, I saw that before Thanksgiving. What about your Thanksgiving, Neil? I didn’t have, I didn’t have a turkey. I mean, I’m tryin’ not to, you know what? I’m gonna try and make this introspective and not a downer, but I think the spoiler is some downer elements to my Thanksgiving. So, it’s not bright eyed and bushy tailed like your Footloose Turkey Terry shenanigans. Footloose and fancy free. We didn’t have, you know, we went to my nanny’s house. It’s like, she and Aunt Vickie, we didn’t wanna burden them and have ’em make food. So Nanny, she’s not able to make her signature dressing that, that dressing that we would get that like, slather that gravy on it every year. I grew up eatin’ that. It was like the perfect Thanksgiving dressing. Has she written the recipe down? ‘Cause that’s how, you gotta hold on to those recipes. That’s a good point. Recipes from your relatives, it’s really, really important that they write those down. That’s one of the ways that we remember Jessie’s grandmother is make those cakes that she used to make. Yeah, that’s a good point because she’s not able to make that and we didn’t wanna burden them to have to make stuff, so we brought in Bojangles. That’s a good Thanksgiving. My kids were just so excited. ‘Cause they knew we had planned this. We’re gonna get Bojangles for Thanksgiving at Nanny’s house. And so, that’s quite a silver lining. I mean, it’s not a Thanksgiving meal, but it’s Bojangles and we never get that. So, it was pretty great. But, they’re not doing well, so it’s like, and we’re talkin’ to Nanny about, she’s like, I gotta pull my will together. That’s fun table talk. So, here we are on Thanksgiving. We’re tryin’ to, we’re talkin’ about the finer points of the will, which is a very important thing to talk about and we had been talkin’ about it leading up to Thanksgiving, but since we were together in the same room we were talkin’ about it a little bit. So, it tends to be a bit of a downer talkin’ about a will, but it’s also very important. Unless you’re a lawyer. Yeah, So, that was kinda the vibe this year. There was no going to a gas station and playing cards. We had planned things out a little better, but also mom and Lewis weren’t able to show up because of Lewis’s health and actually the last time I talked about it on Ear Biscuits, I guess it was the whole episode devoted to their visit out here and how he basically almost died, right. And then, he recovered well enough that they were able to fly back home and then I remember tellin the story that when he got home he was blowin’ off his garage with the leaf blower. Good, good, good. Well, I haven’t talked about it since then, but the update there is a few days after that he had a series of strokes. You know about this, but they don’t, so I’ll just kinda bring ’em up to speed. And again, that was back in April. So, ever since April he’s been in and out of the hospital and rehab facilities in order to regain the ability to walk and gain the strength to do things. And he’s, it’s been very difficult, but right before we came back home for Thanksgiving was the first time that he came back home since April. He’s been in and out of facilities this whole time. Just when you were home? Yeah. I mean, back in July when we went home, when we were filming at Buies Creek for the Bleak Creek conversation documentary that is now on Mythical Morning, we would film there in the day and then every night I would go visit mom and Lewis in the hospital and he was, he was basically, he was on a ventilator. Ventilator may not be the right word. He had a feeding tube and he was not conscious. It was bad. He had four or five near death experiences, once leaving LA since April. And so, this was the first time seein’ him in person and he finally has gotten back home, which is great news. So, he is on a road to recovery, but they weren’t able to come to Nanny’s house. We had Thanksgiving, Bojangles at Nanny’s and then later that afternoon we went to Mom’s and saw Lewis and he’d lost 65 pounds. He looks like a totally different person. Yeah. You know, it’s like, I mean, he looked a whole lot better than he did when I saw him all swollen and in the hospital every night when I’d visit them in July. So, in a way it was difficult, but it was also very good to see him at home and know that he had just been there a few days and they were very thrilled to be there. I mean, you go, we’ve learned so much through the process. We’re just talkin’ to my mom multiple times a week and just seeing how slowly things move when you’re trying to recover like that. But, for him to be back at home was a big milestone. So, it was certainly one of the biggest headlines for us all to be grateful for seein’ him there. For his side of the family, he’s got all his siblings that he wanted to visit. So, there was a question whether he’d be able to leave the house and have enough strength to go visit. Is he walking? He can walk some, but he just, his body kinda wasted away as he was dealing with a series of infections that led to the near death experiences that I was talkin’ about. So yeah, it’s just physically gaining the strength to be able to walk, but he can stand. He can get in a wheelchair. They’re doin’ therapy at home where he’s continuing to regain strength, but he was able to go visit and be with his family when they got together on the next day. So, it was difficult going home. And then, we go to Nanna’s house and we had a big Thanksgiving spread there. It was absolutely amazing. And I remember talkin’ about our highlights of the year last year that Mom and Lewis came to that. They came to my Nanna’s house, my dad’s mom’s, I talked about that. But of course, they weren’t able to come to that. And there’s a sense of, when you only go back home, even at Nanna’s where it was a lot more positivity, it’s still like okay, there’s still, you know, it’s the second Thanksgiving without my uncle and without papaw, Nanna’s lifelong partner. So, there’s a sense of loneliness and loss that still is very much there. And I think it was important for us to be there and to talk about that, some part of it. So, it’s like, you find yourself talkin’ about those things as well and my aunt saying she felt like that this Thanksgiving was worse than the previous one because when Thanksgiving rolled around last year she was still in shock over the loss of her husband. So, in a lotta ways it was like oh, this is the new normal for us. But, you try to see it not as, I’m tryin’ to see it not as much as a downer, oh isn’t this sad, but more like, it’s sobering and it does provide an occasion for us to say what we can still be thankful for. But, it’s not easy to do that. But I do think we tried to, we tried to make the best of it. We dug out those, remember those old cornhole boards? When we did that commercial for AJJ Cornhole, not the cornhole song, but we also did a commercial for them? We shot it at your grandmother’s yard. In their yard. It’s time you play Cornhole. Cornhole gives me confidence. Well, I was going through their shed out there and I found the Cornhole set in the corn bags and they weren’t all moldy and we sat out there and played. It says AJJ Cornhole on the Cornhole. That was on ours, but apparently we got a buncha free sets and we left one at Nanna’s house. So, we’re out there playing Cornhole and havin’ a good time. But, there’s, it’s also difficult when you just go back as a family once a year, maybe twice. But, the last time we had been back as a family was last Thanksgiving. So, you go back, it’s been a whole year, everybody’s a year older and the older you are the more palpable that age piling on is, you know. It’s like sobering in that way. I got more gray every year. So then I just found myself starting to think more about man, as my relatives get older, you start to think about, what does care look like? What does care for my mom look like as she has no siblings and I have no siblings and I live out here in Los Angeles? It’s like, if it was her going through that and not Lewis, as much as I’d try to be there for her long distance over the phone and provide support, how would that be different if it was mom that was havin’ the strokes? I guess there’s a lot to plan for. It’s like, you can’t over plan for things that you don’t know exactly. You just gotta be ready for the unexpected and take it as it comes, right. But, I just couldn’t help but start to think about, as relatives, as loved ones get older, how do you start to interact with them? And there’s a lotta technicalities, like what you’re talkin’ about. You know, with your Nanny, who’s, well, she’s in her 80s, right? Yeah. And she’s getting her will stuff together now, which is, this is what a lot of people do, right, because there’s not just the will. She had one, but then you gotta update it, too. So, it’s not that she didn’t have one, but it needed to be drastically updated ’cause it had been so long. And then, there is the end of life care questions. Who’s gonna take. At this point everybody’s still kind of, no one’s by themselves ’cause your Nanny has her sister and then Lewis has your mom. Right. My parents have each other. So, it’s like, what about when they don’t? Yeah, and for that stuff, for all of that that happened to Lewis, that was so unexpected at his age, you know. Especially when you have grandparents that are living. Every year, for years we go back and say well, you kinda think in the back of your mind, it’s like, is this the last, is this the last year that you see the oldest relatives? But then, there’s the things that last year that blind sided us. And then, this year, that blind sided us with what happened to Lewis, so it’s again, I don’t have any firm conclusions. I’m trying to find, there’s still a lot to be thankful for and I think we are and I’m certainly glad that we went home, but it’s, I don’t know, it’s a reminder that as much as you can’t plan for it, there’s some things you can like havin’ your will in place and talking about it so that people know what your wishes are. I think it’s good for all of us. I know that we had to pull our wills together years ago. The younger you are the more fun it is to pull your will together ’cause it makes you feel good that you’re gettin’ it outta the way. But the older you get, it starts to feel a little bit more bleak, you know. People just don’t, I mean, a lotta people just put that stuff off. They don’t wanna have those conversations. I mean, just the conversation that you have to have, as you get to be middle age, the conversation you have to have with your parents about, it would be a conversation I would have with my parents and also my brother. You figure out, okay, what are we gonna, when it gets to a place where our parents can’t take care of themselves, what does that look like? Yeah. One of them gonna be livin’ with you, with me? Are they gonna be, are we gonna find some kinda care for them? Those are really difficult conversations to have, but you kinda, what you don’t wanna do is you don’t wanna be having to have those conversations in the midst of the crisis. Right. I sound like an insurance salesman. But, I mean it’s true, you know. You gotta have those difficult conversations. Right. But I mean, we’re stayin’ with Christy’s sister and we had a great time there. And then, it’s nice ’cause my nephew, Nehemiah, he’s like a little nut runnin’ around. So, it’s nice to have the kids in the mix. He and Lando were havin’ a great time. But yeah, it was a bit of, I don’t know, also not being there, so then, when you go back it’s like, oh wow, it’s like, everybody’s older. Ain’t nobody gettin’ younger. So, it just feels, it feels like man, you’re not an active part of your loved ones lives or you’re a much less active part of it just because of the shear distance associated with it. And it’s just the way it is. And I think at this point it’s the life that we live. It’s not unusual. It’s not wrong. But, you know what it is? It’s very unusual in the course of human history because it isn’t until very recently, like a blink of an eye in the time scale of human history where people like, what do you mean? You don’t live at the same place with your parents? Yeah. Everyone did that. And obviously, that’s still the case in a lotta cultures, but especially here. It’s the exception to the rule if you live. A lot of people are still kind of close in proximity, but a lotta people were actually in the same homes with multi-generational homes. Yeah, I don’t know. We haven’t really figured out what, like the expectation that, I think the expectation still holds that your family is gonna be responsible for your care in one sense, but that doesn’t mean what it meant for most of history, which is directly responsible for your care. It’s more like, no, no, we’re gonna get someone who’s job it is to care for old people. I mean, there’s a huge industry, right? Right. It’s just, it’s a weird thing because it wasn’t ever like that. It wasn’t oh, there are people whose job it is to come to our village and take care of the old people. No, we do that. Yeah. And I haven’t, again, I’m starting, I’ve been prompted because of this experience to think about it, but it’s not like I’ve started to figure it out. But I do know that I’m not like, well, I wouldn’t, that sounds gross, or I would never do that or passing preemptive judgment on what other people do. I know it’s gonna be complicated. But, thinking about it a little bit at a time is better than just continuing to put it off. So, I think that’s one of the applications. And I think another one is just being, I’m very grateful that we went back and that the time that we spent there was quality. It was special at each place. I remember, I choose to hang on to the moments and the memories like when I dozed off after eating all the Bojangles on the couch bed that Nanny sleeps on in the living room. And I woke up to Lando and my aunt just dying laughing because Lando was showing her how to use the face filter thingys on I don’t know if it’s Snapchat or Instagram. I don’t even use that stuff. But, she was cackling. This was her first experience with it. First experience with it. So, it’s like you eat your food, you doze off and then you wake up to that and it’s like, that’s what we’re here for. Here for those moments when. Here for those filters. You’re here for those moments when everybody can share laughing, everybody can share, yeah, we know we’re sharing the hurt of whatever it is that we’re all feeling, but then at the same time, we can also laugh at how stupid we look with these face filters on. Did, was there turkey served at Nanna’s house? Yeah. So, some people did consume turkey. But, my dad brought a pork, he had smoked a pork, a bunch of pork loins the week before for somethin’ else and he had a few more. So, he heated one of those up and that’s what I ate and it was amazing. Ham man. Got a lot to be thankful for. Yeah, I’m thankful for everything that we’ve had and the things that we don’t have anymore, I’m thankful that I once had it and there was still a lot that we did have and to be had. And carry that spirit of thankfulness through the seasons. Don’t just be thankful one day outta the year. Be thankful every day. Be thankful that another day has happened and you’re a part of it. Yeah, speaking of that, we’re gearing up for our top 10s of the year. That’s the next episode, right? The last episode of the year, the next episode yeah, we’re gonna do the top 10 best moments of each of us in 2019. Personal, professional, otherwise. What else is there? You gonna shut ’em down with a rec. I gotta rec. It’s a podcast. You might be familiar with Radiolab which is one of my favorite podcasts already. Well, Jad Ubamrad, one of the, I’m probably saying his name wrong, is one of the hosts of that show, was gonna do an episode or so about Dolly Parton. And then, when he got into the process he realized that there was a whole podcast. So now there’s a podcast called Dolly Parton’s America, which I think is still a limited series, seven or eight episodes, in right now. But, I’ve been listenin’ to it. I love it. And, it’s not just, because it’s not just about the details of the history of Dolly Parton and her career, but it’s how an icon like her has built this audience and then what she has done, what that says about our country and the state that we’re in right now and the polarization of America and the political divide and how Dolly has sort of overcome that in certain ways and why that might be. I don’t even know exactly where they’re goin’ with it, but it’s just a really insightful, personal podcast. I’ve always been a fan of Dolly Parton. I mean, I’ve been to Dollywood. I’ve made the pilgrimage. She’s a special lady. All right, Dolly Parton’s America. Dolly Parton’s America I recommend it. Hashtag EarBiscuits, let us know what you think about the conversations we had today and I gotta get outta here ’cause I have to not pick up my daughter from high school. High school. Keep being grateful. Keep being thankful. Speak at you next week. Never stop. 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 bein’ your mythical best.