The Struggles of an Aspiring Actor (ft. @PremierTwo )| Trash Taste #179
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- Welcome to another episode of Trash Taste. I'm joined once again by the boys, Jerry and Garnt, and a returning guest, familiar face, Pete. - It's Peter. - Hey guys. - Hey. - Nice, thanks for having me back. I appreciate it. - No, it's a pleasure. - No worries. - You're wearing the same thing you were last time? - Slightly different. New scarf and a new sweater. - Oh. - The same color combinations.

- Consistency is key. - You like that one clip where you're like, you already need like five suits in your life. - Yeah, definitely that guy. I feel like if I consistently wear similar things, it'll look like one big, great episode over all the days. - I mean, you were voted for episode of the year at the trash. - That's very humbling.

I'm concerned that I got the biggest giga chad. I had to look up what that meant. - Well, I think it was 'cause you told the kid

- I did not say to kill themselves. I assisted them with a dodge ball. But like, yeah, Giga Chat is something that if you knew me growing up from ages one to 35, you would never apply that term to describe me, but I take it. I'll take those W's. It's pretty cool. - Yeah. - Yeah. How you been since last time? It's been how many months now?

Almost a year. Yeah. It's been good. I've done so many things since retiring from teaching, which was kind of the point of the last episode. Thank you. Traveled the world and saw Paris twice. I loved it. I'm so sorry. Yeah. Oh, I'm not sorry anymore. We're notorious France haters on this podcast. Sorry, France. Well, the Parisians have a friend in me because I thought it was excellent, but I will say my favorite parts of being in Paris was eating

eating outside or having a beer, like overlooking and watching people. And everyone says, "That's just a worse Italy." And I said, "Okay, well, I haven't been to Italy." - They're not wrong. - Well, I thought it was cool. - It's generally like a very European thing. Outdoors and summer especially. And I think TwitchCon is normally, EU is in summer, right? - Yes, it was. - Yeah, it's very, very common. - I loved Paris. I like how they have the uniformity of the building codes.

It makes for a nice night walk. And the lighting at night in Paris is undefeated. - Is this your first time in Europe? - Yes. - Okay, okay. - And I haven't visited anywhere else. - You went to the UK, which is on the continent of Europe. - But you guys didn't want to be a part of it. So it's like- - Hey, don't blame me. - I'm just saying. Mainland Europe, I've only been to one place. - Mainland Europe.

- He was still in Europe. - I mean, the greater- - That's Caribbean, come on now. - Yeah, but I mean, it was fun. You ate good food, presumably. - I'm almost jealous. - You had a good time in Paris. - It was great, both times.

- You went twice? - Once was for recreation, just for, you know, just on my own. The second was for TwitchCon. - Okay. - But yeah, this past year has been a whole different world of getting to collaborate with others and do adventures that were otherwise unavailable to me due to a teaching schedule. So I've been a lucky guy this past year. - Hell yeah, man. - Yeah, it's been great. Good stuff. - It seems like you've definitely kind of like dove straight head first into quick,

- Quitting teaching and- - The creative life. - And going into like the creative life. We're so sorry that's- - Yeah, what a mistake. - One of us now. - Yeah, my mother was so proud of me. And now she's like, "You talk on camera?" I'm like, "Yeah, mom, it's amazing." She's like, "I don't like watching it."

- Your mom doesn't say that. - No, she can't figure out what Twitch is yet. - My parents, I've said it to them like five times. It took like maybe the 10th attempt for them to finally like actually click it and figure out what Twitch was. But it was different from YouTube. - It's very different. And my mom, she's 73, God bless her. And she chose the name GypsyGirl5057. And so now people, when she's in there typing,

I can see chatters being like, what's up gypsy girl? I was like, don't talk to my mom like that. She's not a gypsy girl. - Why did she choose gypsy girl? - I don't know. She's just really in tune with like that kind of whole traveling and kind of, I don't know what, that's what she chose. But she could have just chosen something. - Well, she's gotta change her username now that you just said that on camera. - Well, she's not there enough, so it's okay. She's not there enough. - Next time though you're streaming and she's in the chat, everyone's gonna be like, hey yo!

- I'd rather it be out that no one can hit on her or talk to her differently. So, just leave her alone. - Yes, I was most certainly gonna hit on gypsy girl. - 57, yeah, you gotta go right. - But yeah, it's cool for my family to not understand what I'm doing. It's kind of awesome. - I don't know, it's kind of nice though when they're like, "You do what?" And you're like, "Yeah, it's kind of weird, but it's fun."

- I kind of like the almost, you know, you're kind of carving your own kind of way. - The mystique. - Yeah. - Very satisfying. - For sure. - The only tricky part, and maybe you guys can relate to this given some of the topics that you've discussed on this channel, to have like close family members, like your,

or something. And then they watch a clip of you talking about some sort of titty anime. You're like, well, I can defend this. It's weird to talk about stuff that is kind of immature and they have like your uncles see it. - Yeah, but this is the assumption, Pete, that my family has great expectations of me.

which they most certainly do not. The moment I said, I want to be a YouTuber full time, it just went downhill. - They were like, all right. - Of course he's talking about anime titties. It's whatever. - I feel like my parents have gone through an entire character arc that they've just not told me about of like acceptance. They've gone through like the five stages of grief. And I've just seen the acceptance part of it. - My parents just don't mention it.

- They just don't mention it. - Well, they just don't mention it. They're like, "We really like what you do, 95% of the time." And we don't talk about the other five. - The other 5%. - That's a small way of doing it, just turning the blind eye. - Yeah, I think they're just like, "Well, you kinda pays the bills." - Do your parents just say, "Yeah, my son, he's a lifeguard." Do they just go to like the last job you had? - No, no, no, no, they like that I do YouTube. - Okay, yeah. - I think my grandma says that I'm a comedian.

which is the biggest stretch in the world. - No, comedian works. I get clowns sometimes, you know, I'm just doing stuff like that. - Yeah. - But yeah. - Why do you have to tell people you don't do this job? - No, no, no, no. I don't think anybody asks, but the main thing is I think that my family is intrigued by it and it helps that I'm so far away in Japan. - They think it's a phase?

- I certainly, I'm 40 Garnt. - First of all, I can only assume, and I feel like I'm getting this, as you get older, people just stop caring what you're doing. They're like, you have to have figured it out by now. I don't care. Like as long as you're not ruining your life, which is debatable. - I'm not the main character, it's fine. - No one is, no one's the main character. - So yeah, I think it's an amusing little quirk that I've gone full time into playing video games and talking about stuff.

on the internet. - Hey man, that's the dream job for a while. - It is the dream job. - I'm impressed 'cause you managed to even adapt to a streamer sleep schedule many times. Sometimes I'll see, I'll wake up in the morning and Pete's been on for nine hours and I'll be like, wait, it's 9:00 AM. - You say you're 40 year old, I've seen your lifetimes. I'm like, there is no way this man is 40 years old. - I think even from a young age, I've always preferred the nocturnal hours to daytime.

I've always enjoyed being awake all night playing games. That's a true gamer right here. But like you said, I've been playing games since they were invented. And so that hand in hand goes with night time.

- I beta tested like rock, paper, scissors. It was just like rock, rock, and then we were like, okay. - We need to shake it up. - Rocks gonna get it up. - One of these days, but it's been- - I was waiting for the theory videos, like how old is Pete really? - Yeah, it's pretty- - Well, if we go back in time.

But yeah, I've always preferred those hours anyway. So this is a perfect job for someone like me. - Yeah. - Did you ever suffer from like insomnia or anything like that? Or is it just something where you just found more comfort in the nighttime? - Is it just natural to you? - It's just natural. And so like even some of the jobs I had before even coming to Japan were like the overnight shift at these places or the late shift. - The graveyard shifts. - The graveyard shifts. Plus, you know, I think like true gamers and true nerds will unite in knowing that

- Well, I guess it's gotten easier now, but in the old days at school, there was no smartphones or tablets or laptops. So you, all of your nerd shit had to be done in between the hours of like 6:00 PM and 3:00 AM before you went to school the next day. - I think all of us were kind of in the same. - Yeah, I think so, right? - Definitely. - I didn't have access to it. - I just don't have the energy to do it nowadays. - Oh, well. - I hit 11:00 PM and I'm like, fuck. - I can easily go till four or five, but the thing that sucks is I really, really hate this,

when you're like, ah, I should probably get, oh, it's light outside. - I love that one. - I hate that one. - I love it. - The breakfast menu is open. - No. - I guess it's just, I mean, it is slightly haunting when you leave your dark room and then you go outside and it's 9:00 AM. - Yeah. - People have already gone to work.

- I remember having this sobering moment where I think we did like all night karaoke or something like that. And you know, the sun had come out. It was like the getting lost train. And I just like, I was just looking at everyone walking past me and I fucking despised everyone. 'Cause I was like,

fuck these people with an adequate amount of sleep in their body right now. That should have been me. And I think that was the last time. - It sounds like an amazing idea until you actually do it. And then the next morning you're like, shit, I shouldn't have talked about it. - Just wake up at 2:00 PM then, so just adjust your sleeping times. - That's not what every motivational video under the sun say. They get up at like 3:00 AM last month

- Just get a head of light. - Yeah, that's true. - Three hours of sleep, yeah. - Well, I guess I'm just unorthodox in my approach to anything I've ever done. So, but I like it. - Has Twitch changed much? Has live streaming changed in any amount since you were last on or anything significant, revelations you've had or? - Since I started streaming or Twitch in general? - Since you started streaming.

Full-time, it should have been pretty smooth sailing. Well, I mean, it's not smooth sailing, I guess, but for me, it's, I hearken back to more of like the older days of Twitch, which is kind of more, you know, let's plays and like hanging out. I kind of try to imagine that I'm just having a game night or a LAN party at

And it just so happens that everyone is there with me. And I know that Twitch has changed a lot with like doing events and having these, these kinds of cool things. But for me, I've had the similar approach when it's my channel just to kind of enjoy that stuff. So being casual, yeah, it's been great fun.

- Yeah. - I really like it. I would not change this job for anything. - It's a pretty nice job. Just getting to play your favorite game. - Yep. - Or games you hate. - What's been some of your favorite games that you've been able to share with the world on stream? - This is so bad because the games that I want to champion- - It's not built for Twitch. - They're not built for Twitch. - Yeah. - And it's,

I get labeled a lot as a retro streamer and I'm really not 'cause I play a lot of modern games, but I think- - I swear I'm not, guys. - I swear I'm not. - Not being those allegations. - No, but I think of the people who are in Japan, I might be the only one who does stream retro more often than not. So that's all I get. But games like Hideo Kojima's Snatcher, Monkey Island, all the old RPGs from our generation,

- My generation, you played them though. - I never played Monkey Island. - Oh, Monkey Island's great. - Monkey Island's a great game. - Yeah, so- - Too much talking really for me. - You get to voice act them though. There's no- - So yeah, the one thing that I'm impressed by is that you always are voice acting all the characters on the stream, which is fun, but also for me, it's very exhausting to voice act all the characters. - Yeah. - Oh, but you love that shit, don't you? - It's my favorite part. - And also I hate voicing like if there's a woman character, my range is just not that of such where I could

do it comfortably at all. - Well, that's gonna be a given, given that we are, we have such a deep voices. - Back when I was streaming, I used to use that as an excuse to practice. - But I'm never gonna voice act a woman. My range is just completely out of. - My channel would be very brutal being like, "That's a shit voice." And I'd be like, "All right, let's not do that." - And to me, I'm sitting there and I'm like, there's a character that I feel like is really in my range and I can really give it a really good crack

And I'm like, yes, the thought of having to end this lineage right here. And then I go to, oh, geez, I don't know. And I'm like, oh my God, this is just like the dichotomy between me giving a really like trying to do this voice while then having to be like,

- I'm in the same kind of state. I love doing this shit. - And also, typically whenever I've done games or I've done whatever, and I'm never the main character in these types of, my voice is generally not main character material. So the main character is always like, "Yeah, let's do it." And it's just like, this doesn't really work.

Then when the villain comes on, I'm like, all right, let's go. You get to be, you get to decide what all these guys sound like. And so that's, that is the best part. And obviously any woman voice that I've ever done, unless it's like the secretary that I use the same voice for my mom where it's like, you know, ghostbusters, what do you want? Like, that's fine. I can get away with that once per game. But the most universally hated voice that I think sounds accurate, but it's,

- Everybody seems to disagree as my, any child in any video game, I give the same voice. And it sounds like this. And you guys can be the official. - Okay. - It's not that impressive because it's like- - I'm closing my eyes, I'm closing my eyes. - Okay, just imagine I'm like six, okay? - Okay. - Okay.

- That's fucking awful. - That's how kids talk. - Where? In the fucking Sopranos? - You sound like Marge Gordon-Walter. - You need a no-tracks Scottish. - Did that kid just like pack away a pack of Malboras? - 100% canon, so it's like. - The average Kansas City kid. - Selling newspapers and smoking cigs.

all right well i guess that's a loss but um i i'm not changing or budging from that i mean it's funny when you did it but imagining a whole stream of you doing that i can imagine you could get a big rating that's why i lost so many followers no but uh but yeah other than voice acting and twitch things um you never know how long these careers are gonna last because they're so finite of course and so i just i just hope that

as I have with all the weird careers and jobs that I've had, I hope this one leads to something satisfying as well by its natural conclusion. - Yeah. - This is a completely off topic. I don't think I've ever asked you this.

- Were you a theater kid in school? - Yes. - Okay, okay. - Who is the ultimate theater kid? - I was just like, I just wanted to confirm because I just assumed you were. - I figured that out first five minutes of meeting you. - I was also a theater major in college. So I doubled down into debt.

But so I think as long as I can remember performance or theater, but theater kid seems to be more of an insult these days. I've noticed it's like kind of a- I think it just means more expressive. Yeah. It depends on the person, I think. It's the energy, you know? It's the energy of just-

- Not exactly like wanting to be the center of attention, but just wanting to go out there and express themselves. - Yeah, maybe that's true. - Ain't nothing wrong with that. - Ain't nothing wrong with that. - But I noticed these days. - It's just a unique energy. - I think it's like people who are willing to throw themselves into a moment for whatever purpose, in joke with your friends or if it's a performance or whatever. - Is that a kid considered an insult?

- I think now it depends on the, like let's go back to 25 years ago, right? When I was around high school and stuff, you had jocks, you had band kids, you had choir kids, you had like- - Choir kids? - Yeah, like the ones who sing a lot, you know, those nerds. But like, you know, no, I'm kidding. I was in choir, but they kicked me out. But like, but theater kid wasn't really an established trope yet. - Okay, actually, before you get further, everything you just named out sounds like a typical American high school movie. - Oh, it is, yeah.

- I wanna ask how accurate are American high school movies? 'Cause I remember like when I first started dating Sydney, I was like, "Oh, was your school like this? "Was the dynamics like this?" And her school was like, "No, it was like nothing like that."

- So before I answer the question, I am very curious on to see what is your imagination? Can you tell me what is your expectation of an American high school? - Kids getting pushed into the lockers. - Lockers, yeah. - Yeah, kids getting put in lockers, the jocks,

basically every mid 2000s American high school. - Leather jacket. - Yeah, leather jacket. - The jocks are always dating one of the cheerleaders. - There's the girl that's not like other girls that everyone secretly crushes over. - Everyone drives to school. - Oh yeah, that's definitely true. - Everyone drives to school. - Everyone bullies all the AV club kids. - Oh, certainly. I was captain of that.

But that's my end debate. So I was like, I was really, I was down. - Basically, if you distilled Mean Girls into reality, that's like what I imagined it would be. - I would say from when I went to high school, brace yourselves, from '98 to 2002,

There was a very strong semblance of these kind of broad strokes of personalities. It was very clicky is really what it was. So jocks or sports-related people didn't usually cross over into theater. Were they the cool kids? I would say that...

To put it into context, somehow I won prom king my senior year. This was an unprecedented feat in this sense. Before me, the previous 19 winners had been sports captains. And so I think- You broke the meta, man. I broke the meta by thug intimidation and rigging the votes. But for a really long time, your valedictorians or your most popular kids-

would be sports stars or the captain of the basketball, football, wrestling teams. - Yeah, yeah. - You know what was funny to me when I was watching American school stuff, and I guess even when I see pictures of it now, I'm like, huh,

- Huh, we have like way less stuff in British schools. We just don't have a lot of things. - Like what do you mean? - It seemed like the facilities were really good in American schools. Like the idea of having lockers. I was like, that's- - You guys didn't have lockers? - No, you don't get a locker. - I thought everything was like Harry Potter. You had common rooms. - No, you don't get lockers. You don't get lockers in your school, right? - I don't think we did, no. - We didn't have lockers. - We had lockers, but they weren't like the huge American size ones. - It's crazy that you get a locker. Like that's why you would lie to bring a bag and you just lug it around all day.

- No, no, no. 'Cause the most valuable time was like five to 10 minutes between class. We'd go to your locker and hang out and like you'd have like the full suite of whatever, you know. - We didn't really get time in between classes. You just go right to the next one. What goes in a locker? - Well, you got your bags. That's most important. - You don't just carry that. - Girls had like mirrors and makeup and like all kinds of different things that they could, you know, dress and do stuff. - Yeah.

comic books, Game Boy materials, you know, trading cards, you know, things that were more relevant to someone my age in the 90s. This episode is sponsored by ExpressVPN. Going online without ExpressVPN is like not having a case on your phone.

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- I'm like imagining just your character archetype in every like high school movie now. - Yeah, I was the kid pushed into the locker. I'd be like, I'm gonna get you. - I also saw this new school in Texas. It was like, I don't know if you can get a picture of it. There was this like super school being built in Texas and the cafeteria was just all fast food chains. - Oh, we had that? - The thought of having a fast food chain in the school blows my mind.

- I don't know if I can, it's like a fast food chain. There was like this, yeah, look at this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, click that one, click that one. - Wait, that's a mall. - This is a high school. - That's a high school, yeah, yeah. - This high school in Texas has Sonic, Jimmy John's, Pizza Hut, Subway. - Isn't this insane? - Not even our uni had this. - I think genuinely if this happened in the UK, there'd be a riot. - Why? - The thought of allowing these brands into your school to like,

- Get kids like hooked on this style of food. - Yeah, it does work, yeah. - I had this feeling when, I think we had a brief conversation about this on an RV trip. I remember thinking like, you wanna go to those McDonald's parties as a kid.

I feel like, man, I think McDonald's did such a good job on influencing me to like McDonald's my entire life. - Absolutely. - Oh yeah. - You're talking about the playpen era? - Yeah, like everyone would have McDonald's parties and it was like a treat when you get to go. And it's like, they did such a good way of like- - Dude, the McDonald's ice cream cake is sloshed. - I feel like I have this like deep like calling that I just like McDonald's a lot. And I don't feel like I,

it's because I was like, wow, this is really tasty. And I just feel like it's a thing that I've always liked.

And it's a constant that I have. - It's always been in like the recesses of your business. - And I feel like that's how you get like lifelong customers is by putting fucking Jimmy John's in school and then getting them onto it and making a profit. - Domino's and Subway was our twos that, but there was two different food courts. There was the food court, which had like the slop that they put on the thing and you ordered it. There was an a la carte section. And then like a different food court that had pizza and Subway sandwiches. - That's crazy. - So who would ever go to the slop section?

Actually, a fair amount of people because it's pretty expensive, right? It's about the same, right? Because you get the pizza by the slice or you get like a $5 Subway sandwich. But the interesting thing about the food court is you ended up over four years of high school getting your favorite like, oh man, the mozzarella sticks are great. Also, I like the cheeseburgers over here because they taste this way. Sounds so healthy over here.

- I mean, it's American school system. What do you expect? It's how we do things, but yeah. - I'm trying to think of like when I started to like stuff like, you know, McDonald's, Pizza Hut and things like that. And I'm like, would I have liked it if I didn't have it as a kid? And I think I still would. I don't know. - I'm sure there's something I would still like, but I feel like it's definitely solidified my love for this.

'cause McDonald's has that taste. It's a very distinct taste. And I feel like I've been hooked on that since I was a kid. - It's weird that we have cravings for McDonald's. - Yeah, I get cravings for McDonald's. - That's unhealthy. - Yeah. - Bro, I'm loving it. - I'm loving it. There you go, sir.

- Yeah, I do feel like it's hacked some part of my brain. - Well, it used to be a reward. Like you didn't nowadays, you eat fast food all the time. But I remember when we grew up, it was kind of like once every two or three weeks or after like a dentist, you'd go get a milkshake or something. But now it's a lot of people just eat it every day. - I have a lot of people. - Self-admission. - Yeah, pretty bad.

- I think it was like the fries that hooked me on McDonald's. - Oh yeah, fries are good. - Like it's something on the menu that I think everyone has a craving for. - Yeah, something about the fries where, you know, no matter what McDonald's fries will always be a staple, no matter where I go in the world of something that I will crave. - It's the Big Mac for me.

- And it's not even- - The Big Mac? - I like the spicy chicken one. - Spicy chicken, that's rad. - Spicy chicken is so good in Japan. You gotta get it. - They try to double it down with the spicy beef and I'm like, it ain't the same. - No, no, it's not very good.

- Damn, I'm glad you, yeah, we shared a mutual love of the spicy chicken. - I don't think we've ever simped for a fucking fast food chain as much as we have now. - See, now we're like in high school again. - I'm sure if I had fucking Jimmy John's at school, I'd be like, man. - Jimmy John's is fucking go to though, man. - Yeah, I know Jimmy John's is good, but I shouldn't get hooked on it as a kid. I should be forced to eat shit like broccoli. - Okay, were you forced to eat shit like broccoli?

- Yes. - Surely that should have conditioned you to like it though, right? But no, actually like some of- - Wait, no, yes, I like broccoli now. - No, I love broccoli. - You love broccoli? - I think because I was forced to eat it and get familiar with it, as I grew older, I then became slowly over time like, "Oh, I kind of like this thing now." And I feel like that's how a lot of,

why I can't enjoy a lot of Japanese foods because I wasn't forced to eat them growing up. Like natto is kind of tough for me because I never had anything like that, that smell or texture. - I feel like there is an element of that to it, but I also feel like, I don't know, maybe children just have different palates as well.

- Of course they do, but they change. - There are so many things that I hated as a kid. And you know, every time I ate it, like no matter how much my parents tried to force me, I would be like, no, I don't want to fucking eat this. You know? And then- - I swear if you eat something though a lot growing up, you will gradually become more used to it. Unless you're really like traumatized or scarred by it. - Like tequila.

- Well, alcohol that does, yeah. - I mean, I got like- - No one should be ingesting that. - I got traumatized out of ever eating fucking Brussels sprouts for like so many years. And now I fucking love them. And you know, I had a period of my life, same with cauliflower.

I ate a lot of cauliflower as a kid and that like meant that when I was a young adult, I just like, I can choose not to eat cauliflower anymore. And now I think it tastes fucking great. Cooked the right way, you know? So I don't know, maybe it's a palate thing as well. Maybe, I don't know. - But there are a lot of kids who like grow up not eating like certain things and that just like persists for the rest of their life. And there's no explanation to it. - Yeah, it's wild, isn't it? - So I think it's just, it's a mindset.

- Yeah, and I think- - It is a mindset. - Maybe also, I think I went too far. Like when we're young, your parents say, you know, when you're older, you can eat cookies in bed, all right? And then when I got older, I did, endlessly. And then I got- - It's like, "Don't mind if I do." - It's a good story arc right there. - I overindulged on the freedom, and then it kind of went past the tipping point back around where I'm like, I like eggplant and spinach.

- I feel like you have to overindulge though at some point in your life so that you're like, man, I know how it feels to overindulge and I'll go back. 'Cause when you're a kid, when you overindulge, you're like, this is the best thing ever. - Yeah. - But as like a young adult, you know, you have a night where you're just eating like three packets of chips and a diet coke. - You feel awful. - And the next morning you're just like, oh God, I shouldn't have done that. - You just described last night for me, but thank you very much. I appreciate it, yes. But yeah, that's right. - Part of the charm was being told you couldn't do that. So you're like, hmm.

- But now it just makes me want to. But what if I want ice cream for breakfast? That sounds incredible. And then you do it once. - And then you do it and you're like, oh, this is bad. - Disgusting. - I'm shitting myself at 10 in the morning.

- What's your go-to comfort food in Japan? I think I've ever asked you this. - Oh man, go-to comfort food. - You're not concerned about calories, you just want something that's kind of quick, but what's the go-to comfort food for you? - I mean, it's tough, right? There's actually, there's a two part answer. One is if I'm craving something Western because I miss that aspect of my life, it'll probably be Mexican food. I just love Mexican food. - Yeah, for sure. - And if it's the Japanese side, it's ramen.

- And these are such unoriginal answers. I know, but it makes sense. These are just great comfort foods and like a Tonkotsu ramen, like with spinach and like, it's good. Really anytime after 2:00 PM until 4:00 AM, I would eat that any time. And then Mexican food is just goaded. - Oh yeah, we always go to Mexican food places. - It's so weird because Mexican food was never really part of our palates growing up in the UK. It was so hard to find a Mexican food restaurant.

And now, you know, it's weird growing up now. Now I have cravings about cuisines for cuisines that I never had growing up. - My mom used to always make those old El Paso starter kits. - Those are great. - The hard shell ones? - There's also soft ones too. - Those are good though. I still have cravings for this because- - I still remember the ads.

- My mom used to make the fajita one all the time and I just think they taste so banging. - Oh my God. - Yeah. - These are great. - These are still goaded. - I still love these. - All del paso. - I still fuck with it. - Mexican style. - I still remember the ads. - You can like throw in just a bunch of chicken and a bunch of peppers and you're like, man, I feel kind of good about this. Like I don't feel awful. - I mean, I still sometimes do like breakfast burritos in the morning. - Absolutely. - Yeah. With like some chicken and spinach and stuff. Like it's goaded. - But whenever I go to-

Whenever I go to California, I'm just reminded how goddamn good Mexican food is there. - Yeah, it's really unfair. - That breakfast burrito we had. - That was amazing. - 'Cause I feel like a lot of breakfast burritos, my problem is that a lot of the time, all the ingredients don't really blend well sometimes. The egg is too scrambled or the bacon is too overpowering. And so it's really easy to get a breakfast bagel that's just kind of like egg and bread. I'm sorry, breakfast burrito. But in California, man, oh, there you go. - Yeah, they figured it out. - They dug so hard.

- I do miss the Totino's pizzas from when I was, these were like 79 cents. - The little ones? - They're like this big, you know, they're like not the little, you're talking about pizza. - Pizza rolls. - Yeah, pizza rolls, also Totino's. But the Totino's pizzas were, I think that sustained me through college. - Is it Totino's or Tostino's? - I don't know, it's either Tostino's or Tostino's. - I think it's Tostino's, right? - Maybe we have to knock off. - I've never even had this by the way, but I. - Is it Totino's? Yeah, it's Totino's.

- Totino's, yeah. - Yeah, I know my Totino's pizza. - But even not the pizza rolls themselves because those were a delectable snack, but the old 79 cent pizza. - Have you seen this? Have you seen this one? - What in the hell? - His clan has one?

- Bay's clan orange chicken. - Orange chicken, Totino pizza roll. - I'm never moving back. - I did see someone on TikTok make a breakfast burrito with that and it was the saddest thing. - Yeah, it's no, I think you took me off of Totino's completely now. - Buffalo style chicken pizza sticks. - That's just not what I'm looking for. But yeah, I do miss cravings, but you know what?

I think Japan is one of the great places on earth that you can really go outside your house and find 25 different things to eat for really affordable prices. - Absolutely. - Yeah, absolutely. - So we're pretty lucky in that regard. - And my brother's visiting right now and he's just amazed at how cheap everything is. And I'm like, well, it's incredible. - Well, yeah. - The yen also. - The yen keeps tanking. - It did tank. - It came at a good time. - Yeah. - I was like, you have a very good rate, right? - Every week I'm like, oh, it's a new record low. That's great, all my money. - He went to Ichiran and he loved it.

- Ichiran's not bad. It's a good little chain. - I love Ichiran. I think it's still good. I know Joey hates it. - I think it's overrated. - Look at how smug he looks. - It's overrated as fuck. - But the noodles are not very good. - I think it tastes great. - It's just the most five out of 10 thing ever. - Well, still, I like ramen, but I think that- - It's McDonald's of ramen. - It is, which I, it's a comfort, but I'll never line up for it. I don't know these people who fucking line up for 40 minutes.

Oh, psychotic. What the fuck? Psychotic. Stop. Yeah. The big thing about America, though, that surprised me, because we just came back from Las Vegas and Los Angeles, was, my God, the prices of food is insane, though. I went to a sandwich place, and I was feeling pretty badass. I was like, don't worry, guys. I got it. And then we got five sandwiches. And these were just like normal Italian, but some mom and pop stuff. They were very good. Yeah. Awesome.

Oh, really? They were very good. And then I was like, I have a card. And I thumped it down on the table like I was the king of all creation. And then it was like, beep, beep, beep. And I was like, what's going on over there? And they're like, sir, it's been declined. And I was like, let me take it.

It was $125 for five sandwiches. $125 for five sandwiches. - We're in LA. - $25 a sandwich. - Was that the full tip? - It was 20 to $22 per sandwich. And I didn't even include the tip yet, plus taxes. And then of course somebody- - What the fuck was in a caviar? That's what I thought. - Well, okay. It was, to be fair, it was some fancy Italian one. Well, they baked their own bread, which is something. - I give a shit.

- We're in LA. Listen, we can go- - Is this LA or Las Vegas? - This is LA. - Oh. - These are LA prices. - That makes sense. - And it was because you added the burrata to each sandwich, which was like an extra $5, which is way of a price of burrata. - Well, anyway, I was like,

Try this card please. And then they were like, it's been declined. And I was like, here's all my money that I brought. And then, you know, I was embarrassed. I couldn't believe $125 for five sandwiches. - That's like almost 20,000 yen. - It is. - Isn't that insane? - Yeah, we did have this discussion of like how that would be a full on restaurant meal. - Yeah, yeah. - It'd be like an omakase, like a recommended sushi course for that kind of price. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - With like alcohol and a bunch of other stuff. - Yeah, unbelievable. - It is absurd. Well, I think...

- Yeah, everything was so expensive. - Yeah, I feel bad for my Americans out there. I understand your pain. - Now I know why every American just, like whenever they come to Japan, it's like a kid in a candy store. They're like, "I could buy everything." - It's like, "This is only $3." - We had a night free in Los Angeles and-

- We were gonna go out to a, can I tell this story? We go out to this, we found this cool gaming bar. Well, Pete found it. - I found it. - It was like 20 minutes away. We're like, yeah, fuck it, let's go. Let's do it. - No problem. - So we go over to this gaming bar

And it's in like kind of a, I would say it's a little sketchy area. It wasn't like the best. Anyway, so the security at the door of this bar and we go in and he's like, can we see you? - Security for a barcade? I'm sorry, who's going into a barcade and causing troubles? Okay. - So we go in and we're sitting there and we just had like such a long talk with this Uber driver as well that went on for ages. So I felt like, I was like, okay, let's play some games.

And it looks amazing. There's so many like old retro games. There's a giant list of craft beers and food. And I was like, oh, okay. - And it's all kind of tucked behind this glass where you can see it all. You can do anything you want for the next six or seven hours. It's beautiful. - We met with this kind of like, what I can only describe is,

What's the old guy from Breaking Bad called again? - Mike. - Mike. It's like Mike-esque kind of security guard sitting there. And obviously we're in LA and it's very common where they'll ask for your ID. And normally you can kind of get away with whatever ID you have. But I haven't had my passport and I show it and Pete, you show your Japanese card. He's like,

"What is this?" - I was like, "Well, it's an ID from Japan. "That is a nation." He was like, "I'm gonna need to see something with letters." - Yeah, he said something with letters. And I point out to him, I'm like, "Well, you know, the date of birth is right there in numbers." - Numbers. - Numbers are universal. It says date of birth in English

And he was doing all this stuff. He was holding it up. There's not even a light to hold it up to. He's like in this dark piece like, I've never seen nothing like what these squeaks. And I was like, there's also letters on the top that says nation and like date of birth. Yeah, it's written in English. It's written in English. And he was like, I'm not going to let you in unless you have your passport. And I was like, well, now you're doubting that I'm American.

I was like, where do you think I'm coming from? - You're going back to your high school years now? - Yeah, I was like, he's bullying me. - Yeah, he's like, I can't let you win unless I scan it. I was like, scan what? Like, what do you mean? Not to be mean, but you don't look under 21. - It was on the fence. - 20 maybe, 20 to 22 is what I usually get. - In England, it's like the challenge 25 rule.

There's no such thing in the UK. If you look old, they're not going to fucking know. If you look experienced and mature, they're not going to fucking say no. But no, I was quickly humbled. And there was nothing on earth we could do other than show my passport. What the fuck? He denied all sorts of my other cards and different health insurance. And he was like, unless it's got letters, I can't scan it.

And we were like, all right. So we had to turn away from this glorious blinking, shining thing. And I took you to the worst fried chicken place and all of- - We passed this sports bar that looked kind of cool and had like a retro sign of punch out outside. It looked really cool and the lighting was awesome. We sit down and I got the chicken tenders. I was a child, good. You got a chicken burger. - I did.

And they were just, it was like, what, $15 for this thing? And it was, they were just like frozen nuggets. It was horrible. It was the worst. - I found out something by the way. So I felt so, I was like, "Don't worry, Connor, I'll pay for this." - He was very annoyed. He was very upset. - And I felt it down and they were like, "It's been declined." I was like, "Fuck!" I was like, "No, this one, it worked." And we got our thing. You know what I found out? All of that was vegan. That's why it was,

So it wasn't a chicken slice. - So I blame the vegans. - Wait, how did you find that? - Because I was so upset that I picked the worst chicken spot on the planet. - You wanted the reason. - I wanted to know how could this exist with chicken this bad? - That makes so much sense. - It tastes a lot better now. - It was like a chicken tender and it came out looking like a cylinder. And I was like, what the fuck is this? I bite into it and it was like crumbled. I was like, what the fuck is this?

- And I was in full defense, man. I was like, you know, a lot of chickens, they look like that. It's just different cuts. - It's just an American chicken, you know? We've seen that before. - It was a square. And I was like, ah, you know, the thighs these days, you know? - They've roided them up. - But kind of redemption arc that they were trying to give chicken. - Okay, that makes me feel better. - Speaking of chicken place, I like it a lot more now. - Does it make it better? - No, it was still bad food. - I mean, if you go to a place- - Actually, the fried pickles were good.

which is a thing I wish that Japan would adopt and the UK. Pickles just deep fried. I'm like, this is great. I love it. - Just deep fried. - Yeah, that was a horrible, horrible $100 we spent trying to go to one barcade. - Damn. - $100? - I mean, two Ubers plus the meal and you're looking at like, and we didn't even do anything.

So it was, that's my fault. - Sounds like LA. - Yeah, it sounds like LA. - Damn. - How'd you find Las Vegas? - I hated it. No, I'm kidding. It was, Vegas is cool. - I think I said this on the previous episode. Vegas is like a two day thing, I think. Four days was just too long in Vegas. - This is 100% the case. I feel like if you're gonna go and the big thing is, "Hey, what happens in Vegas?"

Days in Vegas, let's gamble. I think the Friday, Saturday, finish Saturday night, go back or Sunday morning. But I think anything longer than those 48 hours, you just hate the experience by the end. But personally speaking, I love gambling and I love the...

I love the idea of risking it all where I'm like, you know, all on black. And they're like, you lose. Or I'm playing blackjack and I don't know the rules that well. I'm like, I'll stay. And they're like, sir, it's eight. I like to live. Double it. And then it's like, you lose. But it was so much fun for me to be a part of this. Yeah, to lose money with money.

- You have to go in the mindset of I'm gonna lose this money. And that is what I did. - We did lose. - Well, the one night he got very annoyed at me one night because I'd been losing all night. I was like, guys, one last hand, we bet it all.

And he had just won a big hand. - He did. - He just won a big hand and I was like, "Guys, if we're gonna leave, "we should just put all our fucking money on the table. "And if we lose, we lose. "And if we win, it'll be an epic story." Of course we lose. - Of course we lost, immediately. - It was like, oh, the dealer got 21. - Yeah, it wasn't even fun. - We didn't get to play it. We didn't even get to play it. 'Cause Vegas has this horrible system where the dealer gets to,

basically like win instantly. - Insta kill. - It's shit. I mean, generally gambling in Vegas is just a terrible idea in general. - Unless you play craps. - No. - That is a sport of kings because you control the outcome. - No, you don't. - You have the power. - You don't know how math works.

- I'm telling you that's way more skill-based than it is luck. - Oh my God, please do not listen to this. This is absolutely incorrect. - This is not perfect. - Gambling is never a good thing. You should never do it. But if you want to have fun, craps is fun. With friends, if you are prepared to lose money. - The only way you can find control of the odds is by counting cards, which is illegal. - That's illegal. - No, it's illegal if you get caught. - No, no, no, no, it's also not. You can't. - They can just ask you to leave. - They can just ban you. It's not illegal though.

- They can ban you and they can make you illegal for you to enter foot into casinos. It's not illegal to count cards. That's like saying it's illegal to be good at playing like American football. Like, you know, there's,

- Well, 'cause that's essentially what you're doing. Like you're saying, "Hey, you are too good at this. That is illegal." - Right. - But they have to make it fair. - Wait, wait, wait, hold on one second. I'm gonna leave finished, but where jumpers jump? And I know you've probably seen us on TikTok. You know, the two Filipino boys talking about conspiracy theories. So if you guys like conspiracy theories, ghost stories, unsolved mysteries, and just fun facts, give us a listen. I guarantee y'all, you'll learn something new every hour.

We got over 6 million followers on TikTok, over 400,000 subscribers on YouTube, and each one of them will tell you you got one of the best podcasts in the world. So we got Mandela effects, we got rap theories, and we got our own personal stories that y'all want to hear. My name's Carlos. And my name's Gavin. And we're Jumpers Jump. So pause what you're listening to right now, find us on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts,

and all other streaming platforms. Thank you for your time. Give us a listen and check us out. - No, all jokes aside. I just like craps because it's the most interactive game you can play. - But that's the problem. The more interactive the game, the faster it is to lose money. - Yeah. I feel that's a bit of a stall currency. - Yeah, that's a bit. But I mean, I will,

will i don't mind losing money because it's fun but like the thing about craps that i do like is that you can put a pretty minimum bet down and just enjoy the atmosphere of the table and not i swear it always starts with a minimum bet it always starts with a minimum when i go back i'm gonna get back that 10 000 i lost no i'm kidding i broke even on the trip because i didn't invest a lot because you set limits obviously and so i i just kind of had fun with

hanging out with friends. And so that was a good experience, but won't be going back anytime soon. - And that's worth more than any money in the world. - It's worth more than all the chips in the world. - The real gambling was the friends we made along the way. - At least we didn't lose the friends we made. - One fun thing that happened is that we were doing craps one night and this gentleman came over and

It was like he was locked in. He was so serious. Every single turn he would get the dice and he would line it up perfectly. And he'd put it on the exact number he wanted for both dice. And he would pinch it like this. And he would always throw it the same way. Wouldn't say a word and wouldn't get excited about anything. And he was winning a lot. And then he was just kind of like zoned in. Next day I go to TwitchCon, I'm about to go on this show and this producer guy comes up and he starts doing stuff. And I was like, oh,

- The guy from last night at the table. - What? He was that guy? - And he was so jovial and happy and talking. And it was just such a different energy. And I was like, "Yeah, you won a lot of money last night."

I was on a tear last night, man. I was in the zone. And I was like, whoa, okay, dude, okay, chill, dude. - I just love to imagine the dichotomy between that guy who was like super fucking serious and Pete just going, "Ugh!" - What? - Everyone, everyone, everyone. - I was not going like that. - You're supposed to like bring your own energy to it. - Yeah, you're right, I was doing that. - Yeah, you're right, I was just, let's go. And I was definitely, it was my birthday and I was slightly inebriated.

I was possibly maybe shouting repeatedly every two minutes, we're printing money here. I may or may not have been shouting that. And I went on a pretty big tear though myself. - It's very fun when it all goes well, 'cause it's the game pays out a lot, but then it's very miserable. - It's very sobering when you lose. - Oh, it's very miserable because the odds of you getting it. Because the game is designed as such that

you have the highest odds of losing. And so it just keeps happening a lot of times. And then everyone's just kind of like, oh. - It's the thrill of that one time where you defy those odds. - It's the thrill of the hunt. But I also love Japanese kind of old style gambling like Hanafuda or Chinchidorin. Like these are just fun games that even if you don't invest money, the game itself is fun to play. So that's where I come from, I guess. - I mean, I like games with stakes.

Well, me too. It depends how high the stakes are though, you know? $25. I want a winner and I want a loser. That's all that's important. But was that the first time you went back to America in like? Since Chris's chess boxing event. Oh yeah, you did go for the chess boxing event. It was only briefly for like those 48 hours or so. I don't get a chance to go back to the United States very often, but it's always fun to remember why I love living in Japan.

So it's a great nation. It's just not for me to be honest. - I can't remember how long you've been living in Japan now. - Almost 13 years. - 13 years. - Damn. - Yeah, it's wild when you put it into

- I mean, you're not missing out on much. That Taco Bell tasting we did was horrific. - That was horrible. Well, it was okay. - I've never seen you so comatose. We tried the entire Taco Bell menu, right? And he was dead. - I was hurting. I realized- - Well, I don't blame you. - Yeah, I guess a lot's changed since I was 25 when I used to do this on like a Friday. But I still have a soft place for Taco Bell. I'll still ride and die with it. I love it, all of it. So you did not find L take, but that's okay.

It's whatever. - It was fucking horrendous. - It was cold and it has the fastest shelf life of all fast foods. You literally need to eat it in the car when you order it. That is the meta. - Jesus Christ. - I was wondering how well you've adapted to all like the, let's say the online lingo and the online memes. - I'm struggling. - What's your favorite meme, Al? - I just found out what down bad means. I thought- - Yeah, you do keep saying I'm down bad.

- I remember like at the gambling table, I was like, I'm down bad. Like I thought I was losing money. I'm down bad. Or it's like in the video. - Did you get weird looks from like the ladies? - I don't know. I get weird looks anyway. - You look down bad? - You look at the dealer and you're like,

- I'm really down bad today. - Yeah, that's what that makes sense to me. Or like I'll be playing a video game and I'll like on Twitch or something and I'll be using subsequent like, you know, Suica game where I'm down bad. And then everyone, I guess that's similar to I really am horny. - Yeah. - That's so stupid that we've adopted that. - It's more like you're desperate. - Oh, okay. - You're desperately horny. - One thing that you also kept saying at some point is that you,

And as you as a use for excited, you would say I'm bricked up. - Yeah, I'm all bricked up. That makes sense, man. I'm all bricked up. - I'd be like, are you ready for the day? He's like, I'm bricked up. - I'm bricked up. - I'm like, what the fuck? - So I'm taking those words back. So I like, I'd be, you know, I'd be- - Did you ever have those words? - No. But I want to reestablish what they mean. So yeah, he'd be like, all right, today's a big day. We have Twitch rivals. I'm like, I'm all bricked up.

I'm ready to go. What does that mean? - Bricked up means you have a fucking erecture. - Yeah, it's erect. - It's bricked. - It's like a brick. - Like a brick. - All right. I mean, technically you're not wrong. - I guess, yeah. - Like you're so excited you have an erection. - I was like, I'm bricked up. - I'm bricked up. - All right, well, all right. - Your body is ready. - Yeah. - But the meme stuff, it just happens too fast. And it,

Oh yeah, absolutely. And I'm okay with it. It's like, no one's ever going to believe it and it's fine. But when I was the age where it was more accessible to me, it was something that was natural. Memes or joking or, you know, certain vernacular or certain. Yeah. Okay. What are some of your like classic memes then? Actually,

if I'm being 100% honest, I'm pretty ashamed of what in the early 90s, the late 90s, early 2000s, a lot of the meme stuff was really offensive. - Yeah, like a lot of slurs. - It was just really bad. And I think that even near the tail end, we all kind of got away from that. And it was like, but I would say things like, do people still say that's sick or bad-ass or? - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean like memes only came out like 10 years ago. Like advice animal. - That's not true. - That is true. - No, it's not. - Trace your meme history. - Memes have been around since like late 90s, early 2000s. - All right, we're talking advice animals. - Before that. - I swear to God the fucking cat hieroglyphics in like the fucking ancient Egypt, those were like their version of memes. - No, no, no.

- Yeah, swear down, swear down, man. - Kill Roy is the original meme, the World War II little guy you would draw. - Oh yeah. - I was talking specifically about internet memes. - Internet memes have been around since the internet. - No, they haven't. - Yes, they have. - No, the wild west of the internet was a glorious place where there was no rules established. There was like the best page in the universe

this was the most popular site to talk about jokes about from this one guy. And it's no longer really referenced anymore at all. The first meme I can genuinely think of is all your base are belong to us. - I mean, that's the classic. - That's fire all Zig. - Can you Google what is the first internet meme? Because I'm genuinely curious. - I'm gonna say it was probably an advice animal.

- Or the dancing baby from Ally McNeil. - Dancing baby? - No, that's from a TV show. - No. - Oh, Rufflecopter. - Rufflecopter. - Rufflecopter. - Hamster dance.

- All your base belong to us. - All your base belong to us. - Godwin's Law. - That's where if a conversation goes long enough on the internet, it'll eventually reference Hitler. - Yeah. - So that was, yeah. - It's a trap. - Yeah, but see like- - Hamster dance? - Hamster dance, that's a, yeah. - This is still not- - 98. - Yep. - All your base belongs to us. - There I was. - Dancing baby. - That's Ally McBeal. - Godwin's Law. - Yeah.

Just looking at that graph is really funny. It's true. But see, like, that's, but the internet really came out like 95, 96 when it started becoming pervasive with like Napster and downloading music. And there was no memes yet. There was, and like even that stuff, it was like 95, 96. No fucking way. Yeah. And then it was shut down.

- I was born after Napster. - No, you were not. - I guess I was. - When Metallica ruined all the- - Yeah, Metallica said fuck Napster. - Yeah, that was good times, man. It was good times. - That's an amazing clip. - We had net zero and like all of the kind of-

- But like, I would say meme culture didn't become meme culture until really Justin TV or Twitch when it was more universally adopted. - I totally agree because I remember there was this moment in my like, let's say like YouTube history where everyone, you know, I've always tried to make comedic kind of videos. Try to like put jokes in my videos.

And somewhere along the lines, they stopped calling my jokes jokes and they start calling them memes. I can't tell when that transition was, but I never changed the ways I started making my videos. - That's true. You never hear someone go, "Oh, that was a good joke." - Yeah, yeah, yeah, right? - It's always, "Oh, that meme was killer." - Yeah. - He's memeing. - And I don't know when that transition happened, but I remember when I first saw it, I was like, "I'm not making a meme, I'm just..."

- Making a joke, huh? I don't know what the difference is. - I guess if it's like more referential, it would be a meme. - Do you have a favorite era? There was like the ones where you would have like a bad luck Brian, that was a whole era. - Oh yeah. - The uninspirational posters. - Yeah, yeah. - The black backdrop and then the white outline. - Yeah, the uninspirational posters. - It'd be like, "Gingers, they have no souls."

And then I'd say like after that one and then bad luck, Brian and stuff, you had like gifts were a big part of everyday conversation for about four years. I mean, they still all, I'd say they're slightly skewing. Yeah. Gifts are getting more cringe now. Now it's static images are coming back. Ah,

- I'm trying to think because it depends on if the GIF is something that you've seen so many fucking times before. If it's like a fresh one. - Like OC, original content. - Well, there's one that's been going around recently, which is the one where it's Vince McMahon going like. - Oh yeah, like this. - Oh yeah. - That's more, I wouldn't put it in like GIF territory though. That's just more of a funny video meme.

I don't know. I think reacting to like, how many times when you use Twitter or instant messenger, do you go to the, do you go to a gift reply these days? I mean, I've never done that. Okay. But I've just never like, I mean, I did that on like MSN and shit. That's like,

- Do you send emojis when you message someone? - I emoji. - I know you emoji. - I know you emoji. - I feel like I shouldn't, but I sometimes do. - I do just to make sure that like my tone is conveyed. - Sometimes I look at a sentence, I'm like, it's not getting across, something's missing. - Oh, crying, laughing emoji. - It feels very like an exchange otherwise, if there's no emoticons. It's like we are,

sending each other necessary information and that's it. Whereas emoticon, I feel like...

- Adds more context, adds emotion to it. - My favorite ones are the ones where like when you're texting someone and you're clearly trying to be sarcastic, but if you just read the text, it doesn't sound sarcastic until you put the skull emoji on it. - Yeah, yeah, then that's the new one. - Then it becomes like- - I love the skull emoji, it's so good. - I don't think I can use it. - When you put a skull emoji immediately, it's like, it could be the most positive thing and then immediately it becomes sarcastic.

I'm out on that one. I think, well, I mean, I like it, but I think if I used it, they'd be like, okay, Pete, you're nice. Try it. And it's like getting carded at the bar cave. I trust me. I'm still like had a great dinner fork and knife. And I'm like, erase. No, no, no. That's, that's a bit. Exactly. That's cringe. But that's what calls to me. So anything else would be trying too hard to, do you just see all emojis like that?

- No, I mean, there are some that are universally okay. Like the clapping one can be useful. - Yeah. - Yeah, it just depends on the context, but I'm not really familiar with how to tweet yet. So, and I'm not ever going to be, so I just kind of reply. - Probably better off to be. - Yeah, it's fine. I'm okay with it. I'm better. - Yeah. - But watch changed since the old days. - Yeah. Do you remember like tech speak at all? - Oh yeah. Lead speak? - Was it called lead speak? - Yeah. - Yeah. - 1-3-3-7 speak. - Like I like owns or do you and like you, yeah, all that shit was awesome.

- I still remember the PWN pwn. - You got pwned. - You got pwned. - Yeah man. - All I said of pwn was prawn. - Prawn, yeah. It's not still. I still use that as like a joke. Prawn. - Prawn? - Yeah, yeah. It's a great P-R-O-N. - Yeah, P-R-0-N. - But Leetspeak was even during the era,

- It was always ridiculed. - Oh yeah. - It was only used derisively to make fun of it in and of itself. - I don't feel like it was. I feel like there are- - He was making fun of you. - No, I felt like there was a period where people unironically said it and then after that kind of cycle,

went away, then people started making fun of it. - I think it had a very short lifespan where people were actually using it unironically and a very long lifespan of people using it ironically. - Yeah, that might've been it. - That's how most of my vocabulary forms is just saying shit ironically and then I'm like, wait, I'm actually, I think I'm doing this unironically. - Yeah, totally. - That's so haunted. - Like dude was never in my vocabulary. I never said dude, but I started using it ironically.

- Because it was just a funny word. - That was me with bruh. - And then now I unironically used dude. - Yeah, that was me with dabbing. 2016, every photo of me is me dabbing. - Remember the Joey dabbing era? - Oh yeah. - Remember the Jew plank?

- I still don't know what that means. I thought that was a sex thing. I thought it's like Prince William likes getting planked. I thought that was a phrase. Is that not the phrase? Or is that like pegged? I think it might be pegged. - Does Prince William like getting- - I don't know what either of, I thought planking and pegging was the same meme. - No. - So I think it's pegged. - Yeah, it's pegged. - Yeah, it's pegged. Whoops, so I saw that.

- Did you partake in pegging? - No, so because I was unfamiliar with both phrases, I just not- - You used them interchangeably? - I just never did any of them. - Oh, she's smart. - I just kind of- - I just imagine people being like, "Yeah, so I saw my friend the other day doing the pegging challenge." - It's a pretty epic video. - So what's planking? Is that where you do the thing on your wrist?

- Well, technically yes. - Kind of, yeah. - But the planking challenge was where you would literally just lie down face down on the ground like you're a plank of wood. And the more extreme of the place you would do it, the bigger challenge was. And there was like a lot of people who died doing this because they were doing them on like- - On like train tracks. - On like train tracks and like on like the hand rails of like balconies and stuff like that and they just fall off.

People died doing this. Why are you looking at me like... You said it. This also reminds me of what he didn't realize. Oh, this was bad. This sucks. I thought Harambe died of natural causes. I don't understand. I thought it was a tragic story. And then everybody told me he was shot? What?

- This is fucking stupid. - Yeah, he was assassinated bro. - He was murdered. - Yeah. - So that's why everyone wanted justice for him. - Bro, Harambe would be disappointed. - How do you think he just died of natural causes? - Again, I knew the child fell in. - Yeah. - And what, he just had a heart attack? - Yeah. - I thought he died of shock. And then everyone was like, they need bigger fences to protect these apes. And I thought like he, the child fell down and then he was like,

And that's what killed him. And then somebody was like, no, they called in like the zoo sniper staff. - Yeah, they shot him. - I can't believe it. - The video is like absolutely horrifying. Like he's literally dragging this child.

- It's not his fault. - I just couldn't believe it because I'm pretty sure I was in Japan during this time. And so news travels- - When was that? - 2016, I think. - Yeah. - And so I missed all of this. I missed- - Rest in peace. - Rest in peace now that I know you were brutally murdered. He didn't just- - Well, since you're in Japan, did you like ever, was Grape-kun ever a thing here? - No, or Coney for president or something?

- Oh my God. - You are just bringing back like a core memory of the IDP. - Tony is a corrupted Ugandan warlord. - I thought it was like a grassroots movement in New York. - Who would hire Ugandan children into his arms. - Well, I mean, okay. - So I thought this was like a green party thing in the United States.

And it's like, how did you think this? Well, because it was Kony 2012. Yeah. Yeah. I understand. But since I only have heard the slogan, I don't have any reference point because it would never come up in day-to-day discussions. And while you're in Japan. Yeah. And so there's Kony, Kony's,

Yeah, and so, you know, you miss a lot of those flashpoint things that are important to a lot of people from, because- But how did you acquaint heart attack? I just thought it was a tragic- I don't know. I just made it the fuck up. It didn't make sense that they would shoot an ape in an enclosure. I just thought that was- That's why it was a tragedy. Yeah, I get it. It makes sense now. And so is Coney 12.

2012, a tragedy, apparently. So like I'm learning- - Well, the Tony story is a little bit different. - Well, I'm just saying these were some sort of meme or like not memes, but these were moments that people had in the Western speaking world. And I was locked out. - So like in which year, this is gonna sound weird. In which year did you kind of like,

or like, you know, become cut off from like internet culture. - 2011 until about 2016. - That's when so many good events happened. - It's all good. - Is that because of Japan? Like moving there and- - Yeah, when I, my first year I was in Niigata and I didn't even have a phone for my first two months. Like I just went completely off the grid and I couldn't afford like a,

like a laptop or anything. I didn't have a computer until I started like Twitch streaming in 2021, 2020. - But I'm also jealous that you get to like relive these memes. - It's pretty fun. - Like in a fresh eye. - Yeah, well, it's sometimes tough when you don't have any context and you're obviously wrong. - Yeah, because like- - So many modern memes now they require like 10 different levels of context for like a single image. - Yeah.

- A lot of, like there are a lot of memes. - There are a lot of memes that are like four layers of memes in one. - Yeah. - It's like, what is this? Who is this for? - What's the latest meme that you learned of? - I mean, it's hard, it's like, it's so hard to keep track. I mean, like even the one we just referenced about Vince McMahon, you know, like you see them so much now that I feel like I actually kind of preferred not being a part of meme culture. Like there's a real freeing sense of just not being part of it.

having to reference this for comedy. But at the same time, it's like being at a concert or like a sporting event or a Twitch stream where you do feel part of a collective group when you do know what's being referenced. But I'm obviously out of that loop. - One thing I was surprised by is, 'cause initially you didn't talk about it much, but you have an intense love for sports. - I do. I'm very- - You love sports. - I love sports. - What sports?

Literally all of them. Like I really enjoy following sports. I enjoy playing sports. What's your favorite? My favorite is baseball. And because that's a, it's America's pastime and it was something that was very closely connected with me and my dad. And so like that has that familial thing. Yeah. But basketball, uh,

I've always wanted this phrase, America pastime, American pastime. What does that mean? So to put it simply as an American baseball has such a deeply rooted history with when we were coming out of the depression and you may have heard of a player named like Babe Ruth. He's

He's a famous, he has a candy bar. He's also named Baby Ruth. He was like one of the greatest baseball players. He's probably arguably the greatest baseball player ever. There's even terms now you'd say it's a Ruthian task, which like a Herculean task. The reason baseball so closely entwined with American history was that

one guy became the first famous sports player in American history. So much so that it, we believed if Ruth can do these things by God, so can we. And it was like that part of American motivation. Yeah. And so, I mean, baseball for over a hundred years was,

such a vital part of american culture until the past 30 and it's dead i mean i feel it was kind of the same when baseball was introduced to japan as very much like because that was you know uh post you know world war ii yep and everything and you know it was before the economic bubble happened and i feel like a lot of sports that were imported from other countries to japan that are now massive like baseball uh you know well i kind of used to being like yeah all right you know we got

- I think that's why there's such a huge kind of like sphere of like American kind of like fascination here with a lot of people from Japan. - Oh yeah. - I actually just went to a bar last week and the guy running the bar was the best way I can describe it was just an American otaku.

- That's great though. - And it was like, he was like this old guy and he just had like baseball cards and everything. - Those are called America booze. - Like America booze. And he was like, yeah, I was like watching the game and I was like, what game? And he was like, oh, the game.

- Every single game. - Well, like in Japan, especially like past five years, like America core, like that kind of whole, like looking at America through the like rose tinted glasses, like when it comes to like style and fashion and just like decor and stuff, it's huge in Japan.

- Yeah. - Yeah, yeah. - So many secondhand stores are just like selling these like America core items and you show this to an American, they're like, "America doesn't play this." - There is always a sport game happening every single night of like a big league, it seems. - In America? - Yeah, yeah. - Almost certainly, yeah. - So like every single night you'd go into a bar and there would be a game on. - It's great.

That got through college. The NBA has 40 games and 40 nights during the playoffs, so it's a pretty nostalgic thing to be working on exam papers and just know that you're going to have some sport on in the background. Right, yeah. But, I mean, obviously, when you look at me, I don't give off the vibes that I love sports, but it is something that I still follow pretty regularly to this day. I mean, I think...

- I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think that like, I think

watch a lot of sports, but I really love the stories that have taken place in sports. Even if I don't care about the

the sport at all. But there's like some American stories that from like American football that I've heard that I'm like, that sounds really cool, but I don't care. - No, no, the Olympics do this the best when they always get some narrative of like this one person swimming goal and then you get all wrapped into it for that one event. And yeah, American sports are good at- - It's kind of over like that in the Olympics. - Yeah, it is. - I think what like American sports and football in the UK, they're really good at like having these long standing stories that develop over the course of the years.

I watched that emperor lemon video about the 72 dolphins or whatever. - Oh, the undefeated team. - Yeah, yeah, that was really cool. Like when it's framed in such a way, it's like, oh, this is great. Like I love watching documentaries and movies or whatever about sport, but I don't wanna watch it week by week a lot of the time. - Sometimes it's worth it though. When you have a team, do you have any teams you support? - I do, I have my beanie that in my bag here, it's my Kansas city Royals beanie, which is a baseball team.

- They are the worst team in the majors. But I will never forget that in 2015, they won the World Series. And it was the first time in 30 years that this had happened. And to be at school when this was unfolding and being a part of it, oh man, there's nothing better. And then they immediately went back to the worst team in the entire world. - What's been like some of the most favorite things you've discovered? Because you know, every time I talk to you, you had like a period, not just with memes, but we've kind of like,

so many pieces of media that you kind of just like miss in terms of like pop culture. Has there been anything you've discovered that has been like integrated into like now modern pop culture that you're like, damn, this is cool experiencing this for the first time, whether it be like a TV show, a game, anything? - I have not seen a movie in 10 years. Isn't that wild? - That can't be true. - The last movie I saw was with you in Los Angeles. That was the first time I'd been to a theater in 10 years. - What? Damn. - But you must have watched

- Only on the airplanes. And I, as a theater major. - That counts. - Yeah, I mean, but like, but I don't take that many planes, right? - You're talking about like going to a theater. - I'm talking about having Netflix and watching a movie on a Tuesday night. - Okay, before the movie you watched with Connor, what was the last movie you watched? The one from 10 years ago. - Oh.

It was that Batman movie that was dog shit. And that's what turned me off. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,

- That wasn't bad. - I couldn't understand. - What is the critical? - You can't understand people. - Get out the Rotten Tomatoes. - I like Christopher Nolan. - It was okay. - I like Christopher Nolan. - I like the other two movies. - Those were good. Those were very good. - You just think the last one was shit? - It was not only shit, it was unwatchable garbage. - Oh my. - Okay. - Unwatchable garbage. - I wouldn't go that far, but it was definitely out of the three Nolan films, it was definitely the worst one. - And I like all the actors in it, but every single moment, it's just like plot.

- In order, it goes from best to worst. The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises, Batman Begins. - I thought Batman Begins was better than The Dark Knight Rises. - I thought Begins was better than Dark Knight Rises just because Dark Knight Rises, I think had so many things going on. - So what, people are dumb.

all the people those people are from the cincinnati zoo we have we have 250 000 i mean look if you like the movie it's fine but they should have called it the dark knight deus ex machina because anything that needed to happen at any point to progress the movie just magically happened i agree and i can't stand when they do that in drama it's not a it's not like his best movie uh i don't think literally play rpg games that's

- That's all it is. - I am flawed. - That is all it is. This is deus ex fucking re. - I know, I understand where I can come across as a hypocrite. That's not what we're talking about. - Welcome to Trash Taste, everyone. This is the first time this has ever happened in the history of Trash Taste. - Who would have thought? Hot takes on Trash Taste. - But I think that, yeah, I saw that in the theaters and I didn't like it. And so that was 2012. Yeah, that's the last time I went to the theaters. - That's just like, I'm never seeing a movie

I'm good. But I will say the thing that I'm happy as a huge theater nerd and like, you know, someone who really respects drama. I think we did go through a nice golden age of television that I did miss out on, but I'm happy existed with your breaking bads and your game of thrones. I've seen them since. Right. But like, I'm really glad that,

that in an era now where movies, I feel, kind of just been rehashed and kind of not a lot of originality these days. Yeah, sure. TV, there's exceptions, but TV really came into its own with some awesome gripping movies

and I think that's cool. - TV has gotten really good in the past 20 years. - It was really bad from before 2008 or so. - It was 'cause it was like the way that they syndicated TV shows. It had to be 25 episodes, had to run for so long. And if the network wanted to change the plot, they could just change the plot. And so it's changed a lot how TV is made. - I don't know. I don't know if that's true. I'm trying to think of the classic TV shows, but- - Well, look at it like this. You had things like,

- Or friends or Malcolm in the middle. - Most of the popular shows were sitcoms. - Two and a half million. - Two and a half million. - Well, sitcoms, right? We're long running TV shows. And now I guess you have more narratively driven shows as well. - Yeah, it's way better. - But I guess, yeah, I guess like before I'm trying to think of like some sort of way more shows get made now. - Yeah. - Yeah, I mean, that's true.

- You had the Sopranos, The Wire. Those were the ones that broke the mold even when I was still there. They were like doing, that was like HBO only. They were the only people trying to do like- - I guess that makes sense. - Yeah, but it's been cool to see people really enjoy television again. That's been a missing thing. - I think the rise of that came from just streaming platforms. So now because-

- People are enjoying television but not watching television. - If you remember it was like box set culture where you would buy the box set of all of the seasons of a show. - The problem with TV shows before is that you had to tune in at the TV at the regular time. - That's why you buy the DVDs. - Yeah, yeah. And sometimes you just couldn't like do that. - Every 10 minutes there's an ad. - So now with like online streaming culture, you don't have to worry about if the audience has seen previous episodes 'cause you can just assume they have.

Yeah, I do miss that though. Like I think the closest, we used to call it water cooler TV shows where you stand around the water cooler and discuss last night's most relevant. Has anyone ever done that? I am, yes. I would argue Trash Taste is,

- Yeah, it's like you just filmed an episode about that, about attack on Titan. - No, no, no. Has anyone ever, because I've always heard about water cooler moments. - This wouldn't be a term if people hadn't done it. We don't just say, oh, it's the fucking elephant talk. - Anyone who works at an office I think has done that.

It's because if you don't smoke back in the day, you only had the chance to get up and stand around and like slowly fill up your teacup. - No, 'cause in the UK it was like the making tea talk. We didn't have water coolers. - Speaking of, I brought you guys a little taste of England. I forgot about that. - What?

- Somebody, I had met a viewer recently and they came to Japan and they, my grandmother, rest in peace, she did not get shot or anything, but she was 99. - Why do you have to preface that? - She died of natural causes. - Americans have to preface. - At 99. - Didn't get shot. - And she was Welsh. And so she was from that village that I can't pronounce. - Meareth. - Meathesitthill. - Meathesitthill. - Lord of the Rings. And so, but my favorite snack growing up was these dodgy jammers or,

- Jammie Dodgers. - Jammie Dodgers. - Jammie Dodgers, yeah. - You got Jammie Dodgers? - So I have some. - Oh, I have a Jammie Dodgers. - Yeah, they're good. - That's the new packaging? - Yeah, it's the new packaging. - Wait, you had these growing up?

- Yeah. - These are really good. - No nasty stuff, we're jammy enough. - Yeah, so. - Your cousins really liked you if you had these available at the kind of the- - These are the best biscuits, right? Not the Jaffa cakes, not the digestives. - The digestives are kind of like the plain. - It's the staple. - Yeah, everyone has them. - I mean, I'll stand the digestive. - These are definitely more fancy. If you had these, you were kind of a bit more of a bougie family. - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- Yeah. - Yeah. - We'll crack it over. - Yeah, let's have a jammy Dodger. - I wanna have a jammy Dodger. - I forgot. - You've had one of these, Joey? - I have once or twice, yeah. - They are really good with the tea. - Rocky really likes these. - You do need to have them with the tea, but they taste pretty good on their own. - I probably should have, I meant to give them to you after the show, but we started talking about it. - It's all right. - It's just so scary. - I can have a little bit of it. - They are goated, as you say. - I can't, how do you, I'm not British. - What do you mean? You opened it like a- - Oh, I see. - I must say I'm bricked up. - I'm all bricked up for these jammy Dodgers, man. - There you go, man.

- These are fantastic. - Thank you very much. - Actually, I hate raspberries. - I'm down bad right now. - Oh wait, here's one in here. - I'm down bad. - Man, I am so down bad for a jammy dog. - If you hate the "Dark Knight Rises" and you think that's the most awful film, what are films you actually like? Give me an insight into Pete's mind of what his tastes are actually like. - Top five films, go. - Yeah.

All right, let's go. It's a really, really tough question, obviously. But I would say my easily first is Ghostbusters. It's my favorite movie. That's a personal classic. And it was at the time the most expensive comedy ever made in the history of movies, which is pretty, pretty wild to think about.

Number two is "LA Confidential," a fantastic crime noir film that's really, really great. And if you haven't seen it, Guy Pearce, Russell Crowe, Kim Basinger, Michelle Pfeiffer. - It didn't win the Oscar right 'cause I think Titanic came out the same year. - So dumb. - Am I crazy? - Yeah, yeah, you're right, you're right. It's a travesty.

This one kind of controversial because it's made by a horrific scumbag named Roman Polanski, who is a horrible dude. But if you separate art and artist, Chinatown with Jack Nicholson, one of the finest noirs you'll ever see. I happen to prescribe to the fact that Shawshank Redemption is the most rewatchable movie. I really like Shawshank Redemption. It's a great movie. It's a great movie. I haven't seen a single person...

Like get bored of Shawshank Redemption. No, I don't think that you can. And so, and then my final one to round out, it's so hard to choose just five, but the theater guy in me would probably say 12 Angry Men because we're going to go old school with it, which is just a nice one setting. But like- That's when you were born, right? I was actually, I was 10. So- I had to study that for school. I was going to study that.

You know, if we were, I feel like it's like asking someone their favorite game. It's impossible. You got to go by genre or era. He just answered it. He didn't mean that. He said Genshin, I think. He was like Genshin Mass Effect. I said Mass Effect.

- Even though the third one's like the Dark Knight Rises. - Yes, I like the third Mass Effect. - Oh my God. - That's actually my favorite Mass Effect. - We have a real problem here. This is worse than- - I think the fucking complaints about the ending were overblown.

- I don't know, it's people were just like complaining. I still think like, obviously like from like, I guess like a critical standpoint, the second one was like the best. - The bridge, yeah. - Yeah, but I just liked seeing the send off to all the characters. So that's why the third is my favorite. - I feel like, did you ever play "Master Effect Trilogy"?

You can skip it. Did you play it? Good job. So this is just a one-on-one. All I'm going to say is this. To everybody who's played Mass Effect, you know I'm right when I say that how exciting was it to recruit the Racknight Queen or to make all these choices with the Krogan, all of them to be a resource at the war table. Come on.

- Come on, that was, they didn't matter. Nothing, none of your choices mattered in the end. - Choices don't matter. I think choice is kind of overrated in my opinion. In video games, it's kind of overrated. - You've convinced me. - Yeah. - Literally lost it. - Well shit, I've changed my mind. It's like that Simpsons meme where the guy's like. - Just give me a linear story. I don't want to make my own choices.

I'm a fucking dumb ass. You think I should be trusted to make the best choices in the video games? No. - We were literally just discussing this in the last episode. What do you think about multiple endings in video games?

- Yeah, see, I knew. - He's like, "I get to role play my character." - JRPG player, right? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - It's the best. What's the argument against multiple endings? - Sometimes that's just shoehorned in. - That's all right. - Yeah. - You don't have to do those ones. - Yeah, I think, I said this in a previous episode, where I think if you have multiple endings, it kind of detracts from the impact.

of some of the endings you could have because when you have a definitive ending, if you think of like, if you can choose your own ending for a movie, would you? - I understand what you're saying. Yeah, definitely. - I prefer one solid artistic vision. - I prefer one artistic vision that the director had in mind. And by having multiple endings, you're kind of like,

I guess the storytelling like power of that to me kind of like gets detracted, you know? Usually games have a canon ending though, right? Yeah, like a true ending. Yeah. And so like my best example, we're going so long.

It's like Chrono Trigger, which has nine different endings or thereabouts. And each one is unique enough where you would go out of your way to see a different outcome. But you know that there's only one true actual ending. - Dude, I played it and I got all nine endings. - Yeah, me too. But I feel like- - It's a go to game. - Yeah, and you can, I think there's usually pretty strong evidence to suggest this is what probably led to the actual events.

- Have you ever like read like a choose your own adventure book or like a- - Yeah, Goosebumps. - Yeah, I remember Goosebumps. - I was obsessed. - Or what is that shit? - Watch like Bandersnatch on Netflix. - I still haven't got around to that. - I haven't gone around to that one. - Yeah, it's the fact that- - I didn't wanna watch something and have to choose the scene.

Right? Exactly. How about this though? Mocker play goes to space. I've seen that. That's a great answer. Change your own adventure. Well, one of my favorite movies that I didn't mention is an old comedy called Clue, like the board game Cluedo. You know, it doesn't sound like it'd be make for a great movie, but one of the coolest things that it did in the theaters was depending on which theater you went to, it had one of three different endings because like the board game, there's no real ending.

- When you play, it always comes out different. I think that's an awesome idea. - That's pretty cool. - To have a random ending depending on which theater you go to. I thought that was, it's really great. - I think that sounds awful. - You should try it. - I think that sounds awful, Pete. - It's great, it's a great movie. - It kind of sounds cool, actually. - That sounds like a gimmick. - That's a great way to get people to pay to watch the movie three times. - Yeah, totally. - I think to me that more sounds like a gimmick than it does a kind of like artistic- - Hey, take my money, bro. - All right, well.

- It's hard to convince you guys. - That's just me. - It was really fun. It's a really great. - That's very small. - Yeah, it was really good. And that's like the eighties. So they were innovating.

Yeah. Is there any games you like that aren't RPGs lately? Yeah, well, I do believe that one of these games that's sweeping the world is this one where you match fruits together, right? Oh, my gosh. And I played it for like three hours and set the highest score out of everybody that we know. And so, what's the problem? Why can't you do well? It's so easy. You...

- It pisses me off how close you were to greatness and you stopped. - Yeah, I don't need greatness. I already, it's defined with the high score was enough. - You could have got the fabled double sweet count. - I don't need it. - Do you wanna explain what this is? - So basically it's a child's game. You stack up different fruits. You match two strawberries, you get a grape. Two grapes, Mina, Mikan or whatever. And all these bozos are trying their best to beat it. I needed that game for like an hour

- It's really funny watching these like fully grown ass adults just like playing this children's game. - I've streamed it for like over 30 hours. - But for me, actually to answer your question truthfully, every genre on the table, I get labeled a lot as a retro gamer because I like- - You're retro.

But I actually prefer, you know, a lot of the modern games as well. So it's like anything in all like, well, not that one, but yeah, it's like, I just love video games and it's, it's some of the modern games. Then what's come out recently. That's been pretty good is things like lies of P or, you know, Spider-Man two or what are the big games that have come out that have, cause this year has been pretty bleak. I,

- Yeah. - That's it. - Baldur's Gate 3. - Legend of Zelda. - I thought Legend of Zelda was- - Breath of the Boring. - That is an L take. That's such an L take. - Wait, what? - It's all right. I'm fine with dying on that. - I don't fuck with the whole building on the new one. I don't like it. - The building is the best part.

- I don't like that. - It's like Minecraft. I hate that. If I want to play Minecraft, play Minecraft. - I feel like if you, I feel like we talked about this last time too. - You did say Breath of the Boring. - I feel like if you replace Link with any other character, it's gonna be the same great game that it already is. But this not a Zelda game. It's just- - Oh no, I don't include it as a Zelda game. - Well, there you go. So that's, if we're gonna not- - But it's still a great game. - It is a great, I mean like, yeah, but I think it's like,

it's kind of just cashing in on...

- There's "Breath of the Wild" and "Tears of the Kingdom" and then there's every other Zelda game in my mind. - That's exactly how I feel. It's so sad for me, but yeah, I think like "Baldur's Gate 3" was great, but these are RPGs though. - Yeah, they're still RPGs. - These are just listing off modern RPGs. - I'm just trying to think. - "Elden Ring" was last year. - Yeah, "Elden Ring" was last year. I feel like this year has been kind of on the low end. - I feel like, I don't know. - Hey, "Super Mario RPG" remake's coming out though. - I will be playing that on Sunday. - Let's go. - That's coming out.

- It comes out this weekend. - Oh wow. - It's gonna be amazing. - I hope it's good. - It almost feels like there's like, my backlog of every time I complete a game, it seems like every time I'm just in the classbook completing a game, there's a new fucking massive game that comes out, at least this year.

- I'm like a three remake. - All the games do is make an agreement to time out their games to get gone. - Boy, I feel like the tenor of this episode has been, I have really horrible takes on everything. Is that a normal trash taste thing? - You fit right in. - They've heard all of our opinions. So we just wanna, you know, wanna try yours. - Some new fresh bad takes. - Yeah, we need some new material. - Good movies and good games. - Yeah. - No, we want the bad takes. - Good takes are boring, Pete. Good takes are boring.

It's pretty wild, though, to think about. Your Harambe take is definitely my favorite, though. That's not even a take. I don't think that's a fast call that a take. Yeah, but it's a funny bit. I can't believe that happened. I'm very upset. Natural causes. Natural causes. Died of a heart attack from that poor child who fell in. I imagined, like, in my mind, Harambe was wearing, like, some bathrobe, and it was cinched up, and it was...

- And just died. - It's like, damn, I can't believe this child fell in. - What the fuck? - Rest in peace. - Rest in peace. - I guess you are right. - I don't know. - Nothing's been out, man. - Yeah, this year has been pretty boring for video games, I think. 'Cause I don't care about Spider-Man. I don't care about- - I played Spider-Man. - It was good. - It was good. - Yeah. - But I heard it was like just the first game DLC. - I mean, sure. - I mean, I played it for the story and that was pretty much it.

- Sometimes more of a good thing. - Do you count Final Fantasy? - That's crazy. - Do you count Final Fantasy 16 as a big release? - But we're not counting RPGs, right? - Yeah, we're not counting RPGs. - But that's the thing, this year and early next year is all RPGs. - Yep. - This is like the year of RPGs. - That's all I want. - We are eating good. - The shooters are kind of out now. - Star Wars Jedi Survivor, I've been playing that. - Star Wars. - Street Fighter VI. - That would probably be- - Oh, that was a big release. - That was probably my favorite game this year.

- Oh yeah? - Yeah. - That looks insane. - As a consumer, I like to watch it, I like to follow it. - Yeah, no, no. I mean, like- - We got to play it first. - We played it, but I've not gotten into it. - Oh, I see. - 'Cause it's a fighting game. Fighting games are like, obviously it's its own genre, but I feel like out of every genre, it's one of the hardest genres to get into. - But I think Street Fighter VI did make an effort to- - Oh yeah, like the easy combo, right? - Yeah, the modern controls. - Yeah.

Yeah. But yeah, games are out this year. It's kind of a... It's a great time to be a streamer. Fucking watermelon game, eh? Yeah, I'm not too concerned with that. I already beat it. Oh, gosh. Yeah, it's easy. I wish I could beat it. I will say, like, one thing that I'm... I'm not proud of much, obviously. I don't have a lot of things that I hang my hat on. But I am glad that all these years, starting with, like, the Commodore and the Atari and the Nintendo...

when we were at Twitch Rivals, we had to play that party animals game. - Oh, it was so fun, yeah. - And I still feel in these ancient hands, if you give me a controller or a game, I can adapt quickly enough. - You're making it sound like you're like an old grandmaster or something. - I'm telling you, man, it's a young man's game. - His third eye opens. - It does. - We competed in an ultimate Twitch Rivals. It was really fun to be fair.

and we had to do a series of different like casual things, like physical and game. And Party Animals was one of them. And all of us were pretty bad except for- - We never played. - Yeah, we had a guy called Five Up with us. He was pretty good and kind of helped us. And we ended up winning. - First place. - Yeah, we got first place in that event. - Then when the physical stuff, that's when age, the mind was willing but the body was unable. But the crazy thing is like, I do feel

getting to play games and just still having that because like e-sports players, whatever, they're like 22 and they're retired. They're like, I can't play Rocket League anymore. - 22 is like old. - Ancient. - Yeah, you need to come up when you're like 16, 17. - Well, this is the oldest, this League of Legends competition is the oldest it's ever been, the players. - So what's the average age, 19? - I think it's like 25 now. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - 12? - That's a four.

- It's a Fortnite competition. - I mean, League of Legends has gone to a point now where I'm not sure how many new players it's getting. - It's a lot of the older players. - Yeah, the old players just keep coming back every time. And we had one person in the league world's final this year that was like a dad. He was like in his thirties.

- He was getting his ass clapped by like everyone. - There we go. According to a survey conducted by ESPN in 2018, the average age of professional League of Legends esports players is 21.2 years old. - That's crazy. - But now in this world is, yeah, it's a- - 24 to 25. - Yeah. - It's generally older, which is kind of cool. I like that it's getting to that point now where people have been in the esports for so long and they're aging, still keeping up with kids who are.

- 19. - You got a chance, Pete. You got a chance. - Well, to me it's like, I just- - Are you into competitive games? - Not particularly, but I am competitive. - He's a JRPG player, of course he is. - Yeah. - Do you have a competitive side? - He is competitive. - I get competitive. - Do you have a competitive side? - He gets very fucking competitive. Are you kidding me? This man's competitive. - Well, I mean, it's like, it sucks when you're so good at a lot of the games that I play. No, I'm kidding. - Are you one of those motherfuckers who opens up like a game of Overwatch? - No, he bides his time. He waits for the game.

Let's just try our best, guys. It's okay. It's okay, guys. Or do you have like a toxic gamer side to you? I don't have a toxic gamer side. Well- He's very gracious. And the moment he knows that he can kick your ass, he'll go full toxic. You're so bad. Why are you so bad at the game? I just can't understand how-

bad you are. It makes no sense that you play so long. No, I think like for me, when you have a group of friends who play video games back in the day, there's always one of you who are going to be fundamentally better than the rest of the group. And it's not fun to lord that over each other and try to do like, let's play Goldeneye where I always win first place. Or we're going to play Halo where...

I'm always on the stacked team, right? So for me, that's always been kind of the role that I've been in. But when you play other groups who are competitive, you quickly learn that you're at the mid-level of like gaming. So I feel like I've never really purposely tried to be in a clan. I was in like a Team Fortress classic clan when I was 15. Like, you know, the old game that was like- Number one? Yeah.

Oh, no, no. It was so different back then. You had to organize when to fight each other, and you had to get on Roger Wilco or Ventrilo, which were old TeamSpeak. Oh, my God. TeamSpeak feels ancient. TeamSpeak already feels ancient. TeamSpeak didn't exist. There was no built-in clients, and so you had to do things kind of...

very differently because there was nothing in the game itself to set it up. But other than that being competitive, I just really like the challenge of applying all the games I've played. I can see patterns relatively quickly and I find that to be very exciting. I'm such a nerd. This is so bad.

- For a man who could recognize patterns quickly, but thought the Harambe died. - I put my stat points in other categories. - Are you just like gaming Rain Man right now? - I'm like, it's like, yeah. - It's really, I can't stop this power. No, but what it is, is it's,

It's something that I'm so thankful. It's so cool to have grown up with them all. - Oh, totally. - To not have to come into like my first console as a 360. I can't imagine not starting from the beginning. - You've literally been there since the beginning. That's dope as hell. - It's pretty awesome. - Yeah, that is cool. - I wouldn't trade that for much. - What do you think of the modern gaming industry then? - I think it's really great. I think that what I like the most is how indies have come up.

Because I think indie developers are basically people my age who really miss a lot of the games that we used to play. The old style of games. And so they're saying, well, we can still innovate on the limitations that the old consoles had and make these cool games. And then you get some really cool AAA titles here and there that are still...

- Fun to kind of, you know, put some time into, but it's a good place I think. - It's like the thing about AAA games is that it just feels like it's, you know, it's kind of like watching a blockbuster movie. You don't get as much personality, not as much like individual expression, but you know, it's like nice to like get up, you know, kind of like feel like you're like getting the popcorn out and just watching a blockbuster movie in a theater. - Lately the meme is that all indie games are roguelikes. - Yeah, it is a big trend, right? - There's a huge.

- Yeah, side scroll roguelikes. - Side scroll roguelikes, any roguelikes, card builder roguelikes or whatever. But you know, I mean, it's just 'cause obviously that given the tools, there's only like, you know, it's a little harder to develop certain things. - Yeah, I love roguelikes, I'm not complaining. - Yeah, I do too. - I like roguelikes too. - I feel like those are, it's really hard to create something

narratively strong that has a specific vision yeah and roguelikes allow a lot of player and creator expression but i still really like like it's all rpgs but like chained echoes and sea of stars which are made by like one guy or a team of two or three that's pretty impressive that there's like one single game there inscription i liked that was a great part well yeah that part one's amazing part two is pretty good three

- Three's pretty bad, but part one is amazing. - I was wondering, was there a moment where you got interested in acting? Because when we've talked to Lisa, you haven't talked much about your path into trying to be an actor. I just know you tried to be one. - Well, tried. There were some successes in there.

It's not a complete flame out where I just tried. And yeah, it was, it was during, it was during middle school in like high school when I had a lot of trouble because I wasn't in the normal classes for different reasons. But I found theater as like a thing that where I could be really challenged with some of the, it's really hard to be a stage actor because, and I took it really seriously. And so,

After high school where I learned that, oh, it's not just shouting when you're angry or emoting when you're sad. When I went to college, it was pretty formative. And I worked actually...

I got hired at a radio station as a DJ, like right out of high school. And that was really hard because the people I worked with were so awful. It was probably the worst job experience I've ever had. How were they awful? Well, this is a six minute story. Is that okay? Yeah. All right. Yeah. Yeah.

I wish it had a funny ending, but oh well. So basically, I was taking a broadcasting class in college and there was this amazing weatherman for the local news who was teaching it and his advice was like, if you ever get your foot in the door, don't take it out because these opportunities are hard to come by. And I was like, that does make a lot of sense. And then...

There was a radio station in Kansas City called Z95.7, today's hit music, shit music. And then they came into our class to give like the morning show DJ. And the morning shows in America are the most popular because you get like, you're in traffic and it's a lot of like joking and talking and less music.

So they came in. Lots of fart sounds and sound effects. Lots of fart sounds and sound effects. And yes. GTA radio, but. Exactly. And he came in and I was, something came up where he was like, yeah, it's pretty hard to get into radio, but if you do, it's a lot rewarding. And I was like, well, I kind of want to get into it. And he was like, sorry, kid.

We're not hiding. I was like, well, I just want to come and like see the studio. Can I just come see it? He was like, all right, why don't you come in next Tuesday and you can take a look at how we do the morning show. And it's like a thing. And I was like, cool. So I went in the next Tuesday and I thought it was amazing. They had like these huge ass boards. They were telling jokes the whole time. There was Dave and Shorty and a guy named

Twiggy Fat Sacks, which is a horrible name. Is that really his name? Twiggy, yes. None of this is made up. And at the very end of their episode, they said, well, we do have a special guest here today. Some kid from the local community college. Do you want to come in and say something? And I had to take the extra mic, and I made like... I don't know what joke I made, but I said something that was funny, and everyone kind of laughed, and the show ended. And I said, that was amazing. And the guy said...

"You know, why don't you come back again on Tuesdays and Thursdays every week, you can intern for us and kind of learn the ropes." And I was like, "Okay, once you get your foot in the door, you can kind of do this." So I started coming in every Tuesday, Thursday, and then something happened where the mid-afternoon guy or girl had to go to a different station or moved out. So they had to replace that person and Twiggy Fat Sacks took the opportunity.

So now I get moved into his position, which is the third mic. Normally I would have to stand there for the entire time. And if I had a funny joke that I felt would be ready, I'd go like this and I'd be like, joke. And then they take it away. Yeah. That was like,

really high sorry connor that was okay please do take both no but like but then you're really worried like this joke better be good because you're requesting like the 19th to come in and say like a funny thing yeah and uh then i got moved to the third mic which was on all the time and i was also the phone guy who i would take like c95.7 this is kramer that was my nickname my call name was kramer oh so you were like on

On the air. On that one, I could hit a button to mute my mic. So I'd have to take the call and they'd say like, yeah, I want to tell Dave that I want to have his babies. And you're like, okay, that's not, thank you very much for calling. Whatever the call ends. And if it was a good call, I'd push it forward and they would take it on the air. So there was one disturbing trend that started to develop while we were on this morning show. One, it was,

Imagine though, if you're like in Melbourne or London and your voice is heard to like your buddies at like 18, 19 years old. This is like a crazy opportunity, right? - Yeah, it must be wild. - And like my mom would be listening at her dentist office and she'd be like, "That's my son Kramer." And it was really like pretty awesome.

And, but they started to really use me as a punching bag really, really regularly. And then it became like, I can take it. Let's make self, you know, self deprecating humor. I can handle that. And then it started getting kind of offensive. So anytime I would say any kind of joke, like they'd be like, who's the loser who like takes baths? And I'd be like, that's the lead in. Yeah. I take baths.

Every time I spoke, they would hit this soundbite. And this is kind of offensive. I'm sorry to anybody. They'd say, you fairy, you company man, which is a movie quote from like Al Pacino. And it was a derogatory slur to make it sound like I was not manly or whatever the joke was. And so then that started. And then each day it got worse with like,

Making fun of me let's they did a win a date with Kramer like you know And then we'd have like the camera crew and they set it all up and then they had the camera show there and I showed up to the thing and they made a big joke saying Nobody signed up for it. You're a loser like and I was like okay, and they never even put it out right so now I'm like all right the fuck Fucked up was but this was the this was like 2003 so I decided

I have some dignity left. I probably should quit. And so I said, listen, I really appreciate your guys' opportunity. I learned a lot being on the radio business this past year. I think it'd be best if I focused on my studies. And they were like, that's good because we were going to fire you. And I was like, okay, well then that's great. All right. What a bunch of assholes. I know.

No. And so, but I'm so young, right? And I don't know how to deal with it. That would be stressful. Yeah. Dude, it was crazy. So I remember they said, here's the idea that we've got. We're going to do a two-day event where you get made fun of a lot and we're going to pretend that you blow up on the air and we're going to get suspended for a weekend so we can go to Vegas to see a Britney Spears concert.

And at first I was pretty pressure. I was like, okay, that sounds good. You know, this is okay. Let's just do that. And so the first day we do it, I play the part as I knew I could. Perfect. I said, you guys, I've had enough of every day. You're playing these sound drops. You're making fun of me or win a date with Kramer. Why don't you win a date with go yourself? You know, something like that. Yeah. And it went really well, except I had an email that was like Kramer at Z 95.7.com.

for about a year.

I had like three emails ever sent to that address and they were all like, "Can you ask out Shorty for me? "I think she's a babe." And after that episode, I had thousands of emails of people hating me saying that I didn't appreciate this golden opportunity to be on the, and I was like, "It's a joke." Everybody, I thought this was obvious. My mom was concerned. She was like, "What happened? "It sounded so real." - You acted too good. - I'm too good.

So you were too good. So I told my acting coach, I was like, dude, I'm pretty nervous. I was like, this is not going well. I have people calling my home phone saying that I'm ungrateful. I don't even know how they found me. I'm not in the phone book as Kramer, you know, but like, and so I said, he was like, yeah, dude, it's fucked up. It's dumb. You know what? If I was you, I'd go in there tomorrow and I'd be like, fuck you.

I'm not doing your stupid gag and you can go fuck yourself. Yeah. And I was like, go in there and say, fuck you and go fuck yourself. Okay. I can do that. No, I couldn't. I tried. So I went there and I was like, all right, it's my last day. I'm supposed to do this one last bit. And somehow I did get the courage to, to say no, but I've never had such a dry mouth before.

- Oh, I must've been terrified. - Just completely. - 'Cause you know, you obviously raised your whole life being like, don't talk back or this, you know. - And you're in radio. - Yeah, yeah. - This to me at the time symbolized some sort of like gateway or opportunity. - Put it in the door. - And I wanted to transition to sports radio. And so I was asking for like a recommendation so I can intern at the AM station.

And I go in there and they go, okay, man, so we're going to do this thing. And then we're going to, we're just going to have you leave. But thanks so much. And I was like, there's like two or three minutes before the show starts. And I was like, they're like, are you all right? And I was like, yeah. I was like, actually, I'm not going to go through with it. And they're like, you're not going to go through with what? You can't work here anymore. And I was like, no, I think that this joke is stupid and I don't want to do it. And they were like, I'm actually getting nervous now remembering all this. But they were like,

They, the girl tore into me and she was, she was really, really ruthless. She was like, honestly, you've never had an ounce of talent for this profession. And we only kept you until we found someone better. And I was like, that's fine. I'm not doing this stupid joke. And she was like, you will never, ever work in this town again. And I was like,

that's fine. I was like, Oh, that's not good. I got it. And I was like, that's fine. And you know, and then I was like, it's not worth it because I just don't understand. Why can't you guys say we were just joking. Thank you so much, Peter, for your hard work. Good luck at the university. Why can't we have like a, a nice thing?

And they were like, and I saw Dave, he took the volume control and he's like, we just can't trust you today. And he's, I was like, you know, I was like, what a loser. And I was feeling really down. And they, uh, they told me to go sit in the corner and they went live. Like I was like some bad kid or something. And I was sitting there and, um,

They had to go to commercial break and they were kind of just doing the show as normal and someone called in and they, they put him on, but not on air. It was just 95.7. What? And it was my teacher. He didn't know I was there. He was like, yeah, you guys are fucking lame asses. And I think all of you, especially you, Dave, you fucking hack. You're a bunch of losers. And for you to take advantage of that young man who gave you a year of your time, you know, you can go fuck yourself.

And that moment I felt like somebody had my back. This is like a film. It was crazy. And like, and he was, they're like, you know, we're not going to put, he's like, I don't want to be on the fucking air. I have some dignity. I don't want to be on Z 95 point. Fuck off. So when, when that guy was going hard and then I, I was just like, fuck it. I'm out. I just walked out and like it ended. And I thought for sure,

That's it. That's acting. Ripperonies. Ripperonies. But I felt after that, I felt like embracing failure was actually more of an important lesson to learn than it is to earn people's like ovation and like, so by embracing failure,

I maybe should have overcorrected and not embraced it that much because for the next four or five years, I put myself in any possible acting situation, good or bad, so that I, not like porn, but like, not like porn, but like any kind of opportunity to grow as an actor and stuff like that. And I had a lot of fun doing that, but that one thing changed everything.

everything when I got. - Did you never work in that city again? - I actually did work in that city again, you bastards. And I went on to do a bunch of stuff. - Yeah, you always recount the story about how you won this quite significant acting. - I did, I got to perform in the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. - Oh, cool, awesome. - There was a,

This is actually kind of awkward as well, but I'll tell it. So there was a, well, no, no, it's a cool story, but like there was a, there was a contest called the Irene Kennedy, Casey Kennedy, Cindy Kennedy center, American acting theater festival. What age is this around? This is all college. It's the entire United States. And I would argue it's probably the most prestigious college,

that you can do in college. Yeah. And no one from our school, both my community college and my college had ever won it. We'd never, we'd gotten runner up a couple of times. Oh, wow. Runner up for a whole country. For the region. Oh, real regional. So there's five different regions and we represented the kind of,

the Midwest region, which included Wisconsin, Chicago, Illinois, Ohio. - So you were the representative for the Midwest is what I'm hearing. Was that like a competition as well to get to that point? - So yes, so I'm not explaining this. - This is like an anime tournament. - Yeah, it's like a sports anime. - You gotta win regionals, Mark. We can do it. - So let me scale it back. So if you're in a show, a college show, you'll have an adjudicator come watch it.

And the director chooses one actor and the adjudicator chooses one actor to then go on to this regional festival.

And I was selected for five years in a row 'cause I'm- - Wow, wow. - And I lost every single time the first four years. - So what did you have to do? - So you go there and you have to do a two minute scene with a partner. It can be self-written, it can be from a famous play, it can be whatever, it could be a musical, it can be Shakespeare, whatever you want. It's actually three minutes. The first round is three minutes. If you make it to semifinals, they take like eight, five or 600 different pairs

And then they narrow it down to 32 or 64. And then you do another two-minute piece. So you do a three-minute and a two-minute. And then if you make it to the finals, you add a one-minute monologue, right? So on my fifth year, I was like, okay, this is getting embarrassing. I've been nominated a lot. Oh, you never got to the finals. I made it to semis once. And at the school time, a lot of people looked up to me

me as an actor because I took it really seriously. I may not have been the most naturally gifted, but...

I would really, you put the work in. So I think a lot of people really had high expectations. Right. So I decided that for the final year, I got this amazing partner named Callie and she's such a great actress, but she was really young. She was like 19 or 20 and I was like 23 at the time. Right. And so you're asking someone really new to theater to take some big risks as we do these scenes. So the first scene was really easy. It's the

funniest piece of literature I've ever performed in and it was written by my old acting coach. So it's this guy meets this girl and they're

Story as old as time but the whole point is for the first minute and a half two minutes Their inner monologue is talking instead of them directly. So he's saying oh my god, it's her and then she says it's him Yeah, all leads up to their initial awkward conversation Easy clear made it to semis. We knew we were gonna make it to semis. This scene was perfect Right. The problem was it was so funny that we didn't have a contrasting. Yeah strong enough. I

So I talked to this old wizened like Jedi acting coach and I was like, I just don't trust the second piece that we have. And she goes, I have just this scene for you, but you have 20, 20 hours to get it into shape. And I was like, all right. And she's like, it just came out. So I know the playwright personally. I'll email him and ask him if we can get permission to use his works. And I was like, okay.

This was a really interesting play called Red Light Winter, and it's extremely graphic. And the problem with this scene was the character I played starts with him with a girl downstage looking up at him saying, I love you. And he says, you've never loved me or something like this. Yeah. And they have this brief tussle of intense emotional connection of making out. This is in front of an audience. And then he takes her behind a table not so different than this scene.

lifts up her shirt and spits in his hand and drops his any. - Yeah, okay. - Yeah. - And then yes, there's actually kind of key.

Then while this is happening, right, this thing, his phone goes off and he covers her mouth and he takes the call and it's from his wife saying that he'll be home later. And then the real acting, the tough part is the girl has to take this information, this betrayal, and visualize it for everybody to see, plus all the risque stuff we're doing. He hangs up the phone, finishes whatever that task was,

looks at her as he's belt, you know, and he says, I told you I didn't love you. And that's the end of the scene. Big contrast. Huge contrast. Whiplash for the audience. But a great way to show, right? Yes. He was down bad. He was down bad. She was down bad. He was down bad. You had to be bricked up for this. Bricked up, down bad. All these terms come full circle. And the key part of that scene actually is she does have HIV and now he is

in turn, we'll get it. So that's not displayed in that particular scene. So then we did, we made it to finals. So now it's down to the final 16 people in our region. And this is like, we're in uncharted territory. Can we be one of the two winners to ever make it out of this region and go to Washington, D.C.? Well, for our school, yeah, the entire Midwest. And so, because two people go from each region. And it was like, okay, this is it. And we drew numbers on which schools

order we got to go in and I drew 15 out of 16, which I loved. I was like, you get to watch. I don't watch anything, but I want to be near the end because I know that those scenes that we do are so powerful. It leaves an impact. Yeah, very much. And the monologue. So we go to the, we start the thing.

And I actually was so confident that I slept for about 40 minutes during the first round. So I was just like, calm down, rest. And my partner, poor Callie, was just sweating, sweating, terrified. So I'll never forget it though, man. We went out there and it was in Kansas, actually. The regional that year is in KU. So it's my own backyard. I had a chance to defend home turf.

We walk out there and there's 2,000 people in the auditorium and they're all, they've heard rumors of some of the, I heard about this scene. So it gets dead silent.

And that's already extremely exciting. So you're like- - Everyone's anticipating. - Oh man, it was so, you could feel the place just ready to go. So I was terrified, but you gotta own it. So I said, "Hello, my name is Peter. This is my partner, Caliant. We'll be doing three pieces for you today." And inside, I'm just, I'm all bricked up.

- I'm so down back. - You're emotional every time. - We'll see you then in the finals, you perform three scenes. - We have to do the comedy. - Wow, back to the-- - It's a six minute and it's,

Ruthlessly timed. If you go over time, somebody will put their hand up at 15 seconds and then they'll stand up and say, "Finish." And if you go over time, you're disqualified. - Oh, shit. - So this is where, thank you for, it's like you're helping me tell this story. - Well, I'm trying to visualize just so I can get the heads in head space. - That'd be awkward if they shout, "Finish," like the second scene. - I know. - I presume that's to make sure, 'cause obviously if you were to...

- Obviously timing is a huge part of acting and being on cue and on time is important. I'm guessing that's why, right? - There was one problem though, we didn't realize was the comedic scene was so funny with 2000 people, we had to pause for laughter. So I think they actually give you a 10 second grace period. So like, you know, whatever, whatever. But so like,

We do the first scene. It kills. People are going crazy with laughter. People, there's already like tons of cheering. And then we got to put that behind us and we have to do that really serious scene. Yo, my God, dude, when that, dude, you could not hear anything during that scene. Dead silent. One guy in the back was like,

you know and it was just it was dead and then I had like friends and family watching and they didn't know I was going to do this scene where I'm like yeah and it's just but it's fine because it's theater and so and then we did a monologue and I know that Callie went off stage and I had to do a it was a really great play called Recent Tragic Events about 9-11 and it was a great monologue you did a 9-11

- It's a good play though. It's a really powerful play about- - It's a much American thing, everybody. - It was still relatively topical back then. It was like within 10 years of this. - Well, you said 2003, right? - No, this was five years of me doing it. This must've been 2008 or '09 or something like that. - Okay, yeah, still well over. - Yeah, so, and that-

That play, I played the neighbor of someone as we were at an apartment. We're watching the events unfold. And her sister happens to be in the tower. Was she okay? It's just like a two-hour look into that moment of time. But this character was really funny, very quirky. It towed the line between serious and comedic. And I remember I was kind of kneeling down telling this end of the story. And I saw the person stand up and I was like, we're out of time.

But I still took that one extra second. I'll never forget it my entire life. I stood up and I got to see the entire audience. And it looked like some weird watercoloring because it was just all these images and faces. And when I got to say, before I could finish the words, thank you, the place went ballistic. Just insane clapping. Right.

theater programs being, it was like some sort of ridiculous thing. Yeah. And whether I knew if I won or lost, it was irrelevant. I felt so satisfied after all these years of training that we had a moment that meant something to someone else, which is the whole point of theater. And so it was pretty exciting. And then when we found out they, uh,

We ended up winning first place on that competition. We got to go to the Kennedy Center. We got to perform on the stage and I got a nice cash prize for best comedic scene of a, that was the one that we'd written. And that money went straight to me coming to Japan. Oh, hell yeah. Did you end up winning? We did not get the first place. Tragically, this is actually point of contention because

This is really embarrassing. It is pretty... I mean, I don't hold them accountable, but it's really embarrassing that this happened. Yeah. During our second scene where the phone goes off, we had rigged it already so that someone would call. The stage manager for the Kennedy Center, who's not actually doing anything, they were just watching. Yeah. Their phone went off during our scene. Like, audibly. And so I think I reached for the phone before the moment. Oh, no. And like...

Callie kind of rushed. Well, she didn't do anything wrong, but like she moved on to what I was doing and then we kind of like corrected it. And then it was like, wait, that wasn't. And then my phone went off when it was supposed to. And you're like, and as a stage manager, you're kind of like, you really should have had that on. You're the last guy on earth. You really should not have that on. But you fucked up. Yep. So other than that, you know, I took those things that I learned and I taught drama in college.

High school's here. I've been in some various funny, different comedic things for Japanese media, working for NHK, similar to you did with BBC. So it's always been a through line of like my life and my career was doing theater all from those radio bastards who told me I was worthless. - I was the origin story. - Often a shit experience is a bigger motivator than a good one, I find.

So there you go. - For sure. Your life is an anime. It's crazy. - We're just going through all like the canon events in your life. - I do have one brief one that sucked really bad when I told you failure. It's a quick one. There was ESPN is a pretty big sports network. - You told me this story. - It's so shit fucking dumb. And I was like, it was right after I'd been fired from the radio station.

And I told, they came to our town to interview anybody who, it was the first like reality TV show during like Survivor season one was still on, you know? And it was Dream Job where you could win a job as a host for SportsCenter for a year.

And I was like, dude, that's so sick. And my acting coach was like, yeah, go and fucking do it. What are they going to do, Z95.7U? And I was like, yeah, you're right. I can go and do it. So I wore like my nicest suit. And I always looked kind of wild anyway with my messy hair. And like I always stuck out in a way. So we're in line for there's like 300 people. And they have this camera crew coming along. And they stopped at me and they said, hey, you look pretty interesting. What's your deal? And I was like, oh, I'm a theater student at the university. And they're like, oh.

Whoa, got any theater you can show us? And I was like, never say no, never say no. Don't be afraid of failure. And I was like, yeah, I do. But it's not, it's a, it's a really, uh, well, it's a, um, it's a serious piece. Like go ahead and show it.

It was like really serious. It was like my dad like abused me and now I'm like... So this is a sports center? I was like... But I did the monologue as best as I could. And I remember one of the lines in the monologue is...

what the hell do you think you're doing is one of the lines. And I remember it was a camera like that with like this enormous camera. And I could, as I'm doing the monologue, I see like the cameraman look like, should we just cut this guy? What's going on? And I, you know, worst modeling, I was like, what the hell do you think you're doing? And they were like dead silent, not the eruption that we got years later. And they were like, thank you so much for your monologue. That was really good. Good luck inside. I was like, thank you.

And then the guy next to me, I was like, that did not feel good. He was like, it's not good. Better you than me. And I was like, okay. And then I was like, I didn't get invited to Bristol, Connecticut. I did not get invited to be a part of SportsCenter. So I felt like, okay, at least I can live with the fact that I tried.

I turn on the first episode and they're like, welcome to ESPN, you know, dream job, thousands applied in the shows, all these people who are being, and they said, let's take a look at the people who didn't make the cut. And I was like,

Please don't do this. Please don't do this. And it has like all these different people. And then one person does like a shitty job. And then right after it, it zooms in on my fat face going, what the hell do you think you're doing? And then I was, and then I got like 10 phone calls. I saw you on sports. And I was like, oh my God. So somewhere out there in some dark, dank closet, there's a, there's a tape.

of me a full video of that horrible model. - We'll never get it. - Lost media, lost media. - Thank God, but yeah, that's when you take

- At least when you were asked, you didn't do the. - My dad abused me while auditioning for sports center. It's not the play I imagined.

- I should have just improvised anything other than that. - Literally anything. - Literally anything. - That was a risky move, you know, let's see if it pans out. - You live and learn. But these stories in the moment, they felt fucking horrible. But when you look back on them now- - Those are great stories. - Yeah, that was a learning experience and also great stories. - Except the,

- Dumber aspects of one's life, I think. - Everyone grows up with painful stories about themselves. - Absolutely. - This is completely all right. - Yep. - Holy shit. - Some wins and some losses. - Yeah, I worked at McDonald's. That was just one big loss. - I didn't even get that job. - Oh, that's right. You applied and you got turned down.

- Down by McDonald's. - And my dad thought I was gonna be unemployed for the rest of my life. - And here you are. - And he was right. - He's kinda right. Yeah, he's kinda especially right. - Nailed it. - Nailed it. - Yep. - But yeah, thanks for coming out, Pete. - No, it's my pleasure. - How long have we been in the show? - Two hours? All right. - Yeah.

- Yeah, thanks for coming out, Pete. - It's honestly always a pleasure. - Always great having you on. - Always a pleasure. - Thank you so much. - Thank you for gracing us again with your many stories. - Godlike stories. - And now we know you are definitely one of us with your very bad opinions on fucking movies. - And you know what happened to Harambe now. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - I learned a lot today. - It's all good. - Hey, look at all these patrons though. They support the show. - Oh, wow. That's my favorite right there. - Oh, that's a good one. - That's a good one. - That's a good choice. - That's a good choice. - Oh, Kony 2012.

- I'm joking. You can cut that one. You can cut that one. - We'll keep it in. - There's a lot there. - Someone is gonna change their name to that. Hey, if you'd like to support the show, then go to our Patreon, patreon.com/trashdace. Also follow us on Twitter, send us some memes on the subreddit. If you had a face, listen to us on Spotify. And of course go check out Pete's stuff, link's in the description. I don't have to tell you to do that. Go do that right now. - Go check out his streams now. - Yeah. - He's also, you're on YouTube now. You've uploaded more on YouTube. - I have. - So go check it out. - Thank you so much guys. - Yeah, hell yeah. All right, we'll see you guys next week.

Bye.