#35 - 23rd Ain't That Bad

In this episode of The Cool Dad Shirt Podcast, Rich and Mike are back with another hilarious deep dive into music legends, vending machine drama, weird food requests, and accidental conspiracy theories.

Highlights & Topics Covered:

• Steve Lukather: Rich kicks things off with a Steve Lukather appreciation moment, spotlighting his epic guitar work on songs by The Tubes and Toto—and his surprising disdain for “Africa.”
• Freedom Jam: Mike brings us a wild Freedom Jam update, where a former bandmate is now… the 23rd richest comedian? Yep, Terry Fator went from high school assemblies to $160 million.
• Fender jazz basses: The guys riff on viral fame, like watching Blue DeTiger go from slap bass Instagram posts to signature Fender jazz basses.
• Spielberg: The guys revisit Close Encounters of the Third Kind and confirm: yes, Spielberg still holds up—even if the UFOs don’t involve car chases.
• Otis Spunkmeyer: Meanwhile, vending machine culture reaches new heights (or depths) with a 530-calorie Otis Spunkmeyer cookie and Rich’s fruitless quest for seltzer.
• Pickled pig’s feet: Then it’s on to shipping pickled pig’s feet across the country, secret parental snack stashes from the ‘70s, and whether microwaving coffee is morally acceptable.
• Missed Jokes: Ever regret not being funny enough on your podcast? Rich and Mike float the idea of revisiting missed joke opportunities in a bonus "what we should have said" segment.
• Open to Work: Finally, a LinkedIn rant: why do people post “Open to Work” banners on a platform made for networking?

All this and more, delivered with a heaping spoonful of nostalgia, caffeine, and borderline absurdity.

 #CoolDadShirt #DadPodcast #DadLife #SteveLukather #FreedomJam #TerryFator #Fenderjazz #Spielberg #OtisSpunkmeyer #PickledPigsFeet

Where to Find Us:

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Transcript

I thought I had a beautiful segue and I completely torpedoed.

You're listening to The Cool Dad Shirt Podcast with Rich and Mike.

Welcome to this episode of The Cool Dad Shirt Podcast. Move over cousin Brucey.

I just don't know what that means. Do you know who cousin Brucey is?

I don't think so. In like a radio setting.

Yeah. Have you have you not ever heard that?

I don't. I don't know that I have.

At some of those oldies stations of the DJ would always have like a ridiculous amount of reverb. On their voice. It sounded like they were. I gotta send you a sample. Of this, this is unbelievable.

What do you do? Yeah. Coming to you live from Howe.

Cavern I opened up. I don't know if you recognize that track. The tubes talk to you later.

That's a great song. Yep. Talk.

To you later. So good. I've been on a Steve Lukather run for the last week or so, and I did not know he played guitar on that track.

He might have well and don't fall in love.

Maybe 4 maybe.

I think he. Wrote. She's a beauty. She's a beauty. I think he wrote that one. He's an amazing, amazing studio musician. He's played 1,000,000 so. Things. You've heard and had no idea who that was. The guitar.

Player from Toto. I love watching him on Rick Piatto again. I caught another little interview with him and it opened up the floodgates. I just started Googling and and searching all the stuff that he's contributed to.

Yeah, yeah, he's played on everybody's recordings. He's done a ton of studio stuff. When he was just, I think 1920 years old. He was playing in the studio on a ton of stuff. And it's funny. He's most famous for the song Africa by Toto, and he despises that song. He, he he didn't even want it on the album. And he goes that's how life goes sometimes.

I had an idea of how great of a guitar player he was, and I had no idea of the magnitude until I started looking into it.

More like Joe Walsh from the Eagles. He is of a similar just the discography is startling how many records he's been.

On I also wanted to talk about another musician. I'm just queuing something up here because I want. I want to keep my facts straight. A couple of episodes we started. Talking about freedom jam, remember?

Yes. Yeah. You sent me the image. Sorry I didn't went back that.

Was amazing that one that I sent you was probably early to mid 80s, which was the freedom jam that I saw in high school. But later I think it was probably 87 to 88 of the band had another lead singer and his name was Terry.

OK.

Vader what's amazing about Terry Fader? According to Celebrity net worth, he's gone on to be the 23rd richest comedian.

He went from Freedom Gym High School touring band. Presentation at assemblies and such to to the 23rd highest grossing comedian is that.

What you said. Yeah. And you could read the story. I won't go into the details on the show. So he was in freedom jam, probably in his early 20s. Wow. And after that, he decided to start pursuing this comedy career. He struggled for quite some time, but he appeared on America's Got Talent. In 2007, and that's when things started to turn around for him, and he went on to become. The 23rd richest comedian, it says that he's worth $160 million.

Man, I now see I want to go look him up because it's likely we've seen or heard of him, right? I mean, if you're, if you're in the the top 25I.

Mean you must have stuff out there. I was a little obsessed with freedom jam after we started talking about it. I think you made a a joke. You said the bass player. I think you said. I think he's working at Starbucks. No. And I was curious to see what happened and where their career went. All of a sudden, I stumbled upon Terry Fader, and I mean it's it's a huge list. You could imagine who's on the list. Right. Jerry Seinfeld, Matt Stone, Jay Leno. Kevin Hart. Adam Sandler. Dave Letterman. We all know and love. Yeah, for sure. Larry David, Seth MacFarlane, Conan, Ray Romano, Steve Harvey, Drew Carey, and then all of a sudden Terry Fader pops right up. In there. What's even more amazing is the stars that he's worth more, Bill Maher, Steve Martin. Dennis Miller.

Ohh man.

Kevin James.

Those guys?

Yeah. And I don't know how accurate this stuff is, but that's what makes it even more amazing. You know Melissa McCarthy, John Oliver. Yeah, it's. It's amazing. Like, how much more he's worth Tina Fey.

She's got. Getting credit or something that he's getting some income that isn't so obviously on camera. You know it's funny. Good for him. Yeah. Everybody's path to fame is is interesting. And one of the things I do like is you ever you ever follow somebody on Instagram and then they end up super famous. Have you ever. I got like a handful of people that.

Yes. Yeah.

I just one. Of them was I watched this young woman. It caught my eye because Instagram gives me a ton of music stuff. It caught my eye because she was doing a slap based version of just the two of us. You know, the old build with her. So I think Grover Cleveland, I think was the.

Yeah.

Saxophonist anyways, from the 80s. But she was just doing a rendition of that playing it. And I that might have been her tipping point. I'm not sure, but she started getting all these these likes and stuff like that. So she started promoting her band called Blue to Tiger B. LUDE. And you just started watching it blow up. And she's gotten those rural tours. She's releasing an album, and she just filmed a few weeks ago. She now has Fender. She has a signature jazz bass Fender jazz bass, and they filmed her going back to, I think it's on Long Island. Actually. She was going into the Guitar Center where she bought her first base as a little girl to go in and see her. Now signature base hanging on. The wall. It was just such a delightful story to to watch her go in there and pick up. She just holds up. It's like this.

Is my base here it is it's like.

This is such an amazing story.

Was it in a glass case like the one that Wayne and Garth?

Looked at, it wasn't like she's she's not quite that famous, but, but it was a it was a touching moment to see her come from little girl buying first instrument to having a signature line by a Fender.

Guitar. That's a great story. Good for her. Yeah, I'll have to look her up, see if I recognize the Guitar Center. Actually. Oh, I can look that up. I'll let you know. I gotta know now. Do you think right now someone is following us. And one day we'll be famous rich? Yes.

I am certain, well, we know people are following us. The the question is will they be as excited when we make it big?

I can only. Hope. They'll they'll go to the podcasting Hall of Fame and see our photos on the wall.

They'll be shocked to find out where the 23rd highest grossing show. They've never heard of what?

That show was so lame.

23rd. Seriously, I'm shocked. That would be hysterical. Ohh, gotta follow. Up Ohh, go ahead. Ohh, so we talked about do old movies still hold up? I actually went and watched close encounters of the third kind. The movie from 1977. It does hold up. Steven Spielberg does know how to make a movie.

Of course.

He's very, very good at it and you know, it's interesting though the, the the way movies were made, it was a little slower pace. I mean, it's not the the constant cuts in high action of the way movies are made nowadays, but it was an interesting story. It was compelling and it was I enjoyed. Good.

No car chases in that one. Right.

No. No, no, I don't think the car chasing so.

There were probably some fast moving vehicles through the woods or something like that, right? If I recall correctly.

Well, there's. You know UFO's and stuff zipping around there was, you know, that kind of action. And then the big reveal at the end when the when the aliens step. Off. The. Oh, I hope I'm not ruining this for anybody.

For those who haven't seen it yet.

There's aliens at the end.

I love when you come to mind in my everyday life, rich. So at work we have these little kitchenettes and there's a vending machine in there, a little sink and a refrigerator for everybody to store their lunches. I walked in there the other day just to rinse something out and to the left was the vending machine. And on the top row of this vending machine, there was a giant Otis Spunkmeyer cookie. They had the calories listed on the outside and this is the part where I thought of you, one giant Otis Spunkmeyer cookie was 530 calories and I don't know why. I don't know why you come to mind when outrageous food is in the forefront.

The. So.

Well, I mean I am a little outspoken about trying to be healthier and going down that rabbit hole. So yeah, well, you know, similarly, I had a conversation. I happen to be in their little cafe area and the guy was in there filling up vending machine stuff. And I I inquired about maybe just getting some seltzer in the vending machine. And he's like, oh, you know, we got, like, monster drinks. It's not all soda we have like monster drinks like, no. No, I don't want like all the other stuff in it. He goes. Oh, here's this other, like, I can't remember the name. And it was it was just all these, like, very chemically over flavored super things. And like, I just want bubbly water.

That's.

All I want and it blew the. Guy's mind he's. Like. No, no, no, no, he. Never tried this, this is. Really good. Like you're missing what I'm.

We do not carry Hal Seltzer.

Going for here. Just a little bubbly water, man. That's all I want for. My afternoon drink.

I did have greater success than you in the early 90s when I worked at KeyBank. My friend and I petitioned the vendor to put Hawaiian punch fruit juicy red in the sewing machine and in fact he did. He was he was quite pleased on his fruit juicy red cells.

Oh, so you you helped them really expand the the profit margin?

Oh yeah, there was a bunch of us that used. To drink. It so we asked if he could put it in the machine and and he did. It's funny. You look back and think of all the the wine punch and Mountain Dew that you drank. It's so delicious, but it's like.

Everything else it it is so delicious, but once you kind of stop doing it.

You it you can't go back. It's. Yeah, it's ridiculous how terrible it really is. Yeah, knowing what I know now about it, I just I I'd be better suited to drink antifreeze. Probably it's the same color. That red dye, I think is illegal in Europe. I did want to ask you if you thought Kurt Cobain was still alive. You ever wonder about some of that stuff? I didn't think so till you brought it up. But now?

I'm up for.

A conspiracy theory? What do you got? And it's not even a conspiracy theory or any footage. But I do wonder about that stuff about the Jim Morrisons, the Elvis Presley's, Kurt Cobain's and even the Michael Jacksons.

The circumstances surrounding their death are interest. Sting and they would be far more interesting if it was all just a ruse and they just they they had enough the limelight.

And just went to live somewhere else. Hey, not to bounce around and go back to food, but I did want to ask you this. I don't know if it was a 70s thing as a kid growing up, my mom was super guilty of it. And I remember going to friends houses and seeing their parents somewhat guilty of it. And it was hiding snacks.

For the for the for the. Parents. Yeah, for the.

Parents. Damn kids. My mother always had a stash in the end table next to the couch, and it was potato chips and M&M's. And that was like her, her little guilty pleasure, where she'd have potato chips and M&M's as a combination, which was quite delicious. I love the chocolate and salt combo. I'm really obtuse in a lot of ways. I don't recall that, but it's probably because I just wasn't paying enough attention. All right, fair enough. So we talk about my dad a lot and all his requests of me proving proving my love for him with hard to find delicacies. He's on this kick now where he wants to share this with his brothers. So now he has me ordering this stuff online and shipping it to their houses.

It's good to know them.

So the other day I had to go and. I had to. Order. I had to go on Amazon and ordered pickled pigs feet and shipped that to two of his brothers, one in Connecticut, one in Montana. So now everybody's getting a nice little care package.

So describe if you can the the interrogation you get at the post office. You know, when they run down. Is this flammable liquid?

Ohh yeah, yeah no it I don't even get involved in the shipping. I go online at Amazon and I put in there. I put in their address and have it shipped directly to them. Better. Yeah. Could you imagine showing up holding the jar up to the to the associate at the post office? I'd like to ensure.

Oh, OK. Even. This you'd end up on a list.

4 squad cars are at the post office immediately. I think about all the things that I enjoy talking about on the show and all the things that I enjoy about the show. We've spoke about this before. The one thing that I always get frustrated over is listening to the show after it's published and thinking about all the funny things that I could have. Said in response to something that you had just asked or mentioned, it comes up.

A lot and I said you mine too. When when I listened back, just just, you know, we always do it check to. See how it. Sounds my brain immediately went to a funnier joke than the one I launched in the podcast. Go back and redo this with with funnier bits later.

That would be a good idea to go back and. Take. Some of those clips extract them and then record a a follow up and make it obvious you know this was not in the show, but here's the follow up that I would have liked to have put in. Maybe when I have some time editing I could pull out maybe 10 clips, we could pick 5 each.

Yeah, right. That's a great idea.

That, that, that we know that we would have had a great response to and add our response in. Here's. What? Here's what. Rich said here's what Rich would have liked to have.

We'll break it all down right here. This this was kind of funny, but this would have killed much harder if I phrased it this way.

Hope you're enjoying 23 minutes of unqualified opinions and mediocre jokes.

How do you feel about reheating coffee in the microwave?

So I I. Don't like to do it, although I will say when Matt was on the show episode 4, Go check it out about coffee. It was a great episode. He referenced a guy whose name is escaping James something. And he did recommend he said all different ways. You can reheat coffee, he said. Turns out microwaving is a perfectly good way to reheat it. It's totally fine. And for simplicity you kind of can't go wrong. I don't know why, and I don't have a problem microwaving anything, but I don't know why in.

My head, it just doesn't feel right to me. I don't think it changes the flavor, but. I feel like it's different after it's been microwaved.

It's like a logical I don't.

Know it's it might be because I prefer to just drink it cooler than go heat it up in the microwave.

It'd be interesting to do an experiment where you're brought 2 cups of coffee and one was room temperature heated back by a microwave, and the other ones fresh. Brew to see if it was so, yeah. OK.

Hmm. You'd have to make them like exactly. Perfectly the same. Yes, we talk about LinkedIn from time to time. This one always puzzles me. Why do people put that big banner? That says open for opportunities across their name.

Because they're desperate for work because.

First of all, I'm paranoid. I wouldn't want any employers. You know, I certainly follow other people at work. I just assume that anybody and everybody that's on LinkedIn is just open for new opportunities, right? Otherwise LinkedIn wouldn't exist. Is that the whole idea of it? Networking and opportunities.

Agreed that that that is the point and it's kind of, you know, it's the professional. Sort of social media. But I always wonder cause I I don't want to do that either, but if you're out of work, how many? How many weeks out of work before you start saying no? I'm. I'm like, really into opportunities. You're right. You never really know where. People are in life, you know.

And I'm not poking fun at anybody. I just in my mind, I just think if you're on, it's like if.

No agree no, I agree.

You're. On what's a dating app? If you're on match.com and you put a banner above your head that says open to dating.

I'm here to meet some women.

It's already been said it's a given, right? Ohh shoot, he's.

I thought.

Not I didn't. Know I just. I like looking at the picture.

I've got this old lawnmower. I'm trying.

To get rid of for sale 2018 Jeep Wrangler, you would.

Look great in.

It I got a funny Mia story. And what's funny about the story is realizing the interaction between her and her sister. As the panic came over my younger daughter's face last week, they wanted to order. Some ice cream. They had a DoorDash coupon, and I get mad anytime they talk about door dashing or Uber eating food. Food my older daughter can drive. There's no need to overpay to have somebody drop something off. But she had a couple of gift cards. We're like, alright, go ahead. So she orders up a bunch of ice cream from friendlies. We're waiting and waiting and then she looks she started to panic because she had ordered something once in the past. She had to stay late at school and she was really hungry. So she door dashed it and had some food delivered to school. One night she looked and realized that she never changed the delivery address. So this was this was a Sunday night at around 9:00 at night.

He went to school.

And the DoorDash driver was delivering 4 ice cream sundaes from friendlies to the school on a Sunday night. So we called and tried to get it rerouted to the house. And they wouldn't do it. We said we would, you know, pay the difference or or give the tip. And the driver said, I have to check with dispatch. And they said no. You could go to the school and pick them up yourself, but we're not going to deliver to your house and that was it. We were out of ice cream and out of delivery. So you just let. Down, my wife had to call. They wound up giving her credit, watching my daughter's face start to panic. She was laughing a little bit, but I could see the fear. Like, what are we going to do now? How? How can we fix this? Dad didn't want to do this to begin with. And now? All our ice. Cream is on the the back door of the school. It's not going to open till tomorrow morning.

Yeah. Ohh, you always wonder what happens to this delivery guy. Just go. I mean, there's. Yeah, of course. The lights were off to, you know, there was no. No possible. Way there were people there.

The delivery dude came home like a hero. Look, guys, I brought us ice cream. My wife mouths things to me a lot and I am so bad at that. That you know. When someone can't really say something so they they try to mouth it to you, God forbid I was ever deaf. I would never like there'd be no way someone would have to walk around with a pen and paper and write everything down. My wife does it to me all the time and I could see her getting frustrated because I'm not getting it. I'm mouthing back to her, like I don't know what you're saying. I can't understand you and. I could see the frustration. And as she keeps saying it over and over, and then she tells you what it is and you're like I'm such an idiot. Why can't I figure that out? I never, ever have any idea what anybody's mouthing.

Seems like she should pick up. On your inability to do that right now.

No shame on her rich. She should know better. She's been married for 22 years. I've never, not once ever been able to decode whatever she's mouthing. Not once.

Well, you could mouth back lyrics to a Metallica song or something and see see how she feels.

What did you say? Enter Sandman. Enter. Sandman chokes at you. She totally gets it. Show it. Mess with me, Michael. What does Metallica have to do with this? Ohh man, that happens all the time. Do you play the game when you get gas where you'd like to try to land perfectly? For the dollar.

Or not every time. But frequently. Yep, just cause.

What I hate? Is you get to like 9293 and then you start clicking slowly and it takes like 7 clicks to get to the next sent and then as soon as you get to like 98 you do one of those one clicks and it goes to like $0.04 over. I'm always like why does it do that?

Yeah. And you've you've mastered the click. You just did four of them in a row like you. You are. You were Click to Penny and then it trips into four, yeah.

You've timed it perfect, yes. Yeah, I think it's a marketing tactic. It definitely is. It's by design.

Now, since they went digital, they can mess with you, you know.

I think we spoke about prom dress shopping.

We did. You were giving me some of the adventures both on the show and off. My favorite was a quick summary. He was very happy to very, very happy to have landed one only to change her mind a few hours later. What's the latest?

We spent 4 hours at this really cute prom dress and wedding dress boutique. After trying on several dresses in and out photos and there's a lot of rules to prom dress shopping, which I'll get into in a moment. After finally narrowing it down, Mia picked her dress. Loved it. We're gonna call back tomorrow. Order it. She's hugging the owner of the shop. Thanking her. We leave. What a day. Success got the prom dress. Check this major milestone off the list. We can go home. Everybody's gonna sleep great tonight knowing that we found the prom dress within hours. She's wavering. We could all see it in her face. She's got from hugging the owner to really not liking the dress at all. Now we have to call them back early the next morning. Tell them that we're going to hold off on that dress right now. There's so many rules in this prom dress shopping, there's a an Instagram page where everybody in the school puts their dress up almost to ensure that nobody else gets the same dress.

Ohh, you're staking your claim. You're you're planting a flag, aren't you?

Yeah, you gotta go early. You gotta nail the dress. You gotta post it on the Instagram page. So they.

Know, I guess I don't know. I I don't know. That seems really intense to me, but I I know that's a big deal and if you can avoid it, it's probably.

Yeah, it's probably me and my buddies drove out to the tuck shop. We all picked out whatever $75 tux rental and, you know, grabbed some pizza on the way home and that. Was it? We were out. We're heading out in 1/2 hour.

Yeah, you stand there. I think you have one requirement, she told me my tie has to match this color. That that's like all you. Had to do.

Yeah, that's it. And if they she didn't know, you just went with the black that. Was it? I got a black tie.

Exactly. I am happy not to be in. High school anymore.

It's unbelievably different. It's changed so much. You know, what is it about Subarus being covered with stickers?

Yeah, I think I. I think they're in cahoots with big sticker.

I think you're right. My wife likes to watch old movies sometimes, and they're the ones from I don't know where they're from, but from the 50s, maybe the old movies that are all black and.

White. Ohh. Classic stuff, OK.

I made an observation, maybe you have to. It always seemed that the big move in those movies where people were always getting slapped in the face. Did you ever notice that in all those? Yeah. This there was always a scene where people getting slapped in the face.

Well, it was the line in the sand, right? You stepped over. You're getting. You're getting slapped.

Yeah, I think you're right.

It was a simpler time.

I'm not a huge Pink Floyd fan. When I do listen to them and I think about the efforts that they went through to record some of those songs and a lot of other huge artists, the efforts that they, they go through to record them and and they sound so, so sonically great. And then you think of us listening to them on a chunky. Pair of of earbuds. I I don't know where.

Helps that Roger Waters would be with.

Us.

Yeah, and and I know some people are like super huge audio files and they'll have super high end pair of headphones or or listen to it on some outrageously priced sound system and right to your point, I'm in the same boat with the Pink Floyd. I've listened to a ton of Pink Floyd in my life. They they are.

Unbelievably creative from just the writing to the performance to the production like you just said, even creating that movie, the wall was a masterpiece at this point in life. I've I've probably heard enough Pink Floyd. I don't need to do too much more that I will say. However, on Monday Night Jam has two new 2 new participants.

Please flip a commercial into a bit.

So. Well, I'm going somewhere with. This. So yeah, Chris on drums. Mike on bass, I was covering all the guitar. I I am amazingly mediocre guitar player. It's a tall order for one guitar player to do the lead. The rhythm or be good enough to handle all that stuff. So. Very, very happy to. Have a their friend Mark and their friend Tim Mark plays guitar. Tim comes in and does some singing. They all went to school. They all 10 years younger me. They all went to high school so they got this whole buddy thing going. But Mark is an amazing guitar player, recently bought a new Stratton came in and we played a comfortably numb. That guy slayed both of the solos. It was unbelievable. How it takes you right back to how great Pink Floyd was. The way he pulled it. Off was spectacular. So tip of the hat to the new guys in the Monday Night Jam and just reminding me how great Pink Floyd really is.

Nice.

You ever drive a plow?

Have I ever driven A plow? I've done a lot of things. I've driven an excavator. I've never driven A plow. No, never.

This morning it's super snowy here and it's like it's like shoveling wet concrete. But I recall back years and years ago lived in New Hampshire, had a house on a private road. There's only four of us down. There and since it was a private road that the town didn't come and do it, the guy across the street had this old pickup truck. This thing was definitely not safe for driving on the street, but he slapped a plow on the front and we took turns plowing our driveway and and the private road. That was a blast. You you don't know front in a vehicle until you you hit stuff with the plow. It's a ton of fun.

I've driven my truck into huge snowdrifts. It's similar to the plowing.

It's a similar experience.

All right, rich.

All right, another good one.

Yeah. Thanks, buddy. I'll talk to you later today. Sounds good. All right, take care.