Welcome to Ear Biscuits the podcast where two lifelong friends talk about life for a long time, I’m Link. And I’m Rhett, this week at the round table of dim lighting, we are wrapping up the season, the 2021, something we don’t really call them season, but we’re wrapping up Ear Biscuits for 2021 by encapsulating the top 10 moments of each of our lives well, in 2021. Yeah- So the top 10 moments of the year in order. In reverse order. In reverse order, counting down from the top. I love this episode, it forces us- You don’t know how bad it’s gonna be man. To stop and- You’re saying you like this category of episode, this episode may be a train wreck. You don’t know what’s gonna happen. Well, I know what my 10 are. You could have an allergic reaction to that jacket. You haven’t worn it very much. I don’t know, anything could happen. I have a good feeling right, ’cause I like to reminisce and I think it’s very healthy to put things in perspective. As I’ve prepared for this, I actually experienced the positive benefits of kind of zooming out and having a perspective on this year. So we’ll each alternate starting with our number 10 and culminate in our number one moments of the year, and I think this is a very healthy thing. Even if there’s painful or negative parts of it, these are not, they don’t all have to be positive moments. Well, mine are. Okay, and we should say that, like you said, this is our last episode. We will be back with fresh, new 2022 episodes starting on January 10th of that year. Yeah, which I guess is also the first episode of Good Mythical Morning, season 20. What is it? Season twenty-what? I don’t know, the next season of GMM. We’ll be celebrating the ten-year anniversary, 10 years of Good Mythical Morning so- I got quite a week plan. Don’t sleep on it. That second week in January, we’re coming back strong. One of the things we talked about as we were getting independently putting these lists together is, the comment I made to you was man, it’s not, honestly, it’s kind of difficult to come up with 10 podcast worthy moments, now. If you’d feel that way about this year. Once I dug into it, I realized, okay, well actually I ended up having to take some off the list and I got to 10 that I feel good about. But a lot of the things that I was thinking about when I actually went back and looked at my photos and looked at my calendar, it was like, oh, that actually didn’t happen at 2021. Like, oh, that was the end of 2020. Yeah, 2020 definitely blurred into this year. Yeah and 2021 flew by, and we were getting back into a lot of things and traveling more and kind of getting more normal than we were in 2020. But man, it’s. Not quite normal enough. Yeah it’s still not normal. And you know what, I’d like to just get started with my number 10, because I think it plays right into what you’re saying. Okay- So my number 10 meaningful moment, my precious moment of 2021 moments is now wouldn’t that be cool though? Christy would just go nuts. Do they still make him? I don’t know she doesn’t collect them anymore and she did. she could probably get sponsored by him. Just in life. Just saying. My number 10 is getting my first vaccine in March and I’m not trying to go political. What, no, do it, go political right from the start. I don’t even want to- Vaccines aren’t political man. Exactly, and that’s why I’m not going there, even though somehow that’s exactly where we still are as a country. But this was in March and it was a milestone out, Lincoln and I drove together. We signed up and we did a drive through vaccination and there was so much buildup to it. When am I going? When can I sign up? How’s the app gonna work? What are the requirements? We’ve been through so much of when 2020, and now we have this miraculous vaccine that happened miraculously quick and- It was just suspicious really quick. It was just a moment. Joke, it’s a joke. Come on now. It’s a joke. Stay with me, I’m trying to, this is about me. Okay. I just really had a sense that that moment that I was living history and that’s what I was telling Lincoln. We’re living history now, we’re getting history shot into our arms. We’re getting injected with an era, a time that people will always refer to. Now tell us about all the side effects you’ve been suffering from all year. Yeah, I have not gotten COVID. I haven’t gotten it. Yeah, this is not on my list, but I’ll piggyback off of. ‘Cause, it wasn’t at a moment for you to get the freaking vaccine, ’cause it represents so much, that we’ve been through- Well here, this is what I remember thinking. So, I’ve gotten a lot of vaccines in my life, because I’m a person who lives in the 21st century, right? And this is sort of what we do to address disease. And we’ve always done it this way, but all of a sudden it became the mark of the beast this year for reasons that I don’t fully understand. But I remember because so much had been made of how I’ve never been scared of a vaccine. I’ve never had any hesitation about a vaccine. It’s always been an afterthought. It’s like, oh, you’re gonna get this vaccine. You gotta get this vaccine to go to this country. You gotta do this, whatever, it’s just, you just go in and you get it and you feel a bit weird for a day and then it’s over, right? Because so much focus has been put on these vaccines and, oh, it’s a new technology. It was rushed and all the media is in this, Bill Gates is trying to control you and all this stuff. None of it that I believed. I found myself at Dodger Stadium when I got my first dose of the Moderna Vaccine is what I did. The first dose that you’re in this, you don’t even get out of your car. You’re kind of going through the drive-through. They give you the dose and then they’re like, okay, wait here for 15 minutes. Yeah. And it was basically like, wait here, 15 minutes to see if you have some sort of reaction that it requires an emergency. I’ve never had any sense of worry or concern but in that 15 minutes, the first half of that 15 minutes is when I was like, I started letting all the information and misinformation that had been going around kind of infiltrate my thoughts and I was like something’s gonna happen to me? There’s something gonna happen? Of course, nothing happened to me and ended up going on. And then, I got my second dose, and I didn’t even think about it at that point and yes, I did get my booster already. And the booster was just going into the pharmacy and sitting down, and he was like, “Which arm?” I was like “Left” and it was boom and I was out. There was no like, sit around and see what happens. It was like, we know nothing’s going to happen to you. Like very likely that you might die on the way home in a car crash, but you’re probably gonna be fine. But yeah, that first moment was very significant because of what had been made of it in a way that I’ve never even thought about a vaccine before. Yeah, I just thought of it as, we’re making history here, and this is something that will always be talked about and in making it my number 10 moment, it represents something larger for, yeah like you were saying for 2021, things started to open up, especially when you got fully vaccinated. From a work perspective, I think at least for the two of us, not for our entire team, by any means, but for us, our work lives approached normal. Like they’re not really normal, it’s kind of hard to remember what normal was pre-pandemic, but we kind of got back into work to a point and engaged to a point where we’re very busy and it continues to ramp up, but there wasn’t in congruency. If that’s a word between our work lines really ramping up and our personal lives still kind of being stifled by the pandemic. And again, a lot of that still continues, but this is my moment to memorialize all of the steps that we went through and all of the little moments of the first time that you go out to dinner outdoors with your family and you’re taking your mask off at the table. And it’s like you start to have these strange feelings that whole swaths of humanity never go through. And of course, we’re fortunate, and it’s still very serious. Even this morning, Christy told me that some of her parents’ friends, a friend passed away from COVID, like she found out about it yesterday. This is not something in our rear view mirror, sadly, but let’s leave it at that, but yeah, here we are at the end of this year and still part of our lives and we’ll continue to be. My number 10 does tie in a little bit to this, because it’s, and again, this is gonna be the case for a number of the things on my list. And so for many of the points on my list, and I would assume the same is true of yours. There’s a podcast episode from this year that basically goes into detail about this thing. Yeah, maybe if there’s a little space, you have a different perspective or an update or not. Well, this one is my trip to San Diego, my family trip in the spring to San Diego, which is, when I talked about it on your biscuits earlier this year, I talked about the moment of the Locke and Shepherd and I being able to surf together. Oh yeah. And how that was just like a super special thing, it was like Shepherd kind of getting the surfing thing down a little bit more for the first time, but also me and like being able to surf together and actually kind of getting a party wave, like surfing next to each other on a way with the first time we had ever done that. That’s a moment man, you can close your eyes and just see it. So that’s sort of the moment from that greater moment that I really remember, but in the context of the nature of the way our lives have been, that was the first family trip that we took. I think it was the first real travel that we had done since the beginning of the pandemic. And it was also the first sitting down at a restaurant in San Diego, well, sitting an outdoors, but it was the first time we went back and even did outdoor sitting at that time. ‘Cause I remember that because when you told me, we had been on a beach vacation too, and we hadn’t done that, we just ordered in and I was jealous, and I was like you should’ve told me you were doing that, maybe that would have put me over the edge. But everybody’s in their own little timetable of like, what you’re comfortable with and you make your own decisions. Yeah obviously, as I’ve established very clearly multiple times on this podcast that I take the pandemic very seriously, and I’m obviously preaching the vaccine, get vaccinated the best way to get out of this thing. But when it comes to my own personal level of fear about COVID is actually very, very low. Like I don’t have, like, I don’t have this like- Anxiety. Jessie has some anxiety about it. I don’t, I’m just like, man okay, yeah I’ve been vaccinated. I’ve been boosted, I could still get it. It’s probably won’t effect me, but maybe it will, like I don’t obsess about that. I’m was about a lot of, I don’t obsess about that. I remember specifically as sitting down at a restaurant and I’m just like, man, I’m glad I’m at this restaurant. I’m taking my mask off when I’m eating. Yes there’s like this family over here within 10 feet of us who’s also eating. And Jessie was like, wow, they’re pretty close to us, and I’m like, I can’t live, I just can’t do it. I can’t live like that with a constant preoccupation with it, because I just, I take the precautions, and then I let the worry go away, because otherwise, I just can’t function as a person. Yeah, it is that thing of like, if you’d never been on a flight or if you’ve never been in a car before, you’re very keenly aware of, or if like, and I’m thinking about this for Lincoln, if you’re like getting your driver’s license, you’re keenly aware of how close you are to death with someone coming across that center line. And then at a certain point you put every wise practice in the place and you just get on with driving. And if you being reoriented with the severity of the risk every time a car passes you as if it was the first time it was happening, you would be durability. Right, you don’t snap your seatbelt thinking about why. You just do it because you’ve made a decision, and it’s better to just always do it and just don’t think about it. And I think this year has been just the slow, methodical baby steps towards gaining a comfort level with COVID strains, being a part of the news and a part of reality and saying, okay, I am doing everything that I can, and I am getting on with my life. We still have weekly tests here. We still have limited crew coming into work. It’s still very frustrating for a lot of our crew, and I feel for them because they’re in positions that are different from ours, where you just can’t be quite as engaged. And so we’re all on these different timetables, and it’s not the same across the board, but I do think that these moments, they’re all COVID impacts every area of our lives. And at a certain point, but you just get on with it. Well you do if you’re lucky, you get on with it. If you’re lucky. There’s a lot of people who can’t maybe it’s just, specific like auto-immune thing, or maybe it’s just the anxiety, listen, we’re still in the midst. That’s a different timetable yeah. We’re still in the midst of a mental health crisis that we have only scratched the surface. We really do not understand the level that society has been impacted by this and not just disease itself is one thing, but the anxiety that has been induced by the way that this has all been communicated. I have a lot of opinions about that, but I think that we’re gonna look back and think about all the ways that this whole thing was fumbled by our country and by the world but- Let me go to my number nine, to switch gears, I chose as a moment, the Hazel horror TikTok shoot, I debated between the release of it and the filming of it. But I wanted to home and on, you got me in my head about that in that. In that context, just so you know, either one is correct, but exactly in the way that you used it. Home is the original correct Version. I wanted to home in, on the filming of it, which was back in August, ’cause first and foremost, we did this for us. And it was this just the experience of removing some creative shackles. Again, for reasons that we’ve already talked about, limitations that we have been under, and then hatching an idea that we could take from start to finish and get out there into the world, and there were no gatekeepers. We didn’t have to convince anybody, we just had to align our team and so it was first about us saying okay, we’re gonna write something, we’re gonna do something scripted. We’re gonna do something experimental. We’re gonna utilize TikTok, and we’re gonna twist it, and you got really excited about the horror aspect of it, and the challenge of working with TikTok and then involving our team and just the creative spark that comes from trying something that you don’t know what it’s gonna be like. It was very exciting, and for me personally, it jolted me out of a creative slump. ‘Cause it’s one thing to not be creating things outside of the playgrounds that we work in within the shows and the properties that are ongoing and that we found ways to mitigate within the pandemic. But it’s another thing to say, I’m gonna do something different. And I think I had gotten to a point where there was a creative depression, and that was a very instrumental period. I remember when we first talked about doing it, I had to make an active decision to say, I’m gonna engage in this, and so remembering that is very encouraging to me, because it was an instrument of kind of reopening that part of my creativity. And of course, then the payoff of it, I don’t know where you put it on your list, or if you wanna talk about it as a separate moment, because I’m just talking about when we went out and we were working with a team. We were filming on location in the woods at night, and then the creative house, like, so two nights in a row pulling all nighters, switching our entire schedules upside down and taking the input of other team members. It was just a lot of fun to do. Well it was my number five. Yeah, and I didn’t isolate it to one moment. If you’re a member of the medical society, and your present or you go and look at the answers to the AMH, you may see that I said some things about people. Somebody asked about the Hazel project and yeah kind of what our thoughts were about it. And first of all, let me just say that this time of year is just bonkers for us, right? Every single year, everything it’s very difficult to communicate exactly why it gets so stacked up at the end of the year, but we’ve got projects that we can’t talk about. And we’ve got just the aspect of running a business and wrapping up seasons and all this stuff, and it just getting ready to go home, leave. And there’s some pre taping for things that are in the new year. So then there’s this, like, you’re living in the future, you’re living in the present and you’re looking back at the year with like employee reviews, this podcast. So it’s a lot at once, being pulled in different directions even in space and time. Yeah, so it’s difficult and we had an AMA scheduled, and of course, it was like everything, most of the time you’re around, it’s just like the AMA is scheduled. There’s something before and there’s something after it. It’s just like, what do you have today? I have an AMA. Now, I have an AMA in seven other things, right. So I wasn’t in a great mood is probably reflected in some of my answers during that time. But somebody asked about Hazel and the way that I talked about it was in retrospect, it was a disappointment for me, because, I agree with everything that you said in terms of the fulfilling nature of being able to create something from start to finish and put it out there. But of course, we know that it didn’t end up performing, compared to like some of the really dumb TikToks that we do that take about four minutes to come up with and one minute to shoot to get 10 times as many views, that was a little disappointing. We kind of know why that happened, but then when we put it on YouTube, it was also kind of like, eh, nobody really cared. Now, what I did say is that I was very encouraged by all the feedback that we got from mythical beasts, and this may have come across. I didn’t mean for this to come across like an insult if it did. But I said that in some ways, I really appreciate all the feedback from the mythical beasts, but at the same time, it’s like when your grandparents come to your school play, and they talk about how great of an actor you are. And you’re kind of like, “Are you telling me that I’m a great actor because I am or because you’re my grandparents?” In other words we have- And if only your grandparents are the ones telling you that, it really makes you question. And so I think this is what I’m saying. We have a lot of grandparents though. I see the mythical beast as our grandparents. You guys, and thankfully, this is a privilege. You have expressed a lot of love for us and for what we do. And so we know if we put something out there that we’ve put our heart and soul into and that we’re proud of, chances are you’re gonna like it and you’re gonna appreciate it. But we’re always like, is it gonna break outside of the bubble? And the fact that it just kind of definitively did not do anything beyond the fan base was discouraging for me, especially, and this is a personality disorder that I have had, and probably not a real disorder, but doing something, and then, it doesn’t get the reaction in the feedback that you’re looking for, and therefore you, it’s a value goes down. That’s something that I’m working on. Being able to find the value in the process and the execution, and to putting it out there and having it be appreciated by just a person or just be appreciated by us and that being the end of it. And then, if it’s appreciated by more people enjoy by large group of people, then that’s just gravy, but that’s not why we’re doing it. I’m working on that, but- But it was part of the reason why we did it. It wasn’t just for the reason why I put it on my list. The reasons I gave it was also to give an experience to dedicated mythical beasts, who were gonna be there live. And we had to get together at my house, a live viewing party of the posting and reactions and it was absolutely thrilling. That was probably the best moment actually. That was the best moment, because it was special for those mythical beasts who were there for it, who experienced the surprise. And to see them back in the moment. And realization of what it was. And see Shepherd with a blanket over his head and just as his eyes peeking over the top of it, as he watched us like, oh, he’s very, very scared. So we engineered it for us, we engineered it for dedicated mythical beasts and we also designed it with the hopes that it would be talked about outside of our circles. And when it wasn’t it, yeah, I think that is a legitimate disappointment, and it’s not related to any sort of disorder, because it’s what we set out to do and it didn’t happen. So the fact that you put it at number five, even after all that surprises me. Well, I think it’s just in retrospect, when I think about what it represents. And I think me putting it at number five. What does it represent? No no I’m saying, I’m trying to have a healthy perspective on it. Okay, so actually putting it at number five. I’m putting it in number five, as in hopes that I’m becoming a healthier person that doesn’t need things to be a success, an external success appreciated by people externally in order for me to give it a high value. Okay. Okay we got a lot more to go through. We do wanna let you know real quick that these mugs they’re going away. We don’t keep mugs around for very long. This is probably the coolest mug that we’ve ever sold. It’s color changing, it’s activated. But yeah, if you want it, you better get it now through the end of the year. Right. The design is only revealed when there’s hotness in it and then a different design remains when it cools off. This one. Yeah so that’s going away. We got all new mug coming down the line. But you didn’t hear that here. Yeah well, but you know, that’s kinda that’s happening. Yes we’ll always have a mug, won’t we?. Okay my number nine. Yeah. Which I guess is gonna be higher than nine on your list, Good Mythical Evening. Okay, it is on my list, it is number six on my list. Okay, okay what a night, man. People wanted us to talk about Good Mythical Evening and we haven’t, so this is us talking about it. Good medical evening to me, there was a lot of, I wouldn’t say I was nervous about, anytime you’re doing something that is like, oh, this is live. I haven’t been nervous about an episode of Good Mythical Morning in years, it’s like that. Okay, if we have a guest that I’m like, kind of nervous to be around or something like that maybe, which that hasn’t happened recently. And there was a few episodes that demand more of us from a performance standpoint but- But something that’s live, that people have paid for. That we’ve never done before. Yeah and so- And not to mention that it’s doing things we’ve never done before, like being out rated on purpose. And I think we might have different, I’ll tell you why it’s on all my list. To me, yes it was fun to do in the moment. And I think that, especially once towards the end, when Brittany became a part of the show, you know who Brittany is, if you watch Good Mythical Evening, there’s very few moments this year, from a comedic standpoint that are gonna be any funnier than when we were trying to manhandle Brittany and get her eyes back in and all that stuff that happened. It’s just like, this is stuff that you cannot plan that we can’t be, that we can write all we want and never be that funny with our writing, that’s the kind of thing that’s gonna happen in the moment. So I liked that aspect of, but for me, there’s been kind of a very slow, but gradual process over the past few years, with some notable moments of us shedding another layer of this persona that people kind of understand us. And obviously the first big thing we pull back was talking about our spiritual deconstruction and saying, “Hey you thought we were these guys” but we were those guys a long time ago. And actually we’re not these, it is conservative Christian guys that we were when we started this job. Yeah. We haven’t been for a long time, but then being able to do sex timber, which is, I’ll talk about an aspect of that later, but like being able to kind of talk openly about that stuff. And then it was like, Good Mythical Evening came right on the heels of that. And it was just like, hey, we do curse, and we do, like, we do drink these things happen on a very regular basis in our lives, but we don’t ever share them with you. So to me, it wasn’t just like having fun in not being ourselves. It was just like and of course yes, I can attest to the fact that, when Lincoln has playing has drink. I can speak to my experience. He doesn’t always, it’s not like every time Lincoln gets drunk, he is the and he wasn’t, I’m not gonna say he was drunk, but I’m just saying that like, it isn’t like Link is like that every single time he has a drink, but the fact that we were able to just be ourselves, that’s the thing that I value. The fact that people appreciated it, but the fact that it’s another layer of just like, hey, this is an authentic revealing of who we are. Yeah again, I put it at number six on my list, and I think a lot of what you said is at play that I think for me, yeah, it put it on the list and maybe put it higher for that reason. First of all, yes it was a gimmick, it was a marketing gimmick in a lot of ways when we first hashed it was just like, we had gotten to a point that we wanted to show more of our full selves as responsible adult who could- Responsible is questionable. well, just being adults. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, it was a gimmick, but it was also, like I said, it’s an evolution of our brand to say, hey, don’t unnecessarily put us in this box that we’re not in,” to never hear us curse. A box that we put ourselves in, by the way. That we built yeah. We don’t wanna stay in the box we built, we wanna get out of it. And so it’s like, okay, it would be fun if you really think about it. These guys curse, we curse on this podcast, but let’s take that to 11 for a gimmic to just have fun with it. But it expands people’s, it changes how they look at us. It expands us beyond the box that we’ve built you’re right. And I would say the other part of it was, yes, I was drunk, but I also leaned into it, it wasn’t planned. So the story is, of course we had two full rehearsals, like hours and hours long were full rehearsals with the entire crew where we stepped through everything. Yeah. And then we did it again, once we said, okay, we’re gonna tweak some stuff, we’re gonna fix some stuff from a technical standpoint, we’re gonna tighten it and then we did another like, dress rehearsal. And then before we actually did it, of course we didn’t, there was no drinking involved. It was like, there were segments, we were gonna be drinking. And cutting the fool and, we knew it was gonna be crazy, but then before we did it, there was actual drinking involved, and our discussion ended with, oh, we’ll have some drinks. And then the thing that I didn’t, you said “You’ve never been nervous for something or like keyed up for it.” The thing that I didn’t realize was that I was a lot more keyed up than I realized, once I had some drinks, then what went out there and the whole crew was like, ready and it was like, the adrenaline just started pumping. And that’s when I gave a speech to the whole crew and boy, I just really started feeling buzzed, like it just like, and it was vey quick and you were not present for that. I walked in and people seemed confused. Everyone had like a confused look on their face, I was like, oh, Lincoln, must’ve given a speech. Right, you know the look when Link has given a speech, and then there was a countdown like to going live. And then like the heart rate with every step of the countdown, just like. This is not my experience by the way. I was just like, I was going through the roof, I was like excited, and so yeah, when the thing started, I was an abbreviated. Yeah we could tell. And it was dawning on me, I was like, oh no, like I knew that we were gonna drink throughout and letting in, and I was like, okay. Or there was some segments we were gonna drink, but like, I definitely wasn’t feeling buzzed really at all, but then I could tell it was- You’re a big man. But I was like, oh, no Link is, and so then it was funny ’cause like hearing Stevie tell it, it was like, Stevie was like, oh no, ’cause she’s like expecting us to like hit different marks and stuff. So there was this adjustment period for me, which I think I would be much better at this if we were to do it again, I’m not saying we are, but if we were to do it again, of like knowing that like, I felt this responsibility to be like, okay, Link is not going to be a reliable source of structure, and so that left it to me is what I was thinking. And so I realized, I was like, okay, no, I don’t, I guess I don’t have to do that role. Stevie’s kind of, we’re gonna be responsible then and think about that and tell us what to do next. I would say, I’m not ashamed of anything that happened. I’m not ashamed of anything I did, and I don’t regret anything except for one thing. And that was that the way that it happened, it put you on the ropes ’cause it blindsided you. I know that the crew was surprised, but we’re in this together and this was a performance that we had prepared for, and there was a give and take, and I put you in a position where you had to respond. But I know you know, that I didn’t do that intentionally, ’cause we had a conversation about it. I think at the mid point where there was the one break, the point where Stevie came back and she was like, you got it, can you just relate it a little bit? We gotta make sure we can get through this whole thing, and I’m like, hey, I got this, I’m okay. I’m not gonna go off an actual deep end here. But my main concern was it that I was putting you in a position where, again, you had to respond and it was something that I didn’t want to blindside you and I didn’t do that on purpose. And so that’s what I was saying in the middle of the thing, and I appreciated your response. I think you understood that I wasn’t trying to, I wasn’t, I didn’t know what was gonna come across that way, but as it was happening to go back to the beginning, it was like, all right, I had a decision to make, it wasn’t that I was so inebriated that I didn’t have any faculties. The fact of the matter was, I was very buzzed and I made a decision to lean into it, to say, “You know what, we’ve rehearsed this twice.” The entire crew, they’ve got this. So it became an exercise in complete trust in our crew and you, that I had your support and I’ll put it this way. I actually felt like it was a safe space for me to just cut loose and to lean into how I felt. So that happened very early and so there were elements of a performance associated with it, it was harnessing the experience I was having for a performance. I would say it was an exuberant expression of letting loose, but it was an expression of that, that I felt comfortable and safe doing that, not only with the crew, but also with the audience that was there, the people who signed up for this thing. And I knew that, and in the end, the reason why I’m not embarrassed or felt the need to apologize for anything, is because that’s all it was, nobody was hurt besides Brittany. I don’t think anybody was offended or crossed. Yeah, in which we didn’t know. Because it was all alive. I’ve never had a chance to communicate that to anybody, I just went with it. Well, I think the evidence is that everybody appreciated that, and at the end of the day. And it was unplanned and I found that very exciting. Yeah, and like I said, I think the only open question is, will we do it again? It’s gonna be very difficult to capture the same thing that happened. My knee jerk reaction was I don’t wanna do it again because it’s like this expectation that like, well, how crazy is Link gonna be next time we do this. But with some, having had some space from it, I think there’s opportunities to dabble in, how could we revisit this idea again? So I think the door is open. Yeah, I definitely think it’s on the table, and I think that maybe the novelty of it having happened, was broken, the seal is gone, but the fact remains that we cannot do and say those things on YouTube because the platform doesn’t allow it, you don’t get this, we’re going to a different category. So it is something that we reserve the right to do, again potentially. But yeah, it was an exuberant performance of legitimately letting loose for me. And I think that that’s ultimately why I put it at number five. Or six. Yeah I’ll it at number six, was because it was, and I saw people tweeting this, that night, at least one person that was like, I appreciate the fact that Link felt comfortable enough with us, that he could just let him, just go with it. I can’t remember how they put it, but I agree with that. I think that was my experience. Well, and I think and that’s where moving forward, I think I would say. Maybe it was obnoxious at times and I will own that. Well I think for me, it was I’d be like, okay, well, just so you know, if we’re gonna do it again, I’m not the master of ceremonies, you know what I’m saying? Like, it’s not on me to control what’s gonna happen next to move things through logistically, it would be like, I want to have the freedom to do that. I didn’t feel the freedom to do that because I felt like somebody had to keep things tied down. But if we were like, Stevie, it’s up to you, and it’s all on you because I’m not gonna be, I don’t like being the straight man. I hate being the straight man, So it’s just like, I think that, but that could be so structureless that it’s just, people can’t even follow it, I don’t know, we’ll figure it out. We don’t have to talk about it anymore now, we need to move on ’cause we got a lot more to go, you’re number nine. Was Hazel shoot, so my number eight is going back to North Carolina, visiting family for three weeks. We devoted an entire episode to talking about it, it was the longest I and my immediate family had been apart from our extended family since we moved out to California. So that was a big deal, and there’s a number of moments that will stick with us, meeting Sylvie our new niece for the first time and handling all the affairs of the house and the estate, after my nanny’s passing, which I believe it was a moment from 2020, not being able to go home for her passing and being there in her absence was a difficult experience. But one that I was grateful to have and to serve my family in that way. So, I had already unpacked all of that. I think looking forward to going home and seeing the family again for the holidays much shorter time now three weeks is a long time. We’re doing much less than that, but it’s nice to be able to get back into a rhythm of seeing everybody, moving forward. The North Carolina trip back home was number six for me- Okay. Like you said, “I got to see family for the first time since the pandemic,” and I got to spend time with my family, the McLaughlin’s in the mountains. And I started talking about all the stuff that we did, the highlight from that was probably like my dad, my brother and I getting to play golf together again. And then spending time with Jessie’s family at the beach and the incident of escaping the fire house fire- Again. Those are episodes that we told those stories in detail, if you have not listened to those, I don’t remember the title of the episode, but it was in the summer after we got back from our trips. Yeah so that was the first flight, the first pandemic flight. Yeah. So the whole idea of like, okay, I’m getting on a plane, Gotta keep that mask on. I’m a mask on, on the plane. You’re not giving us anything to eat. Yeah and I’m like, okay. Again, once I take the precautions, I just kind of, don’t like, okay, there’s a guy behind me who won’t stop coughing. Am I gonna sit here and obsess about this and be anxious about it the whole time? Or am I gonna just be like, okay, what can I do at this point? Let’s just not worry about it, if you get it, you get it. But yeah, that was my number six but since we’ve told those stories extensively, we don’t have to spend any time there. My number eight, which also did a whole episode about was my Florida keys trip, glitter boobs. I remember that was more recent, having just talked about it, is there anything new? Like, are you like, oh, now I’m going back twice a year, I gotta get back to those keys. Well, I miss those glitter keys. I will say there are just times when I’m doing anything at all, when just to set a glitter boobs just pops into my brain. I can be just doing anything, like once you’ve seen a set of glitter boobs. That’s not true though, is it? Yeah there’s kind of nothing like him and. No I do, I am thinking I will go back, not for glitter boobs, but just, and oh and by the way, thanks to all of you who a lot of people sent messages with, hashtag your biscuits about their experience. I saw that. And the keys once I kind of told the story of everything that I saw. I think the best moment from that whole trip though, was the pirate ship, giant vehicle with the mass on the pirate ship where like stripper poles and people dancing down the street, that was probably the. Old white people’s thinking wop. Yes or at least playing wop. Okay, yeah. That was the highlight of that trip and fairly recent, that was my number eight. My number seven, it was a pandemic milestone that kind of brought closure to an era of the pandemic in 2020 Britain and I started connecting through Instagram and doing listening parties where we would make Spotify playlist under a certain assignment and we collaborate on and we present, we build it together and then we would experience it live on Instagram, along with anybody who wanted to watch us live. Lily showed up for a couple of those and contributed to some playlist, and there’s a lot of memories, and from the early on in the pandemic, it moves a lifeline, and it was something that I talked about over 2020 and towards the end. And then in June of this year, we had one final listening party. I say final ’cause it’s not like we said, “This is the last one we’ll ever do, but it’s the last one that we’ve done,” and we don’t have any plans to do it anymore, but it was in June, the 22nd listening party and Britain was there in person in my house. So it was very symbolic, that, hey, we’ve done this thing where we couldn’t be together in the same space and now things are loosening up to the point that we can be together with a certainty that we’re gonna be safe and so it was very celebratory. It had some pretty Good Mythical Evening vibes to it, because I was so charged up just so exuberant about the fact that like we were together and there was a lot of symbolism in it for me at the time that made it very celebratory, that people were like is Link on something? And what I was on was just experiencing connection that we had been waiting for for a long time. And I know that a lot of, with our families and with friends over time, over this past year, we’ve had some get togethers where you have that first hug after a year and a half of not seeing, or being able to touch this person that you love. And that’s what that listening party symbolized for me and was very special for us because it was the conclusion of something that was a lifeline. And it was the best way to conclude it is, being in person, wrapping your arms around each other. And I know so many of us have been able to experience that, so that’s why I put that at number seven, which is the number of completion. So you’re done. No, I have six other ones, but isn’t that what number seven is, Yeah it’s the complete number for sure, number seven for me is, Sextember, but specifically having Jessie and Christy on the podcast, again, for the reasons I already said, I think that I always enjoy, I like, I don’t know something about, I don’t know what it is, but I like being able to talk openly about things that I feel like we’ve held back right. Yeah- And there’s only so much of that you can do, but the whole process of being able to talk openly about these different stages and sort of the way that we thought about sex was a really liberating and empowering just for me personally. But my favorite moment was getting the ladies on the podcast and having them be able to speak from their perspective, which I know was a big moment for them to be a part of that and to see the way that everyone responded to that, of course, there’s like so many people calling for, “Well, we gotta have the wives podcast, give them a show.” Listen, if they wanted to show, they would have a show, if it was up to us, they’d have one, it’s not up to us, it’s up to them. But I think that, that represents a pretty significant moment, and I’m not speaking for Christy, I’ll speak for Jessie. I think that, they’ve been through their own journey through this whole spiritual deconstruction and the worldview changing over time, on their own pace in their own way. Their story is their story, not ours, ie I know being able to kind of speak from her experience, what it’s like to be a woman in that particular system in a way that we can not speak to, or really even understand, it’s something she talks about on a regular basis with people that she interacts with, is something that she maybe talks about on Twitter or whatever, but she’s never kind of coming to our world and give in, had an opportunity to speak to that. And I was able to see how much it connected with other women out there, who have similar stories, or at least can relate to their story in a way that they can’t relate as directly. Yeah, it was a cool moment, really, I guess I didn’t put it on my list specifically, so I’ll just steal it from your list and ’cause I’m 100% agree that it was quite a milestone not to just have him on the show, but to, but to let them share their perspectives and that whole series, I think was very rewarding. And so that was your number six. Seven. No, that was your number seven, my number six, as I already said was Good Mythical Evening, which again, I think the common denominator between the two is experiencing freedom, actively experiencing being free at a level here to four we had not experienced. Being able to speak openly about our views on sex and our experiences past and present, it’s a great feeling to say, I’m not going to be held back by what I’m afraid, people might think about me. I am going to be myself and I’m gonna embrace myself regardless of if other people do, and Good Mythical Evening was an exercise of that for me, and the sex timber was an exercise of that for me as well. And it feels good, to experience freedom when especially when it’s a big contrast from how you’ve lived a lot of your life in maybe just in certain pockets, but to have those pockets open up is very rewarding. Yeah, I’ve already talked about my number six, which was the North Carolina trip. I haven’t talked about my number five, this may sound like a smaller moment. One just an hour in time, maybe an hour and a half, but it’s something that it only happens once at least with each child that you have. And so my number five is Lincoln’s first driving lesson back in January, I kind of took him off guard because he didn’t have his permit yet. We just went out to a parking lot, that was, so it was still legal. We weren’t on the street and he was like really, we’re doing this and all the memories of when I learned how to drive, when my Papa taught me how to drive that pickup truck that he surprised me with for Christmas, that by the way I remembered, when I told that story, it was a little bit different. You had called me Christmas morning and we didn’t answer the phone and you left a message on my answering machine and mom and I could hear you talking about, “Hey did you get that big red four wheel surprise?” And I’m running over to pick up the phone because mom didn’t know that you knew, and you knew because I told you, ’cause I knew that it wasn’t really a surprise and I didn’t want to ruin the surprise and that’s how it happened. But I remember when I’m telling Lincoln how to turn and he’s like, like we talked about, he’s like, “I actually don’t, I never realized what it feels like to push the brake and turn the wheel and try to, everything is so awkward.” And it just brought me back to that moment as a 15 year old myself in that pickup truck that he gave me. And it was a Rite of passage for him, and for me as a dad, that he was nervous even though he was there in a parking lot and it was awkward. And he probably had no clue that it was like something that was very emotional and like a real dad moment for me, so much so that I’m putting it at my number five. I have another moment with Locke that I’ll talk about, but yeah, same parking lot by the way that I think that was this year. It’s crazy ’cause Lockes, it feels like Lockes’ been driving forever. And by this point, but yes, I- And you don’t have to talk my moment. No, I’m not talking. You can just go to your moment. My number five was, the Hazel project, which we’ve already talked about, my number four. I’ll go ahead and, and go my number four. Okay so we’re gonna tell you in general about a project, because I can’t talk about this particular week, that was a highlight of my 2021 without giving you just the general. And we have alluded to it. Yeah so in 2020. ‘Cause I know what you can talk about. In 2020, we came up with an idea for a movie that we wanted to wright. Now, we have not, since gutless wonders back in the day when we were 14, we’ve never written a screenplay, like we’ve written TV pilots, we’ve written seasons of TV things like buddy system and books, but we’ve never written a movie, right. And it’s just, we like to have a bunch of irons in the fire and we had this, what I will describe as ridiculous idea for a movie, that we just were like, man, let’s just make this movie like, listen, we’ve got this idea for a movie. Let’s just move to the next phase of writing it and then when people are like, “Hey you guys got any movie ideas?” We’re like, yeah, we’ve got, here’s our script. This is what we wanna make. Maybe we can get somebody to help us make it. Maybe we can end up just making it our own. I don’t know how this is gonna work, but like, let’s at least get to the script. Let’s not just talk, let’s just not get a kick out of this crazy idea for a movie, bring it up occasionally and then realize it’s been three years and all we’ve done is bat around a concept for a movie. And as you might imagine. let’s move this thing forward. As you might imagine, given all the content that you see from us, whether it’s this podcast or Good Mythical Morning or Good Mythical More or everything you see on social media, everything you see on the medical society and everything else that’s going on. Finding the time to write a movie is not something that naturally presents itself in our schedule. So I remember this pie in the sky. I actually remember we had conceptualized and even sort of roughly outlined the movie at the end of 2020. And I was thinking I was gonna take some time over Christmas break of last year to like get started on the script, that didn’t happen. Yeah, I almost put down and I’m not gonna steal your thunder here with what you’re getting at, but in September, we did manage to protect an entire day to complete an outline of the movie. Well, so it took until it took until September to finished the outline. And at the end of that day, or at some point towards the latter part of that day, I remember us having a conversation about how much fun we were having. We don’t have that conversation enough where it’s like today was completely creative. We weren’t running a business, we weren’t interacting with our employees as great as they are. It was like, it was back to the basics of just creating and collaborating, it was extremely rewarding, especially- And it was the only day of the whole year, where that was the case. Coming out of a creative depression and then saying, “We have this day where it’s like, hey, we still can have this experience.” And so that day of outlining brought us to a point where, just that day was amazing for me and then it was like, okay, now we need to move to writing. Yeah and so, and I told Jenna shortly after that, I was like, listen, I know the stuff that we’ve got going on right now. And I know the projects that are beginning to happen and we know how the end of the year is, we need to reserve a week where I can go to a cabin. Yeah, in your mind, it had to be a cabin, ’cause that’s where writers write. And just do nothing but write and see if I can write a movie in a week. You’re really talking about five days by the way. Yeah five days. And it might’ve been just four days. Because I was gonna get there on, what did I got there on a Monday. I went there on a Monday evening. And then I showed up on the Friday. Actually you showed up at Friday at like 2:00 PM because we had to do that Facebook live thing was with Hank green? So I was like, okay, between Monday night and Friday mid morning, I wanna write a whole movie based on this now again, there’s an outline, so it’s not like pulling things out of thin air, it’s like, I know what needs to happen in this scene, but like the characters have to come to life and there’s gotta be dialogue and you’re gonna end up writing a 100 pages, right. And so I was actually like on, a couple of days before I was like reading stories about people who would like bust it out scripts really fast. Like there’s just stories of people being like, I had to get this script stripped done, and we wrote for four days straight and we ended up getting it done, but I’ve never done this before. Right? Yeah. we talked about it a lot. Yeah yeah, but I was like, I wanna have a first draft done. And I ended up that, even that first night I wrote about, about 15 pages that first night, just to kind of break the seal and get going on it right. And then over the course of the next three days, I woke up about seven o’cLock, we start running about 7:30 AM and would not leave the cabin, deeming get dressed. I would just brush my teeth, I had food with me and would write until I couldn’t see. ‘Cause there was no light in this cabinet. You had an hour house. And long story short, things, time began to blur. There was a couple of times when I would stop and I would like read through it and I would be like, and I texted you and I was like, man, I’ve lost perspective. I don’t have any idea if this is any good. I keep getting to these places where I think that what we’ve come up with is too crazy, and then I just don’t know if we should continue, and if this is like going to be a huge embarrassment, if anyone ever reads it. And what did I say? It was very profound. You were like, “That’s a really good sign” or something like that, like if you’re getting to the place where you think that what maybe what you’re doing is too crazy, you’re probably in the right place. So I kept going and when you showed up on Friday I was like. You sat there and you watched me read it. I was like, hey, I have a script, man. I have no idea what you’re gonna think about it, but we have a first draft and again, the first draft, it didn’t like the first draft is all we have right now, is a first draft we’re working on the second draft. I don’t know how many drafts are gonna be. There’s a lot of notes, it’s gonna change again but anyway- But now that we’ve shared it with Stevie and with Mallory. They’re not going to let us go another year without finishing, coming up with another draft, I think in the next month or so they’re gonna hold us to a second draft, which is their jobs. Right. And so it’s very exciting, but again, that made your list so high because why? Well one of the things I’ve talked about with my therapist is that I find a, like my happy place is in just a pure creative process, right? And I get into a creative flow when writing where the things just start coming together in a way where I know exactly how I want this character to be represented in what they would say in this situation and how this character would react. And it feels like you’re kind of reading a script that someone else wrote. You just get to a place where it’s just like, I know exactly how this character would react. And I just don’t get to do, that’s the thing that I would do full-time if I could right, I would just create 100% of the time. That’s just not how our lives work. That’s not the business that we’ve built. So it made my list because I was in the zone and I was getting to do the thing that I love the most. I was reminded that I wish we could engineer our lives and our schedules to a place where it wouldn’t have to be crammed into four days to write a script in four days. Right, well, maybe it can one day. And maybe it Will one day, so I’m not getting frustrated about it as much as I’m just being thankful for the fact that it happened and it like, once you move that pushed that giant Boulder up to the top of the hill, it’s like, okay, now we have the potential for some real momentum. So it just because I enjoy so much. My number four in, once I get into my top four, it’s tough to order these in particular order. So I wouldn’t read too much into these, but I put it number four, Lily and I making a permanent decision to get matching tattoos. Is a moment that’s memorialized forever, and it’s extremely special to both of us. she’s back home for Christmas break now and I see her tattoo, she sees tattoo, it’s like, yeah, there’s like a little, the connection that we have is there permanently, unless she like, well I guess she could pull a Pete Davidson and labor the laser those things off. Or she could just have an accident with a laser. A few accidents with a laser or a one accident with a crazy laser. But it was, for her to turn 18 this year, for her to graduate from college, I mean high school. And she’s had so many milestones and it was great to be a part of one that like is such a headline reminder, such a visual reminder of our connection, was so special, and the fact that it was her idea was really great. I’m getting in my top three are similar, they’re all about each one about my family members. I will say my number one’s about my wife, but number two and three, random order whether it’s Locke and Shepherd there a tie they’re both tied for second. So to my number three, is getting indexed. I’m gonna get to do this tonight. when I leave here, I’m gonna do this, is watching Locke play basketball. So, he’s been playing basketball since middle school, and, he transferred schools to kind of in the mid, like right at the beginning of the pandemic, he literally transferred to a new school in January of 2020, and then a pandemic happened. And so he immediately like, okay, wait, there’s no basketball season. He was actually playing basketball for the other school anyway, so it’s like, didn’t have a basketball season last year. So it’s the senior year in high school. He’s at like a small school where like, you get a chance you can play, and it’s not as competitive as a school that he was at. So we’re kind of looking forward to him being able to play, but Locke does a lot of different things. And his focus on basketball was not nearly as intense as my focus on basketball growing up, like going into my senior year is like, there was a few things I cared about, but like, you could count them on one hand and one of them was basketball. And it was like being the leading score on my team and like us being a good team, like it was like a focus. And so as basketball season rolled around, like there was actually a moment where like right before the season started, he was like, “Hey dad I don’t even know if I wanna play basketball in my senior year,” I was just like, I have a lot of other interests. and I was like, well, “You’ve been going to these practices, like this sort of informal practices and your team is really small and it seems like they’ve kind of been counting on you playing,” and I know his tendency to kind of move from thing to thing. So I encouraged him, I said, “I think it would actually be a good to just like, stay with this commitment and just see this through, and I think it will be something you look back on and be like, I’m glad I made this decision to play,” Or at least something that you put in your top 10. Yeah. Just kidding. No, but honestly, it wasn’t this thing of like a dad wanting his son to play sports against his will. It was very much like, I know Locke so well and I think it was something and being committed to something that’s got some structure to it, It is a good thing. And so, they played a couple of games and I was like, I don’t know how this is gonna go. They got beat horribly, the first game I ever went and like, you could kind of sorta tell like, oh yeah, Locke really hasn’t been working on his game. He hasn’t been practicing and I’m gonna be very encouraging to him or whatever. But over the last few games that I’ve watched him play, there’s like something just awakened inside him and it’s like, you can see the competitive nature of him come out and it’s just like the other night he had 33 points and then he had 29 points. He hits six threes in one game, he hit six threes in the next game, I was like, oh, he’s gonna break my record of seven threes in one game if I don’t watch out. Did you tell him he knows about your seven. Well he’s already beat my scoring record ’cause my career high I was only 29 points. Does he know about seven in one game? You have to tell him. No he knows it, I’ve told him that before though I- Well don’t tell him too much. But in the other night, they were playing and they were down by, going to the fourth quarter, it was a tight game and like, Locke just took it upon himself. He just kinda took the game over and he had, I dunno, like five, 15 points in the fourth quarter and just like making all these shots and they didn’t end up winning. It was very close, it was very close, but like, I don’t know, it’s been so fun- That would have been a better story. It’s so fun because this is an experience that I didn’t expect to have. It’s like, I’ve seen him do things like diving and that kind of thing and I was never like, I’m not putting any practice, I don’t think that he’s gonna be a professional athlete. I don’t think he’s gonna be an athlete in college. It’s more just like, this is a fun thing to do. I wanna be supportive, I want you to have something that you’re doing that you’re succeeding at, but it’s just like, I saw him playing and I saw how laser focused he became on winning, and I was like, wow this is something that like, I remember what it’s like to be out there. I didn’t know he was ever going to have this experience of being somebody who’s just out there and he’s, like, I’m gonna take, give me the ball. Not like, oh, the pressure is on, I’m gonna pass the ball to somebody else. He’s like, no, the pressure’s on, I want the ball and I’m gonna make the shot, just give it to me. And so become real, it’s super fun to watch him play. But there’s a connection there. Oh yeah. To your past then his presence. Yeah, and I’m glad that he gets that experiences his senior year, he’s like, “I wanna focus on lifting weights” and I’m like, okay, lifting weights is cool, but lifting weights, doesn’t generate memories in the same way that being on a team and playing together, I guess another school does, it’s a different experience. Lifting weights doesn’t, #EarBiscuits, all you gym bros out there and gym girls, whatever you’re called. I’m just saying, okay, yeah you get a new PR everything, whatever but I’m just saying it’s a different, thing than a team’s support. My number three is Christy and I going on our big search trip again I’m my top fours, nope I’m not saying that Christy’s my number three. Okay well, I’m just . I know what you said well, my wife is number one, but yeah, it was a super special experience. The rain and the red woods, which I talked about pretty recently, and it was a rescheduling of our 25th anniversary after we had already celebrated our 21st wedding anniversary and I’ll always remember the two of us in the cabin with the rain coming down and it was just about us. There was nobody else on the planet and there was no place that either one of us wanted to be. And at this point in our relationship, a lot of people don’t get to experience that. So I do not take it for granted, I’ll leave at that. I’m gonna save my number one, but that’s my number one too not being with your wife in big Sur, but being with my wife and big Sur. Well then wait until you’re number one. So I’m gonna talk about my number two. Yeah that’s your next one. Well but so far when we’ve had one coincide, we’ve said that so I did- Well if you have a little space you could say the same thing and people might think that. Well, I’ll say something different. My number two, again, tied with number three is this is a general memory and then I want to talk about a specific thing, but it’s my time that I spent with Shepherd one wheeling, thanks to your idea of getting the one wheel. This is your number two? yeah. Because of me? This is your number one? So does that make me your number two? Kind of, I made your number two possible. Well, technically the company one wheel did, but yeah, you buying a one wheel, it was a very good decision I’m glad you did it and I. I’ll take that, I’m a part of Rhetts number two. And the thing is sounded gross is this specific challenge with Shepherd is the fact that he, especially over the course of the pandemic, when you couldn’t really do anything, and you’re doing all your school online, he really made a connection with a couple of his friends that he knows from real life and they would play video games together. Yeah. And they’re playing lots of video games together. Yeah. And I have just a classic middle-aged dad perspective on video games, which is, I think that they are a total waste of time. Now I know that that’s not totally true okay, and I know that video games are not as bad for you say as just sitting there and watching television, right. They’re interactive in a different way, whatever, but I just don’t want his childhood to be defined by playing video games and that’s it. And so when you got these one wheels, ’cause when we will go out and do some things together, but it’s like, okay, if we’re gonna go surfing together, it’s like that joy, you got to go all the way to the beach. We’re a long way from the beach where we’re at. We don’t really do the mountain biking thing because my kids never really learned how to bike in a way that they can go do that and even if I wanted to, right. Hiking is hiking, right. It’s worked for a child. And so the moment we went over to your house, when you said, “Hey, we’ve got these things and come try them,” and it’s just like, Shepherd has got on him and just did it, he just got on it and he was gone. And I was like, okay. And he’s like that when it comes to those kinds of things, so it wasn’t necessarily a surprise but the thing that I was sort of in, excited about, I was like, cause he said, “Dad you should get some of those, we should have those.” And then I got them the thing we each got one and he rode it a 100 miles in the first week on his own and he goes all over the place on the thing Right. I don’t even care anymore where he goes, as long as he’s got his phone with him, just go, man, live a life, be like a kid from the eighties. And a helmet. Wear a helmet and some pads, if you can, if you remember to do that risk guards and a helmet and a phone and you’re good to go, and then we’ll have these days where we were just like, Hey, it’s Saturday afternoon, let’s go. And just a few weeks ago we went to just a really special sort of, there’s a lot of like parks and sort of open recreation, wilderness areas in LA, if you know where to look. And it’s one that you’ve been to and you had told me about, and Shepherd had been there because he has done like a camp there or whatever, and like in the, in the same area, but we went and we just had this day where we were going on these trails and we just kept stopping and like literally saying things that you would say in like an afterschool special, which is like, I’m having such a good time. Don’t do drugs, dad. Yeah and both of us kind of realizing how good of a time we were having, and like he will do it, even if he’s in the middle of like one of these quests on one of his games where this boys, if I’m like Shepherd one wheel, he’s like, guys gotta go hangs up and we go right? It’s like, I don’t have to convince him to do it. He has such a good time doing it. And he’s better at it than me ’cause he’s smaller and so he’s willing to go a little bit faster, the board, he can go up things that I can’t go up. So that’s a cool thing that he’s like kind of leading and going in these things. Yeah, and he’ll really, really remembered if you take him out and he breaks his wrist. Well I’m honestly very surprised he hasn’t broken something yet, it is inevitable. Referring to the fact that’s what happened to Lando, his back on it now. He’s gonna hurt something, but hopefully that won’t slow them down. So that’s in general but that day, just a couple weeks ago, when we kind of had the incredible experience found like these new trails and stuff and found these new parts of LA that we didn’t know about, that’s been really special. Yeah, my number two is we had an addition to our family join us in 2021. He is golden, in peanut butter and in color, but kind of looks like my other dog Jade. So yeah, Jasper came along in February of this year and Christy had been, I was like, as long as the dog, I just want another Jade and I’d love for it to be a peanut butter Jade and Christy really wanted, a dog more than I realized ’cause Jade’s my dog, very loyal to me. And I remember when she first showed me the picture, I was like, this is a peanut butter Jade. Let’s go meet this dog right now and I I’m pretty sure, I don’t know if I told the store here or on yeah, on Good Mythical More when I introduced Jasper to the mythical beast, but there Christy has experienced a connection with this dog. Jasper was already a year old and had separation anxiety really bad, like the woman who was the foster mom said, “I can’t put him down, I have to carry him all the time because he jumps in cries,” just like. Put him down is probably not the best choice of words. Put him down on the floor, I have to carry him in my arms and so, yeah, for the very beginning, Christy had to like cradle this poor dog who was afraid of who knows what from his past, but his foster mom was a blonde woman. Christy’s a blonde woman, the handoff was very immediate and the connection that they have is, it was so much, I didn’t realize the point, the extent to which Christy needed that type of connection at this particular point in the pandemic and what she was going through, and so she would say, “I am so grateful for this dog” and we all love him to death. I have this connection with him as well. He’s still like, everybody loves him, and he’s weird about other family members. It’s taken him a while to warm up, haven’t been almost a year with us, with everybody except for me and Christy. But he’s brought so much into her life that it’s just been, we can put up with the fact that, like, he still has a lot of trouble with being housebroken. Oh man, we’re having an issue, we still have issues. So it ain’t all roses in slices of pie. I will tell you that by any means, It’s like caring for a baby that you’re trying to figure out and that he’s trying to figure out life with us. Well I will say when I had to pick, I had to pick him and Jade. That’s right. From the dog border, this is a dog border sounds like someplace like the dog nation. Whatever the kennel or whatever you call it and. The pet resort. To taking Jasper and Jade home like as soon as I got, first of all, when the lady handed Jade was like frozen, like she handed him off, he was just kinda like frozen, just kinda like his eyes were like really big, like, but he didn’t growl or anything. And I just kinda took him and put him in the car, but he was in frozen mode with the lady and then frozen mode with me. Yeah. I put him in the car, I start the car up and immediately he just jumped into my lap. And then I’m like, oh, is this how it’s gonna be? I was like, buddy, you can’t be in my lap because it’s against the law as Christy learned, you cannot have a dog in your lap. We have a special carrier now He insisted on jumping into my lap and I kept having to move him to the passenger seat, and eventually I was like, okay, it’s not that far 10 minutes. He just sat in my lap with his head on my arm while we rode in the car. And then Jade starts barking at me because she wants me to pet her. So, I’m sitting here driving with one hand, your peanut butter Jade is in my lap with his head on my arm and Jay and I’m constantly petting Jayden. If I stop for a second, she barks and growls and claws at me. Yeah. And so I’m just like, good Lord these Neal dogs are so needy. Yeah, it’s nice to be needed. I think is what Christy and I say. I thought Barbara was like- No. Barbara is super needy at home. She’ll bark at you and stuff like when you drive, she wants you to pet her a little bit and then she’ll go and lay down but no, no, no, not Jasper and Jade, they’re gonna give it to you the whole time. I noticed that Socket did not make this spot. Well he was added last year. Oh, okay. But yeah, we’re definitely warming up to him and he’s found his niche in the home ecosystem. But yeah, he’s not gonna make my list here, but yeah, just to see that certain kind of love that Christy needed, that was different than the kind of love that I can give, that you can only get from a dog that adores you like a God, I guess. So it’s just been super sweet to see their connection and for that to be just a part of really seen how a connection with an animal can really be . Transformative. It can be transformative therapy and it has been for her and so for him to be a bonafide member of our family is super special. Okay, my number one is my trip with my wife to big Sur, which was also to celebrate our 20th anniversary, which it actually was our 20th anniversary. We had originally planned to go, I talked about, again, there’s another episode where we talk all about this trip. So I won’t go into too many details, but we had planned on this being our 20th anniversary in Italy, of course, that kind of travel didn’t happen this year. So we went to big Sur and in a similar way, as you were talking about with Christy, the level of intensity of our connection during that time, was something that we have, that was the pinnacle of the intensity of our sort of singular connection to each other this year, it was an incredible, it’s hard to get that level of connectivity when you’re at home with kids, with the jobs that you both have and both very busy. And so we had the fleeting moments that throughout the year, but there was this focus on one another, and we took a whole week. We basically were up there for a whole week and because we were like, we’re taking a whole week because we were gonna be in Italy, but we can’t be so let’s just to make it a week. And we still talk about that and we made us end up going to big Sur for our anniversary from here on out. Probably not because we like to go to new places, but we talked about it because it’s a super special place. And then the type of connection that we experienced and the type of, sort of the level of the communication that we were able to have and the clarity of communication that we were able to have for that week was just, one of the highlights of our marriage, honestly. And then I talked a little bit about, sort of the spiritual processing that took place on that trip. Once you leave an organized religion and you’re no longer really a part of a recognizable faith community, and there’s not ritual and gathering in a book, one of the wonderful things about organized religion in my mind is the structure in the community and the ritual and the practice and that’s one of the reasons it’s so successful and that’s one of the reasons that the community communities are so vibrant because people need that kind of connection to most, a lot of people need that kind of connection. Now since I no longer believe in a particular religion, and I’m now no longer a part of religious community, the spiritual processing can be something that happens sort of just like in sports and happens sort of on an individual basis. And it doesn’t happen as much in community, and it doesn’t happen as much. There’s not as much structure and direction to it, and it can be super beautiful that week for us, and a couple of different moments and just the sort of the spiritual connection. And I’m not gonna go into too many details, but the spiritual connection that we had was also kind of feeding into the just human connection that we were having and the love connection that we were having, and the way that all those things kind of played together. I talked about some of those realizations that Jessie was coming to, and she talked about that on her Twitter as well, but that was one of the things that made that special is that, hey, we go months sometimes without having a meaningful, spiritual connection, in the context of our family. we have really sweet moments, we have really loving moments. We have intense moments of connection with one another, but sometimes we don’t have what I would consider spiritual progress. And to be able to get that, that week was something that I greatly value. That’s a good number one, my friend. Yeah. My number one, maybe a process elimination you can figure it out, was sending Lily off to college. I devoted an overly emotional commemorative episode to unpacking the details and all of the tears associated with that, but just realizing that our family is different now. It was a Rite of passage for her and a successful one, she’s experiencing success in her first semester away, or first quarter away, she’s back home. She’s finished it up, she’s got that under her belt. She’s doing great, it’s not without its challenges. It’s not without its moments of being afraid or lonely, or all the things that you might think of an experience she’s had tastes of all of that, but it’s been very much a positive trajectory for her, which is a huge relief for Christy and I. But then also realizing that like our status as people have changed, like I have a child who’s, well, I have an adult child who’s out of the house and when she comes back, it is different. And I was being very dramatic about the way that I was processing it and I enjoy that because it made it very meaningful. But yeah, it’s like, she comes back and it’s like, how do you feel being back home for Christmas break? She said, “It feels like, kind of feels the same,” but I know it really doesn’t and in every way, and for us, it’s like, things will never be the same. We’ve crossed a threshold into a new era as parents and as a family, and I’m grateful that it’s going so well for her and for us, that like, she surprised me. And when I came home from work two nights ago and she was there, she had moved her flight and she came back early and it was like, yeah, I almost burst into tears of happiness to see her, but at the same, but I didn’t actually, I didn’t go that far. It was like, okay, this is kind of our new normal, and we’re moving into the future and it’s like, every everything associated with this can’t be the most dramatic thing, because it will be absolutely depleting. But yeah, I just feel like it was a successful Rite of passage, and for her, I think it will only happen once, I got two more that will have their own versions of Rite of passage, but this was the year that became my number one. And when she put her hand in that glove that had all the ants on the inside of it and stung her. Right. When she got to college, that was one heck of a Rite of passage as well. They did that at her college, right. That’s what I do that at all, She told you but not me, but you know what I’m saying. Right? Yeah. So that’s my number one and there you have it, we have no zeros. That’s it, and you got a wreck that’s in line with this. My recommendation for you is do the same thing. I think we made this recommendation last year, but I would have liked to have taken more time, but just even if it’s taking 30 minutes and going back through your camera roll, I wrote down every month of the year, and then everything that was the beginning of something, or, I wrote down like probably 35 things, and I did not think that would happen. But when you go through, like you said, go through your calendar, you go through your photo roll, you can go through your email or your journal. Like all these things will jog your memory. And just writing that down like I have this record of every year that we’ve done this, that I can kind of go back to by month and more than just the 10 things. The smaller things as well, it just mean a lot, especially when I went back and I read last year in prep for this year, a lot of memories flooded back. So I recommend you take the time to do that for yourself, and then if you have a podcast, turn it into an episode. Yeah, it makes a great episode, speaking of podcasts, this one will be back on January 10th, 2022. In the meantime, you probably haven’t listened to every single episode and you know what it is okay. If you wanna listen to another podcast. But we prefer you to just listen to our archived versions of ours. Just to make sure it does not replace this one in your heart. #Ear Biscuits to let us know what reactions you have to this and we wish you the best of the end of the year. Happy holidays, happy new year, we will see you in 2022. To watch more Ear Biscuits, click on the playlist on the right. To watch the previous episode of your 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.