Transcript of Mom's Car: Ryan Hansen

Welcome to Mom's Car. Today, we have an old friend on, friend of the pod, Ryan Hansen, the ever-charming, cute, talented, back-flipping Ryan Hansen, Veronica Mars. Party down, you name it. This guy is as charming as it gets. We love Ryan, and we had a blast. Please enjoy the Cutest of the cute, Ryan Hansen.

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I think you would be the perfect person. I think we should talk about what a euphoric drug popularity is. Oh, yeah, sure. I like that. And I was thinking, you're so popular. When did you start to recognize you were popular? What grade and what was going on? Okay. Well, I wasn't- Are you nervous to talk about it?

I'm just I'm so self-deprecating. I know. Am I what's that popular? You're so humble. It's always so humble.

It's always hurt how humble you are.

To be honest, and I'm going to be honest, I always felt pretty famous. Yeah, yeah, yeah. My dad was a music pastor at all these churches, and we were just known. Everybody knew the pastor's kids. We could do whatever we wanted. That was at church, at least. My brother and I ran the Sunday School Mafia.

Did you abuse your powers at all?

Oh, for sure. We got away with murder.

What falls under the umbrella of murder at that age?

Going through the lost and found and pretty much taking everything. I got all my new baseball gloves through there. Although I think my dad wasn't on that one. We'd be there all day because there's a morning service, and then the later service, we were only in one, but then we just would run around backstage. We'd go in the baptism and take some dips. Wow. Yeah, get in the baptism. We'd run around just wet.

Did you have any... I don't know what the right word is, but my father was so loved in AA. It was the most popular guy in Michigan AA. You know, a trillion friends. They all loved him. And there was some bit of me that was resentful against him. And somehow he didn't love how terrible he was.

Sure, that he loved it. Yes. Oh, that's funny.

And if your dad is being loved because he's a man of the cloth and he's a musician and a pastor. Were you ever judgmental? Like, you're not that good.

I didn't look at it that way. I always liked him on stage, and he's a rock star at church. And And he wasn't the speaking pastor where it was never like-Acting holier than now. Exactly. He was just the music and the orchestras and the big choirs and the plays. And I always got to be in them. And my mom did the children's choir. I really enjoyed life at church. And school was different. No one gave a shit.

I don't know if I just am accidentally running into these people or it's true. I feel like San Diego is pretty darn Christian. Everyone I meet from San Diego is pretty into church for California. At school, do you feel like were going to church or no? Well, more than here.

That's for sure. There's a godless. I mean, none of my kids are going to church here. Devil's Playground here.

Devil's Workshop.

That's where we come to play.

All these idol unemployed hands.

What was the joke? Was it the Emmys with the Golden Globes? God, shout out, zero. Mom's five, Mario Lopez, one. Yeah, Mickey Glazer. Oh, yeah, it was so good. Then I went to three different junior highs. Why? Left San Jose, beginning of sixth grade, started a new junior high in San Diego, and then a new one opened up for eighth grade. Half this school went, and then half was all these other kids.

Did you land on your feet at all these places?

Yeah. I think my brother had a harder time. He moved in eighth grade, so that was harder for him. For me, I was still sixth grade, so it was fine. Had some church friends that were going to these schools, so that helped with friendship and all that stuff. Then I met my crew of dudes in eighth grade. Jeremy Dent, big shout out. Big. Okay, huge. In eighth grade, he introduced me to cigars and shooting BB guns to play boys and go-karts. And I was like, this guy is just the coolest. And him and Matt Rukas were best friends and opened my eyes to all that stuff.

He sounds radical. Was he the most popular kid in your junior high?

Jeremy? Yeah, probably. The funiest, didn't give a shit, always wore weird stuff.

Divorced parents? No. Oh, wow. Good family. Happily married.

Susie and Steve. And Rukas was the guy. Ruth I'm going to kiss his jumping bear cat today. Everyone, let's go. He's jumping his BMX bike doing flips and stuff. He was like that guy.

So I was not cool in elementary school. I was too big, couldn't read, was a bully. And then, similarly, I got enveloped into this Andrew and Trevor group of kids who played soccer. They had pretty good families. Trevor was the most popular kid in my school. We became friends. That was really helpful. I leave elementary school. I hadn't tasted being cool yet. And junior high is my first mega dose.

Well, I remember you guys saying junior high is it, right? Was it eighth grade or seventh grade?

Seventh. Seventh grade. By eighth grade, we're now starting to move in separate directions.

It was a long year.

Wait, what do you mean? You guys did?

Yeah.

What was that? You just hung out with a different crew or what?

Yeah, I started appealing away.

He started huffing gas. Okay. He was huffing gas a lot of the day. We hung out with the burnouts in our school, but he's now hanging out with the dudes that are 17 and hang around the junior high kids. Oh, sure. There's a lot of them in the jail. Or we would go out and there were all these levels I was comfortable with. I would throw apples at cars. I was fine with that. But if we went, we smashed someone's mailbox, I hated it. I was like, let's picture my mom fixing our mailbox. I had all these ethical dilemmas where the bad boys really started getting bad or stealing shit. I didn't want to fucking go to Juvy. These guys are going to end up in Juvy. Is that a fair assessment?

Oh, definitely. He almost looked forward to it, or I did. But I don't know how much of that was.

To the danger, you look forward to the thrill of that or what?

It's like a badge of honor, right?

Sure. I'd smash people's picture windows, of course not knowing what damage that is until I'm older.

Yeah, Stealing cars, stealing anything. They still... You didn't, but Billy did. There was one... So there's one kid at the epicenter. You've heard us talk about our redhead thing. Aaron and I are obsessed with how of redheads. I don't know how scared we are of them. A lot of this is based on this one kid Billy. We'll leave his last name out of it. We've last... And a movie we would want on Earth. Oh, God. Still. I'm sure he's still tough.

Is he a redhead fella?

I'd be a sitting duck in Michigan, probably.

Billy comes knocking.

Yes. He was a red-headed fella, and he was also known to cry while he fought, but he always won. And he at one point fought another red-head kid at my old junior high, and it was the scariest fight I ever saw. They were both bawling and both bloody, and neither would quit. And I justOh, my God. I remember thinking, Man, I don't want to fight either of these guys ever. But he and Billy became real close. Billy had already stole a very valuable coin collection and drove a van and got caught in another state. They stole four-wheelers, but at one point, he stole a horse.

Some million dollar racer.

Oh, a horse? Which I'm sure he was told. Rest assured there's no million dollar racer in Michigan. That's the story, yeah. But everyone thinks everyone's so rich.

Oh, my gosh.

Because you're a 14-year-old boy a horse away.

He rode it like that on a Florida.

That sounds fucking awesome. Oh, my God.

He was like, You got to keep the horse now? How do you fence the horse? Are you going to find that's going to buy the horse?

She's pretty tough to hide your ride water. How do you ride the horse?

How do you ride it, Fairbeck?

Clean it. Clean up the shit. Oh, God.

I imagine he just put it in a field or something and hope no one saw it.

I went through a little bit of a stealing phase. Nothing like horses or ATVs or whatever. But I got my CD me book stolen out of my car. The mixed CDs. You work so hard for your collection, and I was so fucking pissed. So we would just walk around Cottonwood, the neighborhood, and just check. We would never break anything, but if it was open, it's gone. We'd go in your garages, take some shit.

Funny you'd say that that's where it started is car hopping. You guys would call it car hopping. They would meet before school to car hop. My thing was like, we'd hang out at the movie theater and I'd go in and steal a car to cigarettes. I'd steal from a store. It's just weird. You have levels, you're fine.

Yeah, you don't care if you're stealing from the man.

We're in a company, SMP. So the guys who started that or co-founded or whatever would have a sale up front of their house every year. And they set up shop that night before and I drove by my home. I'm like, Boys, it's all out there. We took my buddy Jeremy's VW bus and my mom's Explorer. Fucking went and I loaded it up. We did a couple of trips. Oh, jeez. The next morning, my dad's trying on clothes. Like, This is great. Where'd you go? Our friend's whatever. And then my buddies went the next day because they didn't get the box of board shorts they wanted. And they saw them and they caught. So the cops came and they scared us and they didn't press charges.

Did you feel guilty, too?

Yeah, because they're like, This is our family's business. This is how I feed them. All the kids are there and stuff. It's just like, Sorry. And they had the coolest surf shop in San Diego or in East County.

I feel bad. Yeah, that stuff.

I did feel guilty, too. I wish I would not went that route. I think I was too upset with with my home life that I couldn't emotionally figure out how to keep having fun like we were having without everything piling up. That's the reason I started huffing gas and trying to escape because I thought people doing that didn't feel guilt at all, and I was jealous of that. Oh, we got one. Oh, that is a big... One on the hook, really. That's going to be the last one, too.

Do you relate to this, Aaron? I did bad things, but part of it was I've now realized that I'm older. I'm like, how do I justify the stuff I did? And I think I felt because life was already unjust. It wasn't fair. So I was entitled to make it fair. And I would imagine from you in particular, you didn't have anything. And there's also this sense of like, this is bullshit. All these other people have all this stuff. And why wouldn't I have it? And this other kid I go to school have it. There's some sense of injustice that I use to justify what I was greedy and did bad things. Absolutely. But then it doesn't really work.

Right at Oh, there it is. Yeah. Then you find out karma is a real thing.

Also, my dad, he gave me very few life tips, but one was what goes around comes around. He's like, Do you steal? Shit, it'll get stolen from you. And I remember that being an actual motivator for me to not.

I remember you asked me in junior high if I would feel bad if I killed a deer because everyone hunted and killed deer. And I remember saying to you, No, I could do that. I could kill a deer. And I remember thinking in my head, You're the biggest liar in the world. I would never kill a fucking deer.

Sweet deer. Oh, my God.

For a fucking baby deer. Sitting there, having a fun day.

That was me trying to make myself tougher than I was. So we're going for some ramen now. There's a double. Oh, we got a double?

Yeah. Oh, my double.

Look at that. Sorry, I was just thinking in the two seconds I was gone. So it went from your popularity at the didn't translate at first in school, but then it did.

I would say in high school, it did. In sixth grade, new to that school in San Diego, I got with this group of dudes who were the cool guys, and I'll never forget the weird kid, Evan parent. We love you, Evan. You were a little weird. We love Evan. The bear fucker? I made up for it in high school, but we chased him and throwing punches. He wasn't even fighting back, but I was just like, Oh, this is what we're doing. And I still feel guilty about it. He left He left school that day. He ran home. And then once we got to high school, I got to stick up for him a few times, which was great. But he was always so cool. And just in sixth grade, he was just a little different. And I was doing that to fit in because I was new. I'm like, Oh, this is what the cool guys are doing. Okay, we're chasing this guy.

It's really hard to get through teenage boy adolescents without doing some real regrettable.

Oh, it's so regrettable. He's so smart. I'm sure he runs some company now.

Hopefully he's a billionaire. But Aaron, did you have waves of cool in elementary school?

Yes, I did. Like the church, our neighborhood was a place where I felt safe. Actually, no, wait, I take that back.

Yeah, that's not the word I would use. That's not the word. Rolling.

Not safe. Actually, it was the opposite of safe. What am I talking about?

Sorry, did I say safe?

That was very unsafe. What's wrong with me? I was able to be comfortable with just maybe a small group of kids kids, and we thought we were cool, but then it didn't translate into school until fifth grade when I met Kevin Quinn. That's why Dax came and looked me up when he got to my school.

You knew Kevin?

I was best friends with Kevin in sixth grade. I had moved. Started junior high, so a new influx of kids. And then there was another skateboarder who liked to fight, who had a crazy mom, and we got along great.

Yeah, trailer park kid. I was best friends with him in fifth grade. Right. Dex didn't go to the school we went elementary. He was so cool and made me feel so cool. And I like to fight kids behind the wall or whatever the fuck was going on at school. Then, funny enough, the following year, I moved to a new school. I'm just fucking terrified and don't know anyone. And I'm like, very out of sorts. And like, you know what? I give up. I can't even take it anymore. And that's when Dax found me. I was like, How did this happen?

That is crazy.

Year to year, it was different.

I took over from where Kevin left. Yeah.

And all of a sudden Dax was like, I'm like, this kid is the coolest person I've ever seen in my life. Even cooler than Kevin.

No, no one is cooler than Kevin.

I've done a few road trips, and I drive, but you guys, times a thousand. The body starts to hurt, though, when you sit so long like that. Or do you just get used to it?

Mine gets more and more comfortable.

You got to just so deep in that.

The longer you go.

I I don't know if there's anything I was more built to do in life than drive for a really long time. It seems to be the only thing I can do in a one percentile. Yeah. I can just go and go and go forever.

It's so funny. I got to get out and do a backflip every couple of hours.

Yeah, Famously, Aaron went to sleep in Salt Lake City, Utah, in the middle of a blizzard, and he woke up in Michigan.

Like 30 hours later.

No way.

And I was just driving the Mustang in like six inches of snow.

I was so tired when I woke up, too.

You were like, oh, good. We're almost home. I'm crawling to bed. Was it assisted sleeping or was it just straight? No, old fashioned sleeping. Old fashioned sleeping. That was maybe in the only six months we drank normally, if you could I don't think it was ever normal. What's normal?

Is that after five o'clock?

Yeah, we were off slow. Just not shit-face. No, that's what I'm saying. We started off really going hard, but maybe the frequency wasn't. And it wasn't like, oh, that's required to have any other fun. Step one is get beer. Whenever that happens, you forget that you can have fun without it. Yeah. So it was in that six months before we-Yeah, I was going to say that happened fast.

Yeah. This is so good.

Yes, it's so much more fun.

When did you guys first get drunk? How old?

Together?

This was another one of our issues by eighth grade. Eighth grade? Is that I didn't... Oh, I see. I wasn't ever going to drink because my dad was an alcoholic. That was my plan. And Aaron Aaron was drinking and then starting to do drugs.

That started the separation.

Yeah, that was towards the end of eighth grade.

So Aaron was in eighth grade? Yeah, it was eighth grade. I guess mine was ninth grade. Las Vegas. In Vegas? In Vegas.

Wait, how did that happen? You must have been with your family.

I went to Thanksgiving with my buddy, Brett Hiltcher's family, which was a big deal. My parents did not want me to go. I'm like, I have to go. And then they had a hotel room, and the mom was out. They were gambling and they had liquor in the room. We took it out on the strip, and we were drinking. We were in the valley's fountains, and we were having a blast.

Those early ones are about as... I almost texted you two nights ago. I bet once a month, I just think back at the time we went to opening day and drank those Colt 45 64oz Jogs. Oh, those 64oz. And we got a few of them. I still remember that as being one of the greatest buzzes of my whole life.

Me, too. I told that story so many times, and I don't even know what the story... I mean, yeah, I do know what the story is, but I don't know how much was true at this point. Sure.

That That was the day we had bought Dan Severin or who we thought was Dan Severin. But that wasn't even the most memorable. Just sitting in the parking lot. No, it was the fear.

It's hard to explain that. And most people, when I start that story, when I say 64 ounces, they're like, You mean 40s? I'm like, No, 64s.

Yeah, they were jugs.

They had a tiny little glass handle on them.

But Ryan, so in junior high, does it start then and it rolls through?

Yeah, so eighth grade, me and a couple of dudes hit our growth spurts. We're going to 6 feet tall. Okay. We're going to go ahead and stick with that.

We're going to stick with it. Same as me.

Yeah.

We were big. Like you, I would be the one guy on the dance floor at the dances, all the other guys just like, and I'd be dancing out there. And so freshman year, I ran for President because that's what you do. And I got to be President of the freshman class.

Nice.

My buddy, Jeremy, his sister and her friends were juniors, and they were so cool and beautiful. And so they got us in to the My freshman year, though, I became best friends with my brother-in-law now, Jason, and he was a senior. And he didn't have many friends, but we became best friends.

Yeah, because he was super artsy.

Musical theater. He introduced me to all that stuff, which was awesome. It changed my life, really. But I left my friends a little bit because we would hang out so much. I mean, he could drive, we would go places.

You did your friends for Jason?

A little bit, yeah. Well, at least they felt that way, and I did. Yeah, sure. So when he graduated, my friend was like, Oh, you're coming back to hang. When we started football again, I'm like, I'm back.

And they made it hard on you for two days.

For maybe a day. Then we were back. I was silly and outgoing, and I was in the ensemble, which is like dancing choir. But I also played football, and I was also in student body, but my grades were terrible. So by my senior year, I got kicked out of everything.

Okay, but you were also cheerleading, but you called it something else.

It was an all-star squad. Okay. So it's like club cheer. You don't cheer for a football team. You just cheer for yourselves, I guess.

You can pee, you throw someone in the air.

But that was just my senior year. So I would do football and cheer.

And you were the captain of both?

There was four captains on the team. I was one of the captains.

That's amazing. That's a fucking amazing. I, in retrospect, like mine, which was not popular in elementary school, so popular in junior high. I loved it. What about high school? I love being popular. Yeah, sure.

God, I loved it. I got away with murder.

It's just everyone was excited to see you.

Everyone wanted to see what you're What are you going to do next?

It was so fun. And I was thinking because my daughter went to a party with other kids her age. I was just remembering that this is when... This is so gross to say, but the legend of Aaron and I started was going to this girl Brandy's birthday party. This is when it all started. And we were there, and we just were always so comfortable with each other. So we were spitting our hot dogs in each other's mouth, and the girls were like, Oh, my You guys were so gross, but they loved it. Then maybe we kissed even in front of them. Just all this stuff you weren't supposed to do as a boy.

Oh, that's the best.

And those parties were really what started the whole thing. I was just picturing my daughter. I know. Isn't it a trip? Live to the house, and I'm like, She could return a completely different person. If she comes unpopular, we're on a totally different trajectory now.

That is for sure, dude. It's a trip because my girls are just a tiny bit older than yours. I told you, I picked them up, my oldest from a high school party the other day, and it's just a trip, man. I mean, there's no booze, I don't think.

That we know of. That we know of. All right, what one am I taking, Aaron? Oh, sorry. What food item? Michelle.

Yeah. My bad, yeah. The other one is not Michelle. Not even close. Oh, yeah. I guess I wanted. I just wanted to see.

I just wanted to get these sushi out of the car.

Yeah, that's a stinky fish out of my face.

I got to know, did you interact with the person?

Or did you just drop it? No, that was leave at door. Pretty much everyone's leave at door. Okay, because we're telling on ourselves for a bad deed. So I want to go back to my transition from bully to being friends with the popular kids. There was an exact moment, which is I would go out to the playground with my friend Clay, and he was the other tough kid in my class. He was a redhead. He and I had a gnarly fight one time when I was staying at his house. My mom was out of town. I missed her, and we fought, and he scratched my nose up so bad. I had scabs all over my nose. He had me scratch. He was wild. He was feral. No rules. No rules. But at any rate, we would go out to the playground for recess, and we would just start wrestling kids. And we played this game top of the mountain, and we had to throw each other down. That's all we did. I was like a mid-level bully in that. I felt fine about getting kids in headlocks, throwing them on the ground. And I also felt fine about punching kids in the stomach.

But I never punched anyone in the face. And everyone wanted to wrestle. They probably didn't want to, but they had to.

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All to say, there was this boy when I first moved to Highland, to my neighborhood, and I was brand new there, I didn't know anyone, and he was the first to ride his bike up to my yard and ask if I wanted to come over. So I went to his house, and he was very sweet, but he had a coin collection, and he I had a wallpaper of old cars on his wall. Not cool cars, but old-timey cars. He loved old trains and coin collections, and he talked about his grandpa all the time. He's such a cute man. And he was enormous, too. He was like a big boy like me. Anyways, I had been friendly with him when I first moved there. And then I definitely outgrew him really quick, which is sad, and I felt guilty about it. But somehow he wanted to get in the mix. I'll never forget. I punched him in the stomach in the parking lot of Spring Mills. Parking lot. For some reason, once in a while, you'd have recess in the parking lot because it was too muddy or some shit. I don't know why we were in the parking lot, but I punched him in the stomach and it knocked the wind out of him.

Oh, that's a terrible feeling. And he got really, really scared, and he fell down, and he was crying. And I felt so fucking bad. And then I told Clay, I don't want to fight at recess anymore. I don't think anyone likes us. I think they're just scared of us. And he was like, Yeah, go on your way. I'm going to stick with this. And God bless him. He stuck with it. And then I had to go get this other group of friends, which I'm glad I did. But I was driven there by feeling really terrible.

Well, good for you. I like that story.

I did, too. I love the ending.

I can see him so clearly laying on the asphalt. It was right by a manhole cover, crying and scared that he had just been killed. You know the first time he gets the wind? You think you're dying?

You're never going to breathe again.

You're dead.

You're like, grounding.

This boy just killed me at school.

I bet those coins flashed before his eyes. That's grandpa.

Okay, so I was saying, though, that I do like my trajectory, which is not popular at all, then super popular in junior high. But then when I moved to a whole new school district to move in with my dad in ninth grade, started high school in a place I didn't know anyone. And I had two really brutal years. I had a terrible haircut. I had acne. I got super skinny and tall. I didn't have the right clothes. I did spend two years just thinking, well, that was my only taste of it. And And then when it came back to me around 11th grade, I was so grateful to be back. Oh, yeah. I thought it wasn't ever going to happen again. And then slowly, it started working again, never in the same way it did junior high, but definitely by senior year, I was one of the cooler kids of my school.

Did you guys have senior superlatives?

Is that what it's called? Yeah. We did in junior high, too. We call them mock elections, and we were super into them then. And I think I did get class on, but I never got my yearbook. That's how much I didn't like You never got your yearbook?

Those are so fun.

I never got a yearbook in high school. Only our junior high ones, which we look at, honestly. Yeah.

My girls look through my high school one. They read everything. I'm like, Don't read the stuff.

But that's your sweet spot, right? Is high school the apex? Probably. I think so, yeah. Yeah, let's just say that the family you married into, the whole gang is in love with you, right? You start by going on a date with your now wife's older sister, your best friend's with the oldest brother, and then you start dating Amy.

Yeah. I I guess I was pretty popular in high school, but also-The most popular?

No. Are you sure?

Yeah. Come on. I was a jokester, so I think some people probably thought I was a jerk. Okay, sure. I'm going to be honest about that, but I think it was just joking. Sure.

Good old thing. Good nature joking around. But I can't take a joke.

But I think for the most part, I was okay.

Because you're a very sweet boy, but sometimes rascally. Yeah, a little bit of a rasc.

He pushed the boundaries for sure. I was in ASB, which is Associated Student Body, just so I could the off-campus pass, which was everything. So you could write yourself a pass to go get whatever supplies for the dance, but really go get burritos for everyone. Oh, wow. That was the best.

What a blessing. Did you have a car in high school?

Yeah. Bronco, too.

That's a great car for you in high school.

It was pretty cute. My brother and I shared it for a while, and then he got a little truck, and then I had the Bronco, too. After that, I think my dad's old Honda Accord, which I had for a few years.

And how were you juggling being deeply Christian, but also knowing that you were crazy about all these girls and that that was going to be challenging I guess what I'm asking is, were you riddled with shame a lot of the time that you felt this way towards girls and stuff?

Yeah, there was some shame for sure, but also at that time, I was just away from it, and then found it again, my own faith once I got out of high school and really started dating Amy. Well, I dated her in high school.

Once it wasn't mandatory. Right.

So, yeah, I would definitely struggle with that. And there was a lot of shame around sex and masturbation and all that.

How about even being really popular? Is that cool or is there any issue there?

As far as my faith in being popular?

Well, just like, I don't know, it's not very humble to enjoy attention.

No, that's not.

That's all good. Oh, yeah. Okay, great. You didn't have any...

No, I don't think there's any...

Yeah, you can shine as bright as you want.

Yeah, I think so. Yeah, I'm with it. Bring more folks in.

Obviously.

That works. I brought so many kids one time to high school youth group because the more people you bring, the more tickets you get in the raffle. And I won because I brought so many kids. Okay. A BMW 2002. Wait, what? It was junky. My dad didn't know what to do with it. I didn't know drive stick. We all learned how to drive stick on our neighborhood. I want that car. My dad sold it for $200. He just got rid of it. I didn't even know. I was so mad at him. I know. I think it was 15. We didn't have our license yet, but I want a car.

You want a car?

But it was a piece of junk.

How many kids had you brought?

I probably brought 15 kids.

How many stuck around?

Did you reach? None of them. None of them?

Not your problem.

You did your best. You did my job.

You don't got to close the deal.

You're just bringing them in. I'm going to drill in my crown.

11th grade, too. That was so happy to run into you again.

Yeah. Was it Padab? No. Or just, I heard you were in Padilla.

Yeah, it was the Palmer drug abuse program. Oh, God. It was an outpatient. It was like an AA for kids. Yeah, for kids. Pretty much. Oh, wow.

Yeah. Is that nationwide or is that like a local thing?

No, it was local.

Okay.

As far as I know.

I think it was nationwide. Where did they had an expert on that was talking about Palmer?

How the hell do I know? I was local.

But I was always... A, my dad made me go to AA meetings while he lived That was the only rule I had. And in fact, I didn't have to go to AA. He wanted me to go to Al-Anon. But when I went to Al-Anon, I didn't really relate to anything they were saying. But when I was around alcohol, I'm like, Oh, I relate to these people. So I just would go to those meetings. And I didn't drink, and everyone drank. So I found myself at Palmer at one point, I guess in ninth grade. So I had been there before Aaron had. And then Aaron was there for legitimate reasons.

I had a court order to be there. Oh, wow.

And then somehow, I think through that, we started hanging out.

Yeah, we saw each other, I think, at Country Boy Restaurant, and it had been a long, long time.

Yeah.

Which seems like decades when you're that age. And then it was slowly off to the races again.

Yes. From 11th grade on.

Same high school? No. Different high schools?

No, we had different high schools.

Were they rival high schools? No.

Tell me your high school experience.

Well, I was expelled from high school in 10th grade.

We got to add, too. This is the heartbreaking thing for me on the outside was that Aaron was such an insanely good baseball player. And the only upside of him going high school was going to be like, oh, he was finally going to get to play in high school, which would then lead to everything else. And then, yeah, I think I heard through the great find that Aaron was done with traditional high school in 10th grade.

I'm going to take a nontraditional route.

To the majors. To the majors. He's not getting include Duck Lake High. So, yeah, how long were you kicked out before you found out about Duck Lake? What was it called?

It was called Duck Lake then. Duck Lake?

I don't know.

It was an alternative education.

It was called Chaparral. Chaparral. The gnarly kids went there.

And this one was in a really tiny, déserted elementary school. So it was like the gym was really small. Oh my God.

Everything was small. The seats were tiny.

And all the guys there were in their 30s.

Totally.

All the guys were big drinkers.

They all smoked cigarettes in class.

Oh, yeah, we could smoke there. No way. That was fun. Oh my God.

There were guys who had plumbing vans in the driveway. He was like, tradesmen were going to school with Aaron. My God.

I took next. Never believed any of the stories I told him. I was like, I don't believe it. I was like, yeah, this one guy is 22, and he's got cowboy boots. That's a family. He's a real good volleyball player. We would go in the baby gym and play volleyball.

This school was really just an assemblage of all the toughest kids from all of the districts. It's the scariest place you could possibly go.

The teachers were bodybuilders because they had to fucking try to keep everyone in line.

Wasn't for the fun part.

Did it ever get tricky? Was there crazy fights? Because there were crazy fights.

Yeah, there was. Yeah, there was crazy fights. I brought Dax to school one day to check it out.

You know what's funny is you could do a guest pass for a school, but I think generally they gave those out because someone would be thinking about going to that school. Is this Charlie's old gym?

This is Magnus. Charlie's gym is right there. This is that Porsche guy right here.

Oh, boy, what if I was delivering to him? I'm pretty sure it's that one. He's right there.

He's waiting.

Three guys delivering the food.

Three men with cameras.

Can't be too safe nowadays.

Hi, man. But Aaron used to get of that school early. Of course, they couldn't expect those kids to be in school more than six hours or whatever.

No, it was, I think 8: 00 to 11: 30 or something. It was a half of what a normal day would be.

So nice. Yeah, just long enough to have four or five cigarettes. You can get drinking and get to the job site.

Could you smoke in class or was it like a smokebreaker?

Yeah, there was a smoking room.

A smoking room.

I was hitting those darts on the set this last month, and Charles, it was so fun.

Because your character is smoking?

No, one of the guys in it always have it. I'm like, Let me have one of those. It was so nice.

They're so lucky. It was so fun. You have such a loose grip with addictive stuff.

I didn't buy a vape this trip, which was a big deal for me because I think I'd be on that for a month after.

Smop cigarettes instead?

Yeah. I don't like it.

Those are easier to put down than to vape.

Well, because they smell so bad.

You can vape anywhere. Yeah, you can get away. Also, if you come in the house and you've had some dards, your kids are going toOh, yeah. And your kids are on high alert for all things.

Especially one of them.

It's really funny that you spend the first third of your life hiding everything from your parents, and then the next, you spend a third hiding your life from your kids.

Totally. I mean, my dad, we grew up, there's zero alcohol in the house. He was a man of the cloth, so you couldn't drink. But I remember one time, Hey, Jack, he was doing yard work on a Saturday. Can I sip some of your Mountain Dew in this styrofoam cup? He's like, No, you can't have that. So he goes out and does the weeds, and I take a sip. I'm like, This is disgusting. It was definitely like a little white wine or something.

So he was having a little on the side.

Good for him. He was snaking it.

Good for Brad. He deserved it.

You know what? This should tie into this. He might have to edit it out, but maybe not. I wrote this just for Ryan. Did you know where the vagina was the first time you were with a girl? Great question. My first time, I thought she only had a butt.

Oh, my God.

Let me hear your first time, Aaron.

Elementary school. This was first time doing the anatomy. So this was Melissa. I dug this hole in my yard. I turned it into what I thought was going to be my fort, but it was just a hole that took way too long to dig, weeks. And I would cover it up with sticks and stuff, so no one knew about it. I I found this deck of cards and some magazines that I put on the dirt inside there.

Decoration?

Yeah. So it was naked girls on the cards, which it was just huge bushes, which, of course, didn't help at all trying to find the vagina.

So we're in the bush. Yeah.

And then when they don't have a bush, which this girl did not because we're children. So we were like, kissing.

We're in a garage or in the four?

No, in the hole.

In the hole. That's in the hole as far? Yeah. That's what the hole is for? Yeah. It's to entertain.

So we got naked.

Oh, my God. What grade is this?

Probably like, fourth.

Fourth grade? Yeah. I'm naked in a dirt hole.

Oh, my God. I never told you this.

No, I do not in the dirt hole.

So we're in the hole. There was nothing going on. No one was horny. No one was.

You're just committed to doing it.

Yeah. She was touching my tiny ball becker. I feel like I'm going to go to jail for talking about my money area.

But I was eight or whatever. It's hard to know who the victim is in this story, really.

Anyway, I was looking for the vagina, and I was like, So her belly button. I'm like, well, that's not it. Sure. Then I was like, or is it? So I was rubbing her stomach. Yeah, I was like, I guess this is it. You gave up. Yeah. Because I thought, Well, the only thing left is her butt.

I'm so happy it ended there. This is wonderful.

That was my exact experience, too. But I was newly at Muir, sixth grade in this really popular seventh grader liked me. I guess we were going together and we went to the Milford Cinema, and then afterwards, you'd go to Deanna's and hang out. And she's like, let's go behind the garage. And so we're behind the garage. And I had bent up someone's shirt at that point, and I made out a lot, but that was it. And then in the middle of it, she said, I love getting fingers. Once again, this is where we grew up. I've yet to meet a girl this aggressively sexual sense. And I met a few of them at that period, Erin as well. I'm like, all right, she wants me to do that? No problem. And I put my hand her pants. And I was going down and down, and I'm like, Okay, this is where my penis would be. There's hair. And then, yes, starting to panic and going, Well, the next thing would be her butt hole. She doesn't have a vagina. Where the fuck is it? Why isn't it right there? And I'm pushing probably on her mom's pubis, a ton, looking for the penis.

And then she goes, Have you never done this before? I just panicked and pot committed. I just slam my head deeper in there. Am I going to fucking touch her butt hole? And that's going to be that. And then I found it.

Oh my gosh.

Yeah, it was like nine inches lower than I was expecting. Totally.

Oh my gosh.

I thought the first three girls I was with only had butts.

We started asking girls before, Well, do you have a vagina? Because my last few of them- She has a butt. I came to masturbation in the weirdest way. It's back at the original junior high, sixth grade, and I'm with this dirt bag who I rarely hung out with, but we're walking down the road for hours, and I don't know why he says randomly like, Yeah, all those underwear models are gay. He doesn't say that, but worse. They all have Vaseline stains on their underwear from whacking off. This is a sentence I hear, right? And I'm like, I don't really think a ton of it then other than, Oh, it's gay. It's gay and underwear model, whatever. And then maybe three weeks later, I'm at my dad's house on the weekend, and I'm like, rifling through his dresser like I did every time I visited. As soon as he went to the bar, I was like, check out everything he had. And I just found this fucking enormous jug of Vaseline. I could hear him in my head saying, The gay's days is jacking off. And then I was like, I just rub it on your teeth.

And I remember sitting on my dad's bed with a fucking huge jar of thick Vaseline and rubbing it. And it is confusing. It doesn't feel like anything. And then all of a sudden it starts feeling insane. Sure. And I think I'm losing my sight, maybe. And I stop midway. I panic. And then I put the Vaseline away and everything. Over the next week, I kept thinking, Wait, was that actually about to feel great? I started questioning whether or not. And I was like, Next time I'm in my dad's, I'm going to pursue that again. And sure enough, he went to the bar and I ran upstairs and counted all of his money and then got the Vazlun hat and then saw it through. And then you're just completely off to the races. It just doesn't stop.

Then all your underwear is stained.

Yeah, it's one of those gay models.

He's gorgeous gay models.

And then what's so weird is there was no religion in my house, really, to speak of, but I felt so guilty. I was constantly trying to quit. I remember If I used my mom's lotion, I felt perverted. You're right. It's like if I went and got some of her intensive care.

Sure, it most feels like your mom.

Vaseline Intensive Care. Oh, my God, I'm going to hell. I use my mother's sweet, wholesome lotion for this.

Yeah, I think I always pretty much felt guilty after it for sure.

Do you remember when you started, Aaron?

Well, unwillingly took part in some of that nonsense. Right around that same time, I was digging the hole and all that. It came back to bite me with that very safe neighborhood I was in. Yeah, so safe. Yeah. So I was being taught that unwillingly.

Yeah, buying an older grocery.

Yeah. But the first time... This was Probably, sure, sixth grade.

I still remember my very first sexual feeling, but it wasn't for humans. I was in fifth grade and I was asleep, and I woke up with a boner, which I think was the first time I remember doing that. And in my dream, I had been humping this rock that was on my way to school. That was on the rock that I saw all the time. Sexy ass rock. Yeah, I had a sex dream about this rock. Oh, my God. And And for the next year that I walked to school, before I came to school, I'd always look at that rock on the corner and just be waiting for some spark to hit me and then wanting to pump it, but knowing you can't possibly do that at eight in the morning.

Oh my God.

But I do. I always just lock eyes with this rock every day. And I just didn't know what that feeling was. Just I feel the urge to grind on that rock.

Did you ever grind on the rock? I didn't.

Was it too big to take home?

Oh, my God. It was a boulder. It was like someone had it as landscape art.

Of course. Why am I thinking it's this big?

Oh, my God. That is so funny, dude. What a dream. It's actually a boulder.

Those early things, they led to one of the craziest stories I have, which is around that time also, I'm watching the movie Real genius with Val Kilmer. And at one point, he's making fun of the nerd in the school that they hate. His name's Clark, maybe, or something. No, it's Kent. And he's like, Kent, what were you doing when we found you naked with that bowl of Jello? And I just remember hearing that and thinking like, oh, yeah, that would feel really good, wouldn't it? I was just introduced to that notion From that movie. It was just floating around in my head for, I guess, eight years. And then I moved to Santa Monica. I'm 21, and I'm at Save-On store, and I see that there's five boxes of Jell-O for a And I'm like, Oh, it's fucking perfect. I live by myself. I've always been thinking about it, and I'm going to love it. So I'm going to buy five boxes, which I did. And then I came home and I made the Jell-O, and I thought it was just Jell-O immediately because I had never made it. So I hate Jell-O. Got to let it set.

So I'm just waiting. I'm sitting in my Lazy Boy while it's cooling in the fridge, and I'm so horny. I feel like I could maybe spray before I even...

Oh my God. Yeah.

So I got it out early, but it had taken enough shape, and it was in a pint glass, and I put my dick in it, and it just immediately turned to Kool-Aid. It was such a waste of everything. I was probably a couple hours into this fantasy by the time I stick it in there. I'm standing in my kitchen because you can't really lay down and fuck the Jell-up because it would just pour on you. So I'm trying to fuck it in my kitchen. It's just red dye spilling over the floor. I'm totally bummed with the whole thing. I throw it in the sink, I'm jerking off traditional style. Then the next morning I wake up and I go pee and I have a rash on my dick. But because I'm 21, I'm always convinced I have an STD. So I'm like, Oh, the die stuck to an STD that I didn't know I had.

And it's a rash. It's a rash, it's not the die.

I just... I don't know what it is. I decide I have a rash. No, I think it is a rash. I don't know. I have an STD. I know that because it just showed me. And so I have no insurance or anything. So I look up in the phone book, LA Free Clinic, and I go, and I know you already know the end of the story, but I go in there and I'm so embarrassed. I don't know really how I'm going to explain the Jello part of this. And then I decided I'm going to act like me and my girlfriend were experimenting. Totally.

That's the move.

So I check in and then I'm behind a sheet and this doctor comes in. She's maybe three years older than me. She's so young and she's so pretty. And I'm like, oh, my God. And she's like, so what's going on? And I go, well, I think I might have something. My girlfriend and I were experimenting with Jello and oral sex. And she's like, not even laugh, but she likes the side up to this. And then she goes, okay, well, let's see what we got going on. Your pants down. And she gets now down, and she's down at my crotch, and she looks up at me and she goes, What flavor was it? And I go, Strawberry. And she goes, Razberry is my favorite Oh, my God.

This is the beginning of a plot.

I got 100% erect. I'm 21. It's like a two by four, dead hard, right in of her face.

Oh, my God. And she looks and she pushes it to the side and this side, and she goes, Yeah, this is nothing.

You're just a little irritated from the die, but you don't have it. You're a little worked up.

Oh, my God, dude. Did you apologize when you got-I didn't know what to do. What do you do? You just stand there.

And then I'm telling myself, too, why would she have said that other than she is flirting with me? I don't know. My favorite's rasberries.

I think I've seen that porno.

Now, the funny and punchline to that story is a year and a half later, I meet Bri, fall in love. Bri moves in, and probably 10 times she offers after dinner, You want me to make some of that Jell-O? Because it's just four boxes are sitting in there. And I said no a bunch of times. And then she goes, You never want this Jell-O. Why do you even have it? And I go, I hate Jell-O, okay? I don't like Jell-O. I bought it because I wanted to fuck it because of this movie. And I just came clean. And then she was laughing so hard.

That was so good.

That was basically a sex doll in the coverage.

Oh, my God.

Well, Ryan, I love you.

I love you guys. That was so nice.

It's just nice to drive around in a Jeep.

Did we record anything?

Who cares? Who cares? Who cares this shit?