Tone Bell | Thursday 03.19.26

0:00 Want more Treehouse, check out our YouTube exclusive shows at YouTube dot com. Slash at Treehouse on air. It is time to leave your worries outside and laugh with us inside the Treehouse. I'm Daniel Malley along with Tredy Trenholm, and today we are very happy and excited to present our special guest inside the Treehouse today, actor, comedian, host and friend of the Treehouse, mister tone Bell. He's back.

0:44 I love that you're busy, but it does make scheduling our visits a little more difficult than it used to be. You just dropping by my office at the radio station. Now we've got to get our schedules aligned. We got to make sure everything's synced up. So I am very very happy that you are busy, because if you're busy, that means you're making a living, living the dream. Yeah. Man, it's always nice to have something to do. You know. It's like if there are times when you don't want to be busy, but I don't want to be in lack of work, So that's like that balancing act you gotta do. I mean, I'd love to have like at least four or five days to just recoup from just I was just doing south By. So I would love to have a couple of days and then, but you can't.

1:30 You got to take it strike while the iron's hot. Yeah, I can imagine that in the acting field, in the realm of it that you do it, there is no rest for the wicked. I mean, I would imagine, and I know you're doing this, which is I'd rather just go until I can't go anymore, as opposed to running the risk of saying, you know, I'm a little tired, I'm going to pass on this project. I'm gonna take a break. Yeah, you're not Matthew McConaughey. By any means. And because I don't know how many people realize that, Like matth I was reading something about that a handful of months ago where McConaughey, another fellow you know Texas actor, Yeah, uh, took took a break in the middle of him at the peak of his rom com craze because he wanted to rebrand. He was tired of doing that stuff. And it was like close to two years I think, he said, without booking anything and him passing on all these big projects. Thankfully, he had banked up the least enough money where he could survive it. But I remember in an interview he said it got close to where he was starting to look into all right, maybe I'll go teach at ut or something.

2:52 Yeah, I mean it is. It is one of those. Uh. I was just up for a job. Maybe two weeks ago. I just filming the job that I've been doing the last few years on Netflix and got offered to come in for not the offer of the role, but like producer session straight out, and I would have had to leave like a week after they you know, I read for it, and I was like, I would love to do this job. But if I get it, great, If I don't, great, at least at least I'm still being talked about, like nobody's forgotten about me yet. But but part of it was like, thank goodness I didn't get this job. It had been great. Yeah, but I mean I could use a little bit of time off.

3:34 So is that you just. You just got done filming the season three of Survival of the Thickest correct. Yeah, by the way, you're fantastic in that. Oh thank you. Yeah. I find out that Trey is not just saying that because you're here. Trey has told me that weeks ago and it wasn't even during the show, so I know he really meant it. Oh, Man, appreciate that. I was. I was blown away, like that's it's a great show. Yeah, yeah, great writing. But yeah, you're fantastic on it. Man. I do think this is probably gonna be I mean, this is our last season, like said and done after this season. But this feels like when I think when I got a couple of projects coming out after around the same time as this is coming out, and and I think I'm hitting a different speed right now, which is which is nice, so a little more mature I think performance wise, I kind of just stopped taking notes on some stuff and go, this is how I'm gonna portray this character now.

4:39 So either either you like. This or you don't, but this is what I'm doing, and I think it worked out real well. That's awesome. It's got to be a great feeling too, creatively. Yep. Are you at the point yet in your career and now you know a third season of Survival of the Thickest is obviously got to be a great feeling one just to be working as an actor, but too to be able to get and know that you're going to go into the final season of something and be able to hopefully, you know, tie a bow on it and you know, complete the whole thing. How satisfying is that to be able to do, especially in the landscape of today's entertainment where you may not you may not get a season two at all.

5:23 Yeah, I mean it's it's different. I mean it's I can't Yeah, I mean it's it's bittersweet in that it was nice going going back to something every year, right, and going like, Okay, I've got I got eight months and now I got to go do this four months there. And I think it would have been easier had I still been living in an apartment and being single. Mm. Being a homeowner with a wife is a little more like I got to leave this whole thing that, you know, it'd been nice if something goes wrong and somebody's gonna fix it while I'm going who also has keys? Right? But now this is different? But yeah, I mean it's it's yeah, getting a chance of like kind of the arcs of the kres in this world that we put together. Yeah, it's nice to put a bowl on that.

6:04 What's bittersweet is like, man, had this been you know, fifteen years ago, this would have been three or four seasons on twenty two episodes a season, and I'd have been like, oh man, I can take off two years and start a family. Just and not work to go. Money's fine. I'm looking for a job right now, right, I don't want to start it yet, but I'm looking. I am looking, so it is. It is a fascinating landscape. And that's and that's one of the most formal questions I wanted to ask you today. Because we're friends, we don't do standard interview type stuff, but I'm genuinely curious as a friend and as a show host, here, what is it like these days with all these platforms You have shows coming out the ass So on one hand, it's lots of opportunities for actors, But on the other hand, that's a lot of money being spent on these shows. And I'm sure that the money's tighter than it used to be, because, like you said, if this is fifteen years ago, Survival of the Thickest is going to probably get five six seasons on network TV and.

7:12 You're going to be a millionaire. Yeah yeah. Whereas now, because everything's so thinned out, it almost seems like lots of opportunities, but still lots of struggle. There used to be. I mean even when I started, there was still that time of you know, there weren't as many so if there weren't as you know, Netflix is starting to do its thing, NBC and the big networks still matter. Cables still, you know, FX and AMC are still creating hits, not that they don't, but it's your hit is very different package now and then Yeah, I mean the way I think my lawyer used to negotiate, being like, you know what, if you don't give him this quote, then he's walking away.

7:52 And now I got to go just hold on now, I think I'm comfortable with that. Just stop negotiating, don't put it because there's something there's somebody else that is also good for. This part, you know what I mean. It's it's not that I don't think I'm perfect for it. There is someone else who can also pull this off, right. So, and and they might still be living in that one bedroom apartment single Yeah. Who like I mean he can, I mean I think that's I mean the job I just mentioned that. I'm glad I didn't go, but I would have done it is uh it would have been a local higher for la so I would have to fly myself out put myself up, which is fine because I can, but but also if they call go, you know what, we got to do a pickup scene on a Wednesday, but I flew back home. Now it screws their schedule up. Yeah, so I mean it makes sense to me and me.

8:41 I do think they I do think they wanted me, though I do think it was mine if I if I were boots on the ground in la U. Yeah, the old, the old proximity thing might have may have caught up with you. A little bit. For the stuff you see that you auditioned for every there that you get scripts for. I feel like the writing is the one thing, Like there's a finite amount of good writers, and now that it's getting watered down amongst all the platforms, Like do you see more crap? I don't know. I guess I only really watch what's kind of trendy. So if I don't hear about it, I'm really not watching, I guess. But also, like you said, I mean, I'll wait till you know it's eight episodes, I'll wait eight weeks and then when I have it, when I have a lull on like a Tuesday or Wednesday, me and a wife are knocking.

9:32 Out all all eight So. That's just kind of how we get it done. And then after other than that, it's like, you know, cause I don't have weekend nights like that, so my weekend is Monday through Wednesday, so I don't I don't if I don't hear about it, I kind of don't know. And we rarely just kind of stumble into a show. But you you pass, you know, you can you know, any platform and start pass them and then go I didn't even know that I know her and that's the lead of the show, but I haven't heard about it or I know him. They're very talented, but I've heard nothing about it, which I mean, I make the joke on stage all the time. It's like, but I do make sure I press play just so the numbers are there for the actor that I know, And even if I'm not sitting right in front of the TV, I'm like, I want them to get there right. But you still have that battle of at least to me, I still have that battle of you know, not growing up with much so I don't have all the platforms yeah, I want to, but I can't justify going. Man, my electric bills four hundred bucks a month. I can't have ten apps.

10:32 I go, sweet are. I don't care what your mother says, We're not. She has to get her own. You're not letting the mother in law piggyback off your peak. You don't have to pick. We're gonna have this one for six months and then we'll go back and switch up to this one for six month. Go, but we're not doing them all because we're not watching them all. Well, the good news is, I think you may not have to worry about that much longer because we've had this huge era of platform expansion wherever channel on cable eventually had an app to go watch more stuff, and then you had like three hundred channels on cable. Then you've got like one hundred possible you know, channel apps.

11:12 Then those all started consolidating, and now they've started consolidating more because you start bundling all these apps, like you got Disney and the Hulu and the ESPN and then the Peacock and then they're all slowly eight three three COOKDFW is the phone number you will need to schedule your free roof Inspection and Property Review courtesy of Daniel Cook and COOKDFW Roofing and Restoration eight three three COOKDFW. To get that scheduled, we just had the State of a Union, the State of the Union address from the President. That happens every single year, at least it's supposed to. And that's sort of what you offer with the free property review with homeowners. It's sort of a state of your home address where you take a look at it ideally annually and you Daniel the one that that information to the homeowner and says, here's where we are, and then here's where we would like to be.

12:05 Right, Yeah, I mean in a way, yes, we're not actually taunting about everything that we've done over the year, and we're not. You know, bragging about everything. But what we do is, when you're not dunked on as a home right, we kind of just want to give you the education of this is how your home is currently. These are some of the things that you need to be aware of. It's more preparation than bragging. This is hey, you know, start looking at these things. These could be a problem in the future if you don't start looking at them really quickly. Or we say, hey, this is something that we started noticing, let's look at it next year. Because when they call us out annually, we can, you know, continue to watch that home as it ages and as as as it changes, and they all do. I don't care what kind of home you have. They all age differently, and some things change out faster than others and different things like that. It's it's so different. You can't just say I have a home in Dallas. You can't say I just have a home in McKinney. You can't say I have a home in Mesquite or Flower Mount. Every one of them is different. And that's why you need us out there annually to come check them out, and we'll give you, you know, the notes and you can then brag to your neighbors about how your state of the home is.

13:10 There. You go eight three three cook DFW to get that scheduled today, eight three three cook DFW. We can do it online as well, cookdfw dot com. Bringing it all back in together. And then like you've got this, Netflix and Warner Brothers deal in buying everything where eventually they're just gonna buy everything back into cable again. Yeah, I mean that's which is it's like you kind of you think that you I remember buying a like a figure what kind of toggle it was? But it put everything from all the apps in one place, so you can so you don't have to jump. Apps, right, but you still had to have all the apps, but it puts them all in one thing. And I thought it was gonna be better because I'm like, oh, I only have to open this one. Then I go is too much? It is too much. I don't know, I can't. I can't hand. It's like, uh, It's like, I mean, yeah, it's cable, but now I have to choose.

14:05 I'm I'm miss just flipping channels just to be like, you know what this is on already? I gotta do nothing. I mean, I'm back, I'm back. To ads bro. I listen Dan. I've told Dan this and it didn't last to because I still I have the direct TV app just because I enjoy scrolling through the guide and just oh, even though a lot of times I know it's a movie, I can go watch commercial free, but I'll sit there and watch it on TV just it's there's something comforting about it and I can't explain. It, dude. Soon it's gonna be if there's this no doubt that in five to ten years, televisions are gonna go. If if if the TVs don't see us sitting there, it's gonna pause it. Yeah, and you're gonna have to sit through the ad and watch the ad and then because I mean, I mean, I love a good ad. Now, I know I have ninety segons, the little thing going around, the little cock. I go, I got two minutes and forty seconds. I can make a sandwich.

15:03 Like your kitchen. I could go, I need a refill on chips, I need to grab another beer. I can go check the mail, I can take a quick phone call. I mean, ads are my friend these day. I mean, I love a good ad. Now it's such when I'm a person that goes to bed with TV on for you know, sleep timer. So if I'm watching something and. I do have the ad package, that ad is like that volume is crazy. So now I can't I can't sleep during it. But yeah, man, it's I'm sorry, I'm already frustrated. I'm good, I'm getting antsy. You know what got me answered this morning is like I was, I was, I'm packing still, so like I do have to get out of here, to get get to Dallas. But there's a I'm packing and then i'm I'm I'm.

15:47 Looking at Actually I was looking for the link to like talk to you all to that. I was looking for the link and then I get my email and then I get it from uber one. It's like, hey, your confirmation of Uber one membership. I go, I didn't ask for that ship, and you know, they make it so hard to cancel that. I've never got to get on YouTube watch an ad to then get the instructions on how to cancel it. So, I mean, I spent money that I wasn't trying to spend, but the dude's video I had to watch to learn how to cancel my thing made money on me watching his having to cancel the one that I was spending money on that I didn't want to spend money on. Yeah, And it's got to be an odd feeling also, because, on one hand, growing up with not much, you're going to be very careful about what you spend your money on and what you spend your time doing. The flip side of that is you're also in the industry and you know that what money you make is dependent on ads, So it feels kind of hypocritical.

16:43 To get it so critical. So hypocritical, Yeah, it's it's I mean, if you know, but then you know all the deals of like O, if you use your MX for this, you can get ten percent off that. And also if you put your bank account instead of your credit card into this, So I give you fifteen percent off here with ten percent there. But then if this you get this app for free. But now I got to sign out of this app. I gotta sign in through Verizon. I go, yo, I want to save this ten percent, but I'm not doing all that. Yeah, matter of fact, take my phone, just take it. I'm just glad to like you. Like you were telling us right before we started the show that you just got a new laptop, which is apparently huge news in your house.

17:27 Oh my god. I mean when I say, I mean it was creating some some uh it was it was put my old laptop was pushing a wedge in our love. It was we would have we would have both have a two o'clock and I go, I need you to put yours at three because my call is if it goes through, it's going to mean more money. I mean, we were having to have conversations like that where I go. I know yours is important, but yours isn't keep the house? Might the house? How's that go over? Though? I just had I just had to. I just had to leave the house like a like a beaten dog and just go buy a laptop.

18:10 I didn't even tell her. I just came home. When she's like, oh, look at that, I go, yeah, I'm trying to stay married. Uh huh, yeah, that's exactly That's how it went. Tray, He realized that he needed to go get a new laptop, and then she didn't let it go without saying anything. When he walked home with it, she's like, oh, look what you figured out? Oh, I mean it's. I can't imagine having to tell you my stuff is more important than yours. And I didn't want to have to say it that way. But but. That wasn't my plan. I thought maybe she would deduce that, you know what, I should probably shift mine because this could mean bigger things.

18:50 But you know, they don't see it like that. No, it's crazy. I don't see it like that. Is she is she near you? Did she just hear you say crazy? No, she's I'm allowed to say everything in his house, but I also take the consequence for whatever I say. But no, she's way on the other side of. The house, smart man's way. She's working out right now. So okay, how is your neighbor, Jerry Man? He's good, man, Jerry's good. I mean not agenarian Jerry oh Man. Yeah, he's eighty eight now, turned eighty eight about two weeks ago.

19:31 He just had a health thing. So we've been going over. He's been staying with his oldest daughter, and so we've been like taking care of the house for him, checking the mail, taking the trash out, feeding his longhorns and stuff. So being a neighbor the neighbor he is does, we're being at him, but you know, we're just worried about him. Man. You know, he's such a great dude that you know, father time comes from everybody. So that's a it's a it's a hard one. But he just had a pace maker put in, so hopefully, you know, we get some more love out of him for for a number of years. But but yeah, I mean, if they're willing to do surgery on an eighty eight year old, that means he's got to be doing pretty well. Yeah. Yeah, time. We took him out for his birthday, and I mean we picked him up and uh we went to the little bar and like the little small town and bass Drop.

20:12 We went to the to the bar, and I mean we had to have three Gen and Tonics for his birth I mean it's one thirty double Gin and Tonics, and I go, I have to drive, I have to drive us back. You can have that, Jerry, but I got it, and then you can't go nowhere tonight. So but yeah, I mean, dude, he was yelling at that, not yelling for real, but just the owner came over and told him it's his birthday. And then he goes, Uh, I want the bread pudding for my birthday and I'm not paying for it. It's my birthday. She was like, all right, we get finished eating and he goes, where's my bread pudding?

20:53 No, you said you had it, that's what I want. Yeah, he's good though. Good. I hope I get chance to see him when when I get back. Uh. Speaking of getting back, so, like you just said, you're in the hill country of Texas as a Hollywood man. You're keeping it real in central Texas and then all this weekend you got shows at Punchline in Irving, which is the new comedy club there, sort of like the Toyota Music Factory facility there in Los Calinas, Irving. I've not been there yet, but I've heard great things about it. I have not been because, well, you know, when I was working for AB back in the day, when I was working with Bud Whisers back in the day, our corporate office was in Irving right off of one fourteen, right, I believe, yep, And so it was really nothing over there but office parks.

21:39 Yeah. And so even what you just said ago, I don't know any of that being built up. So I'm excited to see it. I mean, in the way you just sounded, it sounds like my parking is going to be not cheap. No, you may have to do a little walking. Yeah, yeah, maybe. That's why you got that Uber one upgrade. You didn't ask, I mean, they all on my phone. Don't say it out loud, they're gonna give it back to me. But I mean asking again. Well, Well, now they've got Uber's rolling out the I guess it's the test program for the Uber flying taxis. I think I think they're doing that in l A. I don't. I don't know if they're doing the test program for that one to Austin is okay. So yeah, are you gonna get when when you would inevitably get signed up for that service for the Uber flying taxes, are you going to be lined up to take.

22:31 The I'm not. I haven't gotten a WAYMO yet. I have not done the autonomous car they've they've given me one. I can't. I'm like, I'm I'm still I still like people enough. Yeah, but I have had some drivers where I'm like, we're clearly both drunk. It's a weird thing because I'm with you. I just saw a video the other day of a Tesla on autopilot run. This is a in in a Dallas freeway run right into or actually, no, I think it was Houston, ran right into a barrier on an overpass. Instead of taking the nice, gentle curve to the left, it just made a hard right right into the wall which was ailing to drop off down below. It didn't go through it.

23:16 But that is I see those things enough where I'm like, man, I have trust issues with people, but I don't trust someone that is not there more, if that makes sense. I always like to think it's I mean, and it is neither positive or negative. But I remember watching that movie Enders Game when the kids were thought they were doing video games, but they're really in a war, right of Like a part of me is like, is somebody really controlling his car like a video game from overseas or you know, some some farm where they just got a joeystick and the controller and they looked away real quick. And that's why I mean, yeah, mom, I'm.

23:57 Doing it, you know, oh yeah, And then you know, yeah, you gotta be happy. You also have to hope if that is the case, then you hope that that kids. You hope that that kid doesn't think they're playing GTA. I mean, but also was like does he even have a license in real life? That's so we got to get these kids together. I know too many sixteen to twenty one year olds they're just friends' kids. Or whatever, who are like I don't need to drive. I go, oh my god, that's a thing. Like I mean, for like thirteen, I go, I can't wait to drive that car that has been getting dusty in the backyard of my you know, my dad's old, old, old truck that I couldn't drive, and I'll still wash it every weekend just to get ready when I could.

24:42 I mean that these kids are like I gotta they put a car phone. Yeah, I mean they pull a car up that they don't have to drive on their phone that they don't pay for, Yeah, the phone or the car. I'm with you. I've got friends that have kids, and it's it's amazing because when we were like getting your license and driving was one of the biggest moments of your first you know, your teen years, like that was it, that was the apex, and they're all they don't care. A lot of them don't even get their license till they're eighteen. That's why I'm not even grow mustaches. I mean, like you have nothing to look forward to to become a man.

25:24 It's it's it's so necessary. So I mean, like for me, not only could I not wait to start driving, I actually didn't. I went and got the hardship license so I could drive before I was sixteen and get to a job. Yeah job in school yep. Yeah, of course it didn't stay that way, but because all I needed was just the approval of yeah course, yeah, first beating ticket before sixteen, hell yeah, you know you learned some things when when you start doing adult level thing and I can't wrap my like you guys, I can't wrap my brain around being any teenage year thinking I don't really want to drive, like do I want to get the hell out of here?

26:12 I mean it also is it'd be. I mean, I know there's some that have access to a car. They're like, no, I'm good. Then you go, well, then when you have to get a job to pay for this phone, because now this phone is mine. If you want to keep that phone, you got to have a job. And do you gotta do something for me too, because I'm now I don't have a life anymore. I was almost back to being able to be with my friends again and you want to No, we're not doing that. Speaking of speaking of what you got five more minutes? Uh? I can do five? All right? March Madness starts today, right, Uh so you know March madness. But speaking of having kids, do you know vast madness?

27:00 That is the proper pace to make. So as as March Madness has grown in popularity, so as a trend for guys to get vas sectomies this time of year, the big idea, of course is to get snipped and then spend three or four days recovering icing your junk on the sofa while watching college maaster Man. And it's picked up so much steam that you'll see urologists advertising specials for vast Madness where they'll do discounts and promos and things around the tournament. Wow, it's funny because I just had the procedure that's opposite of that. About six months ago. Yeah. I know we only said we have five minutes, but yeah, that's.

27:49 What I think. My brain is curdled on something. What does that mean? You had done? So? That means I had to free up some It was two things. I had to free up some. Some icing swimmers for the cake. Yeah. I like that cake analogy. K. Yeah, let's run with that. But because. Uh, the cake was too the icing was too hot. Okay, I really should have thought about this one better. No, I'm enjoyed watching the process. This is a treat for us. And because if if you can't put hot icing on a hot cake, you gotta put cooler icing. H you can put cool icing on a hot cake, and and the icing, the cool icing prefers to be the icing itself prefers to be on a hot cake.

28:52 You can't have hot both because then the icing doesn't nowhere to stay. Just it just it's sliding all off on the side, and just as it has to be cooler. All right, So hot cake good, hot icing bad. Yeah, you don't want a glaze. You wanted icing, got it and it was too hot, it becomes a glaze. We got there, We got there, and I'm proud of you. You made it. It was a perfect arc because we said it and then uh, somewhere in the middle we didn't know if it was going to work, and then in the end you're brought it home. The visual may not be great, but the but the terminology that works.

29:33 No, the analogy I think, I think works very very well. If it is this something that you're talking about, Is this something that you're talking about on stage yet and icing it's not. It's not shit. No, I'm just saying what the doctor said on stage. I'm going through the whole story of it. I'm doing I'm doing my colloquial version of what the doctor said and how I heard it. So, yes, I I'm talking about this, but it's not and so I might talk about that tonight a little bit now. I mean, I wasn't going to it. Now that you brought this up, I might, I might talk about it, but no right now. So I'm taking a friend of with me, videographer who works with me a little bit. And so what I'm doing this weekend is at least two of the shows, I'm running my new Hour. So I'm running my new Hour that I have to submit to Netflix so that they can improve it.

30:22 So hopefully i'll shoot here in a few months, so it could be Dallas, would be Austin. But yeah, so the hour, So I don't know what show. If you listen to this and you come to a show, it is start to finish going to be my new Hour. So it's it's I'm very happy with it. It's very conversational, it's very I think mature. I mean, if you've seen me in the last year, there may be about fifteen percent that you've heard before. But it's a lot of new stuff that I'm super excited about. And I'm excited for you and I'm excited for me selfishly to get to to get to hear it and to see it. Oh man, I feel like it's a good pick up from the last special like it's been a few years.

31:03 It's been about seven years since I had an hour and. It is because my life is night and day from what that was then. So it is the new the new chapter of I guess new book really not even new chapter, a new book, volume two. So yeah, very very very exciting. How about I I want to see you tell an icing story on stage. I mean, I mean I. Mean that, I mean it might work. I've been kind of going with the real terminology, but maybe the icing. Maybe icing is the key.

31:44 As long as they don't serve sweets and I think you're good. Yeah, you don't want people like looking their fingers while I'm telling this a bit. Yeah, someone just got a bag it donuts. They're going to be really disappointed. What trait? I got a hot man. All right, I'm gonna get out of here. Dan, love you hopefully if you're in Dallas. I got one show tonight. That's Thursday, the nineteenth, one show Friday the twenty twentieth, and then two shows the twenty first. At the time of the shows, I think it's seven thirty, seven, thirty seven, and nine thirty. I want to say those other times and I could be wrong. But just take tonebo dot com or Irving punchline and come check me out. I tell him we appreciate it, all right, man, always love y'all. Well, this is awkward. More information about the show. Hey, hang on, Dan's coming back.

32:43 What did I miss? You're on computer audio and tone had to bolt, so I wash. We said goodbye to him, plugged his shows seven thirty Tonight, thirty Friday, then seven o'clock at nine thirty at the punchline Irving. I didn't get to stay by to our buddy. Yeah, I looked up. I was like, I didn't know if you were on another tab. Then it's like, oh nope, he frozen. Now it turns out the Water and Power Authority of the US Virgin Islands is added again. Hardcore once again.

33:30 A stark reminder that if you watched the Super Bowl halftime show with Bad Bunny when they showed the electrical sparks and things on the power poles and they're showing bait what's supposed to be Puerto Rico, it's kind of like here too. Here's if you think you know, we think urkat's bad, you think your service is bad. There's a special on HBO about the Fukushima New Clear plant and what happened after the tsunami and then near meltdown. TEPCO makes everyone look better, really, Tokyo Electric, Yeah, you never think of.

34:18 It. It was shocking at how incompetent they were. That is really surprising out of any Japanese company. For a country whose company corporate business culture is so interwoven into their lives, it's really surprising that they'd have a company like that. They couldn't get so they needed power supply to get the controls back online for these nuclear power plants. They kept sending like and they were asking for generators and batteries and all like certain type of batteries. They kept sending all the wrong stuff, and then they couldn't get their drivers, Like the drivers didn't want to go near Fukushimi because obviously it's there's radiation, so they would just stop, and then they were making the very few remaining people that were at the plant were then having to try to get drive two hours to get this stuff and bring it back and then it's the wrong stuff.

35:23 It was shockingly a shocking cluster. Pun intended, no, but yeah it works, but we'll take it sure, Yeah anyway, so I'm glad, thanks for thanks for a wrapping a bow on our conversation with Tone, Love our buddy, Love our palth. There was one other story I wanted to in addition to the vasectomy madness that I wanted to wedge in here before the end of the broadcasting Broadcasting week inside the Treehouse, and that is the state of Florida has done one of the most Florida things it could possibly do.

36:09 The state of Florida failed to pass a ban on first cousin marriage. To be fair, Florida is not the only state that it's still legal to marry your first cousin. But because it's Florida and they just tried to pass a bill banning first cousin marriage and they couldn't do it, well, it's getting quite a bit of attention. And my thought was, how does this How does a bill like that not pass? What got in the way? Why does a ban on marrying your first cousin fail? It took a fair amount of digging, but according to Newsweek, cousin marriage wild taboo to many Americans, has a long and complicated history in the United States. It was legal in all thirty four states during the Civil War, and remained socially acceptable in many communities well into the nineteenth century. Lack of options.

37:15 Population wasn't as dense as it is now. So it's like, you got a cute first cousin, it's fine, go for it. There's not that many of us running around, so we've got to take a week and get. So. The bill in Florida was introduced by Republican Representative Dean Black, who looked to outlaw all incestuous marriages with an amendment to a bill, and it didn't pass because they say lawmakers in the legislative session ran out of time. How long does it really need to take to tell a bunch of how long does it really take to tell a bunch of cousin?

37:55 No, it's actually becoming a bigger problem than you realize. So because it's you think of that, you're thinking everything of just in the under the specter of America being you know, the United States, it's far more common in other cultures. It is, and in other parts of the world. So there are eighteen states in the United States, plus Washington, d c. Where it is still legal to marry your first cousin. And like you said, Trey, it's also a common thing in areas of the Middle East and Northern Africa to take a cousin bride. Now, it's an interesting thing.

38:42 Albert Einstein married his cousin, fd R married his first cousin. Granted that was a long time ago and whatever. So yeah, but since it is the United States and we like to think of ourselves as more evolved, is is, why is it so difficult to tell a bunch of people you you shouldn't be married, and let's make a law out of it. Well, it shouldn't, but. Uh, you know, you look at the dipshits that we elect into different offices at both sides of the aisle. It shouldn't be a big shocker, you know what.

39:23 You may be right, Maybe the reason why Florida can't pass a ban on first cousin marriage is because you got a bunch of people who have been elected who married their first cousin. Yeah, or, as some people said, you know what, first cousin marriage isn't so bad because at least the wedding party will be smaller and Grandpa doesn't have to choose which side of the ceremony to sit. Yeah, yeah, in laws only have to buy one gift. I mean just imagine, just imagine you have kids and your grandpa, you have kids, and those kids have kids. Now you're a grand father and you get a wedding invitation.

40:06 Just getting these cities like little Timmy and little Oh god, sorry, that can't feel good if you're the grandparent, right. Uh, it depends. Uh you know, are you related to your did it start with them? You know what, it's just really great when when my cousin uncles can can can find somebody special. Yeah, you know, and there may be a sense of pride. Actually, you know what, there's a there is a YouTube they actually just had to in West Virginia. There there was a YouTube special and I cannot think of the name of it about basically the longest running inbred family in the United States. And it's everything you would think after generations of inbreeding.

40:59 Is it just the Hills have eyes? Yes? Oh god. And they're public about it because they think it's okay, or they just don't know any better. I think more of the if they're just so stupid day. Yeah, it's just good they. Don't realize how fucked up they are. I'm guessing they don't get out much. Yeah. No, So if you're curious, there are several states it's actually more than several, that allow marrying first cousins without restrictions.

41:39 Those states include Florida, Alabama, Alaska, New York, California, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Maryland, New Mexico, North Carolina, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, DC. And I know what you're wondering. Is it legal to marry your first cousin in the state of Texas. Nope, Texas is not on this list. Thirty two states have blanket bands on cousin marriages. The exceptions on some of these states. Those exceptions are due to advanced age of the cousins to be married or infertility issues, And if you don't have those things, then some of those states still make you go through a genetics counseling class before you can get married.

42:37 So if if you're old and you can't have kids, then you can marry your first cousin. I mean, okay, it kind of it makes sense. Yeah, I get it, you know, yeah, you can't scrip anyone else knock yourself out. Yeah, I can appreciate that. Yeah, I mean it's it's not bothering me. I mean that the two that's sort of the ultimate litmus test of whether or not you should be allowed to do something in this country, which is does it affect me? Does it affect somebody else, either intentionally or unintentionally? And if you want to hunt your cousin till you die and that doesn't affect me, okay, And as long as you're not reproducing and dumbing down the country by doing so, then yeah, I guess it's fine, especially if you can keep it in the family compound somewhere in the Black Hills of West Virginia.

43:33 Sure, why not? Whatever makes you happy. I just don't want to see it for all things Treehouse treehouseonair dot com. Once again, big thank you to our friend, actor, comedian and host Tone Bell at Punchline Comedy in Irving all weekend, including two shows on Saturday, Unchline Comedy in Irvin. He'll see a buddy, tone Belt. We will see you next time right here inside the Treehouse. In the meantime, share the show with a friend, Get that share a button from your favorite listening platform, Send it to a friend, send it to everybody you know, and together we can grow the Treehouse Show. We'll see you next time, right here inside the Treehouse