Latest / Reverse Jackass / Ep79: Nick gets a $75 lesson; Evelyn enjoys the Italian Concerto (with a side of marinara).

Transcript

Ep79: Nick gets a $75 lesson; Evelyn enjoys the Italian Concerto (with a side of marinara). · Reverse Jackass

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: It's revolution.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: You did your best, Evelyn, and sometimes our best isn't good enough, and we all have to live with that.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: At this point, I'm at a like a 50-50.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's really good enough or it's not.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I can't I can't tell which it's gonna be when I embark on giving my best.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's a crapshoot.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: But you told me once gambling is fun.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Crapshoots are fun.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: What is a crapshoot, Nick?
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: What is a it's it's a dice game that you play uh in a casino or on the street corner if you're a war and G, um it's something you do right before killing a bunch of guys.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just gonna say, like, there's a lot of contexts, uh, some good, some bad, some legal, some not legal, in which a crapshoot might take place.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it is a dice game.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, my brother loves to play it in the casino setting, not in the um pre-Eastside Motel setting.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: Regulated setting.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it I find it, I find it to be positively inscrutable.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: I don't really know how it works.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: I've played it a little bit, and the first two or three times I played, I won so much money and was great.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember turning to my friend and saying, How does anybody lose at this?
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, Oh god, people's whole lives have ended after saying what you just said.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, what's the point though?
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, reverse jackass listeners.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: So at this exact moment, Nick is going on a one minute and 48-second explanation of how the game of craps works.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna be honest, I didn't feel like editing it, making it sound sweet.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I just thought to put a little voiceover of myself in here to save you the pain that I had to endure listening to Nick talk about craps.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: But I will admit, I brought it on myself because I asked, what is the point?
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: And spoiler alert, I still don't understand anything he said.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: So let's go back to the conversation.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: But at the end of the day, it's rolling dice.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: You know when when I talk about when I start talking about music theory, and something happens in your brain where you're hearing words and it's just not making making any sense.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: Does it make sense?
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's what just happened to me.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: I was all of a sudden like, what is happening in my brain?
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like it felt like soup in there for a minute.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: So, okay, let me put it to you this way.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: Oh.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, you you you thought he was done?
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: No, he he wasn't at all.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know how much of this is going into the podcast, but we should we should introduce it.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: We should introduce it.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'll probably keep just some of it, because I think some of it, some of it is good.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: I think I'll have to go back and listen to it.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Well, some of it's good.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: Some of it's ponderous.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: Some of it's ponderous, and what's the word for heavy?
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Heavy.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: Hmm, okay.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: I was thinking like starts with a P.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: Not pedantic.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: Pendulous.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's more swinging, though.
• 2:57
  unknown: Pendulous.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: Our pendulous podcast.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: Folks, welcome to Reverse Jackass, the Pendulous pontificating ponderous podcast.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, uh starring one American and one Canadian, desperately trying to bring peace between their two countries.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Nick, the American counterpart, uh, and with me as always is Evelyn, the Canadian blade.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: The Canadian Blade.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and we are trying so hard to bring peace to the between our two countries.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know, like we, I guess we, you know, we get in the weeds a lot, but I like to think it's all part of the big picture.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's basically us having conversations.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna talk about some things, we're gonna make fun of each other a lot.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: Namely, Nick's gonna make fun of me.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: And it's probably because I'm gonna say something wrong.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, and I don't mean like say something morally wrong, I mean pronounce a word wrong.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's really where it's she saves the morally wrong stuff for when the when we're not recording.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: That's true.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's when that's when the shows up.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the Zoom recording can't even handle the stuff that comes out of my mouth.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: But we're trying.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: Nick and I are trying our best.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: We're so glad you're here listening to us.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um that's all that's all I have to say.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a nick day.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's a nick day.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's a Wednesday that we're recording, which means this episode goes out on a Thursday.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: It is a Nick day, and we started this episode speaking about gambling.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: So, in the true sense of gambling, Nick, what do you what uh it's a real gamble, what we're gonna talk about today.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: So I guess we want to pivot to a gambling story, but I have a different story for you today, which is this is a this is a story of gasoline.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um which is amazing because gasoline is at an all-time high here in the United States, yeah, and in Canada too.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and I want to hearken back to a time when gasoline was a little less expensive.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm talking about this was over 20 years ago.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: This would have been 2004, I think.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: I was living in West LA with my roommate Kelly, and I was working, I was a host at a restaurant.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I was making$11 an hour, and um, it was like, you know, sort of the salad days, like it was a lovely time, but a time without much money.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: You don't get to refer to anything as the salad days, given that your salads are currently giving people explosive diarrhea.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: So that's that seems like three better salads.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: They were sure, okay, fair.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: There was no diarrhea unless, you know, yeah, it wasn't as widespread as perhaps it is.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: Strong FDA back then, run by a by a bureaucrat.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: It was great.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, it was great.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: So back in this particular time, uh, I had uh a friend reach out to me who said, I'm gonna be in town.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: I wanna get drinks.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: Let's get drinks, come hang out with me.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: And we made the we made the plan for the for this particular Friday.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, great, and I was so excited because that Friday I got paid.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: And it was a nominal amount of money.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't a lot then, it surely wouldn't be a lot now, but it was enough where I had enough to fill my car with gas and I had enough to have a little bit left over to go get drinks with my friend and then some to float me for the next two weeks until the next paycheck.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: It was like that thing of like when you're not wealthy, but like you have enough and it's great.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm gonna get go get to see my friend from home, and I'm so excited.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so I pull off at this 76 station that was about a half mile from my apartment in West LA on Sentinella Boulevard, and I got out and I started um pumping the gas, and I went in to get a Coke, and I'm all excited because I got my Coke and I'm gonna drive to Hollywood, which is normally a chore, but I'm gonna see my friend and I get my big Coke and I pay the guy the buck fifty for the Coke, and then I walk out and I get in my car, and I drive off and I hear this.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh oh.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought, what the fuck is that?
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: And what the fuck that was was I had forgotten to take the hose out of my car.
• 6:43
  unknown: Oh, okay.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: And it had torn the hose out of the gas pump.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: Which, by the way, was something it was set up to do.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you imagine if that happens, that there's gonna be like a massive like blast geyser of gas everywhere in a firehouse.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: Nope.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: It absolutely pulls off in one piece, no tearing.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's like one of those collars that you buy for your pets when you're worried about them strangling themselves, that if you pull hard enough, it'll just like pull off and then you can reattach it.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: That's what the gas pump was like.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: There they had already thought of that, right?
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: So I stop and I get out of my car, and there's like three teenagers at this gas station, and they are laughing at me.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm humiliated.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: I can't blame them for laughing at me.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: So I go and I get the gas pump and I like grab it, and it's like, I don't know, nine feet long, and I'm holding it like a dead snake, and I walk in to the gas station to the clerk.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: And again, this guy is a clerk at a gas station, right?
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: I think I think it doesn't merit a personal investment in this mistake that I made.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: No, but he was furious, he was hopping mad.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: And again, this is a piece that is clearly designed to come off.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: I haven't ruined the business, I haven't caused a fire hazard, there's nothing.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: This is a thing that is clearly they knew this was gonna happen and they set it up.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, I'm so sorry I did this thing, and uh, you know, I I drove off with this thing, and he he points at me through the glass and goes, You're gonna have to pay for that.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, Of course, of course.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right, right.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I came in with it, I didn't speed off.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, I have to make this right, right?
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm already embarrassed.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: And he goes to the cash register and he presses a single button and a little receipt prints out, and he goes,$75.
• 8:34
  unknown: What?
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: And because not only were they prepared for it to happen, but they had a button on the cash register to charge people for it.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like it was already, it wasn't like, I don't know how much this is gonna cost, you're gonna have to give me your insurance information, and then we'll find out.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: It was like, oh yeah, yeah, here comes the$75 charge, right?
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: So I said, okay.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: And in my mind, I'm doing the mental calculus.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: And what I realized is that I will have enough money left over for one drink this night with my friend and nothing else for the next two weeks that is going on.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: Like this has depleted every extra thing that I have.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and so I give him my card and he charges it up.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: And as he hands me the receipt, he points to me again through the glass and goes, You need to pay more attention.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: Before I tell you how I respond in this moment, Evelyn, how would you respond to that?
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: How would I respond to that?
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: How would you respond to that?
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: After all of that, and the guy points to you in the glass and says, You need to pay more attention.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: How would you respond?
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: Knowing honestly, like you're asking me honestly, how I would respond to that.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: No, tell me a lie.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I'm asking honestly.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: I can tell me how Heather would respond to it.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, Heather and I would respond the same.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: We would cry.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: I would cry.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: If someone was that angry at me and I knew I was doing right by something, but they continued to be that angry, and I was, I had the same spirit you did, where I'm like, Yeah, I'll pay for it.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I know.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like I this is my this is on me.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like, obviously.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, if they were like, you need to pay more attention, I would probably I would have teared up and I probably would have clammed up and just said, like, I know, I know, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I know that's exactly how I would have responded.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: So how did you respond, Nick?
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: What I did was I walked to the first shelf that was closest to me with all the chips on it.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: Oh no.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I put my hand against the first bag of chips, and I just walked slowly down the aisle, unshelving all of the chips onto the floor.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: And then I walked back to the front of the line and I put my hand on the middle shelf with all the chips, and I just walked backwards, sustaining eye contact with a guy, and knocked all of the chips on the floor.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: You you seriously did that?
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: And then I walked to the cooler and I'm looking at him over my shoulder, sustaining eye contact, and I opened it, and I put my fingers on the first 20-ounce bottle of soda, and I just flipped it out onto the floor, and it like bounced boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: What?
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: Over and over.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: And he's freaking out.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: He's just yelling, right?
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm just unshelving thing after thing after thing.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: And then I walked over to the newsstand where all the newspapers were because we had the recycler back then, right?
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I just opened the recycler and I took the first page and I just unhinged it from the rest of the thing and just tossed it on the ground.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I just page by page took this newspaper part and was just doing it.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: So he can't come out from behind the glass.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: So he's freaking out.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: I'm calling the police, I'm calling the police, right?
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I went over to the to the car part section, the motor oil section.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: No, delicately took the cap off the motor oil and I just set it on its side so it would just delicately.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: You did not, you did not onto the floor, right?
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: By this point, he is just screaming.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: The kids outside are like a cape, their mouths are hanging open.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: Like mine is right now?
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: I'm and and I went out to my car, I had my guitar in the back, and I went out and I got it, and I brought it in, and I set the case down on the ground, and I got the guitar out.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I played the most beautiful version of Blister in the Sun you've ever heard in your life.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: No, of course, Evelyn.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: I did none of that.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, Thank you.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, your reaction made it all worth it.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: This is really ugly, Nick.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if we want this.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: Although, I okay, I I would have believed the first row of chips.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like that, to me, the fact that you went back for a second row, I was like, oh my gosh.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't until you started flipping pop cans that I was like, I don't know.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: You bought it.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: You bought it.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: I did, but it was more like that's when I started to feel it get ugly.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, ooh, it was ugly.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: By the way, that whole story is ugly.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: But here's what actually happened.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: Deep, deep in my humiliation and in my resentment for the fact that this guy was charging me for something that was so obvious and that obviously happened so much that they had a button on the cash register for it.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: And already dealing with the humiliation of it, I set the I set the giant gas pump down on the the cable or the whatever it is, down on the thing, and I said, looked him in the eye and said, Sir, I think if anything has been illustrated by this incident where I drove off with the gas pump still in my car, it's that I need to pay more attention.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: And then I walked out and I met my friend for drinks.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: And then I grabbed one small bag of Doritos.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: This is mine now.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm eating this.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, lobbed it at a bulletproof glass.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, okay, wow.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: So my question for you, Evelyn, is what is the most stating the obvious moment you've ever experienced in your life?
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, what a great.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: That is so good.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: That is so good.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you don't know, do you?
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: Because you're weak.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: Because I'm weak and I'm I I mean, although I keep an account of all of my transgressions at the ready at all times.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: You sure do.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: I that's one thing I bring to all my friendships.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: The most stating the obvious.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: Really racking my brain here.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: I just need a sec.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: I just need a sec.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: No, take as long as you need.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: I have forever.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: Just looking at kittens on Reddit.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: The most stating the obvious.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: I keep getting stuck on one one story that I don't know if this actually fits.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: But I can't just I just keep going back to it.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not entirely I don't know if this actually fits your prompt, though.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: Why don't you do what any self-respecting person would do and insist that it does fit your my prompt and just go through it?
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's we're not like I know, but I feel like be penalized here.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I I keep going back to my uh piano professor I had in university.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe this isn't a story so much about stating the obvious as it is about there being something very obvious that she completely missed the mark on.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's what I'm talking about sexual attraction, people.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, first of all.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: First of all, uh thick.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: I am yeah, because don't you find that older people have a real musk about them?
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's the only kind of air musky.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's called pheromones, and sometimes they're so thick you cut them with a knife.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's not happening here.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: And okay, so my prof in university was this astoundingly old woman, and she dressed.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: She was astoundingly old.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: How does a person get that old?
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: She she's so old, she ought to be dead.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know, truer words of the just God would have killed her.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: She well, she's I mean, she's dead now.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, we got there eventually, but she she was quite old when she was my professor.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: And every week I had a lesson with her every week, a one-on-one.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: And she was terrifying.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, she was incredibly out of touch with the world around her.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, a lot of musicians kind of are.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's almost like the more brilliant you are, the less attuned to the world you are.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there is kind of especially classical music.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: August rush.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's exactly what I really was hoping.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's exactly that's the best example of that for sure.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: And the most realistic example by you know, Bar Nunn.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so I had this older lady as a as a prof.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: She was apparently a brilliant pianist.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: I saw her perform a couple times, and I actually didn't get it.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm gonna be honest here, I didn't really get it.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: I had taken lessons with her uh three years actually.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: I remember third year being a really great year uh for me in terms of my performance level.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: I started to really understand Bach when I was playing Bach.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: And they the the pieces were long and they were complex, but in a way they were formulaic.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, Bach is there's a reason he's as well known as he is.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's just like mechanically speaking, absolutely in the stratosphere.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I was finally starting to understand the mechanics and the and the form and all of this kind of stuff, so that when I played it, it made sense to me.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't just a, I'm just playing some notes, please help me remember this.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: I actually locked into a bunch of stuff.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: So there's this one piece I was learning.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it's called the Italian concerto.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a three-movement piece, and I had started learning the third movement, and then I had eventually backed up and moved, learned the other two.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: But the third movement just moves.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like that thing is a non-stop train.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: Once you start, your fingers are going the whole time, and there's repeated sections and there's development of it, and it's awesome.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I had memorized it.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: This was a huge thing for me.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I had memorized it, and I was ready to play this for her.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to understand that in most of my lessons, I was just trying to kill time.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: I could get her distracted by asking her, like, she loved writing on my music.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I love writing on music too.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's really helpful.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's so, no, I don't mean scratching over it with a sharpie nick.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: I mean actually like writing things that are helpful.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes I just get a concerto, Italian or otherwise, and I'm like, I'm just gonna mark this thing up.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: I just do it, dude.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um by the end of it, I have learned a little something about myself.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm gonna do?
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: As soon as this call's done, I'm I'm sending you a copy of the Italian concerto and a pack of sharpies.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I just want to see you go to town.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm I'm gonna ask you what you learned.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna, I'm gonna overnight that thing to you, and you're gonna report back.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: I accept the challenge.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: So this this woman in uh in her studio, I want to paint a picture a little bit.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: There are two grand pianos at the far end of the studio side by side, so she could play and then I could play, and then we would, you know, learn.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: And then there was her desk near the front, and she would sit in her office chair with the the door would be closed, and she would sit right in front of the door, like there was no escaping.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: And something you learn as a teacher, like you learn in teachers' college, is it is that you should never at any point block the door from your students, right?
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: You always want to feel students, parents, whoever, anyone, you always want them to feel like they have uh a way to get out of the room without you being in the way, or you never want anyone to feel trapped.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: Well, let me tell you, I felt trapped like a minx in a wirebox.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like a minx in a wirebox.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: You should have said minks.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: Like a mink.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like a minx like a like a slutty mammal, just just strutting her stuff right into the trap.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: And that person's like, I'm not gonna use you for sex, I'm gonna use you for your pelt.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: You trapped little minx.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: That's the part of the story I was waiting for.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, tell me more.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: Only I only mess up like this around you.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not kidding.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, only when them only when the microphones are rolling, right?
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, you.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: Not even this could be not even mic'd.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I would say because I know you're listening and waiting.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: I am listening and waiting.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: I am okay.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: So uh like a there you are, like a mic.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: Trapped.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, she's front of the door, and that that was our typical lesson format.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I would get her distracted by asking her to help me label the phrasing, the fingering patterns of you know, anything in music, and we could chew away a whole hour like that, and I will have played almost nothing.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like I was so scared of her that I didn't even want to play for her.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: So that was about three years of that.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: And her sitting in front of the door, me being trapped, and you know, in my leather harness and just playing there it is, in my leather harness, just playing, okay, for her.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: So one day in my third year, I'm actually ready.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm ready, I'm like, I'm gonna perform this and it's gonna be great.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel confident, and she's not even gonna stop me because I can play this thing by memory with my eyes closed.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: In this in this outfit, in this, in this outfit with these tassels.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely, yeah.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm ready to go.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I the the format was that you would wait outside the door till she was done with the other student.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: So he'd come out, I'd wait there, and but this time she opened the door and she wore those white blouses with the frilly, like the big lace collars on them that maybe older women would wear in the 80s.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: God, is everybody in this department like a total slut or what?
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, okay.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a it's a yes, that's all that's just rolls in and her ruffles and her ruffles and stirrups.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: This is what the whole faculty is like.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's a piano thing.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, right?
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: Look at you over there playing the guitar super wholesome.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: No, nothing respect ourselves and our bodies in the guitar department.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: Piano majors don't, not for one second.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: So she opens the door, and today she's wearing this with again the white polyester blouse, but it's got a massive red pasta sauce stain right on the collar.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: And and this is not one of those little collars.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: This is the collar that looks like it's.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's large, so that it's kind of floppy, but it's a huge spaghetti stain on it, like red pasta stain.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: She opens the door, hello Evelyn, and I must have glanced at it and I was like, Hey, I'm I'm re I'm here, I'm ready.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: She's like, Come on in and get seated.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: It was apparent to me very quickly that she had no idea that was there.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: Oh no, not a clue.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: And it was hard to miss.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway, so she said, What are we doing today?
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: I said, I'm ready.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: I want to play the Italian concerto.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: Third movement by memory, I'm ready for it.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: What are you laughing at?
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: But it's the Italian concerto and she has a pasta.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: Oh I've never made that connection.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you're like the Italian, I mean the concerto, the uh yeah, just the regular concerto that we're playing.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: That's all right.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm ready to play the marinara, the Italian concerto.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: The Italian third, third movement, the Arabia.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: I mean the Italian concerto, right?
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: So she's okay.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: So I sit there, I get myself centered, she's backed up against the door, sitting slurping on a plate of spaghetti, just slurping on her zoodles.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I start, and I have never played that thing in that room as well as I did that day.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: I know that in my heart.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: I was so, I felt good.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: I hit that last chord and I was like, that's how we do it.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: That is how we do it.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I look over to her and she's over there, sitting the same in the same chair, same posture, except she's now face down, face down, looking at her collar, just staring at it.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: Doesn't even, I don't, I'm not even there to her.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: She's staring at her collar.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: And then she looks at me and goes, Was that there the whole time?
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: She didn't hear the thing I played.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, What thing?
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: What the oh gosh, that I I didn't even notice.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: And she said, I'll be right back.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to see if I can wipe it off.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: You keep playing.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: So she leaves the studio.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm just like, from the top, I guess.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm playing it.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: She comes back about 15 minutes later.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know if you know what taking something bright red and putting it on white polyester and then adding a bunch of water to it would do.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: Not a spread.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: I assume it makes it bigger and redder, right?
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: She looked like she had happened upon the Warren G craps game when she came back.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, oh, oh, yeah.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: Her shirt was her blouse was not only soaking wet, it was also now if it was the size of, let's say it was like the donut shop scene from Boogie Nights.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: It was honestly now a quarter, like whereas it was probably the size of a maybe a like a Reese's pieces before.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like, or sorry, a Reese's.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like a Reese's.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: It could have been.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: It was, it was, it was fairly small, but size of a Reese's before.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: Now it was taking up no like probably a third of her entire top.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: It was pink, it was bright red in the middle, but it had spread all the way out.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: It was covering one entire breast, half of her rib cage, and it was now onto one of her sleeves.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: And she said, There, I I think that's better.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, I think so too.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: It was so obvious.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: The best part was my lessons were in the morning.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I knew that she was spending the rest of her day in this pasta sauce soiled.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: It was so obvious.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: And she didn't even notice until I was having one of the best musical moments of my entire life up to that point.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: It was so Italian.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: She got in touch with the Italian that was all over her.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: And trust me, that would have been the only Italian that would have been all over her.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: If I can be if I may be really honest.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't know.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's not so much a, you know, thanks, Captain Obvious kind of moment, which is also a saying we said in high school all the time.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Captain Obvious, right?
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: But it was more of a I don't understand, like I don't understand how she didn't notice it because it was the first thing I saw when she opened the door.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: But it does tell me a lot about her attention to detail.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: And she was so detailed when it came to, you know, piano performance, but had no awareness of her own person.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's kind of what it seems like.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: And then the weirdness of like the oh, that's better.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, no, and it was never you had no capacity to make it better.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: It is a white shirt.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_01: Nothing you were gonna do, save for going to a dry cleaner, was gonna make that better.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: What you have to do is you either have to take take the rest of the day off or you have to accept that you have a big stain.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and you're gonna bring it up, and your next student's gonna come up and go, by the way, ignore the the obvious bullet wound on my uh laval on my chest here.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, just got a little too deep into the into the ravioli there.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um I'm not gonna leave for 15 minutes of an hour lesson and focus on scrubbing my shirt and say, you play.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: And you and just you play.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I I mean, I was my blood pressure was probably back down when she was out of that room.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: But she she was really quite the character.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: She was a teacher that just was never in tune.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like it was like, you need to play this because it's Bach and everybody plays Bach.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: As a piano major, you should, if you're taking classical lessons and going to university for it, you probably should be able to play a little Bach because that's like the founding father of keyboard pedagogy.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: But I digress because now I'm seeing your eyeballs do what mine did when you're talking about rolling a seven.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: I just hear all these people taking classical music so seriously, and I just think, do you all hear yourselves?
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_02: I get such a joy.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's literally written on the page how you're supposed to play it.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: They write the tempo, they write the notes, they write what how many pieces it's supposed to take up.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's literally written on the page, but they're like, no, no, no, oh, it's so different.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_01: This interpretation of this versus this.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: And all I hear as the listener is little tinkling pianos.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know what's interesting?
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: I think you would hear, if I picked two incredibly uh different performers, uh I think you actually would notice a difference in the in the interpretation of the piece.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_01: You compare this to the the Vegas experience, and I want to say that like it is true that from a financial standpoint, uh, learning to play classical music is a thousand times better than gambling, even if you are not, you know, even if you get a shitty job where you're just, you know, like playing at malls and stuff, that sucks.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: But like still a better idea than gambling.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_01: But I just want to point out to you that like a comparable experience would be you go to Vegas, somebody brings you a free drink, you're buzzed, there's people all around you, you throw the dice, everybody at the table cheers for you, pats you on the back, somebody hands you some free money, you go, you spend it, you walk around in the hot sun, you get drunker and drunker.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_01: Doesn't that sound better than Bach?
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_01: Doesn't that sound better?
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: No, not at all.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: An acrobatic piano exercise?
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like, to me, it's not even the same.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: I think you can't compare them.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_01: To me, the most fun experience that we've talked about all day, the one that I would like for myself above all, is the one where I get to watch that strange professor realize that she has an stain on her thing and then come back in with it, having increased fourfold in size and go, that's better, right?
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that wasn't it.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what if you told her the truth?
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: You'd said, No, honestly, you need to take that to a dry cleaner, you are just spreading it and making it worse.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_01: Or what if she'd said, has that been on the whole time?
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_01: And you go, Yeah, how did you not see it?
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_01: Did you get any of your lunch in your mouth?
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what would that be sometimes I mean, and I'm in therapy, which is generally like an honesty field, although we're nicer than I just was in the thing.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what would it have been like to tell her the truth?
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: I think she would have eaten me like a female mantis, like a female maids.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: I think although I was not her mate, she would have she would have just eaten me and left a few of my feelers out for the remaining ants that are in the area.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: She sounds terrifying.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: She was terrifying.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I was scared most of those three years for sure.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: I cried every lesson.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: And yet generally, when the door opened for the next student, uh the next student would see me crying.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: Oh wow.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, that's like until you forgot to this is what you're getting.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_01: So you're standing there.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: So the it's the end of the lesson comes.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_01: You're there and Spikey's in a fucking boostia, sobbing.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_01: Just bawling.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: Just bawling.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: And that has become just a normal Wednesday for me if I'm dressed up.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, whatever.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's gone now.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: There's way more things to talk about in therapy than that.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh get in line.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: I thank you for bringing your sad musical victimhood into this podcast.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, anytime our listeners do.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: I want to challenge you, Evelyn, as we draw this episode to a close, to give the audience a and me, because I'll listen to this, a nice little passage at the end of this podcast of what is in that movement of Bach that is really special.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm not even being silly, I'm not breaking your balls here.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I would love to hear just a little snippet of what makes it so exciting and so special at the end of this podcast.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_01: And you can append that on there or you can not append that on there, but you know.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, and I'll tell you right now what makes it so special.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_01: No, I want to hear it.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_01: I want to hear it.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, you want me to like sing it?
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_01: No, I mean that's actually super badass.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: But no, what I was saying is like you could get one of the hundreds of public domain recordings of this thing and just include like a 30-second snippet of like, by the way, this is Nick is an asshole.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_01: Gambling is stupid, and this is what makes Bach somebody we still talk about after 500 years.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, sounds great.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'll do it, no problem.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, of course I will.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna send you the recording personally.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I can listen to all 85 minutes.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: Nope, only third movement, only the third movement.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: I'm only gonna send you the third movement, and I want you to commit to listening to it.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's only a couple minutes.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's only a few minutes, definitely less than five.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I want you to listen to it, but instead of being like, this is garbage, I want you to be like, I know somebody that can play this.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: I can play this.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: I could probably pick it up.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: It would take me a little while to kind of get back into it, but like it's in there.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like, and it's in and it's in F major, but I'm gonna send it to you when we're done recording.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_01: I will be even prouder to know you than I am.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's really nice.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's really nice.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, well, just wrap this up.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_01: Folks, we love podcasting.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_01: We love restoring peace.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: We love you.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_01: We're so glad you're here.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for enduring all of my bullshit.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: And you're welcome.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_01: Squeezing the squeeze.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_01: No, you're you have to, but squeezing the Evelyn's artistic juice from my nasty gasoline-soaked uh revenge fruit.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_01: We love you.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, thank you for listening.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_01: Please like and subscribe and write us a review and recommend us to everybody that you know and be nice to each other.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, forgive the country on the other side of the border.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: Don't possess firearms and take your blouse to a dry cleaner.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_01: And take your fucking blouse to a dry cleaner.