Daily Podcast (06.23.25)
03:01:25 Share

Hey, welcome to the Preston and Steve podcast, which is brought to you by Acme Markets. Hungry and in a hurry? Acme's flash grocery delivery or pickup gets you fresh groceries in 30 minutes or less. Acme, fresh foods, local flavors, and the official grocery partner of the Preston and Steve show. Thanks for listening to our podcast, and thanks to Steven Singer for being the official jeweler of the Preston and Steve show. Kath, you have a fan and our next guest in your recent victory. I know. Yeah. Target. He was very excited in the green room. Please welcome Mr. Dan Soder. Yes, sir.

Do not clap for me. You clap for Kat. That was unbelievable. It was impressive, wasn't it? Unbelievable. As a man that was forced to wear Target clothes until he was 15, that was unbelievable. I mean, that's a knowledge of Target that's just awe-inspiring. It's deep. It's deep. Yeah, yeah. That is like, that's pretty crazy. It's like in movies where they call in someone and they're like, we've got a point guy. Right, yeah. He's like, yeah, I lived among them for years. Yeah.

And Kathy just comes in. She's like, where do you want to know where the hot dogs are? Into the left. Starbucks is just slightly more to the left. Yeah. That was crazy. Yeah. I was like, oh, man, this loofah is going to stink. Yeah. I was like, she's about to...

She's about to get some travel crest. Honestly, there's two things. I stayed away from the travel section. There are two things I go to Target for. I go to that section like an HDMI cable or those little airport travel sizes. They got everything. They're bins full of that crap. I'm a frame guy myself. The frame department at Target. Oh, yeah.

What I miss, I quit drinking five years ago. Yeah. And I tell people, they're like, what do you miss about drinking? I was like, sometimes being day drunk in a Target. Just be kind of hammered and I'd be like, oh, so you work here? How is it working here? And the guy's like, what? Why do you care? Listen, that's happened. I went Christmas shopping after a few glasses of wine. I'm not kidding. With a girlfriend of mine. And I came home with a Ninja Turtle bike that was way too big for my son. Yeah.

He used it like three years later. But that's pretty awesome. What a great ahead of the curve present. Yes. Too bad day drunk mom is from the future. Get you a good bite for three years. Also, here's a TI-83 for your senior year of high school. Just getting used to a graphing calculator.

Wow. That's cool. Well, welcome back to Philadelphia. Yeah, man. I love being back in Philadelphia. I felt bad last time I was at Helium. It was like New Year's Eve week and you guys were off. So I missed seeing you guys. Well, look, you're busy. You work with one of our best...

bestest buddies of Big J. You know what I mean? The man. That guy's the man. He's great. Philadelphia's own. Super nice. And you're both super funny. And you have your bonfire show. Yeah, Monday through Thursday on SiriusXM 95. You pair really nicely. It's a good vibe. I check it out often. Thanks, man. I listen as well. How off the cuff is that entire show? I mean...

Seriously? Yeah. We smoke pot and hang out. There's no lie. I'm a big wrestling fan. There's no kayfabe. We don't lie. We come in and he goes, dude, I watched this video. Do you want to watch it? And then we just watch it on the show. As YouTube professionals like you guys, it must drive you nuts.

No, no, no, because we're similar. We kind of just go, what do you feel like talking about? And then we go into it and we don't really have much of it. There are a couple of benchmarks that we have that are structured. But for the most part, the show is very free flowing and I get that sensation from you guys as well. Honestly, the way it feels doing the show, it feels like they let the two potheads run the high school news channel.

Here's the difference though. You guys can do whatever you want. Here's the difference though, Dan. There was a big podcasting convention in the city and

And a whole bunch of shows come in. There are a lot of shows like that. Yeah. They're not all good. Yeah. And that's the difference. You got to have the chops to pull it off. You guys do. I don't know how many times at this podcast convention, we're just talking. Yeah. Well, is it interesting? Yeah. But you guys know Big Jay. He's one of the funniest human beings on the planet. He's great. And it's just like...

He's like one of my good friends to where it's just... I get to see my friend for work. But that's it. It's funny because it's one of the most critical aspects of anything. And as a morning show, our pentameter has to be a little bit more accelerated because people are getting off to work and so on and so forth. But when we were building the show...

a chemistry, a symmetry, a synergy. Yeah. And it's lightning in a bottle. And he's a buddy. You're both buddies. You can tell. The one thing I've told Jay the entire time is like, this is so much fun for me that the second it's not fun is probably going to be the moment I have to walk away. Yeah. Because it's like, I want to keep that kind of like innocence to it where you're just like, oh, no, man, I'm just excited to hang out with my buddy. I watched this stupid video that I think will have fun. Or, you know, this, like the Madonna speech for Aretha Franklin. I'm like, oh, I can't wait to talk to Jay about this. Yeah. Because she's,

She's insane. She looked like... I said she looked like somebody... She walked out of the Dark Crystal. I mean, it looked like your strange aunt that got married in Sedona and then showed up and you're like, yeah, that's Kathy. She's going to talk about herself for a lot. But we had to invite her to the wedding. She's my mom's sister. And her grill, her fake grill, pushes her lips out. She had...

Me and Jay were talking about this on the show. She had a lisp. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's so funny when someone's being so narcissistic with a lisp. We were like, really? Everyone understood that I was a different person pretty soon. I saw myself. It's like...

Madonna, you stink. You stink. I can't take that the accent, the lisp, all of that, it changes. It's changed so many times. But it's also so easily correctable. Take that goddamn thing out of your mouth. They're also all symptoms of not having one person around going,

What are you doing? Madonna hasn't had a person go like, what the hell are you doing? No, you're right. Well, why do you think all of these celebrity marriages don't work? Yeah. Because eventually, because all these people, they just have yes men around them all the time. And then when you marry somebody, they're not going to be a yes man for you anymore. And they don't like that. Yeah.

It really is. Because they're like, you just want a hype man. It takes someone consistently kissing Madonna to go, could you take that goddamn thing off? Oh, love, I'm sorry. I just licked your grill. She's like, oh, hold on. Like a...

She's wearing, yeah, disaligned. Oh, is that a hat? It's too much. That forehead crystals, it was enough for me to be like, dude, MTV is so dead that they've dug up Madonna and put wind crystals on her head. Well, you know, zombies are the thing now, so. Did you hear that? I mean, again, so last year's was super low rated. This one exceeded it. Yeah, because kids would rather watch Snapchat. That's it.

The VMAs were so cool when I was growing up. Oh, my God. It was like appointment television. You're like, I wonder what's going to happen at the VMAs. And now you're like, oh, they're doing that? They were two blocks away from us. Oh, really? Oh, that's how I knew the VMAs were happening. I was like, oh, radio...

Sixth Avenue is you can't walk across it because Pete Davidson and Ariana Grande are making out in front of Radio City. Like our friend and his new superstar girlfriend. Are you friends with Pete? I've known Pete since he was 15. So Pete's – we've never had him on the show. Seems like a great guy. Hilarious. Always wanted to have him on. When I saw that pairing, as I think everyone else did –

What? But they seem to be like, it seems to be like massively real deal. I want Pete to be happy. As his friend, that's all I care about. It was a very similar reaction to Pete dating Ariana Grande is when my friend started doing blow in college. And I was like...

Just don't let this destroy you. Look at me in the face. Do not let this ruin you. You can handle this, right? I was going to do a keybop real quick. I don't.

do this. Yeah, it's crazy. I can't argue though. She's gorgeous. She's Ariana Grande. She's like a massive, huge global celebrity and it's Pete. It's her buddy Pete.

It's our buddy. It's like, but honestly, he's like above, like Jay's hung out with them. Yeah. I have like a. Oh, really? Yeah. Like he went over to their apartment. I, I have. It's gotta be wild. It's, yeah. He said it's like a giant spaceship. Yeah, man. Millionaires, when they get like a certain amount of money. Mm-hmm.

For some reason, all the comfort in their place leaves. Yeah, I dated a wealthy girl and her apartment felt like a Japanese insane asylum. It was like just white walls. I was just saying that. Do you not go crazy in here? I was just saying that this morning. We were at a venue last night that was wonderful at Harris. We had a wonderful event. It was a sprawling room with very sparse amount of furniture because it's more like a concert venue. Yeah. But it ends up looking like

a villain's lair in a James Bond movie. So it's like huge windows, two chairs and a table. Or like when Dr. No wants to interrogate you, he puts you in this room. You expect someone to come in with like a highball glass of whiskey and be like, you're wondering why you're here. It's to die.

They have all the money for comfort, but they don't invest in it. It's super creepy because I'm like, I like places that you can feel like the soul in it. Like, you know, with like knickknacks and stuff. Right, yeah. Pictures on the wall where you're like, oh, you live here. Yeah. But when you walk into a nice place, you're like, hey, I don't want to touch anything. Yeah. Because I'm the messy kid. I'm like, I just don't want to touch the wall.

It's just somewhere where you can actually put your feet up on a couch. Well, it's like the wealthy equivalent of when I was growing up, the Kostanowicz family in my neighborhood. Yes, they had all their furniture was covered in a thick plastic. Yeah. So this living room was never used. It was just a showroom that you walked past on a mat, on a plastic mat into the kitchen. Well, let me ask you because you've had a recent run of success over the last probably since you stopped drinking.

Yeah, I mean, definitely it lines up perfectly. Right, but I'm sure that there is a certain charm to when you first moved to New York City, you lived in a tiny little place. Is there any of that that you miss? I still live in the same apartment. Really? Well, you came from Colorado, right? Yeah, I moved from Denver, and I went to school in Tucson in Arizona, and then I moved. That's where I started comedy, and then I moved to New York, and I've been in New York for the last 12 years. I've been in the same apartment in Queens for the last 12 years.

Why is that? There's a charm to Queens. There really is, yeah. You're comfy there or you just landed the perfect spot when you move there? No, I moved into a windowless room for eight years. Far from the perfect spot. It was almost to the point where I was like, what the hell am I doing to myself? I had to sleep with the door open because there's a heater in that room but no windows. So you shut that door.

And you are going to drop weight for a wrestling meet. But I just, I loved the apartment and I live with Mike Vecchione, who's a Philly guy. Yeah. And Mike Vecchione's players. Basically what happened was I had roommates and finally Mike and I were just going to get an apartment together. And I was like, why don't we just stay in this apartment and just, you know, like redo it. So we just kind of stayed in the same apartment because it's close to LaGuardia. It's like...

I don't... And I, you know, it's like a thing to me. I didn't want to move. You're away a lot anyway. Yeah, I'm on the road 30 weeks a year. So you don't need that Blofeld apartment. Yeah, I mean, they'd be stupid. I'd come in and it's like, I like living in the... I love the neighborhood. I know the people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's something to be said about that where I think it's like, I don't want to live in some...

Also, I can't really afford it. They don't pay me billions. They pay me thousands. Speaking of billions, so you're on the show Billions. Yeah. And what is the status of that? Casey's a big fan. I watched a little bit of it initially, but I kind of fell off the grid on it. You didn't like Chuck getting beat on in the first episode? I did actually like that. Come on, Steve. Stick with it. Yeah.

Preston is a huge fan of Chuck Paul Giamatti I'm going to get on board I've had enough people tell me you need to watch this show it's time to get on board and I'm going to do it it's weird to be a fan of a show you're on because I hate when I come on screen I hate my own scenes I'll be into it and I'm like oh god look at my stupid forehead one time my ex was watching it with me and she's like

this is uncomfortable. I don't like this. Because I'd be like, why is my skin on my forehead stupid? And she's like, can you not do that? I'm like, I'm a comic. I'm not an actor. I'm not like watching it like, good decision. I'm like, God, I'm a real, I'm a giant ogre. I love Damien Lewis. Exactly the way I would have played that. Yeah, but Damien Lewis is the man. I mean, that whole cast is awesome. We start, oh, stupid idiot.

We're looking at a kitty. Oh, Maggie Smith. I get to see her. You got to understand, I'm so excited. We're back to school Monday. Is that right? Season four starts. Very cool. So I get to see all. I haven't seen these people since March. I mean, I hang out with some of the Axe Cappers.

Yeah. And occasionally, but like Maggie Siff is one of the greatest human beings on the planet. Is she? One of the greatest human beings on the planet. She's super attractive. And she's just like talented. She's awesome. She's just like a great person. That's why they wrote this in because they kind of knew I had like a little bit of a school boy crush on her. Really? Yeah. Like there was a scene in season two, there was like this poker tournament that involves like the new Taylor Mason is like in this poker tournament. And we hadn't seen Maggie before.

since season one. So she was on set and I was like, oh, look who's back. Diva, Maggie Smith, won't even like talk to us. And she's like, yeah, I actually demanded that Dan Soder be my hot and tot this year. And I was like, what? And I just walked away. I was like, Jesus Christ.

this is stupid. And everyone's like, why did you become a sixth grade boy? I'm like, because Maggie Sift just said, I don't even know what that means. But it's set in a sexual tone and I need to go take a long walk. You know, there are some women that are like that. We had Gina Gershon. Oh, man. Gina Gershon just commands guys like nobody's business. Maggie Sift could be like, fist fight your mom. I'd call her up and be like, Trish, wrap those hands. Oh,

You're the Manchurian candidate. I know, this fight's been building for 35 years. We do a whole 24-7 on it. That day Dan knew him and his mom would go to blows. The creator of the show must be a fan of stand-up. Brian Koppelman. Yeah, Brian Koppelman and David Levine, I've known for years. Brian Koppelman, he was a comic. He did comedy in the city for 18 months when he was going through a writer's block and got into it.

But yeah, Big Jay was on season one. I'd like to see him come back. I'd love to rewrite a nice drug dealer from Montreal. Alan Havey, who's hilarious. Birbiglia. Birbiglia. I mean, he puts a lot of, there's a lot of good looks for comics on the show, which is great. Yeah, I definitely enjoyed what I saw on Your Right Presence. It's, you know, what happens to, let me ask you, you're on a show that has a buzz like this, though, but there are so many. There's such an influx with Hulu, with Netflix, with all these other shows. Yeah.

A while ago, a show like Billions would have boom, you know, like really, really popped. Like Sopranos, yeah. Yeah, right. But now there's just, it's a glut of really good must-watch TV. Is it a little frustrating or are you just loving the ride regardless? No, I mean, it's just crazy to be a part of it. Yeah, yeah. It's just crazy to be a part of like a major show like that. But it is weird when they're like...

I've been doing comedy for 15 years, and so people... Like a lot of bro-ish guys like Billions. Yeah. So a lot of guys will be... And I'm like... Wall Street kind of guys? Yeah, and I'm borderline white trash. Like I'm real on the cusp, and I have that kind of hair trigger. I have like a calloused hands trigger. That's why I like Philly so much. It's very similar. But these dudes will be like...

hey, what's up, bro? I'm like, hey, Muffy. And I'm like, yeah, don't come at me like that. And then they're just like, what? And I'm like, yeah, dude, I'm from Aurora, Colorado. I will rip your throat out. Like there's been a couple times, I was at a Mets game and this guy's like, yeah, your axe is bitch. And I was like, what would you be?

And my girlfriend saw it. Jay calls it, Big Jay calls it zero to 60 soda, but I go like, I just fly off the hand. I'm like, what's up, dude? And this guy's just like, yeah, man, you're Ox's bitch. And I'm like, what would you, I almost just said the F word because I said it in real life. And I go, what would you be? And he was like,

I love the show. It's just me holding a hot dog being like, am I about to fight a Mets game? My dad loves the show. He's from the Bronx, still has that Long Island accent. Yeah, bro. So we got him the voice control remote. And so he's trying to put billions on. He's going, billions. Billions. And the TV's going, there's a campfire. And so we hear, and he's cursing at the remote. F'n billions.

Please get your mother. Seriously.

and he was like billion. There you go, Dad. You just got to nail the two L's in the one word. It's funny, though, as you talk about that because I'm from New York as well and that's why I love it here because there's a very similar vibe and love Philadelphia, but there is that hair trigger thing that I grew, thankfully grew out of because you realize at a certain point, and these guys know the story, I ran up onto the hood of a car that was...

Man after my own heart. Yeah, guy could have had a gun. Guy could have had a gun. I think about that a lot. And then my temper's like, let's not think about that. Let's think about how this guy just straight up disrespected you. In my mind, I'm like, this isn't a good idea. And my temper's like, you're 6'3". You could probably at least scare this guy pretty good.

But it is cool to see who likes the show. Stiles P from The Lox. Really? He was in Sirius and I turned the corner and I grew up listening to The Lox and he's got a backpack on and he goes...

MF and Muffy. And just slams his backpack. And he goes, what's up? And I was like, Styles P? And he's like, yo, I love the show. And I was like, awesome. So do you talk about not wanting to see yourself on screen and it freaks you out and so on and so forth? I mean, I hate watching my stand-up. Do you? One of the worst things that certain... I mean, you guys are... You don't understand how much of a treat it is to come on a show like this when you're on the road. Because, you know...

They're not going to hear me in any other market. But you go on and they're like, hey, it's the guy out in the kids. And they're like, got Dan Sauter in here. And then they just play like my Conan clip for five minutes. And I'm just like, stop this. Please stop. I hate all these jokes. Stop making me listen to things that I did five years ago. Do you hate your last album? Because I just listened to it recently. Yeah. I hate the newest joke I wrote. And I wrote that three days ago. Do you? Oh, yeah. That's good.

People really want to hear that stupid story. I just listen. You have a bit about having the voice that you have now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tiny. That's a real video, dude. I've been looking for that video. My aunt sent me a DVD of my cousin's birthday.

And we're five years old in the video. Because my dad died when I was 14 and my aunt was like, hey, your dad's in this video. And I'm like, that's kind of morbid. But she's like, I want you to see this birthday party. What ends up happening is my cousin's playing pinball. I'm watching him play pinball. Then I just look at the camera and I go, when the light goes off, it means your game's over. And I was like, that's my voice at five years old. Wow.

It upset me. I was watching. I was like, oh, dude. What the hell, man? Yeah. And it really was a thing where I was like, my mom has a deep voice and my dad had a deep voice. And I've always just been like, I used to call...

This was before the internet. When I was young and I wanted a toy, I would save up my allowance and I would call Toys R Us. And I'd be like, do you guys have RIP Toys R Us? And I would call up and be like, do you guys have this wrestling toy or whatever? And they'd always be like, miss, hold on a second. Because my voice was deep enough that they thought I was a grown woman. But I was like seven. And I was like, I'm looking for a Hulk Hogan. Yeah.

Did you sound, so it's like all my brothers, you know, and now I have the most resonant, but on the phone we all sound the same. So there'd be many times where I would intercept my brother's, girlfriend would be calling, tonight I'm going to lick it. I'll get my brother. Oh!

Hold on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's awesome. One time I called my friend, my friend Lewis's house to be like, hey, do you want to like go meet at the park or play or whatever? And his mom answered and I was like, is Lewis home? And she was like, who is this? And I was like, this is Dan, I'm his friend. And she was like, I thought you were his football coach. And I was like, I'm nine. Nine.

That's great. But you recorded your album here in Philadelphia. Trocadero, man. That was like... There was a reason I did my... That was our special for Comedy Central that nobody saw. So please go download it on iTunes because it's funny, man. You want to talk about being on a show like Billions and there's all these shows out here. Yeah. It's crazy to see how...

how no one does really appointment television anymore. And I did an hour special for Comedy Central back in 2016. I released it. I saw it. Thank you. And I filmed it here in Philly because I love doing shows in Philadelphia. And I was like, I want to do it at the Trocadero. And filmed it and put all this time and energy

edited it, and then they aired it three times. And you're like, cool, thanks, Comedy Central. So we just had Berk Reicher on here. The best. Trocadero show. I love Berk Reicher. He's a great, great guy. But they, like, he was here during the process leading up to it. I mean, people, as a comedian, you know,

The amount of work, the meticulous nature of putting together an hour special because you know that special is going to live on. Yeah. And it's a representation of what is supposed to be the absolute pinnacle of how you've polished this material. Yeah. So it's no small task. But he did it. The reviews were in. They're really good. I mean, he's awesome. I love Burt Crusher. And he chose the truck. He loves the truck.

Yeah, I chose it and then I talked to... Michael Ian Black did a special at the Trocadero and I talked to him about it and he's like, it's perfect. Yeah. He's like, it's perfect. And then we went in with Comedy Central to look at it and the second I walked in, I was like, yeah, this is... It's awesome. It's just a great venue in a cool place in the city.

And it was such an honor to film that hour special here. I was so mad that more people didn't get to see it. Then I did the Netflix half hour and you're like, oh, that's where everyone's eyes are. That's where it is. That's where everyone's eyes are. Why do you think it got short shrift initially? Because I honestly, I love Comedy Central. We're on Comedy Central radio for the bonfire. But I honestly think that they have not evolved enough.

in any way to stream. They have a catalog of what I can only describe as the greatest catalog of comedy specials from the mid-90s. You can go back and watch a Patrice O'Neill, Comedy Central Presents, a Nick DiPaolo, a Dave Attell when Dave Attell's finding his voice. There's all these great things and it's like, put it

online. Including me. I have an hour and a half of specials with you guys. Put it online. It's so frustrating. Watch me via comedy like, well, the bonfire is done. It really is a thing where you're like, come on, guys. How did HBO, Showtime, Hulu, Crackle, a coffee company figured it out before you guys? You're Comedy Central. It's very frustrating because it's like,

I was so proud of it. I was so proud to come here and film that special and like the time I put into it and all that care and then it's like, eh, didn't I see you on an honor special two years ago? You're like, yeah, it's just a thing I've worked hard on. It's fine. I guess I'll just go over here and have sex with myself. What?

Well, they spent money on it too, right? Yeah, yeah. And then Netflix came in and was like, we got way more money. What do you got? Let's do a half hour. And you're like, fine. Netflix came in like a rich sugar daddy. It was like, we don't think you want to be with her. You're like, I don't. I like you. I like you so much. I want to go to the Bahamas.

They whisked me off my feet. I was like, whatever, I'll sign this contract. But you know what? It's an amazing thing because I was watching a documentary, I guess it's a part of a documentary about that initial business model of Netflix with the DVDs being sent. And then when you thought, okay, man, they're on their way out. There's a death rattle.

Turn it around and they are a juggernaut now. They went from being like, who told you guys this was going to be a good idea? Hey, are you a Martian? Are you from the future? How did you know? It changed everything. It did. But that's why...

credit to HBO and like Showtime and stuff for immediately being like, okay, we got to just do that too. Like now, HBO is like, now you got HBO Go. So don't worry, you can see everything. Just like, I love hard knocks. I love hard knocks. Me too. And I love that it's like, you can watch the newest episode right on HBO Go right after it airs. Yeah. Like if I miss David Arnett, I'm like, oh, it's just up there. Yeah. So on the acting, you know, you enjoy, I think you've said it before,

read an interview, said it's the best job you've ever had. It's a crazy job and it's very fun and I like doing it. Is it something you see, you know, obviously stand-up is pure for you, it's what you are. Yeah, that's what I do, yeah. But still enticed by acting? Hell yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's a lot of stuff where it's like...

It's just, it's a fun, it's a fun, I've had so many bad jobs. Yeah. That when you get a job like acting. Yeah. And they treat you good. Yeah. But I think with, with your particular situation, because it's kind of, it's almost like a side job for you. Yeah, yeah. That, that you, you don't have to, because you're not an actor. It's not like I have to take this job because it's a job that's offered to me. You can be a little bit more selective with the roles that you take. Do you feel that? Do you, I mean, or is it something that you, you know, because you do have the safety net. Yeah.

There's times where it actually works against me and there's times that it works for me. There's times where I'm like, I have to turn down small roles because of stand-up. Like I'm coming here or I'm on the road next weekend. That kind of stuff will be like, you're filming Friday and you're like, well, unfortunately I have a contract that I can't get out of for these live shows. Also, I don't want to cancel those. But then there are times where you're kind of like, yeah, I don't really need to do this, but I want to do it. So yeah, there's some cool stuff.

Billions is also six months. And that's like six months where they're like, you're ours. Yeah. Beyond standup and bonfire, we got you. And so that's like, that starts Monday where you're kind of like,

It's like being in the pocket of a mafia boss. Yeah. And they're like, we need you today. Where do you film that, by the way? They film in Brooklyn. They film in Brooklyn and Queens. Okay. So it's all in New York. There's a number of shows that are there. Are there now, right? I mean, it's crazy, man. We share the same soundstage as Ray Donovan now. Ah. And Crashing Pete Holmes' show was the same soundstage. I like that show, but I keep hearing from other comedians, it's like, it's not like that at all. I'm like, I don't care. What do you think? What do you think?

God bless Pete for getting people jobs. I like comics working. Okay, we'll leave it there. Vote for me for Senate. That was the most political you'll ever hear of me. Old YKWD fans will know I'll be corporate Dan. I just want to say what a fantastic job he's done bringing jobs to comedy.

He brings jobs for comedians. Does it accurately portray? Watch Comedian. Watch the documentary Comedian with Jerry Seinfeld. Yeah. That's like the best thing if you want to know what stand-up's like. Okay. All right. And how about this Drunk Parents with Alec Baldwin and Salma Hayek? I don't know. It'd be cool to know when that's ever going to be released. 2016 it was made. Is it in stasis now? I filmed in January of 2016. Salma Hayek? I had a scene with Alec Baldwin and I had just gotten my heart broken. Oh.

It's part of my joke on my Netflix special, but it's true. I got dumped before this blizzard. Right. And then the next week we filmed, I filmed it with Alec Baldwin and Judah Friedlander, who's awesome, told me it was like immediately when you go on set, tell Alec you know me. He's like, Alec can be cold, but if he knows that you're a comic, he loves comics. They worked on 30 Rock together. Exactly. So I walk in and we're in the makeup trailer together. I'm like, hi, Alec. Nice to meet you. I'm Dan Soder. Friends with Judah Friedlander. He told me to tell you hello. And he goes,

I was, how was the world champ? And I love that he said that. And I was like, that's great. But then we, you know, you film all day. We're filming for like 14 hours in this diner. And I was super bummed out. Yeah. And I was like, heartbroken. And,

We sit down in between them repositioning cameras, and there's a plate of french fries. And Alec Baldwin just is like, what's going on? And I tell him, I'm like, man, I went through this bad breakup. And I miss her so much, and I just love her. And I tell him the story, and he's just casually dipping these french fries in ketchup. And at one point, he goes, someone got in her head. And he was taking a bite, and I was like, yeah, I think...

I think so. It's my favorite part is at one point he goes, you know, I went through a divorce in 2000. And I was like, yeah. Yeah.

I'm pretty sure it was in the news. I think I might have read about that. But you had it wrapped up in seven years. Yeah, he was... It was one of those weird things because he was so nice to me. Was he? Yeah. He was giving me crazy old Hollywood advice. He's like, how old are you? At the time, I was 33. I was like, I'm 33. He goes, don't get married. Don't get married until you're 35. Keep your nut low. I go, what do you mean? He goes...

keep everything affordable. Apartment, whatever. I have a big nut. He was like, I have a house in the Hamptons. I have a lot of things I have to pay for. Keep your nut low. And I was like, yeah, sure, Alec Baldwin. That's awesome. That's exactly what I'm going to do. But he was so nice. I ran into him in the West Village walking to the comedy cellar. He was walking his dog and I was like, Alec, hey, you know, drunk parents. And he's like,

You saw it click where he was like, oh yeah, how are you? And you're like, good. But the movie, I don't know. I would hope it comes out soon. It was fun. It was a super fun thing to film. It was cool. If all that it was ever generated is the french fry story, it's a win. I love that. It made me laugh out loud the second he took it. Someone got their head. Yeah. Someone got their head.

It made me feel so good because I was like, yeah, if the shadow thinks so, then how does it not? This guy's a seller. Always be seller. Always be closing. Oh, my God. Jesus. You're in a movie with some of the most formidable actors in the world and you steal the movie? That's pretty amazing. Yeah, he's great. It was a weird thing when people are like, he's been crazy on Twitter again. You're like, yeah, probably. I don't know. I know a lot of crazy people that have been nice to me.

Yeah, no, listen, there's a lot of stuff that he does I think is loony, but I think he'd be a blast to hang out with. That's what's crazy about the Billions cast is just everyone's like so normal and nice and cool. Yeah. It's like, oh, this is weird. Everyone knows they have the good fortune of being on a show that's popular and you'll like each other. We were talking about the Big Bang Theory wrapping up. I mean, I don't know.

On a level of having, you know, for working actors and actresses, Preston always says it, that's got to be the closest to like a nine to five. You can actually count on work. Yes, count on work. You're showing them it's work that you're pretty proud of. We assume they're making good money. Oh, the money that... You don't understand...

how crazy that money is. You don't understand that. How I know about that is I'm a huge 49ers fan and so is comedian Al Madrigal. And yes, I came to Philly last year when you guys beat the crap out of us. Yes, I sat in the rain and watched everyone scream behind me, L-E-9!

Y'all are 0-9 now. Hey, y'all suck. Cool. Thanks, guys. Already hard enough being a Niners fan last season. Not having that Delco accent scream to the back of my head. Hey, you guys

you guys, Jay and Vecchione are literally high-fiving over my head. And I'm just sitting in wet denim like, oh, God, this better be worth the wah-wah. God! God! God!

But Al Madrigal, we go to Niners games. When I go visit my grandma, I always like to catch one or two Niners games a season out in the Bay Area. And he went, and I don't want to say the, I'm not going to, it's a guy from Law & Order that Al is friends with.

And he's like, yeah, we flew up on his private jet. And I was like, what? And he's like, yeah, dude, he's got law and order money. And you're like, oh, yeah, they play that all the time on USA. That dude's just getting paid every time that runs. A thousand times a day. These Big Bang people are living like oil sultans. They're like...

I guarantee they have a white tiger. One of them has a white tiger. A harem of something. They have huge rooms with just a chair in it. I made my first billion working on a big bang theory. The syndication money pays for the oil pumps.

Yeah, it's crazy. It's true, yeah. It's crazy money. So when they're like wrapping up, you're like, oh, you have to have so much money just to be like, guys, let's call the show. Yeah, yeah. To go home? Yeah. Guys, let's go home. I feel like Scrooge McDuck in here. I'm a little winded. Let's stop this. I'm going to go take a bath in...

thousand dollar lotions. I'm just like, that's just what I feel like doing. Yeah, it's crazy money. You're on the right path to get there, my man. I'm just trying to get my mom a new 4Runner. Just keep your nut low, man. I'm going back to Colorado garbage. Keep your nut low. Get your mom a 4Runner. Not a new one at 2015.

Unfortunately, my mom has the new one. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I tell my mom. My mom's like, Dan, I was in a car accident in your car. Alec Baldwin told me to keep a low nut. Is that a me too? You're like, no, it's financial advice. Mr. Baldwin said that? Okay. That'd be really fun if I just cash my chips in on a me too moment. I'm like, he told me to keep my nut low?

I didn't know what that meant. We're pretty sure it was fiscal advice. I was like, no, I think it was sexual. Thanks for making it in, man. Love seeing you guys. Thanks for having me on. Give Jay our best, obviously. Give him a big old sloppy kiss on the cheek. Love it, man. Appreciate you being here. Dan Soder, everybody. Take a break. Back in just a moment. Stay with us.

Wouldn't it be great if there was a place to listen to MMR online nationwide where you could sign up for an MMR insider newsletter so you never miss the important stuff on All Things Rock. Maybe see Preston and Steve Daily Rush videos. Look for upcoming shows on a comprehensive concert calendar. See when and where we'll be out and about. Pick up some MMR gear and like a whole lot more. Well, it turns out there's a website that does all that.

WMMR.com and it's always available like right now on your computer or phone or whatever.

Wow, what a time to be alive. Hey, welcome to the Preston and Steve podcast, which is brought to you by Acme Markets. Hungry and in a hurry? Acme's flash grocery delivery or pickup gets you fresh groceries in 30 minutes or less. Acme, fresh foods, local flavors, and the official grocery partner of the Preston and Steve Show. Thanks for listening to our podcast, and thanks to Steven Singer for being the official jeweler of the Preston and Steve Show. R. Doc.

We were talking about people kind of budgeting their money and so on. Being cheap bastards. And I'm wondering how that's going to affect the vacation season, summertime. I was just hearing a report this morning that said a lot of people are just more planning day trips, Preston. Right. Not lengthy, the stay around, putter around the area sort of trips as opposed to going someplace. You know what's fairly inexpensive, though, is going on a vacation by yourself.

Not doing like a whole big group of people? Yeah, I've never done. I've never done the sort of walkabout, go someplace and just, you know...

bum around myself. I'll tell you what, that idea is very appealing to me. There's no way I could do that now. I attempted to do that before, I guess in my early 20s. I just went down the shore. My aunt had a house and I spent a day down there by myself. That wasn't as good. Going away for a day? Yeah, but Preston did something that I'm extremely jealous of. And I would have loved to have done that. I think I've told you before. Yeah, you went to, was it Yellowstone? I went to Yellowstone. Or Jellystone. No, no, not the park with...

No, no. I went to Yellowstone Park and... But you were at a time in your life where you kind of wanted to... I wanted to slow things down. Slow things down. Center and find myself. Hop off that image train. Gosh.

You were tired of the paparazzi. I was Kenny Knight at the time. Okay. But you just, it was sort of a resetting of your life and that was the perfect thing. It was great. I went to Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Park and I did it by myself and I basically had a tent set

And I had a sketchy and I had a car set aside in Billings, Montana that I was going to rent. And I just went and I had no agenda and I could do what I want when I wanted to do it. You're backpacking your banjo. That was pretty much it.

And it was pretty awesome, I have to admit. Really? I loved it. I wish I could do it again, actually. I tried doing it last year and was not allowed. I wanted to go to spring training by myself. Instead, you went to stake them up. No, no. I went with my wife. She decided that she wanted to come with me. And she's like... It was the back and forth of...

Are you sure it's okay if I come? I'm like, yes, of course it's okay if you come, honey. But it was just one of those things where it was a baseball trip. I just wanted to be there. It wasn't like a full week. It wasn't even an extended vacation. I just wanted to do it by myself. But you know what that's different? You're going to a place where you would have known people. Not really. I mean, you would have known a great group of people. The difference is like if you say, you know, going to Paris.

by yourself for a week or going as you did or going to the Grand Canyon or just even like going away to one of my good friends goes down to the hedonism things and goes by himself by himself all the time has an awesome time. A lot of people do the backpacking in Europe by themselves. A lot of people do that. See, I

the only thing I've ever done vacation wise by myself is gone case like you gone to the shore for the day and I've gone to the beach by myself and that was enjoyable but after one day I was like all right well when are the rest of you coming down because I was I was bored and I think I would be bored but I know a woman who goes on a cruise every year by herself leaves her husband and her kids at home and she goes by herself really on a

cruise. Yeah. That's a little strange. It's odd. It's so odd. Because that's a party time. Yeah, that's working some side action. But usually a cruise, I mean usually a cruise, there's a lot. Taking the love muff to Toonatown. No, there's a lot of

couples you don't really find singles singles are going you know you don't yeah a cruise vacation is traditionally a couple's vacation yeah yeah i studied in europe and uh during my study there we would take weekends or long breaks and go on vacation and most of the time i did it with friends but kathy i agree with you 100 because a couple of times i did it by myself

And for a day, I was interested and I was out on my own and I was able to set my own schedule. But after a while, I was like, I would much rather this be a shared experience with a friend or somebody that I wanted to hang out with. But sometimes, I mean, like, I've always...

When I've been in relationships and we've broken up and I've found myself single, I enjoy being by myself. I can go do that and spend some time and go to the movies and all those things that traditionally you want to do with someone else. But the vacation thing, I think after a while, would get really boring. Because if you're going to see things that are sort of...

you know, they're just amazing. You want to share it with someone. Now, you were out in the middle of the woods just to sort of get in touch with yourself, correct? That too, and I did touch myself a lot. Did you? Oh, God, yeah. Okay. Even the squirrels after a while, wouldn't you? Yeah, yeah. Don't even go there. It's bad. It's bad. I don't know what that guy's doing, but... Mm-hmm.

How could I not, Casey? Because I would have. At first, I thought it was a bear. It has a hairy ass. And I'm like, oh, no. Don't tell me. Save it for your tech buddy. Were you totally naked? Like, hey, I'm in nature. Would you do that? Was it like Into the Wild? No, I'm in campgrounds. I didn't go out in the middle of the woods to set something up. I'm in campgrounds.

Jesus. Ethel, get the kids in the van. Another guy on the walkabout. Actually, when I went, though, it was stupid. I didn't do my research. It was in September. It gets really freaking cold in September out there. And so there was very sparse. What was the most remote that you got? I mean, how far from people did you get when you were out there?

When I camped out in this area called West Thumb, and it was just a regular campground, but there just weren't that many tents around. But you could see people? I went hiking a couple of times where I didn't see people for a long time. What was the longest you went without seeing people?

I don't know. A few hours probably. But I mean, not like days. I didn't go and build a sweat lodge. Right. The long beard and you're there, you're wiggling. Wait, yeah. So did you talk to yourself or... No, I didn't talk to myself. For a couple hours? No. I thought about a lot of stuff. Did you...

D.B.H.? No, no, I did not. I didn't do any sort of mind-altering thing. You were trying to clear your mind. You didn't want to hamper it with illegal drugs. A few days in, though, I did find a place that sold beer. I stocked up on that. D.B.H., do beer hits. It was cool. It was what I needed. I was glad because I could go where I wanted to when I wanted to and see what I wanted to see without having to get approval from anybody else. Or wait on their time.

Yeah, and I got lots of pictures. And, you know, it was cool. I recommend it. I just thought it was a neat thing. Would you ever go to like a resort? No. Like a hedonism? No. Or, you know, the grill? Can you go to hedonism by yourself? Yes, you can. Yes, you can. It's a good thing.

If you're a single dude, isn't it frowned upon? No, there are singles clubs and there are couples. My wife and I went to Couples Negril. That's vastly different than hedonism, though. No, because I know a good friend of mine goes by himself all the time. Wow. And meets up and has a blast. I thought that that was like a couples...

Almost like a swingers club. Where they could be exhibitionists and swingers if they wanted to, but if you were a single guy that showed up in Hedonism, that you were the dude who just was a pervert. Well, you get in trouble if you're a single guy and you show up at a convent. Then you get in trouble. I think if you're going to go by yourself, if you're going to do the kind of thing that I did, mainly what I did when I wasn't sightseeing is I would read. If you want to...

or keep a journal or something like that, that's the type of environment you want to be in because you can really, really... I am so effing bored. I am going out of my goddamn mind. How do you spell... How do you spell... Apparently I went to the jungle. It's so goddamn noisy here. Shut up!

All alone. No one loves me. That's what I felt like. I'm a rock star. I should have stayed with the image. Now I'm Kenny Knight. I'm a pimple on the ass of the world. Why? I had a good time. In three days, I will buy beer. That will help me.

Where the hell am I? You brought your bongos with you. Oh my God. Hang on, let me go to Erica. Hey Erica, what's going on? Hi, how are you guys doing? Great, how are you Erica? Oh,

Awesome. What's up? Thank you. I just went to Helsinki, Finland over New Year's Eve by myself. Wow. I left my husband and kid at home, and I actually met up with a friend I never met before from Italy. So I had a lot of fun by myself. Was this an online friend? Yes. Was it a guy or a girl? It's a girl. Okay. Did you meet any guys or hang with any guys while you were out by yourself?

Um, well, you know, it's like when we were at the clubs and stuff, you know, we talked to a few, but yeah, that's about it. All right. And you totally comfortable, had no problem traveling by yourself? No, I was like so excited to go because I wanted to go to the Hell Done Festival that that was just, that just kept me going. It was like, all right, yes, I'm going to film, I'm going to see the best band ever. And that's how it was. Did you, did you have to, I mean, did you have to work to broker that deal with your husband?

He was, you know, he was all right with it because he knows that I like the band a lot. So it was like, you know, okay with it. Did you enjoy your first lesbian experience? Yeah, it was awesome. It was awesome. Yeah. That's what I thought. You technically didn't vacation by yourself if you were planning on meeting somebody out there. I mean, you flew by yourself and you landed by yourself. But, you know, once you got there, you were with somebody. I think the thing is where, like...

real deal is just I'm going to this place by myself. I may meet people, I may not, and I'm just going to go about, see the sights, and just get into my own world. I'm going to go to Chris here real quick who has a comment. Hey, Chris, what's up? Bilbo! Bilbo! Hey, what's up, man? Well, I guess you can consider this traveling by yourself. Steve, you suck.

You suck, man. That was so freaking hard, I just got wedged. I skidded off the road. I'm wedged between a freaking pole and a fire hydrant. Are you serious? Sorry. I skidded off the road. There is a fire hydrant right behind me in a pole. I just had to call AAA to come out and rescue my wife. Oh, my God. Well, hang on. You qualify for Jerkman's Con. Yeah, we'll get you a case of Bud Light Lime. Hang on a second. Oops, it happens.

Hang on. Kevin says he went to hedonism by himself. There you go. Hey, Kevin, how you doing? All right, guys. Gadzooks. Gadzooks. So you went to hedonism on your own? Well, about 10 years ago, me and a buddy were supposed to go, and he had a deaf in the family, and he came to me and he says, I can't make it. And I thought to myself, what am I going to do? I said, you know what? I'm going anyway. Yeah. Yeah.

You should have went with your friend, brought the body, and had a voodoo ritual done so it appeared to be alive. Just like Weekend at Bernie's, too. But did you have any trouble being by yourself in Heathenism, Kevin? Well, what they did is when you get down there, because I went by myself and only paid for a room for two, they hooked me up with somebody I didn't know. It was like an aluminum siding salesman from Connecticut. Oh, my God.

The guy was a total waste. Wait a second. So you were sort of forced to share a room or be with someone else?

Yeah, well, that's correct, because if not, I would have to pay for a room all by myself, and now it's a lot of money. All right. Well, that's sort of effed up, because of the people I know who do it, they just go down, they get the room, they get a good rate, and there's a lot of other single people down there, and it's like a big singles mixer. Well, the good thing about it is I saw him for like the first two days, and then after that, I never saw him, and I never spent a night in my room after the first two days. Oh, well, good for you. Yeah.

Yeah. Hey, do you guys remember, though, when we went to Jamaica, there were a couple of people that came by themselves. Yeah. Who was the one guy? Really nice kid.

We ended up kind of befriending him. Adam? Adam, yeah. And he ended up... That dude, at first, he was kind of a little quiet, a little reserved. Yeah, that changed. Second or third night, he came out of his shell. Dude was all over the place. So, I mean, sometimes, I guess. But he knew he was going to be with a group of people that were going to be having a good time. He knew us. Let me go to Ashley. Hey, Ashley, how you doing? Hey, how you guys doing? Good. What's up, Ashley? Awesome. Thank you. I take a drive to school every day, and it takes me an hour to get here. And I listen to you guys, and you guys are freaking...

Freaking hilarious. Thank you, Ashley. We love you. Appreciate it, Ashley. It makes me laugh. It makes the drive worth it. But anyway, me and my friend, after we graduated high school, we were au pairs. And I stayed in Amsterdam and he stayed in another part of Holland. And I just went out by myself and met different people at different bars. And you know people in Amsterdam, they're going to be friendly as all hell. Well, I heard that Amsterdam is one of those places, one of those cities. My wife just went to Amsterdam. She wasn't a friend, but she said it's really a location that you could go to by yourself and do fine. You can. You can.

And you really can. It's seriously, like, you just go into a bar and there are other people just like you sitting there by themselves. Well, not even sitting there by themselves, actually kind of drinking by themselves and socializing. Well, that's cool. I mean, you know, Preston, there is something to be said for just that being on your own and just experiencing letting things happen to you. It forces you also.

To socialize. Yes, exactly. Yeah, and I think when I was reading into the wow, with the exception of the dying Alaska by himself part, that was like really, really interesting and very appealing. I went to Alaska myself and I said to my travel agent, I'm not going to be doing the dying by myself thing. So he took that right off the itinerary. That part would suck, but I mean like he went and bought a canoe and just like went down, it was at the Colorado River and I mean like.

All the way to the Gulf of California. Yeah, ended up in Mexico and wrote about all these people that he'd met. It's just really cool. I mean, I stayed where civilization was when I went out on my own, but there's still, like you said, Steve, there's something very kind of liberating about it. Yeah, I can survive. I don't know where. I will survive. As long as you're alone, you'll know you'll be alive. As long as I know you'll be alive.

I know I'll be alive. You've got so much left to give. Just not knowing what you're going to do or when you're going to do it and just kind of riding by the seat of your pants is a pretty cool feeling. I forgot my pants. I can't even ride by the seat of my pants. I forgot my pants! Is that a cockatiel? Where the hell am I?

Yes. Go ahead. When you were out on your own in the woods, were there points where you were like, I'm a little scared? I'm a lot scared. Yeah. No, the one night that I was staying in Grand Teton and I think I told you guys I heard... What the hell is that?

That's a good question because I always say when you're hiking is the time to be frightened because you come across a mother bear and her cubs and they'll kill you. Two times when I was camping in West Thumb and I heard coyotes howling back and forth. And I mean from clearly distances, you know, from one way on one side of me and then echoing back. Ah!

Answering back from the far other end. It's not a coyote? And I was like, man, these things are out here and they're wild and they sound like they're raring to party and I don't want to be the pig on the spit. And then, hold on, the other time is when I stayed down in Grand Teton

And I heard, I didn't know what it was at night, but the next day I found out were the elk making all those bizarre little noises. Oh, yeah. The bugling. These high-pitched whistling bugling sounds. It wasn't Chuck Mangione. No, but... Oh, my God.

What is that? Wow, dude. It's very good. Wait, do that again, please. You're right. Flight of the Bumblebee. Right.

That's really good, Steve. Thank you. That is really good. Thank you. I really was thinking of doing a concert for a while, but hey, let me go to, hang on, let me go to Adam. Hey, Adam, how you doing? Hey, you guys rock. Thanks, Adam. What's up, buddy? Hey, I did the same, I just got back from Jackson, Wyoming, and I did the

same thing that you did for a week. Oh, Jackson, Wyoming would have to be fantastic. Yeah, that's right at Grand Teton. Were you by yourself? Well, I lived out there for a year and a half, and I did that hike, that whole loop up in Yellowstone by myself for a week, and it was just phenomenal. I'll bet it was. And did you hear any of the freaky sounds at night as well? The elk in the remaining season? Unbelievable. I just want to let you know.

Wait, what? I just wanted to let you know, anytime you want to go back, you got a traveler with you. All right, cool, brother. Thanks, man. You know what I did when I would do stand-up comedy, Preston? I'd go out, and this is something I do cherish, and those moments when you're by yourself and...

I was traveling all around the country and I was on that classic stretch of highway that you see all the time that's just flat. It was on the way to Bisbee, Arizona. Okay. And you're standing there and there's just a straight nothing, flat all around you, cactus everywhere.

And that's it. And the sun's setting, and there's no one. There's no one for hundreds and hundreds of miles. And it's at that point where you sort of, you know, you do sort of have that epiphany. Yeah, yeah. It's a very strange thing. I don't know. This is wild.

I think it's a good idea. I do recommend it if you want to hit the other one. And you know what? It's pretty inexpensive when you're alone. And especially, you know, you don't care about having to stay in a nice hotel or anything like that. You just need a room to be pretty much functional. Or if you camp, it's a pretty cool thing. And...

I don't know. I can't do it anymore. No. It'd be hard to sell that to the wife. Yeah, I don't think she'd agree with that. I'm going away for a month. But I have a feeling more people are probably going to try something like that. All right, well, listen, we need to take a break. We'll be back in just a second. Stay there. The Preston and Steve Show. Like the podcast? You'll also love it live. When you can call in. Weekdays from 6 a.m. to about 10.30 a.m. on the radio at 93.3 WMMR.

Or stream the show live via MMR's mobile app. Our next guest has so much going on, man. Not only is she one of the stars of a hilarious television show, one that we absolutely love, and it takes place right in our backyard, but also she has got one hell of a voice on her. I'm going to play a little bit of the music first and foremost, and then we are going to welcome her to the program. But here, a little bit. Mama done raised me right. She told me how to be polite.

You may have heard her sing on the Goldbergs before.

I need you to listen to me, I need you to listen to me

And you write this music as well, don't you? I do. It's really funny because now that I've been going on this tour, I've had a lot of people who are fans of the show come out. And they're like, I thought you were going to be doing a lot of 80s covers. You know, I can do other things. Well, I was surprised to read because I thought, oh, this is kind of cool. I guess this, you know, when the show first came on, I guess this actress has some aspirations of singing. And then only to do research on you. And singing was it. Music was your deal. Yeah.

And acting has seemed to have sort of been a conduit towards getting your music out because you go back, what, you were singing since you were a little kid, I think composing songs when you were 12, 13, right? Yeah, kind of. I mean, I wouldn't necessarily say they were radio hits by any means. But still. Yeah. And then you've come up through, as I was doing research, you worked with the people, you were a backup singer for Demi Lovato. Well, yeah.

In some ways. Yeah, in some ways. I recorded a lot of Disney Channel type soundtrack, like background vocals. So there was like a Camp Rock 2. Right. But that's a lot of... I'll count it. That all counts. Yeah. I love Camp Rock 2. That's resume worthy. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of the Hannah Montana movies. Yeah. So, I mean, that's all legit. A lot of Lest We Forget that, you know, Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears, they all came out of the Disney...

stables years ago. So that's very cool. Now, I only know this song that we played here, which is Strong, Sweet, and Southern. It's the title track to the tour. Is that your forte? This kind of pop country-ish, folky feel? Yeah. I mean, when I started out growing up in Texas, there's always that little bit of country that you run into no matter where you are in Texas. But I grew up

listening to a lot of like Luther Vandross and Brian McKnight and Celine Dion, like a random array of very big soulful voices. Yeah. And so I had originally sung music like that and it wasn't until I had met with record labels when I was 15 that they said, you know, we'd love for you to have a platform like a television show and

It was like the Hannah Montana thing was happening. So it was like you get a TV show, you get a record deal, it's a condo deal. And so somewhere between that whole process of acting and auditions and stuff, four years later, I have really found country pop to be something that just came very naturally to me.

And I add my little bit of soul into that. But whenever I write a song, it comes out very country. So I can't really deny it too much. Well, it seems that that so so the acting, they basically gave you the advice that if you could get a show and learn to act and you started to take what was it was high school where musical theater kind of. It's crazy because in my town of Louisville, Texas, Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato are from that area. Really? And they went to this event.

like random acting school in the town. It's a Catherine Sullivan's acting for film. And I started taking a couple classes there because I was like, okay, this label wants me to go get like a Disney Channel-esque kind of TV show. What better place to do it?

So I just started taking classes. I really did not understand it at first. I hated it. It just did not make sense to me. But I kept going on auditions. It's shocking because you, the thing, and we're massive fans of the Goldbergs and have been all along. Obviously, as Preston said, it's in our backyard, but it's hilarious. And it's so well written. And the staff we've had, you know, producers in and Adam as well. And it's sharp comedy. And a lot of it requires a lot of...

comedic adroitness, if that's a word, and you have it. And you're also, you're not afraid to just, you know,

throw it all in there for the comedy. So you take naturally to it. Was that always from the beginning or did you have to really hunker down and study? It seems like you couldn't have developed that ability that quickly. Well, I would say it was the natural part might be coming from the fact that I'm an only child. So I really just entertained at any moment I could to get attention. So, you know, I would say that that maybe had something to do with it. But their acting classes really helped me mostly with just being

I think the teacher used to always say, just be okay with looking stupid. Because I would always get so self-conscious about, you know, Wendy and Jeff can get up there and just improv. And if it doesn't work, they move on. And like the next thing they say is hilarious. But I like had so much pressure of like, oh my God, I have to be funny right now. And I couldn't get out of my head. So the acting class has definitely helped. It's

prepare me for something like this show. I need to do that with my daughter because I see these creative tendencies in her and she likes to perform to us. But the moment I'm like, and she'll even record them and I'm like, can I show that to somebody? No, no, don't. I'm like, you got to be able to

be a bit of an idiot and be a fool in front of other people and be okay with that in order to, you know, take that next step. Not be afraid to fail. Yeah. I mean, when you do, for example, when they go to the old video of you as a new kids fan and you got the braces and the glasses and totally unflattering, look, but you seem to be having a blast doing it.

I miss playing that character. We haven't had it in a couple seasons. And that, to me, is actually the most fun because now that I've found that rhythm of being comfortable and being just goofy on the show, it's really exciting for me to put on these braces and the glasses and everything. So I enjoy it now when before I would run from it. You mentioned you have Jeff and the...

Wendy McLennan, uh, Covey and, and, and the, the, the Troy Gentile and George Segal. And, and, uh, is it, what's Sean's last name? Is it GM Brone? Yeah. Oh, GM Brone. These are all, everyone is really, really sharp. And so that's gotta be a great atmosphere to, uh, to, you know, explore your comedic side. And then with Adam and I assume everybody else, uh, it's a very nurturing thing. Um, what I really love is that you, uh,

You're making references to pop culture that predates you, and yet you really come out as very enthusiastic about it. And one episode in particular struck home here. Preston is a massive Rush fan. Ah, yes. Yeah. That was so cool when you guys did that. I loved doing that episode. Did you really? Because I had a family friend of ours who was obsessed with Rush, like kind of tattooed on his leg, obsessed, right? Yeah.

And I was familiar with it, but I couldn't name a single song until we were doing this episode. And me and AJ, who plays Lainey, and the girl who plays Carla, we all kind of got together and we did this song. And I'm like, wait a minute. I think I like Rush. We had such a good time on that episode. That's cool. And it came off good. There's been a number of different things from a little...

Little Shop of Horrors and different musically you've gotten to do a lot of different things. Have you picked up besides Rush an interest in some of the other music that you've done that you weren't familiar with before? Yeah, I'm trying to think of specific ones. Well, the Hooters are from Philadelphia. And so you guys, there was the episode where there was the Hooter show and they were actually in that episode, which was phenomenal. And as Steve has pointed out, it wasn't exactly a tight close up on those guys. Right. They had some wig.

to remember them with their hair originally. But I actually loved that band because they did get to play live in front of us for that scene as well as doing a prerecorded. But when they were playing, I was like, oh my God, this band is awesome. That's cool. I totally get why they had them

here. That's awesome. He gave us a couple CDs and so now we're big Hooters fans. You might get a kick out of this story because I know you're going to be going around Jenkintown today. You're going to hit some stops and see some of the sights of this family, the member that you've been portraying that lives in that area. It's going to be kind of cool to see it. But we had Tim Meadows in the studio last year and he's been by here before and he's a great guy. He's a lot of fun and we were talking to him about the Goldbergs

And he was, the Phillies were playing and we said something along the lines of, I can't believe they haven't asked you to throw out the first pitch. I mean, we were like, you know, the Goldbergs is in Janky Downs right here in Philadelphia. He didn't know that the show took place in this area. He had no, he had no idea. You know,

Tim comes on when he needs to come on. He's not there all the time. But now that they're doing... I don't know if y'all know, they're doing a spinoff in the 90s. He better know now. Yeah. No, we took him to Taz for that. It's going to be him. It's Brian Kalin. And it's... Is her name A.J.? Yes, Emma Shaka. She put Lainey Lewis on the show. And she's great as well. Incredible. And she's also... She's a musician. I guess her and her sister... Yes, she and her sister were on Disney Channel. I grew up watching them. Oh, that's wild. So have you...

I mean, you have your own thing, but have you ever done any duets with them? Yes. Well, I mean, on the show, and I've been dying to... We've been talking for years about doing like a Christmas song together or something. I don't know. We'll see. But they're about to go on tour as well, and I think Jeff Garlin is opening for them in the Los Angeles show, and I'm like, damn it, I should have thought of that. Mm-hmm.

No, that's very cool. Where does the X factor fall in your trajectory? Because I know that was a big step up for you, correct? Yeah. So I, let's see, growing up in Dallas, I was 17, I believe, when I auditioned. And I really only auditioned because my mom would not shut up.

about it. She was like, oh, Simon Cowell's doing another show. It's X Factor. It's coming to the U.S. You have to audition. This is what he left American Idol to go do. Yes. And he'd been doing it already for years in the U.K. So they'd started bringing it over to the U.S. And so this was the first year I sent in a tape online just so my mom would stop talking about it. And then as I went to go watch the auditions in front of the judges in the Dallas American Airlines arena,

I got a phone call from one of the producers saying, we want you to come to Seattle and audition in front of the judges. I'm like, okay, wait, this is really happening. Yeah, yeah. It had to be a shock. It was. Yeah, yeah. And we went to Seattle and I auditioned and I went through a whole process. I want to say it was two or three phases of boot camp and everything. And then they eliminated me as a solo artist.

and brought me back with three other girls who I'd never met before in my entire life. Was this, Paul Abdul was a judge as well, right? She was our judge for that. Your judge, okay, all right. And so was she the one that was orchestrating your stuff with this? Kind of. It was a combination of the show really, there's so many positive and negative

positives and negatives but they really push certain songs on you but we were the four of us were very like headstrong yeah so we fought back quite a bit um and we went all the way to ninth place but i don't necessarily know if that was a real voter thing or a planned thing but that's a whole other story it's weird because you obviously at this point you you can tell by your voice it's you have a very good voice you have a talent that was already there

And I'm wondering even at that age, if you're thinking, oh, is the perception that this is sort of like the fast track and it's going to rob me of the cred that you've developed at that point? Even at that point, you'd done a lot. Yeah, well, I mean, what was so interesting was, you know,

With this show, I would say the negative thing for me is the fact that I was 17 on that show. Yeah. And there were kids that were as young as 12 on that show. Right. And the producers and everyone really convinced you that after this, good luck. Like, you're not going to do anything else. Really? Yeah. I mean, that's why there's a couple people that were on that show, one of which broke down crying on live television because they told her she was going to get a TV show and a record deal unless... If she won, but if she didn't, then nothing was going to happen for her. 12... Like...

You can't do that to 12-year-olds. No, and they massage that purposely to get that sort of reaction. Because it's as much as the singing competition as it is a bizarre popularity contest. Yeah, exactly. And so it's weird. But you got what you needed from it in the long run, correct? Yeah, I learned a lot. I met a lot of cool people. And it's funny because it didn't necessarily open any doors for Goldbergs. They had no idea that I sang. And I was like, oh, well, you could just Google X Factor and it comes up. But...

I kind of brought it up to them and said, if there's ever a chance I can sing in the credits of the show once, let me know. Like, that would be great. And one thing led to another, and now my character's... And then we get this, yeah. You come on with your... Come on, you don't find fair. But that's okay. Just see if I care.

Knock me down. It's all in vain. Is she playing guitar too? I know your character. Okay, so Adam Goldberg constantly demanded that I play guitar on the show and I cannot play guitar. I cannot play guitar. You fake it pretty. Did you learn? They were like, oh, we're going to hire a guy to teach you, right? Not even kidding. When I went to the guy's apartment to learn that song, I was crying. I was like, I can't do it.

Like bawling. And I went to Adam, probably up until season three, I'm like, Adam, I play piano. So you can give me a piano. He goes, no, I think you look better with a guitar in your hand. I'm like, ah. So finally this year, I've started learning how to play guitar.

It's very convincing. Wow. And Joan Jett, you're impressed by Joan Jett, I was reading in an interview that now you've kind of been inspired by her music. Well, and there's so many different artists that we've done on the show that I pull from and I'm inspired by. And so, I mean, it's definitely a challenge, but the show does a great job of cutting away from my hands so they don't know that I'm not. I bought it hook, line, and sinker. I thought you could play no problem. Which song did your character sing that completely killed the party in the dorm?

Oh, Amazing Grace? Yeah, it was like a raucous party. That was the first song I ever sang. Nick has a similar experience. Well, I was 21 and drunk at a party in college and the guys were playing Metallica and hardcore rock and I was like, I really wanted to hear Bob Seger We've Got Tonight. Which is definitely slow. Why would you do that?

because I like the girl, Erica. That's so funny. And it killed the mood and killed the party and I've never lived it down. So I can relate to that character. But it's so funny how the writing on that show touches on we've all had that moment so many times. Oh my God, I remember that guy or

I did that. It really hits home. The writing's just phenomenal. It's great. I'm very glad to be working on it. And looking at your list of credits, I mean, that's really...

you hadn't done a whole lot. You dove right into a hit television show in your career. I kind of have a funny story about that that not a lot of people know. And I hope that I'm selling it correctly. But this was just what was relayed to me. So I had never worked on another show or really movie for that matter, anything like that, up until, you know, I had started auditioning for the first time. You did like a Sprite commercial, right? It was a Sprint commercial. Sprite, okay, yeah. It was a movie theater. It was like telling you to turn your cell phone off. Okay, okay.

To me, that doesn't really count. Yeah, it's not a series. So I'm auditioning for the show. I apparently was the first person that they saw for the role of Erica. And it came down to the screen test. So it was me and two other girls, both of which have a huge resume. And I recognized them in it. I walked in the room. Oh, boy. Okay. So I'm like, oh, God. Like, I'm up against some people who know what they're doing. Right. And it was down to me and this one girl. And then...

And apparently they were like, oh, you know what? We really like Haley. She's funny, but we might go with this other girl because we just don't want to take a risk on this complete newbie, right? Well, there's apparently some intern in the back of the screen test room who goes, wait, wait, wait. I made a compilation video of Haley's like, I used to make

videos from my X Factor experience with my friends and edit them together of just us being goofy. She made a compilation video of all these things from my YouTube channel and was like, you have to watch this. And they're like, you know what? She's funny. I think we should go with her. So I got... I don't even know who the intern is who worked there. Just out of the blue. And you've never been able to ascertain who it was. No, and I tried in the beginning and maybe I can...

still try to find a way to track her down but got you the job that's that's right out of adam goldberg's life yeah right there making all those videos they probably appreciated that you did that now that i think about it that might be what it was but i just was making goofy videos and now i work on the best show ever so it's so cool the the uh the one of the episodes i wanted to ask because since you do end up singing a lot there was a uh an episode where adam uh

puts together a Raiders of the Lost Ark homage and you sing a song in it. Was that composed for you? That was. I don't write any of the original music on the show, but they're hilarious. And that song was Indiana Jones and For Your Body, which is by far my favorite original song. Indiana Jones and For Your Body. Oh,

It was hilarious. And again, to that, I mean, I did stand-up for years. I know the importance of selling a joke and selling the comedy and just going all in. And you do. And it was great. And that was a particularly funny scene. Steve, who plays Barry? Who's the actor? Troy. Troy Gentile is it? Yeah, Gentile. It's got to be hard.

to not laugh when he's doing some of that stuff. And you're trying to act and compose and play your role, but some of his stuff is just, it's ridiculously funny. He'll hate me for saying this, but he's so much like Barry in Life and Error. So it's just like, I just, by the time he's saying his lines, I'm like, all right, well, that's just him. Well, you know what? It's funny you should say that because who's the producer that we had in? Lou Schneider. Lou Schneider. Oh, I love Lou. And he was great. And he basically said that, he goes, and I think it's the exact words, where Troy doesn't really understand anything.

how good he is. Yeah, he does. And that they just give him the line to do it. But I have to say, for you, for an only child, you've nailed sibling rivalry. My Troy's an only child, too. Really? So we like, I think day one, we were like, hey, we're going to be siblings, cool. And we're like, all right. And so now we fight like siblings and we like have this real relationship where we're like siblings. So it's easy with him. That's very cool. Anybody else have musical talent on the cast? George Siegel plays banjo like a beast.

All the time. He always has. On talk shows, he would always come out with a banjo. I think there's a video of him. Was it Johnny Curse?

Yeah, I'm sure. Yeah, where he played banjo on the show. And it's incredible. Sometimes he'll bring it to set and he'll do it. Well, admit that it's annoying every now and then. Never. Well, your music has a little country flavor to it. You could find, I would imagine, a song that would fit a little banjo into it. Not getting too bluegrassy, but you know. Right, but I kind of want to convince him, if I could, to play on a next song or something. Yeah, for sure. You know, he's 83. I think he's also like, he likes to just go home and enjoy his cigars. How good is life to him?

But how, listen, look at his life. He had a big movie career. He had Just Shoot Me. He's had a number of series. This, a great cast. There you go. Wow, him, Bob Newhart, Johnny Carson, and they're all playing instruments.

And I think George has a, is that a mandolin? I think. No. It's a very tiny guitar. It's a guitar. Yeah. What a moment. I know. And look at his pants. Yeah. And the lapels. That's about a decade before your show takes place. Do you ask him for old showbiz stories? I do. And it's kind of, sometimes,

it's hard to get it out of him. Like, it took a long time, I feel like, for him to warm up. But he and I get along so well. And he has the greatest laugh you will ever hear in your entire life. I hope that there's a video somewhere out there that you can hear it. But it's like, it makes me so happy. But I don't really have any...

stories because he keeps them all to himself. Speaking of music and you're just tuning in, it's Haley Orantino who's here and she is going to be performing at the Queen, which is a great theater. Is it a full band or is it, okay, how many musicians do you have traveling with you? Five, right? Yes.

I can't count anymore, guys. I follow everyone who's on Instagram and you had your band and you were kind of, you were singing a Journey song in the... Oh, yes, on our bus. Yeah, on the bus. It was very cool. And they seem like a sharp band. They're really top level. It's incredible. They're all from Nashville except for my drummer. He was from my Los Angeles band because I'm there filming most of the time. But we auditioned them individually and...

And, you know, we're kind of taking risks by personalities, not knowing if they'll mesh. And also, like, this is the first time we're performing together. But I'm telling you, you cannot put a better group together. And Brenly Brown, is that how it's pronounced? Yeah, Brenly Brown. She's a contestant from The Voice? Yes, she was on season 12. And she's incredible. She's only 16 years old, gets up on stage, plays guitar. So I'm already jealous.

And she just has a very traditional country sound. And I personally think she has a little bit of like a Dolly Parton in her voice kind of. Dolly Parton was one of our favorite interviews ever. Really? Phenomenal. Yep. So great. And we tell people, he said, you know, don't, you got to realize just how important Dolly Parton is to the world of music. Mm-hmm.

And how many songs she's written. I assume you're a huge fan, correct? Absolutely. And I know that it really took off with Whitney Houston singing it, but I Will Always Love You. Yeah. It's an incredible song. You were at the American Country...

ACMs, yeah. ACMs, yeah. And you were doing a little bit of hosting, I guess, for the country channel, right? Yes. So it sounds like Nashville, I was hosting a part of their carpet and just kind of playing games with some of the artists that came down. You had to be blown away. I mean, like Reba McEntire, another... Well, I wish they would have come down the carpet. But no, I got to talk to a lot of really cool people. But by the time that all the big artists were coming down, it was time for me to head back inside. So unfortunately, I didn't get to meet any of them. It's cool, though.

All right, so television, music, what else do you want to bite off creatively or in your life? Because the world is your oyster, Haley. I mean, technically this is still a part of television and film entertainment, but I would love to kind of work on the producing side. I've already been kind of developing a couple concepts for a travel show that I really want to do. There's a couple scripted ideas I have. So I would love to get involved in that world, but it's a whole other process. Yeah, it's very cool. And when I have time. You got time.

All right, well, cool. Listen, go see Haley at HaleyOrentia.com. You spell her last name. Well, I'll spell the first name, too. My puppy's named Haley, by the way. Really? H-A-Y-L-E-Y-O-R-R-A-N-T-I-A. Or we'll just put a link up on PrestonAndSteve.com and make it easy for you.

But you're headed around. I see you're going to Kremple Florist. You're going to Lee's Abington. And you've got to stop by Wawa while you're here as well. I have to. I've never been in a Wawa. You're going to freaking love it. Honestly, we are super proud of Wawa. Thank God the show celebrates Wawa. Absolutely. I'm going to check it out today. All right. Hayley, great to meet you. Thank you guys for having me. Enjoy your time here. Let's hear it for Hayley, guys. On the President's Team Show from the Goldbergs. We'll take a break and we'll be right back.

Hey, want to hang out with your favorite MMR DJs? Check out the events and appearances page at WMMR.com. Come say hello. Plus, you might even win some cool prizes when you snuck out of the building. WMMR.com's got all the news.

the where, whens, and what they're giving away. Hey, welcome to the Preston and Steve podcast, which is brought to you by Acme Markets. Hungry and in a hurry? Acme's flash grocery delivery or pickup gets you fresh groceries in 30 minutes or less. Acme, fresh foods, local flavors, and the official grocery partner of the Preston and Steve show. Thanks for listening to our podcast, and thanks to Steven Singer for being the official jeweler of the Preston and Steve show.

Now, back with more of the Preston and Steve Show podcast. I don't know if this guy will make it into the Hall of Fame or not. At least with his teammates, he certainly won't. And probably with the Bills, definitely not. But Vontae Davis, now listen, I don't know squat about football and their players and their relationships to the teams and so on and so forth. I don't, I vary on the lightest, lightest bit, even follow the sports. Just me, it's who I am.

You're a hockey guy. I am a hockey guy and I'm a golf guy. But anyhow, in the middle of the game...

Over the weekend, not only did he pull himself out of the game, he quit the team. He quit the league. He has retired from football in the middle of the game. He retired in the middle of the game. He put on his jeans, got into his street clothes, and left. And they were still playing. Half time. That's crazy. Yeah. And according to the coach, Sean McDermott, he said he pulled himself out of the game. He communicated to us that he was done playing.

They asked if he had been benched or was hurt, and his answer was, nope. He said, when I get back in to his office, we'll continue to communicate on what exactly is going on out there, and we'll go from there. I wish I had a better answer for you right now, and I'm just being upfront. So he, now he did release a statement. Yes. About it. After the fact. Yeah, after the fact. He usually would release a statement prior to retiring. Yeah, yeah, but he did say that he's got a reason behind it, but before we get to that-

We have one of his teammates commenting on this. Yeah, Lorenzo Alexander. So they lost the game, right? Yeah, they lost. Yeah, they were losing 28-6. So they were getting spanked at halftime. Yeah, they don't have a good team this year. So anyhow, this is Lorenzo Alexander commenting on that. Here we go. Never seen it ever. Pop Warner, high school, college, pros. Never heard of it. Never seen it.

And it's just completely disrespectful to his teammates. Did he say the name to you? Did he say anything? He didn't say nothing to nobody. He left? Yeah. You know as much as I know. I know I found out going into the second half of the game.

coming out. They said he's not coming out. He retired. What? That's it. He's not coming out? He's retired. Hey, where's Vontae? Oh, he retired. What? What? He's tired? No, he retired. He won't be playing the second half.

He retired from the game, from the sport. Talk about burning a bridge. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, he's done. He doesn't care anymore. He's finished. There's a way you do it, though. Well, do you want me to read this statement? Yeah, go ahead. All right, so he wrote, this is now I picture retiring from the NFL, but today on the field really hit me fast and hard, and I shouldn't be out there anymore. Here, let me read this. It says,

Let me backtrack. This is now a picture retiring from the NFL, but in my 10th NFL season, I've been doing what my body has been programmed to do, get ready to play on game day. I've endured multiple surgeries and played through many different injuries throughout my career, and over the last few weeks, this was the latest thing

physical challenge. But today on the field really hit me fast and hard. I shouldn't be out there anymore. I meant no disrespect to my teammates and coaches, but I hold myself to a standard. Mentally, I always expect myself to play at a high level, but physically, I know today that isn't possible. And I had an honest moment with myself while I was on the field. I just didn't feel right. And I told the coaches, I'm

I'm not feeling like myself. I also wondered, do I want to keep sacrificing? He said, and truthfully, I do not because the season is long and it's more important for me and my family to walk away healthy than to willfully embrace the warrior mentality and limp away too late.

This was an overwhelming decision, but I'm at peace with myself and family. I chose to be grateful to God for allowing me to play the game that I've loved as a boy until I turned 30 years old. I choose to be grateful to God for being a part of the NFL and making lifelong friends over the last decade. There were roadblocks and pitfalls along the way, and I'm grateful to God for all of it because he doesn't promise any of us an easy journey. Lastly, I'm grateful to God for what he has in store for me ahead in this next chapter of my life.

I mean, it's okay listening to what he wrote, but I mean, to just walk out in the middle of the game. I mean, he could have probably just said to the coaches like, hey, I can't play the rest of the game and then retire after the game. Exactly. Right. Exactly. Because then the players are not because they know immediately he retired. And so now they're playing a game and then dealing with that.

It had to have been, listen, I feel horrible. Or whatever. He sits off to the side and then they talk about it later. Anybody in the game would go, I guess he's injured. He's sick or something's wrong. That's okay. But when you're on the field, and everyone's like, what? But wait a minute. But who told the team that he retired? Somehow it made its way to the... Yeah, but that's what I'm wondering. If he didn't tell the team, then that wouldn't be his fault. Right, right, right. But if the coach came out and said...

Dude, we're tired. Yeah. Did he tell anybody? I don't know. I have no idea how it played out. But listen, if he got out there and he doesn't feel right and he thought maybe something bad was going to happen to him...

Maybe it was a better thing for him. How much longer play? It was a half. A half hour. Not even that because he only plays on one side of the ball. So finish it up and then you do it. Not if you don't feel right though. Not if you feel that... If they were playing against those rhinos that are in Black Panther, then maybe. For your mentality, if you think, man...

I got a bad feeling about this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I touched a Dybbuk box. Right, exactly. No, listen. Then you get out of it, man. It's your life. There's a guy who plays for the Eagles who suffers from anxiety. And this was kind of a thing for him where, I mean, he didn't show up.

Yeah.

Now, as a parent of children who play sports, it is incumbent upon me to try and teach them values and responsibilities and all that sort of stuff. And I've – like my son when he was wrestling. His buddy quit.

And then so he wanted to quit and I was and I really wrestled and struggled with like whether or not I let him. I'm like, all right, what am I teaching him about life? And you know what I mean? Because it's like there are these. But this is a full grown adult here who can make his own decisions. He's already in the game. He's already played, you know, at least half of the game.

I've never heard of this before in my life. No one has. So to press to your point, if he did have a bizarre premonition or something about it. Or an epiphany. Okay, but there needs to be more explanation. I had a dream last night where a lightning bolt hit me. Well, if he wanted to think about it that way, he could have just told him, look, I don't feel well. Something's wrong. I don't feel right. I can't play the rest of the game. It wouldn't hurt to say suited up.

and just still remain there. And then after the game leave, he left halfway through the game. Yeah, yeah. But haven't you wanted to like...

quit a job and like walk out right on the spot. Like maybe that was, maybe he was like, this is how I'm going to quit the NFL. Like I just want to walk out on the spot. I had a cousin who wanted, he never did it, but he forever was like, I want to go and get a job at either Burger King or McDonald's just so that I can quit and jump over the counter and leave. Like he wanted to just quit on the spot, jump over the counter and leave.

I quit mid-job one time. Did you really? Yeah, yeah. Were you having an altercation or were you just... Yeah, the manager was yelling at me. And listen, we were doing a lousy job. In hindsight, if I was him, I would have been bitching at me too and it was totally my fault. But he had yelled enough to where I'm like...

F you, I'm out of here. And I left. Music's my life. I threw my apron on the ground and took off. And my buddy Chet was with me too. And he quit at the same time because we were both getting reprimanded. That was a mutiny. But Chet later on, like a couple hours later, went back and asked for a shot. And Chet went on to become a famous gynecologist with incredible hair. How about that? Dr. Chet Ray White. That's right. And then, so no, I just...

I never went back. See, I think that would be fun. I would never do that now when I'm an adult. You can't do that. But as a kid, if I would have thought back, remember I just stopped showing up to my one job when I was in lifeguard? You ghosted. I ghosted. Most people ghost a job. You just don't show up. I think the most dramatic job to walk out of is being a pilot. Oh, God. An airline pilot. I'm out of here. We were out to dinner at this Chinese food restaurant that...

is very, very spicy. Like everything is a 10 and you have to tell them if you want it to be a two. And we're eating dinner and my uncle and I are the only ones eating and we've noticed everyone's quit and no one's come around and given us water in a while. And I mean quit like nobody's eating anymore. Nobody in our party is eating anymore. And we're all kind of sweating and nobody has any water. And we realized that our waitress had quit mid-service. So no one was coming over to help

bus. Wow. She had the last of the crappy customers and you guys drove her out of there. That's great. What do you mean a 5.8? The little one. She's the trouble at the table. He got arrested for smoking pot outside of the restaurant in the middle of his shift. He didn't necessarily quit. Somebody else quit for

Well, that's being fired. No, no, no. That's being arrested. Nobody even knew. I've seen other people quit and you're like in the middle of a rush. In the restaurant days, you're like, dude, Dave just quit. What? What do we have to do now? What?

We got tables. And therein lies the point, Preston. There's collateral damage to your rashness. Yeah, yeah. You know? Yeah, exactly. Everyone hopes that you're going to hear like some 80s style Top Gun music start to play. I'm out of here. No, you get out to the car and it's like, all right, what am I going to do? Oh my God. And then she forgot your visa bill sitting on the passenger seat. I got like the rest of the day to kill and I have nothing to do. I'm out of here.

Take your drill bits and shove them. Everybody slow tough you out. Way to go, Paul. Who was that flight attendant? Was it for JetBlue? I can't remember where he quit. Oh, and he opened the door. Yeah, the slide. And he slid out of the plane. He ended up paying like 15, 20 grand for that. Yeah, he got fined. Worth it. Yeah. Absolutely. Maybe. Maybe.

I will go to Dave. Hey, Dave, good morning. Hey, you guys rock. Thank you. So I used to work at a psych hospital in the area, and we had somebody start as a tech. It was her first day, and she was checking in a patient. We worked on an aggressive unit, so she brought the patient to the room and had their bag in there and checked in all their belongings, and then she got yelled at by somebody on the unit.

said, you know, that's like really dangerous. That person could have killed you. You had no idea what they had in their bag. And between getting yelled at and like the risk that she didn't realize she was in, she was like, you know what? I'm taking my break and I'm not coming back. I like the way you put that. I'm going to take my break and I just won't be back after that. I'm going to go to the cafeteria and have a donut and a coffee and then I'm leaving. Right.

Yeah, you really didn't need the break. Yeah, but you get paid for that, you know? And listen, to get yelled at on your first day if you haven't been fully trained on stuff, that's just not cool. No, but I've been there. You don't know. Really, you need to sort of

someone a little bit before you start ripping them a new one. I bet that happens in that field a lot, though. Probably. You know, you get scared. Like a new surgeon's going to lose a few people in the beginning. You mean somebody showing up and not knowing I didn't know that the job entailed this. Or just like, I'm just saying like in that field, you know, when you're dealing with, you know,

Mentally unstable people or something? Yeah, like a psychiatric unit. I would imagine some people who aren't tough enough or can't handle it probably quit. It takes a special breed of person. Police officers going out when they hit the street and they're seeing, you know, you can do all the practice you want in the ride-alongs, but when it's you out on the street, it's a whole other world. I quit. I was a ball boy for the Philadelphia Eagles, and I got homesick, and I went home. That's right. We've heard this story, and I would tell you this. It's funny. Hmm?

Because I know this had sort of an impact on your life. Yeah. I sense a lot of regret. Yeah. See, I got yelled at. I lived in the dorm with the players and all the other workers for the team. And it was a couple of different things that happened. Like I was the new guy, so I wasn't like cool and everybody else got to go out and I had to stay in. Wasn't it the basis for the movie Remedial that we...

Possibly. There's a follow-up to Invincible. Possibly. I'm sorry. So, yeah, do you regret it? Yeah. Yeah, big time. As you were saying what you'd tell your son with the wrestling thing, do you wish you were able to give that advice to yourself without sticking with it?

Maybe, maybe. I just, I was homesick. I was like crying in my dorm room by myself. I wanted to go. I was 12 years old living with a bunch of grownups. I had gotten yelled at by my direct boss because I had accidentally locked the keys in the car.

There was a van, and the team was doing a dizzy bat drill, right? You know what the dizzy bat is, right? It was a relay race. And whatever team won the relay race, they won all of this beer. Well, all of the beer was in the back of the van that I had locked the keys in.

And so, like, he was super pissed at me, and I got yelled at, like, reamed. Not like, dude, you got to think more. No, he, like, yelled at me. Oh, my gosh. And I was like, I want to go home. Well, that's not cool. An adult yelling at a little kid? And I know the guy. Like, you don't get a job like that unless you know somebody. Yeah. But, yeah, and so I went home. And, yes, so I believe the lure was that the Eagles were playing a –

a uh pre-season game in london and they were going to take me to that pre-season game in london and i didn't know that and i left and i went home uh so yeah but listen you know what things work out listen here and here's the deal and you had said earlier casey about teaching kids uh the um responsibility and ownership and and so on and and i i think there's a difference between um

quitting something because you're bored. Yes. And quitting something because you don't like it. Because you hate it. Because you hate it. And I am... If you don't allow people to leave something that they hate, then are you sending the message of...

Sorry, you're just going to have to tolerate crap that you don't like. I think there's a balance. There is a balance. There's a balance because you have to learn that you will have to suck some things up and it's not always going to be roses. So when my kids did, you know, dabbled in baseball and basketball and a few sports here and there, if they got bored at some point in the season, we're like, I don't think we're finished. No, you signed up for this and we're going to finish the season. Now after that...

rock on. You don't want to play basketball anymore or whatever it is, that's fine, but we're going to finish this season. You haven't gotten hurt. Nobody's being mean to you. It's not that situation, so we're going to finish this. Now, we're the other way around. If somebody was getting bullied or they just absolutely loathed being there, that's a different

It's another issue. You can not like things in life, but then you all start to say, listen, when you're away playing these games, it's the only time I get to nail mommy. Come on. Right? Come on. Daddy needs some loving. But yeah, so if my child is crying before every practice and, you know, I'm okay. It's not worth it. No, because I'm a terrible parent. All right. Carring my child. Ah.

Zach, you're on the air. Good morning. Hey, you guys rock. Thank you, Zach. What's going on, bud? I worked at a veterinary pharmacy for two years, and we spent eight hours a day on our feet pulling medications off the shelves. And this one girl, it was her first day in.

And, you know, about two hours in, she goes to the manager and asks, hey, can I go outside and get my more comfy pair of shoes? And the manager's like, sure. And we waited, and we waited, and she did not come back. Oh, my God.

Oh my gosh, that's awesome. Those must have been really comfortable shoes. There's a place in Milan that sells them. Every time we get a new hire, we would say, oh, is she going to go out for shoes? Yeah, of course. It's worth, though, where you just...

At least go to the person and say, I'm doing this now and I realize this is not me and I'm going to be a debtor. At least apprise them of that. Especially if it's, you know, you need to medicate a cat that's going to get, you know. Yeah, but you know, when they're young, they're not thinking that. They're just going to walk out. Yeah. Let me go to. I'm in over my head. Let me go to Elizabeth. Hi, Elizabeth. Hi, how are you? Good. So did you quit a job one time, walked out?

Yeah, so years ago, I was 16. I worked at Burger King. A lot of people didn't show up that day. They had me work in the drive-thru and the front area all by myself. I was apologizing to everybody. You know, I'm sorry. Yeah. It's taking so long. This lady pulls up, next person in the drive-thru, starts screaming, cussing, yelling at me.

and asked me why I didn't come out and tell her while it was taking so long. I said, what do you want me to do? Jump out the effing window? Which is probably not in their protocol handbook. How am I supposed to tell you that? And I took the soda. She's like, let me talk to your manager. I said, you can talk to my manager. I said, here's your goddamn soda. And I threw it through the window into her car. Oh, my God.

Oh, my God. Well, but you were just holding to the habit your way. Yeah. I just lost my mind. I was 16. I didn't like the job. I smelled. My best friend had just started with me two days before. She said I cussed the whole way. I ended up quitting. I had to clock out. I got in my car, and I chased the lady down Kirkwood Highway. Wow. Wow.

I lost my mind. Elizabeth, that was quite a few years ago, right? Oh my gosh, yeah. Okay, so what do you do now?

I probably shouldn't say. Actually, I work with kids with disabilities. But you see, listen, you guys know this. You work in the food service industry and you get, as they say, in the weeds. Oh, yeah. And you've got things coming at you from all directions. My wife did it for years. It's mental torture. Especially fast food because, as the name implies, you get it quick. And it's got to be. And if it ain't quick, people are going to let you hear about it.

I'm curious if anybody has ever, you know, she talked about yelling back at a customer. I wonder if they've ever done it through the speaker, you know, through the drive-thru speaker. Just get into it with somebody over there. That would be pretty damn funny. Do you know what's diminished that a fair amount is the fact that now as you order, you can get a readout of what you would order right on the screen. So it does minimize the conflict at the window. Well, I also, you know, I don't always go in guns a blazing, right? If I'm upset about

my service or how long things have taken. Now listen, I was at a fast food place within the past year where I was second in line and it took me about 20 to 25 minutes to

to get a burger. And I mean, I could have, you know, lost my crap on this guy. But I said, I said to him, I go, is there any reason why it's taken 25 minutes to get my, my, uh, sandwich? And he's like, no, it didn't take that long. I go, yeah. I go, I have a timestamp right here. I'm like, it really did. You don't realize I'm a former Eagles employee. Yeah.

But I could have been a jerk, or I mean a real jerk about it. No, you were simply voicing your... Did it end right there? What do you mean? With you saying, well, no, look at the time stamp. Did he apologize, give you money back, or give you an explanation? No, I got my burger, and it was a damn good burger, but was it worth 25 minutes in my car? No. Let me go to Seth. We were talking about walking out in the middle of a shift. Hi, Seth. Good morning. How you guys doing? Good. What's up, buddy?

Right. Wow. He chased a guy out?

And just kept going. And then just never showed up again. Never called, never said anything. It was probably better that he did that and left because you were only looking at more. When you just out of the blue jump over and chase a customer out of the store. Oh, my God. You know. Steve, that reminds me of the old Chris Elliott bit on David Letterman, the fugitive guy. The fugitive guy. He'd be like a cameraman and all of a sudden he would just run out of the studio and hit somebody and leave. Yeah.

What happened there? They never explained what it was. I wonder if anybody in radio ever left dead air and just walked out and quit. Oh, I'll guarantee you. Bill? Bill Wesley? You know of anybody? No. No? No. Okay, I guess he's not coming over. No, but I'm sure that's happened. Well, for the most part, in radio, that's why all of a sudden your favorite radio personality...

we'll be gone because this is the way it goes I need to see you in my office and then they close the door and it goes by the way today was your last show and it's because that keeps it from happening it's rare if someone's retiring and they're beloved and you got the deal then that's fine they'll let them do the deal if there's an issue you don't want to give them access to a microphone exactly we're going with polka

Yeah. And they're gone. Radio stations, too. Entire radio stations will just disappear without warning. We've seen that happen before. Yes, we've been a part of it. Except when we all got word and then everyone came in and went on the air. Oh, yeah. At 1-100. Uh-huh. All right, one more call and then we got to take a break. Hi, Dave. Good morning. Hey, good morning, gang. Hey, what's up, bud? I walked out on a job.

Less than five minutes after I started it. Okay. What job was this? I was hired to be a type of a sales rep for a manufacturing company. Okay. And went through multi-level interviews, even had to fly. The company even flew me out to their headquarters for an interview. I got hired. They had a room in a hotel where they hired three other guys at the same time where we were going to begin our training, go through the product lines, and et cetera.

walked in, sat down, and the guy who was going to be my direct supervisor started off by saying, I have incredibly high standards. Everyone must live up to my standards. If you don't think you can live up to my standards, then you shouldn't be in this room. And that was it. Did you get up and leave? Thank you for the heads up. I don't believe I can. I'm leaving. Yeah, Dave's cue. And that's when you walked up. That's like right out of a movie. That's pretty awesome, Dave. Yep.

That was pretty much it. So I excused myself, walked out, never went back. I understand. We had a similar situation. Yeah, yeah. Well, we had a new company take over our radio station. And the first time we meet the HR guy, we sit down. I'll never forget this in the conference room. And he leads with not, hey, it's great to be a part of this company. We're really excited about the way things are going to go. He leads with, I like firing people. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. What? Firing people means that we're making changes and we're bettering the company. In so many words, he said this. And we're all looking at each other going, what a bold strategy. Did this guy just say that? You know, normally as employees, we'd be weirded out by that declaration. But we like your pluck. What did Liberace just say? Yeah, yeah. Instead of...

You know, hey, this is going to be great. This is going to be a great marriage between all of us here, and we're going to have wonderful success. Now... I like to fire people. Okay. Watch your ass. If someone underperforms, we have to go take certain measures. But we're looking forward to a communal effort and... Yeah. Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba. You know, what a turd. That's weird. All right. But anyhow, interesting story out of the NFL. Vontae Davis of the Bills quits at halftime. Retires. Doesn't just quit. I mean, does his...

He's done. He's finished with the whole football thing, period. But thank you for your calls. We appreciate it. We're going to take a break, right? Yeah, we got cool. So we'll come back. We got cool. We got cool. We got cool. Oh, my days. Casey, I've done something like that so many times that I can't bust your balls about it. We'll come back in a second. We got cool. Stay there. We'll be right back.

Wouldn't it be great if there was a place to listen to MMR online nationwide where you could sign up for an MMR insider newsletter so you never miss the important stuff on All Things Rock. Maybe see Preston and Steve Daily Rush videos. Look for upcoming shows on a comprehensive concert calendar. See when and where we'll be out and about. Pick up some MMR gear and like a whole lot more. Well, it turns out there's a website that does all that.

And it's always available, like right now, on your computer or phone or whatever. Wow. What a time to be alive. All right, since we were just talking about OnlyFans, I'm going to lead with a story. All right. A Florida judge ruled in favor of a school district that prevented a mom who modeled for OnlyFans...

from volunteering at her kid's elementary school after it learned what she did for a living. Victoria Treece sued Orange County Public Schools for a million dollars in 2023 after the school district said she would no longer volunteer Sand Lake Elementary School because of her occupation.

The principal received an anonymous email in 2021 from a concerned parent, along with two explicit photos of Treece. I was going to my OnlyFans clients when I noticed somebody that works at the school. The school's principal, Kathleen Phillips, alerted her boss. Ultimately, the school said she could no longer volunteer. Treece sued, arguing that she was robbed of her due process and privacy rights.

But Orange County Circuit District Circuit Judge Brian S. Sandover wrote in a 22 page opinion that trees does not have a substantive, substantive, substantive, substantive due process right.

to volunteer in the program. Yeah, I get that. You have a right to work, but not to volunteer, I guess. What if she had farted in people's faces? Sander also noted that Treece never appealed the decision with the school district itself. There's nothing in the district's policy that says parents have a right to volunteer, the judge argued. Sander granted the school district's motion for summary judgment on all accounts. But it said she was suing for...

saying that she was robbed of her due process and privacy rights as well. So I don't know. Oh, hell. We're not lawyers. All right. In Illinois, the owner of a steakhouse was tragically stabbed to death inside the restaurant late Saturday night during a gender reveal party. And his girlfriend and two of her sons are in custody. Think about the fires, the explosions, the mishaps, and now a stabbing. So why not just tell people?

Dispatched to 4114 Steaks and Seafood Saturday night, they found Joshua Kirkwood with numerous stab wounds to his wrist, back, and right side. He was pronounced dead. He's the owner of the steakhouse. It's a boy. Kirkwood got into an argument with his girlfriend, a manager at the restaurant, during a gender reveal party that was being held in the basement of the business. Two of the woman's sons, including 21-year-old Isaiah Gonzalez...

allegedly got involved. Witnesses told police the woman's 16-year-old son grabbed a kitchen knife and stabbed him multiple times. The woman was also stabbed in the leg. Both brothers left the restaurant after the attack. The 21-year-old Gonzalez later showed up at a medical center with a stab wound. Police located the blood-covered knife in the kitchen of the restaurant. There's no evidence Kirkwood had any weapons on him at the time of the incident.

Isaiah Gonzalez appeared in court Monday morning and was ordered held on three counts of murder. By the way, the 16-year-old brother and the mother are also in custody, but they haven't been officially charged yet. That's horrible. Mommy, tell me about the murder at my gender reveal party again. Wow. More than 170 bombs from World War II were discovered underneath a children's playground in northern England. And it's believed that more will be unearthed.

The first of the bombs, which still contained a charge, by the way, were discovered at the playground in Wooler, Northumberland in January. And a total of 176 bombs have now been found so far. And experts feel fear that more will be unearthed. You heard that story that they found a thousand Fisher-Price toys under a munitions factory. Oh, my God. I mean, they really do have to be careful even just uncovering.

They do. Yes, and this has been since forever that people find unexploded ordnance in and around the area. It's like, look, here's another ball. Hey, throw me that ball. Ready? Go long, long. All right, now all we have to do is fart in my... So the playground was in the process of being updated when staff found a suspicious object while digging the foundation. The Paris Council said in a statement that...

Brimstone Site Investigations was hired to survey the playground and that it quickly became apparent that the scale of the problem was far greater than anyone had anticipated. Officials said 65 practice bombs weighing about 10 pounds each were found in an area less than 10 square meters. Smoke cartridges were recovered from the same pit and then another 90 practice bombs were found.

were found at a 20 square feet area as well. And I was gobsmacked. It is believed the area where the playground was initially built was used as a home guard training ground and the bombs were buried at the end of the war. And then you think about how comprehensive are the records that were kept of where things were stored. Obviously not well. Yeah. Work to dispose of the bombs is anticipated to continue through at least the end of the month.

All right, we'll do one more story and then we will wrap it up. Let's go with this. The Lee County Sheriff's Office is investigating a bizarre incident that unfolded in San Carlos Park where a man riding a lawnmower destroyed multiple mailboxes. Neighbors, including Matt Clarity, the guy was drunk, by the way. The neighbors, including Matt Clarity, whose mailbox was among the victims, are still in disbelief after witnessing the unusual scene.

He said it was absolutely disgusting, but it's also funny. I can watch it up to 100 times, he said, though he added that he hoped that the culprit would be caught. Austin Beer, a neighbor in the area, expressed frustration and said, F you. So he was just running in a straight line over their mailboxes? I guess. But he said, F you. I hope you at least paid for the mailboxes to be fixed. Definitely don't hit my mailbox and don't hit my truck, he said.

One neighbor, Justin Crawford, went further, calling for the driver to be held accountable. He said he should be arrested, thrown in jail for driving while intoxicated on a lawnmower. Be a man and turn yourself in. You shouldn't be doing this, Crawford said. Neighbors reported that the lawnmower rider left behind a Pittsburgh Steelers hat and a pair of sunglasses.

Deputies are currently working to identify the individual responsible for the vandalism. Watch this video. This is too good to watch. So we're watching a guy...

On a riding lawnmower, slam into one of the mailboxes that has like a concrete or stone reinforcement around it. He hits it, and then he goes head over heels over the front of it. I don't know. Is this the same story? It is. Okay. I mean, they could have just submitted it for like America's Funniest Video and made some money off of it. Absolutely. The investigation continues. Residents are hopeful that the man will be caught and held accountable for his actions. Mailbox is getting a little high there, don't you think? And that...

Hey, welcome to the Preston and Steve podcast, which is brought to you by Acme Markets.

Hungry and in a hurry? Acme's flash grocery delivery or pickup gets you fresh groceries in 30 minutes or less. Acme, fresh foods, local flavors, and the official grocery partner of The Preston and Steve Show. Thanks for listening to our podcast, and thanks to Steven Singer for being the official jeweler of The Preston and Steve Show.

Now, back with more of the Preston and Steve Show podcast. There is a screening of the movie Wildlife, and it stars Carey Mulligan and Jake Gyllenhaal. And while our guest in the studio is an incredibly accomplished actor, you will not see him on screen. However, his presence is felt because this is his directorial debut for the film Wildlife. Please welcome back to our studio, after six years, Mr. Paul Dano. Yes! Yes!

This morning. Good to see you, Paul. Thanks for having me. Thanks for being here. We appreciate it. Listen, so your directorial debut, and also you wrote the screenplay or co-wrote the screenplay. Going into this, what kind of expectations did you set for yourself? That's a big, big, big project.

Um, yeah, it is. And honestly, directing is such a long journey and such a big experience. I think you're just sort of setting expectations one step at a time. So honestly, at first, you're just trying to write a good script and set yourself up with the foundation that

you can feel good on then you're just like trying to get the actors to say yes then you're just like trying to get the money and we're talking years and years and we're talking about what about like four years i would say so i read i read a book called wildlife by richard ford who's an incredible american writer right probably 2011 or 2012 and started turning this thing over in my head thinking okay can this be a film can this be a film for me so do you immediately option it because you you know okay i because i know how these things play and you want to make sure you have it correct

Correct, but I did not immediately option it. Really? Okay. Yeah, because I sort of wanted to make sure that I had something to offer it. Also, because I sort of do admire Richard Ford, I really wanted to sort of know that there was a film. You know, just a good book doesn't necessarily make a film, so why make a film of it?

And when I thought of the ending for this film, which is different than the book, that's when I optioned the book because I sort of knew – the final shot sort of gave me the energy and the courage to sort of actually do it. It's very cool because I think when you take – so you and Zoe Kazan co-wrote the screenplay. And from what I understand, it was a back-and-forth process, and that actually –

You kind of took a very long run at it at first, and she sort of helped you whittle it down and get to that point. But you sort of got the blessing from the author of the book to just make it your own property. And at that point when that happened, did you have a sigh of relief? Because I think the onus would – or you'd feel sort of an –

You'd have to be as faithful to the source material as you as you and, you know, to out of respect. But when he sort of cuts you loose, was that a breath of relief? Yeah, for sure. I mean, not only because I like his work, but he basically said that my book is my book and your pictures, your picture. Oh, that's great to establish your own values. And that sort of immediately gives you permission to sort of follow now what the film is.

And you have to. He had a great bit of wisdom that you can't just sort of translate a book and, you know, make it into a film. And my partner and I, Zoe, you know, this sort of story there is that I wrote a first draft. I secretly thought it was pretty good. And then I gave it to her and she quickly dissuaded me.

Wow. As friends do. As good friends do. Yeah, this is not as good as you think it is. Yeah. Richard Ford, the author, did he ever visit the set during filming or did he stay away from all that? No, he stayed away. I mean, we kept in touch via email. He writes the most beautiful emails. And we've been in touch. We just did a talk at Lincoln Center the last week in New York. He loves the film, so that means a lot. So it's a story of a family and a family going through changes. And it's a funny thing because...

You know, a simple story told this way is,

families can provide your greatest sense of support and love and also your greatest conflict in life and your greatest issues to deal with. And that's what you were looking to explore with this, correct? That's exactly it. Richard Ford sort of captured a duality where he was able to look at this hard situation with a lot of compassion, a lot of love. That's certainly how I sort of grew up. We lived in a one-bedroom apartment in New York. My family was...

but probably too close. And when my parents struggled, we felt it. And it's sort of... I moved to a new town when I was 14 to enter high school. At that point in your life, home is sort of the edge of the world. I didn't yet have friends in that town. So that is sort of what the film is trying to express. It's really about a kid seeing...

his parents changed, their marriage changed, and sort of just being thrust suddenly into adulthood. It's got to be wild. We moved when my sister was 15. Oh, my God, it was the end of the world. Yeah. You know what I mean? That kind of drama. You try to explain to people these things, and it's like, wow, this sounds kind of silly. This really isn't as dramatic as it seems.

But within your nucleus, within your family, it's incredibly dramatic, you know? Yeah, and that's something, you know, Richard Ford and I were talking last week, and, you know, the only way to write or make something is to make it about the most important thing in the world to you. And for me, that's, you know, that's...

My family. This deal. So you have Carrie Mulligan and you have Jake Gyllenhaal there. They play the married couple. And Ed Oxenbold, who I've seen before. We had him in the studio. You had him in the studio? Yeah. Very talented, right? Was it the No Good Day or whatever? Yes. Oh, he was in that, but he was also in an M. Night Shyamalan film called The Visit. Yes. Oh, that's right. I don't know if I've had the brain fart. Yes. A little white kid who like raps or something. Yeah. He gets a diaper jammed in his face. Yes.

He's super talented. But he's watching sort of the marriage dissolve. His dad has an occupation that –

is impacted by a series of fires. And so he goes to fight these fires, and the dad's off doing that, and the mom has kind of left her own devices, and there's an affair of sorts. So things go awry, and he's watching that. And it's the thing that we were talking with Peter Hedges about this, the director. He was in on Friday talking about Ben is Back. These movies have to be tonally focused

Because if it goes one way, it becomes too maudlin. If it comes another way, it becomes insincere. And is that, as for you as a first-time director, was that sort of very...

very hard to keep on that tightrope? Well, sure. Yeah, I think exactly. I certainly didn't want the film to overslip into melodrama. Right. In fact, I wanted to be pretty honest about it and sort of show these people warts and all and sort of look at the moment when we see that our parents are like real people. Yeah, yeah. You know, with past lives and with flaws. It's a revelation. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that, I mean, that happens a number of ways. First of all,

Casting the film really well helps, and I was very lucky to have Carey Mulligan and Jake Gyllenhaal playing these parents. They're incredible actors. They were so trusting of me, and they're also the kind of actors who are sort of like all-in on their work. So the sense of collaboration making a film is one of the things I love most about directing because it's sort of like playing in a band or something. Acting I find a bit more lonely, where directing you are working with every single person involved.

on the set just trying to get the best out of them. You're being like a parent. You're setting up the space for everybody to do their best work. What do you think this is going to do? Because now you're a director, and I was reading an interview with you where you talked about how

You now have, you now, you understand why people love actors while they have such an appreciation for it. You yourself as an actor, what will this do to you as an actor now having directed? Yeah, that's a good question. I'm actually really curious myself. Certainly I've, I've done one, uh, acting thing, um, since I made wildlife and, uh,

You know, I remember at the end of the day thinking, this poor sucker has to go scout right now or has to go do something at the next location. And I'm going to go home. And, you know, I mean, you just know what it takes. And also, frankly, because I've been doing it for a while and I've been fortunate in my career, having your eyes sort of refreshed and also seeing like the

and knowing their experience on a more intimate level. It really takes a village, you know, and you're lucky to get to day one of photography alone. And so really just sort of respecting and trusting the process too. You mentioned your partnership with Zoe Kazan and she was here with you when you came in in July of 2012 for Ruby Sparks. And you deferred to her, I guess, when it comes to the writing process. But what is that like when you have an idea and you...

you really love your idea and then you give it to somebody else and they say that's not bad. Is it trust? How do you get to a point where you're like, alright, her idea is better than mine? Well, it's debilitating. You're crippled. What do you mean? No, so in this case, it wasn't that somebody's idea is better. It was like, okay, this was my first time writing. Zoe is a proper writer. She's written plays that have gone up in New York. She's written screenplays that have been produced.

She saw what I was trying to do, but was like, I can... And also, frankly, we just couldn't get through a note session because we live together and you have to sort of protect the relationship from a certain amount of conflict. So I think she was like, why don't I just do a pass because I think it's healthier for us than if we just fight through these notes. Okay. Yeah.

And that turned out to be wonderful. And it sort of opened up our process, which was we would talk about the script for two or three hours. Then one of us would take it for a few weeks and sort of do a pass. We each had our own process. And at that point, once you're into it, you're fighting on behalf of the characters and the film. So you're not fighting each other. You know, somebody has an idea. You believe in it.

you talk about it, you get into it and then time sort of reveals the right direction. Well, there was reading a review and this is, I'd say this is a pretty good review. It says impeccably acted, brilliantly written, confidently directed and full of quiet desperation. It's rather magnificent. So it is getting great reviews. And, and when these movies, when these movies do work, when they're these, these family dramas, I love them. They're, they're compelling and they also can give you insight into your own, into your own situation. Um,

And you're talking about Carey Mulligan, who's getting rave reviews for this. And just watching the clips that we've seen, it's a performance like... I mean, I'm a fan of hers. I've seen her in just about everything. And obviously, she approached this with a lot of gusto. Those moments, though, where you as a director...

Like you're not moving the camera a lot. You're just kind of letting it happen. You know, to me, that would be such a hand-wringing thing. How do I do this? How do I convey the subtlety of this? You know, were there a number of passes or did you just instinctively say, this is the way it's got to be? No, it was from day one, a film that let's not move the camera if we don't have to for the moment. Let's not put score on it unless we have to. Let's sort of like... Let it breathe? Yeah, and also just like leave them...

to hang out to dry almost, you know, because you don't want to be reductive about something like this, something as complicated. My feeling is I've always loved the illusion of simplicity, like something that looks simple but is really not, you know, and it was something I said to my crew even was like, it's like we're trying to make a film that's like sushi, like it looks simple

Quiet moments. It's not. Yeah. You know, it's actually beautiful and, you know, it's hard to make. Yeah. Right. I like that. And you can kill people if you don't make it properly. So there you go. Okay. I like the analogy. All right. So kind of getting away from the film, but sort of staying in that column. Right. I love Mumford & Sons. They're like one of my favorite bands. Carey Mulligan is married to Marcus Mumford. Yeah. Did Marcus show up at all? Oh, sure. Yeah.

Did he? Yeah, we hung. You made his day. Yeah, we would go hit some golf balls, hang out. We were in Oklahoma. We were sort of in, I don't want to say the middle of nowhere, but... You were in the middle of nowhere. We were in the middle of nowhere. Bonnef. Bonnef, as they call it. But that's also one of the beauties about making a film on location is this feeling of summer camp. So, you know, Carrie and I have known each other forever. Jake and I have known each other, known Marcus forever. You know, there's something nice about...

The only people you have to lean on are the people you're there working with, and it's super fun. Right. Are they a part of the soundtrack at all? They are not. I do think they have a new record coming out soon. They do. I'm going to go hang out at...

MSG in December. If you're just tuning in, Paul Dano is here, writer and director of Wildlife. Going back to what Steve was saying about first time directing, you had to have at some point, though, in preparation for this. And I was looking at IMDb. You only have one directorial credit, and that's this one.

You had to have played around a little bit. Did you do any projects on your own, just trying things out at first? Yes, sure. In high school, I almost went to film school. I had already started acting. I sort of felt like I'm in that world enough. Let me just step away from this weird Hollywood world for school for a second.

I made a short film probably in my mid-20s, 16mm camera, just for a couple days, just to, yeah, sort of get my feet wet. But also, I've wanted to make films for so long, I do feel like as an actor, there is a process of osmosis that happens sort of on set. You know, I'm usually focused on my character, but...

I love film so much it's dictated a lot of my acting career, meaning I sort of want to work with directors who excite me. Yeah. That's the best feelings. You have a good record with that. And I've heard it said many times that when an accomplished actor directs, that the actors who work for that actor-director...

love it because there's a language that you share that maybe a director wouldn't share with actors. And was that your experience with your cast in this case? I hope so. Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. I mean, I want to give them their dream experience. I've been there. I've been on many different sets. I know the vibe. One of the things I definitely took away from a lot of the films I've done is the sort of idea of like the temperature on set. I love as an actor when you walk from your trailer, you arrive at set,

and there's a feeling. Yeah, yeah. There's a feeling. It's part of making the crew care about what we're doing, that every shot matters, that the guy pushing the dolly, you know, is in the scene, and you just want to create a vibe for people to, like, do their best work, and that's really fun to give these great actors that opportunity. So the last time we had you in, you were promoting the film Ruby Sparks, and this was on the heels of There Will Be Blood, and you worked with Daniel Day-Lewis. I

I was watching Phantom Thread yesterday. It's been making its way on cable. It's a very, very slow-paced movie, but I continue to watch it every time I come across it because he is so good. I mean, he's just... I don't know if there's anybody as good as he is because when I watch him, I believe everything that he does. Do you know what I mean? Watch Lincoln and then watch Gangs of New York back-to-back, and then you're like...

How is this the same person? It's unbelievable. From what I read is that you essentially got that part on There Will Be Blood because he recognized your work in a previous film. That's got to be one of the biggest compliments you've ever received. Yes.

Yeah. So I got to work with Daniel when I was 19 on a film called The Ballad of Jack and Rose. And that was sort of actually the turning point for me in saying, I'm going to be an actor. I'd gotten to play a couple parts in films before that, but kind of more close to who I am, like...

maybe just like a little bit more of like a dorky, you know, like wear glasses. And, and I was like, I don't only want to play, um, uh, shoot. Gosh, don't only want to play that. And when I got cast in this film, um,

somebody saw me as playing a character and that was like the vote of confidence I needed. And being on set with Dana Day-Lewis and Catherine Keener was so inspiring. And that's when I was like, okay, I'm all in on this job. It's, I think, a real punch to everybody if Daniel has walked away from acting altogether because he's just so good. I know. But that's choice. And he got a great deal through Amway. They've offered him a...

A thing that's going to work out nicely. Get a car. He's absolutely. You can write that off. I watched a movie recently that you're in, Love and Mercy, about Brian Wilson. And it's an interesting movie. I didn't quite know what to expect. There are several different actors playing Brian Wilson in it. Can you talk a little bit about what that experience was like? And did you have a relationship or learn anything from Brian or talk to him about it? Yeah, I think that's the best time I've ever had acting. Brian is a really special guy.

It's the story of Brian Wilson, by the way. You play him as younger Brian Wilson around the time of the recording of Pet Sounds, and John Cusack plays him later on in life. Yeah. For somebody who struggles so much, Brian, he's got an incredible amount of light inside of him. And frankly, studying that music for six plus months was one of the greatest gifts I've had from work. I just felt...

so in love with what he's giving us through the spirit of this music, and I miss it. It's a great movie, and I just saw your film after seeing a documentary called The Wrecking Crew, in which they sing, and I told Preston, and I think you've seen it since then. Oh, yeah. And they talk about recording with Brian Wilson, and these guys, these are the top, top, top studio musicians, and

And they said, and then there's Brian Wilson. Yeah. And his genius level was off the charts. And I think you, the sequences where you're recording in the film and you specifically caught what I imagined, you know, it would have been like outside of the documentary. It was an amazing performance. That's very nice. Yeah. And that's frankly, we were in the studio that he actually recorded Pet Sounds in back in 65. Wow. At that point, you're just trying to summon the spirits and let them pass through you, you know. Yeah. But that is so moving that these people,

brilliant music. The Wrecking Crew, they were the best. They were the best session musicians in town and Brian was their guy. They were like, that's the guy. It's incredible. I have a question. So, Wildlife, I think you mentioned is opening in Philly on the 2nd. Yep.

What are the challenges of marketing a film like this when it doesn't have explosions and, you know what I mean, against the mass market of people going to see films? How do you make it stand out? How do you get people in the theater to go see it? That's a great question. We ask you guys. That's why you're here. Just dump it for us. You know, we see trailers sell it for us a lot of times, and you can get excited about a film when you see a trailer. And do you have anything to do with that?

Well, sure. Yeah. Okay. I mean, I believe personally though, you know, listening to me talk on the radio is one thing, but I think the poster and the trailer reflect the film and that's, you know, do you want to see that or not? I think you hear if it's good, right? The reviews are good, but frankly, I think word of mouth is even more important. And, you know, I'm

I've had a lot of fun going around to different places because frankly so many people are coming up to me telling me about their parents' divorce, which is like the greatest compliment. I think you can sort of receive that somebody's willing to come up to a stranger and say thanks for this film. So really you're trying to make contact with somebody out there. I hope they come. I think it's a film that should be seen in the theater. I do think it's

very cinematic and I think it's an experience that is best had in the dark, big screen, loud, people around you. With a collective. Yeah. I thought it was bold and I don't want to have a spoiler alert but to have Thanos appear in the post-credits scene. Yeah.

Kind of remarkable. Nobody saw that coming. We know at least your family lived. But no, it's very cool. Congratulations for the amount of angst and hand-wringing that had to be involved in your first directorial effort to have this kind of reaction is the brass ring of the whole thing. It is one of the hardest things I've ever done and also some of the most fun I've ever had. Very cool. Hey, great to see you again. Congratulations. Thanks for coming by. Thanks, guys. Paul Dano, everyone. Yeah!

We're going to take a quick break. We'll be back in just a moment. Make sure that you stay close. The MMR app can't remember your Wawa order, but it can pair with your Bluetooth or Apple or Android car system, streaming us right into your speakers. Oh, and if you could grab us a meatball shorty and an iced tea, that'd be great. Thanks. Now, back with more of the Preston and Steve Show podcast. Do you guys, do you use...

Hand dryers, the air hand dryers in bathrooms. Yeah, like the new Dysons or newer where you stick your hands down in them or you stick your hands under. Any of them. Tell me there's germs all over them. I'll get to that in a second. You just mind your business here. Every now and again, I'm sorry, not too often, but every now and again you have the choice of using a...

The paper towel or the hand dryer. I use the paper towels. I will go paper towel. I go paper towel as well. It dries quicker. Two reasons. It's quicker. And the other reason is some of the hand dryers now have that... You get the super powerful ones and it's too loud because I have the tinnitus. And the really loud high-pitched noise actually hurts my ears. So I stay away from those when I can. It's like being in the Boeing factory. But there are some that... They're kind of fun. The ones that really, really...

really put out a lot of air pressure. You can actually play... They dry your hands in like two seconds. You can do that with it? Yeah. Yeah, I know what you're talking about. But they dry quickly, but they're too noisy for me. Some people argue that the air hand dryers are better for the environment because it doesn't waste paper, it doesn't waste trees. However...

I'm not a fan of forests. So I'm actually... But they use electricity and so I'm wondering like if there are greenhouses. Then it's coal. That's why I would, I lean towards the hand dryer. If there's towel, you know, paper towel and a hand dryer, I'll use the hand dryer. Just tell me all about the damn germs. All right, here you go. There's a new study. It's called...

Deposition of bacteria and bacterial spores by bathroom hot hand air dryer. And you are going to love this. It's like heat and it's just growing. There's just stuff growing inside. You haven't even heard the words of it yet. Oh, no. The study published by the American Society for Microbiology did microbial surveys of bathrooms at the University of Connecticut to find out whether hot air hand dryers draw in microbes and then blow them back out.

And the findings were pretty gross. Okay, so here it goes. The full cycle is like this. When you flush a toilet that doesn't have a lid, the turbulence of the flush sends fecal particles into the air. Which I know that, which is why I don't breathe when the toilet is flushing. Uh, well...

Where they hover in a miasmic cloud. Yes. The particles of poop hover in a miasmic cloud. A miasmic poop cloud, Kathy. When the dryers switch on, they pull these particles in through their intake, heat them up, and spray them onto your moist hands. Oh, my God.

And other moist, hospitable surfaces where their bacteria can thrive. So the filters... Oh, I have ass hands. Yeah, you have ass hands. The filters are gathering, are culling from a large supply of microbial poop particles. And then when you go over to dry your hands, it blows that hot, steamy...

poop spray back up into you. It's horrific. Yeah, it's like hosing your hands down with diarrhea. Which I do. Okay.

Is that the point of the story? Well, in a final test, the researchers did a cursory look at some of the other bacteria the dryers were blowing around. They found that with or without what's called a HEPA filter, a HEPA filter, the blowers stirred up potential pathogens, including Staphylococcus aureus,

The findings should be a wake-up call to managers of research and clinical settings. The authors note that Clostridium difficile, a devastating and intractable diarrheal plague, also forms spores. And researchers have found that a flushing toilet can easily launch it into the air. So, so.

I got to imagine that spores and diarrhea only get worse when you heat them up, right? Well, I'm guessing it doesn't help. Maybe it kind of incubates everything a little bit. Let me go to Ken. Hi, Ken. Good morning. Good morning. Hey, what's up, buddy? I just had a quick story about this I thought was hilarious, and we've been talking about it. I was in a ski mountain up in New York last week, and I walked into the bathroom. This guy had his pants down and his backside up to one of those blowers.

That's ridiculous. He was drying his ass off. Now, we're talking about the one that shoots the hot air down, correct? Yes. Wait a minute. Was his ass touching it? It comes out hot. It comes out very hot, though. Yeah, but if it wasn't touching it...

Who cares? So to reinforce your story, that stuff's flying around the bathroom. All right. Thanks, Ken. I appreciate it. All right. On a similar note, like I see this happen at the gym a lot. And I've actually, they kind of lampooned it in a commercial where people will use the hair dryer. There's a community hair dryer at the gym in the locker room. To dry off their balls. And they'll dry their balls off with the hair dryer. Whoa.

What's wrong with that? It's a community hair dryer. I know, but what's... I don't know. You know what? You're blowing ball particles around the bathroom. It seems weird to me. No, no, no. It's air. I know. You know what I mean? It just seems weird to me. Oh, my God. You guys have such hang-ups. It's unbelievable. You just read a story about poop flying around. How is that a hang-up? It's just...

I don't know. I don't see how air drying out your groin is going to do it. With a community hair dryer. You do it, don't you? No, I'm saying if it doesn't actually physically touch your genitals, what's the big deal? That's like saying you could hover your ass over my face and I'd be okay with it. No, I'm not saying you'd be okay with it. We need to try that. Nothing would happen. You wouldn't get sick from it. Well, you would. All right, here you go. Here's an article.

Iceland bans men from using hair dryer in swimming pool or gym showers rooms for drying groin area. What does that say? It means Iceland is leading the world when it comes to wiping out this light. There's no negative impact to it. It just says they're not allowing people to do it. Preston, they're survivors. They have both volcanoes and glaciers. It's just, to me, when there are community things that you should... Don't use it for your private parts. You should probably... Use your private hair dryer for your private parts. Yeah. Yeah.

I just don't understand how the... Here's what I don't understand is those things get goddamn hot. Why would you risk... You can get temperature settings on them. You can go... But still! It'll fly down your balls like an iron. Don't you have a towel? When you get out of the shower, don't you towel off your balls? Don't you? What do you need? An extra hot steam... I don't towel off my balls. Really? That's what ping is for. I wrap a... What's that? That's your manservant.

Oh. Come in and run my balls. No. I just wrap a towel around my waist and go about my day. And just let it air dry naturally. I'm an air dry kind of a man. Now, when you come home, you wash your feet a la... In the summertime when I wear flip-flops, yes, I like washing my feet. Do you let your feet dry up naturally? Judge not, lest ye be judged.

No, no, I think it's fine. Yeah, and you bring it up every time. You live in a dojo. Yeah, I live in a dojo with Ping. That's what we learned. So, yeah, they said this isn't the first study to find that public bathrooms are filled with disgusting things. University College London said that fecal matter and droplets of urine can be found in washroom air.

These small particles can stay in the air and can be transported around the washroom area. Most hand dryers draw in contaminated air and direct it straight onto your hands. If a hand dryer with a HEPA filter is used...

cleaner air is directed onto hands and expelled into the room. Both of these effects are beneficial to washroom users, especially in hospital environments. So I'm not crazy, overly concerned with a lot of this, but then you raise a question. Should I be washing out my toothbrush in the toilet? That's the question. Because, you know, ultimately, though, you learn things also about just about the bathroom and in general,

We've learned that in many ways, like the toilet and the sink and the bathroom is far cleaner than your kitchen. It can be. Yeah, as far as bacteria goes. If you're someone who routinely eats poop in the kitchen. So, yeah, but so...

They're just saying using it in general. It's just stirring up what is already in the bathroom anyway. I love the impression that they try to put forward. The wave of the future. It's antiseptic. It's unbelievable. The levels of cleanliness. And it's just creating a poop cloud. Let me go to Benny. Hi, Benny. Good morning.

Have a good one. It's spot on. What's up, Benny? What's going on, buddy? Listen, how about this? I'm in the gym. You know LA Fitness is? Yes. I don't know. I guess everyone's beautiful or whatever. First time I'm in there, I walk into the bathroom and some old guy's standing there with his leg up on a bench and he's powdering his, you know, smacking it around with like a cloud of like baby powder. He's talcuming his junk.

Yeah, just... Yeah, like...

Yeah. I mean, there's nothing wrong with that. It's what people do. You know what? It was insane, but like smacking it around. So he was beating up his own. You know what? That is honestly, I don't care what the story is. It's one of the more unpleasant aspects of a gym locker room. The old guy walking around with his lunch hanging out. Oh, yeah. No one wants to see that. Yeah, listen. Well, it doesn't bother me. Thanks, Penny. I appreciate it. It doesn't bother me that someone would use it.

It wouldn't bother me germ-wise. Somebody would use a dryer to blow dry their genitals. I wasn't saying germ-wise. I just thought it was weird. And I guarantee you, Preston, if you walked into a locker room and saw me hair-drying my balls, you would take issue with it. You would... Well, here's the part. I was taking...

through the story that we have here with germs and and contaminating things i don't want to see somebody with their leg up naked like this drying it off like that because you said it's a public uh you know a hair dryer i thought you meant your issue was with the hair dryer no not that this guy is dangling everything out because that i personally don't care i think that's listen again do you need to do that you need to put that on display to my a friend of mine who

when we would go occasionally and like we were touring with comedians and we'd go and maybe use a gym at the hotel together. Yes. That was his thing, man. That dude loved walking around with his junk out. It's like...

wrap a towel around yourself. Listen, and I play a lot of charity golf events at some really, really nice country clubs, and it is beyond me why no one at these country clubs puts up a, has a shower curtain for these. You can afford them. What do you think we paid the dues for? You're saying these showers, these shower stalls have no shower curtain? Yes. No curtain. It's just usually there's a stall, but there's no door on it, and

Is it to foster homoeroticism? I won't shower in those. Maybe. I want a little bit of privacy. I agree. And then your people will give you crap for that. There are people that pay. I don't belong to a country club, but they pay a ridiculous amount of money. I've been in some of the finest ones in our area, and they don't have freaking... You know what? Come on! Preston.

people will jump all over you for saying stuff like that. Listen, I like a little divider between urinals. Yeah. I like a little privacy divider. Come on. We used to, in our old bathroom here before, they not only did we not have dividers in between, but we had the bowl type urinal. Yes. That where you couldn't even hug up close to it and kind of, you know, pee in private sort of. You had to be a javelin thrower. It was like a big,

bowl that hung out and you'd say, okay, there's no covering up here. I don't like it. A little bit of privacy. You need at least a divider. And it doesn't hurt if those dividers go up about average eye height for most people. I was in the bathroom yesterday and the poor dude came in

And I just get in. I get up to the urinal, and it's great. I'm by myself. And the guy, as he walks in, I go, son of a bitch. And I didn't mean to say it out loud, but the guy comes up right next to me, and it's, ugh.

You know, like if I go in and someone's there, so there are two urinals in our bathroom. If someone's already in one, I go into the stall. Yes, you do. I like to promote privacy. Do you get. So I know somebody who is severely pee shy, cannot pee when other people like it doesn't matter how bad I'm not that he has to pee. Yeah, I can't do it. No, it's not him. No, you guys don't know this guy. But but I just found this out.

He was out on a boat with like three guys and he had to pee and he couldn't pee off of the side of the boat. He just couldn't do it. It becomes excruciating, especially because you're surrounded by water, which makes you want to pee. Yeah. I don't mind being next to each other in the stall. Yesterday, Casey and I were peeing next to each other in the stall.

It was so funny, dude. We're just going up. We're not saying anything. And I'm going. And I start moving myself around. So it starts sloshing around in the water. It's like bling, bling, bling, bling, bling, bling, bling, bling, bling, all over the place. And I just hear the sound. It was great. You can have some fun at the Gala. Well, yeah. Also on the tee box. Yeah.

We were playing golf one time and I tee off, right? And I turn around and Preston starts going, oh God, oh, right? And he's just, you know, I see everything. It was so funny. Oh my God. Were your pants down? Yeah, I was peeing. I wanted to make him laugh. And you did. And it still makes me laugh. It was raining like big time and nobody was on the golf course. And he was like, oh God, oh yeah. Oh my God.

That was one of my favorites. You saw that in one of those French comedies. Hang on a second. Let me go to a couple of calls here. Let me go to... I want to go to Kevin. Hi, Kevin. Good morning. You guys rock. What's up, Kevin?

I used to belong to, let's say, a famous hockey player from Philadelphia had a gym in Cherry Hill. Okay. Everybody used to walk around naked and even jump in the pool. You weren't allowed to wear bathing suits. It was an all-male gym. Yes, we've heard about this. This is really, really bizarre. Please explain. So the edage was you could not wear a bathing suit. You had to skinny dip every time you went into the pool?

Yes. What's that based on? Yeah, what is the no bathing suit allowed rule? You would think that would be contrary to what you'd want to have. Well, I think there was something else there. Their school of thought was that you're not going to prevent germs from leaving your body when you're in the pool. So why wear a bathing suit? Why wear a bathing suit? Because you're not going to prevent germs from leaving your body. Or I want to look at...

Naked kids. Man dong. Thanks, Kevin. Who wanted the owner? I don't know. I have no idea. I don't like that. I don't. You know, I'm not a big fan of public pools to begin with because I think it's a poop stew. Oh, my God. You see the shots in the summer of these huge pools with 50,000 people in them. You'd have to hold a gun on me to make me get in that. By the way, like a bathhouse.

Yeah, like in John Wick? Yeah, I mean, it's people like Naked. Yeah.

Yeah. Hanging around. Like, I don't even know what those really are. I mean. You know what they are. Well, sometimes it can be considered a gay place to hang out. Yeah, yeah, sure. But they're a legitimate. No, it's just like a Turkish bath. They're not necessarily for sexual. A Turkish bath or something like that. Absolutely. It's just like a men's club. There used to be like, for example, there were places years ago in legendary New York called Plato's Retreat, which was sort of a bathhouse and swingers, very decadent place. Yeah.

But there are just regular places where people like to go take a steam and do that deal. But even, hell, if you're in LA Fitness and there's a dude walking around naked...

I don't like that. You know, a little bit of privacy. I don't consider myself a prude, but right? A little bit? Yeah. A little bit of decorum? I've changed my theory on how I pick my locker when I go to the gym. Before, I used to, because where I go, there's like three, I don't even know, alcoves, let's call them, alcoves of lockers. And I used to always go to the alcove that had either nobody in it or only one person in it.

But every single time I got done there, it would be like bustling with people. Yeah. So now what I do is I go to the alcove that has the most people in it because my theory is that when you're done, there's going to be nobody there. When, when does that make sense? Very sage alcove advice. Thank you. Let me go next to Mike. Hey, Mike, good morning. Good morning, fellas. What's up, Mike?

So I used to work at a place downtown called Ticket Weep. They're still down there, but I don't work there anymore. And a guy I worked with for a short stint of time, instead of using the one stall, which is a private bathroom in our little office, would go across the street to the Sophie Tell and use the bathroom there because every time he'd go to the bathroom, he'd have to be completely naked.

I've heard of people that have to get completely naked when they go to the bathroom. Yeah, we used to work with somebody who had to take his shirt off, but that was to drop a deuce. Mike, are you talking about a guy who had to do that to just go pee? I think it was mostly the deucing, but I don't think he would go across the street to use the bathroom anyway. Could you imagine having to get fully undressed just to take a piss? No, that would be very inconvenient. It certainly would.

Although... Once your friends know about it, it's very dangerous. Oh, my God. Thanks, Mike. He's definitely taken his clothes and made sure when he left the stall he had no clothes to wear. I have to admit, I do feel more comfortable. Like, if I've just gotten out of the shower or whatever and dry off and I'm totally nude and I sit down to use the bathroom, it is kind of nice. It's liberating, isn't it? You don't use the bathroom after shower? After? I was just thinking that. I don't know. Maybe. Probably.

All I did was get out of the shower. It's not like I do it every time, but why? Just out of preference, I like to go before I shower. Okay. I go only when I have to go. So...

Like I'm not going to go, you know what, I better crank one out before I go to the bathroom, before I take a shower. I might be in the shower and all of a sudden have the urge to go to the bathroom. Which is the worst. Why? If you have to take a dump while you're taking a shower. Yeah. Wait, while taking a shower? Yeah. No, I've never done that. No, no, no, no. Unless your showers go for inordinately long, you'll be out in time. You'll be fine.

What I'm saying is when you're in the shower and then the pang hit and you're like, oh man, now I have to get out of the shower and sit on the toilet. And then you're all wet on the toilet seat. Yeah, that does suck. You know what? I've had a good long streak of not having to pee in the shower for quite a long time. And the running water to me would always incite...

Oh, I pee in the shower every time. Yeah, and I just haven't. I'm that good at urinating now. Wow. Finally, Steve. Yeah, I've reached my goal. I set a bar for myself, and I've achieved it. You've gotten it all down. All you have to do is have your prostate taken out, and you'll pee like a horse. Let me go next to Kevin. Hey, Kevin, good morning. Good morning. How are you? Great. What's up, Kevin? Oh.

I was in the Marine Corps years ago, and in the barracks there, when you walked in, you had journals against one wall and the toilets against the other one, and there was no stalls. That is my nightmare. Well, full metal jacket, there's that scene where you, and I'm sure you'd recognize the layout of that bathroom. Oh, yeah, absolutely. It's like 30 toilets in a row, no space between them, nothing. And is that done...

Do you happen to know, Kevin, if that's done to just sort of tear down your...

You know, your defensiveness or your... Your individualism. Yeah, your individualism? Yeah, maybe. I mean, these were old barracks. These were the, you know, original barracks down at Camp Lejeune. Yeah. And, yeah, some other barracks that I was in, you know, they had stalls. But this particular, these particular buildings, none of them. I mean, you had eight toilets lined up. And in the morning, you had 150 guys. Ugh.

I mean, it was, you know, you'd be acting and there'd be six guys lined up sitting on toilets and another seven of them standing in front of urinals doing their business. And it was...

I mean, that makes, that'll make you a man, right? That'll get you in fighting shape. It's literally a reoccurring nightmare for me is having to poop in front of people. It was a riot. Well, what about, for example, to Kevin's point, that's obviously in the military and the Marines, but what about if you ever get in a holding tank? You've seen them.

They have a toilet right there that's out in the open. It can't be hidden. And then you're around criminals. You're around criminals. Yeah. Many are in there for violating people who are taking poops. Yeah. Oh, man. How do we get on this topic? Hand dryers. Oh, because the hand dryers. We were talking about Russian literature. No, no. Hand dryers, apparently, according to this study, are circulating the poop cloud, which, by the way, is called a miasmic cloud. Oh, my God.

You never hear that on the weather report, do you? And when you put the dryers, when you turn the dryers on, it just basically circulates all of that, the particulate matter in the air. I was watching Twister last night. And they have that level five on the Fujita scale, the worst twister possible. Yeah, the finger of God. I'd take that over. Yeah, exactly. You'd take it over what? A miasmic cloud of poop. Well, that's what you get every time you go into a bathroom. Because if there are no lids on the toilet, it's kicking it up. Why are there no lids on those toilets? Because...

I don't know. Nobody would use them. I mean, you put the whole freaking toilet in. You figure the easiest part of the toilet to attach is the lid. Do you guys put your full lid down at home? Yes.

No. I mean, I do. You do? So every single time? Every single toilet. I do. So you have to, you know, lift both lids? No, I don't have to lift both lids. Because I'll have a synchronized cat swimming team in my toilet. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. No. Never. Never. Absolutely never. Yeah. Okay. So I guess it's a personal preference thing. All right. Anyhow. We're a dirty, not dirty thing. And Kate, what's that? I'm just kidding.

Or a paranoid and non-paranoid thing. Depends on how you want to look at it. So anyhow, this is called The Deposition of Bacteria and Bacterial Spores by Bathroom Hot Air Hand Dryers. It's fresh out now, so some good reading. Pick it up today. That's your next horror movie, man. Yeah. We're going to take a break. We'll be back in a moment. Stay with us. We'll be right back.

What's going on in the world of rock? You'll find it at WMMR.com, your one-stop outlet for all the rock news you need to know. WMMR.com, where FOMO goes to die. Now, back with more of the Preston and Steve Show podcast. A museum has urged visitors to respect art after a tourist sat on a chair covered in crystals and shattered it.

The so-called Van Gogh chair, named after the legendary Dutch artist, was housed at Palazzo Maffei, an art gallery in Verona, northern Italy. Footage captured a couple posing for pictures around the chair after waiting for the security guard to leave. The woman pretends to sit down before the man enters.

actually places his weight on the seat and then it promptly breaks. You know, you watch the footage, you know it's going to happen. And when it happens, you still gasp. The pair dash out of the room, leaving the artwork in pieces on the floor. The chair designed by Italian artist Nicola Bolla was studded with Swarovski crystals.

Palazzo Maffei had shared the footage on Facebook describing the act as an irresponsible gesture. The museum said that despite uncertainty over whether the fragile chair could be restored, they had managed to repair it. You put your fat ass down on the chair, you break it. And they said in a statement, a heartfelt thank you goes to the police, our security department, and the restorers whose valuable work enabled the recovery of the piece.

And a special thank you to all those who walk through the museum halls every day with care, attention, and wonder. Because we've had so many stories like this. Maybe the world of art restoration is a growing industry. It might very well be.

All right, there is a roar heard throughout Kings Island, the amusement park in Mason, Ohio. But it isn't just from the crowds and the roller coasters. Cicadas from Brood 14 have made their way to the surface this summer. The area outside of Kings Island almost empty.

Every tree is covered with cicadas. Their song can be heard from all around. And over the weekend, several people shared their experiences on TikTok of cicadas, joining them at Kings Island. And they have gotten to the extent that the park has released a statement telling people on the rides...

Keep your mouth closed. Oh, no. Sorry. No. I'm not going to swallow a cicada. Yep. And they say the song does sound a lot like Gino Vannelli, Preston. No way. Wow. It's perfect timing because it's his birthday today, believe it or not. They come out, you know, every, what, Saturday?

Well, this brood came out 14 years. 14 years. I'm sorry. No, brood 14. I think it's every 18 years. Okay. So every time Gian Vanelli has a hit. Yeah. So yeah, they're actually telling people, keep your mouth closed. What's the biggest bug you ever swallowed? Oh, dude. It's been a fly for me. I don't know. It's something like that. I've never had a big one. It's the worst.

It's like a June book. The timing of Israel's plan to attack Iran was top secret, but Washington pizza delivery trackers guessed that something was up before the first bombs fell. About an hour before Iranian state TV first reported loud explosions in Tehran, pizza orders around the Pentagon went through the roof, according to a viral account claiming that, uh,

claiming to offer hot intel on late-night activity spikes at the U.S. military headquarters. Is that wild? The account called Pentagon Pizza Report.

Posted Thursday, as of 6.59 p.m. Eastern Time, nearly all pizza establishments nearby the Pentagon have experienced a huge surge in activity. Now, not confining its analysis to pizza, the account also noted three hours later that a gay bar near the Pentagon had abnormally low traffic for Thursday night and said this probably pointed to a busy night at the Pentagon. While far from scientific,

The Pentagon pizza theory is not something the Internet just made up. The takeout, an online site covering restaurants and food trends, noted earlier this year. Pentagon adjacent pizza joints also got much busier than usual during Israel's 2024 missile strike on Iran. It said, as there are a multitude of fast food restaurants in the Pentagon complex,

but there are no pizza places inside the Pentagon complex. So you're saying if you want to be apprised early of geopolitical conflicts, turn to the gay pizza eater. Well, I don't know about the gay pizza eater, but the pizza deliveries to the Pentagon reportedly doubled recently.

right before the U.S. invasion of Panama in December 1989, and surged again before Operation Desert Storm in 1991. That's pretty fascinating. They don't have a pizza joint in the Pentagon, so they have to order from everywhere else around there. Doesn't Irvine have a place in the Pentagon? He did, if I remember correctly. We should tell him to serve pizza. A Blair County man faces charges after he allegedly blew up a toilet in a Pittsburgh casino.

Jeremy Hartman. Did he blow it up or blow it up? No, no, he blew it up. I know what you're thinking, but yeah, he actually, it exploded. Jeremy Hartman was in the Rivers Casino at about 5.40 a.m. Sunday when he was taken into custody by Casino Security for trespassing in a closed restaurant and trying to steal bottles of alcohol worth up to $4,000. As officers were taking him to a secure area...

He asked to use the restroom and was given permission to use an employee restroom. Hartman is accused of lighting a commercial-grade firework and putting it in the toilet.

The resulting explosion injured a casino employee who was in the restroom. The worker was treated for minor injuries. When police found Hartman's vehicle in the casino garage, they discovered more fireworks and called the bomb squad and canine unit to conduct sweeps of the garage and the casino. No additional explosives were discovered. He was arraigned Sunday morning on two felony charges of arson. I'll have whatever he had. And that...

is what I have in the bizarre file for you this morning, friend. We'll take a quick break and come back in a moment, so stay with us. Looking for fun things to do this weekend? The Arrow Bears Weekend Calendar has you covered.

Shows in town. Movies to see. Exhibits and specials around the Delaware Valley. Just use keyword weekend calendar at WMMR.com to get the list. Hey, welcome to the Preston and Steve podcast, which is brought to you by Acme Markets. Hungry and in a hurry? Acme's flash grocery delivery or pickup gets you fresh groceries in 30 minutes or less. Acme, fresh foods, local flavors, and the official grocery partner of the Preston and Steve show. Thanks for listening to our podcast and thanks to Steven Singer for being the

official jeweler of the Preston and Steve show.

Now, back with more of the Preston and Steve Show podcast. What's going on, Steve? Well, Nabisco announcing that the circus animals depicted on the Animal Crackers box will no longer be in cages. Nabisco says it wants the box to be more accurately depicting of today's circus culture and will also include pictures of ex-con clowns addicted to meth. Hey! Mark David Chapman, the man who shot and killed John Lennon, is scheduled to have his 10th parole board hearing in New York this week.

Chapman knows it's going to be an uphill battle for him, but says his secret weapon will be, quote, freshly baked apple cobbler. Oh, my God.

He's going to try to work them a little bit. And finally, Women's Day Australia suggesting that Paris Hilton's wedding might very well have been cancelled. The magazine says that because Australia is on the other side of the world, people have yet to completely not give a crap. You know our next guest from shows like The League and The Mindy Project and movies like Suicide Squad and so on and so forth. But now his directorial debut is coming out on the 12th.

And he's here in our studio to talk about that and other things. Ladies and gentlemen, Ike Barinholtz. My old friends. How are you guys? It's been a minute. I talked to you last time on the phone. Yes. Here a couple years ago. Yeah. We're glad to have you back in, especially for this project, which is The Oath. Yes, sir. And I saw it. You saw it. And I have to say, so I go in with, and I love this. I love when this happens. I go in with one set of ideas about what I'm going to see. Yep.

I don't see that movie. No way. I'm thinking, oh, here's the heir apparent to Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. It's the girl from Girls Trip and the guy from Blockers. It's going to be hilarious throughout. No, but what it turns out to be is something that reminded me of...

High concept 70s movies where you get uncomfortable and you start thinking. And so what it is, it is Thanksgiving and Black Friday set against, there's some political, listen, it's just like now. There's polarized camps and people at each other's throats and all this is going on. And 24-hour news cycles out the yin-yang.

And the family's getting together for Thanksgiving. There is an oath that is suggested that you sign. And it's – I don't want to give too much away. But the main conceit is family with very differing political opinions getting together for the holidays. And screaming at each other. And screaming at each other. And so as I'm watching it, I'm like –

Wow, I check the news a lot too. Wow. Yeah. And I'm like, I'm a political person. I think we probably agree on a lot and differ on some things politically. And as I'm watching it, you know, and I'm thinking, I'm watching some of the characters and go, wow, it's going to be this kind of thing. And then you start bringing it in on your character as well. Yeah. And everyone's getting it. Yeah. And then you start getting uncomfortable. Oh, yeah. And you're thinking, okay, I'm laughing at this. And...

I have to say, you sort of bared it all in your approach. And I wonder how difficult was it for you to do that?

You know, I think... Because you wrote it and directed it. I wrote and directed it. And I think the worst version is... Because personally in my life, I'm pretty liberal. There's some things I'm a little more conservative about. I bet you, you and I agree on a tremendous amount. And that is the point. That's the point, yeah. Though I come from the other side. And that is the point of it. Yeah. And that's what I think is a message that needs to get out. If I made this movie, because I'm liberal in real life, right? If I made this movie, my character, who is the most liberal...

was like this great guy who's totally right and he's got a six-pack. That really sucks, right? Right. So I really wanted to kind of shine a light on how absurd it is right now and how people are so dug in on their opinions and how we kind of let that get in the way of like our family relationships, which is probably bad. Like you got to talk to your family. But you do it through great mechanisms in the movie. Thanks, brother. And so it brought back like –

It sort of made me feel like the... I remember a movie called Joe. Yeah, with Peter Boyle. Peter Boyle and a little bit of The Purge. Yeah, I like to think of it as a prequel to the prequel to The Purge. Right. Before they said, let's give them a day where they can murder each other. Let's try this loyalty oath thing and see how that works as a Wonder Woman. And also, because it's in a house, the end of Straw Dogs. Yes, because of Straw Dogs. Where a man is sort of...

I've got to defend my family. Yeah, and it gives you that kind of claustrophobic feeling of like, oh my God, this house is killing me. I'm dying in here. Get me out of this house. But yeah, I love all those movies. Joe, I haven't thought of Joe. Wow, that's amazing. But you know, and so it's rare that movies do that. And so to have it happen this way, because we're all massive fans of yours.

And to have this come out this way has got to be fulfilling. It's 90% on Rotten Tomatoes. Yeah, it's not bad. Which is not too shabby. I've never gotten an A in my life. No? I was like a C-minus student, man. This is huge for my family. But you also have, and it was an eye-opener, Tiffany Haddish. Yes.

It plays your wife. She's a young ingenue. I've plucked her from obscurity. She's my gift to you. I was like, okay, Tiffany Haddish, Tiffany Haddish. I was enjoying her, but now I get...

the Tiffany Haddish thing because this is contrary to what you see her. Yeah, you normally see her on like Ellen like dancing and stuff, you know, and now you see her in this movie where she's kind of like internally struggling and she like is so, this is based off my wife where I was talking about the news so much that my wife needed like ocular implants because she was rolling them so much. Same thing with my wife. She's over it. Yes. And it was like 6.30 a.m. one morning and she was breastfeeding her daughter who's 12 by the way.

It's not great. It's not a great situation. That's a long line. It's not great, but she's healthy. So it was like 6.30 a.m. and she's breastfeeding and I'm reading like an article about something's going on in the news and I turn to my wife and I was like...

America's lost. She's like, dude, it's 6.30 a.m. I have a kid in my boob. What are you doing? Too much, too heavy. So Tiffany's kind of playing that. I think to see Tiffany Haddish and that energy where she's kind of like internalizing everything is kind of fun. And then you get her when she explodes and you get that fun Tiffany Haddish we know and love. She has a great line. You're going off. Finally, it explodes during the meal. And I want to give what she says.

You're acting like the white Nelson Mandela. But it's true. You end up doing this. I think, well, I would say to people who are fearing this meal this year, you may want to go see this because it does sort of re-put into perspective what is important. It's basically a reaffirmation of your family and not missing moments and not –

not burning your life off, wound up about this crap. No, all this stuff, man, these giant external forces, we don't have that much control over. We can vote. Yeah. Right? We can vote. Everyone's got to vote. Right. But you can't let that get in the way of things that you love, not just your family, but also like-

and like working out and like eating a good meal and watching a TV show or a movie. Hanging with friends. Hanging with your friends. Yeah. Like you have to kind of try our best to kind of, you know, get to that place where we're still keeping in contact with people. It's a good message. Oh, brother, thank you. And that...

speaks to the power of social media and the positives because I go back and forth, especially on Twitter a lot. It can be such a negative and you can fall down that hole really easily and feel terrible about the world. But I said this to you before we went on air. I love your love for Mindy Kaling and her love in return for you on Twitter and that type of thing happens all the time on social media too. So if you can focus on the positive, it does exist. Yeah, don't go down that wormhole. It's hard not to. I love trolling her on social media.

It's hilarious. She'll post an Instagram of her at the Met Ball in some $25 million dress. And I'll write back like, how could you not take me? I'm in the car outside your apartment. You're a terrible friend. No, it's great. But to that point, I posted something on Twitter a while ago talking about the wonder of the mute button. Yeah.

Yes. I love you. I don't want to hear this. I just can't hear you right now. I can't hear you right now. But that's okay. And you didn't even know that I can't hear you. We need one of those in real life. We do. We need a mute button in real life. So as you go around to promote the movie and everything, and this is the ultimate for a filmmaker and a writer and getting behind the camera. Yeah. What's it like to have...

your first effort like this out of the gate get this kind of response. It's been amazing. I mean, like, you know, the last year it's basically been like 50 people have watched it. Yeah. Now that I'm showing it to America, we went all throughout Texas and all down through the South and San Francisco.

San Francisco and D.C. We had a great screening last night. Chris Long of the Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles was there. So are you friends with him now? Is he on your cell phone? Is he my best friend? No. Is he my top three? Yeah. Wow. That happened quickly. Him, Kyle, and Howie are my top three. But it's been great. The best part is people with the relatability. Coming up, and not just people who are on my side of the aisle. I had a lady in Texas come up and she was like,

I was laughing a lot. I like that you made fun of liberals. She worked for the governor of Texas, the most red guy in the world. So to kind of have people come up and be like, I got like a catharsis out of it. Like I'm laughing at a family exploding and it's not my family. That's the best part. Yeah. And so, and those are, those are the kinds of things again, to have an experience where you're stick with it. If you go in and you're like 10 minutes, oh, this is BS. Hang in there. Everyone gets theirs. It gets crazy. And it gets to the right message, which is that at the end, all,

all the, well, I don't want to give away the end. Let's just say you will be satisfied. Yes, you will be satisfied. And it's a good message in a very bizarre and protracted way. And you'll laugh and you'll get scared. I think it's a lot to ask people to go to a movie theater in 2018. Yeah. But the two kinds of movies I think are best in theaters are

comedies and thrillers because you kind of feed off the laughs and the tension. I think we kind of do a little bit of both. So Get Out was the last movie that caught you, I think sucker punched you and you're like, put a genre on its ear. It's great when stuff like that happens. And now we live in a time with

such a wealth of material that's out there and so many distractions. To have something cut through the noise. It's almost inciting people to be more creative than ever. I think so. And look, I still love going to see big, super, like Deadpool 2 and stuff. That's great. We love that stuff. But we also need to start telling stories, I think.

that are kind of reflective as to what's going on because it is so absurd what's happening right now. We're living in the craziest time in America, at least in my lifetime. Why not tell some stories about it? Well, movies take quite a while to write and obviously to put together and get them onto the screen. How long ago did you have this inspiration? I mean, this is, you know, this had to have been bubbling for a little while. Yeah, it happened right after the Thanksgiving, after the 2016 election. No kidding. After dinner, after Thanksgiving dinner, my mom and my brother and I, listen, we were hammered.

I'm not going to lie to you guys. We're hammering. We start fighting and yelling at each other. It's your fault. The next morning, I said, oh my God, we're all on the same side. We were fighting. What the hell is going on at other tables? As I started talking to friends of mine who were going home around the country and talking to some of my relatives in Ohio, I just knew that the American holiday table, the landscape of that,

It was changed forever. And there was a lot of pain there. There's a lot of funny stuff there too, man. There is. People are actually crazy. So I really just kind of wanted to take that whole kind of arena and blow it up. Well, the old edict used to be, and it was one that held pretty steadfastly. Don't talk politics at the table. That's it. You can't do that now because it's permeated. You used to be able to be like, we're not talking politics. Let's just talk about football.

Oops. Sorry. God damn it. It's not happening anymore. And you're sitting there and you're getting your alerts on your freaking phone. Yes. And your wife is like, no. See, years ago, I used to be able to, at the dinner table, just throw gas onto the fire and then walk out of the room and just let it burn. Right. You can't even do that anymore. No, you can't. Like, if you're able to get through the holidays and it doesn't come up at all, you're a very disciplined family. And I don't know from that.

Are you doing Thanksgiving in the Chicago area? No, we actually do it out in LA only because my brother lives out there. So my folks come out. We have some folks from Chicago. We have a lot of sausage. A lot of sausage. Dinner and alcohol. Yes. But then we come out there and we do a big Thanksgiving out there. So are you able, do you think, around the table to keep it... We'll see. We'll see.

It depends on how many drinks they have. We also have legal weed in L.A., which calms you down. It's really good. Are your parents doing that? I mean, that's got to be weird if they are. Listen, Dad is an attorney, so we're off the air, right? Yeah, he loves it. He loves to get out. It's the best. My brother took him to a weed store in L.A.

He grew up in the 60s in Chicago and he walks in and there's bud tenders now who are like, hello, are you looking for an indica or sativa? My dad almost started crying tears of joy. It's the delivery. Oh, wow. So you have a great cast. You have Tiffany Haddish, John Cho, Carrie Brownstein from Portlandia. She's freaking awesome. She's my sister. She's playing against, I think, type. Yeah. And also playing so many characters. And Nora Dunn.

Nora Dunn. Yeah. She's my mom. So how did you, so was this everyone like calling in favors or? You know what? Honestly, like a couple of the people I knew, I mean, Tiffany Haddish, I said to her, I go, I just saw you in this movie Keanu and you're amazing and it's so great to meet you. She's like, pfft.

We were in Meet the Spartans together in 2006. You don't even remember that. I was like, oh, man. Yeah, but we didn't work together. But, you know, like John Cho and Tiffany and Carrie, I think they kind of read the script and they were like,

I haven't seen this movie yet. Yeah. And it's, you know, it's something that's happening right now and they just kind of jumped on board because they were not doing it for the money, that's for sure. Right. But yeah, they just kind of jumped on and I kept expecting Tiffany to be like, yo, I

I'm a Sith Lord of the new Star Wars. I can't do this now. She showed up in a big way, man. Wow. Yeah. All right, so obviously you want as many people as you can to go see this film. Do you think, though, it would be good to take your adversary, your political adversary, with you to go see this movie? 100%. Okay. Because we really...

Only good satire is if you can make fun of yourself, right? So if you bring an adversary, and I've been seeing this kind of firsthand. I saw a married couple in Dallas who they're completely opposite sides of the aisle, and they're laughing about it. And the message is, like he was saying, the message is that commonality and trying to find those things we have in common and keep those relationships intact. So absolutely. Because it does, eventually, it is a reaffirmation of your family. Yeah. And you have a great little moment with your dad. Yeah. You know, and he's...

And you are opposites politically. By the way, his attempting to use the TV remote is hilarious. That is based on my dad who is 67 years old and has never once used the TV remote properly ever. But I think, you know, like it is. Look, like...

America's bigger than a president. It is. It's bigger than a government. And if we cut all these tethers to our family, when the tides change, you're going to be lonely. Yeah, so I haven't seen it, but I'm going off of what Steve has told me about it. And Steve, would you characterize it? Does it have that, like maybe a violent Capra type of... Yeah, violent Capra would be very good. Yeah, it's a good band name. Hang on.

We are Violet Capra. The movie recalled, it's not as wonderful as we thought. But it's still wonderful. Mr. Smith goes to Washington and kicks the shit.

You know what I'm always surprised at, Ike, is the guys at South Park, their ability to do this. And they've been doing it for 21 years. They can take comedy and social commentary and play it on both sides and make fun of themselves and make fun of everybody. And when you make fun of everyone, you're kind of making fun of nobody.

But not exactly. I mean, you're still getting comedy and you're still getting satire. But if you offend everybody, you're not offending anyone. Yeah. First of all, I can't believe that I first saw Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Pooh, 21 years ago. That's insane. That is crazy. Yeah, but that's so true. And I think that's something like, you know, Chicagoans, my friends from Philly too, we like to make fun of people, but we really like when people make fun of us. You know what I mean? It's that self-aggrievedness.

It's an injury. And if you can't laugh at yourself and you take yourself way too seriously, which I think a lot of people do right now, I just think it's not fun and it's not really representative of who we are as Americans. And you have been responsible for so many laughs and from, you know, obviously Central Intelligence and which...

Okay, so your bankability as a script writer and that is on display and Hollywood looks at you with that. Now that they see success as a director...

and writer is it classic floodgates opening or are you still waiting for or are you anticipating an onslaught of offers and projects if I don't get an offer to direct the next Star Wars project tonight at 7pm the whole project was a wash and I'm a failure

So, George Lucas, if you hear this, give me a call. No, I do hope to. The great thing is we made this movie independently. It's the same producers who made Get Out and made Black Klansman and whatnot. So they really gave me a lot of control in telling my story without a filter. And I think if I can keep doing that...

That is really where it's at. If you can kind of just tell these weird new stories. Just to reset real quick, Ike Barinholtz is here if you're just tuning in. The movie Oath, The Oath. But you also have a TV series, Bless the Hearts. Oh,

Oh, yes. Is that happening? Yeah, it's an animated show at Fox with me and Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph and Jillian Bell. Wow, stellar. Yeah, good catch, man. It's a really funny show. It's about like a Southern family falling apart. It's all family stuff. It's all family. Well, guess what? I'm a dad now, so all I care about, I'm like Paul Reiser. I just do family stuff now.

Is Greg Evigan working? I'm not BJ, but I am the bear. Quick question, though, because I'm fascinated by the directing aspect of it. You would think, okay, directing in a house, it's got to be easier, but I think it presents a whole other set of problems because you need to keep it interesting. Yeah, if the viewers get visually bored, you're in trouble. So what we kind of did with this is

as you know the beginning the first half of the movie which is really more about the family hanging out like the physical look of the film is different it's like big wide frames vibrant colors and people are entering and moving out and stuff

And then by the end of the movie, we're really tight and the needle takes that dark orange color. So it's kind of making sure the actual look of the movie kind of moves along with the tone and the story and stuff. That's cool. Job well done. Congratulations. Thank you, man. Thank you, guys. Like you were saying, great movie, Steve. You loved it. This is a movie that if you are looking to kind of just...

If you want to say to people, can we calm down for Thanksgiving, take them to see this. Yes, this is it. Yeah, it might be good. Honestly, I hope this fixes things. It probably won't. It won't. But that would be awesome. It will get us through the holiday, and that's all we can do, guys. One holiday at a time. Right now.

And it's on to Arbor Day. All right. So The Oath is in theaters or it's released here in Philadelphia on the 19th. Make sure you check it out. It's great to see you. Guys, thanks so much for having me back. Ike Barinholtz, guys. We're going to break. We'll be back in just a moment. Stay with us.

The Preston and Steve Show. Like the podcast? You'll also love it live. When you can call in. Weekdays from 6 a.m. to about 10.30 a.m. on the radio at 93.3 WMMR. Or stream the show live via MMR's mobile app.