Speaker 1: Hi.
Speaker 2: I'm Vanessa Bayer and this is my brother Jonah.
Speaker 3: We're two siblings who love to talk about our childhood
Speaker 3: in nostalgia and how shape this into the people we
Speaker 3: are today.
Speaker 4: Who are ready for an episode with no filler today,
Speaker 4: welcome to how did we get weird?
Speaker 2: So Jonah, I.
Speaker 4: Know we're very excited for our guest today. And when
Speaker 4: we were kids, you went to one of his concerts
Speaker 4: and got me a pretty awesome piece of merch.
Speaker 1: Do you remember that I do.
Speaker 3: This is the only time you've ever asked me for
Speaker 3: a T shirt from a concert I went to. This
Speaker 3: is in high school, and I believe this is Bryan's first,
Speaker 3: maybe one of his first tours with Bad Religion. This
Speaker 3: was on the Gray Race tour. Yes, it was at
Speaker 3: the Agora in Cleveland. I want to say maybe ninety
Speaker 3: six ish unwritten law opened up ringing a.
Speaker 1: Bell this spring chaw content polls. Yes, I do I
Speaker 1: know the Agora well, and uh, yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 1: You should have said, Hi, I would have given you
Speaker 1: a discount. I would have been family deal. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I would have been way too nervous to say. I
Speaker 3: still actually feel very nervous. Talk to me Brian. But yeah,
Speaker 3: Vanessa was like a fan of the record and the
Speaker 3: Gray Race, and I got her a shirt.
Speaker 1: I believe it was a Ringer shirt which were big.
Speaker 4: Yes, it was a blue I don't know if you
Speaker 4: remember these, Brian. It was a blue Ringer shirt that
Speaker 4: said bad religion and yellow letters and then there were
Speaker 4: like yellow around the edge of the sleeves.
Speaker 1: Right, I do. And that was that was one without
Speaker 1: the Crossbuster on it. So it could be it, wouldn't
Speaker 1: you know, for people who aren't really making going to
Speaker 1: make that jump to that sort of anti Christian icon.
Speaker 1: They had a way, right, and that's full service. That's
Speaker 1: what we were about them in ninety.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I really made the jump to the Crossbuster because
Speaker 3: I had the whole tapestry with it.
Speaker 4: Thank you, thank you, we love you Foraul R. Really
Speaker 4: we were both representing in different ways. But I remember
Speaker 4: I got quite a few compliments on this shirt and
Speaker 4: felt very cool in it.
Speaker 1: Oh good, I'm glad. I think I might have one
Speaker 1: in dead stock up in the attics somewhere, so.
Speaker 4: Wow, I wonder if I still have mine. If not,
Speaker 4: I'll probably just give you a little text after the show.
Speaker 1: I'll see what I can do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, yeah, let's go ahead and introduced to his guests.
Speaker 3: If you haven't figured it out, you know, Brian is
Speaker 3: a guitar player in Bad Religion. He was one of
Speaker 3: the founding members of Minor Threat. His other projects include
Speaker 3: basically every notable punk and hardcore band, Dagnasty, Government Issue,
Speaker 3: The Meat Men, Junkyard, and of course, more recently, Beat
Speaker 3: Rats and Fake Names.
Speaker 1: Let's give it up for Brian Baker. I probably missed
Speaker 1: some stuff there, but there's others. But no, you touched
Speaker 1: on the you know, the highlights and this this interesting.
Speaker 3: Journey, yes, yeah, and you know, speaking of Ringer shirts,
Speaker 3: like that was an era where like I was wearing
Speaker 3: a lot of Jinko's wallet chains, ringers. Did you get
Speaker 3: into that kind of fashion during that time?
Speaker 1: I mean I liked a Ringer just you know, when
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about a Ringer show, I was like, that's
Speaker 1: what Brian Wilson wore in the Beach Boys, you know.
Speaker 1: So it was always a classic look for me. But
Speaker 1: I was I was in a very experimental phase in
Speaker 1: the mid nineties with Bad Religion because I I'd come
Speaker 1: out of a hard rock band and so when I
Speaker 1: joined the band, I had like shoulder length bleached hair,
Speaker 1: and then within about six months I have these blue
Speaker 1: spiky hair and I'm just I'm just re re establishing
Speaker 1: my punkness, but yet I'm thirty now. It was a
Speaker 1: very it was confusing, but very exhilarating at the time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, where did you feeld of feel more comfortable? I'd imagine,
Speaker 3: you know, you came from that obviously minor threat and
Speaker 3: a discord scene to do. What was it like when
Speaker 3: you were in Junkyard? What was that aesthetic like for you?
Speaker 1: It wasn't really that different from later Dagnasty and the
Speaker 1: people in Junkyard were all from punk bands. So we
Speaker 1: had a guy from the Big Boys and a couple
Speaker 1: of guys from a band called Decry in California who were, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, an early and early LA punk band. So
Speaker 1: it was just a little bit more debaucherous and it
Speaker 1: was dumber than punk. But that doesn't mean it wasn't
Speaker 1: a great time. I mean that's you know, I was
Speaker 1: playing guitar.
Speaker 3: Sure, sure, I associate with Vanessa. I don't if you
Speaker 3: remember this. When I was growing up, I had this
Speaker 3: set of these like glam metal trading cards, like guilty. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I can't remember what they were called, but I had
Speaker 3: all the bands of that era, and you could collect
Speaker 3: different members and I'm pretty sure the members of Junkyard
Speaker 3: were in this next to like skid Row and oh well.
Speaker 1: Not only are you sure, but well they were called
Speaker 1: rock cards and keeping with rock cards with the big
Speaker 1: brains here, oh rock cards, and there were Junkyard was
Speaker 1: included in this, in this collection of rock cards. And
Speaker 1: fortunately for me, maybe fifteen years ago, I found a
Speaker 1: brick of Junkyard specific rock cards on eBay and I
Speaker 1: paid maybe ten or fifteen dollars for a thousand cards,
Speaker 1: and so I've been using them for Christmas presents for
Speaker 1: friends and family ever since. And oh my gosh, yeah
Speaker 1: I have I have three. There are three three different
Speaker 1: scenes that I'm featured genomic cards. So if you are
Speaker 1: a collector, collector, whoa free Yeah, that's so.
Speaker 4: Cool to that you had your own cards. Yeah, I remember, Jonah,
Speaker 4: you had those cards. I think around that time, I
Speaker 4: had a lot of Nino two and O cards where
Speaker 4: you could get a card with each member of the
Speaker 4: cast of Nino two and O.
Speaker 1: So those were not.
Speaker 2: As cool, I would say, respect and probably not as valuable.
Speaker 1: Well maybe maybe you and Brian could get a train
Speaker 1: going or something.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, n KOTB cards had a few of those too.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you were a card. You're a big card, right.
Speaker 3: I'm curious like when you were a kid, obviously, like
Speaker 3: you famously kind of started minor three at or join
Speaker 3: Manu Thret when you're fifteen, or helped start it, and like,
Speaker 3: were you what were you kind of like as a kid,
Speaker 3: because obviously you're a very talented musician. Were you like
Speaker 3: practicing all the time or were you in DC or
Speaker 3: how did that kind of come together?
Speaker 1: Well, you're you're being you're being very charitable. I was.
Speaker 1: I mean, I could play an instrument, but it was
Speaker 1: I was the only child, and so that was really
Speaker 1: what informed my playing. It was just something to do
Speaker 1: and I was you know, I read a lot, and
Speaker 1: my parents didn't like each other, and you know, it's
Speaker 1: hard to I think it was in a solitary existence.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't. I didn't want to characterize it in a
Speaker 1: modern sense because you know, there's pitfalls there. But it
Speaker 1: was like it was fun. I liked making my own
Speaker 1: fun and being by myself, and so a lot of
Speaker 1: these you know, trappings of that era, Like I was
Speaker 1: a big cartoon person and a and a you know,
Speaker 1: a snack person and you know, stuff you do in
Speaker 1: the house by yourself. And then there was a good
Speaker 1: there was a guitar too. I mean that's really how
Speaker 1: I look at it. I wasn't trying to be a musician.
Speaker 1: It was just, you know, there was the guitar.
Speaker 4: And what cartoons and snacks were you kind of checking
Speaker 4: out at that time.
Speaker 1: I was a I loved carps, so I was a
Speaker 1: big speed racer guy, which was I don't know if
Speaker 1: everyone's familiar with that. It was a Japanese basically Japanese
Speaker 1: manga that there was an anime of this family that
Speaker 1: had a race team, and you know, I didn't know
Speaker 1: it was Japanese. It was just weird, right for now
Speaker 1: what is obviously obviously well, I now, I know. So
Speaker 1: that was a car one that I was into. And
Speaker 1: there was a cartoon called Wacky Races that I used
Speaker 1: to watch too. That was I think it came out
Speaker 1: in the very late sixties and I was watching it.
Speaker 1: I was born in sixty five, so you know, every
Speaker 1: every episode was a race of these like thirty teens
Speaker 1: made of different, you know, different stereotypes basically, but at
Speaker 1: the time, it was like, here's the Undertaker and he's
Speaker 1: driving a tombstone. You know, you're the Cageman. They're they're
Speaker 1: driving a rock.
Speaker 4: So you're going specifically for car race related I was
Speaker 4: just content.
Speaker 1: I just I loved the cars, and it was kind
Speaker 1: of it was a thing. It was a cartoon called
Speaker 1: speed Buggy, which was like the poor Man Scooby Doo,
Speaker 1: and it almost was Scooby Doo except for that they
Speaker 1: drove around in a buggy that was that could talk,
Speaker 1: and then they solved mysteries with the help of the
Speaker 1: buggy that they were in. It was also you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: the sentient. Yeah, it was. It was great. That's so cool.
Speaker 3: I was so into cars as a kid too, I've
Speaker 3: been I don't know if you remember this, but our mom
Speaker 3: said that I would just sit behind the wheel of
Speaker 3: the parked car and just imagine driving for like hours
Speaker 3: as a kid.
Speaker 1: That's so cute. I didn't know that. I'm guilty of
Speaker 1: that myself. I did exactly that.
Speaker 2: Really.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's weird because when I quickly I'd like to
Speaker 1: just say that my dad was wonderful to me, but
Speaker 1: when you hear this, it's insane. One of my best
Speaker 1: memories is we used to go and share a house
Speaker 1: on Long Island with another family when I was eight
Speaker 1: nine years old. This would be our summer vacation. We
Speaker 1: go for a week and there was this was like
Speaker 1: in East Hampton basically, and there was a gas station
Speaker 1: on Montauk Highway where there would be every season there
Speaker 1: would be like five or six wrecked cars that were
Speaker 1: lined up on the side of the gas station. And
Speaker 1: I don't know how this worked out, but my father
Speaker 1: Bobby obviously had a relationship with a person at the
Speaker 1: gas station because he would leave me at the gas
Speaker 1: station to go do whatever dads do in the wrecked cars.
Speaker 1: And we called it the Crash the Car Place. And
Speaker 1: I'm sure it was probably only for like forty five
Speaker 1: minutes or an hour that he would leave me with
Speaker 1: a man at a gas station to crawl around broken
Speaker 1: glass and sit behind the wheel of these of these
Speaker 1: whatever these cars were. And I just loved it, and
Speaker 1: it was you know, it was not at all abusive,
Speaker 1: and I did make it through no tetanus. But it's
Speaker 1: just a while to think about that now you know,
Speaker 1: liability being what it is. And one of the cars,
Speaker 1: and I will never forget this was a Mercedes one
Speaker 1: ninety SL which is a beautiful two door convertible Mercedes
Speaker 1: they made the late fifties the early sixties, just iconic
Speaker 1: cars and now one would be worth you know, one,
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of dollars, And this wrecked Mercedes was
Speaker 1: there every season because we must have gone three or
Speaker 1: four years in a row and the other cars would change,
Speaker 1: but the one ninety would stay, big white steering wheel. Crazy. Wow.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that is incredible and incredible that you would be
Speaker 3: in a band called junk Yard later when you were
Speaker 3: kind of hanging out at like a junk yard.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but then that's where I gained a lot of
Speaker 1: the experience that I used in Junkyard, being so familiar
Speaker 1: with the ins and out right right. Yeah, and they
Speaker 1: still smell the car. It's crazy, there's like a total
Speaker 1: sense memory. Crazy you. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Now, I want to ask, as someone who watched a
Speaker 4: lot of Heathcliff growing up, what would you say that's
Speaker 4: a pretty accurate representation of a Junkyard.
Speaker 2: Did you ever watch it?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 1: I never watched Teeth Cliff. I'm so sorry.
Speaker 2: It's a bunch of cats and other animals.
Speaker 1: The cat eats garbage, I think basically, I.
Speaker 2: Don't think the cat eats garbage.
Speaker 1: We had the top Cat, which I think predates Heathcliff,
Speaker 1: which was a number of cats who did. I think
Speaker 1: that they were ali cats and maybe trash cats. It
Speaker 1: was kind of like a feline fat Albert. Okay, in
Speaker 1: a way, it's hard. It's an ensemble cat.
Speaker 2: Interesting. I feel like I kind of.
Speaker 5: Am yeah, top Cat, remembering this a little a lot
Speaker 5: of Brooklyn accents. Okay, Yeah, that's cool.
Speaker 4: Now this is feels sort of like taking a step
Speaker 4: back from what you just said in terms of cars.
Speaker 4: But the other thing that Jonah would do is Jonah
Speaker 4: would buy a lot of posters of cars and have
Speaker 4: them up in his room. And there's one poster in
Speaker 4: particular that he bought at the scholastic book sale at
Speaker 4: TV at at school, and he wouldn't take it out
Speaker 4: of the plastic because he wanted to protect testerosis.
Speaker 1: So you got I was just going to say the Lamborghini,
Speaker 1: Yeah it was.
Speaker 3: It was either it was either a Lamborghini, Kootash or
Speaker 3: Ferrari Testosa.
Speaker 1: Those are kind of the two two well, which which
Speaker 1: color was red? Yeah, totally. Yes.
Speaker 3: Did you have any posters in your room growing up
Speaker 3: that you were too scared to take out that you're
Speaker 3: in grass?
Speaker 1: No? I did not. You sound cooler than me. No,
Speaker 1: that's not nut. I just didn't. I wish that precious
Speaker 1: with my stuff. Yeah, I understand, I want I went
Speaker 1: punk right right junk yard?
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, well so did you, Johannah. But you just
Speaker 4: really wanted to protect the value of your.
Speaker 1: I wanted to protect the value of those posters in.
Speaker 2: Case you wanted to resell it one day. Very smart.
Speaker 1: Sure, sure, Brent was it?
Speaker 3: And maybe this is just kind of like a scenario
Speaker 3: made up in my head, like you as a kid
Speaker 3: would wake up and then go to Hokandas and see
Speaker 3: Ian and Henry rowing and getting ice cream. Was that
Speaker 3: kind of like a typical day.
Speaker 1: For you or not really like that? Yeah, we would definitely.
Speaker 1: Just the things is that are the you know, ground
Speaker 1: zero for punk when I was fifteen was Georgetown in Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. Which is just really kind of an upscale,
Speaker 1: older part of the city. You know, a lot of
Speaker 1: the buildings were you know, late eighteenth century, and Hoggandaws
Speaker 1: was actually like the Hogan Dows was in a row house.
Speaker 1: It's very very very tree and you know still have
Speaker 1: this the street car tracks and the h and So
Speaker 1: it was really kind of a fun juxtaposition that these
Speaker 1: you know, these these private school punks were wandering the
Speaker 1: mean streets of Georgetown and you know, stopping at Hagendaws
Speaker 1: to say hello to there, hello to their friends. But
Speaker 1: we also went to a Roy Rogers. There was a
Speaker 1: Roy Rogers restaurant if he walks down, and that was
Speaker 1: a big hangout. The drummer for Iron Cross was basically
Speaker 1: found a. He was obsessed with getting I think they
Speaker 1: would give you free buns and then he would use
Speaker 1: the Fixen's bar and create his own punk sandwich at
Speaker 1: no charge. He went on to own the black Cat Nightcice,
Speaker 1: so that shows you he was smart with his money.
Speaker 3: Yeah, wow, wow, Wow, that's it. Yeah, that's very exciting.
Speaker 3: United Nations. We played our first show ever really at
Speaker 3: the black Cat.
Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah, Obama's inauguration date in two thousand and eight.
Speaker 1: Black Cat's awesome. Still there, Ren Rath though, Yeah, very cool.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you're hanging out Roy rogers Hagen dass like,
Speaker 3: what were some but were you?
Speaker 1: Were you skateboarding? Like what was some other stuff you
Speaker 1: were kind of I mean I was, I was skateboarding
Speaker 1: long before I was punk, and I think, well, punk
Speaker 1: kind of took over in every way, like I mean,
Speaker 1: for starters, the boots that kind of slowed down in
Speaker 1: your skate and I think that there was I was
Speaker 1: kind of I think I was more preoccupied with walking
Speaker 1: long distances to no specific place, looking kind of sullen
Speaker 1: and you know, checking my you know.
Speaker 4: Could you talk us through the whole look that you're
Speaker 4: rocking here? Like the boots I assume are like big
Speaker 4: kind of combatty boots.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well there are combaty boots. When I first when
Speaker 1: I was, when I first went in, my mother was
Speaker 1: very very my parents were separated at that point, and
Speaker 1: my mother was very helpful and so and she was
Speaker 1: also kind of cool. She looked a little like David
Speaker 1: Bowie and she dressed like and so my first punk
Speaker 1: outfit was that I had her red hair dog and
Speaker 1: had kind of the spiky red hair that we had
Speaker 1: kind of cut our on our own, and I was
Speaker 1: wearing she had I was wearing her she had some
Speaker 1: like skinny jeans that had zippers up the back. But
Speaker 1: they were fashion for you know, ladies, skinny jeans. But
Speaker 1: but but they worked somehow too.
Speaker 2: It's there's something about being a skinny.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, once and not a lot, but yeah,
Speaker 1: and uh. And there would be the big combat books
Speaker 1: that we all got from Sunny Surplus, which was the
Speaker 1: you know, the surplus store in Georgetown, which is convenient
Speaker 1: that we could we could stock up there and then
Speaker 1: and for me, I had I had one. I had
Speaker 1: a JAM T shirt was the first T shirt that
Speaker 1: I bought, like a commercial punk shirts at the Jam.
Speaker 1: But a lot of it was a lot of it
Speaker 1: was just thrift stores. Or you'd have a white shirt
Speaker 1: and then you'd write something hey, maybe like with paint.
Speaker 1: I don't even think it was a sharpie. I think
Speaker 1: it was just poster paint. Okay, a band name or
Speaker 1: how you're feeling, you know, or what's what's right right
Speaker 1: right right? Yeah. And I had a leather jacket, but
Speaker 1: you kind of went from leather jacket to sort of
Speaker 1: or or just tattered, you know, twenty year old black
Speaker 1: suit coat. Okay, that would be that was a big one. Too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, how many you know, because Brian, you have
Speaker 3: like very cool style and but like you know, I
Speaker 3: you wear a lot of band shirts. Obviously I have
Speaker 3: a lot of band shirts. My wife is sort of
Speaker 3: trying to get me to paar down the band shirts. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's kind of a yeah, ongoing thing. Do you ever
Speaker 3: get rid of them? How many do you think you have?
Speaker 1: Do you do? You? Do you ever wear just like
Speaker 1: a black shirt or shirt with a stripe or something. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, it's funny, I said, in my real life,
Speaker 1: I don't wear a lot of band shirts. You see
Speaker 1: pictures of me playing, right, and I do like to
Speaker 1: represent when I play shirt I always wear a Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll wear a discharged shirt. Or I went through a
Speaker 1: phase where I would wear bands that I was in
Speaker 1: before Bad Religion or you know, like my other band
Speaker 1: shirts on stage with Bad Religion, because I thought that
Speaker 1: was being you know, a little wink in a nod.
Speaker 1: But in retrospect, I'm not a Centroz signals. But you know,
Speaker 1: I think pairing it down to the real, the real
Speaker 1: quality is important. I mean, you don't have to you
Speaker 1: don't have to you know completely, you know, walk off
Speaker 1: that path.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and Joni, you can always send me your shirts
Speaker 4: because I think we're kind of the same size, because
Speaker 4: you're a pretty slender guy. And I always love wearing
Speaker 4: your band shirts, and sometimes I do. I will admit
Speaker 4: I wear them as kind of a poser because I
Speaker 4: don't I'm not as familiar with the band as you are.
Speaker 1: But you know, in the interest, I've heard it's not
Speaker 1: cool to be quizzed about what you're wearing anymore. I
Speaker 1: think your shirts. Yeah, that's probably true, right, because I
Speaker 1: feel you're not supposed to do that. That used to
Speaker 1: happen a lot. Yeah, okay, yeah, really all right, Yeah, tell.
Speaker 4: Me when did you see them? And what's your favorite drummer?
Speaker 1: What's the drummer's mom's name? Right, exactly, Stephanie. To answer
Speaker 1: your question, John, I've probably got a couple hundred of
Speaker 1: these okay things from you know, fair Iss years, and
Speaker 1: I don't I haven't really done anything with them. I
Speaker 1: have this grand plan that eventually I'm going to have,
Speaker 1: you know, I'll have some amazing you know, tag saale
Speaker 1: and then I'll donate it to an animal shelter or
Speaker 1: make some big deal out of it. But now it's
Speaker 1: just in uh, you know storage container land right right,
Speaker 1: right right. I check in once every maybe two years
Speaker 1: when I'm trying to oh where was that? Where's that?
Speaker 1: I know that still fits? Yeah?
Speaker 3: What's it like for you? Like listening to these? Because
Speaker 3: I was in a band? You know, bands is like
Speaker 3: a teenager fourteen, fifteen, sixteen year old. They weren't the
Speaker 3: best bands. There's like recordings don't exist of them, no
Speaker 3: one would want to hear them. Oh no, obviously you
Speaker 3: were in Minor Threat, which is a band that's still
Speaker 3: obviously very sol what's it like listening to like fifteen
Speaker 3: year old Brian playing music as an adult because most
Speaker 3: people don't ever hear that stuff again, right.
Speaker 1: It's weird, it's right now, it's just gratitude. It's like, wow,
Speaker 1: what a you know, how nice is that that this
Speaker 1: is here to listen to for starters and the whole
Speaker 1: idea of right place, right time, and you know, being
Speaker 1: this disaffected teenager and going to the same high school
Speaker 1: with some other people who felt the same way, and
Speaker 1: we formed this band because that's what we did. There
Speaker 1: was no expectation, there was no you know, you were
Speaker 1: trying to do anything other than this was an after
Speaker 1: school activity basically, and so listening to it, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm proud of it. I'm very grateful, and you know,
Speaker 1: some of it's not really great, but that's you know,
Speaker 1: that's it. At least there's a document of it. So
Speaker 1: and then this was at a time when people didn't
Speaker 1: you know, record every single thing that they did right
Speaker 1: and then shared it with everybody in the world. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's nice that that stuff existing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, when you were fifteen, do you remember what your
Speaker 4: band like practices were like, Like, were you because when
Speaker 4: I was fifteen, I would have been like, let's get
Speaker 4: some fruit roll ups and like, you know, anyway, it's
Speaker 4: probably not what things like.
Speaker 1: No, Well, you know what the advantage for me is
Speaker 1: that I was the youngest guy in the band by
Speaker 1: a couple of years. And so when I was fifteen
Speaker 1: in mine when we first started, Ian and Jeff were eighteen.
Speaker 1: They were out of high school and they were you know,
Speaker 1: Ian was it was really Ian's vision and he was
Speaker 1: really motivated to do this band and to get get
Speaker 1: these songs out. And so I was kind of lucky
Speaker 1: to be in that tailwind. So we didn't really we
Speaker 1: took practicing seriously. It wasn't. I mean, it wasn't really
Speaker 1: a hangout. We wanted to be we wanted to be good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and all of our other friends around town were all
Speaker 1: doing the same thing. Everyone was going you know that
Speaker 1: it was it would be almost like, well, you know,
Speaker 1: between four and seven, you don't hear you know, no
Speaker 1: one's on the street because they're all ruckers there and
Speaker 1: their parents' basements. You know, so we kind of did
Speaker 1: take it seriously. It wasn't. The messing around was like
Speaker 1: the shows was just yeah that yeah, you know, that's
Speaker 1: that's the social event where you're goofing around and hanging
Speaker 1: out and where's the bass player? Oh he went to
Speaker 1: get pizza? Okay, well you know next to us right
Speaker 1: right right? I noone care, nobody cares.
Speaker 2: That's great, that's great.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, so yeah, Vanessa minor Threat weren't sitting around
Speaker 1: eating for us.
Speaker 2: I apologize that that was I was thinking.
Speaker 4: I was just thinking about that purely about the age,
Speaker 4: your age at that time, and not about the product
Speaker 4: you're creating.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, to be fair, if we'd all been my age,
Speaker 1: there would been no product. It's a lot of fruit
Speaker 1: roll ups and you know, dang dongs right right right.
Speaker 3: Save that, I thought, Brian, because we were going to
Speaker 3: take a quick break and we're going to be right
Speaker 3: back with your topic. And we're back with Brian Baker.
Speaker 3: So Brian, you give us an incredible segue. So thank
Speaker 3: you for that. Yes, sure, sure, we were going to
Speaker 3: talk about snacks today and we wanted to start with
Speaker 3: Stofer's Frozen Dinners because Stofer's headquarters on if you knew,
Speaker 3: this is in Cleveland and we would drive past it
Speaker 3: all the time in soul in Ohio.
Speaker 1: Yes, did not know? Did not know?
Speaker 3: That?
Speaker 1: Was it orange? Black and white? Was the building painted
Speaker 1: like I believe it was not?
Speaker 3: But it was right next to Nesley's headquarters. Nestley apparently
Speaker 3: owned Stofers, and it was these two kind of white buildings,
Speaker 3: and I thought it was our corporate offices. But I
Speaker 3: did some research and I think that's it. I think
Speaker 3: that's where they make the French red. I think that's
Speaker 3: where they produce it.
Speaker 1: All. Yeah, wow, well the lucky you do local? I mean, yeah, here,
Speaker 1: I am growing up in Washington, d C. Right by
Speaker 1: the you know, the Lincoln Memorial and the Capitol Building,
Speaker 1: and you've got the stuffs factory.
Speaker 2: So you know, there's pros and cons to where you live,
Speaker 2: and some were also.
Speaker 1: I would have traded. I would have traded places with
Speaker 1: you and still young Ma, big young me.
Speaker 3: Now, yeah, they had pretty good distribution, so uh, I'm
Speaker 3: sure you got it out there. Yeah, what were what
Speaker 3: were some of your favorite.
Speaker 1: Well that was the thing is it's stove. First was
Speaker 1: my food? Okay, Yeah, I think I mentioned before I
Speaker 1: had my parents were separated. I was punk. My mother
Speaker 1: was not. Uh she was wonderful, but she wasn't the
Speaker 1: high on our priority was not worrying about what I'm
Speaker 1: doing or whether I'm fence or if I'm home or
Speaker 1: I mean, this is are you talking to somebody who
Speaker 1: at fifteen I just went on tour, went on went
Speaker 1: on tour actually up to Ohio, you know, and it
Speaker 1: it's like she was. I would say that was a
Speaker 1: permissive house, okay. And I was a cell feeder and
Speaker 1: it was Stuffer's and that's what we had in the house.
Speaker 1: So here I am, I'm fifteen, and it's uh, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm a big The French Butt pizza, of course,
Speaker 1: is the core. It's it's the foundation that we build
Speaker 1: our stuffs ration with. But then there's the you know,
Speaker 1: the Mac and Cheese has on trip that was huge
Speaker 1: in the house. Mac and Chee and mom would join in.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's not just sad me behind my son, right,
Speaker 1: you know, and we've sometimes a member of my member
Speaker 1: of minor threat might stop in for some turkey tetrasine's.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, that's right, because we had plenty. We
Speaker 1: were Stuffer's people. I I think it's funny that one
Speaker 1: of my favorites was Welsh rare bit, which was just
Speaker 1: a cheese sauce Welsh rare. I mean like talk about
Speaker 1: you know this this anglophilic, you know, punk kid, like
Speaker 1: do you have Welsh air bit? I'm really it's delicious
Speaker 1: on toast, like we never even had the toast. It
Speaker 1: was this is just this bizarro offshoot staffer's side dish
Speaker 1: that my mom just kept wow. And I didn't even
Speaker 1: know it was a bag of cheese. It might have
Speaker 1: been a boiling bag. But of course, you know, duved
Speaker 1: tailing nice with the stuffers. I believe we owned the
Speaker 1: first microwave in Washington that was the size of an
Speaker 1: apartment block. And you know, I'm still probably suffering folks
Speaker 1: of the tap in you know, micro ranger or whatever
Speaker 1: it was. And then we were there was the Swedish
Speaker 1: meat ball, right pre Ikea.
Speaker 2: Yeah, people think Ikea made them famous.
Speaker 1: Sorry you right? And Stoers had the decency to include
Speaker 1: like an egg noodle, right, so that really tied it
Speaker 1: all over the course. But yeah, that was that was.
Speaker 1: That was the food, and the drink was cocoa. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't think I drank water until I was twenty
Speaker 1: two or twenty three years old. Wow wow, yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: So and that was on doctor's orders. Were you microwaving
Speaker 1: these or were using the oven? Because I think the
Speaker 1: thing about this sof for stuff was to take like
Speaker 1: seven hours in the oven to make these things. Well,
Speaker 1: I think it was either or it depends like are
Speaker 1: you making? Is this dinner? Are you? Are you having
Speaker 1: dinner with mom? And is it nighttime?
Speaker 6: Right?
Speaker 1: Why don't we just put in the oven and get
Speaker 1: a little crust on top of it?
Speaker 2: Right, You're going to get a better.
Speaker 1: Right, But I know that everything went in the microwave eventually, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, especially when you're on the go. And we didn't,
Speaker 1: we didn't look, we weren't monstrous. We didn't microwave the
Speaker 1: French bread pizza. That's okay, that's important, right, Even though
Speaker 1: we had the microwave of the browning element, it never worked.
Speaker 1: That caused the fuse to pay. Yeah, still we never
Speaker 1: we just we respected the French.
Speaker 4: Well, it seems like if you microwave the French bread pizza,
Speaker 4: it wouldn't the bread wouldn't get so hard that it
Speaker 4: would almost break your teeth every time you invite into it.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you remember that element.
Speaker 1: I do. I do. Look, I have one of those.
Speaker 1: I was really I think the first time I had
Speaker 1: COVID because when I get sick, I go immediately back
Speaker 1: to like I.
Speaker 4: Would actually I want stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, do you have any craft singles like stuff that
Speaker 1: you know? And I know that my wife showed up
Speaker 1: with French ship pizzas because I've had them in recent memory,
Speaker 1: you know, in the last couple of years. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: they hurt your teeth.
Speaker 4: That's very sweet that she did that, And yeah, they
Speaker 4: hurt your teeth. A lot of this stuff stuffers obviously
Speaker 4: still exists. In a lot of this stuff still exists,
Speaker 4: and it's really funny. It's really funny looking at the
Speaker 4: website like we were. We were looking at the you know,
Speaker 4: the different the French but pizza aside the mac and
Speaker 4: cheese and the other the other entrees and stuff come
Speaker 4: in different sizes, which are party size, family size, and
Speaker 4: meals for one. I know that's Jonah and I were like,
Speaker 4: this feels sad, but they describe it like this, the
Speaker 4: meals for one, delicious bites for solo nights. After a
Speaker 4: long day, you deserve to treat yourself with a quick
Speaker 4: and comforting meal like our ultimate five cheese mac or
Speaker 4: bowl foles, fried chicken and mashed potatoes. Find your favorite
Speaker 4: and explore all our meals for I know the meals
Speaker 4: for one thing absolutely defastated.
Speaker 1: I think delicious bites for solo nights.
Speaker 4: Yeah, like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then yeah. Family size.
Speaker 4: Their motto is feed the family and party size. It's
Speaker 4: bigger portions for bigger plans. But this is also something
Speaker 4: that we found funny. The mac and cheese also has
Speaker 4: one additional size that's only for the mac and cheese,
Speaker 4: called large size for someone who's like, I don't want
Speaker 4: to just have a meal for one of mac and cheese.
Speaker 4: If I'm going mac and cheese I'm going hard, which
Speaker 4: is what I would say.
Speaker 1: One and a half.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't really remember the meals for one, but
Speaker 4: I do, or maybe I do, But I really remember
Speaker 4: being at people's houses and them having the party size
Speaker 4: of sto for stuff and being like, WHOA, what the.
Speaker 1: Hell is this? You know, wow, I remember the big
Speaker 1: the big mac and cheese, But I don't. I don't,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm from a little slightly different era. I
Speaker 1: mean I predate lean cuisine. Just to put some perspective
Speaker 1: on this, Like I was in Stover's prior to the
Speaker 1: lean cuisine revolution, which changed it all right, right right,
Speaker 1: you know, we didn't have fancy sizes, but they did
Speaker 1: have a big the things that were sides in none
Speaker 1: of themselves. I think that they did have the larger.
Speaker 2: Ones, right right, right, right right.
Speaker 1: I guess my mom was never tempted, you know, to
Speaker 1: think of the economy. We could have split the mac
Speaker 1: and cheese.
Speaker 4: I mean, can you imagine anything more fun than opening
Speaker 4: up your freezer and there's a party size of Stuffer's
Speaker 4: mac and cheese. I'd be like, this is it must
Speaker 4: be my birthday or something. It seems so fun, And
Speaker 4: yet I'm sure if you always had it, you would
Speaker 4: get sick of.
Speaker 1: It very quickly, or maybe not. It's pretty delicious. I
Speaker 1: don't think I cared about food. I think it was
Speaker 1: more of a fuel thing. Yeah, it's hard to describe.
Speaker 1: I can't. I can't project me now. Yeah, because I
Speaker 1: would This is stuff that I just you know, I
Speaker 1: just would never eat.
Speaker 4: I've always wanted to be that way of like food
Speaker 4: is fuel. But I'm always like when can I get
Speaker 4: more of it? And I'm can I love it?
Speaker 1: I was just this will be a lifelong battle.
Speaker 3: Yes, So, Brian, I actually went to UH. I had
Speaker 3: a friend in middle school whose dad worked for Nestle. Yes,
Speaker 3: and we got to go to I believe a Cleveland
Speaker 3: Guardians or Cleveland Bablon Brown's game baseball or football game. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 3: Brown's game. And we had a load Nestlie had a
Speaker 3: load for this sports game and it was full of
Speaker 3: Neslie products. Oh and like I remember just eating like
Speaker 3: popping these like mini Nestli crunch bars. Just I don't
Speaker 3: remember what sport it was, but I just remember eating
Speaker 3: so much Nestlie crunched and hot chocolate.
Speaker 1: I mean, were you into chocolate? What were some of the
Speaker 1: year kind of deserts you're in. It's funny. I wasn't
Speaker 1: a chocolate person, but I am now I'm a dark
Speaker 1: chocolate lunatic now.
Speaker 4: But I was not.
Speaker 1: I wasn't into bark chocolate.
Speaker 5: Really.
Speaker 1: I was not a Hershey NESTLEI guy. What I was
Speaker 1: into was hostess, Okay, plies. That was it, the hostess
Speaker 1: big wheel, which is what they were called in my region.
Speaker 1: You may know them as a ding dong or if
Speaker 1: you're one of our friends in Canada, a king down,
Speaker 1: you know, old king Don Bouchard up through Manitoba. Okay,
Speaker 1: the you know, the the hockey puck thats dipped in
Speaker 1: chocolate with a you know, a cylindrical ho ho kind of.
Speaker 1: It's like it's a it's a hockey puck with cream
Speaker 1: in the middle and it's dipped in chocolate. These things
Speaker 1: we got them in twelve packs, and the twelve pack
Speaker 1: was in the refrigerator, not beer. Okay, big wheels. Because
Speaker 1: my mom was like she liked and chilled, and you
Speaker 1: know she was in on this too, right, we were
Speaker 1: not you know, this was it wasn't all my idea.
Speaker 1: So you would get these big wheal ding dong things.
Speaker 1: You'd open them up and then you'd just eat the
Speaker 1: chocolate off, and then you'd have round two, which is
Speaker 1: you go and attack the cupcake. Let's call it fun
Speaker 1: the hockey puck cupcake and take that out separately. And
Speaker 1: so that chocolate I was fine with. I don't know why.
Speaker 1: Maybe proximity to the cake. I don't know. Maybe because
Speaker 1: it was thin, it wasn't so much of a chocolate commitment.
Speaker 1: I love so hos too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, those are so good.
Speaker 4: Can I say something without offending either of you, which
Speaker 4: is that I don't know? Which is that being into
Speaker 4: dark chocolate. I don't think today, even though you're both
Speaker 4: into dark chocolate, it doesn't really make you a chocoholic.
Speaker 4: And I'm not saying that you claim to be, but
Speaker 4: I think chocoholics like myself are into more into milk
Speaker 4: chocolate because that's more like it. And again, I'm not
Speaker 4: going to spend too long on this because I can
Speaker 4: see from both of your faces that you're not really
Speaker 4: enjoying it. But it's a true chocoholic I think is
Speaker 4: obsessed with milk chocolate, and that's controversial. I'm probably going
Speaker 4: to get a lot of I'm probably going to get
Speaker 4: a lot of feedback on this, a lot of.
Speaker 1: Negative feedback up. Yeah yeah. Let me just ask you
Speaker 1: a question. What's your bar count? What's your daily bar
Speaker 1: count with.
Speaker 2: Your chocolate bars.
Speaker 4: That's fair, that's pretty low, and I bet yours is
Speaker 4: pretty high.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I'm I can easily be a two bar
Speaker 1: day guy. Just I think you're just your utility chocolate,
Speaker 1: your you know, your choco love okay, you know, just
Speaker 1: a nice little three dollars you know, jammer in there
Speaker 1: that you have to go to the other store for.
Speaker 1: I knocked two of those out in the day, and
Speaker 1: that makes me a chocoholic, okay. And I know, yeah,
Speaker 1: I know, I know a lot about aholicking. And this one,
Speaker 1: this one's real, okay, Okay, Yeah, with the.
Speaker 3: Dark chocolate, you're getting a lot less sugar so you
Speaker 3: can eat more of it. And it is sugared out.
Speaker 1: I think so. And I believe that it's got a
Speaker 1: you know, I keep hearing that it's got a little
Speaker 1: go fast to it. Also that there's you know, some
Speaker 1: of it's caffeinated or.
Speaker 4: Right there is caffeine. I think, yeah, yeah, okay, I
Speaker 4: take it back. I'm sorry that I accused of both
Speaker 4: of them being chocoholics.
Speaker 1: Just as long as we're all enjoying chocolate, isn't that
Speaker 1: really what matters?
Speaker 2: That's right, that's right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, getting back to now, speaking of controversy, did you
Speaker 4: know that Stofers was sued no less than three times
Speaker 4: for absolutely hilarious reasons. Do you want to get into
Speaker 4: the first Jon had found the first one, so I
Speaker 4: don't want to take it.
Speaker 3: There was a they were sued by Applebee's over using
Speaker 3: the term skillet sensations. Yeah, because Applebee's saying they coined
Speaker 3: the phrase in nineteen ninety seven and Stofers came out
Speaker 3: with it right after for some frozen dinners, and there
Speaker 3: was this big lawsuit they both wanted to use a name.
Speaker 3: Neslee eventually agreed to stop using the phrase skillet sensations
Speaker 3: and marketing and renamed it Stofer's Skillets in two thousand
Speaker 3: and five.
Speaker 1: Wow, and they like that, no skillet sensations.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, everybody fighting over skillet sensations, which doesn't seem
Speaker 4: like it's that good of a name.
Speaker 2: But also Stofer's being like, okay, you can have it.
Speaker 4: Now, we're going to rename it Stofer's skillets is a
Speaker 4: little bit like, okay, you.
Speaker 1: Could have yeah, little big applebee. Yeah. Now.
Speaker 4: Another one that happened even prior to this, in nineteen
Speaker 4: ninety one, it's funny you brought up Lian Cuisine, is
Speaker 4: that the Federal Trade Commission issued a complaint that Stofers
Speaker 4: had misrepresented the sodium content and their Lian Cuisine entrees
Speaker 4: by stating that they were low in sodium because.
Speaker 1: Because they weren't, and they were not, and they.
Speaker 4: And Stoffers argued that the campaign had focused on good
Speaker 4: taste and controlled sodium, fat, and calories, and that the
Speaker 4: sodium claim was relative, reflecting a lower amount of sodium,
Speaker 4: not necessary, that the entrees were low sodium, so I
Speaker 4: think they were like, it's lower than our other stuff,
Speaker 4: so everything's relative. But the Federal Trade Commission ruled in
Speaker 4: favor or the judge rule in favor of the Federal
Speaker 4: Trade Commission. And the last one, which happened in twenty eleven,
Speaker 4: there was a recall placed on again Line Cuisine spaghetti
Speaker 4: and meatballs after consumers reported finding pieces of plastic in
Speaker 4: their meals.
Speaker 1: That's not that's not me, that's not what they paid for.
Speaker 4: And so uh in twenty sixteen, here's another one. So
Speaker 4: that was twenty eleven. So that was a little bit
Speaker 4: of a recall. Another recall in twenty sixteen when a
Speaker 4: number of Stofer's products were voluntarily recalled on the suspicion
Speaker 4: that they contained small pieces of glass.
Speaker 1: Well, let's they've gone upscale from the plastic though.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's it seems just like.
Speaker 4: We're gonna we're gonna put some kind of non edible
Speaker 4: material in here.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be nice. Yeah, I mean the glass is
Speaker 1: slightly more dangerous. You might think. It really depends what
Speaker 1: kind of glass row. Right, that's true, that's true, exactly right.
Speaker 3: What how were your thoughts on like little Debbie, were
Speaker 3: you into like seapercakes or something?
Speaker 1: No, well that was quick. No, No hostess, hostess, any
Speaker 1: any any rogue snack caick was absolutely unacceptable. And to
Speaker 1: say it with the with the hostess, fruit pie, the cherry,
Speaker 1: specifically the fruit pie. That obsession carried through into my
Speaker 1: early forties. This was a product. It was on the
Speaker 1: rider for every bad religion show. Awesome, I man, woe
Speaker 1: is the runner who would show up with a counterfeit
Speaker 1: with something other than a hostess cherry Pie. Here's your intimates.
Speaker 1: Get back to that store.
Speaker 2: Did did you tell them to go for a walk?
Speaker 1: Of course I had people. I had people do that
Speaker 1: every time. I'd never directly.
Speaker 4: Just why every time I talk about going for a walk,
Speaker 4: I start singing that song and Jonah says, Venessa's not
Speaker 4: that funny that millions times?
Speaker 1: God, that guitar solo is so such a devil for
Speaker 1: me that I have to play that occasionally. It's just
Speaker 1: it's a dumb solo and it's hard. But I digress.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, do you think, but think about it got
Speaker 4: me to be able to do that bit for years,
Speaker 4: so it was worth it, right.
Speaker 1: You know, I didn't let you. I didn't let that
Speaker 1: breathe at all. I should have really let you have it.
Speaker 1: I just was I was running over you trying to
Speaker 1: think of intimates.
Speaker 4: And no, I look, I really snuck it in there
Speaker 4: and I and you caught it.
Speaker 1: So tasty cake, that's what I was going. Tasty cake,
Speaker 1: tasty tasty taste. You hate to go right back to
Speaker 1: Lantham Severn, Maryland with that one. Okay, they're made, okay, Okay,
Speaker 1: you know before we got a break.
Speaker 3: I gotta say there are some riffing solos on that
Speaker 3: on that record, the greatest record I'm thinking. I listened
Speaker 3: to it yesterday. It's it's drunk sincerity. I think maybe
Speaker 3: that one has like yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: That's a fun one. That's cool. We still we just
Speaker 1: started playing that again actually live when you come see
Speaker 1: Bad Religion live this year?
Speaker 3: Oh yes, incredible. And also I wanted to promote I
Speaker 3: got this Glenny Friedman Minor Threat book.
Speaker 1: That's a great book, just because it's great because Glenn's
Speaker 1: such a great photographer. The subject matters. They are for discussion. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I want to say I'm I'm a huge
Speaker 4: Bad Religion fan too, And I I don't mean to
Speaker 4: just talk about going for a walk, but I for
Speaker 4: a walk. Really, I've gotten so much mileage out of
Speaker 4: that song, and I will continue to for their.
Speaker 1: Please please don't. Hopefully our time together will add to
Speaker 1: it in some way. That's right.
Speaker 4: I have one more question before we go to break two,
Speaker 4: which is you were saying hostess for a period of time.
Speaker 4: Jonah got very into the teenage mutant Ninja turtle pies.
Speaker 2: Did you ever have were those Hostess?
Speaker 1: I don't think so. They may have been.
Speaker 2: A very limited amount of time.
Speaker 3: We think they had like custard inside of them or something.
Speaker 3: This was I was, yeah, I think I was out
Speaker 3: of I was out of pie. Yeah, except for the
Speaker 3: cherry pies.
Speaker 1: The cherry pie.
Speaker 3: They were hostess. They were filled with vanilla pudding and
Speaker 3: they were green. But this might have been. This is
Speaker 3: probably like early nineties.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I guess in retrospect that age, it would have
Speaker 4: been weird if you were like, oh, there's these delicious
Speaker 4: looking cherry ones, but I'm going to buy the disgusting
Speaker 4: looking to your Ninja journal.
Speaker 1: But Jonah really like them, and.
Speaker 3: I wish those are on your rider. That would have
Speaker 3: been incredible. It would have been great.
Speaker 1: It would have been people have to go find them.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, we are going to take a quick
Speaker 1: break and we'll be right back with Brian Baker.
Speaker 4: We're back, and we'd like to play a game that's
Speaker 4: relatively new for us, and it's called Congratulations You Baked Yourself.
Speaker 1: Congratulations you Baked Yourself.
Speaker 4: So basically, in this game, we will discuss three culinary
Speaker 4: dishes that are making a comeback in a nostalgic way,
Speaker 4: and the rules are sort of unclear, but at the
Speaker 4: end of reading all three, we'll pick which one we're
Speaker 4: most excited about, and that will be the dish ultimately
Speaker 4: that we decide has baked itself. It's a play and
Speaker 4: congratulate you played yourself, except congratulations, you baked yourself. And
Speaker 4: I think if I explain it anymore, it's not going
Speaker 4: to make it sound less stupid.
Speaker 2: So let's get started.
Speaker 1: Right and realized, I have no frame of reference for
Speaker 1: even what you're referring to. So this is it's just
Speaker 1: going to be good fun for my son.
Speaker 4: Yeaht perfect, perfect, Jonna, do you want to read this
Speaker 4: first one?
Speaker 1: Sure?
Speaker 3: So this first dish that apparently is making a comeback
Speaker 3: is classic macaroni salad with ham, and this is from
Speaker 3: Southern Living all of these and it says, are you
Speaker 3: looking for an easy, fuss free recipe for a pot look,
Speaker 3: given this macaroni. Give this macaroni salad with ham a try,
Speaker 3: because you can't get much easier than a recipe with
Speaker 3: only two steps. So basically, there are salads, and there
Speaker 3: are Southern salads. Not a lot of prep work. It's
Speaker 3: a layered salad. You just boil some pasta starn ham, vegetables, mayonnaise,
Speaker 3: and seasoning, then cover and chill for at least two hours. Brian,
Speaker 3: what do you think about.
Speaker 1: A clarifying okay, just horror fun. Yeah, yeah, that's yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not that's just not that's just not what I do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean it's I know that the ham
Speaker 1: is pre sliced and it comes in a in a
Speaker 1: vacuum pack, and it's like, you know, that's that's where
Speaker 1: it just all goes wrong, right, right, right, right, right? Yeah?
Speaker 1: What if it was Stofer's salad with ham and you're
Speaker 1: you're like, little Brian Baker, what do you think this
Speaker 1: sounds good? De youer still? Now well now you're talking
Speaker 1: about hot ham and hot mayonnaise. And I don't even think,
Speaker 1: little Brian Baker, you know, because by its nature, we
Speaker 1: are heating it. I don't really think there was not
Speaker 1: a line of that's true. You're right, You're right, you're yeah.
Speaker 1: I I I agree with Brian. I think it sounds
Speaker 1: pretty gross. I also think we the word salad is
Speaker 1: he's very kind of liberally, I think, And yeah, there's
Speaker 1: still a lot of work that works. It's not good
Speaker 1: for you, Yeah, not a lot of green stuff in this.
Speaker 1: Uh your thoughts on this, Yeah.
Speaker 2: It's tough for me.
Speaker 4: The idea of putting all of this stuff in so
Speaker 4: much Manny's And then what kind of chilled me was
Speaker 4: when it says at the end chill for at least
Speaker 4: two hours.
Speaker 2: It just feels like it all starts.
Speaker 4: To congeal in a way that yeah, is not uh
Speaker 4: not my style.
Speaker 2: I'll say, yeah, so so.
Speaker 1: Not for me, But.
Speaker 2: You know, onto the next.
Speaker 1: Maybe for people, maybe for someone who enjoys Southern Living magazine,
Speaker 1: that's right, Yes, that's right. Maybe be good for them.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, And speaking of which, the next one that's coming
Speaker 4: back is called pineapple fluff. Texture is the star of
Speaker 4: this fluff recipe. You get creamy, chewy, and crunchy in
Speaker 4: every tropical bite. So this is a sweet side dish, okay,
Speaker 4: side dish or dessert. You choose that you can whip
Speaker 4: up with just ten active minutes of prep time, and
Speaker 4: you use macadamia nuts, pineapple, and coconut to combine for
Speaker 4: flavors that are so tropical and just plain fun. No,
Speaker 4: before they list the ingredients that you need to make this,
Speaker 4: Jonah made a comment which it says to make pineapple
Speaker 4: fluff you'll need, and then Jonah wrote in parentheses, besides
Speaker 4: a total lack of dignity.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you're gonna have to put your dignity aside.
Speaker 1: You're gonna have to ask what the active make. You know,
Speaker 1: it's ten minutes of active work. Yeah, but how much Dorman?
Speaker 1: How much? How much Dorman work? Exactly?
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's just you know, it's just can crush pineapple
Speaker 4: and juice, pineapple flavored gelatin, frozen whip topping like cool whip,
Speaker 4: mini marshmallows, unsweetened shreaded coconut, and maceadamia nuts for the
Speaker 4: necessary crunch. Apparently it tastes like fluffy, airy light dessert.
Speaker 1: Right, well, yeah it's a catastrophe. But yeah, but also
Speaker 1: it is being billed as a potential side dish. What
Speaker 1: what would this pair well with? Right? Great question.
Speaker 4: I don't know, maybe your ham and whatnot.
Speaker 1: So you're I think you I think you may have
Speaker 1: just a.
Speaker 4: Classic macaroni salad with ham, because yeah, yeah, so that's well.
Speaker 1: Out of time. Would not eat okay, Eddie.
Speaker 3: This seems like something like maybe you eat at vacation
Speaker 3: at like an amusement park. Or something right, but not
Speaker 3: something you would make at home. Right, Yeah, that's a
Speaker 3: vibe I get.
Speaker 4: But maybe that's what I didn't even know they make
Speaker 4: pineapple jello. But maybe it's because people making this pineapple
Speaker 4: fluff left and right.
Speaker 1: I can believe that I can believe in pineapple jello.
Speaker 1: That seems reasonable to me.
Speaker 4: Yeah, just it's not when it's mixed with a bunch
Speaker 4: of marshmallows and.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Hawaiian Thanksgiving, right, it's big. It's big on you know, right.
Speaker 3: Okay, so let's get into this last one before we decide.
Speaker 3: This one's tomato soup cake. This is well, it's already went. Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 3: look what it has to fight in here.
Speaker 1: I know, I know.
Speaker 3: It's not the toughest, says this article says. Tomato soup
Speaker 3: isn't just a major conversation starter at a dinner party
Speaker 3: for a surprising ingredient. It's also a beautiful to serve
Speaker 3: and delicious to eat with loads of warm spices, similar
Speaker 3: to carrot cake. Your guests would never know there was
Speaker 3: tomato soup in the recipe, but you'll definitely want to
Speaker 3: tell them anyways, because knowing is the fun part. Okay,
Speaker 3: we guys, just talk about the way this article is written.
Speaker 3: I mean, this is so the tone of this is
Speaker 3: so bizarre. It's like you want to like prank your friends,
Speaker 3: but also you're super fool your guests, but also like
Speaker 3: this person feels like weirdly proud of it.
Speaker 1: Like it's a weird tone.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a little aggressive, it's a little yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So you resent your guests or you haven't. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of issues that have not been worked out. I
Speaker 1: think i'm the in the author's case. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: I don't think the idea of like having someone eat
Speaker 3: something and then being like tell them like the unexpected
Speaker 3: ingredient afterwards, or something that feels weird.
Speaker 1: Yeah, uh, you're drinking decaf.
Speaker 2: That's what I said to Jonah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's the Farley skit.
Speaker 4: That's exactly what I said to Jonah when we were
Speaker 4: talking about this.
Speaker 1: I was like, it reminds me so much of the
Speaker 1: Chris I've had some great tomato cakes in my life,
Speaker 1: but it's so funny. That's a change.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it does seem like, uh, yeah, fuck you, you
Speaker 4: just had tomato, you idiot. Okay, So, but so this
Speaker 4: seems it seems like sort of it would be your
Speaker 4: pick though, Brian, like it feels the.
Speaker 1: Tomato cake, I could see that being I could see
Speaker 1: it made with less chemicals.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Sure, I'm kind of interested in the use of tomato,
Speaker 1: you know, in a fruit format, because you know, someone
Speaker 1: could chime in here, who's better with vegetables? But it
Speaker 1: isn't tomato sort of on that.
Speaker 4: I believe it technically right, Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think so.
Speaker 5: So.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm more attracted to that. Yeah, it seems a
Speaker 1: little more rustic. Yes. Also, they haven't told us really
Speaker 1: what's in it yet, so this could all, this could
Speaker 1: all Yeah, actually.
Speaker 3: Well I can tell you what's in it. It's it's
Speaker 3: a salt, sugar, love those butter eggs, vanilla extract, baking
Speaker 3: spray with flour and golden raisins.
Speaker 1: And then you got to make a cream cheese for us.
Speaker 2: Oh wait, Tony, you left it the most important part.
Speaker 3: There's a can of can of condensed tomato seas such
Speaker 3: as Campbell's.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a lot of sugar and salt in there too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean still I have no problem with any of this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, Yeah, I wonder what the color would be
Speaker 3: like at this, like, I wonder if you're going to
Speaker 3: be seeing Red when you make it.
Speaker 2: Or if I think you are.
Speaker 1: Okay, wow, Now that reminds me of a song on
Speaker 1: the first Mining Fret record, Seeing Red. And it was
Speaker 1: interesting because we, of course the straight edge kids. We
Speaker 1: lived on tomato, ca, Coca Cola and Hostess, you know,
Speaker 1: and Makai made the best tomato cake in Northwest Washington.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call him now.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, I look, I'm interested in this. They say
Speaker 4: it tastes a lot like carrot cake. It has a
Speaker 4: cream cheese frosting. I go, where do I sign? You know,
Speaker 4: I'm definitely this is you have to sign for it.
Speaker 4: Sign in a cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom and allspice in it too.
Speaker 2: This sounds very good to me.
Speaker 4: And I will say I was just at a restaurant
Speaker 4: recently and I had this like tomato toast the tomato
Speaker 4: on It was really sweet, and I thought, I think
Speaker 4: we're really missing the boat here, that we're not using
Speaker 4: tomato as a dessert more often.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I'm with you. Yeah, Yeah, I like
Speaker 1: it too. Yeah. Yeah, So, Brian, if you had to
Speaker 1: vote to bring back one of these items, and just
Speaker 1: to recap, it's a classic macaroni cead with ham, pineapple
Speaker 1: fluff and tomato soup cage. Which one are you are
Speaker 1: you voting for? I'm gonna go with the tomato soup cake, John, Okay, Yeah, Vanessa.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm going I'm going straight to that tomato soup
Speaker 4: cake too. In fact, I genuinely might try and make this.
Speaker 4: I don't know when, and I don't know how, and
Speaker 4: I don't know where, and I do know that it
Speaker 4: probably never will, but I it appeals to me.
Speaker 3: All right, Yeah, same hair. I think it sounds like
Speaker 3: the most edible and yeah, well it's not crazy, right,
Speaker 3: it's not great, it's not just it's not just horrifying.
Speaker 3: It's fine. Can it could work? It could not work.
Speaker 1: You just move on to the next thing.
Speaker 3: Brian, thank you so much for coming on. What do
Speaker 3: you have coming up? I know we just saw bad
Speaker 3: religions playing no values. That's very exciting.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I just found that out today that we're playing
Speaker 1: just the punkst of a normal punk fests in Pomona,
Speaker 1: California with The Misfits and our friends Social Distortion, who
Speaker 1: we will be touring the US with Prior to that,
Speaker 1: there's a big Bad Religion social Distortion track across the US.
Speaker 1: We're co headlining, you know, flip flopping basically drawing straws
Speaker 1: to see you gets to go home first. I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: I met we're co headlining. I'm really really looking forward
Speaker 1: to this trip. We're going to be all over the
Speaker 1: US and we we test drove this in Australia a
Speaker 1: year ago doing some shows for Social Distortion and we
Speaker 1: got along just like houses on Fire. So it's going
Speaker 1: to be a good show.
Speaker 2: That's great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'm really looking forward to that. And then
Speaker 1: I have I have a month in Europe on the
Speaker 1: festival circuit, as one does in Bad Religion, and I
Speaker 1: will be right now. I believe I'm going to be
Speaker 1: in Europe again in November with my band Fake Names,
Speaker 1: which features Brennan from Fugazi I'm sure you're familiar with,
Speaker 1: and friend Johnny Temple from Girls Against Boys, who's very handsome,
Speaker 1: members of s A and the Faith. It's basically a
Speaker 1: celebration of the DC high school system where all the
Speaker 1: guys from different bands. We've made our own band called
Speaker 1: Fake Names, Yes, with a singer from there a singer
Speaker 1: from Refused, just the one who does all the heavy lifting.
Speaker 1: But yes, and expendable is incredible. I did the bio
Speaker 1: for that actually for re Epitaph. Oh that's it. I
Speaker 1: think that's when we met.
Speaker 3: I think, so yeah, yeah, and so great record and yeah,
Speaker 3: I just remember you and Social Stars must have crossed
Speaker 3: paths during that whole another state of mind that era right, Well, their.
Speaker 1: Their vehicle broke down in front of our house. So
Speaker 1: that's how you get to know somebody when they can't
Speaker 1: get away. Wow, that must have been with like eighty
Speaker 1: five or something. Now that was eighty that was eighty
Speaker 1: two or eighty three at the very latest. I think
Speaker 1: I might have been eighty eighty two a long time.
Speaker 4: Agow incredible, And you're doing a lot of touring dates
Speaker 4: and you're telling me there's going to be hostess cherry
Speaker 4: pies on all of these at all of these venues.
Speaker 1: Well now there will be, now that we've resurrected this
Speaker 1: tradition and we're going to play a walk every night.
Speaker 1: And I'm going to think. I'm going to think about
Speaker 1: the Bears as I launched into that awkward yet uplifting
Speaker 1: solo that I foolishly wrote myself, not knowing I would
Speaker 1: have to reproduce in thousands of times.
Speaker 4: We feel honored and also, you know, hopefully we can
Speaker 4: see you when you're in our respective cities, and you know,
Speaker 4: we maybe we'll come backstage and grab a cherry pie.
Speaker 2: That's not why we're going.
Speaker 4: Okay, we're going to see you, but but you know,
Speaker 4: we'll just should it be there, you know, I guess.
Speaker 1: Right, if I can't find it, don't blame the runner, right,
Speaker 1: just realize that we've been I've been visited by friends. Yeah,
Speaker 1: of course we'd love to see it. You know, if
Speaker 1: you have any other dietary needs, let us know in advance.
Speaker 1: We have a crack staff. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but it's really awesome. We're both such big fans
Speaker 4: of yours in it. Thank you so much for doing this.
Speaker 4: It was really cool to get to talk to you.
Speaker 1: And you know, I've had a really I've had a
Speaker 1: great time. And when i've I've listened to a few
Speaker 1: others of these and I just I just love it.
Speaker 1: It's great. It's got this kind of like hardcore delicious
Speaker 1: dish vibe, but it's the sibling thing. You Your energy's
Speaker 1: off the charts we should keep ad keep at that's
Speaker 1: very nice.
Speaker 4: I'm going to watch our parents and tell them that, yeah,
Speaker 4: that you said that, but they'll listen to all Right.
Speaker 3: If you enjoyed that, please subscribe to the podcast and
Speaker 3: keep an eye for next week's episode of How Did
Speaker 3: We Get Weird, where we would discuss more stories from
Speaker 3: our childhood and cultural touchstones like Stofer's rosen Dinners. Yeah,
Speaker 3: posted snacks.
Speaker 6: Yeah, all of it right, all of it
Speaker 1: Had every reason