Speaker 1: This is pod Popular Podcast for the People.
Speaker 2: The Great Love Debate. It's Great Love Debate, the Great
Speaker 2: Love Debate.
Speaker 3: It's a Great Love Debate. Hi again, Everyone's Brian Howie.
Speaker 4: Welcome to The Great Love Debate, the world's number one
Speaker 4: dating and relationship podcast since twenty fifteen. I am not
Speaker 4: in the very fine studios of Pod Popular Podcasts with
Speaker 4: the people. I have recorded this podcast in a a
Speaker 4: lot of places over the years. I have recorded it
Speaker 4: in a Starbucks in Shanghai. I have recorded it in
Speaker 4: all of America. I have recorded it in a casino.
Speaker 4: I recorded it in on a beach in Tel Aviv,
Speaker 4: at the Carlisle Hotel, in a coffee shop in Melbourne,
Speaker 4: like anywhere I could go. And I'm going to get
Speaker 4: into where I am in a minute. Obviously, those of
Speaker 4: you guys who have been listening to the show, you
Speaker 4: know that this particular episode is a special show for
Speaker 4: me and the Debate team in this country and probably
Speaker 4: around the world. We'd love to celebrate round numbers, and
Speaker 4: in the history of this show, both our live show
Speaker 4: and the podcast, we have celebrated the one hundredth and
Speaker 4: the two hundredth and the two hundred and fiftieth and
Speaker 4: all the rest. Sometimes we do it really over the top.
Speaker 4: Sometimes it's muted in private and just a sly like
Speaker 4: we did it, smirk on my face. I am recording
Speaker 4: this in twenty twenty five. Next year is America's two
Speaker 4: hundred and fiftieth. Surprisingly, there's not a lot of building
Speaker 4: buzz around that, even though two hundred fifty seems like
Speaker 4: a nice round number. I think it's because it's not
Speaker 4: a cute name, like the bi centennial. Two hundred and
Speaker 4: fifty is the semi quinn centennial, which is not easy
Speaker 4: to say.
Speaker 3: It's not a fun fact, so maybe that's why it
Speaker 3: has no buzz.
Speaker 4: Anyway, this is our five hundredth episode, and.
Speaker 3: This show's about relationships.
Speaker 4: Ones, bad ones, ones we learn from, ones we have
Speaker 4: pain from, ones we grow from.
Speaker 3: And and that's what I feel like.
Speaker 4: This show is, this podcast is a relationship between me
Speaker 4: and you guys, this audience, this big audience, and it
Speaker 4: is honestly, professionally and personally as satisfying, rewarding, giving, honest
Speaker 4: relationship I could ever have imagined having.
Speaker 3: Over ten years.
Speaker 4: Now, week after week, me and you guys, we sneak
Speaker 4: off to a cheap hotel, and we share all kinds
Speaker 4: of parts of ourselves and our hearts and our minds
Speaker 4: and our thoughts and our laughs. And so this show
Speaker 4: matters to me more than you guys know, the whole
Speaker 4: Great Love debate and this particular episode, it matters a lot.
Speaker 4: So I'm gonna ramble on a bit and we're gonna
Speaker 4: cover a lot of ground. But when I thought about
Speaker 4: who I wanted to have guessed on this show, somebody
Speaker 4: who who I knew could take a look back and
Speaker 4: has been around for the history of it and also
Speaker 4: help me take a look ahead, because five hundred is
Speaker 4: just one milestone. We're gonna have a lot more of these.
Speaker 4: I wanted to have the person on this show who
Speaker 4: is the most responsible for it, even more than me.
Speaker 4: She hasn't been on this show in a while. I
Speaker 4: had to track her down, so my undisclosed location. I'm
Speaker 4: literally halfway up a mountain. It's sort of like was
Speaker 4: it Ray had to go find Luke Skywalker in one
Speaker 4: of Star Wars, like I had to make a track.
Speaker 3: I had to make a track.
Speaker 4: To find her to the mountaintop where she hides out
Speaker 4: producing hit television shows. So I'm gonna bring her in
Speaker 4: in a second, and I'm gonna flatter her to death,
Speaker 4: and then she and I we're gonna share a bit
Speaker 4: of history about this great love debate. And those of
Speaker 4: you haven't been around for the whole ride, I think
Speaker 4: you're gonna learn some stuff.
Speaker 3: But those of you who have been around for the.
Speaker 4: Whole ride, and I'm shocked to always meet and hear
Speaker 4: from people who have been along all four hundred and
Speaker 4: ninety nine episodes to date. And she might get embarrassed
Speaker 4: at some of the things I'm gonna say, and she
Speaker 4: might storm off.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 4: She is back for the first time in maybe a
Speaker 4: couple of years. She actually co hosted my very favorite
Speaker 4: episode of this show ever. People ask me all the time,
Speaker 4: what's your favorite episode of this show? Go listen, Sorry,
Speaker 4: a truck is rolling up this hill here, Go listen
Speaker 4: to episode four hundred and fifty seven of this podcast.
Speaker 4: It's literally entitled the best episode ever, where me and
Speaker 4: her dove into the twenty three questions that matter Anyway.
Speaker 3: Here she is.
Speaker 4: I tracked her down in person, the longtime producer of
Speaker 4: this show, The Brilliant and Beautiful, the two time Emmy
Speaker 4: Award winning Kko.
Speaker 3: Hey, hey, I've heard that a while.
Speaker 4: A lot of our fans are always like, where's ke Co.
Speaker 3: I'm like, she's too busy for the show. So let me.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna flatter you.
Speaker 5: Okay, I'm ready.
Speaker 3: You know, this show's about love, dating and relationship.
Speaker 4: And I've said many times, because I know the difference
Speaker 4: you made in my life, that it is much harder
Speaker 4: to find somebody who believes in you than somebody who
Speaker 4: loves you. And there have been people in my life
Speaker 4: who loved me, and maybe some of they even believed
Speaker 4: in me, but I was not aware of it. I
Speaker 4: did not accept it. I did not trust their opinion
Speaker 4: of me or whatever. You, young lady, are the very first
Speaker 4: person that I can say for a fact, believed in me,
Speaker 4: believed in me as a man, believed in me as
Speaker 4: a talent, believed in what you thought I could do
Speaker 4: to the point.
Speaker 3: Where I wasn't even doing what we were doing.
Speaker 4: So I'm going to give you a little bit of history,
Speaker 4: but i'll give your perspective of that. You thought I'd
Speaker 4: be a television star, and now here we are halfway
Speaker 4: up a mountain doing the five hundred podcast.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, you want me to tell that story.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, all right.
Speaker 1: So so okay, So back in the day again.
Speaker 5: It is about ten years ago.
Speaker 1: I was a very very active television producer and working
Speaker 1: in development and looking for talent for new shows and
Speaker 1: things like that. And after much you know, begging and
Speaker 1: pleading and suggesting, a girlfriend of mine, who was actually
Speaker 1: one of the on stage lineup for Brian Howie's show
Speaker 1: for The Great Love Debate, said you know, you really
Speaker 1: should come to this show.
Speaker 5: Come to the show and just take a look at it.
Speaker 1: And I said, okay, fine, So I walked in there
Speaker 1: as a television producer to look at the show as
Speaker 1: a potential.
Speaker 5: Vehicle for a series.
Speaker 1: This is the live show, the live show, the live show,
Speaker 1: the Great Love Debate Live Show. And much to my surprise,
Speaker 1: Brian Howie, the writer, producer, owner of the show, was
Speaker 1: not actually on stage himself, and having met him briefly,
Speaker 1: I said, I don't I don't know why, I said
Speaker 1: to myself, I don't know why he isn't up there
Speaker 1: doing the show. I don't understand it. So when it
Speaker 1: was over, I asked him, I said, Brian Hollie, why
Speaker 1: aren't you hosting your show. Aren't you the great love
Speaker 1: of debate? Do you remember what you said to me? No,
Speaker 1: you said, you said, Oh, I'm a writer, producer, director.
Speaker 3: I'm behind the scenes talent.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I knew I had the riz, as the kids said,
Speaker 4: but you were just like, what are we doing here?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: His his riz was so over the top, different, better
Speaker 1: you know, than anyone else that you would normally run across,
Speaker 1: and for sure better than anyone that he's ever I
Speaker 1: think had on his his stage as a lineup. And
Speaker 1: not to not to offend anyone, We've had some really
Speaker 1: wonderful people, but Brian Howie really is the great love debate.
Speaker 1: He is front and center, so base. After he gave
Speaker 1: me his excuses, I said, I asked him, I said,
Speaker 1: would you do it once for me? Would you just
Speaker 1: do it once for me? I mean, I had to
Speaker 1: see the guy perform, right, I'm looking for talent. I
Speaker 1: had to see him perform. And he goes, yeah, okay, fine,
Speaker 1: I got one coming up in San Diego.
Speaker 5: Sure I'll do that for you.
Speaker 1: Okay, fine, so very you know, very much like that,
Speaker 1: and then you know, fast forward. I think it was
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks he did a show in San Diego,
Speaker 1: and he was terrific. He was absolutely off the charts
Speaker 1: better than anyone else could have been. There was there's
Speaker 1: nobody else who could have hosted the Great Love Debate
Speaker 1: better than you right here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, thank you.
Speaker 4: And at that point, you know, I just didn't what
Speaker 4: we've learned on this show.
Speaker 3: This is the podcast. So we'll get into the evolution
Speaker 3: of the podcast shortly.
Speaker 4: That the answers always outside of your comfort zone and
Speaker 4: my comfort zone for I don't know, to that point,
Speaker 4: twenty something years in entertainment business as a writer, director, producer,
Speaker 4: I was talented, but I was not the talent. I
Speaker 4: was not comfortable being the talent. I was not comfortable
Speaker 4: being the one on the mic. I always needed some
Speaker 4: filter for my thoughts to put it through these people
Speaker 4: and almost be this Fengali, this Marionette person, to have
Speaker 4: all these people have the conversations that I probably wanted
Speaker 4: to have myself. And so when you said, you know,
Speaker 4: I'd had agents, and I'd had managers, and I'd had
Speaker 4: other producers and TV people were circling me at that
Speaker 4: point telling me, you know, blah blah blah.
Speaker 3: But that's a little bit of Hollywood.
Speaker 4: You know, you get your ass kissed a lot, but
Speaker 4: you were not trying to kiss my ass. You were
Speaker 4: really asking me questions that I'd never thought about, but
Speaker 4: like why not?
Speaker 3: What are you doing? Like why not? And then when
Speaker 3: you said do it once as a favor for me,
Speaker 3: I did it. I don't know, I.
Speaker 4: Mean, it seemed like a sincere request. And then I
Speaker 4: did it, and I hosting my own show.
Speaker 1: And remember the reason that I had asked him to
Speaker 1: do it was that I was looking at him as
Speaker 1: potential talent for television. And I did, in fact go
Speaker 1: off and pitch him.
Speaker 3: And sadly, you weren't casting the Bachelor at that point.
Speaker 3: I was or survivor.
Speaker 4: No, I was, you were.
Speaker 3: You were trying to find Yeah, I was working in.
Speaker 1: Development, and so I had to see him as talent
Speaker 1: and it worked out.
Speaker 5: I found him.
Speaker 1: I found him, I nailed him. I made him get
Speaker 1: on the stage, even though I didn't it didn't result
Speaker 1: in a TV.
Speaker 4: Show, and that and and that version of of that show,
Speaker 4: even with me hosting back then, it was still a little.
Speaker 3: Jerry springerish. It was still a little men against the women.
Speaker 4: It was still I felt I was I was above
Speaker 4: the fray because I wasn't comfortable even as the host
Speaker 4: or even with the subject matter we're dealing with, going
Speaker 4: to that vulnerable, authentic place that I am now like,
Speaker 4: I admit I am getting emotional even talking to you.
Speaker 4: I didn't even have those emotions then. So forward after
Speaker 4: that time, I don't know how much longer after that,
Speaker 4: Adam Carolla and his gang were like, how come you
Speaker 4: don't know a podcast?
Speaker 3: And I'm like, I don't know how to do a podcast.
Speaker 5: Nobody knew how to do a podcast.
Speaker 1: Most people didn't even know what podcasts were.
Speaker 4: And so they met with you because you were kind
Speaker 4: of representing me as talent. And then so they're like,
Speaker 4: let's do a podcast. And then coincidentally, fortuitously or not,
Speaker 4: the way that he tested me was again back down
Speaker 4: in San Diego, Adam Corolla is like, you're going to
Speaker 4: appear on stage with me at the I think it's
Speaker 4: called the American Comedy Club. Sold out me, Adam Carola
Speaker 4: and Greg Fitzfimmens, who was a big comedian still is,
Speaker 4: and I had to get out. I'd never been on
Speaker 4: stage in a comedy club before, although I thought it
Speaker 4: was comedy club funny, and that was his test. It
Speaker 4: was like, if we're going to produce his show, let's
Speaker 4: find it out.
Speaker 3: And I went on that.
Speaker 4: Stage and sorry mom and dad, but I was fucking funny.
Speaker 4: And after that, you know, and Adam's like, okay, wave
Speaker 4: the wand gave me the television, gave me the excuse
Speaker 4: me the podcast which was September ish of twenty fifteen,
Speaker 4: and I had to be produced. So the person I
Speaker 4: wanted to produce me was the person said do it
Speaker 4: for me, And boy did you inherit a shelter dog.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, that was a real arm wrestle.
Speaker 5: Let me just stay there.
Speaker 3: You're like, why don't you do this? I'm like why.
Speaker 3: I was not easy talent to work with?
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness. Oh that is such an understatement. He
Speaker 1: was impossible to work with. But I will say this though,
Speaker 1: I am probably the only person that could have worked
Speaker 1: with him, because I was so challenged and tested myself
Speaker 1: at you know, trying to figure out how to communicate
Speaker 1: with this person that needed to make make some pivots
Speaker 1: here and there are a few adjustments to be as
Speaker 1: good as he could possibly be.
Speaker 3: I mean, it was it is hard to produce a producer.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I was like, I think you said to
Speaker 4: me time, like I wrote something and you were like, you.
Speaker 3: Were like, hey, do you want me to take a
Speaker 3: cracker rewriting that. I'm like, rewrite me, like you do?
Speaker 3: You know who I am? So there was a little ego.
Speaker 4: I mean, you were very, very accomplished in Hollywood, but
Speaker 4: so was I, and so trying to produce a producer
Speaker 4: and I've done a long time and a director and
Speaker 4: I knew how to deliver a line like that must
Speaker 4: have been no picnic And then about you know, thirty
Speaker 4: forty shows.
Speaker 3: Into it, I'm like, you know what we should do?
Speaker 4: And it was exactly like the idea you said and
Speaker 4: you just wrote your It was like, oh my god,
Speaker 4: I cannot believe that.
Speaker 3: The light bulb just went off.
Speaker 4: I've been saying this for six months and the show
Speaker 4: kind of went from there right right exactly.
Speaker 1: I mean, it is it is true that that there.
Speaker 1: You know that producers are hard to produce, but Brian
Speaker 1: Howie also, I think was especially hard because he was
Speaker 1: such a fantastic producer and a fantastic director. He had
Speaker 1: in fact produced in the number one off Broadway show
Speaker 1: in New York.
Speaker 5: For over a decade.
Speaker 1: That was that was called Pieces of Ass and it
Speaker 1: was the spoken autobiography of some of the world's most
Speaker 1: beautiful women, and so he had to really really work
Speaker 1: with them to be able to tell their stories.
Speaker 5: And it was not easy.
Speaker 1: I know that I've heard, I've heard a lot of
Speaker 1: the story the behind the scenes on that, and.
Speaker 5: It was huge.
Speaker 1: It was a huge, huge, huge accomplishment. So having done that,
Speaker 1: you know, to credit you, I mean, I yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I understand that you didn't feel like you.
Speaker 4: Needed well, I had pulled hundreds and he did thousands
Speaker 4: and thousands of stories and stuff out of people, and
Speaker 4: so I'm like, I don't need you to pull anything
Speaker 4: out of me.
Speaker 3: I did. I was wrong. I admitted that. The look
Speaker 3: on your face when.
Speaker 4: I told you was wrong with you and our our
Speaker 4: other engineer Klin back then, Mike August like, they're like,
Speaker 4: oh my god, he's so difficult, and you know. But
Speaker 4: then I started to do the live show in comedy
Speaker 4: clubs and I felt like I could be funny and
Speaker 4: I was the talent and all that. I want to
Speaker 4: get into a little bit more of like the things
Speaker 4: we have learned the people we've had on the show
Speaker 4: and all that, all that kind of stuff. We got
Speaker 4: to take a quick break because we got to pay
Speaker 4: for mountaintop retreats like Keiko as here. I'm here with
Speaker 4: the two time Emmy Award winning Keko and this is
Speaker 4: our five hundredth episode.
Speaker 3: We will be back right after this.
Speaker 4: And we are back and thinking back to the early
Speaker 4: days of the show The Guest, there were two shows
Speaker 4: that really sort of changed it for me. One was
Speaker 4: about Episode one and two, so two years in when
Speaker 4: I was forced to do a show alone. You remember
Speaker 4: early early days of the show, I would need this
Speaker 4: whole peanut gallery of people on the show too. To
Speaker 4: me crazy, I had like four or five I had
Speaker 4: like a Howard Stern style like whack pack, because I
Speaker 4: needed people to say right, yes, hit the ping pong
Speaker 4: ball back to me, like I just needed these.
Speaker 1: I don't think he ever had as many people in
Speaker 1: his show as you had on yours. You were more
Speaker 1: like like the original Bill Mahers show.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I just had lots of people and they were
Speaker 4: just around and I needed everybody miked, and I need
Speaker 4: you on the mic, and I needed Kalin on I
Speaker 4: need everybody Mike because I didn't quite trust my voice.
Speaker 4: But then about one hundred episodes in two years in
Speaker 4: somebody didn't show up and I had to do one myself,
Speaker 4: and the feedback I got from you guys listening that
Speaker 4: it was like, oh, that was probably the most authentic
Speaker 4: version of you. You just talked as you guys know.
Speaker 4: Now I probably do every other one myself, every third one.
Speaker 4: Being able to just talk and trust that there's a
Speaker 4: dialogue going on between me and the audience. That was
Speaker 4: one of the most important things in the show. And
Speaker 4: I produced a lot of podcasts now. I always try
Speaker 4: and tell them you're the host of the party, You're
Speaker 4: the strawitztirs, the drink. You have to be comfortable enough
Speaker 4: that people are along for the ride with you if
Speaker 4: you're going to be honest and and authentic.
Speaker 3: But the one guest who.
Speaker 4: We had early on that really validated what we were
Speaker 4: doing here was doctor Drew. And we went to Corolla
Speaker 4: Studio on a Saturday and he came on and he
Speaker 4: really just sort of you know, he had hosted Loveline
Speaker 4: to that point for ten years, you know, every single
Speaker 4: night him and Adam. I was lucky enough to co
Speaker 4: host Love Line with him. It was me and him
Speaker 4: and Marilyn Riskow Chloe from twenty four oh right, and
Speaker 4: it was just thrilling. But when Drew came on the
Speaker 4: show and he's been a huge supporter ever since, and
Speaker 4: he kind of said, this is important what you're doing,
Speaker 4: this is this is important conversations that you're doing, you're
Speaker 4: not necessarily And he's the one who told me that
Speaker 4: that our job was not to provide the answers. Our
Speaker 4: job was to raise the questions. And he's like, there's
Speaker 4: no experts on this, there is no expertise. And that
Speaker 4: made me think, like, you know, at that point in
Speaker 4: my forties, never been married, Like I didn't have to
Speaker 4: apologize anymore after he said that. So he really helped
Speaker 4: a lot. He really validated, and then we just had
Speaker 4: some really good guests. I remember when Jillian Michaels came in.
Speaker 4: You know, she's a fitness trainer, lesbian, what you know,
Speaker 4: what are we having?
Speaker 3: Tom?
Speaker 4: She was amazing, She was great and she was authentic.
Speaker 4: Mary Lou Henner was great. John Gray, who wrote mars
Speaker 4: Venus back, I mean these are you know, we hadn't
Speaker 4: had this show fully fledg yet, But we had some
Speaker 4: people who really liked talking about this, this subject matter.
Speaker 3: We had some cookie cookie people, reality stars.
Speaker 4: You know, Stossy Schroeder, Brandy Glanville, We had a lot
Speaker 4: of people like that, Ross Matthews. You know. We had
Speaker 4: a lot of people who would come in and make
Speaker 4: fun of me, which was fun. But the ones who
Speaker 4: really wanted to dig into this to the subject matter.
Speaker 4: I love that I loved and I'm super proud of
Speaker 4: her now Jen Glantz who wrote the book Always a Bridesmaid,
Speaker 4: and now she has a book out called Finally a
Speaker 4: Bride and she's a fantastic guest. And I feel like
Speaker 4: we've been on this journey with is a guest.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And so there's certain people, and there's certain episodes and
Speaker 4: certain milestones where it finally kicked in for me. You're like,
Speaker 4: oh my god, I should have kicked in earlier that
Speaker 4: I'm like, Okay, I think.
Speaker 3: We know what we're doing here.
Speaker 4: And the amount of feedback I get from you guys,
Speaker 4: the Great Love Debate audience, both when I was doing
Speaker 4: the live shows and just communications about this podcast, it
Speaker 4: was like, oh, there is more to hear than just
Speaker 4: complaining about dating, because you know, the old tagline for
Speaker 4: this show was why is everyone still single? And to
Speaker 4: move it from just a bitch fest, you know men's
Speaker 4: socking girls are crazy and into something that was a
Speaker 4: little bit I think, more substantive while still being fun.
Speaker 4: That is the credit to you as a talented That's
Speaker 4: why you have the Emmys. That is why you cast
Speaker 4: every single show thing, and that's why you're like, let
Speaker 4: me keep this wild dog on track here to have
Speaker 4: conversations that had purpose versus just sharing dating disaster stories.
Speaker 5: He was listening.
Speaker 3: He was listening. I'm listening. So you know, we still
Speaker 3: battle as a producer.
Speaker 4: When I said what I want to do for the
Speaker 4: five hundredth show, you had a completely different idea and
Speaker 4: you're kind of mad about it.
Speaker 3: I kind of tricked you into coming here.
Speaker 5: Yes, yes you did.
Speaker 3: What did you want to do? Well?
Speaker 1: I thought that the five hundredth show was going to
Speaker 1: be a round table with some of our currently favorite
Speaker 1: you know, guests, personalities, people that have a lot to say,
Speaker 1: you know, in twenty twenty five about relationships, whether it's
Speaker 1: dating or being in a relationship or whatever. But I
Speaker 1: thought that we would have a round table of some
Speaker 1: people that wanted.
Speaker 3: To chat about well, I lourd you to. I lured
Speaker 3: you to a square table halfway up a mountain.
Speaker 1: That's right with nobody else here, nobody else here.
Speaker 3: What are we doing well?
Speaker 4: I wanted to I want to say thank you, and uh,
Speaker 4: you know I did a show a couple of years
Speaker 4: ago where I talked about that that the five things
Speaker 4: that I need to hear out of my partner are
Speaker 4: good morning, good night, I'm sorry, I love you, and
Speaker 4: thank you. And people are like, that's very simple and basic,
Speaker 4: and I'm like, it's not as easy as you think.
Speaker 4: So good morning, in the night and the good night
Speaker 4: are about this is you know, I think of you now,
Speaker 4: and I think of you at the end, at the close,
Speaker 4: in the beginning of the day.
Speaker 3: That's why it matters.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry matters a lot because it's really hard to
Speaker 4: say I'm sorry.
Speaker 3: I love you. Obviously I need because I don't think
Speaker 3: I've heard a lot of that in my life.
Speaker 4: But the thank you, the ability to express and accept
Speaker 4: gratitude is so much, goes so long in a relationship,
Speaker 4: and I wanted the audience to know that none of that.
Speaker 4: You are the most important person in the great love
Speaker 4: to beat. Even though you're not around anymore. None of
Speaker 4: this happens, none of this dialogue, none of this tone.
Speaker 4: You're very mysterious. You never give away anything of your
Speaker 4: own personal life. But what you have able to do
Speaker 4: is to create an environment where people could could share.
Speaker 4: And that is something that you are a more talented
Speaker 4: producer than me, because I was unable to do that
Speaker 4: before you came along, and I was just in it
Speaker 4: for the laughs. So, you know, my favorite things to
Speaker 4: do in these shows sometimes are the when we play
Speaker 4: worst Date, First Date at the end of the shows.
Speaker 4: Those are always fun. But the things that I like
Speaker 4: are the things that you know, we've done five hundred shows.
Speaker 4: That's a lot of ways to slice this apple, and
Speaker 4: we you know, often circle back to subjects that we
Speaker 4: haven't touched in a long long time. But over the
Speaker 4: course of this ten year period, five hundred shows, we
Speaker 4: have dealt with me too. We have dealt with blurring
Speaker 4: of gender roles. We have dealt with the injection of
Speaker 4: politics and a political environment into a dating culture. We
Speaker 4: have dealt with COVID, We have dealt with all kinds
Speaker 4: of things, and we kind of had to navigate the
Speaker 4: subject matter. I mean, we're recording outside here now. I
Speaker 4: remember a couple times back in Santa Monica when we
Speaker 4: had the studio there during COVID, I had to record outside, yeah,
Speaker 4: you know, and that especially in LA and sitting five
Speaker 4: feet apart, like I just didn't want to do any zooms,
Speaker 4: like I wanted to still do this, And so we've
Speaker 4: had to navigate the subject matter changing. We have had
Speaker 4: to navigate technology, dating apps, getting into dating, you know. So,
Speaker 4: like I said, our old tagline was why is everyone
Speaker 4: still single? This show has evolved away from that a
Speaker 4: little bit, maybe because I've gotten older, but mostly because
Speaker 4: the challenges of a single person and the challenges of
Speaker 4: somebody who is any relationship were married are not that different.
Speaker 4: It really always comes down to confidence and communication and
Speaker 4: trust and sharing and honesty and often willing to get
Speaker 4: out of your comfort zone. And you forced me out
Speaker 4: of my comfort zone kicking and screaming like a mule
Speaker 4: to do the podcast the way you thought I should
Speaker 4: do it, and you were right.
Speaker 1: So thank you for that acknowledgement. I'm delighted to know
Speaker 1: that you were listening, although just listening.
Speaker 3: To oh, I don't know if I was listening.
Speaker 4: Somehow it kicked in well because if we think, but
Speaker 4: like the way the way it all, the light bulb
Speaker 4: went off, I thought it was my idea. I thought
Speaker 4: it was fruit of the Howie tree, which it may
Speaker 4: have been, but I still I still remember when you
Speaker 4: offered to rewrite something like my head almost fell off.
Speaker 3: I'm like, do you know who I am?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 3: Do you know what I do? And then you did
Speaker 3: rewrite something.
Speaker 4: I'm like, oh, actually you're a pretty good writer, you know,
Speaker 4: and technology, you know.
Speaker 3: Bringing back to doctor Drew, I mean that was very
Speaker 3: early episode.
Speaker 4: He was the one who first said that the coming
Speaker 4: storm was was Ai when in virtual dating and all that,
Speaker 4: and he was way ahead of the game.
Speaker 3: He's like, that's gonna come.
Speaker 4: That's going to really throw a curveball into everything because
Speaker 4: people are going to be a little too satisfied with
Speaker 4: themselves and their dates, putting on a helmet and just
Speaker 4: talking to somebody virtually.
Speaker 3: And so he was right on that.
Speaker 4: You know, when we brought up John Gray, Mars Venus,
Speaker 4: mena from Mars, women from Venus?
Speaker 3: Is that right?
Speaker 4: Mena from Mars yea? And he said to me, because
Speaker 4: he heard me say, women look for red flags and
Speaker 4: men look for green lights. And he's like, Oh, that's good.
Speaker 4: And I'm like, oh, thank you. You put that on
Speaker 4: your book cover. That would be a good book title.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: And we've said we've dealt with that, you know, to
Speaker 4: this day, twenty twenty five as we record this.
Speaker 3: That the.
Speaker 4: Women have gotten harder than the men have gotten softer.
Speaker 4: And that is an environment again, especially at our live shows,
Speaker 4: because even though we're doing this podcast for most the
Speaker 4: last ten years, still on the road, foreign countries, new cities,
Speaker 4: or ever, trying to really break down the landscape of
Speaker 4: the dating and the relationship ecosystem, and you know, certain
Speaker 4: cities were harder than others.
Speaker 1: You know, and you really attacked it like or addressed
Speaker 1: it like a journalist. I used to say a lot
Speaker 1: of times that I felt like you were a love
Speaker 1: journalist or the journalist of love or something like that
Speaker 1: along those lines, because you really want to know, really
Speaker 1: did want to hear people and understand what everyone was
Speaker 1: going through, find common ground and find some solutions and
Speaker 1: find like you say, confidence and communication and a way
Speaker 1: forward where people could actually connect. And I think that's
Speaker 1: where the big change really happened in the live show,
Speaker 1: and you know what, the podcast eventually became because love,
Speaker 1: dating and relationships can be is should be funny and
Speaker 1: interesting and an adventure. And so to think that, you know,
Speaker 1: men and women have problems, to think that they don't
Speaker 1: get along, and to really live in that space, it's
Speaker 1: just not ever who this what this show was ever about.
Speaker 1: This was all about the adventure of love with its
Speaker 1: ups and downs. Valley.
Speaker 4: You know, I don't believe there's anything as an expert
Speaker 4: on this stuff, but I don't know who. It was
Speaker 4: a time somebody called me an influencer on this, which
Speaker 4: I am because I'm trying to push the dialogue forward
Speaker 4: and you bring up the journalist thing. I'm looking to
Speaker 4: find answers. But two three years.
Speaker 3: Ago I got interviewed maybe it was longer for Nightline.
Speaker 3: Was that Debora Roberts.
Speaker 5: It was longer Debora Roberts, Okay.
Speaker 3: And she's following me around and she's asked me.
Speaker 4: A bunch of questions and then she goes, let me
Speaker 4: ask you something, and I go what, And she goes,
Speaker 4: is this whole thing really about you? And I never
Speaker 4: thought about it that way? And that first my actuer
Speaker 4: was like, no, of course not. But maybe it is.
Speaker 4: And maybe it's because I had always had such you know, publicly,
Speaker 4: and you know, I always said.
Speaker 3: Oh, I have a girlfriend, blah blah blah.
Speaker 4: But but inside there was something that I was not
Speaker 4: getting the answers that I needed, and that I saw
Speaker 4: that in other people.
Speaker 3: I had no idea.
Speaker 4: Some of the stuff that men were going through because
Speaker 4: I thought I'm a guy, I understand guys. Even my
Speaker 4: book where this all started, How to Find Eleven sixty Seconds,
Speaker 4: I don't even push that book anymore because I don't
Speaker 4: believe in half of it because I got the whole
Speaker 4: men's side of it wrong.
Speaker 1: And that's what I was just going to say. I mean,
Speaker 1: I really think that that that's what ignited the whole
Speaker 1: thing was maybe your own story, you know, your own feelings.
Speaker 1: I think that's where it started. But this is definitely
Speaker 1: not about Brian Howie.
Speaker 3: No, this show drove me. I was the vessel.
Speaker 4: I was the kind of Now, this show drove me
Speaker 4: to therapy, of course, And it wasn't you know. It
Speaker 4: was because I was hearing things and listening to people
Speaker 4: experiencing things, and I'm like, I don't even know what
Speaker 4: they're talking about and that's a bad place to be
Speaker 4: if you are the host and the public face of
Speaker 4: the great Love debate. So anyway, we have learned so much,
Speaker 4: which I hope you guys have too. We have experienced
Speaker 4: so much.
Speaker 3: This show.
Speaker 4: Like I said, I have recorded this show in a
Speaker 4: bunch of countries and a bunch of places the podcast.
Speaker 4: I have performed the show in a bunch of places,
Speaker 4: and a bunch of of comedy clubs and theaters and
Speaker 4: music venues and everything. And you know, millions of people
Speaker 4: listening to the show, and hundreds of thousands have come
Speaker 4: to the live show, and this show, this five hundred show,
Speaker 4: is a chance for me to say thank you to
Speaker 4: the audience, but it's mostly a chance to say thank you.
Speaker 4: I love you to the time Emmy Wardmann and Keko,
Speaker 4: like I said, her ability to see something in me
Speaker 4: and believe in me in a way.
Speaker 3: You know, that's the thing you say.
Speaker 4: Like when I was challenging you as a producer, like
Speaker 4: I'm a producer, you're a producer, fuck off.
Speaker 3: Maybe I didn't hear.
Speaker 4: Maybe I could have backed off a little bit if
Speaker 4: I knew, if I believed in me the way you
Speaker 4: believed in me, and so part of that dialogue and
Speaker 4: part of me fighting back was me like, I need
Speaker 4: to be louder, I need to be more vociferous, I
Speaker 4: need to be more passionate about what I believe, because
Speaker 4: I wasn't as confident in me as you were. And
Speaker 4: so I appreciated to no end what you've done to this.
Speaker 4: I want the audience to appreciate. Maybe you're gonna have
Speaker 4: a bunch of fans come up here in your mountain
Speaker 4: retreat here to track you down your wisdom. The amount
Speaker 4: of times you've been on the show and you always
Speaker 4: had the money line or something funny to say, and
Speaker 4: you say you're hey hey. And the fanfare when we
Speaker 4: used to break out the list, what did you what
Speaker 4: was your music?
Speaker 3: Little fanfare?
Speaker 4: All of that was such an important part of the
Speaker 4: show in the early days, and it lasts through today.
Speaker 4: Like there's no element of this great love debate or
Speaker 4: the conversations that I have that are not directly related
Speaker 4: to you and responsible for you. So I wanted the
Speaker 4: audience to know this. So sorry I tricked you on
Speaker 4: the roundtable. Sorry I lured you out of a semi
Speaker 4: retirement to come back and do this but I just
Speaker 4: wanted you to.
Speaker 1: Know that well and stop saying that I'm not around anymore,
Speaker 1: because I will always be around for you.
Speaker 5: I will always be around for the Great Love Debate.
Speaker 1: So so maybe not in the proximity of you know,
Speaker 1: there in the studio studios.
Speaker 5: The what do you call them? The lovely what do
Speaker 5: you call them.
Speaker 1: We're back in the very fine studio, very fine, very fine,
Speaker 1: very fine. Maybe, and I'm not in the very fine studios,
Speaker 1: but I am always, always, always here for you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean there are Like I said, there are
Speaker 4: a lot of people out there, and I appreciate every
Speaker 4: single one of you who have listened to every single
Speaker 4: episode of the show. I got an email from somebody
Speaker 4: who climbed Mount Everest listening to Great Love Debate. I'm
Speaker 4: surprised at how popular we are in Malta. I didn't
Speaker 4: even know whatr Malta was very popular in a lot
Speaker 4: of countries, but I think there's a good chance. I
Speaker 4: don't know if you've listened to all of them, but
Speaker 4: pretty close. And you've got a lot going on, and
Speaker 4: so I know that you don't always have time to
Speaker 4: do that. And I know a lot of what I
Speaker 4: say makes you roll your eyes and it makes you think,
Speaker 4: oh my god, if I was there.
Speaker 3: But no, we don't edit. I have done.
Speaker 4: This is a five hundred episode. We've never edited a
Speaker 4: word I've said. We edited one thing I think that
Speaker 4: Caitlin Bristow from The Bachelor said because ABC got mad,
Speaker 4: remember that, like take that out.
Speaker 3: I don't edit.
Speaker 4: And the life on the high Wire and working without
Speaker 4: a net to do that, you're just like be authentic
Speaker 4: and hopefully they'll you'll put some asses in the seats.
Speaker 5: And you are doing that.
Speaker 1: You are doing that. You are so authentic and your
Speaker 1: advice and your thoughts are either right on and sometimes
Speaker 1: they are, but even when they're not, they're very provocative.
Speaker 3: And I think talking about I think that they they're not.
Speaker 6: They help they are Listen when somebody, when somebody challenges you,
Speaker 6: it makes you think, Okay, if I don't if I
Speaker 6: don't agree with them, then what do I agree with?
Speaker 1: If that's not there's what do I think? So it's
Speaker 1: all helpful.
Speaker 4: Brain, there's a chance I'm wrong, and a lot somebody
Speaker 4: has not somebody, a lot of people ask me this,
Speaker 4: do you.
Speaker 3: Believe every single thing you say on the podcast?
Speaker 4: And I'm like, I think I'm figuring it out when
Speaker 4: I say it, I'm figuring out do I believe this
Speaker 4: is true?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm running it up a flagpole.
Speaker 4: And the response that I get from the audience like,
Speaker 4: this is a conversation that every person who listens to
Speaker 4: this podcast is a part of, or I want to
Speaker 4: feel a part of.
Speaker 3: So I'm not always right.
Speaker 4: I'm like I said, my job is to raise the
Speaker 4: questions and find the answers.
Speaker 3: We have a lot of the answers.
Speaker 4: Because nobody has raised the questions more than we have
Speaker 4: in front of more people in more places over the years.
Speaker 4: I stand by that I stand about behind our collective data.
Speaker 4: But some of the things that I say are rooted
Speaker 4: from my personal experience and the things that I've learned.
Speaker 4: I had no idea how angry certain men were. I
Speaker 4: had no idea how how much infidelity goes on in
Speaker 4: married like I just didn't know.
Speaker 3: I'm a little bit as naive.
Speaker 4: I didn't know how many people stay together on happily
Speaker 4: for a long time. I didn't know how many people
Speaker 4: were scared to go on a date. I didn't know
Speaker 4: how many people were believed in the words this is
Speaker 4: my type. And you know, if there's anything we preach
Speaker 4: around here is to get rid of the words not
Speaker 4: my type. If you're over thirty and you're still single,
Speaker 4: you have no type, and we will we will say
Speaker 4: that to death. And so you know there's you know,
Speaker 4: thirty or forty things that That was another thing that
Speaker 4: I don't know if it was you or it was
Speaker 4: Mike August who was also producing. I went on stage
Speaker 4: and I realized I thought I'd said, well, I said
Speaker 4: that at a show earlier, and I was scared to
Speaker 4: say something again because I thought they'd heard it before.
Speaker 4: If somebody come to the show and he said, they
Speaker 4: want to hear living on a prayer, m h. And
Speaker 4: what it meant was, don't back off on it. If
Speaker 4: it's these tenets, these mantras, these catchphrases, these slogans that
Speaker 4: we've developed over the years on the show, don't be
Speaker 4: afraid to say them. The women want the men to
Speaker 4: try harder, the men want the women to make it easier.
Speaker 4: Those things we've developed over the course of the years.
Speaker 3: And you could see the look upeople's faces when they resonated.
Speaker 3: You know a lot of this was work shopping in
Speaker 3: the early days. A lot of this is work shopping.
Speaker 4: Now when we come back episode one thousand, the five
Speaker 4: hundred is gonna seem qaint and who knows, we're gonna
Speaker 4: be able to inject this right at.
Speaker 3: Our audience's heads.
Speaker 4: But this is all a work in progress. We do
Speaker 4: not have all the answers, which is a good thing.
Speaker 4: Because we had all the answers, this wouldn't be fun anymore,
Speaker 4: right for sure?
Speaker 5: For sure.
Speaker 1: And and just so you know, I will put it
Speaker 1: out there that my next my next project is to
Speaker 1: convince you to write all this stuff down. So if
Speaker 1: if he ever gives the announcement that there's a book
Speaker 1: in the works, please give him the encouragement for that is.
Speaker 5: I will be behind the line.
Speaker 4: I know.
Speaker 3: I get asked to do the book a lot.
Speaker 4: Probably the best idea that has come to me is
Speaker 4: to do the state of the date and travel around
Speaker 4: and do the fifty states, the.
Speaker 3: You know, the daily landstape in fifty states. That's a
Speaker 3: good idea.
Speaker 4: There's there's probably a way to transcribe five hundred podcasts,
Speaker 4: edit it down.
Speaker 3: Do that.
Speaker 4: The reason I don't do it, and it's rare to
Speaker 4: turn down to publishing things I do get offered. That
Speaker 4: is because I'm so scared by the time we hit
Speaker 4: print on the book that because the landscape.
Speaker 3: Changes so much that the direct it'll just be out
Speaker 3: of date.
Speaker 4: So the reason I like doing the podcast so much
Speaker 4: is I feel like this is the five hundredth chapter
Speaker 4: of a really long book, and every week I get
Speaker 4: to add a new chapter. That being said, there is
Speaker 4: something about a book in hand, and there is something
Speaker 4: to be you know, thirty years from now, somebody can
Speaker 4: pick up the book and see if it still stands up.
Speaker 4: I brought that up on an episode a couple episodes
Speaker 4: ago that I believe that the best dating book that's
Speaker 4: ever been written. Sorry, John Gray is he's just not
Speaker 4: that into you. And I believe that. You know, they
Speaker 4: were comedians and Greg is a comedian, and yeah, and
Speaker 4: you know the reason why. And again Corolla is a comedian.
Speaker 3: I guess you know.
Speaker 4: I headline comedy clubs. I don't know if I'm a comedian,
Speaker 4: but I'm fucking funny. Comedians are social observers, and that's
Speaker 4: why they have a really good handle on the relationship stuff.
Speaker 4: And comedians are also often wounded hearts, and they try
Speaker 4: and find the laughter in sometimes tough situations, which is
Speaker 4: part of what we're trying to do here. Like some
Speaker 4: of this stuff, and when we get into breakups and
Speaker 4: divorce and infidelity and all these other things, it is
Speaker 4: a painful business, and we try and always put a
Speaker 4: spin on it.
Speaker 3: And laugh a lot.
Speaker 4: I said, somewhat embarrassedly or regretfully, maybe that I don't
Speaker 4: know if the show is as funny as it used
Speaker 4: to be. I don't think we laugh as much, But
Speaker 4: it doesn't mean we're not doing better shows. You know,
Speaker 4: sometimes making people think is a lot more important than
Speaker 4: making people laugh.
Speaker 3: You taught me that. You taught me that, and I
Speaker 3: trust you. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I used to tell my actors and actresses in theater
Speaker 4: that all the time they're listening to you, that's important.
Speaker 4: I didn't believe it myself until you told me that.
Speaker 4: So maybe you're just hitting the ping pong ball back
Speaker 4: to me. You held up the mirror and I did that.
Speaker 4: You are a brilliant producer if you.
Speaker 3: Listen to me.
Speaker 5: Yeah, no, I don't.
Speaker 1: To be honest, I didn't realize that I had packeded
Speaker 1: you or influenced you in that way, because my thing
Speaker 1: was always that we have to find the funny because
Speaker 1: once you start laughing, I mean, everybody loves to laugh.
Speaker 1: And once you start laughing, you realize that things are
Speaker 1: not as bleak or serious as as they seem. And
Speaker 1: once you get into that place, you're in a place
Speaker 1: of openness. And the thing that I love that I
Speaker 1: contributed to this was the magic of maybe there's here's
Speaker 1: a magic and maybe and so and so. I just
Speaker 1: think our goal should always be to get to a
Speaker 1: place where we're saying, maybe, maybe I'll fall in love today,
Speaker 1: or maybe I'm going to meet somebody that will be
Speaker 1: a friend, or maybe I'll meet someone that i'll fix
Speaker 1: up with one of my friends.
Speaker 5: Maybe I'll meet someone that'll do business.
Speaker 3: It's about possibility.
Speaker 1: Maybe is about possibility.
Speaker 3: And because the Hollywood competitiveness in me still flares up
Speaker 3: with you, I'm so mad you came up with that.
Speaker 3: That sounds like something I would say. I feel like
Speaker 3: maybe I muttered it, No, set it under my breath.
Speaker 5: I'm sorry, that's mine, that's mine.
Speaker 3: There's magic in me, magic and maybe all right.
Speaker 4: Well there's magic in you. Two time Emmy one winning KKO,
Speaker 4: there's magic in the show. There's a magic in our audience.
Speaker 3: So we are incredibly thank you. We're incredibly grateful and
Speaker 3: proud of doing this.
Speaker 4: Uh A fraction of a fraction of a fraction of
Speaker 4: podcasts go on this long, and you know, we are
Speaker 4: kind of just getting started.
Speaker 1: And and since you're in the thanking mode, I have
Speaker 1: to I have to mirror that right back to you,
Speaker 1: because if you did not keep on doing this, none
Speaker 1: of us would have all of this material, None of
Speaker 1: us would have these these insights and the and the
Speaker 1: you know, the provocative side of you is also, like
Speaker 1: I said, very very helpful. And everybody, everybody wants to
Speaker 1: to understand all of this better and you help us
Speaker 1: with that.
Speaker 3: So thank you.
Speaker 5: Thank you for.
Speaker 1: Continuing to do this, for not giving up, and for uh,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 2: This show.
Speaker 4: Thank you this show. This show really isn't about love.
Speaker 4: This show is about hope. And we're selling hope around here.
Speaker 4: And every time somebody tunes in or we want to
Speaker 4: have these conversations or whatever, we're pushing people to a
Speaker 4: place of hope to either find it, do it better,
Speaker 4: learn from it, grow from it, et cetera.
Speaker 3: Thank you, two time Ember Award winning Keiko.
Speaker 5: You're welcome thanks.
Speaker 4: They don't give Emmys for podcast, but if they did,
Speaker 4: this would be your third.
Speaker 3: Emmy as far as us.
Speaker 4: After five hundred episodes, your reviews still meet a lot
Speaker 4: on the podcasting ecosystem, like share, follow, and like I
Speaker 4: just said, please review this podcast on Apple click five stars,
Speaker 4: give us five stars.
Speaker 3: Damn it?
Speaker 5: Yeah, please do it? Do it well, well it's on
Speaker 5: your mind.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll hold, We'll hold.
Speaker 4: Shoot us an email Great Love Debate at gmail dot
Speaker 4: com if you have questions, thoughts, uh, compliments, controversial things
Speaker 4: to say, or if you want to invite up the
Speaker 4: mountain to Keko's mountaintop retreat.
Speaker 3: She won't allow you to calm, but we'll see.
Speaker 1: You know, Brian how he reads every single one of
Speaker 1: those emails himself, So don't think that he's got like
Speaker 1: a team of of you know, associates who are who
Speaker 1: are doing that for him. He loves reading those. So
Speaker 1: please do write to him. Please let me know what
Speaker 1: you do and let him know what's on your mind.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's a lot, so I don't know, but I read,
Speaker 4: you know, I don't know if it was Churchill, somebody
Speaker 4: read every single letter. Anyway, because as always for the
Speaker 4: five hundredth time at the Great Love Debate.
Speaker 5: We never stopped making love.
Speaker 3: See you next time.
Speaker 2: The Great Love Debate. It's the Great Love.
Speaker 3: Debate, degree love debate. It's a great love Debate.