Episode 3 | Laugh Lines & Family Ties - Say It Anyway with Ryan and Jay

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, here we go episode three of Say It
Anyway with Ryan and Jay. Today we're talking family relationships,
because what is life without a little family drama?

Speaker 2 (00:07):
Right? Your family seems like a Hallmark movie. Mine's more
like a reality show.

Speaker 1 (00:11):
Well, no matter how different our families are, when life gets.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Tough, families who shows up? Even the ones you'd recast?

Speaker 1 (00:17):
And later Jay is going to share how her family
rallied when her son was diagnosed with cancer. But first
let's dive into the love and chaos of family relationships.
Let's go Jay Town, Let's do this.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
I'm excited about today.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
I want to say just a couple of things, and
then I do want to go back and touch on
last week's episode, which.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
I love, say a lot of things. I say too
many things. You go wow, thank you?

Speaker 1 (00:36):
To what pleasure? One little kind of fun thing that
I kind of I love. You know, when people know
it's actually happening, as this is happening before it's happening.
And both of our episode recording sessions got pushed back
a little bit. They were delayed last week and this week.
And why was that? Because we had who in here?
Who just left here? Adam Levine from roon five and

(00:57):
then last week you were bumped four Mariah Carrey. So we're.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
Clearly I'm not the most talented person here at iHeart
Radio guys, unfortunately or people not enough people know about it,
you know what I'm saying. That's what I'm holding on to. Sure, Yeah,
so I just wanted to point that out there. That's
been just behind the behind the scenes. It's okay, just
had to sit and wait for both mariahname drop on
our podcast.

Speaker 1 (01:18):
I just think it's fun.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
It's totally fun. Are you kidding?

Speaker 1 (01:21):
In real life?

Speaker 2 (01:22):
Yeah? Life like wait in the shadows for these fucking
guys to leave. It's a lot of fun. I'm having
a great time.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
Okay, anything for you. God we went we went pretty.

Speaker 2 (01:33):
We went pretty hard. Last week. We were talking about
you know, relationships and dating and god man, we were
done with that episode and I was like, there were
so many stories. I mean, like not to like, you
know whatever, we've all dated a lot. As if you're
in your forties and you're listening to this, I'm sure
you've had your you've had your fun, you know, and
so I but after I was like, oh man, there's

(01:55):
so many stories I have about this that. I'm sure
we'll come up over time as we talk about different things,
Like we'll have a story about like I was dating
this person you and I talked about we went through
a breakup and that's what made us move to California.
That's a whole other I feel like episode in itself.
Right But afterwards I was like, oh, no, there was
one story I didn't share.

Speaker 1 (02:12):
Are you going to share it? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (02:14):
You want me to right now? Okay, So I remember
so I was dating a Ryan at one point in
my life.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
Wait, I never knew that. Yeah, did I know that?

Speaker 2 (02:22):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
It was a Do you know I dated a Ryan?
Which was super weird?

Speaker 2 (02:25):
That is bizarre? Ry did that last very quick? I
mean it was just like a summer is like fucking weird. Yeah,
you can't even like monogram towels like that. You got
to get No, that was bad? Was that like when
you were young eighteen?

Speaker 1 (02:36):
Right before I went to college? Weird summer, my summer
of like between high school and college.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
Okay, yeah, you do crazy shit, then that makes sense. Yeah,
So I was at I was dating this guy Ryan,
and we dated for a while. I don't even remember
how long I was to be honest, but we kind
of like, you know, we're real hot and heavy right
from the beginning. And then I got a job as
a personal assistant and I required a lot lot of travel,
So like the first three weeks of my new job,

(03:03):
I was in Spain and it didn't last very long
because it's hard to hold a relationship with a job
like that. You just are all over the place all
the time. You're so busy you don't even have time
to miss the person. And then the other person's home
doing like a nine to five and they're lonely and
you don't even it's just not even on your rider.
Anyone doesn't matter. That's not the story. The story is
that we went out one night to a bar in

(03:23):
Hollywood to support There was a band playing, and I
think don't quote me on the instruments that were played,
but I'm pretty sure the bass player was Ryan's friend
and we were going to see him play. We walk
in and it's just like a little it's a Hollywood
dive bar. Guys, you know what I mean, they're the best.
And so we're in there and we're watching this band

(03:44):
and I'm not a beer drinker, but there I'm also
a very much like I will order the drink that
goes with the vibe of where we are. Of course,
so I was like, I'm drinking a beer too. That's
a really smart move, by the way, you can under
a cocktail at a place like this, you know what
I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
Oh, Like, you know my friend Courtney Yea in the
story she I never do gives me so much shit
because in court if you're listening, I love you, but
we've got to fix this thing where every time we
go out, she judges the drink because I guess I'm
bad at the drink vibe and I don't have a drink.
I'm forty four and I don't have like a go
to I'm.

Speaker 2 (04:14):
No neither do I I order as like appropriate to
where I am. Is that what you mean? Is that
what you do? Or that's what she does?

Speaker 1 (04:19):
I don't order what I want? And she's like, are
you serious right now?

Speaker 2 (04:22):
Because you're asking for something like inappropriate to the place.

Speaker 1 (04:24):
It doesn't feel like what I should get from that
place at that time. I just have it to her to.

Speaker 2 (04:28):
Her, Okay, I think I'm gonna get along with Courtney
really well. But that's fine, give me an example, like
you go somewhere like.

Speaker 1 (04:34):
Just somewhere where it's like a beer place, and I'm
asking them to make me a very like like a
cosmic mix it up, and then honestly I will, uh,
you know whatever, I'm not good. I just am bad
at like drink matching.

Speaker 2 (04:47):
Okay, yeah, I'm I'm I'm like this in a lot
of ways, Like I hate dressing inappropriately for something. I
will grill whoever invites me to anything, like what are
we doing? Is it? Okay? Jean's like, what we doing?
Am I dressed up? Like? I?

Speaker 1 (04:58):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (04:58):
It is the worst thing to me to come overdressed
or underdressed for any event. So anyway, we're at this
bar and I'm thinking, like, all right, you know, what
is the bitchiest beer I could get? Because I don't
like the corona with lime? You know what I'm saying.
So I go over to the bar to order my
Corona with lime. Ryan is with his friend that I
think met us there checking out the band and I
go to the bar and it's a pretty busy bar, right,

(05:19):
and the girl's not really paying attention to me, which
is weird. But anyway, and I'm trying to insert myself.
You know, you have to find like a little envelope
of space to just kind of like get an arm
in or something. And I'm standing there, and moments before
this in walked in Leonardo DiCaprio with his mother. Okay,

(05:39):
and some you know, Giselle looking Antelope type woman that
is completely opposite of my physical makeup in every way. Okay,
I'm five to five, I have brown eyes, I am
curvier than I'd like to admit. And then there's this
girl who's just like a toothpick person, Like if she
was on the boardwalk, she'd just slipped right through a crack.
Do you know what I mean? Doesn't that statue act.

(06:00):
I haven't seen my cheekbones. I have like draw them in,
you know. I'm like, she's just just stunning, and she's
she's there with the mom towering over the mom doesn't matter.
She's just a cute little lady. And so I'm there
and I'm at the bar, and so I'm not realizing
that right next to me walks over Leonardo DiCaprio, and
I'm like, okay.

Speaker 1 (06:19):
So you're both in the same envelope at the bar.

Speaker 2 (06:21):
We're in the same envelope, and immediately the bartender asks
him what he needs A fucking course, do you know
what I mean? And actually right before she asks, sorry,
this has been a long time since this is This
is a fucking how old am I? Oh god? This
is the almost twenty year old story. So whenever it was,

(06:42):
I don't know what year, look up what your aviator
came out? Because Aviator had just come out. That's that's
when it was. Ryan's gonna check into that while I
tell this story. So right before the bartender asks what
he would like, he comes over.

Speaker 1 (06:55):
Two thousand and four, Christmas Day, two thousand and.

Speaker 2 (06:56):
Two thousand and four. So maybe it's two thousand and
five because it came out on Christmas, right, So this
has got to be dated the same week because he's.

Speaker 1 (07:03):
Shortly after New Year.

Speaker 2 (07:04):
Sure, sure, so it's twenty two thousand and five. Yeah,
twenty years ago. Okay, I'm twenty two years old? Is
that my prime? It was a great time. So anyway,
I'm at the bar. He comes over, he goes, hey,
how are you doing? And I'm like, he's not talking
to me. I can't even So he's like hey, and
I look over and I'm like, oh, I'm good, I'm good.
How are you doing? And he's like good and he's
like what's your name? And I'm like Janine and he's

(07:26):
like I'm Leo and I go, yeah, I know, I
know who you are.

Speaker 1 (07:29):
Oh you gave him the yeah uh huh.

Speaker 2 (07:30):
And I'm a little bit arrogant. I'm being a little
bit of a whatever.

Speaker 1 (07:33):
Like so like almost like you don't impress me, like
in the.

Speaker 2 (07:35):
Show now if you don't impress me, going like, dude,
please stop talking to me because you're so famous. I'm
here with a guy and your mom and some fucking
supermodel or here, what are we doing? Don't even say hello.
Don't even say hello, and give me any inkling that
there's a chance we're gonna make eye contact? Do you
know what I'm saying. So I'm getting very nerve. When
I get nervous, I get very like I'm too cool
for school, you know what I mean. So I was
like no, no, yeah, I know Lee, I got it,

(07:57):
and he was like and he kind of laughed, and
I said I know who you are and he goes,
oh yeah, and I go, yeah, I go you're from
that movie with the boat. Like never let oh, I'm
so cold, Jack and I and I said that because
Titanic had been such a like Aviator just came out
and that's what I said, and he lost it. He
started laughing so hard. He goes the movie with the
boat and I go, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, the
one with the thing and you're the raft and the
whole and he's dying, and he goes, that's very funny

(08:20):
and so and I'm just deadpan. I have no reaction
on my face. So then the bartender comes over and says,
what do you need to him? And he and he had.
He goes, he tells whatever his order was and for
you know, his mom and you know, fucking antelope lady
and uh. And then he goes, he goes, would you
like And I go, I go, oh, I'll have a
corona with lime, and he's like, yeah, put it on

(08:41):
my thad. I go no, no, no, it's okay. I can
buy my own beer. It's totally fine. And then he goes, no,
I got it, and I go, okay, fine, just get
it with the plane money. And so the plane money,
you know, because Aviator I just come out, So I
did throw that in there. So he laughed again, and
then she came over with our drinks and he says
to me, are you here with anyone tonight?

Speaker 1 (08:59):
What is happening?

Speaker 2 (09:00):
This is progressing and I am not looking at him
at this point. I'm looking at the bar, and he
says he's on my left, and he goes, are you
here with anyone tonight? And I look at him, and
I look over at Ryan and I go, unfortunately, yes
I am, because that's how fucking stupid and loyal I
am to someone. And so I don't know if Ryan
will ever hear this. Sorry buddy, but I really wish
I wouldn't have done that. God did I fuck that up?

(09:25):
You know what I mean? But I was like a
good person and I can't do Also, I don't know
what we're doing. I don't know if fucking Antelope Lady's
gonna like spin me around like a fucking rag doll,
which I was like, I'll do it. I don't know,
I don't know, but I didn't. I didn't. I'm a
good person and I didn't And it was one of
the biggest mistakes. That's the story that I didn't tell
about like being dating and being hit on, and oh

(09:46):
my god, it was all right there. I was right there,
and then I took my corona that he also fucking touched,
and he was like, it was really great to meet you.
And then I went back to my respective shitty fucking corner. Yeah,
and he and I and he was across for me
at the bar. Oh. And then I asked him the
drummer was staying with him because he's a friend of
his and that's why he was there.

Speaker 1 (10:05):
Yeah. Wait, you asked him if the drummer was staying.

Speaker 2 (10:08):
No, no, no, I said, well, you know, why are
you here? Like it was he had like a like
a navy blue like sweater and I can think like
a if it was like a Boston Red Sox hat
or something. Right there was like a baseball cat. And
he was like he told me, he's like, the drummer's
a good friend of mine. He's staying with me right now.
And I was like, okay, he's like he's falling on
hard times. I'm like, yeah, I think I'm about to
fall on hard times also, but that's okay. You know
how that goes. Ryan, do you have like a celebrity

(10:29):
near miss or funny story about dating um boy with
the famous person.

Speaker 1 (10:34):
Yeah, well I have, I had, I don't one of them.
There's two that I can think. No, one doesn't count.
It's just weird. I'll tell that in a second. And
I promise we're talking about family and the Lucas story
is definitely coming.

Speaker 2 (10:43):
The transition to this is going to be smooth sailing.
By the way, you're off the rails.

Speaker 1 (10:49):
Oh my god, taken away, Ryan, let's see. Okay, I
cannot say one name because I don't want to violate
that situation. It happened with a female singer at Allapalooza,
and I want to I don't even know what year,
it doesn't matter. It was at the hard Rock Hotel
and it wasn't it wasn't an almost it was.

Speaker 2 (11:09):
It was Oh okay, like it happened. Not all of it, Oh,
some of it happened. Some of it, Okay, A couple
of bases.

Speaker 1 (11:18):
Yeah, yeah, we had runners in scoring position.

Speaker 2 (11:21):
That's better than my my bar and eye with Leo,
you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (11:23):
And then Kesha spit in my mouth.

Speaker 2 (11:27):
Oh wow, like like spit in your mouth.

Speaker 1 (11:30):
Okay, So that yeah, that's the end of the story.

Speaker 2 (11:34):
What what do you mean? No, no, no, you can't
say someone to spit in your mouth and not give
us details. What are you talking about? Also, like gross
a little bit. What are we doing one hundred spit
in your mouth? It's like so degrading.

Speaker 1 (11:47):
No, okay, So here's how. Here's what happened. And all
the people were present, expand and it was being filmed.

Speaker 2 (11:53):
Oh my god.

Speaker 1 (11:55):
Nosha does this thing on stage where she calls her
fans that are up front in the front baby birds,
and she's the mama bird.

Speaker 2 (12:02):
I'm already gonna throw up because I know this.

Speaker 1 (12:04):
So she'll like to drink water and then go down
the line and spit in all their mipes. Okay, So
we have like, uh, you know, we have like a
mini bar here. And so she was here in one morning.
We were just we were having beers in the morning.
I don't know why, and uh, I suggested that we
do mama bird, baby bird. She made me get on

(12:25):
my knees. Oh wow, but listen.

Speaker 2 (12:27):
In the front of everyone.

Speaker 1 (12:28):
Yeah, And it was kind of I don't know, it's
a little I didn't mind it. I mean, I'm sufied.
I'm sure that people who care about me were like,
please don't do that.

Speaker 2 (12:36):
And stand up. Stop doing this again.

Speaker 1 (12:38):
Here's where I kind of benefited as the world went
to hell. This was four days before the first COVID
case came to America or whatever. So every so this
was up and everyone's like.

Speaker 2 (12:50):
This could have been what brought it here. This is
the why we've all been searching for everyone.

Speaker 1 (12:57):
I'm patient zero.

Speaker 2 (12:59):
This justsing ship that happened.

Speaker 1 (13:02):
And uh so thankfully that video would still exist online.
But I had to take it down because once everyone
was like freaking out about COVID, it was just a
bad look for me.

Speaker 2 (13:12):
Today there is a god, it's so good it's not up.

Speaker 1 (13:14):
Yeah, so I had I had to remove that because
everyone's like, dude, this is super like toned off like a.

Speaker 2 (13:20):
Hund It's so awful.

Speaker 1 (13:23):
Anyway, So that's that's that.

Speaker 2 (13:24):
There's my Oh god, I have zero regrets asking you
if you had a celebrity story. Okay, guys, we do
need to talk about family, which obviously this is a
good transition because now we know you'res just severely disappointed
in that choicely crap. Okay, so you know I want

(13:45):
so I want to play a little bit of like
a back and forth game today if that's okay with you.

Speaker 1 (13:49):
I'd love that.

Speaker 2 (13:49):
So I want to kind of come up with I'm
gonna I'm gonna give you like a general idea of
something like a topic of like a relationship you have
with blank, right, And I want you to go first
and tell me a little bit about what that's like
for you, and then I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go,
because guys, this is a little bit like showing the
differences between Ryan and I. As much as we agree

(14:10):
on stuff and we have a lot in common and
same generation and all this bullshit like similar age, we
have very similar like we very similar what's the word
like interesting, Like the same kind of music, we like,
the same kind of music. There's a lot of things
we have in common, right, very much, but there is
so much that's different about us. So I wanted to
take the family relationship's kind of genre of the mood

(14:31):
or vibe or whatever we're calling this of this episode
to show that because like, you know, I don't know,
like I feel like our families are a bit like
his like picket fence, and mine's like pick up the pieces,
you know what I mean. So like, so, so first thing,
and I want him to go first, because I want
to be the one that ends off. Okay, because I
like to have the last word. Obviously I like to

(14:53):
have all the words. But okay, so Ryan, first thing
is your relationship with your parents. Go wait one word
or like, describe describe it you.

Speaker 1 (15:02):
I don't know how. I don't know how you're being
I was.

Speaker 2 (15:04):
This is not a timed event. The way you said
it was very fast, like all no, No, it's just gonna
be like we're not gonna wrap it. I'm just saying like, okay,
we let's talk about it, and that I'm gonna do it.
Oh my god, what's happening.

Speaker 1 (15:14):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (15:15):
I get I get it. Okay, I got it, Now
prove it talk just.

Speaker 1 (15:20):
Uh no, Jay, honestly, like and I this is I
I almost I feel guilty having the best parents. I
feel you have the best I do. And I haven't
met your dad.

Speaker 2 (15:30):
I haven't met your momm either, but I've talked to
mammy man now, and she is just my favorite.

Speaker 1 (15:34):
And she endures you. And my dad loves a good character.
Like my dad wouldn't know what to do with you.

Speaker 2 (15:41):
You most men don't. Oddly enough, Well, I'm not.

Speaker 1 (15:43):
That's not what I'm no.

Speaker 2 (15:44):
No, I'm not saying. I'm just saying, like in conversation,
don't make gross it's your father.

Speaker 1 (15:50):
No I do, and my whole family. It's me and
my brother. It's just the two of us. And like
I think our friends called us the Cleavers. Growing up,
it was it was everything that you know you imagine
that it would be. I mean, of course, like there
were difficult things, and because I would make stupid decisions,
I'd have to get in trouble. But I talked to
both my parents every day. I'm flying home to you know,

(16:12):
be there with dad for Father's Day. I don't know,
it's just I can't say enough great things. I mean,
they put us through college day, like we have Like
when you go to my house, my parents' house, there's
like this photo, you know, Like my mom was the
one who would do all the family photos every year.
Like she would set them up and we'd all be
in our matching sweaters and I had the part the

(16:33):
hair part down the middle, and we had a little
West Highland White Terrier and we were all just leaning
like some no I.

Speaker 2 (16:38):
Know, ideal eighties family photo.

Speaker 1 (16:40):
Yeah, and then then it stretched into the nineties and it.

Speaker 2 (16:43):
Yeah, the hand on the shoulder looking off into the distance,
I see it. It's great.

Speaker 1 (16:46):
It was so that that was my upbringing and to
this day. I mean, and you know, the relationship changes
with your parents, like it does with everyone. It goes
through you know, as we age, as they age, you know,
you become closer in different ways, you become better friends
in all the ways. And you know, I'm just so
fortunate and I that's that's all I can say. So
it's it's great my relationship with my parents. Okay, your turned.

Speaker 2 (17:09):
I love that. That's awesome. So Okay, my probably my biggest,
my biggest fan, and the person who I love the
most in my family is my mom. She's gonna cry
when she hears this because she's very dramatic.

Speaker 1 (17:28):
Like Craig good or bad good, just like you.

Speaker 2 (17:30):
Know, like this morning, I told her, like something nice
that you said about me in terms of like why
we're doing this together, and she was like, Jay, I
have goosebumps. I can't take this. I'm like, oh my, okay, Mom,
there's actually more, so please calm down. She wants to
cardiac arrest. It was it was really ridiculous, but I
love her. My mom's always out of ten, you know,
so like anything that rattles that just takes her off
the charts. Right. So but let me let me just

(17:52):
go back. So when I was a kid, my parents
got divorced when I was three. My dad had a
bit of a drinking and drug problem and he you
know left whatever. It was a whole dramatic thing. I'll
probably get more into another time. But I would see
my dad on the weekends and my mom and I

(18:13):
were alone in this part this like it was like
a two family house. She rented in lowd I, New Jersey,
in a cul de sac and I would ride my
big wheel around the cul de sac. And she did
the best she could. And I'll tell you, as a
single mom who didn't have much, she never ever left
me with a babysitter whoa which I, as an adult
who's a mother, admire so much. She never dated and

(18:37):
introduced me to anyone she dated. The only person I
ever met was my what was go who was going
to end up being my stepfather? Like once she knew
she was going to marry this guy, then she introduced
him to me. And when he stayed over, he slept
on the couch. So she dated like from maybe on
the weekends when I was with my dad. I have
no idea, but she never These are things like as

(18:58):
a kid, you don't realize like as an adult, I
had myers so much. She then got remarried when I
was I think I was about I think I was
around five when she met my my ex stepfather, remarried him,
remarried him, sorry, remarried for my dad.

Speaker 1 (19:16):
So she married married.

Speaker 2 (19:18):
Sorry, yeah, I was like, oh that was a jump, No, no, yeah,
that was a weird That was a weird way I
said that. Sorry, she marries this guy and he takes
full responsibility for me so long as he's going to
get his own kid, basically, right, So then my sister,
she has my sister, yes, right, My sister and I
are eight and a half years apart, so there's a

(19:39):
big age gap now, the difference between so she's eight
and a half years younger than me, and my mom
then ends up being a single mom again when I'm
eighteen and my sister is ten, which is a whole
other story, whole nother story. Whole other is okay, other
whole the whole other is whole other story. That's what

(20:02):
I say. I don't say another you guys got to
you just did say she should make you said nothing
to be a lot of callbacks.

Speaker 1 (20:08):
It just said another.

Speaker 2 (20:08):
Okay, I did it on purpose to make you.

Speaker 1 (20:10):
I don't think it was on purpose.

Speaker 2 (20:11):
No, no, it was. It doesn't matter. Has my sister
and I remember as a kid not loving it, not
loving what not being the sharing the attention. I remember
I wasn't able to see my mom when she had
my sister, and my stepfather had taken me outside in
the hospital to look through the window at my mom,

(20:32):
and I just wanted my mom, and they wouldn't let
me go see her, and then they finally did. There's
a picture of me holding my sister in the chair
at the hospital and I'm like looking down with my
eyes up like an evil Like it looks like I'm
just about to like lift up my arms enough so
she just rolls right out. It's awful, like I was not.
Then my sister and I got very close because we
had a kind of a family crazy thing that happened,
which I'll save for another day, where my mom was

(20:55):
going to end up again a single mother, right, and
so she ends up again in this scenario, though she
comes out, you know, a little wiser, a little better,
and she again does everything for my sister. I at
that point was eighteen, so I moved out. I lived
with a boyfriend, my dad and I so my dad
passed away in twenty eighteen. And some of you guys

(21:16):
haven't understand about my dad. First of all, I have
to be very clear about this. I love my dad
very much. I was the only person that my dad
had left in his life at the end of his life.
Because when you have an addiction like drugs or alcohol,
and you've done it for so long that you've destroyed
your body and your mind to a point where you're

(21:36):
a biochemical personality, right, Like you're not you unless you're
so sober, and you're never so sober because you can't.
You need that release all the time to feel normal.
Like what most people don't realize about addiction is that,
like people are not doing drugs and drinking to get high,
they're doing it to feel normal. So my dad was

(21:57):
one of these people, and you never knew what kind
of mood he was going to be in. But when
he wasn't doing any of that best guy ever right,
and I there were periods of time, months at a
time where I didn't talk to my dad because things
got too crazy or whatever. I'd have like a no
alcohol and rule in my house for the holidays at
one point, Like it was just but I'm the type

(22:19):
of person who cannot deal with the idea that anyone
would die or be alone. I don't like it, Like
I will change my entire life. I'll figure it out
to make sure you're not by yourself. So Thanksgiving, I'm
like this, Like, if I find out you're gonna be
alone for Thanksgiving, You're not. You're coming to my house.
You're gonna sit at the table. I'm gonna have a
little name plate for a little name tag for you.

(22:41):
And I do this. I do this all the time.
So because my weakness is like helping people and making
sure they're not by.

Speaker 1 (22:47):
Themselves, I would call that a strength.

Speaker 2 (22:49):
Okay, Like but it's also like my if you call
me and I'm like and you know that I can't
and you're like, but I really need your help, I'm like, ugh,
you know, like like okay, fine, So my my dad,
you know, my dad had this personality like everybody's the asshole, right, Like,
it's never him, it's every guy he worked for was
an asshole. You know. It was that right, Like from
somewhere you got to go, what's the common DENOMINATD sure?

Speaker 1 (23:09):
Like, yeah, I don't know if this is a real quote,
but I always think this in my head of like
if when you see people like that, if this is
the rule of thumb I have. If it's never you,
it's probably you.

Speaker 2 (23:20):
You have to take responsibility for Like, these these things
are happening for a reason. It's not like you could
just go meet one hundred people. They have no idea
who each other are, and they're always the asshole. You're like, Okay,
maybe maybe people are not all assholes. I don't know,
maybe it's just one asshole. So my dad had this
thing going. My dad passed away. I had to actually
shut off the machines on my dad. I had to
make the decision to realize that the quality of life

(23:43):
that he was, oh, it was just awful. And my
mom came and Clark was there, and we shut it
all off. On November twenty, twenty eighteen, and my daughter
was two and I had to tell her. I had
to tell via, you know, what was gonna what was

(24:05):
gonna happen in all this. The interesting thing about this
story is that my mom and my dad, it took
them a long time, but they got along. Like my
mom would have my dad over for barbecues and stuff
like that, and at the end of the day, my
mom showed up. And I remember being there in the
hospital because I had to handle everything. I'd handle all
the paperwork, and when I have to be in a
position of like where I have to have my shit together,

(24:27):
I'll have my shit together, like I'll cry my tears later.
Like I'm kind of the strong person in the moment,
especially if my mom's there, because she's usually not, so
I'm kind of like the stable person. And my mom
was holding his hand and she was like, Steve, I
love you so much. And I was looking at this
and it's like she was there. She showed up and

(24:47):
nobody else would. He had a one friend that was like,
you know, I actually can't make it. Like it was
like I was inviting him for drinks, Like I'm like, okay.

Speaker 1 (24:54):
I can't make it.

Speaker 2 (24:55):
Yeah, like it's the guy's life, but no, it was hilarious.
I was like, are kidding me? Okay, cool, Yeah, I'll
let you when we reschedule. We're not like, what do
you mean, I'm shutting the shut off? You knows anyway,
So he he uh, it was it was that guys.
You gotta laugh for a little, you know what I mean?
So dark.

Speaker 1 (25:11):
I hate that I'm laughing.

Speaker 2 (25:12):
I don't hate that you're laughing. It's gonna be dark.
I have to tell a fucking pediatric cancer story soon, dude.
So so yeah. So the point is is that my
family's very different from Ryan. Yeah, and and so, and
my mom's side. So, my mom's side mostly lives in
Like Jersey. I love them to death. There's no one
really left. There's one small My dad had nine, eight siblings.

(25:35):
He was one of nine and what the help that's alive?

Speaker 1 (25:38):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (25:39):
Yeah. The Georgio family has been through it. So my
my mom's side of the family, you know, she has
her sister and my cousins. They're just they're all. I
love them so much. They're all in New Jersey. They're
all huge, huge, huge supporters of what we're doing here,
of everything that happened with Luca. They did not love

(26:02):
when I decided to move to California. But you know,
obviously that was twenty years ago, so they still haven't
gotten over it. But it's fine. So yeah, so our
my family is very different, but but I think that
it has made us a lot stronger. Like my I
gave my mom so much shit as a teenager. I
was such a shit, like I would get in so
much trouble. They couldn't find me, they didn't know where

(26:24):
I was, you know. And as an adult, my relationship
could not be better than it is with my mom
right now. Like I was, I'm like, I see little
things in my daughter. She's nine, and I'm like, I
tell my husband all the time, like, dude, we are
so fucked. When she's like sixteen, Oh, he's like, no,
we're not. I'm like, yeah, we are. And then she'll
turn around and say some shit to him, and I'm like,
you see what I mean what I'm telling you right now,

(26:44):
she's nine. Yeah, when she's like thirteen, do you understand?
And I'm dreading it. And so I'll call my mom
and just fucking apologize for shit that happened like thirty
years ago, because I know it's coming. And then she'll
be like, but my mom is also now, you know,
what I went through.

Speaker 1 (26:58):
Jay.

Speaker 2 (26:58):
You know now you'll say that this is car mon.
I'm like, okay, you know this is not don't do that,
you know so, But that's that's how she is, and
she's wonder she'd.

Speaker 1 (27:06):
Tell me the other day when you got your driver's
permit or something, or you do.

Speaker 2 (27:09):
I got backhanded in the car by my mom while
I was driving.

Speaker 1 (27:12):
Like your first lesson, she hit you.

Speaker 2 (27:14):
Yeah, we were at a light, but do you I
said something and she just was like, are you stupid?
And she's like, and I'm like, I'm driving a car,
what are you doing? Also, guys, as a side note,
I just have to say this, like the ship that like,
and I'm sure Ryan can attest to this. I don't
give a shit how great your parents are that we
endured as kids at a teenagers would never fly in
twenty twenty five, and it was totally normal. It was

(27:36):
just like another day, another.

Speaker 1 (27:37):
Day, all of it. Jay, think about all of it.

Speaker 2 (27:39):
Oh my god. I have stories that like people could
go to jail now and then it was like, oh,
well she listened. She must have done some bad shit,
you know.

Speaker 1 (27:45):
Tell you one that if we saw this today, it
would be insane, But you have to put it in
context of back then. Think through the back then lens.
We would I had paper outes. I think I mentioned
that at some point. I feel like I've mentioned it
every episode now and I don't know.

Speaker 2 (27:59):
Set it once, but you've told you on record you've
said it once.

Speaker 1 (28:03):
Why Why am I obsessed with talking about it?

Speaker 2 (28:04):
I don't know. I love it so much.

Speaker 1 (28:05):
So every Sunday because the Sunday papers were the heavier
pay puck. Yeah, there was like the big paper.

Speaker 2 (28:12):
Yeah you know, like those are the reels of the paper.

Speaker 1 (28:15):
Yes, they were so Sunday my dad would drive because
they were too heavy for me and Kevin to carry
the cross body bags.

Speaker 2 (28:22):
Oh my god, I can't even this is already so cute.

Speaker 1 (28:24):
Go ahead, So the papers are in the trunk my
dad would.

Speaker 2 (28:27):
I got the paper thrown at me from across the
fucking breakfast table. Book ahead.

Speaker 1 (28:30):
Can I'm delivering and you're delivering beautiful suburban good morning,
mister Jenki. Yeah. Yeah. So when we would finish the
paper out every Sunday, we would drive to this this
little bakery and like Griffith, Indiana called Petty Cake Bakery,
and we would get donuts and we would get to
pick out like whatever, Sunday donuts, we get two donuts
each or whatever. But one one morning, I said, Dad,

(28:52):
can me and Kevin ride in the trunk and try
to guess where we are?

Speaker 2 (28:56):
This is a pickup truck. What kind of car is that?

Speaker 1 (28:57):
No, it's a it's like a It was like a
red Pontiac. Graham, Oh, it's the actual trunk. Yeah, like kids,
Put both of us in the.

Speaker 2 (29:04):
Truck, no oxygen, got it, and let us.

Speaker 1 (29:06):
Try to guess where we're at and we'll yell to
you to the car where we think, like.

Speaker 2 (29:09):
You're judging the left turn and the right turn swaying
in the car.

Speaker 1 (29:12):
It was like a game to But then I realized,
at some point, my dad's gonna have to park and
open this trunk and.

Speaker 2 (29:21):
In a public place where two small children are trying
to come out of the trunk. Yeah, kids, yeah, this
is like a white van short of a fucking nightmare,
do you know what I mean? Small town bullshit.

Speaker 1 (29:31):
Like so so reckless. But no one thought twice of that.
We did it, and it's like you're not in a seat,
I mean, just one if someone just slams around the truck.

Speaker 2 (29:39):
What if, like someone, dude, do you remember those station wagons?

Speaker 1 (29:42):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (29:42):
Do you know? This is actually this is not a
good story. I shouldn't tell it. Oh man, I wish
I would come on. I gotta say it anyway, say
it anyway, Okay, it's not It actually is very dark.
You know the station wagons, they had the hatchback thing
and the and there's a window. We would just sit
back there. Yeah, long trips, no seatbelts, and you just

(30:05):
the window and you're looking at like the bridges and the.

Speaker 1 (30:06):
Fucking sky and you're talking like you're writing. You're basically
writing backwards. You're looking out to the back.

Speaker 2 (30:11):
Yeah man, yeah, and there's just a panel and glass
behind you. We did that until someone that we knew
got an accident. Oh and that didn't work out for them.
Oh yeah yeah yeah yeah, yeah, we're just gonna skip it. Okay.
That's why I shouldn't have said it, Like whoa, and
then we're like, we can't do that anymore. But this
is guys. I actually I'm glad I said it, because
this is also why this shit is not okay anymore. Enough,

(30:32):
Like fearful things have occurred over time, you know. Like,
now you go like, I would never let my daughter.
We live a couple of blocks from school, but I
wouldn't let her walk to school. And I'm like, why
wouldn't I let her walk to school? I fucking walked
to school. I had to walk behind like a wal
mart and jump a fence, and I fucking did it, dude,
And it was the best morning of my life. Every day.
I would never I had to go behind like the

(30:53):
loading dock of the store. There's a creepy dudes, and
I'd be like, hey, like my stupid shorts and my
like I didn't care. Now I'm like, there's no way
my daughter's walking to school in a residential area where
I know most of the houses that who live in
the houses from my house to the school, I'm like,
absolutely not. That's disgusting. So enough fearful things have happened.
As you get older, you get a little what jaded,
I guess, or worried or what. I don't know. I mean,

(31:14):
we were like, how did we get do this shit
we were kids? Is so dangerous, just.

Speaker 1 (31:19):
The stuff that teenagers used to do. I don't know,
do kids still do stupid shit? I wonder you know,
like I think so for sure, I'm just gonna say it. Okay,
this is really gross and I'm really sorry, but just
keep in mind, Okay, come at this with the context
of the fact that we were six seventeen. I was
on the baseball team and a bunch of us.

Speaker 2 (31:40):
What was the name of the baseball team.

Speaker 1 (31:42):
Just the Highland Baby Ruth All Stars or whatever, cute
whatever everything one state. Oh it doesn't matter. My name's
still up on a plaque at home.

Speaker 2 (31:50):
Oh my god, this is such a big deal.

Speaker 1 (31:52):
It's fine. I go back every once in a while
to see it. Highland, Indiana. Shout out to all my midwesterners. Okay,
and I'm really sorry. This was your work truck. But
one morning, I don't know why we all not all
probably like I don't know, seven eight of us we
took a dump in a brown garbage bag. Oh god, yeap,

(32:13):
not garbage bag, grocery bag.

Speaker 2 (32:14):
Does this end in fire?

Speaker 1 (32:16):
No one of them does, but the other one is
just weird, and like, why do why are kids? People?

Speaker 2 (32:20):
No? No, people, did this? Do you ever hear? Like that?
That's what we did?

Speaker 1 (32:24):
That was and that that also all apologized to coach
Bob Johnson. We did that to our baseball coach.

Speaker 2 (32:28):
Sorry Bobby.

Speaker 1 (32:29):
Yeah, but here's like the other one that's so mean
and weird and why do people do this? And I
probably am really gonna regret telling the story, and I'm
probably losing people that are like, you're that's so we.

Speaker 2 (32:37):
Don't have enough people to lose yet. Tellent.

Speaker 1 (32:39):
We all pooped in a grocery bag and we had
no plan. We just did it. And then we're like,
we'll figure out what we're going to do with it.
And like we all got just walking around the bag
of shed base. We got on our bikes, like Dave
Foreman was carrying a big bag of all of our poop.
And it was like the middle of August because around
oh yeah, and we found Jesus were like we we decided, well,

(33:01):
let's throw it in someone's car.

Speaker 2 (33:18):
It seems like a good place for it.

Speaker 1 (33:22):
So he would go up and down unlocked car, show
my checking every car. We finally found a guy's work
truck that was unlocked and we buried it. It was
so like, thankfully but buried it. He had like such
a messy back part of this truck. It's like a.

Speaker 2 (33:42):
PICT's not gonna know she's another bag.

Speaker 1 (33:45):
How would you know? I mean, you couldn't know, and.

Speaker 2 (33:48):
I'd say the scent.

Speaker 3 (33:49):
But by then, but you then think about like this
poor guy sifting through where is it coming from? Yeah,
things are different back then, I guess things were different.

Speaker 2 (34:06):
Apparently a shit ton was different back then. Oh my god,
all right, wait, come on, we need to regroup. Yeah,
I know, Okay, relationship with your brother versus my relationship
with my sister.

Speaker 1 (34:20):
Uh, Kevin's you know, Kevin is I would he's my brother,
but I would say he's my best friend on earth.
I mean, we we have never had a dull moment.
We've never had a like a you know, we've been
through a couple things where we had disagreements or one
of us had to mainly him tell me to get
my shit together.

Speaker 2 (34:40):
Oh really, yeah, because he has a shit together more
than you? Is he two years.

Speaker 1 (34:43):
Older than he's two years younger. Yeah, and like so
he's my age he yeah, and he's like thirty years
older in terms of his mature like mental state and
like just just generalness.

Speaker 2 (34:54):
Of him, like responsibilities and family. Family, You're talking to
your parents everyd What the hell is he doing oh,
like he has a fan.

Speaker 1 (35:01):
He has a fan. Okay, sorry, yeah, like you know,
all the things homeowner like just he's really like a
profession he's like a professional adult.

Speaker 2 (35:09):
Yeah, he's like he's like the he's like adulting. He's
just nailing it.

Speaker 1 (35:12):
He is, okay, And it's a lot for him. And
I see that. I mean it's a lot. You know,
it's a lot for it sucks, it's no but but
through the years, yeah, we've had some things. But I mean, god,
there's no one. This is what I love so much
about Kevin is uh, there's no one who makes me
laugh harder. Uh, no one who just you know, like

(35:34):
I don't have to talk to him every day, and
you know, but once.

Speaker 2 (35:38):
We see each other, it's like it's right there.

Speaker 1 (35:40):
He did a radio show together for years, yeah, in Chicago,
and uh it was called The man O Program, and
oh it was fun. And that'd be a dream for me,
you know some days to do a show with keV again. Yeah,
I don't know. I don't know. And I feel like
I had kind of had the same issue or answer

(36:03):
with my mom and dad. It's almost like there's like
an embarrassment of riches, like I don't have an issue.
I don't have. I don't have like a family strain
I have.

Speaker 2 (36:11):
I'm not looking for that. I can tell you about
a relationship with siblings where there is an issue, can
I go?

Speaker 1 (36:17):
That's why this is why I'm like, no, that's.

Speaker 2 (36:19):
The purpose of this is to show the differences between us.
This is great, Okay. Let me start off by saying,
I love my sister. My sister's name is Tanya Ton. Yeah.
I mean, we don't even know if she's listening, but hi,
Tanya if you are no, but yeah, we do call
her ton. Actually that's funny. We call her ton Ton.
So Tanya and I like, I said, he She's eight
and a half years younger than me, so obviously it was.

(36:41):
It was odd because I was always more of a
mother than a sister, and I hated that. Especially as
we got older, I wanted a sister relationship and it
became more kind of like I think. And this is,
by the way, one hundred percent my own doing. So
it took me a long time in general to realize
that as much as I wanted to help people, I

(37:03):
had to pick the people that wanted to be helped,
of course, and not enforce my help right, and like
be like, no, I have to help you, right. It
doesn't usually work when you do that, And it took
me many, many years to to stop doing that. I
would compulsively try to help people, regardless of if they
wanted it or not. And now I try to be
better about this. Like people will come to me for
advice or to talk, and I'm like, do you need

(37:23):
a sounding board and you just want me to hear
you or do you want me to like chime in
with advice? What are we doing? Because I'm not gonna
say I will I will spend I've spent hours with
people giving them advice and zero of it's taken. So
I'm like, cool, if you just need to talk and
you acknowledge you cool. I keep my pins to myself.
It's not an easy task, but I can do it,
you know. So with my sister, she moved out here

(37:46):
after she graduated high school and she lived with Clark
and I in our apartment, and my mom paid for
her to go to make up school because that's what
she wanted to do. And my mom figured it out
again as a single mom paid for her to go
to make up school and My mom did a lot
of things for my sister she didn't do for me
because she couldn't do it for me at that time, right, right, Yes,

(38:07):
But the difference is actually beautiful because and this is
not this is not a knock on my sister at all.
But like, I am the most appreciative person you will
ever fucking meet. You give me a gift, it doesn't
matter what it costs, Like, you do a favor for me,
You're there for me. I appreciate it so much because
I appreciate the life I have because I remember what

(38:29):
it's like to go without. Okay, my sister never went without. Oh,
she has no other thing to compare it too. She's wanted,
she receives, she wants something, she gets it. Right, I've
wanted something. I'm like, well, that's not the fucking way
the world works. You're not gonna get it. I'm like, okay,
you know what I mean, and like like so it's
like and you love getting your way love, right, It's

(38:50):
my favorite thing. Yeah, So it's been a struggle, but
so seriously, I do I mean, and who doesn't honestly, Like,
I'm like, I'm not Party of one year tables ready,
everyone likes getting their way. Be fucking real, let's be
honest with each other. Do you know what I'm saying, Like, so,
anyway my sister has, she just doesn't have that like
reminder of what it's like to not have it that way, right,

(39:13):
Like I remember, you know, my the landlord of the
two family house we lived in Lodi. The landlord lived upstairs,
and I remember him yelling like Linda, like do you
have the rent? Like I remember that, and she did
and she figured out We're never homeless or anything. My
mom fucking nailed it, you know, But like that never
happened with my sister, right, and so and I and

(39:33):
I wouldn't want it to. I'm just saying, like we
have a very different value of like level of appreciation
I think. And my sister is awesome. She's she's extra.
She's like the regional manager of like a bunch of
different OULTA stores, and like she does really well. She
owns her own spray tanning company, and she's great at that.

Speaker 1 (39:48):
What's it?

Speaker 2 (39:49):
What's what's the name of it? Do we want to
her spray tanning? I don't, Yeah, I think it's like
I don't, I don't. I don't know if she has
a name for it to hose with you, it might
be like, but she just does it. She'll go to
why does she spell her name ta n y A.
I mean it's it's Tan taunt like that's what I
told her. I said the same thing. I'm sorry, right.

Speaker 1 (40:07):
Like if you're not using a play one anyway.

Speaker 2 (40:09):
But she just goes and does this. She does it
for a shit ton of people, you know, every once
in a while if I need it, she's pray tending
me for my wedding, like I don't whatever, it's it's great.
She's awesome.

Speaker 1 (40:17):
But so.

Speaker 2 (40:19):
As of right now, me and my sister go through
weird moments. Like when we lived together, she was closer
with Clark than she was with me because she could
tell him stuff and like kind of vent to him
and he wouldn't judge her right where I would be like, no,
you can't do that, you have to and I would
be this motherly you know what I mean? Yeah, and
so and I and I recognize that, and I and

(40:41):
I tried to change it. I think that, you know,
I was maybe a little late on that, which is fine.
But then she moved out. She moved out truly after
I found that I was pregnant with my daughter.

Speaker 1 (40:51):
I don't okay, please, can you tell the story about
the movie? Nice?

Speaker 2 (40:55):
Yes? So, and then she'd come over from time to
time to like watch a movie.

Speaker 1 (40:59):
So she wasn't living get with you at the time
this happened.

Speaker 2 (41:01):
I don't know, but I could tell you this, guys,
just to preface the story, My sister lived with Clark
and I for six years. That is a very long time.
In that six year time period, there was not one
whoopsie daisy where either one of them ever saw each
other in a bath, towel, naked, nothing. It was amazing
actually because we lived in a small space, but it

(41:23):
never happened. You know, Yeah, we're watching a movie one night,
and so how it is is we had this couch
where it was like the couch and there's like you
know the couches that have like a chase that sticks
out of it, right, So she's like sitting on the
edge of the chase, and she's kind of she came
from the gym. My sister was a gym rat. She
still is, which I wasn't until about seven. I'm not
a gym rat by any means, but I go because
I have to, like seven months ago. My sister's been

(41:45):
doing this for years. It's very like and to like
making sure to take care of her body, the whole thing.
So she's sitting on the edge of the chase kind
of like you know, leaning back, with her elbows down right, and.

Speaker 1 (41:56):
She's basically propping herself up yet with the elbows, with
the elbows kind of behind almost like chicken wings exactly.

Speaker 2 (42:02):
Yeah, Clark and I are sitting next to each other
as a husband and wife would watching this movie. I
don't have movie. It was because I have no idea
because what was about to happen completely blocked out any
memory of what we were watching, So reading popcorn, what
are doing whatever? Watching the movie? And Clark goes and
he explained it to me after where he goes, he's

(42:23):
looking at my sister and he's like, what is that?
Is that an elbow? What am I looking at? And
so my sister came over with some sort of like
a muscle shirt on, but not like a tank top
a girl would wear, Like I have a tank top
on her. It's made for a woman, you know, it
fits me. If there's nothing hanging out you know this,
This fucking pitch comes over with the tight like a guy,
like a guy's muscle shirt, like the sides are cut

(42:45):
out right for whatever reason, guys, for whatever reason, it
was not an elbow spoiler alert. And he realizes it registers.
What he's looking at is a boob and he goes, ton,
is your tit out? And this asshole she's like, oh

(43:08):
my god. And she gets up and she's like oh,
and she covers herself and runs out of the fucking room.
And I didn't even see it. I didn't even by
the way, guys, as a sider, I've never seen my
sister's boots because she's like weirdly private like that. My
husband has now seen a tit And she runs out
of the room, mortified with like this, pulling the shirt
over to cover. But now the other one. I don't

(43:29):
know what was happening. Okay, because you can't because it's
just like two holes. So you fuck either you can't
go hard left or hard right to shirt like that,
you know what I mean. So she runs out of
the room, okay, right, Ryan's crime.

Speaker 1 (43:41):
I can't.

Speaker 2 (43:42):
She runs into the room and this is what she
says when she comes back. She goes, thank god, I
have a spray tan, to which I respond and I'm sorry,
who this is my husband? Who the fuck cares if

(44:04):
your boob is tan? What are you talking about? That's
the thing that you say? What what is happening?

Speaker 1 (44:11):
At least it looked nice?

Speaker 2 (44:13):
Yeah, like she's like, well, at least it wasn't this
like pasty white wax boob, Like what do you what?

Speaker 3 (44:17):
Then?

Speaker 2 (44:17):
Got it looked good for my brother in law? What
are we doing? What is happening? I don't even know
what's happening? So I don't even if we finished the movie.
To be honest with you, guys, it was so traumatic
the entire thing for all of us in different ways.

Speaker 1 (44:26):
Jesus.

Speaker 2 (44:28):
And it was just this thing that we talked about
for years and now they can't make eye contact. So
that was kind of how that how that went.

Speaker 1 (44:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (44:36):
So basically my point is that as much as I
love my family, we are extremely dysfunctional. But I love it.
I love that about us. I wouldn't change any of it. Like,
and I mean dysfunctional in like a very happy, fun,
crazy way, do you know what I mean? Like, and
I don't care, like I get Ryan is like the
one percent of the population that has like a perfect family,
every family, even his. I'm sure if we really dug

(44:59):
in there there's some dramatics happening somewhere. Somebody's like annoyed
about something, or like, you know, there's this person or
you know aunt so and so or the cousin that
doesn't there's always like a person where there's a little
bit of something happening with them. And I just think that,
like I feel like, you know, I'm I'm the majority
and his family is the minority, which I you know,
good for you, guys. I'm really happy for you, guys.

Speaker 1 (45:20):
I agree with you. That's why I felt and feel
a little you know, sheepish about I no, no, don't
you should know? And one of the other things what
I loved and you mentioned this and it made me
think of like your your mom paid for Tom to
go to makeup school.

Speaker 2 (45:34):
On her a car she dreamed of. She wanted this
Mitsubichi Lancers so bad she took her to the dealership.
They had balloons on it, surprise. Or my mom would
do amazing things single because.

Speaker 1 (45:42):
She could at that time when she came for you.
But I do want to say One more thing about
my parents is that you know, when you're I don't know, seventeen,
and like you've proven that maybe you like a questionable
decision maker, and you say, hey, I want to go
do radio, which is probably like one of the most
just volatile, like you know, Okay, you sure you don't
want to like you know, she didn't want to like

(46:03):
become like a lawyer or like something that isn't just volatile. Yeah,
And they said, okay, we support you do it. Go
chase your dream, you know what I'm saying, So like.

Speaker 2 (46:13):
We have that similar thing happened to me. I wanted
to go to art school because I was this is
so dumb and something that's so dorky about me. But
I was so good at ceramics in high school.

Speaker 1 (46:22):
Are you like, do you know the wheel?

Speaker 2 (46:24):
Yes, that's what I was good at. And they I
was going to go to Rhode Island to this like school.
It was like an art school for that. And so
in high school they took all the pieces I made
and distributed it to different art schools in the country.

Speaker 1 (46:36):
And only is that a true story? Yeah, that's a
weird brag. I don't know why you would have told
me that prior.

Speaker 2 (46:42):
But because I wanted to go to this school for
it and they said, no, you have to go to
like a local communit college. They would let me go
away to school.

Speaker 1 (46:47):
Oh yeah, okay, sorry.

Speaker 2 (46:51):
You're very fortunate. The real reason was because my stepfather
couldn't actually pay for it, but I didn't know that
till later. And that story will save for another time.

Speaker 1 (46:56):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (46:57):
Anyway, So Ryan, yes, you're an uncle. Huh, I'm a mom. Yeah,
but tell me about being an uncle because you're not
a dad yet, right. I liked that you said yet. Yeah,
I'm still holding out hope for you.

Speaker 1 (47:10):
That's one of us.

Speaker 2 (47:11):
Ellen and Darlene.

Speaker 1 (47:12):
Ellen and Darlene tell me every day like you'd be
the best day, You're gonna You're gonna be a dad.

Speaker 2 (47:16):
You totally would. I'm telling you, man, we got that
by this time. By the time this airs, I'm gonna
have a flood of women to choose from that I'm
gonna be filtering through my dad.

Speaker 1 (47:24):
Speaking of and I'll go to the uncle in a second.
But when I I heard that back and you said
ripe ripe thirty year olds last week, I just felt
like in the moment I didn't notice it, but I
I don't know. I don't know that. I felt like
Ripe was just really aggressive.

Speaker 2 (47:39):
Okay, I don't want them to be sterle. What is
the point. What are we doing? I'm trying to build
a future for you here, man about your welcome right?
Thanks Jay? You know try that route, Jesus Christ.

Speaker 1 (47:51):
Okay, thank you Jay.

Speaker 2 (47:53):
It's so nice of you tell me about being an
I love being an uncle.

Speaker 1 (47:56):
Okay. So Molly and Riley my niece and nephew.

Speaker 2 (47:58):
How old are they.

Speaker 1 (47:59):
Let's see, Molly is about to turn nine in July
and then Riley just turned seven. Oh great, ages. I
love them. They call me uncle turd.

Speaker 2 (48:07):
Don't know. Well, that sounds like it's on brand based
on your periods story.

Speaker 1 (48:10):
Well the car.

Speaker 2 (48:11):
Maybe Dad told him the story about the car.

Speaker 1 (48:13):
No, actually, he may have told him about the day
that I pooped my pants on spring break when I
my eleventh birthday.

Speaker 2 (48:21):
Oh that's how it's probably how. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (48:24):
Yeah, I love being an uncle because I think you
get the you get the you get like the kind
of the best parts of.

Speaker 2 (48:32):
Yes, and you can always give them back and you leave.

Speaker 1 (48:34):
Huh.

Speaker 2 (48:34):
Yeah, you know the same reason why grandparents love their
grandkids so much they can give them back.

Speaker 1 (48:38):
And like, you don't have to deal with like and
you know, of course, if it were in the cards,
I would love nothing more than this, But you don't
have to deal with you know, the first time, maybe
like you're you know, there's just there's things of parenthood
that I don't know how I'm gonna deal with it,
Like the first time, you know, your son says, what
is a boner? Like what is sex? You know, Like,

(49:00):
I don't know, I don't know that I'm I'm I
don't know that I'm there yet.

Speaker 2 (49:04):
Yeah, that happened with my daughter, who's nine. She came
home and she said one of the kids in class
were using a dictionary and they said, she comes home
and it's me. Clark is sitting across from me. And
at the time we had a nanny extraordinary her name
is Alex, and she was sitting there and Live says, mom,
you know so, so and so today in class looked

(49:25):
up sexual intercourse. Oh, and I was like, oh he did,
did he? And I already have like the peanut gallery,
Like Clark and Alex are just like giggling like two
little fucking school girls in the corner and I'm just
keeping keeping my shit together, right, and she goes, she
goes yeah, and I go okay, and she's like, you
know what it means? And I was like, tell me,
what would you get out of it? And she goes,
it means that a man has to put his penis
inside of a woman's vagina and that's how a baby's made.

(49:47):
And I go, oh, okay, and she goes, is that
what you and dad had to do? And I'm like, okay,
we're in it. We're doing this.

Speaker 1 (49:54):
Kay.

Speaker 2 (49:54):
This was gonna happen for another three or four years,
but here we go. So I said, well, I mean
you're here and Lucas here, so I guess at least twice. Right.
She's like that's so gross. I go, you're right, it's
disgusting unless you're married, and then it's not disgusting.

Speaker 1 (50:06):
There you go good.

Speaker 2 (50:08):
And you know at this point, these two are on
the floor. Yeah, like Clark and Alex are just like
I think Clark left the room. I don't even know
what happened, do you mean, Like he's like, I can't
do this and I was just I had a real
commis I think like in situations like that, you have
to be honest and tell them the truth. Of course,
I lied a little at the end that it's gross
unless you're married, but that was for a different reason,
you know what I'm saying. Like, I was like, Okay,

(50:29):
you need to you know, it's it's a less it's
less disgusting. You're right, it's disgusting unless you're married. It's
awful thing. Oh my god, suddenly you get married and
then it's not gross. I don't know, it's weird, so weird.

Speaker 1 (50:42):
Anyway, long story short, I love being an uncle. But
that's awesome. And I do want to say, because you
gave me some compliments last week, I do want to
say one of my favorite things about you is the
way you mom.

Speaker 2 (50:52):
The way I mom. H what do you mean?

Speaker 1 (50:54):
I think you're an awesome mom. We'll be talking or whatever,
and I like, you have these conversations with your kids
that are or you don't. I don't know. I just
I enjoy you.

Speaker 2 (51:05):
Treat on the phone and I have to take care
of something with the kids for a second while we're talking.

Speaker 1 (51:08):
Yeah, like if we're talking about you know, what time
are were recording or whatever. And but then you'll put
the phone down and I just listen, and you really
are a great mom. Thank you, because you don't talk
to them like they're beneath you.

Speaker 2 (51:20):
No. Ever, I don't do like a baby talk thing.
I don't do I to me my kids are you know.
The purpose of why one of the purposes of reasons
of being a parent whatever I don't know, is that
you're trying to raise these little people to be big
people that will make good decisions, right, And kids get

(51:43):
stopped a lot, right, It's always like don't do this,
don't touch that, don't do that, right, and so like
where I can give them some leeway to make their
own decisions and kind of have their own like determined
like to be determined individuals. I try to like nurture
that as much as I can, you know, Like, you know,
I think you're get hurt. It's kind of your fault,
you know, like what environment did you set up for them?
But they're going to get hurt, you know. Like Luca's

(52:05):
standing on the edge of the automan and I'm like, hey,
but just I want you to know this is hard,
Like I'll knock on the floor like so he knows.

Speaker 1 (52:09):
Like here's what could happen?

Speaker 2 (52:11):
Yeah, and notice like there's a corner here, sure, go
go for it. Gout so you see what's going on,
like I be cause kids are not aware like spatially
of what's going on, you know what I mean. And
so maybe they'll still get hurt. I don't know, but
you try to just let them figure it out a
little bit because because telling kids no, you can't do this,
stop doing that, it just sucks, you know, like then

(52:32):
they're like, Okay, what can I do? Like you're controlling
them all the time. So it's like when you have
literally like pockets of time where you can kind of
let them figure shit out, and you know, you pick
your battles, like the shit that my son gets away
with because of what he went through is incredible, which
speaking of might be a good time for me to.

Speaker 1 (52:49):
I am ready because this is the thing is uh,
you've mentioned it now, but but you know, depending on
who's here, and you know, I guess which one of
them has brought him through the door. You may not
know Jay's story, which is how she and I first
even came to be, And I think you're going to

(53:10):
tell it.

Speaker 2 (53:11):
Yeah, So on September twenty fourth of twenty twenty three,
I had to go to my kid's school because I
was going to be mceeing their fundraiser that year, which
was a Casino Night themed and I was going to
kind of figure out where the stage was and help
the parents set up, and so I had to leave
the house pretty early. At that point, we had lived

(53:32):
in the house. We just bought this house I don't know,
five months prior, and Luca was still sleeping, which wasn't abnormal,
it was pretty early. And so he's been a good sleeper,
which was is awesome. He continues to be a good sleeper,
and so Clark's like, I'll handle Luca. You go to
the school, and I was like okay. So I went
to the school, and at the school was a couple

(53:53):
of other mom friends, one of which happens to be
a pick you nurse. Her name is Abby. She is
one of my absolute best friends to this day. And
so this is how that friendship became even better than
it was. So I'm at the school and Clark texts
me and he says, Luca just woke up, but his

(54:15):
diaper looks weird, and he sends me a photo of
Luca's diaper, and inside the diaper looks So here's what
you guys have to understand. Luca would sleep for he
still does, like ten to twelve hours straight, and so
we had the diaper on and it would be pretty
saturated with urine when he woke up, obviously because he's
sleeping that long. And he sends me a photo and

(54:36):
the photo is of a very very wet diaper, but
it appears to be blood and not urine. It was
pretty alarming to look at. And I said, Okay, what
else is happening. How's he doing? And he was like,
he's totally funny. He's running around, he's laughing, he's eating,
he's no fever, he's totally fine. And I was like,
it's so weird. I'm thinking, like, maybe he has a UTI.

(54:58):
I don't know what's going on. So I show Abby
and Abby's like, yeah, you should, you should get that
checked out, you know. And and you know, I'm a
pretty perceptive person and I could tell that she's not
wanting to alarm me, but also like, go get this
looked at, right, So I call. We have a really
wonderful pediatrician. And Luca had gone for his eighteen month

(55:22):
check up a week prior, and I have a text
line with our with our thing that was like this
app where you could go in and so I text
the pediatrician and I show him the diaper and he goes,
send me what the next one looks like, and I go, Okay.
So the next diaper comes and it's it's a bit
of the same but not as bad, but it's also
not twelve hours worth of urine, right, So I send

(55:43):
him that picture and at this point I'm like, I'm
gonna I'm gonna go I'm gonna leave the school and
I'm going to go home and see what's going on.
So I go home and at that point I text
the the doctor and I go, do you think I
should go to like an urgent care or something like what?
This doesn't seem right to me? And he's like, yeah,
you know, it might be good to do that. So
we get in the car and we go to urgent care.
When we get to urgent care, we tell the front

(56:04):
desk what's happening and they're like, how old is he?
And I'm like, he's eighteen months old, and they're like,
we can't really do anything because he's so little, you
probably have to take him to like an ER. So
now the whole time, Abby's like, please keep me posted
and tell me what's going on. So I tell her,
and she says, go to CHLA Children's Hospital, Los Angeles.
They'll know what to do. I'm like, okay, I've driven
past that hospital, guys hundreds of times, to a point

(56:26):
where years prior when I moved here, I remember driving
past it going like I would love to volunteer my
time and like read to sick kids.

Speaker 1 (56:33):
Yeah, it's the best that.

Speaker 2 (56:34):
But then I went, I'm not going to do that
because that would be so sad and I don't want
to see sick kids. Okay, just put a pin in
that for later. So I we we go. Okay, let's
go eat lunch because we're going to go to an
ER and everyone knows when you go to eat an AR,
you're going to be there for hours. Okay, so we go.
We go, eat lunch. We have Luca's favorite, which is pizza.

(56:55):
We go back to we go do we go to CHLA.
I had gotten a new car the day before this happened,
and I was complaining about all kinds of stuff that
people with no actual problems complained about, and we pulled
in to c HLA and I remember the underground parking

(57:16):
was I couldn't like I was. I didn't know what
was happening. And by now, by the way, guys, the
urine has totally cleared up. It's normal. So had I
gone like, okay, that was weird. It was normal. So
we get into the parking lot and I clipped the
curb with my rooms just get totally aft right and
I'm like, I don't don't even care. I don't even care.
I want know what's going on with my son. So
we pull in, we park, we go into the er.

(57:36):
I tell them what's happening. They call us in and
they want to get a sample of his urine and
they're like, well, we need to get a catheter to
do this, and I'm like that sounds very painful and
they're like it is. I'm like, can you just give
me a cup? And fifteen minutes and the nurse is like,
one hundred percent, we hate doing it. If you could
catch it, great, I was like okay. So they all leave,
Clark takes Lvia to go somewhere and I have this

(57:57):
little urine sample cup that fits perfectly around all his junk,
and I'm following him around the room and I'm giving
him water and I'm just walking around for fifteen minutes.
Around thirteen minutes in he peas in the cup and
I get a clean catch. None of it goes on
the floor. Was awesome. It looks like fruit punch that
you cannot see through.

Speaker 1 (58:14):
Oh.

Speaker 2 (58:16):
So I put it down on the counter and I go, okay,
we got it. I call the nurse and she takes it.
She does whatever she's going to do, and they go,
we want to do an ultrasound of his abdomen. I
go okay, like of his kidneys and stuff, you know,
I go okay. So we go in to do the
ultrasound and I'm going to tell this as it happened.
And he's lying there peacefully, totally fine, the jelly and
the thing, and they're looking at I don't know, guys.

(58:37):
You know, I gotta tell you, I've been pregnant twice.
I've had ultrasounds done. I have no idea what these
people are looking at. Do you know what I mean?
They have to be like that's the head. I'm like, okay, cool,
Like I can't tell. So they're looking at kidney. I
don't know what's happening. And so the ultrasound technician says,
did does Luca go for checkups regularly? And I said, yes,
he just went one week ago for his eighteen month checkup.

(59:00):
And she says, they didn't say anything about anything, and
I went, no, why are you saying that? And then
I have a little bit of dread because she sees
something and she can't tell me because she's the ultrasound technician.
So if anyone who's listening has ever had an ultrasound,
the ultratount technician can't tell you anything. They do it
and then some doctor comes in and tells you what's
going on. But she probably shouldn't have even said what

(59:20):
she did. She did, it doesn't matter, it's fine. I
go back to the er room that they're like, you
know that we're in and the doctor I see her
and I go, excuse me, this is what just occurred.
She said, I'm so sorry. She shouldn't have said that.
I said, no, no, it's not her fault. She's a human
being that saw something alarming. I don't care what she
about what she said. I'm actually just going to ask
you please do not make me wait in this room
for hours to hear whatever's going on. I can't do it.

(59:41):
She's like, no, no, Well, twenty minutes later, the door opens
and three people walk in, two doctors holding chairs, and
in a social services person behind them, asking if Olivia
would like to come play with them. And I will
never forget this moment ever, but I want something's wrong

(01:00:06):
because they're taking my daughter out of the room and
these guys have chairs, and Luca never liked screens. He
wasn't into any of that. And I remember putting something
on my phone on YouTube for him to watch. And
I'm sitting on the like the stretcher kind of like
you know, with my leg's open. He's sitting in between
my legs and Clark is standing to my left, and
these guys walk in and Liba looks to me like,
is it okay to going? I said, yes, swee ahead,

(01:00:27):
go play, it'll be great. I was like, we'll see
you in a little while. She's like okay, and they leave,
and the two doctors sit down and they have masks on,
but I can see in their eyes something's wrong. And
so they sit down and Luca's not paying attention because
he's looking at the screen, thank god, And they look
at us and I go, what's happening? And I don't

(01:00:50):
look at Clark. I know he's standing to my left
and they go, so there's a pretty big mass on
Luca's right kidney. And I grab Clark's forearm because I
needed like a just an anchor of some kind, and
I go, do you what do you mean? And they're like,

(01:01:12):
you know, honestly, at this moment, the wind kind of
gets knocked at me because I'm like looking at him
and he's fine. I'm like, he's fine, what do you mean?
And so she says she's telling me numbers like like
millimeters or centimeters of how big this mass is. And
I go, I said, I'm sorry, I don't know what
you're talking about. Can you give me an object that
I can compare it to? And then she says the

(01:01:35):
thing that just destroyed me where she said it's about
the size of a grapefruit. And I was holding on
to Clark and I said no, no, no. I was like, babe,
I've seen this movie and we're not in it. This
is not no, no, no, no, no, like and I'm looking

(01:01:56):
at him and you can't see anything. His stomach's not
sticking out. I don't understand. I'm like, do you the
wrong I don't. I couldn't like process what was happening there.
And then I'm still going like, okay, so it's a mass.
It's a mass. Maybe it's like fatty tissue. I have
no idea. I'm not even anywhere near cancer at all.
Like it's off my radar. There is no cancer in
my family. There's no cancer in Clark's family. Luca was

(01:02:17):
a beautiful, perfect pregnancy and birth, and it was just
it doesn't make sense. It's against everything I just know
and believe. It doesn't make sense. So I go, okay,
So what happens now? They're like, well, we have to
admit you. And I'm like, okay, this is not a
three hour er visit anymore. And we're gonna run test

(01:02:37):
and we have to do a CT scan and did
D D DA DA And I said, okay, I can
stay with him, right, They're like absolutely. I'm like okay,
So I they leave us, and Clark looks at me
and I look at him, and that was about the
last time we looked at each other for about seven
or eight days because we were both crying, and I said, listen,
we need to pull our shit together because Livia is
going to come back in the room and just we're

(01:03:00):
gonna tell her that we don't know what's going on.
Mommy has to stay here with Luca. They need to
run more tests to figure out what's happening. And then
as soon as we know, we're gonna know, and you're
gonna go home with live. And he's like, okay, I said, tomorrow,
you get Livia to school, you bring me clothes and stuff.
I'm just gonna stay here the night with him and
we'll figure this out. Okay. Olivia comes in, that's what
we tell her, and happy, I'm like, we don't know,

(01:03:21):
we don't know what's happening. Like they're gonna tell us
it's really good that we came because they're going to
figure it out. And Luca's oblivious to what's happening at
the moment, which is wonderful. And I tell him, look, buddy,
we're gonna stay here, and you know we're just they
have to. It's gonna be weird, but Mommy will be
with you, and you know, they're gonna run tests and
we're gonnaigure out what's happening. So there's something in your
body that shouldn't be and we're gonna get it. It's
gonna be great, where everything is going to be great.

(01:03:43):
So they left and I was with Luca and they
woke us up at around ten forty five at night.
Once they got U settled into a room, the doctor
was asking me all these questions about has there any
been been any deaths in your family of like babies,
And I'm like, what, no, like just really heavy stuff,
and I said, no, there's been nothing. No, No, there's nobody.

(01:04:06):
I don't even wan And so this is a Sunday
night and I won't call anyone or tell anyone what's
going on other than Abby until I have more information.
I know my mom's going to lose her mind. And
just as a side note, I'm kind of like the
stable person, like I'm the quote unquote like that's my

(01:04:29):
person for a lot of people in my life and
in my family, especially my mom. I talked to my
mom at least every other day, you know. I talked
to her this morning, I talked to her last night.
And so I needed a person and so I didn't.
I was like, oh, I didn't really set my life
up that way, like I'm everybody else's person. And so

(01:04:53):
Monday came. By that time, we had had a CT
scan and Abby showed up to help me talk to
the doctor. And the doctor came in and she was
an oncologist, and I was like, I know what that means, okay,
And I didn't know anything about cancer. And she came
in and she said, what do you know about cancer?
And I said death. So I need you to tell
me what is happening because I can. You have to

(01:05:15):
just tell me what's happening, because I'm just telling you.
If I'm going to lose my son, I'm going to
burn the planet to I couldn't do this, Like I
was like, I am not built for this. I am
a strong person, I am good at a lot of things.
I cannot do this. And so she said, okay, you
know the TV movie version of it. I'm going to
tell you the real life version of it. She said,
Pediatric cancer is very different than adult cancer. She said,

(01:05:37):
we are actually able to even give kids higher doses
of chemotherapy than we are to give them. We're able
to give full grown adults because their body is still growing,
so they're able to, you know, kind of grow over
the destruction. Chemo kills everything. I didn't even know. She's
telling me, like, I didn't even know that chemo. There's
chemo is like saying antibiotical, Like there's a different kind
of chemotherapy for every different kind of cancer. No idea, didn't.

(01:05:59):
I literally knew nothing. I knew no one that had CAMP.
This was like, Okay, the more information that I got,
the more I chilled out right. So the more knowledge
I got, the more I felt in control of what
was happening to some degree, the more my responsibility for
what was going to happen came up, Like I felt
like I could be more responsible in these different areas.
And then she said, I want to show you the

(01:06:20):
CT scan. Do you want to see it? I said
one hundred percent. She goes, I always ask as some
parents don't. I said, no, no, I need all I'm all
the information. You have to give me all the information.
I said, can I bring Luca over to it? She
said yes. I picked Luca up. We go over to
the screen and she's showing me the mass and I
said to Luca, I pointed to the screen and I said,
you see that and he's like, yeah, I said. He
didn't say yeah, but he like he got it, and

(01:06:41):
he was like, I said, that's not supposed to be there,
so we have to figure out a way to get
that out. And we're going to stay here until we
figure out what we're going to do. But that's just
not supposed to be in your body. So we have
to make sure that you know the doctors here, everybody
here knows what they're doing to get rid of it.
And she's like, that's a really great explanation. The doctor says, like,
do you want to work here? I said absolutely, and
I'd be fired on day one for crying in every room,
but thank you for the job. Opurtuny like, these people

(01:07:01):
are just gods. I don't even know how they do
this job. So she was wonderful. The surgical team came
and met with us. They wondered why when he got
his exam at the doctor and they always pushed down
on a kid's belly right when you go for a checkup,
they didn't feel anything. But then the surgical team came
and they did it and they're like, yeah, you really
can't feel it because it was growing inside of his kidney.
It's not like it was an attachment of the kidney.

(01:07:21):
It took over the kidney. Then we find out we're
getting They're like, have you ever heard of James Stein?
And I said no, and they're like, that's the He's
the top surgeon in this hospital. And so I said, okay,
and I look him up. They're like, you should look
him up. So I look him up and he's like,

(01:07:43):
he is the surgeon at CCHLA that as sets the
precedent for every other surgeon. He is responsible, by the way,
single handedly for successful surgery of separating six Siamese twins.
He is and I couldn't have I couldn't have asked
for a better surgeon to do the surgery. They decide,
they give me a treatment plan. We were there for
eight days. At that point, we went home for a bit.

(01:08:03):
We came back. They didn't know if they were going
to do the chemo outpatient or impatient. They did the
first one impatient. He was going to be on a
thing of like one treatment was three days, and next
time it's five days, and next time is three days.
For eight months, four of those treatments were going to happen.
They were going to do a new scantacy that they
needed to shrink the tumor because the only complication was

(01:08:24):
that the tumor had grown into this valve that runs
down the center of your body where these veins branch
out into all your other organs. So it had grown
out of the kidney up into this valve a little
too high, and the surgeon could remove about I don't know,
let's say two centimeters of that valve, but not too much.
So they were hoping that when they did the chemo,
it would retract itself back out of the valve into

(01:08:44):
the kidney and they remove the entire kidney. Now, thank god. Now, guys,
obviously every parent's worst nightmare. But I had to focus
on what are the good things? The good things are
Number one, this happened to an organ that you have
two of, and it turns out you don't even need both.
By the way I learned, you only need three quarters
of a kidney. You don't even need two. As a

(01:09:04):
side note, you don't need both. The cancer he had
they did tests on it was called is called clear
cell sarcoma of the kidney. It is extremely rare. I
think there are like twenty to thirty cases a year,
and it's something as a childhood cancer. It is something
that usually happens as the kidney is developing. But yet

(01:09:25):
they wouldn't know, like had I given birth to Luca
or did it you know, all my checkups, they would
never would have seen it until it got big enough
to see. But it's a cellular thing that occurs. I've
done some research on this. I'm not a medical professional,
but like sometimes there's a weird DNA swap where this happens,
it is not a genetic thing at all. I had
it tested for that. I didn't have to get Livia
scanned or anything. It has nothing to do with that.

(01:09:46):
It is kind of a freak thing that occurs in utero.
So then you go through, Okay, what did I do differently,
d Dad, I'm growing a baby, that's whatever. I didn't
get into any of this because that's a fucking dead
end and it's a waste of time and I'm not
going to be effective or a good parent or there
for anybody. If I'm sitting here blaming myself for something
that I cannot go back and find out how this happened.
I don't know, you know what I mean. I don't

(01:10:07):
know if it was. I wasn't a crunchy enough mom.
I didn't do this. I didn't do that. I have
no idea. So at the end of the day, we
went this is These are the cards I was dealt.
It could be worse. This kind of cancer is extremely aggressive.
It moves to your bone and your brain. His bone
and his brain were totally clear. Awesome, we have to
focus on our wins. Is this something we can remove? Yes? Great,

(01:10:30):
So we did that. My doctor was awesome. She was like,
doctor Rebecca Parker, I love you. You're fantastic. We see
her every few months. She was like, Janine, do not
go on Google, because first of all, you go on
you know, you have a headache, you go on Google.
You have cancer. When you have cancer and you go
on Google, it's a fucking night marriage saying. So it's
like I was like, I won't. And also there aren't
enough studies of this kind of cancer to get any

(01:10:52):
accurate information anyway. But one day I was on Google
looking for something completely different. I was looking for like
I was getting him. I would I'd pack a hospital
bag right, like of things like they have like this
oncology lip bomb and like things that were be yummy
little things for him to have, or like cozy things,
really soft stuff like. And I was buying and it
came up, something came up about it, and I did
stumble across this case study of a kid that had

(01:11:14):
this cancer and it didn't end well, and I got
so upset and I went and I talked her about it,
and I said, I did the thing that you told
me not to do. Yeah, because here again guys back
to like you have to communicate. Had I hung on
to this shit, it would have eaten me alive. And
I didn't. I went in and I was like, look,
I fucked up. And I went on Google and I
went down this rabbit hole and I found this article.
And she's like, okay, listen, First of all, we have

(01:11:36):
no idea what happened with that person, but just so
you know, there are they came. When they came to
me with Luca's treatment plan of what kinds of chemotherapy
medications he was going to be receiving, they told me
that before they had presented this to me as the plan,
they sent it to Ohio. There's a children's hospital in
Ohio that they sent it to. There's a man, there
a doctor who's the top pediatric kidney tumor specialist like

(01:11:59):
that exists, and had him look at this treatment plan
and pretty much sign off on it, like, Okay, if
this was my kid, this is what this is the
best possible thing to do. So I felt confident because
I don't know, I'm not gonna be like, well, let
me just go to you know, Jiffy Lube and see
what they can. I don't fucking know, do you know
what I mean? So I was like, okay, this is
the place, right, I'm at the place. This is where
what we're doing. So I go through the motions of

(01:12:22):
all this and I and I and Luke is happy
the whole time. And we spend the next you know,
eight or nine months at this thing, and seven to
ten days after every treatment, I have to make sure
he doesn't get sick. All of his numbers bottom out.
Surgery is supposed to be three hours. It turns into
five and a half. He loses all of his blood
volume in surgery. He has to go to the pick

(01:12:44):
you the ICU for kids, and the surgeon comes out
of surgery. Now let me tell you the surgery story.
So the surgery is supposed to be three to three
three hours. There's an our nurse that calls you from
the operating room every now and then to let you
know how it's going. But you're sitting in a room
and there's a screen and your kid has a number
because they're not gonna put the names up there because
you know, hippa. So there's a there's a number, and

(01:13:07):
you're looking at like it says like you know in surgery,
pre opp post up whatever, you because the status of
what's happening, And every time the screen flips, I'm sitting
there looking And so when we when we we went
into surgery, Clark's like, let's go for a walk. I'm like, okay.
So we're going for a walk with the stroller around
the block and I'm like, we're not really talking because
I'm like, babe, I can't do this, Like can we
just go sit there and just go sit in the thing.
He's like, okay, now, I know, I know he's trying

(01:13:28):
to be helpful. Now this is the other thing. This
is why my husband is fucking amazing. I am a dramatic,
like I will freak out about everything. He is so calm.
It drives me insane, So like there's but in a
situation like this, this is what you need because you
need balance, you know what I mean. When I'm freaking
out about something, He's just like this entire Luca thing. Guys,
I think I would have lost my mind had it

(01:13:49):
not been for Clark. Like, Clark was incredible. He's an
incredible father, he's an incredible husband. But he really helped
chill me out, except for during the surgery. So someone
tell you a little story. He was trying, but this was
not the time. There's always a time. Sometimes he fails
to read the room, you know what I'm saying. So
we're in We're in the waiting room, and there's other
parents in the waiting room because there's other kids in surgery,

(01:14:09):
and it's a grim place to be. Everybody's like, you know,
fucking worried, staring at the screen right like your your
kid's under the knife. Everyone's kids under the knife. And
Clark's sitting there right on his phone and I'm staring
at the screen. He's on his phone and he's just
sitting there scrolling on the phone. And every now and
then I hear like him giggle, and I'm like, what
are you doing and he goes, what do you mean?

(01:14:30):
I go, what are you doing? You're not worried? And
he goes, you know, babe, I try to like worry
about any I'm not going to worry about something unless
there's something to worry about. I went, well, look at
fucking you, a human of the fucking year who says
that also our son is getting his kidney removed. I'd say,
now's the time to be concerned. What are you waiting for?
You know what I mean? At what point? So I
was like, okay, let me chill out.

Speaker 1 (01:14:50):
What was he giggling? I just have to ask fucking
Instagram reels.

Speaker 2 (01:14:53):
This is the only thing this guy does. So now
I'm like, I'm trying to be distracted. I'm texting my friends.
I'm like, okay, let me just I'm looking at the screen.
And I had this thing, this caring Bridge website that
I made to help update people. Because you have to understand,
it was very difficult for me to like copy and
paste updates to everybody every family text change. So I
created a carrying bridge website with caring Bridge is something

(01:15:14):
that is for this where you update people on how
someone's doing, and then it blasts out to everyone they
can check in with this website, right, And I had
to make all those calls. On Monday, I had to
call my mom. I had to ask my sister to
go sit with her because I thought my mom was
going to pass out when I called her. Clark asked
me to call his own mother because he didn't think
he could make the call. I was like, absolutely, so
I did all that. And so when he was in

(01:15:35):
surgery and he's looking at these things, I'm getting notifications
on Instagram from my husband. Oh, and I'm looking I'm like,
what is this. I open it up and he's sending
me these reels and I said, I looked at him
and I said, babe, hey, listen, listen, look at me.
And he's like, comes out of the phone and I go,
if you send me one more fucking reel, I'm going
to block you on social media. I don't even know
what you're doing right now. Do not send me that shit.

(01:15:56):
I'm not in the right headspace for it. And he
laughs at me because that's what I said. I was
not in the laughing mood. So that was like our
experience in the waiting room, you know. Thank god, Luca
was totally fine. He got all of the blood that
he needed back. He had more blood transfusions than I
can count. And just as a little thing, guys, when
CHLA runs out of blood in their blood bank, they
have to buy it from the American Red Cross. So

(01:16:19):
if you're a person who donates blood, do it at
CHLA directly because they can keep it for those kids,
and one donation from an adult saves two children. Luca
had more blood transfusions than I can actually tell you
right now. I have no idea how many there were.
It was so much. Every single time, every week after treatment,
you'd go get your numbers checked. Every single time he

(01:16:40):
needed blood.

Speaker 1 (01:16:40):
Holy crap.

Speaker 2 (01:16:42):
When he had surgery, he lost all of his blood volume,
so he needed a couple of backs.

Speaker 1 (01:16:46):
Crazy.

Speaker 2 (01:16:46):
Yeah, So I always tell people I didn't know that.
I didn't know that they have to buy it from
the American Red Cross when they run out. So if
you're there and there are people who like to donate,
go to CCHLA and donate.

Speaker 1 (01:16:55):
Because that's a great, great tip. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:16:58):
Yeah, so anyway, we are, you know officially now a
year out. May was a year out of his treatment
and him ringing the bell and being cancer free. We
go every three months for a bone scan, every six
months for an MRI of his brain uh, and every
three months for a CT scan of his abdomen to

(01:17:19):
make sure that he is continuing to be healthy. He
is so healthy now, I would say, I mean he
he's got all kinds of He loves cars. He will
spend literally two hours at a time if I let
him running around the driveway, opening the car door, growing
inside the car, looking at the car.

Speaker 1 (01:17:40):
The car, where's the car thing come from?

Speaker 2 (01:17:41):
He just don't know my dad, my dad was a
car like he loved car. I don't know. But he
never met my dad. I don't know. He loves cars.
Even if you give him a toy car truck, he'll
turn it upside down, look at the wheels, spin the
wheels like the little metal hansle thing like. He loves
the how things work. So he loves going out of
the car. Recently it's become a naked activity. He pulls
all of his call off. The other day, it was
in the driveway he's like tugging on himself, staring at

(01:18:03):
the cement, and like the neighbor's like, that's so cute
and I'm like, if this was a grown man, you'd
call the police immediately. What do you mean? Like, I
don't know, and I guess the little boys do this,
but like all normal stuff, right, I try to go like, Okay,
these are normal things. It's normal for a boy to
do that. It's normal for a boy to be a
picky eater, that's a toddler, and not relate it to
be something Oh my god, what's wrong? You know what
I mean. It's taken me a bit to do that,

(01:18:24):
but he's doing so wonderful. I do all I can
to help Chla. It is how I met Ryan and
Ellen and Darlene and Mike here at the Allen k
Morning Show on Coast one three point five. They welcomed
us in to tell Luca's success story and give hope
on Giving Tuesday last year. It was a beautiful moment
for me to be able to share this story. I'm

(01:18:46):
sharing the story again in November at a luncheon that
a group of patient moms is holding And any way
I can do that, I just love to do that
because it is a beautiful story. He was on Fox News.
We shared this story again. Just a said a hopeful,
nice piece of good news, you know, And so I'm
extremely grateful to everybody at the hospital, to you guys

(01:19:06):
for like, you know, sharing, sharing that story with everyone,
and that's kind of where we are now.

Speaker 1 (01:19:11):
Well, it's an amazing story. And I do want to
point out that at one point during this recording, our
friend Jen Lammers, who's an anchor at Fox eleven face timed.

Speaker 2 (01:19:21):
Me, Yeah, we had to pause for a second.

Speaker 1 (01:19:23):
Yeah, and you know, Jen, Jen's the one who.

Speaker 2 (01:19:27):
Did the She's fantastic. You know. It's funny. When we
met at the hospital. She her she has a son
the same age as Luca, and his name is Ethan,
and she was like, oh my god, we almost named
Ethan Luca. And so we had this kind of immediate thing,
like we just got along really well. And she's she's wonderful.
She laughed very hard at the joke I told about.
I tried to bring again humor at the hospital, Like

(01:19:48):
you know, every four hours they come and check in
when you're spending the night. Sorry, Ryan, I know you
want to finish that thought, but I just have to
say this. The nurses would come in and be, like
they always say when they leave you you need anything,
and I would go. Finally, I was like, yeah, if
you could get me like a right size kidney and
a two T that'd be great, you know what I mean.
And then they started laughing. I was like, I need
to bring some levity to do this, so you have.
When Olivia saw Luca bald for the first time, she
started crying and I was like, why are you upside?

(01:20:09):
Excuse he has no hair And I was like, you know,
cry for dad. His is not going to grow back
like Luca, you know, and then she's like laugh cry
was very uncomfortable, like yeah, oh okay, we have a
funny mom Like it was this ugly, weird cry, but
like I try to just bring We just needed to
do that. We needed to do that in my house.
We talked about it. We told her what was going on,
and we you know, I try to make everything, yeah
funny anyway, but Jen, Jen did FaceTime.

Speaker 1 (01:20:29):
Let's go ahead, Yeah, Jen facetimed and let Jay know
that the story they did on her and on Luca
and your family and his incredible survival and the whole
thing earned them a nomination, an Emmy nomination. Yeah, you
just found that out during the during the middle of

(01:20:49):
this episode.

Speaker 2 (01:20:50):
It was crazy because I was like, she's calling with
this and we're literally about to tell this story, so
that insane, the timing insane.

Speaker 1 (01:20:59):
I know, so pretty awesome. Yeah, it's it's uh, I
don't know, man, I think sometimes I don't know how
everyone feels about this, but sometimes I feel like, and
it's probably it's so easy for me to say, but like,
look at all the good things that have come to you.

Speaker 2 (01:21:18):
Through persevere and weird. I'd say, I think about this
every day, right yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:21:23):
And I'm not talking about like this or that or whatever.
I'm just saying, like, the people that have now come
into your life, Oh my god, the places you've gone in,
the stories you've heard and shared and like.

Speaker 2 (01:21:32):
And Ryan that the people that have banded together to
That's what I'm saying, Like friends that you don't realize
you have, right, Like it's.

Speaker 1 (01:21:40):
A level of good that you probably wasn't even on
your radar.

Speaker 2 (01:21:43):
No, no, and I will tell you it is. And
this is going to also sound a little odd, but
like an incredibly beautiful thing that gives you so much
hope and humanity and mankind when something like this happens
and you see what people are willing to do and
give and the amount of help and it's just unbelievable.
It's overwhelming. And that was almost more emotional for me

(01:22:06):
than what was happening, because I was like, I'm so
used to be the one that helps everybody else. To
see these people give it back to us was like hard,
you know, Like I was like, this is a weird flow,
like it's usually the other way, right, and so I mean,
but that's the thing, like we didn't know how this
story would end, and you know, but here we are
and Luca's thriving and Livy is doing great, and you know,
every moment just feels like a fucking bonus round. It's

(01:22:27):
just unbelievable.

Speaker 1 (01:22:28):
I will say, Jay, honestly, watching you walk through that
and still show up like you were saying, with the
humor and the heart, I think that's that's truly at
the heart who you are. It's been nothing short of inspiring.
I don't want to cry because if we did make
a bet that i'd be the first one to cry,
and I was earlier, but you weren't looking up at.

Speaker 2 (01:22:43):
Me, so I wouldn't didn't count the story.

Speaker 1 (01:22:45):
But I know, I do know, Jay, that there's a
parent or a family member or someone listening to this
right now that needed to hear your story.

Speaker 2 (01:22:53):
Yeah, and if you are that parent, we see you.
You're not alone. And even when it feels impossibly dark,
the light does come back on. It does, It really does.
And I never thought I would say.

Speaker 1 (01:23:03):
That, And you know, when it does in your case,
at least it looks like a naked kid happily running
around cars and tugging on his packer in the driveway.

Speaker 2 (01:23:12):
For hours, or yelling at me because I made him
put his clothes on and told him no, he's not
allowed to drive the car at three, you know, because
jail right.

Speaker 1 (01:23:19):
Okay, good, Thank you guys for hanging with us. If
today's episode lifted you up in any way or just
made you know, made you laugh, or made you feel seen,
and send it to somebody you know who who you
know might need it.

Speaker 2 (01:23:31):
Yeah, And if you're walking through something heavy, just know
that joy still has a seat at your table. Honestly,
it's it's it will get better. I'm glad you're here, Yeah,
we really are. We'll see you next time. Until then,
say it anyway,

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Episode 3 | Laugh Lines & Family Ties

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