HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
BEN KISSEL
Hey, what's up everyone? How are you doing?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes!
BEN KISSEL
Welcome to the Last Podcast on the Left. Ben hanging out with Henry and Marcus. Today is a special day, we're doing fan Q&A! So we're so excited to read some of your questions.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Fuck you.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
How fucking dare you? No, no, I am excited.
MARCUS PARKS
I'm very excited.
BEN KISSEL
Yes indeed.
MARCUS PARKS
These are great questions.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They really are.
MARCUS PARKS
Thank you very much to everyone who submitted questions of course.
BEN KISSEL
Not everyone.
MARCUS PARKS
Okay, not everyone.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Thank you to everyone who submitted kind-
BEN KISSEL
Good questions.
MARCUS PARKS
Kind and good questions.
BEN KISSEL
Well have you ever thought if teeth were in your butthole, would you guys put the mic on your assholes?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You know what? That's a fair question.
BEN KISSEL
That is a fair answer.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The answer is yes.
MARCUS PARKS
I would say no because my tongue would need to be in my asshole for it to speak. If I had teeth in my asshole, that really wouldn't do much for speaking.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And every time you farted, it'd just be like (teeth chattering).
BEN KISSEL
If you had teeth and a tongue in your asshole, if you brush your teeth, do you feel like they would actually get clean?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And now that you answered it, let me point out about how factually you're wrong about the answer that you gave even though it was a joke answer.
BEN KISSEL
All right.
MARCUS PARKS
Did you pronounce teeth correctly?
BEN KISSEL
Matt wrote in, "How often do you tell each other I love you?"
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh you went straight for that one.
BEN KISSEL
Yes. Because I feel like we need to set the mood with a little bit of... Marcus, I love you.
MARCUS PARKS
I love you.
BEN KISSEL
Henry, I love you.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I love you.
BEN KISSEL
I love you. Thank you. So that was once.
MARCUS PARKS
And I love you, Henry.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I love you.
BEN KISSEL
But no, truly our friend group, because we are all capable of murder, we do like to say just so you remember, I love you! and then you follow it up with and now we have to go to Indianapolis.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And now! Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. We actually do all tell each other that we love each other multiple times a week.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We do.
BEN KISSEL
Well we do love each other. We love each other very much, that is a fact.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That is true.
BEN KISSEL
And I say that uh when I do my Q&As for Hail Yourself, one of the most important things you can do is surround yourself with people that you truly respect and that you are inspired by and that enjoy your work and don't put you down and build you up.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I agree.
BEN KISSEL
So yes, I love you. Ain't nothing wrong with saying that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But that is true. We really especially because a lot of the people we work with, Murderfist I've known now for more than half my life.
BEN KISSEL
Yes. 23 years.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah, we've all known each other probably about 15 years.
MARCUS PARKS
Yep.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And we are closer, we are more like family than we are like friends. But not Rob, don't worry, I'm not saying that this is a family.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because t's difficult because it's weird when the boss is like you're like my little cousin, you come sit on my knee.
BEN KISSEL
It's a company.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, we never tell our employees that we're like a family here.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Do we tell our employees we love them?
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, sometimes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I think that's actually a better question and so Rob, I love you.
BEN KISSEL
I like the L word.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
See some people, I also understand because I feel like perhaps because I do say it so much, has it lost meaning? No but it has lost meaning in the sense of like if I say I love you to somebody and someone who never says I love you when they say I love you, I think it carries like a lot of weight.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Sure, sure, sure.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
So I will say from that perspective, maybe it's not like, you know, I don't say it just like once in a life, I say it all the time.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
But I also mean it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Me too.
BEN KISSEL
It doesn't mean I want to get blown by you.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because it would be horrible.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Rob, I enjoy you.
BEN KISSEL
There you go.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Boundaries.
MARCUS PARKS
I'm not gonna say I love you because we don't know each other that well. But I enjoy you.
BEN KISSEL
But he will. He's working up to it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Boundaries.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
All right. So there you go.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But no, it's important to tell your friends that you love them because you never know when one of them is just going to randomly die.
BEN KISSEL
You really don't, you really don't.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You really, really don't.
BEN KISSEL
Although you can assume that it will be a while. That's why in war torn countries, I forget the term but Seena Ghaznavi from Fraudsters was telling me in Iran they have a saying which basically means I'll see you if you don't die.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Cool!
BEN KISSEL
Like that's their goodbye is always like if I don't see you again, goodbye forever.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Wow. That's very heavy.
BEN KISSEL
But that happens in war torn places or places that are going through extreme strife.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Every bowling like meet up like super intense.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. At the end of it it's just like if I don't see you again, if you're blown to pieces, okay, see you in the afterlife.
MARCUS PARKS
From MeatLaser1, "If y'all were food, what kind of food would y'all be?"
BEN KISSEL
Oh man.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh god.
MARCUS PARKS
I'd be a steak and ale pie.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Okay.
BEN KISSEL
A what?
MARCUS PARKS
Steak and ale pie.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, I could see it.
BEN KISSEL
A steak and ale pie?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
I never heard of that before.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I could definitely see myself as a pierogi with a little butthole and tits and a dick.
BEN KISSEL
I could see pierogi. I'm gonna go pizza because multifaceted, you get a little bit of cheese, little sauce, little bread. But you can put anything on it. You wanna make it savory, you can obviously. Or sweet, you truly can. So I'm gonna go pizza, it's the most diverse of all the foods.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Wow.
BEN KISSEL
And when I think of diversity I think of Benjamin Grant Kissel.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Always. I always think of white, 6'7", in a Carver's.
BEN KISSEL
That's 1%.
MARCUS PARKS
Man who never repeats himself.
BEN KISSEL
No.
MARCUS PARKS
Never.
BEN KISSEL
Absolutely not.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Not a pile of catchphrases.
BEN KISSEL
Nope. Absolutely not. And also 6'7" does make me unique, I'm in the 1%.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's true.
BEN KISSEL
And I have red hair. 1%.
MARCUS PARKS
Wow. Wow.
BEN KISSEL
So I'm gonna go pizza if I had to be anything, also perhaps stuffed crust. You have deep dish, you have stuffed crust.
MARCUS PARKS
Sure.
BEN KISSEL
You have Chicago style, that's the deep dish, but you have Detroit style. There's so many different kinds of pizza and I feel like I really run the gamut of what can't he do?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You remember when he said that he's quiet?
BEN KISSEL
I am quiet in real life.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You remember when he said that?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
I am. Marcus, back me up.
MARCUS PARKS
That you're quiet in real life?
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
You can be.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
When he's asleep.
BEN KISSEL
No, that's not true.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But when he's asleep you hear (snoring).
BEN KISSEL
That's not true! It's an untruth!
MARCUS PARKS
I will say this, we've done hundreds of shows together at this point.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
And when we're backstage before a show-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes, he can be quiet. Of course.
MARCUS PARKS
Ben actually will go like an hour to an hour and a half without saying a single fucking word.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's true.
BEN KISSEL
That's what I'm saying!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
In that one aspect, yes.
BEN KISSEL
That is a huge aspect. Am I quieter than Henry?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, it's different.
BEN KISSEL
Thank you.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't say I'm quiet.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Yeah, you don't say you're quiet but you're not quiet in any way whatsoever.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, I'm not.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
When we drove to San Diego Comic-Con, both going there and coming back there was not a moment of silence in those six hours.
BEN KISSEL
I can have total silence.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You also talked. you are also a talker.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, I am a talker.
BEN KISSEL
Well you're the most quiet. No, you might not be, I'm the most quiet.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't know. Marcus can talk.
MARCUS PARKS
I can talk.
BEN KISSEL
I'm actually the most quiet. I am the most quiet, so thank you.
MARCUS PARKS
I can talk and talk and talk and talk.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He really can. He really can.
BEN KISSEL
So you just proved my point. I'm the most quiet one out of the three of us.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You made that point yourself and then made that a thing.
BEN KISSEL
You're the loudest, second loudest, quietest.
MARCUS PARKS
Actually I will say that. Yeah, actually that is true.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah in the terms of us, in terms of me-
BEN KISSEL
That's my fucking, that's my parameter.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm extremely not quiet.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
But what else parameter do I have to go on? If I was hanging out with Helen Keller, she would win!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Imagine it's a spectrum, right. Henry, the most extreme. Marcus, just there. Quiet's over here, right, at the very other end of the spectrum.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're still like right there.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're still in the top 25 percentile of noise.
BEN KISSEL
But that's what I have for frame of reference. So within the whole community, you wanna spread it out to the whole network, I'm still one of the most quiet.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh let me ask you this.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No!
MARCUS PARKS
Let me ask you this though.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
If we move you out of this bubble here, we put you on a barstool, are you the quietest person at the bar?
BEN KISSEL
It depends if I get inspired. Because I will sit there for hours and not say anything. But then when I find-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah because if you're not with anybody, it'd be weird if you're like yeah, I know a story about me!
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, you can make friends really quick. It just depends if you wanna make someone smile or cry or you know.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You've made several grown men cry by telling them that their business is completely drying up and it's not coming back.
BEN KISSEL
No, no. They're not grown men, they're background actors in their 60s.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh god, those poor men.
BEN KISSEL
No, they really are. No, they're working, they're working.
MARCUS PARKS
And that brings us to our next question which Henry strangely said was controversial.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah, yeah. "Well now that all of you are living in LA, who is the most LA?"
BEN KISSEL
Henry. You like it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, I like it.
BEN KISSEL
So I like it as well but you're the most-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
People grow more accustomed to it.
BEN KISSEL
I know. I think yeah, you're the most LA.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I got a convertible.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
But you also enjoy more of the... Because you're an actor.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes, I do.
BEN KISSEL
And I mean we could all act, it's a skill.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You like Mexican food, like the weather.
BEN KISSEL
We like that, yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You like the weed?
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
These are the things I like.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, that's very LA stuff.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
At some point you would like to perhaps have a major motion picture role.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Of course.
BEN KISSEL
So this is the place to be.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Not anymore but it used to be.
MARCUS PARKS
You wear shorts all the time.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I do.
BEN KISSEL
Love shorts.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. However I have made a large amount of my, since moving here, a large amount of my wardrobe is now hemp.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, he loves hemp.
MARCUS PARKS
I love hemp.
BEN KISSEL
Hemp.
MARCUS PARKS
I'm wearing a hemp shirt right now.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Feel it.
MARCUS PARKS
100% hemp.
BEN KISSEL
That doesn't make him more LA, that definitely seems like more of what a Texan would do if they moved to LA.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well it does put him more into the... I think there's something separate between Texas and LA, it's a Subaru vibe.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
That is true.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's more of a Subaru vibe.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
But I will say every place is what you make it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Sure.
BEN KISSEL
So Los Angeles, if you're in the arts, you gotta start in New York.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes, I do believe that. This is not a place to struggle.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
BEN KISSEL
No. You gotta start in New York because at this point I think you go out to Queens, wherever poor and artistic people are, you go there, you make all your friends there.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But now you got cooler scenes in other cities, it's not just New York anymore.
BEN KISSEL
True.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Atlanta has got a great scene for music and comedy. Detroit-
BEN KISSEL
But there is something I will say though, there is something about suffering in New York.
MARCUS PARKS
There really is. Because everyone is suffering there with you.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
BEN KISSEL
And you're sweating and you're running.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's great for art.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, it is.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It is great. That pressure and that anger and the pace, it is fantastic for art. You gotta keep up. And New York is also a place where weirdly it's kind of more merit based, especially in the arts world.
BEN KISSEL
A little bit.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's way more like New York comedians are uglier and better. LA comedians are handsomer and more successful but they are not as good.
BEN KISSEL
Not as funny, yeah. That's true.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That is just straight across.
MARCUS PARKS
I'll agree with that.
BEN KISSEL
And there's something about just cutting your teeth and walking. You know the great thing about New York whether you're a billionaire, a millionaire, or just making whatever pierogies in a kitchen, you walk by the same pothole, you walk by the same...
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Everybody's in the same mess.
BEN KISSEL
Everyone's together.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
And you learn so much about life and your ability to survive.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I agree.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And the one thing about LA that I just, I've been here almost a year now and don't get me wrong, I fucking love it.
BEN KISSEL
Oh I'm enjoying it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Get into it.
MARCUS PARKS
I like the weather a lot more than I thought I would.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
But it's just nothing can hold a candle to the food in New York.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
New York is different. You can't. It's like comparing things to Rome and shit. New York has the best food in the country.
MARCUS PARKS
I can't let go of it. I think about it every day.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's just the truth.
BEN KISSEL
I would actually push back a little bit. I'd say I actually think Chicago is.
MARCUS PARKS
Well that's your taste.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
My real, real choice is New Orleans has got the best food in the country.
BEN KISSEL
Oh yeah, oh yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
In terms of restaurants, New Orleans still got it.
MARCUS PARKS
But in terms of just fucking eating-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
New York.
MARCUS PARKS
I just need to eat.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
As a person who just needs to eat, that's great.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Except for tacos, taco culture and Mexican food culture in general in LA.
MARCUS PARKS
Far better, far better. But I can't live on Mexican food.
BEN KISSEL
But yeah. So Marcus, least LA, Ben middle LA, and Henry most LA.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Okay, here we go. Here's a more serious one. "How do you stay grounded while consuming firsthand information about all these conspiracy theories and what advice would you give to anyone who wants to go down the university of YouTube hole without falling prey to the radicalization algorithm?" Now I will say I was taught to think in high school, right, about this idea of cognitive dissonance and how you're supposed to kind of... How you could hold two ideas in your head at the same time. What I like to do, which is kind of in the Robert Anton Wilson school of what he called like across the board agnosticism, right. I don't believe in anything too much.
MARCUS PARKS
Sure.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I dabble, I go back and forth. I like to when I read in conspiracy minds, like whatever you'd call my fucking process, right, It's that you view, I try to imagine how that person views the world from inside their eyeballs and what their frame of reference is and why they think that way and what it is that they're saying.
BEN KISSEL
Sure.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because a lot of those guys, especially the conspiracy world is in code, there's a lot of weird shit.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. By the way, Jew is code for Jew.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's a big code.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But I just don't hold on to anything too... I see ideas for what they are.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
It sounds to me like you hold on loosely.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And I don't let go.
BEN KISSEL
Don't let go. I agree with that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You can read these things, it does not mean that it is real.
BEN KISSEL
No!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And then also part of you understanding that it is an algorithm that you within your own behavior is curating is extremely important for you to understand about what I'd call internet literacy.
BEN KISSEL
My algorithm by the way just got me with a bunch of cow lovers. My algorithm was just a bunch of like-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Touching cows.
BEN KISSEL
(singing) In the arms of the angels... But with cows!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Anyway.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I also don't believe that any idea should be like... No idea is like a throwaway idea or destroyable idea.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I think that there are things obviously except for like extreme fascist thought but it's more like what can we learn from that thought?
MARCUS PARKS
Sure.
BEN KISSEL
What can you learn? And I go, I talked about this on Sirius Radio recently with the Maui wildfires, so you can hold multiple things as Henry said to be true. So there was a conspiracy that they were started on purpose because the billionaires want to buy up their land, they want to make Maui a smart city. All of that is completely true. And then a couple of different things came out because China does have a space laser and they showed these two photos, one was of what appeared to be a laser and another was appeared to be a laser. They're both from 2018.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
BEN KISSEL
One is the space rocket, the other one's a fire in Ohio.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, so they're fake. They're making shit up.
BEN KISSEL
But the thing is you don't want to have the spurious correlation between just because people will benefit off the suffering doesn't mean they caused it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well that's not the plan.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes. That's the same thing with New Orleans, the idea that real estate developers blew up the levies. They didn't.
BEN KISSEL
And same thing with the World Trade Center.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No but they-
BEN KISSEL
However the sad reality is cui bono? People will benefit from human suffering.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Absolutely.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes. That's just people taking advantage of a crisis.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And that's just also conspiracy theory I find as a whole where we talk about what can often be attributed to malice, a lot of times you can contribute to incompetency.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Where it's like most of the time these guys are improv-ing as they go, just like any human is, and they just are wired in a way to look for benefits in bad situations. And that's what they do. They analyze these things. That's how they become billionaires. You don't become a billionaire without the suffering of thousands of people.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yes. So of course you have to hold those things to be true but it doesn't mean you want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, I mean I definitely live by pretty much three principles when it comes to this whole conspiracy thought thing. The biggest one is of course never attribute to malice that which can be explained by either incompetence or stupidity. That's one of them. That's the main one.
BEN KISSEL
Yep.
MARCUS PARKS
The second one is Occam's Razor.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Which is the simplest explanation is usually the right explanation. And three, using if then logic. Using if then logic is I think one of the most important tools you can have when you look at say a huge conspiracy, look at Pizzagate, you look at if then. If this thing is true, then this other thing has to happen.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
As far as I'm concerned, if another country has such a superior military technology to ours, it would not be a secret.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It would be a very, very public thing.
BEN KISSEL
Perhaps.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Like that's why.
BEN KISSEL
Perhaps, perhaps.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because they're going to show and they're going to flex, they've spent billions of dollars making this thing.
BEN KISSEL
You see that space laser?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But look at what we did. We did it with the atomic bomb and it's no different than anybody else. So I think that that's when you get into this idea of like all these other countries have stuff that we don't have, they'd be using them.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Well I think we got the most, we got the best.
MARCUS PARKS
We do have the best.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's what I'm saying.
MARCUS PARKS
But yeah, always think about if then because that's kind of an OCD exercise as well where you just keep going and then what would happen and then what would happen? You just have to keep going through and like looking at how massive of an apparatus these huge conspiracies would need to hide in plain sight in order for them to work. And it just doesn't make any sense. Most of the time it makes zero sense whatsoever.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And it's not sexy, right.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I think the audience especially on the internet, you kind of want the sexy answer of it being one side or the other. And I do understand that there's a constant need and obviously being central is such a dirty word on the internet these days but it's important to understand the majority of humankind, even the evil ones are centered.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You know what I mean? They have different things, what they do, back and forth. They react to things in specific idiosyncratic ways. They are still humans-
BEN KISSEL
Well self preservation.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah but they are still operating within a paradigm.
MARCUS PARKS
And with conspiracy theories, you can always check to see sources. You can do a trust but verify thing but you can also look and see like okay, what sources do these people cite? Do they say I've heard-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Sources say.
MARCUS PARKS
Sources say.
BEN KISSEL
Sure.
MARCUS PARKS
Do they say I have heard? A lot of times you'll see these-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I read this one thing.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, I read this one thing. And the biggest tell is when you see these people sourcing each other.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
That's happened a ton in Q.
BEN KISSEL
That's the echo, that's the echo.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because they're saying the truth in a way by being like well I've heard people say, because they're hearing the same people say the same thing about the same shit.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And they just keep quoting each other and they keep building upon each other. So always watch out for that. That's the massive red flag.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I've watched conspiracy theories about me form in front of my own eyes on the internet. And I have a unique view because of it.
BEN KISSEL
Because you started one of the most nefarious conspiracy theories about me. Bud Light Lime you fucking-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It worked. That's called magic.
BEN KISSEL
No, that's called-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And should lean in for the advertising fucking additions to that.
BEN KISSEL
Yes, all right. I would say conspiracy and religion go hand in hand when it comes to people that just don't want to live in the chaotic world.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, they want the idea of having some kind of control.
BEN KISSEL
The answers are more complex yet more simple than you can make them. All right.
MARCUS PARKS
That's what the man who coined the term conspiracy theory said is that when man killed god, man had to look for another force in the universe.
BEN KISSEL
All right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah! Fuck yeah! (metal guitar riff)
MARCUS PARKS
It was in like 1947.
BEN KISSEL
Also if you do, I don't know, you know not to get wooey-woo and it's not really about conspiracy, but you know you're on the right path when you start seeing a lot of synchronicities. It happens about four times a year where you're like all right, things are starting to come together.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh sure.
BEN KISSEL
And that's not conspiracy. All right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Also it's important to make everybody mad all at once.
BEN KISSEL
Well that's just how you do it. Gwen Powell. "What's your number one karaoke song?"
MARCUS PARKS
Space Oddity by David Bowie. I fucking kill it.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You Make Me Feel Like A Natural Woman by Aretha Franklin.
BEN KISSEL
Beautiful. And I do not do karaoke, if I had to do it, it'd be I'm mighty proud of that Ragged Old Flag.
MARCUS PARKS
Okay, this one's from Kayleigh Ferris. Question for all three. "What was your most memorable tour experience?"
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
When we went to that... One of my favorite ones, we've had many.
MARCUS PARKS
Many.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We've had really great fun times. Obviously Red Rocks was fucking crazy. The Beacon in New York meant a lot to me.
BEN KISSEL
Red Rocks was awesome, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But when we were in Dublin and we got to go to that private bar after the show-
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Where that guy invited us over for the performers from when we performed over there.
BEN KISSEL
It was cool.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And then we got to hang out in that cute, like that awesome, like locals only bar. And then we went and got hammered at the fucking pub. That was a great night.
BEN KISSEL
That was fun.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That was one of my favorite times.
BEN KISSEL
I liked when we had our power outage in Philadelphia. That was crazy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
That was cool.
BEN KISSEL
It was the middle of a snowstorm and for some reason Philadelphia doesn't plow their streets. And when you don't plow your streets, snow melts and that's called water. And so the entire city block went out and we had to go and obviously it was sad that we missed the show but we had to go out and we had our cell phones and everyone was so unbelievably polite.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, everybody was cool.
BEN KISSEL
Cause we had about 600 people in there.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Especially in Philly.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. And then that night we went to a place called Dee's Corner Bar or something. We just had such a fun little time.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, we were in Fishtown.
BEN KISSEL
So it was fun. And then yeah, Philly's always a good time.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. I've got a couple of them.
BEN KISSEL
So many.
MARCUS PARKS
And one of the big ones is like from a more recent tour. When we did the Pacific Northwest, we were driving from Seattle to what was the city?
BEN KISSEL
Portland?
MARCUS PARKS
No, not Seattle to Portland.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Vancouver.
MARCUS PARKS
Nope, not Seattle to Vancouver.
BEN KISSEL
Vancouver.
MARCUS PARKS
the smaller city, Spokane.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Spokane.
BEN KISSEL
Oh yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You gotta be careful with that pass. Oh, you're going over the pass?
BEN KISSEL
Dead Man's Pass.
MARCUS PARKS
Well it was the pass, like we drove over this pass, it was snowing, we were driving basically through a forest. It was some of the most beautiful snow I've ever seen in my life. I was listening to fucking Kid A the entire time and I just stared out the window and just felt so completely and totally at peace.
BEN KISSEL
Oh good. I thought you were shitting bricks that whole time.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, I thought he was so scared as fuck.
MARCUS PARKS
Nah, I wasn't.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, I thought you were scared as fuck.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's the most fun you've had is staring out the window while we were driving to Spokane?
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, we traveled the whole world.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We've been all over the world! We've been to Australia.
MARCUS PARKS
That's just one that stands out. I mean there's of course like-
BEN KISSEL
We can do that right now.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, I can take you around.
MARCUS PARKS
But it was a moment. I don't know, I can't explain a moment.
BEN KISSEL
I thought he was having a horrible time.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I thought he was scared.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
No, not at all. I was at such total and complete peace that entire time.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That was a great show, that Spokane show.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
And that's the thing is that we ended, that Spokane show is one of my favorite shows that we've ever done.
BEN KISSEL
It was great.
MARCUS PARKS
But I've also got other shows where like, the first show we did in Chicago at The Empty Bottle.
BEN KISSEL
That was crazy.
MARCUS PARKS
I don't know if it was The Empty Bottle. No, it was the place that was-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That was when we would just make shit up.
BEN KISSEL
That was the haunted joint.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The Metro.
MARCUS PARKS
The Metro, that's the one I'm talking about. Not the matinee show that we did but the one we did at the bar next door. I remember it was the first time I ever... That show was the first time I ever got a true laugh from an audience and it was the one-
BEN KISSEL
What? You got laughs before that.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah but they were in New York and they didn't count.
BEN KISSEL
Whoa!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, this is when we were doing our monthly show.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I remember when Marcus was afraid to go on stage.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I remember when he would go for the-
BEN KISSEL
Now we can't get him off the goddamn stage.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, I was very afraid to go on stage but I was so nervous and I got like a genuine laugh from the crowd and that was the first time that felt like okay, I can do this. I think I can maybe do this.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Those were magical shows.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Same night/day, we did two shows that day, the Malört really roared its ugly head into my life.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
People loved this Malört, they love this bit. They love it.
BEN KISSEL
They don't like it and they know what they're fucking doing.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Of course pyro at Red Rocks is incredible.
BEN KISSEL
Oh amazing.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Incredible.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The poor ADA row. I always think about them. We hit that pyro and it was like they put the ADA row, all these great people in the front row, right, at Red Rocks, they're like six feet from the stage, great seats too. But every time the pyro went up I just watched their faces cook. It's like their wheels are getting hot.
BEN KISSEL
Pyro is hot.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
I didn't quite realize how hot it is.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It was hot.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, pyro is extraordinarily hot.
BEN KISSEL
That was awesome.
MARCUS PARKS
But yeah, we have traveled all over the world, like shows in Dublin and shows in-
BEN KISSEL
Melbourne, the Cherry Tavern.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So fucking good.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, the Cherry Tavern.
BEN KISSEL
I have never smelled anything quite like that Cherry Tavern.
MARCUS PARKS
The show that we did outside of the walls of Strangeways Prison and the old WWII bomb shelter in Manchester where I had to build the entire stage setup myself.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
And only ate doughnuts.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I was so sick.
BEN KISSEL
I remember the doughnuts.
MARCUS PARKS
I asked them to go get me food and they came back with a dozen Dunkin Donuts and I'm like what the fuck is wrong with you people? But the show ended up being incredible, there was smoke and the lights were all red. The crowd was incredible.
BEN KISSEL
We were within earshot of one of the number one most notorious criminals of all time.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah, Mr. Bronson.
BEN KISSEL
Panzram.
MARCUS PARKS
Bronson.
BEN KISSEL
Was it Bronson?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Panzram was long dead by that point, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Carl Panzram was dead, yeah. Bronson, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
But we've had so many great touring experiences over the years.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ooh I like, this is a look question. "What is your most impactful psychedelic experience?"
BEN KISSEL
Probably trying to eat Peruvian meat in Williamsburg. Remember mushroom summer?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, I remember.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That Peruvian place that was over by Union Hall?
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, I tried to get like blood sausage from it. It was fucking it, dude.
MARCUS PARKS
That place was incredible.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That was really good.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, it was really good. Not when you're tripping though.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No.
BEN KISSEL
That level of blood meat...
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I've only had a couple of eating experiences tripping and they've all like not been... The food has kind of been secondary.
BEN KISSEL
I mean there's just basically Williamsburg-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The first time I did acid.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The first time I did acid, someone brought chocolate covered strawberries and I remember them just growing and moving and shit. And I was just like these are bugs.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
These are bugs.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, these are bugs. I think I know a bug or two. Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
I don't know, we always bonded. Honestly maybe one of the best nights ever was when other than our little tiff because I was a little rude to Marcus and I'm sorry-
MARCUS PARKS
Very rude.
BEN KISSEL
A little rude to Marcus and I'm sorry.
MARCUS PARKS
Very rude.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He was upset.
BEN KISSEL
Point counterpoint. But then Marcus did save the day by being able to hook up the audio.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The sound. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
To the sound.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That was good because everyone was tripping balls.
BEN KISSEL
Anyway, let's not rehash it. But that night when we all tripped our fucking nuts off at the old theater we used to perform at.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It was at The Creek.
BEN KISSEL
Those mushrooms...
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well I think I've told this story multiple times.
BEN KISSEL
Those fucking messed with me, those were great.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I told that story I think a bunch of times where Murderfist was gonna do a set on mushrooms, we were going to do an hour long set. And then this guy said I'm your hook up and then he showed up and there was eight members of Murderfist, and I mean it, he had like 10 individual mushrooms. We're like this is not gonna do jack shit. And then everyone ate it and then we lost our fucking minds.
BEN KISSEL
You talking about that Creek show?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, trippy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, that was the night that I ended up at a bus stop and then all of a sudden... I broke away from everybody.
BEN KISSEL
You went away.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. I went home and I took off all my clothes and I turned on the radio and I turned on the television and I turned on the air conditioning.
BEN KISSEL
Oh you had such a different night than we did.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I was watching the wood grain move back and forth and I was pressing my face against it to see if I could feel it like it was waves of water.
MARCUS PARKS
Wasn't that the night that you asked the Chris Farley painting-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
To release me.
MARCUS PARKS
To release you.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes. I have a painting of Chris Farley and I asked it to release me from his shadow.
BEN KISSEL
Classic painting.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That was the night that I thought I was performing in a hall, like a giant hall. I was tripping balls.
BEN KISSEL
Well I had a great conversation with Jackie Zebrowski that night. We realized why we would never date each other. And then we're just like but we love each other. So that was nice. And then actually a lot of great conversations.
MARCUS PARKS
I think maybe my most impactful one was like the first one because it was after like a happy hour and a buddy of mine was like hey man, I got some mushroom honey, you want to try it? I'm like fuck yeah, I've never done mushrooms before.
BEN KISSEL
Mushroom honey.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Whoa.
MARCUS PARKS
And then we walked to a nearby park right as it was setting in and like we played in the park for a little while. I played with like this five year old kid where we were just screaming at each other. And the father was like, cool enough where he saw like oh that's a super high college kid.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
He'll be fine.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, he's fine.
BEN KISSEL
Well that's good.
MARCUS PARKS
And then I wandered away from the group to a nearby coffee shop and my buddy Clint was outside and he's like hey man, we're having a meeting inside, do you want to come? I'm like yeah, fuck yeah, man. What's it for? He's like libertarians. I'm like let's go fucking talk, man.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh my god.
BEN KISSEL
That's amazing, I love it.
MARCUS PARKS
And then I walked in and I didn't take off my sunglasses the whole time and I just sat there listening. And then I got up and they're like Marcus, would you like to say anything? This is your first time here?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
And I'm like yeah, I got a couple of things to say.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Taxes shmaxes.
MARCUS PARKS
And then I just stood up and did this whole monologue about the oneness of the universe.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, bro.
BEN KISSEL
Wow. I wish I could have heard that.
MARCUS PARKS
The opposite of libertarianism.
BEN KISSEL
No, they can hold that truth.
MARCUS PARKS
About how we're all connected.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, we're all connected. We need each other.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
I don't think that that's necessarily antithesis to libertarianism as long as you don't bring up-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Exactly.
MARCUS PARKS
Exactly.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Exactly.
BEN KISSEL
As long as you don't bring up the government, then they'll be well now.
MARCUS PARKS
But the cool thing about it is that in that moment, that is when I had the realization that we are all one and I felt like connected to the universe for the first time in my life and I felt connected to other people.
BEN KISSEL
You connected with libertarians, it must have been strong mushrooms.
MARCUS PARKS
I connected with my friend Clint, he's a beautiful soul.
BEN KISSEL
That's good.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Absolute beautiful soul. And then I went home and I did finally, because I'd always felt my entire life completely separate from other humans, I had never felt connected at all. But I finally after that trip, I did feel connected to people.
BEN KISSEL
Nice.
MARCUS PARKS
I went home, I ordered some fucking PJs-
BEN KISSEL
PJs? Papa Johns?
MARCUS PARKS
Papa Johns. I put on a Don Ellis record and then I just saw the fucking purple music come out of my fucking speakers.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Dude.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
And then later on that night I was still like super fucking high, went and hung out with some friends, climbed some trees.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
And then like by the end of it I was like man, drugs are fucking great.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, dude.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, that brings me back. That remind me of college truly. Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That really is when drugs were fun. You know what I mean?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. It was nothing but fun the entire time. And yeah, and I came away from it a completely changed human being.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, I forgot the college tripping days. I hid in the bush for a few hours.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Changed my life, man.
BEN KISSEL
It was really great.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I remember laying down between two speakers and then I saw The Dude, I saw The Big Lebowski appear before me and he was trying to explain to me that like information's like not real. Like it was like a very long thing. He showed me the real nature of reality which is a series of discs. It was fucking sweet, dog. I don't know what I saw. He was explaining to me in that this weirdly other side of me explaining about how like a lot of people work really hard and spend years meditating to get to this point. And then there's guys like you that just sort of show up here.
BEN KISSEL
Well there you go.
MARCUS PARKS
That's nice.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
There you go. All right. From EPED2385. "If each of you could go back in time to experience a historically significant paranormal event, which one would it be and why?" I actually love this. I would maybe just go with Betty and Barney, my friend.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Sure.
MARCUS PARKS
That's a good one.
BEN KISSEL
Hanging out with B and B and just see what the fuck is going on.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're on the road, you park on the road.
BEN KISSEL
I'm drinking in the back.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're literally just having a couple of Buds, sitting in a lawn chair at the exact place where they got abducted.
BEN KISSEL
Hey Betty, Barney, what are you guys up to? Whoa!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Whoa! Gef the Talking Mongoose.
MARCUS PARKS
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I think I'd go back there, I'd go to the-
BEN KISSEL
But what are you gonna do with Gef the Talking Mongoose?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well it's more like I'd like to have boots on the ground, be in the neighborhood, be on the Isle of Man when that's happening and going and kind of seeing what's going on here.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
I would say the Enfield Poltergeist.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
That's a scary one.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(British accent) I've got my rag lung.
BEN KISSEL
That's like the 40s, isn't it?
MARCUS PARKS
No, it's the 70s.
BEN KISSEL
That's the 70s? So that's relatively recent.
MARCUS PARKS
Well that's the thing-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's a really sad time to be in the UK though.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
But he loves it.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh I love it. Yeah, UK in the 70s. Cause that's the thing is that I'd be one of the paranormal investigators, so at night I'm in 70s London. It's fucking incredible. I think it was London. It wouldn't matter, it's a tiny country, I could make it to London whenever I want to, I can make it to Manchester.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, you can get around.
MARCUS PARKS
I could see all kinds of incredible music at night. And I'd love to know how much of that story really is true.
BEN KISSEL
Okay. Great.
MARCUS PARKS
How much of it did they make up? How much of it was embellished? Yeah, I would not just for the paranormal experience but also for what I would get to experience around the experience.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Interesting.
BEN KISSEL
I'm trying to think, we've covered some different portals to hell, there was that in the basement there.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We got Amityville.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, Amityville's just a crime scene.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, that's a crime scene.
BEN KISSEL
It's true crime.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's true crime.
MARCUS PARKS
It's true crime, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
And then obviously they got a whole Conjuring series out of it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Here we go, here's a personal one.
BEN KISSEL
I like that one.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What are your strategies for bringing the heat on on days when you're off and you don't really feel like you're in the mood to joke? I think that's really interesting because I feel like that's a part of what the job part is.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, it's a job.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But also I do get comforted... How often I'll show up, like you deal with all of his other bullshit in your life. I do get to do what I absolutely love to do for a living. I get to make jokes. I love making people laugh, it is my life's blood, it's my favorite thing. And so I do most of the time like no matter how I'm feeling, once I'm talking, like once I'm doing it, it kind of gets me up out of it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
That's your job.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But also that's where the job part comes in is that we talk about it all the time, when we're on the road, we're your fun night out, right. Like when you go out to see us on the road, like we're trying to make it be a fun night and have to do all this kind of stuff. And so like it kind of doesn't matter how we feel-
MARCUS PARKS
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because we got a fucking thing we gotta do. That curtain goes up, we gotta go out there and we're gonna make them laugh, we gotta do the thing.
BEN KISSEL
Absolutely, you gotta do the work.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And so that's a part of it is a little bit of nutting up and then some of it is coffee, like a lot of coffee.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
I would say when it comes to road shows and tour shows, I had some of the best shows of my life when I was absolutely fucking miserable.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Always.
MARCUS PARKS
Like when I was like the most miserable I've been.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hungover, strung out.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, I just had absolutely great shows. And with this show too, it's like yeah, the schedule don't stop for depression.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No.
MARCUS PARKS
It don't stop for any kind of like mental-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Long COVID. You fucking did an entire last year, you did a whole fucking year's worth of work.
MARCUS PARKS
I took a week off.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Half dying.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So it's amazing.
BEN KISSEL
Henry please, he was half living.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, I forget.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But it's a thing.
MARCUS PARKS
But when you come in, that's the thing, a lot of people say that they listen to the podcast when they're depressed and it cheers them up and for me, I do the podcast when I'm depressed and it cheers me up.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Like it's laughing about dark shit, like super dark shit.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Gets me out of it.
MARCUS PARKS
It helps us just as much as it helps you.
BEN KISSEL
Thank you.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And Natalie loves the joke because I always do the but doctor, I am Pagliacci.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I do it all the time.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yes, making people laugh makes you feel good. This is our job and we're very lucky as Henry said to have the job, we love the job, and we try not to bring our personal bullshit into it too much.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We never do. We never do.
BEN KISSEL
Well not the real stuff, not the physical ailments and everything. I had two ear infections last year.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, you did.
BEN KISSEL
I thought I was gonna die.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
My arms didn't work.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, you fucked yourself up last year.
BEN KISSEL
But it's our job-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Last year was kind of an intense health year for us.
BEN KISSEL
It is our job as performers to, we're trying to make you happy, trying to make you get through this existence and you help us get through this existence as well.
MARCUS PARKS
This is from Austin Hempstad. "What would y'all change your names to if you were aliens?"
BEN KISSEL
Oh man, that's a tough one. Because what kind of alien-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Beverly D'Angelo.
BEN KISSEL
Ooh that's nice, yeah. Look at those beautiful breasts. The Sentinel. Holy shit, check out that fucking movie.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh I love that movie.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh there you get your name, The Sentinel.
BEN KISSEL
The Sentinel for aliens. But sentinels are not aliens, right? Those are just-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They're demons.
BEN KISSEL
Those are non human biologics. No, they're not demons.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, I believe in The Sentinel they're demons.
BEN KISSEL
No, The Sentinel. But I'm talking about X-Men.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They're robots.
MARCUS PARKS
You're talking about, they're robots, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
They're just robots.
MARCUS PARKS
They're robots. Yeah, they're robots, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Say it properly, Marcus. They're ro-butts.
MARCUS PARKS
Ro-butts.
BEN KISSEL
Ro-butts.
MARCUS PARKS
Created by the Master Mold.
BEN KISSEL
Marcus, alien name.
MARCUS PARKS
I would use some variation of my own name, I would just scramble up the last name, reverse the first one. Sucram Praks.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's actually very good
BEN KISSEL
Very good indeed.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's actually very good.
BEN KISSEL
Very good. Sucram.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'd just be an alien named Beverly D'Angelo.
BEN KISSEL
Beverly D'Angelo. And then you always got the fun names, the Blorbers, the Glorbers. Maybe well Blöthar but that's from Gwar.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You could take that, you could be inspired by Blöthar.
BEN KISSEL
I wanna be Blöthar.
MARCUS PARKS
You can be Flobar.
BEN KISSEL
Flobar is fun.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Flow Bar is actually booked on Fridays and Saturdays, it's actually really hard to get into Flow Bar so don't even bring it up.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, don't even bring it up. I don't know, maybe I'll just be the Big Wet Green One. That would be kinda fun.
MARCUS PARKS
The Big Wet Green One.
BEN KISSEL
Big Wet Green One.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Big Wet Green One.
BEN KISSEL
Come on over here.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Have you seen the Big Wet Green One? Yeah, honestly yeah, I just saw him. He's all over the place.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. Big Wet Green One, you should watch him play Red Light, Green Light, he always goes on red.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Here, I like this one. All right. "After all the horrible things you've read and talked about, do you think people are mostly good or mostly evil?"
BEN KISSEL
I think people are mostly good and that's why when they do evil it stands out.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I agree.
BEN KISSEL
That's what makes air quotes "news" when you open the door for someone and you have a nice exchange, it doesn't make the news. But if you actually pay attention to how much good stuff-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But if you rip the door off and then you hit the woman with it... Yeah, yeah, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
That's making the news. But for the most part considering just how again self interested human beings are by nature and self protective, for the most part we're doing pretty good to even have a society. Because we are trigger happy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah. Traveling the country is really indicative-
BEN KISSEL
Except for in Oklahoma City.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, I mean that place sucks.
BEN KISSEL
I don't know why.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's troubled.
BEN KISSEL
And to the good people of Oklahoma City, we love you.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
To our fans in Oklahoma City, move to Tulsa.
MARCUS PARKS
Trust me y'all, it's a large, large swath of the country.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Like Oklahoma City is just a part of a very, very large swath of the country that is very aggressive.
BEN KISSEL
But I wouldn't say that they're evil, I would just say that sometimes isolated and maybe a little scary.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Traveling the country, I find that you'd be surprised, most people again are in the center. My actual number breakdown percentage-wise is I think that 65% of human beings are absolutely normal and good and just walk around just trying to live their fucking lives. And it is the majority of people that are vaguely-
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, I think so, 65%.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Vaguely like they are open to other people, they just don't give a shit. They just don't really care, they don't care. They're just working on their own lives.
MARCUS PARKS
But I think good and evil, like that's way too binary.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
I think what it is is that like yeah, the majority of people are like, if you just kind of put a binary where good are people who don't murder and evil or people who do murder-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well then it's majority the people are good but I would say it's like 15% are good, 15% are evil, 70% are normal.
MARCUS PARKS
I think most people need to be taught how to not be mean.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Sure.
MARCUS PARKS
Like I think most people need to be taught how to be civil.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's a thing that you should get from your parents.
BEN KISSEL
Well yeah, it's what you learn growing up.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But a lot of them don't.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. A lot of them don't unfortunately.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Not these days.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. These days unfortunately, yeah, we don't really teach ethics and morals a whole lot and that's part of the reason why Americans are so fucking mean. Read a great article in The Atlantic about it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh I read an article...
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, I don't know if The Atlantic... I don't think The Atlantic really covered it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I read an article in The Pacific that said I'm an asshole.
MARCUS PARKS
But no, it is true.
BEN KISSEL
I don't think Americans are the meanest.
MARCUS PARKS
People need to be taught how to be not mean.
BEN KISSEL
I truly believe Canadians are the meanest.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well they're passive aggressive.
BEN KISSEL
That's the meanest.
MARCUS PARKS
They're passive aggressive. But it's not just Americans, it's a lot of people. It's just morals and ethics, we just aren't necessarily taught as much how to be nice to each other and how you're supposed to treat each other, how you're supposed to have a friendship, how you're supposed to treat your neighbor, all that type of shit. We do need to be... Humans are social creatures but I don't believe that humans-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We're hyper socialized right now.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. I don't believe that humans know how to be in a large society. Like we're social but we're not societal. You know what I mean? We depend on each other but we have to be taught how to live a 21st century lifestyle.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
This is not natural. Cities are not natural for humans.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You see I still feel like it's not about the cities, it's about the social media and how we're just not supposed to know what everybody's thinking at all times.
MARCUS PARKS
No, we're not.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's just not helping.
BEN KISSEL
We got that super power though, now we're all Professor X.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's just not helpful.
MARCUS PARKS
No, we're not supposed to know what everybody's thinking at all times.
BEN KISSEL
Oh I like this one.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But Kissel's correct that a lot of the reason why that there is this meanness is that I do think a lot of it is fear. I think a lot of it is people are afraid, it's weird times, they don't know what to do. And so the fear is a... What I have learned in therapy is that for me, somebody like me, anger is a much safer emotion for me to experience than other emotions.
BEN KISSEL
Sure.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And so that rage is actually much more easily accessible for some of these people and they give it to their kids.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They push it down the line. And I'm hoping that there will be some kind of reversal of that with the new younger age because maybe then they can have some perspective, like they can look at us and be like whoa. Because they can kind of see the broad spectrum of like because the millennials are truly like one of the last generations to to go from, we talked about this with our special guest next week, we talked a little bit about this, about the this concept.
BEN KISSEL
Going from analog to digital.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes. And how like our childhood as people born in the mid... I'm 1984. My childhood was a lot closer to the childhood of kids in the 1600s than it is now. You know what I mean?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Like it's exactly, it's a completely different world. So maybe the younger generation can kind of maybe have some more like perspective of time and distance.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
I'm not sure about all that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Who knows?
BEN KISSEL
Let's go to Jay Leadbetter. I actually like this one. "What paranormal experience would you most like to inflict on each other?" I don't know, inflict, it implies nefarious. But honestly I would love for you to see an alien.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I think Kissel needs to get abducted.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
(screeching)
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Kissel needs to get abducted.
BEN KISSEL
I don't wanna be abducted, buddy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Buddy.
BEN KISSEL
Space babes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Think about it though, because you're so like-
BEN KISSEL
I don't think they'll be able to... No, I don't think they want me.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're both like highly agitatable but also I could see you getting picked up by aliens and I could actually see you freaking out-
BEN KISSEL
I can lean in. You don't want it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But I definitely think you can be like well hey. I think that you actually would have a more like accepting experience of the abduction than even I would.
BEN KISSEL
I'm fine with it. I wanted you to give this to you. You don't want to be abducted?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Not abducted. I want to see an alien because abduction is different. I actually I think respond to someone trying to take my control harder than you do because you have had to like let god take the wheel a bunch of different times, it just comes to your size. Like sometimes you have to arrive and be like I don't know if they'll let me in there.
BEN KISSEL
Oftentimes they don't. All right, so you want me to be abducted. Marcus, I would like for you to... I just feel like it has to be cryptic related.
MARCUS PARKS
I knew you would.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. But is that accurate?
MARCUS PARKS
I would like to see a cryptid, yes.
BEN KISSEL
Because you love nature.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
You know a lot about animals.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
And I know you love like the chupacabra and all these things. But maybe just the revelation of which cryptids are real, which ones aren't. And you get to hang out with a Bigfoot.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
See that would be incredible.
MARCUS PARKS
Thanks, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
That'd be awesome.
MARCUS PARKS
That's what I would like.
BEN KISSEL
But then it would also be very-
MARCUS PARKS
And to go and visit them in their natural habitats.
BEN KISSEL
Yes. Because also there's something very human about that.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Once you meet, if you truly did... Again, the platypus was a cryptid.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Then they're like nah, that shit real. So you would just be like the Jane Goodall of the cryptid world.
MARCUS PARKS
Thank you.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, I could see that.
BEN KISSEL
And yeah, I guess I'll be abducted and then I guess you get to go and hang out with ghosts.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'll see a ghost.
BEN KISSEL
I wouldn't mind ghosts.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I've seen an orb.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
I kind of like the idea of just having a bunch of ghosts around.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You do.
BEN KISSEL
I know.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You don't believe in them but you don't have much choice.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. I'm just not so scared of the ghosts. Oh exorcists, if it's a true exorcism, that would be fucking scary as shit.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I would like to put Marcus on because you know they're saying now that... So one of the big things with the whistleblower, again, if 1% of what he's saying is true, it could open up a lot of possibilities.
BEN KISSEL
Grusch.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So they've been talking about what if there is a real exchange program between us and some other race, some other alien race? I'd see you doing that.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh absolutely.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I could see putting you over to the other side.
BEN KISSEL
I could see that.
MARCUS PARKS
I'm a very adaptable person.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's a 12 year shift.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So you go 12 years on an alien planet and then you come back.
MARCUS PARKS
Sounds fantastic.
BEN KISSEL
Much like that video game I'm playing.
MARCUS PARKS
I'd love it.
BEN KISSEL
High On Life.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I wanna play this game.
BEN KISSEL
Honestly it is really funny. It's very funny. So whoever made it, congratulations.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
All right, I got a good one. I'll post it to you guys since we're already on aliens, look at this. "Do you guys honestly think we will get some form of alien disclosure within the next 10 years? Other than a flying saucer landing on the White House lawn, what would it take for mainstream media to actually cover it?" We are seeing them cover it, we can at least say that, they are covering it.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. They're covering it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't think so.
BEN KISSEL
I believe yes. I think that we're gonna actually have physical evidence at some point. It just seems like they're gearing us up for it and to be honest everything has come so fast with the new AI digital era that we live in, might as well just add it to the fucking pile.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The problem is-
BEN KISSEL
I feel like everyone at this point is really open because I think everyone is just like what is this new world open?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You say open, I think it's way more everybody's extremely distracted and they don't care because there's a lot of other shit going on.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I do feel like that they could come out and say that UFOs are real, that aliens are real and people would not give a remote shit.
BEN KISSEL
That's what I'm saying. I think that that means that they're technically ready.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes. I think that we might get something like that. I don't know because again, I'm in this conspiracy theory corner here where I was like oh so now I'm supposed to believe the secret object retrieval group within the Pentagon? Oh I'm gonna believe them?
BEN KISSEL
Well what about the fact that Elon Musk sent that stupid ass fucking Tesla to space and then it's out of our atmosphere now. So maybe not an alien but we'll get some fucking tangible shit.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Maybe.
BEN KISSEL
Because someone's just, that is just gonna land on some dumb fucking planet somewhere.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. I don't think that it's ever gonna have... Nothing will ever hit with people worldwide as far as aliens go until it affects their personal life.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Of course.
MARCUS PARKS
That's the only thing that will ever make people give a shit about aliens is that if you have to take a different route to go to work because there's a fucking UFO-
BEN KISSEL
Then you will care.
MARCUS PARKS
Then you will care. Or if something in your personal life changes because of UFOs or aliens or whatever, then you will care. Until then no one's gonna give a fuck. They're gonna go hey man, that's crazy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And then they're literally gonna be like aliens are taking our jobs.
BEN KISSEL
They're taking our jobs.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
we're gonna see that weird shit. I feel like there's gonna be a whole thing of alien racism. I think that there's that. I mean who knows?
MARCUS PARKS
District 9, there was a whole movie about it.
BEN KISSEL
These aliens better not be a racist. I'll tell you one thing, they're gonna learn the hard way if they come in here and they're racist, they're gonna get canceled very, very quickly.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I did see one fleeting question to try to ask me, what nailed down what I actually believe. And my problem is that again, I'm in the school of Robert Anton Wilson. I believe in everything and I don't believe in everything. I believe that things can be entertained, you pick them up and you let them go. As for my actual core belief, I think that number one, is it egotistical to think that we're the only living creatures in the universe? Absolutely. Sure. That's one thing.
BEN KISSEL
Perhaps.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The biological side of it. Thing is though, that brings me to if they are biological and they can't arrive here physically, we are fucked. I think that that's actually really bad for us as an animal. I think it's very bad for us. So I hope that they are biologically real and they are very, very, very far away. And that what we are actually experiencing is some form of other form of transport.
I believe that they send like orbs. If it's real, again, biological, separate altogether, it's just nuts and bolts. They're sending recon things from another part of the world to check us out and look at us. Maybe decide we're not worth it. We're out in the middle of fucking nowhere. Maybe we were part of some, because they say that we might be a part of a binary star system that we haven't seen the star yet. It's that far out. It's supposed to come in and out. And maybe we're just some podunk dumbshit part of the universe that they don't want to come to. So maybe there's that. Or are they waiting for something? Or I was watching this thing about the Homo naledi, which was a race of apelike creatures 350,000 years ago that were burying their dead, which was 100,000 years before the first recorded Homo sapien burial that we have found. So there's also David Grusch, part of what his whistle blowing is saying that the Grays might have been genetically manipulating life here since the very beginning. I don't know. I don't fucking know.
BEN KISSEL
All right. They got you going, they got you going.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's one side of it but then the other side of it-
BEN KISSEL
Well let's just stick with that for now.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Was that it's fully a psychic phenomenon.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Which again, I think that if it's real to you, it's real.
BEN KISSEL
I don't even remember the question. Now I don't remember the question.
MARCUS PARKS
Will we actually get alien disclosure within the next 10 years? And what will it take for the mainstream media to cover it?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They'll cover it.
MARCUS PARKS
It really has gotta become a personal interest story.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. All right, my last one is "What would your childhood selves think of your current self/career/life?" I think overall I would say that this was my plan. And overall I think he would be happy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It looks like you're reading a script, like you're being kidnapped.
BEN KISSEL
No, I think overall because yeah, because we went through a lot of stuff, it was a lot of rough years there. And so yeah, I think overall pretty happy. Because you know.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I think that little me would be extremely excited and then I just also explained there's a lot that comes with the life but it's a fun ass life.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Extraordinarily surprised and happy.
BEN KISSEL
Well you knew you were gonna do broadcasting.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh no, I didn't know at all.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I wanted to do this.
BEN KISSEL
You didn't think so?
MARCUS PARKS
No, when I was a kid I had no idea what I was gonna do. Well I thought I was going to be a writer when I was a kid, which is of course, I also-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You are one.
MARCUS PARKS
Which I am a writer. But yeah, broadcasting I didn't get into, that wasn't something that I even considered a possibility until I saw a flyer for the college radio station KTXD when I was 18.
BEN KISSEL
At 6 I think I said I wanted to do comedy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, I wanted to do comedy really young. No, I mean little me would be absolutely thrilled.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It just warrants explaining that little me, just so you know, it's weirdly also highly stressful.
BEN KISSEL
Well that's good, you wanna stress out little you.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, I always do. I already was.
BEN KISSEL
That's good. But also I had different ideas. I mean it was like SNL, the movies.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
BEN KISSEL
And then radio, I always loved radio also. Yeah, figured I'd be doing... There's no plan B for any of us.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No.
BEN KISSEL
So there was no fucking option because technically if I don't care, I can't do it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I have no other skills.
MARCUS PARKS
I mean I would be ecstatic. Because I would have my only goals in life which to be number one, not be in Rochester, Texas.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Did it.
MARCUS PARKS
Number one.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Done.
BEN KISSEL
Why?
MARCUS PARKS
That was number one. That was it.
BEN KISSEL
Why?
MARCUS PARKS
Number two, have a job that I don't hate.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Done.
MARCUS PARKS
Done.
BEN KISSEL
Huge.
MARCUS PARKS
And have friends that I love and a wife that I love.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
And a fucking massive record collection and a little device that gives me comic books, movies, books, and pornography and it's this fucking thing. It's incredible.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Natalie-
BEN KISSEL
That is true.
MARCUS PARKS
If you want to show a fucking iPad to 14 year old me-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You'd be like what?!
MARCUS PARKS
I would lose my fucking mind.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yep. That's the thing is just stuff like that, being like if I showed little me how big my TV is-
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's what would impress little me.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my god, it'd be amazing.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's not everything else, it's literally if I showed him my television he'd be like you got a television that big? And I'd be like yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Big ass TV.
MARCUS PARKS
I would have myself a little thing, like here's a device in which you can access almost every movie ever made, almost every TV show ever made.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What?!
MARCUS PARKS
Almost ever comic ever published. And an endless supply of pornography that is free. Every book that's ever been published, everything is in this little tiny thing and all you gotta do is charge it up and it's yours forever.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's crazy.
BEN KISSEL
Maybe the only thing that would be missing is just like sex bots.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, you wish you had full sex robots.
MARCUS PARKS
But you can get a sex bot.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah but I'm talking like a human.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, he wants one that talks and moves.
MARCUS PARKS
Okay.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, like a partner.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He wants somebody close. I asked Natalie, I was like what did you ever envision, like when you were little did you envision what your future husband would be like?
BEN KISSEL
Why would you do that?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But she said a bunch of nice things, she was like you know I thought he'd be smart and take care of himself and have things he believed in. She's like what did you think? And I was like little me only ever was like hope she's hot.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's all I had. That's all I had as a kid.
BEN KISSEL
Well there you go. Fascinating. Yeah. All right.
MARCUS PARKS
I Just wanted someone I could get along with that liked the same things that I did and I got that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's me!
BEN KISSEL
Well isn't that nice? And Marcus, your final question.
MARCUS PARKS
My final question is "Have you had any funny or unexpected reactions to your career from extended family or strangers?"
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They're all like what?
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You do what?
BEN KISSEL
The nice thing is once you buy your parents a fucking house, they love it. They're like oh what's this whole 666 Benjamin? That's fun. So yeah, I think I get a lot of... Yes, people are very shocked.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I know that my mom ran into some people that knew me from high school and I remember like talking to her, they were like it's just incredible, he goes out there and he says all those horrible things and he just makes money doing that I guess, right? And she's like yes, yes, that's what he does. Yes. It's his character. It's his character that he plays. It's not him.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Which I've been telling her for years it's separate, obviously she knows. But it is interesting because then they're all like well I'm glad because we didn't know what else he'd do.
BEN KISSEL
Oh yeah. My parents thought...
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Definitely other people. My mom gave me the very high Polish Italian deeply embedded misogyny about how men are able to do whatever they want, you know that style. But like when it comes to this, it really was like he better be able to do that because all he does is not pay attention in class.
BEN KISSEL
I wanted to be an actor, I'm too big to be an actor. So you gotta figure out some stuff.
MARCUS PARKS
Everyone back in Texas, when I tell them, or they all know now what I do. And every time I see them they're like oh we always knew you were gonna do something weird.
BEN KISSEL
That's nice. It's cute.
MARCUS PARKS
Or they say like unconventional. And that was when I was leaving Texas, they were like yeah, you know we love you but you need to go.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You need to go.
MARCUS PARKS
You don't belong here.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, you don't belong in Rochester, Texas.
BEN KISSEL
Everyone knew it.
MARCUS PARKS
I don't belong in Texas in general.
BEN KISSEL
Well I think the number one thing that we all share is our mothers all supported us and we used to do the shoestring players when I was being home schooled.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh my mom did throw up when she saw Murderfist and she wasn't really into all that stuff.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, my mom doesn't... Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But that's what I believe in the axiom of do art like your parents are dead.
BEN KISSEL
Yes. Because also you can't do it every day.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No.
BEN KISSEL
That's why it's special.
MARCUS PARKS
No, my mom loves what we do.
BEN KISSEL
Your mom loves it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Your mom loves it. My mom loves it now, definitely. But your mom loves it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, she actually like listens every week.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
She actually sent me a series of pictures to show to you guys of an owl that got caught... A snake was attacking an owl, got caught in a snare, and a series of pictures of the owl getting removed.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's cool.
MARCUS PARKS
And the snake-
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It was cool.
MARCUS PARKS
She's like why don't you go ahead and show those to Ben and Henry? They'll like those.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They did.
MARCUS PARKS
And they did.
BEN KISSEL
And I did like them.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, they loved them.
BEN KISSEL
It was very cool.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, very cool. And the owl's okay.
BEN KISSEL
Oh good. I got a DM from a friend recently saying you know you always had the vision and it's coming true. So that's good.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I just love doing the damn show.
BEN KISSEL
This is what we do.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I wanna keep doing the show until we're all fucking skeletons.
MARCUS PARKS
Just love doing the show. Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. All right, well thank you so much for these questions, y'all.
MARCUS PARKS
Thank you.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Guys, thank you guys for listening over the years. It's really been... We love it. We're still fucking... It's crazy.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Like thinking about putting together this, you know, it's 12 years, putting them together, the second half of our year of like shows.
MARCUS PARKS
13
BEN KISSEL
13 years.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Holy shit.
BEN KISSEL
13 years!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But then there's just something about it, like it doesn't leave. I'm still just as into it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Like I love doing the process of putting together the shows.
BEN KISSEL
Oh I have to say, man, so much murder. Man, I got my buddy staying with me and holy... Every time I walk into the kitchen, and then their mother beat them with the frying pan.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
See I still like that. I listen to all true crime.
BEN KISSEL
I can listen but I'm just like oh that ain't good. But I have a hard time, I will say I have become slightly desensitized to the voice.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
To the true crime voice.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And then-
BEN KISSEL
Before it'd be like and then what? And now it's just like and then...
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, I know.
BEN KISSEL
We know, get on with it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You get them, Keith Morrison.
BEN KISSEL
Where'd the bury the bodies? Keith Morrison, what an icon.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I love him. I love him.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But yeah, I'm still like that.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, man.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Natalie and I are both... Good lord, with the sounds, if you could just hear the sounds. Because between Natalie when she researches fro SPUN and then now she got all into the cop body cam footage. I'm watching that shit now too.
BEN KISSEL
It's brutal. Gives me a headache.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I get really into watching Karens getting dragged around by cops is actually pretty satisfying.
BEN KISSEL
Oh okay. Police brutality. I'm here for it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh god. No. But I just like all true crime. Now I watch trials.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I sit and watch hours of trial footage.
MARCUS PARKS
Court TV can be very soothing.
BEN KISSEL
I've been into interrogation videos also. You just learn a lot about people.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well you learn you keep your fucking mouth shut and call a goddamn lawyer. And put your hands up. Put your hands up, say nothing, get in the car, don't fight against the man. Get in there, call the lawyer immediately. That all you gotta do.
BEN KISSEL
So just surrender to the police.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Literally surrender to the police and then work it out after the fact.
MARCUS PARKS
You're gonna save yourself a lot of time in the long run.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You really are.
MARCUS PARKS
You really are.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And a lot of not getting your ankles chained together and your head bashed against the fucking window and shit.
BEN KISSEL
Well I don't know.
MARCUS PARKS
None of us are doing anything that's gonna get us taken to a black site. We're fine.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't know yet.
BEN KISSEL
We don't know. We simply don't know. We don't know. All right, well thank you all so much
for listening. And yes, hail yourselves everyone and be safe out there. And just be thankful that we're not... If Keith Morrison is doing a V/O of your life, something has gone horribly wrong.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
And so make sure it never happens.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. Just make sure you don't end up as a subject on our show.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. Absolutely. Unless you find an alien.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Great! But we said that.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
We said that, that's 100%.
MARCUS PARKS
Or ghost.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We'll say that again, remember. Because I've had several people like I'll kill many to get on the show.
BEN KISSEL
No, no.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We won't cover you if you're a fan and you're killing, we're not gonna cover you in a Heavy Hitter, just so you know. But if you find an alien or if you have any carcass of anything good-
BEN KISSEL
So we've lowered it from alien to ghost to any carcass.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Any interesting carcass.
BEN KISSEL
All right.
MARCUS PARKS
Any interesting nonhuman carcass.
BEN KISSEL
Carcass.
MARCUS PARKS
Nonhuman carcass.
BEN KISSEL
Great. Okay everyone, thank you.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Bye!
MARCUS PARKS
Bye.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hail Satan.
BEN KISSEL
Megustalations.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's still out there.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh yeah, hail me. Or no, not hail me, that's him.
BEN KISSEL
He says hail me.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, wow.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
You haven't said hail Gein in a while.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh I say it every single week.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He does, he says it.
BEN KISSEL
No, you actually missed it a couple of times.
MARCUS PARKS
I say it every week. Do I?
BEN KISSEL
No, you didn't do it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Rob? He says it.
BEN KISSEL
Do you say it?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, I say it. I'm a little tired of saying it at this point.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You shouldn't though but in the end, it's nice.
MARCUS PARKS
I gotta say it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You have to say say it.
BEN KISSEL
Who cares?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ooh, are we gonna change?
MARCUS PARKS
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
After all these years?
MARCUS PARKS
No, I'm not gonna be that person.
BEN KISSEL
That changes?
MARCUS PARKS
I wanna try a different artistic direction. Like no, no, no.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Some things gotta stay the same.
BEN KISSEL
They do.
MARCUS PARKS
Do you think Metallica always likes playing Master of Puppets? Not all the time.
BEN KISSEL
I don't think they like playing any of their songs anymore.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well I know that James Hetfield's stage fright is getting worse and worse.
MARCUS PARKS
That's terrible.
BEN KISSEL
You're some kind of monster.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I watch it, the algorithm, they always send me pictures of him smoking his little cigar.
BEN KISSEL
I watched an interview with... We're still going but it's fine. I watched an interview with the lead singer of I believe it was Megadeth, not Megadeath, it was one of those other ones.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Not Dave Mustaine?
BEN KISSEL
No, it was the other guy that's from another band and Metallica wouldn't tour with them and then he was like it's because Metallica knows our audience would beat the fuck out of their audience. But then I think they're all the same audience.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They're all basically the same audience for the most part.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Slayer?
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, they might have just not gotten along.
BEN KISSEL
I think they hated each other.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I think that they were both not easy at the time.
BEN KISSEL
I think so. I agree. I think so now too.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. Oh yeah. They've only gotten more difficult.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I actually kind of prefer when they were drunk and destroying shit.
BEN KISSEL
I know.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Now it's all like psychological.
MARCUS PARKS
Complicated people.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Very.
MARCUS PARKS
Cause they're people too.
BEN KISSEL
Absolutely.
MARCUS PARKS
As are we.
BEN KISSEL
All right, bye!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Bye!
MARCUS PARKS
I'm a person.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm a man!