EP. 159 — Called Once, Listened Never

[00:00:00] [AD BREAK]

[00:01:24] CHRIS: Hello to everybody who likes to get out there and throw a good liver shot. It’s Beautiful Anonymous. One hour. One phone call. No names. No holds barred.

[00:01:40] THEME MUSIC: I’d rather go one-on-one. I think it’ll be more fun and I’ll get to know you and you’ll get to know me. 

[00:01:50] CHRIS: Hi, everybody. It’s Chris. Chris Gethard. Hi. You are listening to Beautiful Anonymous. Thanks so much for checking in. All the people who listen to the show. I just got to, I always do it, but I thank you so much. A whole bunch of people have been coming out to my shows in Brooklyn and the Beautiful Anonymous fans are always the nicest ones. The fans of the other stuff aren’t as nice. And they’re nice. You guys are really nice. This week, I’m hoping this comes out on April 16th, I think April 16th. I’m asking everyone, if you’re downloading this and listening to it, on April 16th or even this week when you get to this episode. Now’s the time. Whatever podcast app you use, especially if it’s Apple podcasts, let’s game the system this week. If you haven’t left a review for Beautiful Anonymous. You haven’t left those five stars. Or if not, I’m not going to force you to do five, whatever your gut tells you. If you haven’t gone and typed out an actual review about why you like the show. Let’s make this week the week. I’m just doing a review drive. I’ve never done this on the show before, and I’m doing this for two reasons. One, obviously helps sell ads. I’m not gonna lie about that. It’ll look cool to go up the charts. I think it’ll be look, make us look good and it’ll just help. It’s a cool sign of strength. But number two, it’s gonna be fun for all of you guys to realize that this is a strong community. I’m the only one who really gets to see the whole community. I travel around. I go to Huntsville. I go to Nashville. I go to Salt Lake City. I get to go to every corner of the globe. I go to London and all of you nice people come up to me and say you listen to the show. And it’s so weird for me because I’m just, I’m the only one who gets a full sense of the community. So, everybody show up. Leave your view. And we’re just going to laugh and laugh and laugh. Last time I checked, Beautiful Anonymous was the number 130th ranked comedy podcast. I bet if we all leave a review the same day, same week, they’ll just charge up the charts. I also want to let everybody know we got a new T-shirt over at podswag.com/beautiful. It’s inspired by episode 153 “Car Crash”, an episode that I think was very meaningful to a lot of people in the course of that, the phrase was said, “please still try.” And I responded and said “I kind of feel like that could be the motto for this entire show. This entire project that is Beautiful Anonymous.” A lot of people seem to agree. A lot of people rallied around that phrase of “please still try.” So, we got the new Please Still Try tshirt at podswag.com/Beautiful. This week’s episode, some of you guys are gonna love it. Some of you guys are gonna hate it. It’s old school. We have someone who got through, has never heard the show before. I know that’s infuriating to a lot of you guys who try to call all the time. He has never heard the show. He gets on the show. It’s kind of appropriate to ask for the review drive when we have a first-time listener who’s actually calling the show, listening to his own episode. That’s his first experience of Beautiful Anonymous as it unfolds. It’s a fun episode. We talk about boxing a lot up top. We don’t talk about boxing the whole time. Don’t worry, it meanders. It goes on a whole bunch of directions. I think there’s a whole lot of people who say, “I miss the early days of the show when it was totally unplanned.” This is that. It’s a fun one. I thank the caller for calling in. Maybe you’ll subscribe. Maybe you’ll subscribe and leave a review and everybody else out there. Let’s have a fun week. If you’re so inclined, game the system. This is the week where we game the system, leave reviews, enjoy the call.

[00:05:10] PHONE ROBOT: Thank you for calling Beautiful Anonymous. A beeping noise will indicate when you are on the show with the host. [Beep]

[00:05:18] CHRIS: Hello? 

[00:05:19] CALLER: Hey.

[00:05:20] CHRIS: Hey, how’s it going? 

[00:05:21] CALLER: Good. How are you?

[00:05:23] CHRIS: I’m OK. I had a weird morning, but I’m all right.

[00:05:27] CALLER: Why was it weird?

[00:05:29] CHRIS: I threw up. I threw up this morning. 

[00:05:32] CALLER: (Laughter) It happens to the best of us. Was it a late night or just a bad morning?

[00:05:38] CHRIS: No, I don’t have late nights anymore. That’s not been a factor for a few years now. I’m getting old. I take jujitsu classes and I went a little too hard and I dehydrated myself. I also think, I eat… I had some vitamins on a relatively empty stomach and that always gets my tummy bad. So, I threw up after my class.

[00:06:00] CALLER: I can relate to the jujitsu part. I used to box a lot. Take a lot of boxing classes. 

[00:06:07] CHRIS: Yeah. 

[00:06:10] CALLER: And yeah, you can kind of hit that wall pretty hard.

[00:06:14] CHRIS: Yeah. It was like we were all sparring and then it was like, “hey Chris, do you have another round in you? This guy wants to go.” And I knew in my heart that I was already overheating. And but I didn’t want to… I wanted to be a good teammate and help this person train. So, I said “let’s do it.” It was a big mistake. And I almost collapsed in the shower and people in the locker room were asking me if I was okay. And then I threw up.

[00:06:38] CALLER: Yeah, it’s hard. And it’s also, you know, among… depends on sort of the group of people, but it’s hard be kind of vulnerable in a group where you are supposed to be, you know, it’s a martial art, right? And so it’s hard to say when somebody says “you got one more in you?” to go “No, I really don’t.” unless you’re with the right people who understand it. You can push yourself too hard.

[00:07:02] CHRIS: Yeah. And then there’s the…I think you’re right. There’s some ego in there. And there’s also the side of it too, of like, well, if I quit now, this person has to be done for the day and they took the train, they got up early.

[00:07:14] CALLER: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. 

[00:07:15] CHRIS: And you kind of use them as your own motivation.

[00:07:19] CALLER: Yeah, and it’s the… Yeah, the guy. The guy across from, you know. They’re paying for it, too. And you almost feel like you’re letting them down.

[00:07:26] CHRIS: Yeah. Be a good teammate. Even in a sport where you’re punching each other in the face, you still have to be a good teammate. How far did you take the boxing? Was it just, you know…

[00:07:35] CALLER: Not too far.

[00:07:38] CHRIS: Yeah. Because that can be… there can be anything from like, sweat it out to like, oh you’re in some old school Gleason’s Gym. Or it can be like I’m fighting in the Golden Gloves.

[00:07:47] CALLER: No, it was, you know, occasional sparring and that’s it.

[00:07:51] CHRIS: Yeah.

[00:07:52] CALLER: The tough bit, you know, with the way that, you know, we’re learning more and more about CTE, right? It’s fun to get the taste of it, right? But I’m frankly too afraid to go much farther than that. So, you know, it’s kind of, it’s, there’s nothing, there’s no other way to, like, actually understand what, you know, what defense is like, right? Other than having somebody throw a fist at your head.

[00:08:23] CHRIS: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:08:23] CALLER: So, and I wanted to see that, you know, I got my taste of it. And I think that was about it.

[00:08:29] CHRIS: I did a little boxing. I’ve done a little boxing in my day. The problem is it makes every joint in your body hurt and you can’t lift your arm, like even a third as high as they’re supposed to.

[00:08:44] CALLER: Yeah. It’s much more, I think, for people, you know, who maybe who’ve never tried it. I mean, it’s, you know, the best kind of full body workout I’ve ever experienced. But also, that I think the part that surprising that people try it for the first time is like, how much more endurance it is than it is, you know, hitting hard, right? That it’s more about just being able to, like, keep your hands up. That’s actually the really hard part.

[00:09:17] CHRIS: Yeah.

[00:09:17] CALLER: Not throwing the punches.

[00:09:19] CHRIS: Yeah. But there is a part of me, and I don’t know, maybe this is like an outdated, maybe this is an outdated thought. Maybe attitudes inside have moved on, but I think there’s a lot of people, myself included, who are well served by an occasional punch to the face. I think it really puts you, puts you in a good mental state. Keeps some things in perspective. Makes the rest of your day seem not as bad.

[00:09:41] CALLER: Yeah

[00:09:44] CHRIS: It keeps you humble.

[00:09:45] CALLER: You know, the oh, it’s a little bit of, they call it the void that, you know, it’s self-destructive, but maybe in a good way. I’m not sure.

[00:09:55] CHRIS: Yeah. 

[00:09:56] CALLER: I think the same thing that drives, you know, you can have to be a little bit of a masochist to enjoy it.

[00:10:03] CHRIS: Yeah.

[00:10:05] CALLER: A little bit of poison every day won’t kill you, right. You get used to the poison.

[00:10:11] CHRIS: You do, right? And then it’s like the Princess Bride. Then it’s like the Princess Bride took one grain a day.

[00:10:18] CALLER: Yeah, my girlfriend would love that you made that reference.

[00:10:22] CHRIS: Well, hey, that’s the secret. That’s the secret of my success, is that on one hand, I can be talking about the value of getting punched in the face, on the next breath, let’s reference a sweet, romantic comedic movie of many generations. Are you a boxing fan? Do you watch boxing?

[00:10:40] CALLER: I do. And I feel conflicted about it.

[00:10:43] CHRIS: Yeah, me too.

[00:10:45] CALLER: Yeah. Because it’s really fun to watch, right? And particularly, you know, if you have any idea what’s going on, it’s fascinating. And it also gives you that appreciation, for any pro sport, where, you know, against an amateur, right? It’s just like, “oh, my god, these people are unreal.” But what I’m conflicted about it is in the same way that I said, you know, heart attacks, see CTE thing, right? People are kind of destroying themselves for your benefit. And, you know, they’re walking in knowing full well, right? What the dangers are. Now, they are, you know, back in the day, I’m not sure anybody did, but now they do. So, it’s like, well look, if you want to make that deal about, you know, taking the money and in return, you know, beating yourself up or, you know, getting yourself beat up. But the other part that sort of concerns me is, it’s not, like that choice makes sense. But what other choices exist for a lot of these guys for whom this was their only way out, you know, or like.

[00:11:51] CHRIS: That’s true.

[00:11:52] CALLER: It’s the only thing they’ve ever known.

[00:11:55] CHRIS: They get it and then they get exploited and they get, they put their bodies online and you got your Don Kings of the world who are maybe taking a little extra off the top

[00:12:02] CALLER: Yeah. 

[00:12:03] CHRIS: So, it’s a shady world. I found in the… I did boxing training only a handful of times and I’ll tell you, with the headgear on. I will tell you. Here’s what I learned, is that when you get punched in the face with a boxing gloves on, it hurts. But you tell me if I’m wrong. The pain is not really the issue. It’s the immense amount of confusion. That’s really bad.

[00:12:28] CALLER: Yeah, I agree with that. It’s the shock of it.

[00:12:31] CHRIS: You’re like, “what was that? Where did it come from? What direction are my facing now? What happened to there.” Oh, wait, also, it hurts it.

[00:12:41] CALLER: Right? And you can see it. And when the pros, right? Very rare, like the, you know, the one the punch knockout is kind of the, you know, the famous, you know, like what you think of an Rocky movie. But more it’s just the accumulation of a combination, right. One will surprise somebody. And then the hands come down and then it’s just two, three, four, five. And, you know, all of a sudden they’re against the ropes and the ref is holding them up right?

[00:13:09] CHRIS: Yeah, it’s not. Tyson was really the only one in my lifetime I can remember where he had the one punch knockout thing reliably.

[00:13:18] CALLER: And he also… I was watching a video of him that showed up on YouTube the other day of him as like a 16-year-old. 

[00:13:25] CHRIS: I saw it.

[00:13:27] CALLER: …fighting and he. Yeah. Did you see that? And he was throwing just absolute bombs. 

[00:13:31] CHRIS: Yes. 

[00:13:32] CALLER: … a 16-year-old. 

[00:13:33] CHRIS: Yes.

[00:13:33] CALLER: Like, would, you know, like collapse my rib cage, even if I’d known it was coming, right? Just absolute bombs. So, you know that he’s one of those true, like, you know, crazy power that could bring anybody else down. But the more maturity you get, if they you know, if it ends in a knockout, it’s from what exactly what you, I think what you felt, which is, you know, the surprise disorients you and then you just can’t defend yourself anymore.

[00:14:00] CHRIS: The shock and, shock and awe. Now, I’m going to tell you three facts about me, and then you have to guess who my favorite boxer of all time is.

[00:14:10] CALLER: OK. All right. We’ll give it a run.

[00:14:13] CHRIS: One, I’m from New Jersey. 

[00:14:16] CALLER: OK.

[00:14:17] CHRIS: Two, I don’t know if I’m primarily concerned with being the best comedian as long as I put on a show that really makes people in the room that night feel like they saw something special.

[00:14:28] CALLER: OK.

[00:14:29] CHRIS: Three, I really think one of my greatest assets is that even though I’m not the most talented, I know how to keep going, even when I catch bad breaks i.e. I know how to get back up again after I’ve been knocked down.

[00:14:42] CALLER: Right. You’ve got heart, as they would say.

[00:14:45] CHRIS: Yeah, I got heart like John Starch, as the Beastie Boys once said.

[00:14:50] CALLER: Yeah. A heart and a good chin, right? You know, I don’t know my knowledge of, you know, I know all the greats, but my knowledge of the sort of boxing history is pretty limited. I’ve been trying to read up, you know, as I’ve been getting into it, but I’m not sure. It’s the Jersey thing that is throwing me off. Trying to. Yeah. Trying to go through my…

[00:15:17] CHRIS: Jersey City. Fought out of Jersey City, New Jersey, baby. We’re talking about Arturo Thunder Gatti. You ever see those fights, Gatti versus Ward?

[00:15:29] CALLER: Yes. Yeah. Gatti versus Ward right? The, you know, the Irish hero, right? 

[00:15:35] CHRIS: Yeah. 

[00:15:36] CALLER: Where the two them, what was that round?

[00:15:37] CHRIS: The round of the century. The round of the century!

[00:15:42] CALLER: Where there are just two minutes of absolute brutalization for both of them.

[00:15:46] CHRIS: Their first fight. Round nine. Watch it. Just Google “round of the century”. It’s round nine of the first fight between Micky Ward and Arturo Gatti. And it’s truly insane.

[00:16:00] CALLER: Crazy. It’s crazy. It’s crazy.

[00:16:02] CHRIS: Yeah.

[00:16:03] CALLER: Because it’s just, it’s one guy throwing himself out, right? Out of gas and then putting his hands down. And then the other guy comes back with all he had and puts his hand down and then it comes back again, right? And it’s that for two minutes. And it just, it’s brutal. And you can see it on their faces, that they know exactly what’s happening right now.

[00:16:26] CHRIS: Yes. Both of them just choosing not to fall down and wondering why they won’t. Even they wondering why they won’t. Leading, I believe, Jim Lampley to say. Or was it Emmanuel Steward? It might have been, I think was Jim Lampley. “I knew we might see the fight of the year, but I didn’t know we were going to see the round of the century.” I believe that’s the quote. God damn, thats… 

[00:16:47] CALLER: You know what? 

[00:16:47] CHRIS: Good fight.

[00:16:49] CALLER: I’ve always wondered about, with that sort of thing is, what the, you know, that the trainer is looking for, right? Because if I had been sitting in that corner, you know what? How do you decide whether to throw the towel or not? Like you talked about it beforehand. Like, if I see this, we’re done. Do you not talk about it, cause you don’t want your fighter to think about that? Like, how do you, what are you thinking about in terms of just damage taken in future career when you watch something like that? Because I don’t know if I would have the stomach for it frankly.

[00:17:23] CHRIS: I feel like those two fighters in particular, though, their trainers know if you throw in the towel on me, we are going to have a real serious deficit.

[00:17:30] CALLER: You’re not the trainer anymore.

[00:17:33] CHRIS: Yeah. When was the last time you threw up? When was that? What’s the most recent vomit experience you’ve had? Mine was this morning.

[00:17:41] CALLER: It’s a good question, by the way, I was gonna ask, are you feeling better at least?

[00:17:45] CHRIS: So much better. I drank a ton of water and I went right away and ate myself. I ate a little lunch, got some salt and electrolyte back in the system, and I bounced back. My stomach is still a little wonky, but I no longer feel like I’m going to pass out. But thank you for asking. That was quite considerate of you.

[00:18:02] CALLER: Yeah. Well, I should’ve led with that, but other than that, I can’t get punched. Let’s see the last time that I threw up. You know, was probably, it was probably a couple months ago. I recently moved across the country for work and so I had, you know, one or two kind of goodbye celebrations with friends. And one of them kind of got out of hand. I had a little too much to drink, ended up, you know, throwing up. I think that was probably it. Yeah. You know, nothing. No, no spectacular story, but if I had to guess.

[00:18:49] CHRIS: I was just looking for the facts. You don’t need to blow my mind. Now, it’s been 15 minutes. I do feel we let the boxing talk get a little out of control. Most people don’t just talk about boxing and vomiting for the first 15 minutes. I want to make sure if there’s anything you want to talk about, the floor is yours. I’m happy to chitchat about boxing, however, but.

[00:19:09] CALLER: No, no, no. You know, the only thing that’s on my mind and this is your, you might find this funny or you might find it horrifying. I’m not sure, but I’ve actually never listened to the podcast.

[00:19:21] CHRIS: (Immense laughter)

[00:19:24] CALLER: Yeah. I so, I have come twice to the Chris Gethard show and my girlfriend is a huge, huge, huge fan of the podcast.

[00:19:37] CHRIS: Please thank her.

[00:19:39] CALLER: Oh I, trust me. She’s going to, she’s going to kill me when, you know, if/when I tell her. 

[00:19:47] CHRIS: Yeah.

[00:19:48] CALLER: But she’s the one who introduced me to you and so we went twice to your show. The first was when Method Man was on, who was so remarkably personable in the interview you did with him. I was just I was blown away by it and I had such a good time. You know, that all the production staff was great and all that stuff.

[00:20:16] CHRIS: He is amazingly charismatic method men, insanely charismatic guy. Also in person, you can vouch for me, shockingly handsome.

[00:20:25] CALLER: Very handsome, very handsome. 

[00:20:28] CHRIS: Great dude.

[00:20:29] CALLER: Yeah. And the two, you know, to a certain extent go hand in hand. Right. But he was. Yeah. I thought he did. And he also seemed like and maybe you can kind of do a little behind the scenes here, but it seemed like, you know, he didn’t know much about the show either.

[00:20:43] CHRIS: No. 

[00:20:45] CALLER: But he did a great job with it, right.

[00:20:46] CHRIS: Well, here’s, I’ll tell you one of the most..

[00:20:48] CALLER: You gotta give him credit.

[00:20:48] CHRIS: I will tell you. Here’s one of the most flattering things anyone’s ever said to me. I met him at an event called The Upfronts, where different TV shows go and you talk to tons of journalists. It’s very annoying and very gross. I was there promoting my show and he was there promoting a show that he was producing and he saw me and he stopped me.

[00:21:09] CALLER: He wasn’t there promoting your show? 

[00:21:10] CHRIS: I wish. I wish if he just inexplicably was promoting my projects. And that’s how we got to know each other. No. 

[00:21:18] CALLER: He would be a great hype man.

[00:21:19] CHRIS: He stopped me and he said, “Hey, your Chris Gethard.” I was like, holy shit, “your method, man.” Like, why do you know who I am? And he goes, I’ll tell you something, “I saw your career suicide special on HBO.” And this is true. Method Man says to me he goes, “There’s been three comedians in my life who I can think of that make me think while they’re also making me laugh.Chris Rock. Dave Chappelle. Chris Gethard.” Method Man said that to me. Some of the greatest flattery. And then we got to talking and I was like, “I’m here promoting my show. If you ever want to do it, let me know.” He’s like “Dude, after what you did on HBO. Anything you need. I’ll always help you out.” And he came on the show and he killed it. He’s the best. 

[00:22:01] CALLER: I mean, he’s great.

[00:22:03] CHRIS: Now, you don’t listen to Beautiful Anonymous. Oh, yeah, go for it. What’s the question?

[00:22:06] CALLER: Well, one quick question. When somebody says something like that to you. You know that. Unfortunately, you know, I don’t have quite the kind of career at the moment that, you know, puts me in the same sort of sentences as Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock. But when somebody says something like that to you, do you shrink or do you grow? You know, is that like you’re trying to sort of fill that bubble or are you like, oh, my God. You know, I can’t occupy the last part of that sentence like, because I could kind of see it going both ways, right?

[00:22:40] CHRIS: On the one hand, my initial instinct is, well, that’s not true. I’m certainly am not someone of the skills of a Chappelle or a Rock. I’m the first to admit that. But then I’m also like “But who am I? Who am I to invalidate method man’s experience to Ticallion” I’m not here trying to undercut the Ticallion Stallion, if that is his opinion. I just appreciate the thought and the praise, because he’s also someone who I’ve, I mean, I grew up in the Northeast in the 90s, like the Wu Tang Clan was a massive part of my pop culture experience, so.

[00:23:15] CALLER: That very much came through in the show, too, about I mean, you know, I’m not going to say you were fanboying, but to a certain extent you were. And that was that was great, cause you’re earnestness really kind of, I think made him comfortable.

[00:23:27] CHRIS: Quite genuine. Yeah. It’s funny that people give me praise and it’s not, I mean.Two things I say: the one part I would say, part one is I’m very aware that I am not a mainstream entity. So, I am very happy to understand that my work has helped a small amount of people relative to some others like I know. Initially, I’m like, I’m not Dave Chappelle, Dave Chappelle, like Dave Chappelle, sells out football stadiums. I get down on myself. But I go, “You know, I have a much smaller fan base, but I get the sense that the stuff I’ve done means a lot to them” and I’ll take that 10 times out of 10.

[00:24:07] CALLER: It’s funny that there’s the Dave Dave Chappelle being the big side of that, because I immediately think of I can’t remember which Chris Rock album it was. But at one point in one of his albums, he has a super cut of him saying the same punch line of, you know, I said this in Johannesburg. I said, that in Paris. I said it. I said it. Did, you know? And it’s like, it’s an interesting choice to make in producing the album like that, because you do get slightly different reactions in each one of the city. But it also sounds like you then realized the scope of like who Chris Rock is like, you know, very quickly. 

[00:24:45] CHRIS: Yeah. And then I’ve got like a 200-seat room, maybe two thirds full in Huntsville, Alabama. Like, you know, I know who I am, but I’m happy there. And I’m happy to do stuff that people find thoughtful and smart and. And yeah, I think that’s.

[00:25:06] [AD BREAK]

[00:27:06] CHRIS: I’m happy to do stuff that people find thoughtful and smart and, yeah, I think that’s. And you know, the praise goes a long way. But it also doesn’t erase the emotional impact of seeing people on the Internet consistently be like, “this guy’s not funny and he’s ugly and he has mutant hands” like those add up.

[00:27:24] CALLER: Oh yeah, I see.

[00:27:25] CHRIS: Those add up too.

[00:27:28] CALLER: You still feel that the slings of arrows on Twitter. You have Twitter and all that, even if you don’t want to. Even if you have Method Man as your hype man, it’s still hard to avoid.

[00:27:39] CHRIS: Yeah, but I think one of the sad things, one of the things that I am aware makes people who love me in my real life sad and it makes me sad when I have the perspective to see it, is that I let the bad hurt me more than I let the good affect me in the positive. And I think that is sometimes hard to watch.

[00:28:06] CALLER: Yeah. I am sure it is, but it’s also it’s part and parcel of the you know, the success that you have is having that perspective, right. You can’t you know, I’ve watched career suicide, and I don’t think someone who takes the praise more than the criticism could do that set.

[00:28:31] CHRIS: Oh no. 

[00:28:32] CALLER: Yeah. Right. Like, it’s just, not it’s you. It’s inescapable. And so. Yeah, you’re doomed I guess is what I’m trying to say

[00:28:41] CHRIS: I am doomed.

[00:28:42] CALLER: Make yourself better is what I am trying to say. Jujitsu. Sounds good.

[00:28:44] CALLER: Well it I mean it sounds like, you know, my work well enough to know that me doing a hobby that’s me physically being beaten and choked is very in character.

Now, I want to explain to you. I want to explain to you that you don’t listen to Beautiful Anonymous. I’m not sure how aware you are of it. I will say this episode. I mean, it’s just like, you know, and I’m not mad about it. I think some people are going to love this some are going to hate. This is by far directionless compared to how the show usually goes. People are used to this show. I’m also going to, I don’t know if you are aware. So, I’m checking right now and we are coming up on you got through. You’d never listen to the show. There are people furious with you right now because there are people there’s people who are listen religiously and try to call every time. There’s almost 11,000 people have tried to call while you and I are talking. And some guy who has never even bothered to listen is on. It’s not going to make all of them thrilled. What is your message to them?

[00:29:34] CALLER: No, I .. My message to them is I apologize. I have no business. I have no business being on the podcast. But my second message is, you know, I have maintained to my girlfriend that I was going to try to get on before she did to see what would happen. You know, if anybody can, if I am forgiven for anything, it can be, you know, I am keeping a promise.

[00:30:01] CHRIS: But it also sounds like a competitive. It sounds like one of those playful couple jokes meant to infuriate her. And now it’s come true. And you’re gonna have to deal with the aftermath.

[00:30:12] Well, you know, as I was, I was sitting and listening the nice punk rock selection that you had. I was sitting there to you open, for those of you who have not been as fortunate as I am.

[00:30:25] CHRIS: Oh. Oh, now you’re getting cocky. Now you’re rubbing it in.

[00:30:30] CALLER: A little bit. Like, lean it. Lean into it when you have the chance. Right. 

[00:30:35] CHRIS: The heel, you’re taking a heel turn.

[00:30:39] CALLER: But you do say, you know, sort of what you would call the whole music. Like look, you know, think hard about whether you want your voice on the podcast. I don’t so much mind that, but what I did I was trying to think through is, oh, god, this joke is becoming very real now, you know? And like, what is that?

[00:30:58] CHRIS: So, your girlfriend, 

[00:30:59] CALLER: Which I’m sure you know, you’ve experienced.

[00:31:02] CHRIS: Oh, yeah. I mean, if there’s anybody who’s taken a joke to a point of his own discomfort, it’s a guy who once ate a pot cookie on a helicopter and then went on live TV thinking it would be funny in theory and then being thrown into the abyss. Is that heaven for you. Now you say your girlfriend listens often to the show. Would you say every episode?

[00:31:23] CALLER: Yes. 

[00:31:23] CHRIS: So, she’s going to hear this.

[00:31:26] CALLER: Yes 

[00:31:27] CHRIS: And you clearly, I will say again, it’s been lovely. We’ve largely talked about boxing and then me and Method Men, usually just give you a perspective,

[00:31:36] CHRIS: People usually call up and they tell me stories of sort of their deepest life philosophies or fears or maybe their most profound experiences as a human. Someone once told me that they were about to leave for federal prison. We had someone who survived 

[00:31:54] CALLER: You had Paul Manafort on Beautiful Anonymous, that’s crazy.

[00:31:56] CHRIS: No, he is not the only human in prison, dude. But this is just an example of, you know, people you know, people who are trying to start small businesses, people who are hurt or were going through massive life changes. Someone whose house just burned down. And we got me and you talking about what it’s like to get punched in the face and Method Man. And now you make it.

[00:32:18] CALLER: But that’s also that can be life changing, getting punched in the face the way that you talked about jujitsu. It seems like, you know, it’s made a positive change in your life. I don’t think we’re that far afield.

[00:32:30] CHRIS: Now, I’m loving this because you’re owning it. You’re owning your part where I’m saying that the listeners are not used to this. You’re owning it. I mean, yeah, no. But this is great, too. I love that. And I and people who aren’t as fortunate to get in as I do. I love it.

[00:32:49] CALLER: You know, Chris, you know. You know, it’s your podcast right. 

[00:32:52] CHRIS: That’s true.

[00:32:54] CALLER: Yeah. And so, I don’t know. You know, that I would like to, I would like to say that, you know, I had some sort of enormous wisdom to impart. You know, from my own life or some major upcoming crisis or something, you know, deeper or more existential to talked about. But, you know, at this moment, I don’t know that I do. I’m taken the GRE in about a week. I’m thinking of going to grad school. So, you know, I’ve kind of got that on the brain. I recently moved across the country for a job. And my you know, and that was sort of a big thing. You know, the sort of to date, I say the most. I don’t know. The most interesting circumstance in which I found myself is, you know, at one point in 2016, I worked on HRC campaign. And so, you know, it’s a of limited more for a couple of months doing. I’m not sure how deep to go into here, but let’s say doing analytics work Yeah. And you know that I think, you know, if you were to reach for kind of an interesting story or series of stories, I guess that’s it. You know, it’s not right. Not everybody who… We all go through moments. And it just so happened today. I got lucky on a day where I’m feeling like things are pretty, pretty, pretty normal. So why not talk about boxing or jujitsu?

[00:34:40] CHRIS: I love it now. OK, with that mind, with that mind, can I ask you. So, you’ve had this long running competition with your own girlfriend and how long have you guys been together?

[00:34:52] CALLER: Let’s see. It would be a little over two years now.

[00:34:56] CHRIS: A little over two years. And you have long said in a chiding way, I will get through to that show you like before you do. And now it’s happened. Are there any specific messages you’d like to send to your girlfriend of two years knowing she’s listening and probably a little salty that you’ve made it on the air?

[00:35:16] CALLER: If I may get sentimental for a moment that I love her very much, that she’s been… She took a move across the country for this with me, for this job that I took. And I don’t know if I would have had the…she had lived in our previous city for, I don’t know, seven, eight years. And, you know, a year and a half in, I got this opportunity and I said, I think I’m thinking about taking it, but it’s going to require a move. And she said, “I’m in”. And so, she’s been she’s been working remotely. And, you know, I’d like to think that she may not believe it herself, but I think that shows a lot of courage and a lot of sort of inner strength that she may not see in herself. But I see it in her. And yeah, I hope she, I hope she knows that. And if she doesn’t, well, now she and everybody else who listens knows it.

[00:36:24] CHRIS: Well dog, smart play, smart play dude. That could have gone in many directions to let that unfold into a beautiful monologue where you say even though she doesn’t see her own inner strength, it’s there and I see it. Well played. You just melted everybody’s hearts. Everybody just went from being a little bitter. You got through to a little bit in love with you. Well done.

[00:36:48] CALLER: Right. It’s the heel to the baby face. There’s always a term or two or three. Right.

[00:36:53] CHRIS: Yes. Yes, it’s true. It’s true. You know, you’re wrestling psychology.

[00:36:58] CALLER: One or more. Yeah. One or more. One or two more left before the end of the phone call.

[00:37:03] CHRIS: Yeah. We’re talking wrestling. I tell you, I went to NXT take over and wrestle mania this weekend. I saw two different wrestling.

[00:37:10] CALLER: You know, I’ve actually I’ve never seen any live wrestling, though. My parents first date was wrestling and yeah, my dad still talks about it, my mother doesn’t, which I’m not sure why that is. You can read into it what you will.

[00:37:25] CHRIS: Does your dad remember who the main event was?

[00:37:28] CALLER: No, he was actually there because he was part of sort of like a big brother, big sister thing. And the kid that he was sort of mentoring was just really into wrestling. And I say, this is a guy who, I grew up. I grew up a couple blocks from a ballpark, and my dad could not care less about any kind of sport, basically. But my mother when we were growing up. My sister and I, she used to come home from work and she, you know, take us out in the stroller and she’d buy two tickets off a scalper. And she’d put me next to her and my sister in her lap and watch a game and we would leave. And so, by all my experiences of just sports and of sporting is with her, not really with my dad. And so, I have a hard time sort of imagining this situation, because it’s not the sort of thing my dad would sign up for. But I think he made I mean, obviously made the most of it because it worked out.

[00:38:34] CHRIS: Wow, heartwarming, heartwarming tale. Ultimately about parental roles and your mom.

[00:38:44] CALLER: Well, it’s the you know, if anybody is out there is thinking, boy, you know, I’ve got two wrestling tickets, should I ask this guy or girl to it? I guess all I have to say is give it a try. It’s worked before, you know.

[00:39:06] CHRIS: I don’t even know what to make of this. What? I don’t know what.. People are gonna… This is gonna be divisive. Some people are going to love the chit chat. 

Some people are going to be like, all right. What else would you talk about if you were me? What would you what he. What would. If you were helping me out.

[00:39:27] CALLER: I would talk. I think I would talk about the campaign I think was what you know, because I don’t know if you’ve had anybody who worked on that, and even if we want to get really divisive, we can do that. You know, the other, the other thing I was sort of prepared to talk about was the other guy, or the other time I went to see your show. It was to see actually the musical Geth, one of my favorites, Ted Leo was on the show. Another good. Another good. New Jerseyan.

[00:39:58] CHRIS: Yes.

[00:39:58] CALLER: And that you know, that was the other thing I was thinking about talking about was how, you know, it’s funny how much my… in high school listening to him has informed how much the bands that I like now because of things that I heard him sort of say. And, you know, and sing about and talk about at shows that, “oh, I better go listen to bad brains like, oh, I better go listen to Thin Lizzy. Like, oh, I better go listen to the misfits”. To really get what all of this is and you know, and found some other stuff that I really like. So, it was very fun, you know. And I can’t thank you enough because I got to sit there and chat with him after the show, which I don’t know if I would have had that opportunity to sort of meet one of your heroes. And he couldn’t have been, he couldn’t have been nicer. But yes, I know we can talk about that. It was funny to see the other day Beto O’Rourke said that he, I think he was going to have a Fugazi administration, which I’m still trying to figure out what that means.

[00:40:58] CHRIS: Yeah. Yes.

[00:41:00] CALLER: Yeah. I have no idea. You know, I’m just stumped. I’m totally stumped by that state.

[00:41:07] CHRIS: Well I get it. I mean, if you’re a Ted Leo fan. Okay. First of all, let me just say, I want to echo that Ted Leo is a brilliant musician and also a kind man. A good person. And a kind man and a true gentleman of New Jersey. And I’m lucky to have been his sphere a couple times because he’s a true artist. It’s inspiring. Well, yeah, I mean, Beto O’Rourke is saying he’s really into Fugazi. I mean, what was, Fugazi was, for anybody who doesn’t know. Not everybody who listens to this show likes punk rock. There was a band called Minor Threat, very punk rock, very hardcore, very screaming and yelling. What you would think. Also had the song Straight Edge, which spawned the Straight Edge movement, which you may have heard of even outside of punk rock. Went on to be in a band that I think a lot of people would consider more thoughtful and more musical called Fugazi. And they were known for their very strong sense of ethics. All their shows were all ages. They never charged more than what was five-bucks or ten bucks per show.

[00:42:05] CALLER: Yeah it was something like that, it was nothing basically.

[00:42:07] CHRIS: Yeah, they made sure everything was very accessible. They had a lot of rules regarding their merchandising as well. And yeah. Ian MacKaye is, I think they maybe had no merchandising. Right. The famous shirt is “this is not a Fugazi T-shirt”. That’s like a well-known shirt in punk. But Ian McKaye, very inspiring guy who never has kind of you know, he founded Dischord Records. He’s put out a lot of great stuff. And he’s very famously one of the people who has actually decades and still not betrayed the ethics he laid out in his earliest days. I think that’s what Beto means.

[00:42:44] CALLER: Yeah. And I think, you know, there are not that many like elder statesmen of that era of punk rock, like men, maybe Henry Rollins, maybe. Maybe him And so it’s just interesting to I don’t know, that to hear or to hear that brought up or rather that you know, anything else. Yeah. I’m trying to think of the you know, the other thing that he said was, you know, when you listen to on the campaign and he said, oh, I listen to the misfits and bad brains and the clash and you know, and I was kind of sitting there. It’s like how does sort of like sort of center left Texas politics and bad brains match up? You know, I think about myself of like how do why how do I square the circle? Because it doesn’t quite fit together. But I kind of get it. You know, to it’s hard to wear a button-down shirts and slacks and be a huge bad brains fan. But maybe that’s sort of having that positive, you know, positive mental attitude right there. You know, be who you are.

[00:44:00] CHRIS: And he’s into it. Turns out he was like a member of like one of the early hacking groups. In a way, when I read that, I was like, this guy is built for me. He was listening to Ian MacKaye and gone on BBS systems in the 80s and early 90s. Like, this is the closest culturally to me anyone has ever. Any presidential candidate has ever been some guy who likes punk rock and doing Facebook lives and also has done a lot of weird backdoor Internet community building and secretive ways on early BBS systems. Yeah. It’s my dude. I like the guy.

[00:44:36] CALLER: Yeah. It’s bizarre. Yeah, I know. I don’t think he’s my candidate at the moment, but it is. I do have that same sort of like general warm feeling round like, oh, I think I get this guy like I think I understand him in a way that you don’t necessarily feel that a lot other people.

[00:44:54] CHRIS: I wouldn’t be mad. I wouldn’t be mad at him. What’s the, OK. Hilary? Well, Hillary’s campaign. You were there.

[00:45:00] CALLER: Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:45:01] CHRIS: You’ve indicated that there’s some stories there. What are you willing to share?

[00:45:09] [AD BREAK]

[00:46:50] CALLER:  Well, you know, so my role was very limited. I did a bunch of, sort of data analytics and, you know, the first thing I’ll say is that I was there for the last couple of months when they were sort of really tooling up for the general election. And the real sort of heroes of the story are the organizers who were there from, you know, Iowa caucuses like, you know, basically two years before Election Day, all the way through. I mean, I know one person who basically worked 500 days straight without a day off from the primaries all the way through. And, you know, anything I say does not represent, you know, the way that they must feel. And I don’t know. I don’t know if I could understand after doing all that, how you could feel after, you know, working that hard for that long, for the you know, for the people who probably listen to this, who we’re all now, it seems like it’s just politics, politics, politics, politics. But it never actually, you know, maybe they’d never knock doors or maybe they knock doors that they’d never sort of organized or maybe they’ve organized, but they’ve never been part of a, you know, on a local level or never been part of a statewide or a general or, you know, a national campaign. Well, it says that, you know, the people that I worked with were just, were awesome and fascinating. I was in a particular state. So, I didn’t know many of the people at HQ, but I sort of deployed out to one of the states and everybody I worked with, I had tremendous respect for. What I didn’t expect about it, when I got there, I’d come out of sort of working in consulting, which is a lot of hours, and then ended up on the campaign up to my how much I worked from like, you know, 10 hours a day, five days a week to you’re working seven days a week, twelve hours a day, like 9:00 to 9:00;  9:00 to 10:00. But it didn’t feel like that. It felt like the time went, like the five months I was there. Something like that. It went like in the blink of an eye. And yeah, the hardest part sort of afterwards was the feeling of like total exhaustion, because in the last couple of weeks, you just you know, it’s every hour that you can work as fast as you can work. And, you know, when you’re handling everything from like sort of a campaign, a modern campaign is basically works by the objective is to do the things that get your voters to go out and vote on election day. Right. It’s less persuasion or at least in 2016. It was less persuasion. It was more get out to vote. And so, your objective is to hire organizers on the ground who maybe say a campus organizer. Right. That you’re in charge of. I don’t know that you’re in charge of FSU or something. Right. You’re in charge of Rutgers or regionally based. You know, you’re the Toledo rep.

[00:50:06] CHRIS: I wish I was in charge of Rutgers, a lot of things would have been different if I was in charge of Rutgers with those things. A lot of things would have been changed. A happier place.

[00:50:14] CALLER: I don’t know if we had a Rutgers rep. They might have shipped them all out to over to Pennsylvania to knock doors.

[00:50:24] CHRIS: Next time you put me in charge of Rutgers, I’ll really shaped their place up after all these years anyway. Okay. I made a joke. You were saying it.

[00:50:31] CALLER: So, the, I think the craziest sort of sleep deprived thing I remember doing was in the last. So, you have basically four days before election day. Election Day is always on a Tuesday. Right. And so, you have, you plan to sort of if you don’t have early voting, or if you do have early voting, to do the majority of your get out to vote effort on those last four days. And so, as part of that, you want to know exactly which doors on which houses are you going to knock and who are you going to ask for when somebody comes to the door? Right. And so, in the state that I was in, I think we had something like for the last four days, we had like twenty-eight thousand packets of literally PDF’s of doors that people had to knock. And I remember and we had to get them out to all these, you know, organizers in the state. I remember somebody asking, because we had the option to put like a cover page on these packets that described what the contents were. And somebody asked us at like 2:00 in the morning, here are the number of vans that we have rented to put these packets in and drive them around the state. Do we… If we add one more page on each one of them, do we need to rent more vans? Do we have enough space? And so, you have, you know, like, you know, 10 people. Some of them who are like, you know, Harvard, Harvard Law and Kennedy School people and, you know, taking time to do this. And like, you know, Google engineers and all that, who are all sitting there at like 3:30 in the morning going, OK, all right. You know, with a ruler trying to figure out, OK, what are the dimensions of a single sheet of paper? What are the dimensions of a hundred, what are the dimensions of a van? I think I’ll get the van, you know, and like we’re all running around with our, like chickens for our heads cut off.

[00:52:28] CHRIS: But it comes down to the individual width of a sheet of paper. Maybe that, maybe the difference between a hundred doors getting knocked out.

[00:52:37] CALLER: Yeah. In my state it did not come down to that. But in other states it can. I mean New Hampshire, right. It’s always within. It’s now like a thousand or two thousand vote state and so it’s. And you don’t. The hardest part is you don’t know that in advance. Right. So, as you get closer and closer to election day, you know, the I can do, I can spend the 15 minutes more because is this going to be the margin? Right. If I make this algorithm slightly better or is that going to be the margin if I get this report out a little bit quicker for the organizers? Is that going to be the margin? Right. And I think everybody sort of drives themselves on that on that basis. What is it? Could this be the thing that pushes you over the edge?

[00:53:19] CHRIS: Yeah, my version of this on the other side, which I think this is exactly what you’re talking about. So, I live in Jackson Heights, Queens. I live in the district that Alexandria Ocasio Cortez represents. And I will tell you something. And maybe, I hope I’m not, hope I’m not rocking the boat because I really, I really have admired so much of what AOC has done. I voted for her and I’m proud I did. But here’s, here’s something that makes me laugh really hard that it sounds like it will makes sense to you as someone who’s been an organizer. People…

[00:53:54] CALLER: I have not. Well, I have not been an organizer, but people do a much harder job than I’ve ever done, right? 

[00:54:00] CHRIS: I’m just saying, being on the inside and seeing, you’ve seen the paper measure. You’ve had the night where we got to measure the paper and measure the vote. You’ve been on that side of the infrastructural side trying to get it over the finish line. I’m not. I hope I’m not making waves or throwing shade in any way because I love my rep. And I think she’s standing up to the right people. That being said, people act like Jackson Heights, Queens. And a few other neighborhoods in Queens and one neighborhood in the Bronx have thrown down the gantlet as far as being the ring bearers of this progressive wave that that was swept in based on Cortez’s new socialist values, and it’s certainly a very liberal and progressive place. But I can tell you so honestly that from my perspective, the reason she won is because she hung up posters and Crowley didn’t. Straight up every business you walked past in Jackson Heights had like a well-designed AOC poster. It was blue the color. The text was in yellow. It popped out. You’re like, oh, who’s this? She seems cool. Literally never saw Joe Crowley poster as the election approached for about three weeks out pretty much every corner in my neighborhood, there’d be a person there with, you know, pamphlets, postcards for AOC. Hey, I’m representing her. If you have any questions. They seemed like excited. They seemed like they had an energy to them. I don’t wanna say youthful energy because they weren’t all young, but that youthful excitement that can span age. I saw one day where he had three people out by the train station passing out flyers and they had all the enthusiasm of someone handing me like a carpet cleaning postcard or a movers van, rent my moving van. He clearly had hired them. The guy didn’t put in the actual on the ground footwork. That’s why. I live there. I’m telling you. That’s why Alexandria Ocasio Cortez got elected. Now, I really hope that she uses the opportunity to keep pushing the right buttons and standing up to the right people and saying a lot of things that I think are good to say to the establishment. And I hope so. But I laughed so hard when people were like, she represents this new socialist movement because it’s like she does. But that’s not why she got elected. She got elected because she did the work. I’ll tell you, I one time, I don’t know if I’ve told this story on this show before. I left my house one day and I was heading to the Jersey Shore with Halley Bullet, my wife going on the beach. And I said, usually I change at the beach. I said, no, you know what? I’ll just walk. I just walk to the car in my outfit. So, I have one a straw hat, a pink bathing suit and a button-down shirt. I look like a jerk, is what I’m saying. I’m carrying a beach chair. I look like a jerk. I get to the end of my corner and there’s like a handful of people standing there. And I’m like, oh, that’s that lady who’s running for Congress. It’s just AOC is at the end of my blocks, right? Oh, I almost said the name of my block in Queens. We don’t need that. We don’t need that. And she’s just standing there was like three or four organizers. Nobody’s mobbing her. And I walked by and they’re I go, do you live in this district? I’m like, yeah, I live on this block. They’re like, well, this is Alexandria, say hello. She’s running. And shook her hand, said, Yeah. You’ve been really making waves. It’s really impressive. And she said, Yeah, I hope you consider voting for me. And this other woman said she’s going to do a really good job. And I looked at this other woman and I go, I’d recognize this person. Oh, it’s Susan Sarandon. This is Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and Susan Sarandon at the end of my block. And they’re just looking at me and I look down and realize I’m wearing a pink bathing suit and a straw hat. I’ve never dressed like this one time in my life. And then to make it even worse. One of the very enthusiastic young campaign organizers who was there with AOC and Susan Sharon and goes, oh, this guy does comedy. And they were both like what. And she’s like, yeah, he’s pretty well-known comedian. I’ve seen him around town. He’s been on TV stuff. And I was utterly humiliated. But she was out there on every corner, shaking hands, handing out postcards, hanging up posters. The other guy didn’t. That’s why she won. You know that. You know how far that goes. Hello? Did we really lose him while I went on a rant. It’s kind of amazing. What if he just hung up because he got bored, he’s just like this is annoying. I got bored. That would be kind of a hilarious way for this episode of all episodes. The guy who never heard the show before just hung up when he felt like it. 

[00:58:38] CALLER: Hey, sorry. 

[00:53:39] CHRIS: Hey, no sweat, man. What’s up? Hey. Hi. What happened there? You put it on mute by accident or what?

[00:58:45] CALLER: Hello? 

[00:58:46] CHRIS: Yeah. Hi. Hello. I love that this is happening. Don’t edit any of this out. Hi. 

[00:58:52] CALLER: Hello?

[00:58:53] CHRIS: Yeah. Hi. Hey. This is what I thought this show would be when we first came up with the idea. Hi. And that was him hanging up, right? We should have paused the clock. You did pause it? [BUSY SIGNAL] OK, I love that they can hear that. A behind the scenes look at technical difficulties I’ve been heard. I’ve been told that here at our I.T. department, maybe they’re trying to shut down talk of AOC. We’ve got one of Jo Joe Crowley’s Queens Democratic machine cronies shutting down our I.T.. I vote that we leave all this in. Got technical disaster, political intrigue, dog fighting. Harry is over here talking about he said, I’m going to get so many, I’m going to get so many weed gummies, it’s gonna make the horrible people say that’s too many gummies. A good reference to the horrible, horrible. How do you say that? Horrible, horrible. First one, the way efforts. This is gonna make those horrible people think twice about how many gummies I got. He’s over here and got everybody. He’s over here in a rage. He’s pounding the glass with his fists. He’s making motions like he’s gonna cut my throat. Why? 

[01:00:22] CALLER: Hey, Chris. 

[01:00:23] CHRIS: Yeah. Hey, what’s up, man? Sorry about that. I think it was on our end.

[01:00:27] CALLER: No, no, no. No worries. I was just trying to figure out like, oh, god. We just talked for that long and for nothing.

[01:00:32] CHRIS: No, it’s never for nothing. Now, did you hear my whole rant about AOC? One, because she hung up posters.

[01:00:39] CALLER: Yes, yes, yes, yes. And I went on a whole rant myself. 

[01:00:42] CHRIS: Oh, you did? 

[01:00:43] CALLER: I’m thinking hard about exactly what I want to say. But I think we missed that half of it.

[01:00:46] CHRIS: Yes, we did not hear your rant. So, I was just saying, you know, I think, you know, that her shaking hands, handing out postcards, hanging up posters, works, really works.

[01:00:58] CALLER: Yeah. Well, it’s you know, it’s the. So, I’ll give you the like…

[01:01:04] CHRIS: Wait could you just hear that? You just hear Jared rambling about Susan. What a god damned… if you’ve never listened to the show before, dude. I want to assure you, it’s not always this big of a fucking mess. Sorry Sally, which is a reference you don’t know. But listen, it’s a god, big god damn everybody over here. We’re gonna have a team meeting because we’ve got to get our shit together. This guy’s brand new. He’s never heard the show. And this is our best foot forward? I don’t think so. This guy’s never going to subscribe now. And we need all the subscribers we get. What are you trying to sell to the audience?

[01:01:37] CALLER: I’m having. Chris, I’m having a wonderful time. I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t worry about it.

[01:01:42] CHRIS: I just want you to know that we’re not normally sailing rudderless out in the open seas. No. Very often we actually are. Anyway, OK, so you were saying. I mean, yes.

[01:01:53] CALLER: No, nothing. Nothing important. We can, we could switch back to boxing if that’ll make the listeners happy. No. The only you know, I’ll give you two answers to it or two sort of responses to what you just said. The first is from like the sort of political science and what do we know about what’s effective on modern campaigns? Nothing. Nothing better than knocking doors for getting votes that we don’t know of any other sort of treatment that you can. You can try to put on a on a targeted population better than just going out knocking doors. If anybody sitting there and they’re like, you know, trying to figure out, hey, how can I help the most? Picking up a walk packet from your local organizer and going and knocking a door is just the best thing that you can do. But not everybody is capable of knocking at doors. You know, not everybody has the constitution for it. It is nerve wracking. It’s tough to do for the first. Yeah, it’s tough. It’s tough to do for the first, you know, first couple. And then eventually you just sort of desensitize yourself. But the next best thing is making phone calls, you know, and like a try and recruit volunteers to come in and knock doors because, you know, see one but two is also, you know, reminding people about where they can vote and all that. And the on the ground organizers should have good call sheets for people. And then for everything after that comes in kind of a distant third or fourth, or fifth of like sending out mailers or stuffing mailboxes or talk, you know, and all that sort of thing. But talking to people. Right. Talking to people where they live, it’s just like the best thing ever. And if that’s at a train station or if that, you know, at their door or wherever it is, every bit helps. The second thing is that, you know, just the enthusiasm, like, you know, you mentioned I think that you didn’t feel like that the guys that you were, you know, the Crowley folks were you know, maybe they weren’t as genuine as if they were, you know, true supporters. Maybe they weren’t as sort of enthused. And, you know, there is a stark difference in the effect of having like a true volunteer versus a paid canvasser. True volunteers get out more votes than paid canvassers do. And so, you know, if you’re feeling fired up about somebody and you know, you want to go help in whatever time you can, there’s nothing. It’s literally the greatest thing that a campaign can get is a fired-up volunteer who brings two or three friends to go and knock a couple doors or do whatever needs to be done. So. And I think you saw that. You saw that in her and her ground game.

[01:04:38] CHRIS: Yes. And also, in a neighborhood that is, that is sort of legendarily diverse. Anybody’s ever heard of it, one of the first things you hear. I gotta also say for an older white guy to never make an appearance in the neighborhood and then for AOC to come along and really pound the pavement hard. And he just looks like someone who may be out of touch with… where progressive people in liberal cities want to go and he just underlines it and circles it and validates it and highlights it by not showing up. He’s out of touch. He made it in and he didn’t do anything to get back in touch with the very people he took for granted. Okay. So, yeah, we got four minutes left. We got about four minutes left because of the technical snafus. And I vote that we keep all of my ramblings in. But who knows? Maybe it’s not as funny as I thought.

[01:05:36] CALLER: I hope you feel the same about mine.

[01:05:38] CHRIS: Yeah. No, I was just saying when you were off the line because we could we disconnected you. I just started rambling about nonsense. You’re, you’ve been great. I think people are going to point to this one and go. This is like an old school all over the map, this was what the show was like before. It was really established. It was just people shooting the shit about whatever.

[01:05:58] CALLER: Well, you know, I’m all about, you know, bringing it bring it back to the roots, really, of what it used to be before you got off commercial.

[01:06:06] CHRIS: I want to reiterate a show you have not heard one time. True or false? 

[01:0:] CALLER: No. No. No. But you know, if anybody know if anybody knows, it’s you. Right. I’ll take your word for it.

[01:06:16] CHRIS: No, but I didn’t say what you said. You’re saying you’re taking my word on a thing that you said. I did not say that it’s commercial. I never said that. we have sold out and gotten too commercial. We’ve been accused of it.

[01:06:26] CALLER: Well, when I came back, I came back on. You were talking about selling underwear, so I guess I just assumed.

[01:06:33] CHRIS: I guess I was yelling about selling underwear and then said, this is an old school episode from, yes. I see how you connect the dots. What a weird episode. But I like it. Any other messages you’d like to send to your girlfriend you assume is listening? And I wanna thank her for listening.

[01:06:55] CALLER: Yeah, I you know, I would just, other than reiterating what I said before, I would say that, you know, if you slam the redial button over and over again, you know, eventually good things can happen to you, too I guess. Yeah.

[01:07:11] CHRIS: Well, so you’re giving actual instructions and advice to our listeners who can’t seem to get through.

[01:07:17] CALLER: They will. They will.

[01:07:19] CHRIS: They will. And what’s the view like from the mountain top? For all the people have been trying to climb the peaks that you’ve now climbed today. What’s the view like from the mountain top?

[01:07:31] CALLER: Well, it’s about an hour later. I have a lot of work that I think I have a lot of work to do that I haven’t been doing. But I think it’s been fun. I really enjoy it. I really enjoyed talking to Chris. You know, I get the though I didn’t get the chance to come up in and chat when we came to watch the show. You know, I think the impression that I had of you was very warm is the adjective that I’d used to describe it. And just talking to you for an hour, you know, I could do this for another hour, I think. I don’t think I’ll get that lucky. And I hope somebody else gets the spot before I do again.

[01:08:16] CHRIS: I hope you call and get through again. I hope you call. Get through again and say, hey, it’s that guy again. And I still haven’t listened. I didn’t even listen to my episode. Get through again. You’ll become the you’ll become the ultimate villain of this show. You’d be like Million Dollar Man, Ted Dibiase, the ultimate bad guy.

[01:08:35] CALLER: Whatever, whatever the opposite of first time longtime first time, never I guess.

[01:08:41] CHRIS: First time not interested time. Not interested, buddy. I love it. It was a really good call, but, we have about a minute. We got a little less than a minute. What are your closing words here?

[01:08:55] CALLER: That’s a good question. I guess the you know, the pitch I would make is when I, when I left to go work on the campaign, you know, I kind of I quit my job and sort of packed everything up from my car and drove out to do it because I thought it was the right thing to do. I was in the position at that point. I was very fortunate to have that chance and that ability. But I hope, you know, if there’s anybody out there who’s watching the primaries and thinking, “god, I really want to get into this, like I really wish, I really hope. And I really feel like it it’s necessary for me to go to go and help”, go do it. It was the best easily the best thing I’ve ever done. And I don’t regret it for a second. So, if you’re sitting on the fence, get off the fence. If things are a little too crazy to stay on the fence.

[01:09:47] CHRIS: Good closing words. Thank you for calling. Thank you for saying I have a warm energy. I promise you, if we do meet in person, I’ll either be pleasant or terrified depending on my mental state that day. Thank you for calling.

[01:10:00] CALLER: All right. Great to talk to you Chris. [RING]

[01:10:06] CHRIS: Caller, thank you so much for calling. Hope you enjoyed the experience. I like talking here and I have a feeling you scored some major points with your lady friend when you said all those sweet things. Could have gotten mean and you went sweet instead. Well done. Thank you for calling. Thank you. Jarrett O’Connell and Harry Nelson in the booth. Sorry I gave them such a hard time. Not their fault, the technical stuff. Bigger picture than us. Thanks Justin Lindle. Thank you Shellshag. If you wanna know about me and all things, I’m up to go to chrisgeth.com. That way you know when I’m getting out on the road. You like the show, go to Apple Podcast rate, review, subscribe only helps when you do. Thank you so much for listening.

[NEXT EPISODE PREVIEW] 

[01:11:40] CHRIS: Next time on Beautiful Anonymous. Someone who lives very far away breaks down their life, their culture and the things we can all do to help.

[01:11:50] CALLER: How many minutes do we have left?

[01:11:51] CHRIS: 17 and a half minutes.

[01:11:54] CALLER: 17 and a half. Holy shit. That is very, very important. I need to tell this to your audience. It will help my mom in her work. So, call center jobs are a huge business. For them to be paid more, you guys have to answer the surveys. That tells them how is the customer service which is satisfactory or not. Don’t drop the phone. If you really like the customer service. If you really like the people who are helping you. You fill up the survey and say they’re doing great because they’ll get paid more. I am begging you. Help. Because they rely on customer satisfaction to get more money. And that’s how my mom’s getting her money right now.

[01:12:41] CHRIS: That’s next time on Beautiful Anonymous.