Greg Behrens - Recorded in front of a live audience at the ATL Comic Convention

My friend invited me to go to one of those escape the room games. You know what I'm talking about, like you and your friends, you solve a series of puzzles and escape from a room. I was like, Yeah, dude, I don't think I'd be very good at that. And he was like, why not? And I was like, because I can't even figure out how to get out of going right now. Don't know how the added pressure of a timer is going to improve my problem solving. I can't escape this conversation really. And the only thing on the line is our friendship. That was already on shaky ground. I like that's a horror movie simulator. I like and I like horror films but who went to the Saw movies and was like, Dude, this should be an activity. Like no, I'm going to a trap house it better Blanca two Chainz. Ladies and gentleman comedy roundtable coming up on this episode. The subjects for this episode are yes, Jeff asks my bedtime or a pirate's life for me. Sometimes you have to buy groceries at Dollar General. Yeah, relax, Jamie. You have to do it so fast. They only last for like a couple days. And I can't go that's just me and my wife with the time machine. So I use the time of night. We have saved a chair for you our listener and we've also saved a chair here at the roundtable for our guest this evening. Greg Barents. Hi. Hi, welcome to the roundtable. This episode is actually being recorded not at the landmark diner where we normally are adjacent to the punch line comedy Club. Instead, we are at the Georgia World Congress Center part of the Atlanta comic convention and we have a live audience. Yes. Good job live. Yeah, oh, they're loving it. All right. Today, our pod cast listeners not necessarily to ours, our job over the next 30 minutes or so is to convert them, Greg. If we don't, it's definitely gonna be guest driven. We're not paying if we have plenty of subscribers and listeners to the podcast. And if these numbers don't significantly move, I'll never get to do it again. Do a good enough job persuading our audience here on the show today, there will be a survey if you will raise your hand if you would be willing to participate in the survey. If you would not be willing to participate in the survey, please keep your hand down. I have never been more of a gentle liar than when coming up with excuses for why I cannot stay on the line to complete a brief survey. Do you have time to listen to a freezer aisle? I really don't have been parked here for some time now. And I need to get in the bill. Oh, you stay on the line to have that conversation. Yeah, I think that's polite of you. Like I usually just hang up, I say do you have time for a brief survey, I usually just hang out this is a there's a clear option because they don't stay on the line with you. So you give them the false hope that you will stay on the line. They connect you and then you hang up no guilt. They're happy they go home. They're like, You know what I was talking to this guy Adam today. Very nice guy. And I think he actually did the survey. They don't have any idea. Disagree. Disagree. I think its own conversation. That's the upside of the phone is that you can literally just hit one button and it's over. You're out. It's not like you're in an Uber. And he's like, Would you be really willing to take a survey? And you're like, Well, you kind of have me captive, and I'm not going anywhere. Or he starts telling you about how much he likes Trump or how much he likes Biden, you're like, Oh, please don't do this to me. So I feel like you guys don't give the dollar to the food bank, either at the grocery store. Oh, boy. I think you made a lot of judgments about it. Like, it's like two seconds. Literally, they're looking at me. Can't say yes, I'll do it. And then I asked them to just hide behind the register as I depart. They're gonna stare down. So there's enough of them seeing you. Yeah, that's okay. It's the guilt factor. I will at the grocery store almost always good. Because I it's important to me for some reason that the lady at the grocery store thinks highly of me. Like, it's so important to me that like because I usually shop at the same grocery store. So I'm like, I do never want to be afraid to enter a line. Because I don't think she likes. That is the place where I fake my fake wealth more than any other place. Grocery stores. Will you do? $1? No, I will do two Oh $5 Because I have that much disposable income. Why? Give $5 to the food bank. I'm gonna need directions to that food bank to pick up some canned goods. And they're like Mr. Disposable income. Why do you have generic bacon in your card? Like, why do you have to save some money so I could donate at the end? Okay, okay. It's for the kids isn't coupons here? I cannot my donation. You're just actually responsible. Let me ask you this. Are you still like, are you What do you feel about you? You're your own checkout. You know, do you still the guy or do you go to the checkout, if you can, like the self checkout? I like the self checkout. Yeah, because I'm earning my groceries at that point by stealing them. Right. That's what most people do with the self checkout. There is a certain fear, you know that I think I probably paid twice for most of them because I scan as scan. I hear the beep there. Yep. I think the best self checkout scam is to get like, highly like the go to Whole Foods right? And you get like the really good oranges. And then you just plug it in his oranges. Right? And it's like, I've got like the exotic sumo tangerines, but I'm like, oranges for them. Let's go. I'm out. This is why comedy roundtable is the favorite podcast of all criminals out there. A lot of barley packs that you're normally getting. This is actually the first time I'm learning that there are fancy oranges. Oh, yeah. There's like the Sumo was pretty Yeah, I didn't know. It's different. I thought it was orange. That's, well, there's a naval and I just want to point out to the gentleman in the back who has the mask on I'm not staring you down. I'm just trying to read your eyes because I can't see whether you're laughing at us. So I just want I'm just looking at laughing with those eyes or is it smiling? shoulder shrug of acknowledgement in there someplace. little ripple laughs I need positive feedback. It's like doing stand up in a room that's fully lit where you can see everyone's expression. Alright, it's always terrifying. So on the roundtable, we go through and we do lightning round questions. And we pick topics you answer the topics one at a time. Okay, okay. The subjects for this episode are Yes Chef past my bedtime or a pirate's life for me. One, I pick one. Oh, yes, Chef. Let's do that. Yes, Chef. Yes. Starting with Adam. All right. So with Yes, chef, the question immediately becomes what do you make? Is this your go to dish but secondly, a follow up? Question is, what dish do you have a recollection of faking liking for someone that you cared about? Okay, we'll start with what do you make? What do I okay today? Well, Jamie texted me earlier. I was making Indian food. I was making butter chicken in my instant pot. Nice. Yeah, it was rock at it. Yeah, I'm your Indian foods on point. I am very good at it. more to it than chicken and butter. Yes, there is more to it than chicken and butter has cilantro and a lot of spices. With the Indian food that's always got me a little bit worried about trying to do it is because I always think it's got 1000 different spices that I gotta get in order to make it well. Is that not the case? I'm thinking you stay with curries and you're good. I mean, I use like salt paprika, cayenne pepper basics. Garam Masala. Okay, now we're going crazy. Yeah. I mean, it's a mix all the stuff is theirs. You could just buy a like if you go to the farmers market, you could just buy a premade one and throw that quantity in there. Now this is like frozen butter chicken is are we talking about? Oh no. I mean like by the seasoning like to go to Whole Foods and then there's like the regular seasoning. Well, Mr. Disposable income over here and his whole foods shopping trips? Yeah. No, I don't have the money. That's why I have to fake my oranges. Sometimes you have to buy groceries at Dollar General. Yeah, relax, Jamie. Yeah, so I actually recently discovered that there is a massive business in gently used fruits and vegetables. There is yeah, that is absolutely true. That there's ugly fruit. Is that going to restaurants? I don't I don't know. Oh, hang on a second before anybody asks anymore. I really don't know what I'm talking about. I read the headline and kind of glanced over the rest of the episodes tell you but I know that I was impressed with the amount of ugly fruit that people buy this dude built this whole business around it. It's the produce that doesn't look good for the supermarket, right? Like all the you know, kind of deform. Yeah. The Misfits. Yeah, that's a good way of putting it. Used fruit No, not used for. Acknowledged I didn't read the whole article. So I got close with the idea that of a skimmer that wasn't in vegetables that were going to a store you could participate in this guy basically says, I'll send you a box of stuff that doesn't look right. And I'm sending it to you as a discount. So you might get some undersized. Sumo oranges. A big fan of the produce box. Yeah, quick shipment. Yeah. So do you get those? I do get those. Yeah, they're fantastic. They're like you just the only problem with that, like fruit and vegetables and stuff. You have to do it so fast. Like yeah, they only last for like, a couple days. And I can't go it's just me and my wife. I can't go through that big box of stuff, you know, right. But I guess it's getting wasted. It's gonna get thrown out. Yeah, either way. So like, I can pay somebody to shoot me so I'm gonna throw it out for him. Right. So wait, okay, so could you then create a business we're gonna have a follow up question here that's being completely ignored. No, no, we're gonna get a follow up. Is Could you could you like everybody is notorious for having too much stuff. Right? And that they're not really utilizing, would you subscribe to a service where you could get a shipment of some other person's random stuff? Yes. I think that would be awesome. Like, you could just mystery. It's just going through other people's stuff. They're like, is there any contingencies of what they can? I don't know. I guess you could make contingency. If you can sign up first, but basically say, your your sign up and you go send me a mystery box once a month. And then if you were a participant, you then could ship out boxes, you get a do you get the bio, like, do I get Greg's no oxen? I'm like, no, no, not a refrigerated box is clearly not just be it would be a box that would show up. And it might just be stuff that I wanted to throw away. But instead, I'm shipping to you to throw away. Yeah, it's a brilliant idea. Not really well, it just the other day, ugly fruit thing. And you think it's like, I did start the whole session with I've been reading a lot about the root. And then when I pushed you on it a little bit, you're like, okay, just read the headline. fleshing out the idea of what we all do. We all say we read about ugly garage stuff. Ugly garage stuff. Yeah, ugly attic stuff, I think. Yeah. Okay. Second, second. Part two is, can you remember faking liking something for a person you cared about? I do pretend to like some meals that my wife prepares. And then I and she always knows. Like, she can always tell that I don't like it like that. And I try to be nice about it. And it's, I don't know. Honestly, I can't think of a specific dish. But she would tell you that I'm a better cook than she is. But she'll cook for me sometimes. And then she'll say, you don't like this. Like, while I'm Oh, you know, like, while I'm eating it. Like I can tell. Yeah, she can absolutely tell every single time that I don't like it. And that salt all of my cooking. Yeah, you said so much salt. Yeah, I had an incident with someone who, who knows if she's listening to the podcast or not. I live with her. She's married to me. I call her a wife, but I'm not sure she's gonna listen to the podcast. Half the time she is at the time. She's not. So Lisa, if you're listening, go ahead and just push the 32nd button twice. Yeah, earmark and for me, but yeah, she made a saw a spaghetti sauce the other day. And she was so like, happy with it. Right. She's like, isn't it so good? isn't so good. I did a lot of different stuff today. But I was like, This is too. Right. Like, it's so much more than what you normally do. Like, it's so but I didn't say that. I was like, Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, I can tell. Okay, so wrong approach because now you're gonna get that same sauce again. Yeah, I couldn't. I couldn't do it to her though. She was really excited about how it turned out after a lot of work. That whole section is just gonna be one long beep oh, no sound like you're discussing the whole time but it's just gonna be be that's good. That'll be good. What did you say about my sauce? I I think it's great that she does call me out on it. Because otherwise I would keep it to myself. You know, and say like, and just pretend that I would get that horrible meal again, you know, like, I don't want to get that. But what you could and this might be a different way to approach it is remake the meal correctly. I know you tried to make this Oh, but here's what it's supposed. Oh, that is so harsh. Like I work when I get in marital trouble on the show. And I say something that my wife is gonna hear and she's gonna get angry. Jamie usually follows it up with something that's significantly worse. So I appreciate that. I appreciate you giving me cover again. I really really adore you. Alright, Jamie? Yes, chef is the category what sort of evil plans have you been cooking up in your mind lately? You evil plans? I don't know. I don't necessarily feel like I have evil plan that's what they that's what they're that's what everyone that no that's what the real evil. That's why it's such a nice guy. I am. I am a fairly nice guy. Like I don't run a lot of scams. time like the present? Yeah. Well, now you got me thinking about things that I could program into the self checkout to just Yeah, fancier oranges. Yeah, upgrade your orange game. When you're thinking evil plans. I want you to aim higher. Greg, I want you to go beyond higher than self checkout scan premium orange. I want you to actually hear the Atlanta comic convention. There are lots of villains walking the the villain, right if you're gonna adopt a villainous persona, I was. Yeah, if you need recruits, this is the place to be okay. He is so thinking I'm gonna get cancelled whatever I say. No, I'm not famous enough to get cancelled. Okay, there you go. All right. All right. Yes, Jeff. Yes, Chef, what is S C? crit food treat that you make for yourself that would be shockingly gross to other people who shockingly grows. Usual or odd where you go, I when I have the chance I love, I improved your question. Also. You can also say a shockingly gross thing that your wife makes at Food treat, right? Says he's the better cook. Yeah, I'm gonna give you an example. I'm gonna let me give you an exam. Okay, that would have wore me out here the other day. I so because it's Lent. Yeah, I give up snacking for the most part, which means just so people are listening so not be listening to the podcast inland. Don't worry. You're okay. We taped it. Okay, but, so, like my go to stuff that I would normally eat for snacks. Like, by way of example, pretzels or something. I don't eat during Lent. And if you looked at how much of my diet consisted of not meals, but snacks, you would have a different appreciation for the mental gymnastics that I go through trying to figure out. Okay, that's a long way of saying that. I found myself in the kitchen with a small flour tortilla. Some barbecue sauce. Okay. bacon bits. Okay, parmesan cheese you see what I mean? How you go? Yeah, but it was actually somewhat tasty. Yeah, it wasn't necessary. Adam ri had said that we had given up snacking, there would have been a bigger gasp in the crowd. I think that's not that's a fat joke, I guess. No. Okay, yeah. But is there something Oh, the flag. So is there something that you make where you go, this is a I make for myself and I like okay, this isn't this isn't something that I make. But it's kind of like a gross, like that I'm a, I just dip things into, like Nutella jar. You know, like, oh, and it often will like leave things. You know, like, I'll just make toast and there's just like, dip it into the you know, there's like crumbs there and my wife will get past that. Okay. Or the Yeah, like the peanut butter. Like a messy Dipper. Yeah, like I stick like pretzel rods. Everything tell him Yeah, it's and the other the other. So I did that. And I also like I am speaking of spaghetti sauce. I also will sometimes enjoy just eating spaghetti sauce with a spoon right out of the Oh, that's gross, right? Yeah, no, yeah. I just like spaghetti sauce. It will not hurt feelings if you all leave. All Yes. Now we may have time. Yeah. spoonfuls of spaghetti sauce. I know. It's gross. But if you like it, what brand are we telling you? This isn't like Ragu. Oh, you're opening a jar of cold Ragu. And I'm telling you is so tasty. You. You may think it's crazy spoonful of Ragu. Yeah, to try it with a smoothie straw. It's much better. I know a guy who eats raw hotdogs like just because hotdogs are fully cooked I guess apparently, all you're doing so it's not that that's significantly worse than that. I honestly judged him the harshest of all people but reached out to me as well. i But I hear what you're saying. Because there are times where I will sometimes dip directly into the rag whatever the thing is. And if it's breaks off, yes. And then you some time passes the next time you open it you play a game of is that partial cracker or yes, I'm big with graham crackers like I stay and then there's like graham cracker crumbs all in the jar and my wife was good. That grosses in harm. I think we should let the audience go to our first break. All right, we'll be back with more of comedy Roundtable. My mom likes to compare me with my siblings, which I don't think is fair. Like my little sister is a lawyer. She teaches law at an Ivy League school. Now I'm usually powering through a hangover on weekdays. Not the same, you can measure our success the same, like she likes to measure success based on wealth and status and even just generally having your life together. So my sister's nailing it, but I'm a comedian. I like to measure success based on how many struggling magicians I'm friends with. It's six. One of them is my drug dealer. So don't even think my sister has a drug dealer. It's like it's your fault. why we'd like a monster I do have a magician drug dealer which is not as fun as it sounds like pulling it out of weird places like he just was like abracadabra and half my paycheck disappears my main guy like, you know, like, if you buy weed, you can't just rely on one guy. You gotta have a deep bench, you know, a football team. Eventually, like your main guy will go on the DL. You know, our drug dealers go on the J. L. Like they go to jail. Basically. You got to put in your second string man, you know, like your second string guys like the guy who takes too many chances and those numbers aren't as good but you're playing them once in a while. My second string guys too bold. Like, he always wants to meet me in public. Like he wanted to meet me in the parking lot of a Bass Pro Shops. Noon on Black Friday. Oh, no. And I did it because he called the place Yeah. So I pull off there and he's like, way out in the middle of the parking lot by himself on the busiest day of the year. Right in front of them. There's two cops like right here. And they're doing that but that cop 69 Like this is exposition. I know he hasn't seen him either because he's drinking a beer in his car Hey, you know there's two cops like right there. I think it takes the bag away and he just fires to my chest. Like what you should probably get the fuck out of here that kind of weed go seek and I'm at now we still better than your third string man. You never want to go into third string guy. You know football. He's the guy that doesn't even play that position normally, like he sells meth and Xanax but central location. Back here comedy round table live audience here at Atlanta comic convention. We actually have some of our youngest live guest attendees not necessarily outside our demo of listener in the show. We appreciate everybody being here as part of the Atlanta comic convention. We are here with our guests comedian Greg Barron. I'm Jamie Bendele. Jamie Hernan Adam Haig are your hosts here the comedy roundtable we have two remaining subjects to cover they are past my bedtime or a pirate's life for me. Oh, let's do the bedtime on my best my bedtime. Curious starting with Adam. So when I was little I used to think that everything cool must be occurring past my bedtime. Right? But then I was always frustrated with going to bed because I was like all the cool stuffs about to happen. Can you think of anything you thought was awesome as a kid? And turns out to be kind of lame? Oh, man. I think like when I was a kid, I always just wanted to be older. Right? And then older happen that when I did that, and I was like, Man, I just kind of want to be a kid. Right? Like it's awful. But yeah, driving independence living on my own to be so great. Yeah, but then it's like, this isn't fun. You know? Like, these are bills. That may be the greatest goal. Getting older, because you always will crush it. Yeah, I did. Want to accomplish a goal. You set the bar low. Yeah. I can't wait to get older. Well, right. Yeah. I got that. You always die at the moment. Your oldest. That's your keys trying to be heavy. You tried. You will always you can't beat your own record. Oh my god. It's like Confucius over here. Yeah, well, listen, you know, this is what I think is cool. Yeah, I think I agree, though, like staying up past your bedtime is like that's, yeah, nothing's happening. Like I stay up late all the time. And I'm just watching TV. Like I could have done that all day. I mean, I'm really tired in the morning. Like, it doesn't mean you don't wake up in the morning. It just means you're gonna be really tired. Yeah, it's actually way more fun to sleep in the morning than it is at night. I'd rather go to bed super late and then just sleep during the day so true. That's right. actually afraid Jamie if I ate Greg goo straight out of the jar, that that would also be the moment that I broke my record for being the oldest and I died with a jar of Ragu. No, because my wife found out she's doing somebody loved the whole funeral. I don't know that you want her to know how much you love it. Like it's, it's probably not great. I don't keep those kinds of secrets. It keeps the big news not much. Like the four ladies I have in Chicago. That's that's different. is totally fine. Everybody knows you got to disclose enough things that it makes it seem like Well, clearly, you can't have other secrets. I'm being completely honest. He even told me about the Ragu. Which should be kept a secret. I could see the people at your funeral like they're all whispering as they're like walking into the viewing and be like, did you hear you? I already had a cold jar of Ragu and a spoon in his mouth. That'd be your Elvis on the toilet moment. Oh my god, what happened? Who would probably spat her out? Like I've been knifed or something and there'd be red everywhere in the middle. My god he was stabbed. Eat as much Ragu that you feel your veins are just flowing with it. Just spill forth. Alright, what daytime activity that you do on a regular basis? Would you be okay doing if you could only do it while snoring. I could only do it while snoring. Oh my god, I guess you can still talk. You can still you just you're just just snoring the whole time. I mean, I guess while I'm cooking, because it would keep my wife out of the kitchen while I'm doing it. Like I'm not I don't mean it in that way. I just found a repellent. Yeah, like she I snore horribly when I sleep and she hates it like I will. I'll get like kicked in the ribs and punched in the ribs. And you could snore while you're cooking. Yeah, just I got this just stay out of the kitchen. Yeah, because yeah, it's just like, I get distracted really easily when I try to do that. And if she's like asking me something, and she works at home during the day, and you know, if she doesn't if she's got downtime, she'll just say, Oh, hey, what are you doing? Like, oh, now I can't concentrate at all. All right past my bedtime. When was the last time you stayed up? All night? All night. It's been a little while. I think the last time I was doing a gig in like Huntsville, and I had to come home afterwards. And I didn't get home until like 530 in the morning just driving. Okay, stay up. Yeah, just like kind of stay up to get home because I had somewhere and then get to sleep for like an hour. You know, as a night owl thing with my kids love to stay up all night like my kids. And I am like, they always want me to do it with them. Like they're like, Dad, let's go let's stay up all night. Let's, you know, let's all nighter. It is hard the next day would be that like they seem to recover after a good they fall asleep at like, you know,

10am and they're awake at two and good. I'm out for the whole weekend. If I try and do that. Now I do how to stay up all night. But I do have a secret, which is I find that there's a time machine I go into when I play video games with my kids and like, it's weird. It's like I can move, which 10 minutes in the video game is actually like three hours in real life. So I've only been playing the video game for a short amount of time, but well, and my wife was like, you've been playing that game for three hours. And I'm like, no, no, no, pretty sure I've only played three games. So it's a time machine so I use the Time Machine. Thank you for our live audience here at the Atlanta awesome comic convention. Continue to support the comedy round table puts chair back where you found it. We'll see you next episode probably Back live at the punch line comedy Club, inside landmark diner in the heart of Buckhead for Jamie, Jamie and Adam. See you next time. The other day I gave $5 to an anti bullying charity. I didn't want to but they cornered me. I was like, What is this? I came out of a store and they started threatening me with all these facts about teen suicide. I was like take my money please. Like don't shove me in a locker. Like for the bullies. Like what's happening here like and they took my last $5 It was my lunch money that they took the bullying chair. I was like you know what, this is actually a pretty effective campaign. I had no idea it was like this out here and I'm afraid to go back to that store because I think they're gonna be there. I was actually at a gas station on the way down here. It's my favorite restaurant. I must have been putting off some kind of like vibe of success. Because a dude with gold teeth asked me for $1 I was like, That's sweet of you. I don't know. What about my pleasure casual wardrobe would lead you to believe that I didn't just put my life savings on pump for That's very kind of you to think that I would have$1 I do have one but if I'm going to hand that out to a stranger at a gas station, I'm going to need to move a few things around. Since we handed these out willy nilly, I don't even have valuable teeth. These are just yellow. We're not the same. And I said all this out loud so he just kind of walked off. I don't know if we ever got the dollar. I feel like the tattoos are pretty good indicator that I'm not great with money. All tattoos are just grim reminders of different times I had $80 Like that's a whole piece or four