- Men are struggling.
Chewing with their mouths open,
sexual harassment, being, um, Shia LaBeouf.
Thankfully, I'm here to help.
Now why am I qualified?
'Cause I got a gender neutral hair cut,
a popular podcast, and I've had scoliosis.
Welcome to Man Up.
(upbeat rock music)
This week we're talking about stress.
You know, the silent killer.
It's like a hungry mouse inside of a cheese heart.
I got a call from Josh, one of our long time
listeners, and he says he's seriously stressed out.
And, seriously appears to be an understatement.
Let's take a look, baby, get that head up.
(yelling) (hitting)
Josh really needed a new way to relax
and I knew exactly what to do.
(upbeat music)
Theo.
- Josh.
- Yeah, nice to finally meet you man.
- Nice to meet you.
- Yeah, how's everything?
- I'm doing as best as can be, you know.
- [Theo] Yeah.
- Morning traffic and all that.
- Yeah.
Yeah, man, thank you for making the drive.
I appreciate it.
- No problem.
- So I know you reached out.
A lot of stress going on in your life.
What's going on with that?
- Um.
About 14 years ago, I was planning on making
a road trip to all the open major league try outs.
- For baseball?
- For baseball.
And I was working at (bleep) Electronics,
and I had half a palette of computers following me.
Screwed up my back.
- No way.
Desktops, or?
- Yeah.
Big boxes, about like that big.
- Oh.
- That instantly just screwed up my dream
career ideas, and, so just everything is stressing
me out now.
- So the stuff you're doing right now,
the metal with the bat and everything,
I get it.
You know, but it's just kind of old school.
- Yeah.
- You know, it's Roman.
It's very used car dealership violent.
Those ideas are, I made this chart.
- Wrong.
And it said wrong until I accidentally--
- Scribbled 'em out?
- Scribbled 'em out.
Yes, thank you.
But sometimes when you have wrong ideas,
you gotta fold up those wrong ideas,
and when you make wrongigami and you fold up
those wrong ideas, what do you get left with?
- Ron?
- R-O-N.
Ron.
- Ron.
- An adult's name.
I'm gonna introduce you right now
to a man named Ron, the most stress free guy ever.
- Alright. - And he's gonna help us.
You get it?
- [Josh] Yeah.
Sounds good.
- Alright, thanks for being here today, Josh.
- Thanks for having me.
- Yeah.
Ron is the chillest dude that I know.
- Ah.
Namaste, gentlemen.
- Honestly, if I had to just curl up inside
of a dude and take a nap,
it would be in Ron.
- Josh.
- Pleasure to meet you.
- He's just a smooth, silky, dark, polyester,
chocolate throat lozenge of a man.
No shades, eh?
- Yeah.
- [Theo] You got nice eyes, too, I feel like.
I'm just guessing.
- Don't hide 'em.
Don't hide 'em.
Let us see the windows into your soul.
- See, I told you he's calm.
- He is calm.
- For me, a part of relaxing is learning to let go.
Learning to deal with loss and learning to
give up expectations, but never give up hope, you know?
- Yeah.
- There's always needs to be found.
- 'Cause he struggles, this man.
- Oh, I can see it, I could feel the energy
as soon as he walked in.
It changed.
My plants starting leaning away from him.
- [Theo] You're not a bad person, though.
- No.
You got a good spirit.
It's with you, I see it.
You just got hurt a little bit.
- Yeah.
- And it's tough for you to let that go.
I understand that.
I couldn't imagine what it would be like
if all of a sudden they were just like,
"Hey, you just can't do comedy anymore."
So I understand it and I appreciate it
and we're gonna get you through it.
Let's just meditate a little bit right now.
(humming)
- Yeah, maybe we'll go around the room
and each release something.
- Sounds great.
(humming)
Reflectionism.
- Being on a first name basis with different
insects in my apartment.
- LA traffic.
- Having to buy a gift for my assistant
that normally purchases the gifts that I give out.
It's like,
who picks out your gift?
- Yeah, part of me kind of,
wants to fuck with you guys a little.
- Okay.
Okay, I think we're done.
- That's a real one I can resonate with.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Let's just remember that one.
I can tell you're just in a deep need
of relaxation and luckily for you, I mean,
we're in an era where there's just so many
different ways to relax.
There's so many different options,
especially here in LA.
You got so many things you can do.
You can hike.
You can meditate.
Yoga.
There's all types of exercise.
And if that doesn't work for ya,
there's always weed.
- Weed is a great relaxer.
Even when Bob Marley, they told him he had cancer,
he just said, "Whatever," and died.
- Sure, there are a lot of problems in the world.
A lot of famine.
A lot of murder.
But it's also, like, there's cartoons and shit,
and we could be watchin' them.
- That's a good point.
It's crazy to think how many cartoons
are out there and that we're not watching
them at all times.
- Mhm.
Or, I'm a firm believer, if, uh,
every TV that has the news on like at an airport
or something, if you just turned it
and then put it on like the Muppet Babies or something,
the whole world would be a lot less stressed.
- [Theo] 100%.
- We wouldn't know what was going on, but,
who cares?
- Hm.
Yeah, the problem with Muppet Babies is it never,
you don't know what happened next, you know?
- [Ron] Yeah, yeah.
- I just assumed that Muppet Babies became the Muppets.
- Oh yeah.
Damn.
(soft music)
I fuckin' love weed, dude.
- Well a lot of your issues stem from the fact
that you lost something that was very important to you,
a dream of yours.
But, I'm here to tell you that you can have
all types of dreams and that's what
we're gonna work on today.
We're gonna build a little dream board.
Come up with some new goals
to help you refocus.
You cool with that?
- Yeah.
(upbeat music)
- Side boob.
- Okay, well I want to encourage you to think
a little bit outside the boob.
- I'll save this for home, okay?
- Now, when it comes to pickin' the right picture,
to go on your vision board,
you gotta make sure it's something
that speaks to you directly.
- [Theo] Look what I got.
- [Josh] Poodles.
- Twin poodles.
- I got me a cruise ship 'cause I wanna go on a cruise.
- Okay.
We're leaving a little stress already.
- [Theo] Ooh.
A Bulgari emerald and diamond necklace.
- Ooh, that would look good on you.
- Thanks.
- It's fun to do crafts together as men.
- Yeah people forget how much fun this
kind of stuff is, man.
Lowkey, yolked out fellas.
- And they don't get it.
They're like, "Oh what are you guys up doing?
"You're out at the club, you're out drinking,
"you're out at the race track."
It's like, no, I'm out making dreams with my friends.
Coming up with goals.
That's what we're about.
- How do you feel Josh?
- Less stressed.
This helped.
- Yeah.
Envisioning stuff is fun, man, but I think
maybe we light into a couple of massages, bruh.
Like some true gentlemen, you know.
Like some adults.
You know, nothing crazy.
Like make your own pizza kind of thing?
You had 'em before?
- Uh yeah.
- And who was the person?
Do you remember who they were, what they looked like?
- Uh.
I think their name was Tim.
(laughing)
- He sounds like a good person.
- Yeah, you gotta remember, if a man touches
your body like that, it's helpful to remember their name.
They prefer it.
- [Theo] Yeah.
- Probably.
- Yeah, I remember the man that touched me.
Dale.
- [Ron] That's beautiful.
- So let's get this--
- [Ron] Are you still thinking about it?
- I don't know what I'm thinking about, man.
(laughing)
I wish I had a vision board in my head right now.
Yeah, we should get one man.
We should get a massage.
Massage?
- Massage.
- Mhm.
- Man, you got a lot more body than I thought.
(soft music)
You feel that full pressure?
- [Josh] Mhm.
♪ I am most happy ♪
- [Theo] How you feelin' playa?
- [Josh] Good.
♪ On the quicksand ♪
♪ Things change rapidly ♪
♪ With an-- ♪
- [Ron] Theo.
- Yep?
- You gotta get those thighs, man.
- Gang, gang, bro.
I get it.
(clearing throat)
Alright.
- Now we're talkin'.
- Right there in the dorsal, huh?
- Yeah, now you workin'.
- [Theo] Oh, that's that old polis
birthday party right there.
- Don't be afraid of that butt meat.
- Give him that old American Werewolf in Paris, bro.
Like that.
- Make that a loaf of bread.
What you got?
What is he, rye?
Sourdough?
What is he?
- He might be that cinnamon raisin, baby.
- Ooh.
- [Theo] You know what I'm sayin'
- Yeah.
Good for breakfast or lunch.
- Oh yeah.
- That's your old television.
- My turn, brother.
I got next, man.
(soft music)
♪ I am most happy ♪
♪ Playing in the quicksand ♪
♪ Things change rapidly ♪ (laughing)
Marco.
- [Josh] Polo.
- Marco.
- Polo.
♪ With an ever so slight ♪ - Marco!
Oh, I got you! (laughing)
- You got me, dude.
- Wanna go get some ice cream?
- [Josh] Ice cream?
Yeah. - Yeah.
(laughing)
Now rollerblading is one of the lamest things
that you can do, but for some reason when you're high,
it's fuckin' awesome.
It's really just like trying to walk around
in wheeled feet.
(laughing)
We had fun.
We got wild.
I mean, we wore helmets, but,
we acted like we didn't.
(laughing) (upbeat music)
Good job, pal.
Good job, Josh.
You had a good time today?
- Oh yeah.
- Cool man.
How do you feel?
- Less stressed.
- Honestly, so long as you're just spending time
with other people.
- It's true.
- You know, and a lot of things you were
talking about before, it didn't really include those things,
you know?
- Yeah.
- I mean, traffic's a sedentary environment.
You know, beating metal with a bat.
That's something you do by yourself.
Masturbation.
That's usually something you do alone
unless you're a part of a club or synchronized group.
It's funny man.
Something when you get out and about
and get going with other people,
you know, if we quit listening to the voice in our heads,
sometimes that voice can be so stressed out
and we just listen to somebody else.
That calm, passive, beautiful dark dolphin himself.
Only one thing left to do.
- What's that?
- [Theo] I feel like I'm just pettin' a bubble bath.
- [Ron] Ooh you strong but gentle, I like it.
Oh yeah boy.
Ooh, I had a dream that started just like this.
Yeah.
- Today was a lesson in that you have to open up
to let the stress out.
So how are you gonna open up?
Well, you can dream board.
You can go look for treasure with your cousin.
You can swim.
You could eat ice cream with somebody from
another country.
A lot of different options.
But try one.
Josh did, and look what happened to him.
He had a good day.
Your comfort zone can be your coffin.
I'm Theo Vaughn.
Thank you for listening.