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[0:00] Jack Lepiarz: I'm Jack Lepiarz here on Ale and Well Met. In the forecast currently 18 degrees in Hell's Kitchen, New York. Temperatures dropping down to the single digits overnight low of about 8 degrees. Tomorrow mostly sunny skies, winds out of the northwest. We'll see temperatures again only about 19 degrees. Wednesday mostly sunny skies about 20 degrees and then we'll start to warm up on Thursday, Friday and of course for the weekend. But still got to be pretty cold out there. Temperatures 28, 29, 30 Thursday through Saturday. And of course if you're like me and you're heading back to Boston where you normally reside, it's going to ducking suck where it's going to be in the single digits pretty much none. Wait, hang on. How is it warmer in Boston on Thursday? Never mind. Everything's fine. Suck it New Yorkers. This is Ale and Well Met.

[0:56] Alex Stompoly: Hey, welcome back adventurers. It is, as you heard at the top, Ale and Well Met. It's me, Alex. I'm here with...

[1:20] Jack Lepiarz: I'm Jack Lepillard. Yeah, baby. A.K.A. Jacques the Whipper, A.K.A. Jack the Whipper, A.K.A. that guy that sings and cracks whips on TikTok. Oh, yeah. And Stomp's here. Hi, Stomp.

[1:31] Alex Stompoly: Hey, everybody. I am none of those things, but I'm thrilled to be here.

[1:35] Jack Lepiarz: I bet you've cracked a whip.

[1:42] Alex Stompoly: Not in a being paid. Well, maybe in a paid for scenario. I don't know. I'll never tell.

[1:48] Jack Lepiarz: Not for free anyway. That's behind a paywall.

[1:53] Alex Stompoly: Hell yeah. Well, it's a chill one, y'all. We've been doing a bunch of goofy crap and we just got... Jack's here. We're going to hang out, chat about your run of the show. And I think if you might stop in, I think Conner might stop in. Who knows? Who knows? We're just backstage hanging out.

[2:03] Jack Lepiarz: I like that this episode has like a Mr. Rogers theme. Like, who's going to be our neighbor today? Like, we'll start the chat. The front door will just open. Someone will come in and sit a little bit.

[2:11] Alex Stompoly: I need to put my cardigan on then if we're going to do this. I need to put my indoor shoes on and we'll need puppets.

[2:16] Jack Lepiarz: Yeah, man. How's your time at the tavern been? Let's start there.

[2:21] Jack Lepiarz: This has been so much fun. It's, you know, because I'd worked with Stomp on Nat 21, a D&D live play on Twitch. And I remember at that time, like, you know, as someone who's done enough improv in my life that I recognize some of the rules of like, you're playing volleyball, not hacky sack. You're trying to set up other people. I noticed a lot of the time that I was like, Stomp is like setting me up for jokes. Like, he's setting it up so that I can just like slam it down and get the laugh. And no one notices that except for like me and the DM.

[3:00] Alex Stompoly: Absolutely. And I thanked him for that. I was like, you are so fast. You're so tight. And like, it's been so much fun to come here where like everyone has that skill. And it's not always the case on the Renaissance Fair.

[3:11] Jack Lepiarz: And so it has been so much fun to play.

[3:11] Alex Stompoly: It's definitely not always the case doing improv either. Improv is hard, man.

[3:17] Jack Lepiarz: It is hard, but also like you run into, you know, anywhere ever. You're like, oh, can I, am I going to get to, no, this is your scene.

[3:22] Alex Stompoly: Yep. Yep. Oh gosh. Absolutely. Yeah. To Jack's credit, it's, it's, it's really lovely to be in an environment where everyone has that mentality in the forefront of their mind, just because on the circuit or at different fairs, everyone politely can be a little bit self-centered on their own act and forget the, the bigger picture at hand, or just to be like a nice second support in passing. So yeah. Kudos to us here.

[3:46] Jack Lepiarz: Well, on your show, right? Your show that you do is you, right? I mean, it's you on stage doing a thing.

[3:52] Alex Stompoly: I have one show that I do combined with either Cesc Carney or Paolo Garbanzo, who is the DM on Nat 21 with, with Stomp and Me. But those are like end of the day designed to be dumb shows. The goal is like, we don't have a script. We go out there like, we're like, okay, here are the tricks we're going to do. We might have one or two jokes that we know, you know, we're going to set up for each other, but otherwise like how we get there is very, very fluid.

[4:16] Jack Lepiarz: Oh, you just described the tavern.

[4:16] Alex Stompoly: Yeah. I mean, really? I mean, absolutely. Right. Yeah. We're just, we know where we're headed and like, we don't know. We don't know how we're going to get there, but we know this is going to happen.

[4:23] Jack Lepiarz: Yeah. We, well, yeah, we're know what we're going to try to do.

[4:28] Alex Stompoly: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, I like, okay. So how much theater experience do you like?

[4:35] Jack Lepiarz: Like zero after high school.

[4:39] Alex Stompoly: Wow. So that was, I think that was the thing I was most nervous about coming into this, which is high school. You know, I did musical theater. I did the, you know, the fall drama, the spring musical, all that stuff. I hop and piss everybody off after opening night.

[4:49] Jack Lepiarz: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The, the, but like, and I had done improv class. I did a lot of improv classes. Actually, when I was a kid, I actually snuck into the college in my hometown. They had an improv club that met like every, everything was every Wednesday night. And I just snuck in as a senior in high school. And I was like, yeah, I'll just lie and say that I go to this college.

[5:06] Alex Stompoly: Good for you.

[5:11] Jack Lepiarz: Wait, just, you just showed up. Uh, I knew someone who was there. Like what's your name in the breakfast club? You were just there.

[5:17] Jack Lepiarz: Yeah. So I knew someone who was in it and he was like, I can sneak you in. Uh, and I was like, well, I'm going to keep going. This is a lot of fun. So he was the only one who knew initially. And then it took him about like, I want to say six weeks to figure it out. Um, cause I also told them that my major was something that the college did not have a major in.

[5:35] Alex Stompoly: You improvised your way into being found.

[5:43] Jack Lepiarz: I know. Yeah. Um, I'm majoring in. And at that point they were like, you can, you can keep coming, but you can't be in any of our shows. And I was like, this, this feels eminently fair.

[5:52] Alex Stompoly: Yeah, that's reasonable. Um, so I got like, I had plenty improv chops, but like it had been a while since I'd done dedicated improv with other professionals. Um, and, and, and like, you can say like, what defines a professional in improv, but like, what does define it? You, you, you exercise those muscles enough. You get good at it and you get used to working with people and you get used to people, you know, setting each other up. Um, not trying to hog a scene, like the simple act of yes, ending like sometimes I forget about it, you know, the best shit also happens in this show when somebody just grabs the fucking wheel and just like, it's like, I'm taking this bus towards that cliff and you, somebody better do something about it.

[6:37] Alex Stompoly: Uh, usually you, yeah.

[6:41] Jack Lepiarz: Well, yeah, I think that's my, that's when no butt comes into play.

[6:44] Alex Stompoly: Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I want Corinne off the cliff, but let's go Thelma.

[6:50] Jack Lepiarz: No, I would say you're the one who usually is like, let me pull the emergency brake.

[6:56] Alex Stompoly: Oh yeah. Well, and a lot of that too, that that's a, that's an outside force as well, you know, as, cause that's, that's really the intriguing part about sitting behind the bar and you know this, you know this really well on the TK. I mean, maybe DMs feel a little bit more enticed to play, but that like, what I mean by that is like, really like live in the world and I have to have like a foot outside to do that corralling in a very like weird editor, but playing along.

[7:09] Jack Lepiarz: Yeah. You can jump into a scene if you, if it's there or if you can back up or be like a set piece or whatever and we're like, yeah, I'll put on a wig and get weird, but like, yeah, as a DM, it's so much easier to get straight up lost. Like we've a couple of times, we were just talking before we started recording about a good show the other day where like we were into a bit and it was hilarious and we were all having fun and I could see your hand going, man.

[7:31] Alex Stompoly: Do you know, I had to change that for some of the DMs. They don't like it. Some of them don't like the finger.

[7:42] Jack Lepiarz: I won't, I enjoy the fingering.

[7:48] Alex Stompoly: Well, so you know, it's, I guess it's a podcast. It's nice and twirly, but I do like a little like, I do like a little twirly. It was a lot at first, but I've gotten used to it.

[7:56] Jack Lepiarz: I know. Well, so that's the thing is that there is a DM and I'm not going to say names, but there is a DM who has politely asked that I not do that because to them it is registering that I am annoyed and that this has been going on too long. And I said, okay, great. So now I have to write little notes that say we must speed up. Thanks management. And I slide it across.

[8:16] Alex Stompoly: I was wondering what you were writing. Cause I've caught you writing notes. A lot of times it is like, we must speed up. Thank you management. And then also I get, I get communication like when we have to be out of combat or like if we need to finesse something, maybe skip over a section. That's usually what I'm writing on their sheet. Sometimes it's a joke that he didn't manage to get out out loud. And so he just writes a joke down and slides it over to me. And it's usually at one of the player's expense. And, and while y'all are improving, we're back. You can't keep those things in. It'll back up on you. That's not fun.

[8:51] Jack Lepiarz: No, it's not good. Oh man. All right. Well, you got favorite, a favorite dude that you were.

[8:59] Alex Stompoly: Yeah. Um, so, uh, Wondro is definitely very bottom for me. Um, I just, Wondro is very much a bottom. I think I never vibed with him. I never was able to figure out like, just like find a character that I enjoyed playing with him. Um, I really liked Barry at the start. I think I thought, felt like Barry was the easiest for me to get into just because he's so manic and by making him basically Danny DeVito from always sunny in Philadelphia. I was like, all right, the comedy is there.

[9:27] Jack Lepiarz: Um, it's a pretty well defined character too, right? Like he's pretty right down the middle. It's like your, your mega mind or whoever picked one, your evil mastermind grew ass.

[9:31] Alex Stompoly: Yeah. Um, and then Tamburlaine, I feel like took me two or three shows before I found the line of him being a petulant child without being fully unlikable. Um, cause there were a couple of times, like we were talking about seducing and I was like, I'm so bad at like actually having game without it coming across as harassment. Like, I think I, I started flirting. It was either with Maddie or with Cassidy, but it was one of the female DMS. And like, I did a line and like, I think if he was like, yeah, that's how you flirt. I was like, is that flirting or is that just harassment?

[10:11] Jack Lepiarz: I really do like when Tamburlaine has absolutely no game whatsoever. I think that that is absolutely fantastic. And also to your point too, I think that the nice thing about Barry and Tamburlaine and you said it Marie, they're very like obvious routes to go that it's nice. Cause again, improv, like when you're given, when you're giving no boundary, it's very like taxing and it's really hard to navigate when you're given a little bit more, so much more creative freedom, ironically.

[10:37] Alex Stompoly: And I think that's one of the things about Wondro is it's not quite hat on a hat on a hat, but that duality of like, there's the character that they've immediately been introduced to, but that character has something that we'll never see that like, and how much of that backstory do you really have to know? And how much do you really want to give in two and a half hours where it's not where it's superfluous because we're meeting him in this moment. And so how much do you play without confusing an audience? And then, and then is it really, is it really consequential to where we're going? Cause really it's the dynamic of the three on stage.

[11:06] Jack Lepiarz: We've mucked around with some like long form, like audio styles of the show and like doing the, and like maybe we'll bring it back. Maybe we'll do like a, like small short campaign or something. And that's where I think he'd be really fun. Right? Like he could really dive into like, why the hell, why he's got the, we can do flashbacks and like, you know, his dad being like, you'll never be a wizard or whatever the hell.

[11:29] Alex Stompoly: But I was thinking about it. I was like, why, why would you do an arcane trickster as a rogue? And I was like, Oh, because that's the only way that you, the rogue actually has enough cards, like different things they can do.

[11:38] Jack Lepiarz: Yeah. You hit it. You hit it on the head of that one. We have one character who has just seven total and only five are before they level up.

[11:49] Alex Stompoly: Yeah. And so it is. Is that Katya?

[11:54] Jack Lepiarz: It's Katya. Yeah. And it's, it's hard. It's really hard. Especially too, with the, with the current, you know, game design, we keep a little pullback for that level up, but that pullback is like uncanny dodge, which maybe in theory you should have much sooner, but then like, what do we give you?

[12:04] Alex Stompoly: Yeah. I talk about like, like color inside the lines though. There's some warrior stuff. And if we get our warrior, we can ask because he's good. If he's good at it, like doing just weird ass crap, because it's the same deal with all the warriors. It's like, well, I can punch them or I can do another thing. It's like, I could stab or you got to make some crap up and like, yeah, you get the, uh, Maddie's gotten really good. Cause I think she's the only one who plays Katya as of right now.

[12:30] Jack Lepiarz: Yeah. As of right now. Yeah. Yeah. Wild. Uh, yeah. About like going like, all right, let me just use all these skills, man. Let me just do a, this check, slight of hand check.

[12:42] Alex Stompoly: Well, she was just, she, she, she managed to shove stealth in all over the place. No, I'm sneaking up on you. I tried to do that in last night's show. Um, where I was going to do the like peekaboo baby. Like where did I go? Where are you going? I was going to make Connor. Let me roll stealth. Uh, but Jasmine, slight of me hand check, but Jasmine hit the, like, I forget what she said. It was a little like calming the wizard, you know, first check.

[13:10] Jack Lepiarz: Oh, is it hand stuff? I think. Yeah. Jasmine was like, I can do some hand stuff. And I was like, well, my talk to him like a baby is not persuading into a massage, which was the sticking point in that moment where he was like, okay, remember this is not the massage that you're successful. It's the persuasion into the massage.

[13:27] Alex Stompoly: Oh yeah, I heard that. Yeah. It was very, the actual massage was not great. It was chaotic. No RJ hit him with the bludgeoning, uh, sound effects and jazz just leaned into it. So I got more aggressive as the effects came into play, which I thought was fun.

[13:42] Jack Lepiarz: Oh man. Yeah. You've gotten to go with y'all. I've gotten a whole lot of like new people in places all over the place. I got Maddie's second night as a DM RJ's first, uh, as TK, I had, they both knocked it out of the park. Um, I was, I was very impressed. I think, uh, uh, if he was, you know, on his second week when I showed up, yeah. Um, I think you guys also got me and Cassidy, which is rare. Cass is a DM as a TK and me as a DM. Yeah. That's a rare combo. I think you managed to actually come.

[14:12] Jack Lepiarz: The only player I don't think you've gotten to share the stage with, and I say like now, cross fingers for the future, was Diego. Yeah, Diego was the only one. But I got to rehearse, he was my first rehearsal. So you really have been able to play with the whole game.

[14:23] Alex Stompoly: Yeah, yeah, that's great. Yeah, my first four shows it was a different DM each show. That was kind of fun because it was a different style every night.

[14:28] Jack Lepiarz: Yeah, yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah, you did just get like dunked in every flavor.

[14:32] Alex Stompoly: Yeah.

[14:38] Jack Lepiarz: Oh, man. Yeah. And they're, they are different. We are different. Everybody is different. Everyone's got different styles. Everyone's got different vibes. But good stuff.

[14:48] Alex Stompoly: Yeah.

[14:54] Jack Lepiarz: I don't know. What else? You want to do it more?

[14:56] Alex Stompoly: Oh, yeah, absolutely. It's for me, it's like I've been doing a Jacques Whipper since I was 20 years old. So 16 years now.

[15:04] Jack Lepiarz: That's so long.

[15:05] Alex Stompoly: Yeah. And, and the show has changed. Like there are different, there are different jokes, but I've been playing that character now for 16 years. So any opportunity I have to not be Jacques Whipper and be like Jack Lepiarz in any situation.

[15:13] Jack Lepiarz: Who can whip. It's wonderful.

[15:19] Alex Stompoly: I wanted to actually ask you about that because I have a bit of that, not for as long a tenure, but that same duality with drag. Lilith is a very big part of me. And for a while, that's all anyone knew. The last, you know, three years of performing before I came here and wanted to come back out, that was really it. And so trying to find that, letting that entity that kind of takes on a life of its own really, because Lilith can, could book well more than Alex could potentially, or, you know, so what is, what's that kind of been like as you've been, are you looking to bring more Jack to the forefront and share the space with Jacques or what's that?

[15:56] Jack Lepiarz: The, the, I think the evolution since 2021, so October, 2021 is when this happened. And then like fall of 2022, when I did, you know, finally did another round of performing and realized that like, oh, okay. My crowd, my shows are much more attended now than they were a year ago. The only tipping point. I realized I didn't need to lean as heavily on the Jacques character and the Frenchness. And there was a reviewer who came to one of my shows in Jersey last year. And she commented, she said, you know, it's interesting to see there's less Jacques in each show because he doesn't need to introduce himself to the audience. And so it allows the show to be more Jack the whipper as opposed to Jacques the whipper, bonjour, I am French, but yes, we are going to do many French things for you here today, you know.

So I don't need to lean as hard on the Frenchness, but it's still there. It's still part of the character, but I get to do more things. I get to, you know, at this point, the French accent is not a huge part of the character anymore. Like it's still slightly there. I say, I'll come out like, all right, ladies and gentlemen, if you'd like to see the whip show, let me hear you say oui oui. Like there's a light French accent there, but it's not a thick one like it used to be.

[17:14] Alex Stompoly: It was the same journey, the longer Lilith existed. And you were, anyone listening, Jack did a very perfect hawking of a Ren Faire show at the very beginning. All of us have that like 15 second, I got to explain it for everyone who's just now walked by our stage for the first time, or they're walking by my, and I'd like to trap you. You have that like in your back pocket.

[17:28] Jack Lepiarz: Mouthful of turkey leg.

[17:30] Alex Stompoly: Truth, and the longer you do it, and the more, what's the, of a presence you become, the less that, you don't have to have that whole lead up and hook. And so after a while, Lilith was just running around going, come see the show. And like that voice alone could bring you in. You got to drop a lot of the nonsense. So yeah, that's so interesting.

[17:49] Jack Lepiarz: What's also really interesting is the musical whipping, which is what I'm most famous for. Yes. That was the pre-show. That was the crowd gathering part of the show. That's all that was there because it was loud. It engaged the audience and it was unscripted, so it could be as long or as short as it needed to be until I got enough people there to start my show.

[18:07] Alex Stompoly: That's great. Yeah. Is it still that? Or has it become part of that?

[18:15] Jack Lepiarz: Now it's worked into that. I mean, I still got to do it.

[18:19] Alex Stompoly: Yeah, sure. Well, I mean, the second you picked up a fucking whip, because we did work in, if you didn't get to come see him, we did have whips on the stage, and the gimmick was for a couple re-rolls. Strength, dexterity, charisma, but we've only had charisma re-rolls.

[18:31] Jack Lepiarz: Yeah, which we worked, the first one we worked at in real time, the audience almost got pissed at us after three really loud calls for re-rolls.

[18:41] Alex Stompoly: No, that was with Cass. You weren't on stage for the first one.

[18:45] Jack Lepiarz: No, I got the second one. You were the second one. You started doing another thing. I didn't have the audience participate in it. If you want to go back and watch the tape, Jack's the only one who actually does something for the re-roll. The audience just got to sit and watch because it was teaching you how to whip. You got into it and said, I'm done. He taught Ify on the first one, but it was literally like we were like a dog that caught the car. I was like, we're going to get the whip out tonight. We're going to do it. So there were like three calls for re-rolls and they weren't, they were like intelligence or whatever. Wisdom.

[19:09] Alex Stompoly: No, fuck that. No, we're going to get a good one. Jack's rolling like shit. We're going to get a good one. We're going to get the whip out. And we got the whip out and then realized we were like, okay, what do we do? And this in real time, you were like, what if I teach Ify? And we're like, yup, you'll get three chances.

[19:30] Jack Lepiarz: Oh, that was already my plan for any charisma save.

[19:31] Alex Stompoly: But it was also like the stage manager didn't know what you were going to do. They knew it was there, but they were like, and Cassidy was like, what are we doing? We need that level of, we need that level of fear in the show.

[19:40] Jack Lepiarz: It should always be that level of fear.

[19:44] Alex Stompoly: Oh my God. You were teaching Connor how to do whipping tricks before the show.

[19:50] Jack Lepiarz: I was standing here like, I swear I have my slippers on. I was ready to come back here and watch a movie. And I was like, if I have to put on a purple shirt, I'm going to be really pissed. If you whip your eye out before the show.

[19:59] Alex Stompoly: Nah, he was doing fine.

[20:04] Jack Lepiarz: Yeah, he was on it. He was actually starting to get what I consider to be the most complicated whip crack, which is the, it's the reverse Cattleman's crack. So if you think about like, just crack, I'm explaining it.

[20:12] Alex Stompoly: We're getting there.

[20:17] Jack Lepiarz: I like how you pointed to me and just called me a reverse Cattleman's crack. So a Cattleman's crack, I call it the front crack because it explains what it's doing is you're just cracking the whip straight out in front of you. And then the reverse Cattleman's crack is you just do that in reverse. So it cracks behind you, but your brain cannot compute that.

[20:37] Alex Stompoly: Interesting.

[20:38] Jack Lepiarz: It's like you can have the front crack down like no one's business. And then I tell you, okay, do the same thing in reverse. Your brain cannot make it work.

[20:47] Alex Stompoly: Nah, it's because you can't see it. You can't see it.

[20:50] Jack Lepiarz: You can't see where you're pointing because you were talking to me. Like a lot of it is like you're throwing energy. I was like the other day, I was like, how the fuck do you aim a whip? And you were like, same way you aim anything else. You look at something and you look at it. The same way that pitchers can hit the same spot in baseball over and over and over again.

[21:05] Alex Stompoly: That's 90 mile an hour fastball.

[21:06] Jack Lepiarz: I played lacrosse forever. I was a defenseman and I had a six foot long pole that I could, but yeah, I could put up a lacrosse ball wherever the hell I wanted.

[21:17] Alex Stompoly: I've never heard the baseball analogy, but that makes sense. I was a pitcher when I played.

[21:21] Jack Lepiarz: Yeah.

[21:22] Alex Stompoly: I was like, you don't look at me like that. I could again, if I wanted to Murray.

[21:28] Jack Lepiarz: I'd like to share with you the funniest baseball, but not actually baseball. So your listeners will actually appreciate that story. So I still play in a men's league, a 28 and older men's league. And the 28 and older is awkward because you get a lot of people who haven't played since high school, which means they've gotten really rusty. I hurt myself playing one of these things. And so you're always kind of struggling to find good quality players. And there was one year where the captain of my team was like, we may not have enough people for a team. So I was like, you know what, fuck it. And I just went on Craigslist and I put an ad on Craigslist where I said, we need players for our baseball team, especially pitchers and catchers.

[22:10] Alex Stompoly: Are you kidding? That is just such a coded message. You know where this is going.

[22:17] Jack Lepiarz: And it did not show it up with buckets.

[22:18] Alex Stompoly: Oh no, no, no. My, my, my email inbox was just pictures of men showing me their anus for like a week. I just really am tired of other people living out my dreams.

[22:25] Jack Lepiarz: Um, Oh, that's so funny. That's so funny. And like, and I should have known better. This was like 2018, 2019, like I was not, I was not a child.

[22:33] Alex Stompoly: No, but I also think at that point, Craigslist should have known better.

[22:39] Jack Lepiarz: Cause this is as someone who like, when I was younger, that was like the thing we had that like misconnections, that whole thing had been, that was gone on. So these are people digging through like legit parts of sports forum.

[22:54] Alex Stompoly: No, you were, you were in the right. There's a lot of us who were in the wrong.

[22:57] Jack Lepiarz: I just like, yeah, that's somebody really sneaking through. That's just a whole bunch of people that want an excuse to send people pictures of their anus.

[23:06] Alex Stompoly: I mean, probably.

[23:10] Jack Lepiarz: I mean, manners, you know, they do matter.

[23:12] Alex Stompoly: No, no, no, no. They really do look at me like you're not demure.

[23:17] Jack Lepiarz: I just can't be flying your anus like a pride flag.

[23:23] Alex Stompoly: No, not at full mass.

[23:30] Jack Lepiarz: Situation. Anyway, the first time you picked up a whip on stage, somebody immediately called out.

[23:35] Alex Stompoly: Somebody just started yelling requests.

[23:39] Jack Lepiarz: Oh, did they really? Yeah, it was really funny. Like you picked one up and somebody was just like, do sweet child of mine or something like that. And uh, yeah, that's like, that's clearly ingrained.

[23:49] Alex Stompoly: Um, as now as a bunch of men's anuses, your mind, it's, you know, sometimes, sometimes that's what's in my mind.

[23:56] Jack Lepiarz: Yeah. Come on in. Come on in.

[24:02] Conner Marx: Oh, he's perfect. This is glorious. Have a seat.

[24:09] Jack Lepiarz: We prepared that at the joy. Would you like to be my neighbor? Thank you for the interruption.

[24:14] Conner Marx: Yeah, absolutely. And yes, I would love to be your neighbor.

[24:20] Jack Lepiarz: Oh yeah. We're saying, yeah, pull the microphone up. Get up. How are you buddy?

[24:25] Conner Marx: I'm doing quite well. I'm, I'm, you know, misty about your departure.

[24:30] Jack Lepiarz: Yeah. Simultaneously optimistic that it won't be the last time we share this particular stage together.

[24:35] Conner Marx: I think, I think I'll be back at some point. I hope to be back.

[24:42] Jack Lepiarz: I like that.

[24:43] Conner Marx: We're a hundred percent on that so far that like everybody who's come has been like, okay, when do I get to come back? It's so much fucking fun.

[24:50] Jack Lepiarz: I tell you what quitting smoking means like my sinuses are just all over the place and like, man, the sneezing is just nonstop.

[24:56] Conner Marx: In a, in a, this is a strange, potentially uncomfortable road ultimately to improvement, like they're clearing up.

[25:00] Jack Lepiarz: Yeah.

[25:01] Conner Marx: So it's, it's like, it's, you know, all the tar that's been in my lungs for 16 years that I've been a smoker, um, is slowly working its way out and like my sinuses are getting back to normal, but that there's still a lot of extra, extra gunk and junk in there.

[25:12] Jack Lepiarz: Started smoking at the same time as being Jack the Whipper.

[25:17] Conner Marx: Oh, that was literally on my way home from my first day of Jack the Whipper. I think I'll try a cigarette.

[25:22] Jack Lepiarz: No, I had had cigarettes at like personality.

[25:27] Conner Marx: Yeah.

[25:28] Jack Lepiarz: Adopt just makes you start smoking. You said a baguette in one hand and a cigarette.

[25:32] Conner Marx: No. So I'm going to do this. I had smoked cigarettes at like parties and like here and there and like before radio shifts to like make my voice sound better. Um, but then I was driving home. Famously that's what cigarettes.

[25:37] Jack Lepiarz: Yeah, exactly. Um, and I was driving home from my first day of being Jack the Whipper and I had a pack of cigarettes in the car from like whatever party I had to, uh, and I was like, screw it. Let me, I'm going to have one. And I, the, I remember having this feeling of euphoria, which now informs me that it's like, oh, you were already addicted even then. That's because that's what that feeling was. Um, it was the end of withdrawal and I'm like, oh, I'm going to start doing this more often. And that was bad.

[26:10] Conner Marx: Exactly. That sucks. My first cigarette just made me throw up immediately.

[26:15] Jack Lepiarz: A lot of, um, that happens to a lot of people.

[26:21] Conner Marx: Really? No, but I, I was, I was never a consistent smoker.

[26:24] Jack Lepiarz: Alan Wilmette does not condone the smoking of cigarettes.

[26:28] Conner Marx: Yeah, don't do it. But I was, I was never a consistent one because I would never, I would never foot the bill. Like?

[26:33] Jack Lepiarz: Above all. It's expensive.

[26:34] Conner Marx: I'd be like 10, I'll just, I'll light the $5 bill on fire before I would buy them. So I was always like, I would bum at parties when I was in the fraternity and everything. And then when I moved to New York, I had a boss at one of the shows that I sold merch on who made her own. So it was much more accessible, but like, Ooh, I learned how to French inhale baby.

[26:45] Jack Lepiarz: What is that?

[26:46] Conner Marx: That's like when you release and then you can suck it up back through your nose. So the smoke just goes out of your mouth and then back up through your nostrils.

[26:50] Jack Lepiarz: So you could really sexy forever with one inhale.

[26:53] Conner Marx: Circular breathing.

[26:54] Jack Lepiarz: Like any G stand under like a floodlight, like right over you, like a mysterious badass. And then you can, it releases and goes back up and you can just see the, like a smoke waft up. Cause I don't condone it, but damn it. It's sexy to look at. Like, I'm sorry.

[27:10] Conner Marx: It's cool.

[27:11] Jack Lepiarz: Well, I'm sorry.

[27:19] Conner Marx: Thank God for the children.

[27:26] Jack Lepiarz: And I mean, no judgment on those who choose to smoke. I find it to be a major turnoff.

[27:32] Conner Marx: I think you're in the norm. I think for most people that is the case.

[27:34] Jack Lepiarz: So when I was single, uh, on like Tinder, uh, okay, Cupid and what was it? Bumble. Um, in all of my bios, I would put, I would be like, Hey, I'm a smoker. Like, just like, get it out. Like, cause it's a deal breaker for so many people. I was like, I don't want to waste your time or my time.

[27:45] Conner Marx: Um, so I think, I think you're in the norm and we're just a bunch of actors who smoke.

[27:55] Jack Lepiarz: Maybe no one will be able to unpack this for me, but what is the, is there then like a psychological or perceived difference to someone watching? Cause I know a lot of people who do not smoke cigarettes, but we'll smoke weed and we'll smoke in that direction. But no one, no one to at least my knowledge takes that aggressive, no smoker stance in that category. Not saying there should, I'm not saying that they're equal anyway, but I see a lot more of the door open for that than the cigarette of it all.

[28:24] Conner Marx: I'll tell you why, because one, if you're a regular cigarette smoker, you're probably smoking anywhere from 10 to 40 cigarettes a day, and you are going to smell like it at all times.

[28:35] Jack Lepiarz: Wow.

[28:36] Conner Marx: And nobody's smoking that many joints, not even fucking Snoop Dogg. Just think how many tacos I could get for that same amount of money. Let me actually, so I have my quitting smoking app right now.

[28:46] Jack Lepiarz: I'm so proud of you for this, by the way.

[28:47] Conner Marx: A lot of tacos. So I reset, I had a 22-hour relapse on December 22nd, but I started on November 29th. So we're at almost the two-month mark. In this time, I have saved, thank you, I have saved, I'm doing quick math here, about $600.

[29:05] Jack Lepiarz: Oh, yeah.

[29:06] Conner Marx: That's nice. Wow. You have that like...

[29:09] Jack Lepiarz: In a year, I will save $4,000.

[29:10] Conner Marx: And see, and that's really why, I mean, that's really what stopped me from quitting it up.

[29:13] Jack Lepiarz: That's a tax bracket.

[29:14] Conner Marx: Yes.

[29:15] Jack Lepiarz: Yeah.

[29:16] Conner Marx: Wow. Four, wow. And I think that maybe this is not also a universal experience of translating that to the opportunity loss cost of something. Like for me, I'm like, I could order takeout Chinese anytime I wanted and still not spend $4,000.

[29:31] Jack Lepiarz: No, no, no. I've been doing that lately because I stopped getting, I've stopped fast food and I've been, no, I've had no Taco Bell, I've had no fast food. I'm precariously close to two months as well. And in that time, though, I've sat there and I've gone quietly going, oh, every time I don't do this, I can go and get more clothes.

[29:47] Conner Marx: I've supplemented it.

[29:48] Jack Lepiarz: A slush fund that you're creating for yourself. I've supplemented it for something else. Yeah. I go, oh, no more like instant gratification of that. This sweater I can get. Instant gratification somewhere else. Something else. Yeah. But a nice, that's why the sweater is here. Hey man, I mean, live your life, chase your bliss.

[30:00] Conner Marx: Like for me, I love, I love buying a nice big old fat sack of weed and looking at it and being like, ooh, it smells good and it feels good. For those listening, Alex is also gesturing to what he's doing, the charades of big fat sack of weed right now with his arms over his head.

[30:21] Jack Lepiarz: He's making the O in H-O-T-T-O-G-L.

[30:24] Conner Marx: Yes, absolutely. That's a big old fat sack of weed. I don't know, man. And I honestly, I haven't in forever because I don't, because this podcast got weird, because I don't, because my wife has a very sensitive nose and like if I'm smoking, no kisses. And so that's, that's for me the like, all right. And like, I probably, that makes it really easy to continue not smoking cigarettes. I probably would have started again because God damn, this is a cigarette ass smoking city man.

[30:55] Jack Lepiarz: Still.

[30:56] Conner Marx: Any city is.

[30:57] Jack Lepiarz: In 25.

[30:58] Conner Marx: Yeah. But like I, oh man, I used to live in Nashville in the early aughts and you could smoke, you could still smoke in bars as long as it was a 21 and up bar and man, we used to just go, I just go sit and buy a pack of cigarettes and listen to country music and just rip American Spirit yellows.

[31:16] Jack Lepiarz: Yeah.

[31:17] Conner Marx: And just...

[31:18] Jack Lepiarz: Oh see, I was American Spirit blacks.

[31:19] Conner Marx: Jesus Christ. Because I really, I wanted all the nicotine. Just really, just jittering out of your chair.

[31:23] Jack Lepiarz: Yeah. Well, I know if I, if I smoked a yellow, cause here's the thing in Europe, they don't even sell the blacks. I think they're too strong for European regulations.

[31:31] Conner Marx: Wieners.

[31:32] Jack Lepiarz: So I would go to Europe, I would have, I would bring five packs of the American Spirit blacks and then like, I would always run out on like the last day and have to buy a pack of American Spirit yellows and I'd be smoking them and be like, this is doing fucking nothing.

[31:42] Conner Marx: Yeah. When you have to plan on your habits too, right? That's another thing where you're like, all right, I used, I've got to have these so that I can go on a European vacation. That's.

[31:53] Jack Lepiarz: Yeah. And every show I do, like I was thinking about like doing this show and I was like, am I going to be able to have a cigarette at intermission? That would like, I could probably figure a way to like run outside and do it, but it would fucking suck. It was also, it's January. I mean, that's not even an issue for sure.

[32:09] Conner Marx: Sure. I do that. But like, yeah, then I'd be making the costume smell like cigarettes, which you guys would not be thrilled with.

[32:16] Jack Lepiarz: Yeah.

[32:17] Conner Marx: So all of the states were very proud of you.

[32:20] Jack Lepiarz: Thank you. I really think it's incredible. I know that I just met you, but it's the kind of thing, quitting, quitting anything, any addiction that is psychological and physical and lifestyle and behavioral is so hard. And it's so impressive when someone wants to do that, when someone wants to and tries to do that, when someone wants to, tries to, and is now two months into doing that. It's incredibly commendable. I think it's badass on several levels. My hat is off to you.

[32:50] Conner Marx: So I will say this.

[32:51] Jack Lepiarz: No, he's still wearing his hat.

[32:52] Conner Marx: I will say. And it's off.

[32:54] Jack Lepiarz: There we go. Now it's back on.

[32:57] Conner Marx: But it is, um, for anyone who wants to quit, if maybe like, so like you were like me and I tried to quit multiple times a year, every year for like the last nine years, um, what changed this time is I went to therapy for the first time.

[33:10] Jack Lepiarz: Oh, cool.

[33:11] Conner Marx: For this or separately?

[33:12] Jack Lepiarz: For this.

[33:13] Conner Marx: For this. Big claps for taking your mental health seriously.

[33:16] Jack Lepiarz: Yeah. Cause it was, it was very clear to me, it was like, I, I felt like, you know, we all have, we all have our baggage and I felt like I had my baggage pretty neatly well, you know, packed up. I don't have to look at this. I don't need to deal with it. Smoking cigarettes. Yeah. I was like, it's over there and the cigarettes will be my outlet. Um, and, um, I was like, okay, if I want to actually quit smoking that, you know, we need to like start dealing with that and, and, and not even necessarily dealing with that cause like we have, we barely even started on that, but more just like, okay, how do I view cigarettes, um, as a substitute for, you know, actually dealing with stress.

[33:54] Jack Lepiarz: Um, the hardest day I had was the day that they announced that I was doing this because I was so excited for this.

[34:00] Conner Marx: Yeah.

[34:01] Jack Lepiarz: Um, cause I was like, you know, you wanted to smoke cause you were pumped.

[34:04] Conner Marx: Yes.

[34:05] Jack Lepiarz: Yeah. Absolutely. Cause the highs aren't as high without a cigarette when you're quitting smoking.

[34:09] Conner Marx: Yeah. I would have never thought about that. Can I ask you just to the extent that you are comfortable and not wanting you to, I put it a 30-day diary of every day of my first month of quitting smoking. So by all means, what I'm curious about, because when I approach therapy, uh, it's, there is, you know, it's like all my bullshit and it's so hard to put a single name or title on it. When you come into a therapist's office and say, Hey, one of my goals is to quit smoking and it's what brings me here. What are the ways specifically that a therapist might, or your therapist might go about addressing that?

[35:06] Conner Marx: Um, so I, I emailed her before I started, I said like, Hey, here's what I want to want to do. I was like, I want to address quitting smoking and then just like general anxiety around work. You know, because we work in a high stress industry and so, but I said, you know, smoking is the big thing. Um, so I'm trying to remember what we did. I mean like first, first day was just like, get to know each other, you know, that, that normal stuff. And it's been a lot of like trauma dumping is another way to talk to me.

[35:18] Jack Lepiarz: Yeah.

[35:19] Conner Marx: It's been a lot of, you know, talk to me about like, okay, how do you feel when you have a cigarette? Um, what's your favorite cigarette of the day and why, what's your least favorite cigarette of the day and why, um, think about previous times you've wanted to quit, um, but then falling off the wagon and, and how did you feel when you fell off the wagon and why did you fall off the wagon and, and basically just trying to forcing you to look at yourself a little bit more and like, be like, okay, stop making excuses for yourself, um, in, in a lot of ways. Cause a lot of the time when you're quitting smoking and you fall off the wagon, it's because you're like, oh, I stubbed my toe. Well, that feels like an excuse to go have a cigarette, you know?

So it's, it's, um, you know, holding yourself more accountable while also, you know, starting to address of like, okay, when you feel anxious, what are you going to do? You know, when you, when you want to do this, what are you going to do if you, uh, fall off the wagon? Like I did. So usually for me, as soon as I have one cigarette, um, I'm off the quit attempt because it's so much harder to then get back.

[36:18] Jack Lepiarz: Why bother?

[36:19] Conner Marx: Yeah. Um, and for me, I was like, I'm going to have to go back into therapy on Monday and explain to her why I'm smoking again. And it's going to be a lot like an hour worth of me feeling like shit. And I was like, you know what, let's, let's get back on the wagon and see if we can get back on the wagon.

[36:35] Jack Lepiarz: I was going to ask. I've, I have found that it with a lot of things, having to check in with having to hold myself accountable to Nancy every week is like, how is your week? And I have to be like, I did it again. The thing that I'm trying not to do, I did it. That's I don't. So I currently do not know. I currently right now do not have a therapist, but that's what my, my personal trainer kind of like life coaches for me and Jaron. And that's really what's kept me going. Cause I, I've been here with him now for four years. And the moment that I sat down with that as I was fighting some generational baggage that I had, I'm from a, I'm a very lovely family, but we are a family that struggles with weight management.

And my parents throughout all of the like early two thousands did every fad thing you could possibly imagine. I mean, well, you know, it was a family, like we're all going to do, no, no, no, not as a whole family altogether. That didn't happen until, um, and it was never even a direct thing that didn't happen until later when I was older and I had not seen the weight gain. Um, but when I was, was younger, my parents were very unhappy with their, their physical just state. And, you know, I saw the typo tapes around the house. I saw all those kinds of like fat things. I remember when HGC, when, when the HGC diet came out, when it still had like the actual human growth hormone in it before they stripped it, you know, hydroxy cut things of that nature to do weight management and stuff and they would lose it.

But then there was never a habit behind that was a sustainable thing. And then as they have gotten older that it has come back up again, that there's a discontent in that. And I finally sat down and I had had it too because when I was getting ready to finish high school, I was 270, 280, like I was up there and I, but I never saw it happen. And then just throughout college did things incorrectly.

[38:24] Jack Lepiarz: What do you mean you never saw it happen?

[38:26] Conner Marx: I never saw myself gain weight.

[38:27] Jack Lepiarz: You never saw it?

[38:28] Conner Marx: I never saw it happen. I still saw, I saw a number, like, you know, I just thought it was like a blinder. I just never saw it happen. And then when I was confronted with it, I responded an incorrect way. And then I remember starting college and I was precariously close to 180 and it wasn't a safe way that we got there. But then I also, then when college was finishing, crept back up to like 220, 225. And so there was never, I was finding myself already in my early twenties being my parents and the whole thing about that was that they sat down and worked with him and we had like a long two-hour session before we agreed to work together. And that's what, it's been about habit changing and addressing those things and not so much, it's goal oriented, but it's not like a physical, like how I want to look oriented.

It's all of the other like mental shifts and steps and things that I can actively do every day to better myself and make sure it's long-term changes that have cemented in there and have gotten me to where I'm at now because now I own free weights that sit at home and I'm at the gym and it's not a dread thing. This is the maintenance thing that keeps me going.

[39:28] Jack Lepiarz: Oh man, you're, while we're just congratulating everybody, like it's incredible. Your discipline on like two show days is nuts, like rehearsals in the gym. In that same vein, like when I don't go and there's that break and it's longer than my like rest days, I get super, it feels like I've like, ooh, and then like I sometimes will go a couple more days. Like once you've stopped going, it's very possible to be like, well, I'm done. And then it's like jumping, but then as soon as you get back on it, oh God, yeah, absolutely. Momentum or inertia, I don't know how to speak intelligently about the difference.

[40:02] Conner Marx: Momentum is a property of matter. What's the difference between momentum and inertia?

[40:07] Jack Lepiarz: Discipline is such an interesting thing because it's like, I have never had any issue about discipline around exercise and watching my weight, but I've had so much trouble with discipline around smoking. And it's like, discipline is, you can be super disciplined in X, Y, and Z, and then just like completely lax in others. And while we're here on that, I want to touch base, we've kind of, we've given a disclaimer about smoking. I also want to say everyone is beautiful and healthy at their own thing. This was very much for me and my barometer, and it had very much to do with wanting to go through life and knowing how to enjoy it without finding my enjoyment would cause a stressor because we're very big. Listen, when I travel, I eat well. I want to be able to do all of that. So I just like, I don't want anyone to think.

[40:55] Jack Lepiarz: Save so you can spend.

[40:56] Conner Marx: Yeah, man. I, listen, this was, we've had a lot of very silly podcasts lately. This one kind of has been nice. We got to know Jack a little bit. We got to hang out and get to know each other a little bit and talk about, I mean, you know, this is it. It's stuff that we, everybody struggles with. I, you know, big fat sack of weeds waiting on their hands. And like seriously, that's that too. Like I, my therapist, I was describing, you know, my, like my smoking habits at one week and she was like, it sounds like you get locked into a routine and I was like, yeah. And it's really easy to get locked into a routine, healthy or unhealthy once it serves you or you think it's serving you. Right. So like, yeah.

And like all it takes is, is like awareness sometimes of like, am I choosing to do this? Am I choosing to eat this whole bag of ruffles right now, Alex, and watch a movie on my couch or am I just doing it because, and like, yeah, if I'm deciding to, then it's all good. But if, you know, if you sort of unhappily just shoving potato chips in your face, that's bad.

[42:04] Conner Marx: Jack, what is your addiction now that we've all shared?

[42:10] Jack Lepiarz: I will take the spotlight and I will talk about therapy in the following way. If I may.

[42:15] Conner Marx: You may.

[42:36] Conner Marx: So I'm just going to spend three minutes talking about how to find a therapist. And before I do so, I think therapy is great personally. It's helped me out tremendously. I think we are in a time where we are leaning dangerously far towards the armchair diagnostician. And I think pathologizing your friends is not the move. And I think using therapy as a weapon, specifically its absence, saying like, you really need therapy, is not the move. It's an individual choice to make. Were you ever part of Tumblr in any facet?

[43:17] Jack Lepiarz: I missed that one.

[43:18] Conner Marx: You missed that one? Kudos, because was anyone else part of Tumblr in any way?

[43:22] Alex Stompoly: I dipped my toes in a couple times.

[43:24] Conner Marx: That was when I really started seeing in community, you just mentioned it, weaponizing therapy speak. And people who had learned just words associated with therapy, but they had been then driven into weapons in an intriguing way. I was second supporting, I agree with where you're at and the dangers of that and where that is precarious territory. So, if people are saying to you, hey, you need therapy, I think maybe that's a little misguided and we don't need to give those people a lot of weight. However, if like me, you're sitting and thinking therapy seems like it could really be helpful. People do espouse its benefits. I, Conner, really love it. I spent years not in therapy because I was so intimidated by the wall of getting one.

It's a weird goddamn relationship to have with another human being. Here's the move, as quickly as I can. If you have health insurance, just call them, find the number, speak to the mental health person and say, hey, I want to find a therapist, who can I talk to? They will email you a list of like 50 people in your area. If you don't like the phone, you can go to the website and go under benefits and they will have a breakdown of people who are in network for you. Then I would go to Google and specifically Psychology Today and just put in those people's names. If you put your health insurance into Psychology Today, that works as well. That can sometimes be a little less reliable. So, I go to the insurance provider first and then just choose more people than you think.

Choose 20 people from that list that you think look cool and just make a form email that says, hi, my name is so-and-so. This is my insurance. I'm looking to start therapy. Hit me back here and just send out those 20 emails. Six are going to get back to you. Three of them are going to have availability. You'll schedule a 15-minute call for free with the three of them. Just have a chat, see if it's a good fit for you and them, and then go from there.

[45:30] Conner Marx: I think that's the one thing that people tend to forget. It is like dating. It is so much like dating. It is not going to be successful on that first. It very well could be. I'm not saying it's never going to be, but when I was in therapy, it was shopping around. It was many a first appointment until I found someone because one of the hurdles when I was in there at the time was for queer relationship help. I kept striking out because I kept running into a situation where I had to educate the therapist before the therapist could help me. I was like, I cannot do this. I thank you for advocating for the date. Date your therapist. Go and see what you like before you just pick that one. If that one doesn't work, don't give up on it. The same way you wouldn't give up on dating. My therapist has had to learn so much about Dungeons & Dragons.

[46:15] Jack Lepiarz: Well, I think that's different.

[46:16] Conner Marx: Same. She doesn't give a shit. She's had to learn so much. I remember my first one having to educate on all of the apps and everything and how all of dating in my community worked. When I left it, I was like, woof. Okay. No, thank you. That's a lot of work. Some people will not be a great fit, and it's important to recognize that and cut your losses. Don't continue to invest in a thing that is ultimately not going to work out.

[46:46] Alex Stompoly: Nah, dude. You could buy so much tacos with that therapy money.

[46:48] Conner Marx: But also, I know that I get caught on the briar of needing it to be perfect. And I think, well, it's going to be so hard to find the perfect therapist, so I don't find one. And sometimes, just go. Have some conversations with people. See what happens. If you don't have insurance, I would say do the exact same thing. But just as you email these people, say, do you do a sliding scale? I will be paying out of pocket. This is my income bracket. And you can often find people who will make a great deal. I don't know if any in our surrounding area do this, but they did back in Missouri. Colleges, if the students are going into that profession and degree, they need to have ... Well, you can go meet with them.

[47:29] Jack Lepiarz: I've gone to a lot. I've got a lot of haircuts at beauty schools, man.

[47:38] Conner Marx: Thank you. It's a beauty center. Hey, you want to learn how to clean teeth? I need to go to the dentist. Let's work together here. We'll do the same.

[47:45] Jack Lepiarz: I got surgery from a third-year medical student.

[47:48] Conner Marx: Sir, I'm a landscaper.

[47:52] Jack Lepiarz: I did that too when I was in college.

[47:53] Conner Marx: What's the difference in a tooth and a hedge? Come on.

[47:55] Jack Lepiarz: Ah, it's the same thing. You've got tools.

[47:57] Conner Marx: I've got clippers. You've got stuff that needs to be clipped. What's the problem?

[48:01] Jack Lepiarz: You are not clipping my teeth. But I mean, I don't know if that is a viable in our immediate area, but it was something that was lovely in Missouri State. Shout out.

[48:10] Conner Marx: I talked to Tamara at ... Pepperidge Farms is the cookie company.

[48:16] Jack Lepiarz: Please tell me you called a woman at Pepperidge Farms.

[48:19] Conner Marx: Support. When I said, just start having conversations with people, I didn't mean licensed clinicians. I just meant, see, we'll hear your problems. Check out counter people, taxi drivers, bartenders.

[48:33] Jack Lepiarz: Listen, I want to talk to people at Pepperidge Farms.

[48:35] Conner Marx: Well, they remember, and it's nice.

[48:36] Jack Lepiarz: I'm more of a Nazi.

[48:39] Conner Marx: Pepperdine University.

[48:40] Jack Lepiarz: Pepperdine.

[48:41] Conner Marx: When I was in my early 20s, I spoke with a woman at Pepperdine.

[48:45] Jack Lepiarz: Pepperdine Farms.

[48:47] Conner Marx: Pepperdine Farms. You get some pretzel goldfish out of it. Rich Malibu cookies.

[48:52] Jack Lepiarz: There's the incentive. Go to therapy, get a cookie.

[48:54] Conner Marx: I do think that treats is a great way to work. Have a thing that is on my checklist. I'm going to give myself a treat if I do it. You can't ... You have to put those good things in your life. I mean, I'll speak from the same ... One thing that Jaron has always encouraged me and taught me, it was never swearing off the things that I enjoy to get where I'm going. It was about being able to fold them in.

[49:16] Jack Lepiarz: Well, exactly. It's the same.

[49:18] Conner Marx: Not all the time. Because if you just took it away from you completely in ...

[49:24] Jack Lepiarz: Oh, I've done it, man.

[49:26] Conner Marx: Listen, I went cold turkey everything for a while because somebody gave me ... Well, I got an ultimatum in a relationship.

[49:34] Jack Lepiarz: Not healthy.

[49:37] Conner Marx: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was ... It was terrible. I was unhappy. But I have my treat incentives.

[49:42] Jack Lepiarz: Hell yeah.

[49:44] Conner Marx: Hell yeah. Well, this has been a lovely chat.

[49:47] Jack Lepiarz: Yeah, what were you guys talking about before I showed up?

[49:49] Conner Marx: We were talking about whips.

[49:51] Jack Lepiarz: Talking about whips, the show, things we liked in the show, the characters in the show.

[49:55] Alex Stompoly: Cool. Having a good time.

[49:57] Jack Lepiarz: And all sorts of stuff. Jack said nice things about everybody. And then we got all inspirational.

[50:02] Conner Marx: Yeah. So, you know, it's good.

[50:05] Jack Lepiarz: Are you starting to wind down?

[50:06] Conner Marx: Oh, yeah. No, I think we're about there. We got a show to do and ...

[50:10] Jack Lepiarz: Can I do my favorite thing?

[50:11] Conner Marx: Yes.

[50:11] Jack Lepiarz: Which is Conor hogs the mic for a long personal anecdote, right?

[50:14] Conner Marx: Let's go.

[50:16] Jack Lepiarz: All right. I'll take the tangent of cigarettes because it is the thing that I always think of. Also, sorry.

[50:22] Conner Marx: No, this is perfect because we are right about like 50 minutes of recording. We could get, yeah, a Conor chat at the end.

[50:29] Jack Lepiarz: I was working in Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur. Eating weird sandwiches made out of ice cream. Yes, yes. Also another same time of my life. And I found a talent agent, I guess, when I was there. Just for shits and giggles. I thought, why not? And she put me out for one job. There was no audition. I just got hired. This is dubious. And it was for ...

[50:56] Conner Marx: You're in a cigarette porn.

[50:57] Jack Lepiarz: It was for a cigarette commercial. Oh, okay. And it was good money. And I was very young and very poor. And I had some ...

[51:12] Conner Marx: Is this going to be a porn?

[51:14] Jack Lepiarz: ... qualms about it.

[51:15] Conner Marx: Okay.

[51:15] Jack Lepiarz: No, no, no. It was a cigarette commercial. There's no ... I was young and you needed the money, but you morally didn't feel good about doing it. I was confused. And I called my dad. I remember that. And while I don't remember exactly what he said to me, he did what good parents and I think actually good therapists as well do, which is not to give me an answer, but to ask the right questions and allow me to start thinking about how I felt. And at the end of the call, I thought about it. And I decided I had committed already. I had said, yes, it was okay. It's not my responsibility if people decide to start smoking for themselves, whatever. I'm just an actor. I'm a hired gun. Talk about commercials in general that I'm in.

And then so I showed up on set and it was a two-day shoot. And the first day I was not used. I was just sort of theoretically deep in the background, but just kind of waiting around all day. And I just couldn't put to rest this nagging fear and worry that I was not comfortable with what I was doing, that I had made a decision that did not align with where my own moral compass lay. And the second day we went back and all day I waited around, waited around. There was a boardroom scene and I was playing some executive. And finally, we got to this boardroom scene and it was after lunch. And I had just got to that point where, and maybe you've had this experience, where you know where you land. And I had realized, you know what?

I'm actually not comfortable with this. I don't want to be contributing my body, my voice, my talents to something that I think legitimately harms people. And I didn't know what to do because now I was in costume on set with hundreds of people around, you know, the millions of dollars that go into commercial productions. And I was starting to have a panic and I just decided to, and this is rare on the set of a commercial, to act. And so I started planting the seeds of someone getting sick. And I did it earlier in the day and I timed it so that right after lunch, I started really playing up this like, oh, white guy couldn't handle Malaysian food and just like camped out in the background. And pretended to like vomit and shit my pants for a while and just stumbled out of the bathroom and like kept my gaze unfocused, sort of stumbled around, kept taking a knee and just in a half voice being like, I'm so sorry.

I can't. And I just have to go. And they were obviously furious, but I just committed to this barely lucid, not even there enough to register their anger, sick boy, and took a taxi home. And yeah, never filmed it.

[54:00] Conner Marx: Did you...

[54:04] Jack Lepiarz: I love that.

[54:04] Conner Marx: Got paid?

[54:05] Jack Lepiarz: Get paid!

[54:06] Conner Marx: Wow!

[54:07] Jack Lepiarz: Let's go!

[54:08] Conner Marx: Let's go!

[54:09] Jack Lepiarz: That's perfect.

[54:11] Conner Marx: Yeah.

[54:11] Jack Lepiarz: That is wild. Here's my follow up question. Did you ever get any more work with this talent agent?

[54:14] Jack Lepiarz: No.

[54:14] Conner Marx: No.

[54:15] Jack Lepiarz: That was the end of that.

[54:15] Conner Marx: But ironically, he's still the face of the cigarette company.

[54:20] Jack Lepiarz: That's worth it.

[54:21] Conner Marx: That is glorious.

[54:23] Jack Lepiarz: Well-gamed.

[54:25] Conner Marx: Excellent job.

[54:27] Jack Lepiarz: Robin Williams in the beginning of Mrs. Doubtfire, have you?

[54:29] Conner Marx: Yes, absolutely.

[54:30] Jack Lepiarz: Or he just added a bit of Mr. Partake in the cartoon.

[54:34] Conner Marx: Yeah, yeah.

[54:35] Jack Lepiarz: Just good for you.

[54:37] Conner Marx: Good for you.

[54:38] Jack Lepiarz: That's awesome.

[54:40] Conner Marx: Well, thanks, folks, for listening. Thanks, Jack, for hanging out. Thanks, Connor, for crashing.

[54:43] Jack Lepiarz: Thanks for letting me crash, everybody. It's my new favorite thing to crash a podcast I'm not invited into.

[54:47] Conner Marx: I love that it's your favorite thing is to be like, oh, they're always all skates. What's up, punkers? How we doing?

[54:52] Jack Lepiarz: Yeah, what's going on?

[54:54] Conner Marx: Do you want to plug anything, Jack?

[54:57] Jack Lepiarz: When does this come out?

[54:58] Conner Marx: Tomorrow.

[54:59] Jack Lepiarz: Hey, so the day of Friday, January 24th, I'm doing a digital show. Or is it the 25th? Whatever it is, Friday of this week, I'm doing a digital show. The 24th. You can see it live in person. You can't see it live in person. It's sold out. But you can see it live on the internet, either live or up to a week afterwards. And this is the big thing that I do for my international fans. I've been trying to do an international tour. It's going to be a little while before that happens. But if you want to see my show and see some of the new stuff that we're working on, this is your chance. Digital tickets, not expensive. I think they're like 15 bucks.

[55:35] Conner Marx: Amazing.

[55:37] Jack Lepiarz: A steal.

[55:38] Conner Marx: Yeah. For a talent like yours, a steal.

[55:39] Jack Lepiarz: For what's probably going to end up being like a two and a half hour show. That's like three tacos, though.

[55:45] Conner Marx: Worth it.

[55:45] Jack Lepiarz: Worth it.

[55:46] Conner Marx: Or a half a cigarette.

[55:47] Jack Lepiarz: Or one cocktail.

[55:48] Conner Marx: Yeah, yeah, that's true.

[55:50] Jack Lepiarz: Some avocado toast.

[55:52] Conner Marx: Yeah. But yeah. So buy tickets to that. And then, otherwise, my schedule's on my website. It's there. It's jackthewhipper.com, jackseywhipper.com, jacklepiers.com. No one knows how to spell any of them. So I got them all.

[56:05] Alex Stompoly: Hell yeah.

[56:08] Conner Marx: I'm Alex.

[56:09] Jack Lepiarz: I'm Stomp.

[56:10] Conner Marx: Connor.

[56:11] Jack Lepiarz: And I'm Jack Lepiarz.

[56:13] All: Till next time. Ale. And we'll meet.

[56:16] Jack Lepiarz: Hell yeah.