Speaker 1: This is pod popular podcast for the people, The Great
Speaker 1: Love Debate. It's the Great Love Debate.
Speaker 2: Great Love Debate. It's a great loved Hi again everyone,
Speaker 2: it's Brian Howie. You welcome to The Great Love Debate,
Speaker 2: the world's number one dating and relationship podcast since twenty fifteen.
Speaker 2: You get just me today. Some of you like that,
Speaker 2: some of you roll your eyes. Well, you're all here,
Speaker 2: so gather around and stay for a bit it uh.
Speaker 2: I was thinking about that the other day because I
Speaker 2: was producing some podcasts and helping some podcasters, and it
Speaker 2: took me almost one hundred episodes of this show before
Speaker 2: I was able to do one by myself, or I
Speaker 2: was able to stand on my own two feet, and
Speaker 2: even quote unquote felt able is probably a bit of
Speaker 2: a stretch. Somebody back then, I don't know, five years ago,
Speaker 2: canceled at the last minute, and I was sort of
Speaker 2: thrown into the deep end and I just had to
Speaker 2: wing it. And some of you at that time actually
Speaker 2: gave me positive reinforcement and the kind of feedback that
Speaker 2: I was looking for, that you liked it and you
Speaker 2: were along for the ride, even if it was just
Speaker 2: the two of us. So I always needed at that time,
Speaker 2: back in the day when I had the sort of
Speaker 2: the early feeling out of.
Speaker 1: The Great Love Debate podcast.
Speaker 2: I always had my engineer Kalin through the glass and
Speaker 2: my producer Kko was around for most of them, and
Speaker 2: I had this sort of revolving rotation of mostly female voices.
Speaker 2: I had Jilly, and I had Kate, and Christina Webber
Speaker 2: did a bunch and Laurel did a whole lot of shows.
Speaker 2: And I just think I needed someone to play off
Speaker 2: and I needed someone to say right or you know too,
Speaker 2: and I needed them to hit the ball back. So
Speaker 2: that was probably more about my insecurity than about creating
Speaker 2: great content. But that was me then and that was
Speaker 2: us then. And I think I needed a reaction, and
Speaker 2: the easiest and most tangible reaction was always laughter. I
Speaker 2: needed someone to laugh. And back when I used to
Speaker 2: direct a lot of theater, there was always some funny
Speaker 2: elements to it, and a lot of the actors and
Speaker 2: actresses would would come off the stage and they'll be like,
Speaker 2: they're not laughing.
Speaker 1: I didn't see them laugh, and I was.
Speaker 2: Always tell them to relax, because you know, that doesn't
Speaker 2: mean they weren't absorbing or appreciating the material if they
Speaker 2: weren't overtly laughing. Some people just aren't comfortable laughing.
Speaker 1: In a theater.
Speaker 2: I know that when we do our tour shows, it
Speaker 2: sounds differently when we do it in a live music
Speaker 2: venue versus when we do it in a comedy club
Speaker 2: versus we do it in a theater. Some people just
Speaker 2: aren't comfortable laughing in a theater, so I told them
Speaker 2: not to worry about that. But I needed that in
Speaker 2: this podcast. Back then, I needed someone to laugh, even
Speaker 2: if they're just behind the glass. But as we got
Speaker 2: deeper into these shows and sort of this collective journey,
Speaker 2: I think I wanted us all to think. And I
Speaker 2: used to tell the actors and actresses back then, if
Speaker 2: you had four or five hundred people in a theater
Speaker 2: and they were all thinking about something that collectively, that sound,
Speaker 2: that sort of were metaphorical sound of people thinking was
Speaker 2: louder than any reaction I thought you were going to
Speaker 2: get if people were just laughing. So as I get
Speaker 2: into this and what I want to talk about today,
Speaker 2: it's not that the laughter fades into the background. It's
Speaker 2: that it needs, I think, to be more of a
Speaker 2: more of a side course and not totally the driving impetus,
Speaker 2: but behind these conversations.
Speaker 1: So what triggered all of this?
Speaker 2: On this sunny morning as I record this, I am
Speaker 2: here in the very fine studios of pod popular podcasts
Speaker 2: for the people. I am at the one in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Speaker 2: And if you have listened to this podcast before when
Speaker 2: I've been recording in Scottsdale, you know that I love
Speaker 2: being in Scottsdale. I love almost everything about Scottsdale. I
Speaker 2: love that I can just say scott and not have
Speaker 2: to say Arizona. And people are like, oh, I know
Speaker 2: Scottsdale because it's not.
Speaker 1: That big a place.
Speaker 2: People know it are there about fifty days a year
Speaker 2: when you or me should not come to Scottsdale because
Speaker 2: you would not love Scottsdale.
Speaker 1: Probably Scottsdale in July and August.
Speaker 2: Is no picnic, but the rest of the time Scottsdale
Speaker 2: And you're like, I didn't tune into the Great Love
Speaker 2: Debate podcast to listen to the Greater Phoenix Area Board
Speaker 2: of Tourism. I get that, but it leads a little
Speaker 2: more into what I want to get into.
Speaker 1: On a deeper level.
Speaker 2: And sometimes we go into a deeper level around here
Speaker 2: who knew back in the day when we were just
Speaker 2: chuckling through the glass.
Speaker 1: So what do I love about it here?
Speaker 2: And how will that get into what I want to
Speaker 2: talk about today? And somebody asked me that what do
Speaker 2: you love about Scottsdale? Are you a fan of the desert?
Speaker 2: You love cactus? Do you love you know, indigenous creatures
Speaker 2: that live here? And I'm like, I love it because
Speaker 2: it's silly. And I'm not sure the Chamber of Commerce
Speaker 2: wants to lead with that. They probably want us to
Speaker 2: focus on the vibrancy of the desert and the history
Speaker 2: of the Old West and the Gulf and whatever. But really,
Speaker 2: the thing that makes this place this place is how
Speaker 2: silly it is. There are now the third most bachelorette
Speaker 2: parties in the country here, and at some point, as
Speaker 2: I record this pretty early in the morning, a group
Speaker 2: of girls is going to pedal buy on a bike,
Speaker 2: sucking on drinks and wearing matching T shirts and go
Speaker 2: whoo as they ride by. Bachelorette parties are about being silly,
Speaker 2: and dating is about being silly, which is why I
Speaker 2: love all of this, the dating conversation and the Scottsdale.
Speaker 2: They both have a heaping quotient of silly, and they
Speaker 2: should first and second on the bachelorette party list. Vegas
Speaker 2: and Nashville two places that I also love and two
Speaker 2: places that are about as silly as.
Speaker 1: You can get, and I like those places.
Speaker 2: Beverly Hills is a silly place, Boston is a silly place. Miami, Atlanta,
Speaker 2: And that all bodes well for the dating landscape. People
Speaker 2: that show places that show up year after year on
Speaker 2: our worst cities in America to find loveless they lack that,
Speaker 2: they lack that sense of silly. Philadelphia, It's dreadful, dour, Denver,
Speaker 2: dull is dirt, Seattle, San Francisco, New York. And you
Speaker 2: might be like, no, New York is wonderful. It can be,
Speaker 2: and it has been. It's got plenty of wonder There's
Speaker 2: plenty of wonder in New York City. But I think
Speaker 2: it lacks whimsy. And nineteen sixty three New York, you know,
Speaker 2: Audrey Hepburn, New York.
Speaker 1: Maybe, and whimsy is rooted and silly.
Speaker 2: And you're like, well, we're talking about silly for forty
Speaker 2: five minutes. Today I'm like, not quite so We're gonna
Speaker 2: go down the rabbit hole on all of this and
Speaker 2: what it's about and what it ultimately means after this
Speaker 2: quick break, So stick with me. The answers are just
Speaker 2: sixty seconds away at most, I promise, and we are back.
Speaker 2: And why do I bring up all this besides being
Speaker 2: amused by some drunk girl in a bad wedding veil
Speaker 2: sucking on a penis stra at eleven o'clock in the morning,
Speaker 2: Because one of the things that comes up the most
Speaker 2: at all of our live shows for years and years,
Speaker 2: hundreds of shows, is the women saying over and over
Speaker 2: that they need a guy who is funny.
Speaker 1: Funny.
Speaker 2: Funny is first on the list for the majority of
Speaker 2: women what they're looking for, above smart, above stable, above wealthy,
Speaker 2: above handsome or kind or anything else. Funny overwhelmingly is
Speaker 2: what they say they want. And my first instinct is
Speaker 2: to defend that, because by any objective standard, I'm pretty
Speaker 2: fucking funny, and I get paid a lot of money
Speaker 2: by top comedy clubs in the world to go there
Speaker 2: and make people laugh for ninety minutes. But part of
Speaker 2: me wasn't ever completely comfortable leading with the funny, or
Speaker 2: at least putting it, you know, sort of first on
Speaker 2: my metaphorical resume, more deep therapy here. Because my parents
Speaker 2: thought funny was quote unquote a waste of my smarts
Speaker 2: and that only only serious people can be successful. And
Speaker 2: when someone would ever say to me in life ort
Speaker 2: one of my shows, they go, oh my god, you're
Speaker 2: so funny, I would flinch a little because I would
Speaker 2: hear their voices, Mom and dad, this is a waste
Speaker 2: of your time and our money. But a second part
Speaker 2: of me, when it comes up at the shows, I
Speaker 2: react to a little differently, in the sense of to
Speaker 2: defend the guys, or to look out for them at least.
Speaker 2: But what if he's not funny? Then what Because these
Speaker 2: guys are sitting there in the audience and they hear women,
Speaker 2: it's sort of like the tall thing they you know,
Speaker 2: the women say, oh my god, I need a tall guy,
Speaker 2: and half the room is under five to nine, and
Speaker 2: they're like, what am I supposed to do with this information? Well,
Speaker 2: the same thing happens with funny. The women say I
Speaker 2: want funny, I want funny. I want funny, so I hear,
Speaker 2: and I'm thinking of the guys. Well then what so
Speaker 2: I tend to scratch a little deeper on it, and
Speaker 2: it kind of reveals itself that it really isn't about funny,
Speaker 2: not entirely. You guys have heard me say over and
Speaker 2: over that every woman only wants three things, and every
Speaker 2: woman wants the same three things, and everything else is
Speaker 2: just a subset of, or tangential to tangential English major.
Speaker 2: Everything else is just a subset or tangential to these
Speaker 2: three things. She wants a man who makes her feel special,
Speaker 2: she wants a man to make her feel sexy, and
Speaker 2: she wants a man to make her feel safe. And
Speaker 2: safe is always the tough one. It's about trust and
Speaker 2: sharing and honesty and strength and vulnerability and all the
Speaker 2: things that don't come readily or easily to a man.
Speaker 2: And the funny can give those Being funny can make
Speaker 2: her feel special, and it can make her feel sexy,
Speaker 2: for sure. The laughing triggers all kinds of things, but
Speaker 2: I'm not sure it can make her feel safe, and
Speaker 2: safe is the most important one. So you're like, where
Speaker 2: are you going with this? I'm going back to the silly.
Speaker 2: The silly's different from funny, and I'm gonna make the
Speaker 2: argument that silly of all things can make you feel safe,
Speaker 2: and you're what you're like. What silly is not about
Speaker 2: is about not taking things seriously. It's about being foolish.
Speaker 2: It's about using poor judgment. These girls that are a
Speaker 2: ride by and go wooh, lots of poor judgment in
Speaker 2: their immediate future. But I think silly can calm you.
Speaker 2: I think it can ground you. Silly can make you
Speaker 2: forget a lot of stresses. Silly comes from the creating
Speaker 2: of an environment between two people where confidence can flourish
Speaker 2: and your cares won't overwhelm you, and they might even disappear.
Speaker 2: So I bring up Adam Sandler a lot in this podcast,
Speaker 2: because Adam Sandler gives a lot of guys a lot
Speaker 2: of hope for acting a certain way and getting a
Speaker 2: certain result in his movies. But he doesn't get the
Speaker 2: girls at his rom comms when he is funny, it's
Speaker 2: usually funny in the first part. He gets them when
Speaker 2: he turns into silly, because silly is one step from
Speaker 2: being sweet, and the silly leads to a song, and
Speaker 2: the sweet is what wins the day always. And you're like,
Speaker 2: are you adding silly and sweet to your holy trinity
Speaker 2: of special, sexy and safe. I'm not, but I'm saying
Speaker 2: that those two things are at least a big part
Speaker 2: of the ingredients. It isn't necessarily about funny getting her
Speaker 2: to laugh. It's getting her to smile, which we've done
Speaker 2: whole episodes about. It's getting her to calm, it's getting
Speaker 2: her to be distracted in a good way. I think
Speaker 2: it's getting her to relax. I think it's getting her
Speaker 2: to share. And I think it's get her to see
Speaker 2: more of you and I think more of herself. And
Speaker 2: it's about remembering what it's like to behave and act
Speaker 2: and feel and think in a way that it doesn't
Speaker 2: matter what anyone else thought of her, only what you
Speaker 2: think of her in the best possible way. Giggling is silly,
Speaker 2: and giggling is sweet. If you can't make her laugh,
Speaker 2: and many many guys cannot make her laugh, that doesn't
Speaker 2: make you ineligible to her, despite what she claims or
Speaker 2: publicly says that our shows or really thinks, because she
Speaker 2: hasn't really thought it through. And if she thinks it through,
Speaker 2: she'll want you to be confident.
Speaker 1: And calming and caring.
Speaker 2: And present, and she wants you to create this atmosphere
Speaker 2: where she can be herself, which is always on her
Speaker 2: very best day, in the very best light, probably a
Speaker 2: little silly.
Speaker 1: Which is why people love it here. The Scots dazzle.
Speaker 2: That's why these girls are going around this town and
Speaker 2: having such fun and feeling so free. It's not about
Speaker 2: the boys, and it's not about the marriage to calm
Speaker 2: and the life ahead and the realities of the future.
Speaker 2: It's about being in the moment, and in the moment,
Speaker 2: being silly almost always wins. The silliest group of girls,
Speaker 2: I think are probably eleven and twelve, that little window
Speaker 2: right before the boys come into play and the stresses
Speaker 2: of life, and they just like, what are they doing?
Speaker 1: That doesn't really go away. Later in life, you still
Speaker 1: have that part in you. You just turn it off.
Speaker 2: And so when I'm talking about being silly, it's a
Speaker 2: weird time where something can be both liberating and grounding simultaneously.
Speaker 2: It's liberating that you can be and do anything you
Speaker 2: want without fear of judgment or the specter of regret.
Speaker 2: And it's grounding because it's rooted in who you always were,
Speaker 2: your core, your essence, and those feelings. So are you like,
Speaker 2: are you saying laughter doesn't matter of course not. I'm
Speaker 2: saying being funny isn't necessarily about being funny. So this
Speaker 2: is partially to get the girls to think what is
Speaker 2: it really about? And it's partially to give the guys
Speaker 2: some hope that if they aren't clever and witty and
Speaker 2: full of great jokes and lines, that they still have
Speaker 2: a shot if they can tap into the silly. That
Speaker 2: doesn't mean they need to dress like a clown. It's
Speaker 2: more likely to frighten her. And that doesn't mean they
Speaker 2: need to tickle her and unexpectedly she would hate that.
Speaker 1: Don't do that.
Speaker 2: It might just be taking her hand and twirling around
Speaker 2: on the sidewalk in the middle of nothing. Or it
Speaker 2: might be taking two oranges in the grocery store and
Speaker 2: turning them into giant eyeballs. She'll laugh, She'll she'll think
Speaker 2: you're an idiot, but you'll find it silly and you
Speaker 2: rolled your eyes. Ladies when you're listening to that, but
Speaker 2: you know you'd smile and you'd probably even laugh.
Speaker 1: The silly is a gateway to that too.
Speaker 2: It might mean doing a bad attempt at an accent
Speaker 2: for no real reason. Bad accents are silly. My producer
Speaker 2: Keko back in the day. She'd always say, please stop
Speaker 2: doing your Bosston accent.
Speaker 1: It's terrible.
Speaker 2: But she'd always be on the brink of cracking up
Speaker 2: every time I try it, because it was silly, and
Speaker 2: I think silly wins the day. So if you weren't
Speaker 2: born funny, there probably isn't a path to be funny
Speaker 2: unless you go down a really dark path, because lots
Speaker 2: of funny comes from those shadows, and lots of comedians
Speaker 2: are absolutely miserable, and you don't want that and you
Speaker 2: don't want them. So taking a stand up or a
Speaker 2: improv class definitely worth it. Everybody should do it because
Speaker 2: it'll help your confidence and communication hugely valuable. But it's
Speaker 2: not going to make you funny. You're probably not suddenly
Speaker 2: going to be funny at forty years of age, forty
Speaker 2: five years of age, but at twenty five or thirty
Speaker 2: five or forty five or seventy five.
Speaker 1: You can be.
Speaker 2: Silly because you are silly, because you were born silly.
Speaker 1: We all were.
Speaker 2: I think the giggle is still there. I think the impishness.
Speaker 2: I think the smile and the imagination, and people are
Speaker 2: always like, well, who's creative person?
Speaker 1: How do you be creative? We all are.
Speaker 2: If you can dream, and we all dream, you have imagination.
Speaker 2: The things that your imagination comes up with while you're asleep,
Speaker 2: you have those, and that's what you have to work
Speaker 2: with and you can put it to work.
Speaker 1: That's silly. So every time you say, ladies, you.
Speaker 2: Want funny, I think you really want that feeling you
Speaker 2: had with your girlfriends, either recently or long ago. You know,
Speaker 2: Alanis Mori set went on a tour I think last summer,
Speaker 2: and a lot of women I know were like, oh
Speaker 2: my god, I can't wait to go that. It wasn't
Speaker 2: about Atlantis. It was about reliving a time in the
Speaker 2: nineties when.
Speaker 1: They just could do anything.
Speaker 2: And it's the same way people of all ages sing
Speaker 2: their asses off at a Taylor Swift concert, or they
Speaker 2: spent a ridiculous amount of time worrying about what was
Speaker 2: happening with Ross and Rachel back in the day or
Speaker 2: whatever the characters are on Big Bang Theory.
Speaker 1: Then I don't watch, but a lot of people do.
Speaker 2: And you absolutely would want love to share some of
Speaker 2: that feeling, those feelings with a guy, one guy, the
Speaker 2: Taylor Swift and the friend stuff, but the feeling how
Speaker 2: ridiculous it all is to care. If you care that much,
Speaker 2: it feels silly, that's a good thing. That's what you
Speaker 2: really want to care about. Funny is sometimes a window
Speaker 2: to a dark place, but silly is a gateway to
Speaker 2: the vulnerable. And if you find that in the guy,
Speaker 2: I think you'll find that in yourself. And then I
Speaker 2: think you'll find that in the relationship. And I think
Speaker 2: if you find that, you're gonna laugh plenty too, and
Speaker 2: you'll probably love plenty too, and you'll be just fine.
Speaker 1: So maybe you.
Speaker 2: Thought me babbling on about this for a while was
Speaker 2: a bit silly.
Speaker 1: Too bad. That's a good thing.
Speaker 2: So maybe I'll go get on one of those bikes
Speaker 2: and ride around Scott's Deale go whoo.
Speaker 1: The girls will be like, don't do that anyway.
Speaker 2: Shoot me an email funny, sad, serious or silly great
Speaker 2: lovedebated gmail dot com. I wanna hear your thoughts. I
Speaker 2: wanna hear your feedback. I get a very different interesting
Speaker 2: episode coming up.
Speaker 1: I believe next week, two weeks.
Speaker 2: Listen to all of them. It's like picking a favorite child.
Speaker 2: But one's gonna be like, huh, that's a weird guest.
Speaker 2: He had on to talk about something very out of
Speaker 2: the box.
Speaker 1: Do that.
Speaker 2: Like, share, follow, Please review this podcast your reviews. Once again,
Speaker 2: I mean a lot in the podcasting ecosystem because as
Speaker 2: always at the Great Love Debate, we never stopped making love.
Speaker 1: To see you next time, the Great Love Debate. It's
Speaker 1: the Great Love Debate, Great Love Debate. It's a Great
Speaker 1: Love Debase.