Episode 169 · The Porch Era
Classic tier — a personal pick, not a popularity ranking#169 - We're The Dirtbags | The Tim Dillon Show
Oct 13, 2019 · 2:01:14 · 341,000 views · 22 segments, 181 moments indexed
Tim recounts a winding tale through his past about the time he tracked down his stolen phone, the future of the nation, and gets the record straight on people that make politics their personality.
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- 1 min
Timmy the Trashcan PSA
#A cold-open bit voiced as a cartoonish talking trashcan named Timmy, begging patrons to throw their trash into him instead of the floor.
2moments
- Timmy the Trashcan PSA begins with the character introducing himself and his love of trash.
- Timmy explains that popcorn boxes and candy wrappers taste good, asking people to throw trash in him instead of on the floor.
- 1 min
Backyard Setup and Just Off Tour with Bert
#Tim explains he's recording in the backyard instead of the porch, apologizes to YouTube viewers, and mentions just getting off a bus and plane after touring with Bert Kreischer.
2moments
- Tim apologizes to YouTube viewers who paid for the show expecting it on a porch, promises it will return to the porch setup.
- Just got off tour with Bert Kreischer and a tour bus.
- 3 min
Losing His Phone in the Russian Uber Driver's Car
#Tim recounts leaving his phone in the backseat of an Uber driven by a heavily-plastic-surgeried Russian/Ukrainian woman, then panicking and enlisting Ben's help to find a Sprint store.
7moments
- Tim lost his phone in West Hollywood after getting back from a trip.
- After landing, Tim got an Uber—a black Jeep Liberty driven by a Russian woman with extensive plastic surgery.
- Tim made a mental note not to leave anything in the car, convinced the driver would know how to get rid of it.
- Hearing the Russian or Ukrainian accent made Tim uncomfortable about the chances of getting his property back.
- Tim left his phone in the backseat and didn't realize it until after getting water inside the house.
- Panic set in once he realized the phone was gone—he had important numbers and didn't want certain people being called.
- Ben told him there was a Sprint store open and offered to get him a Lyft, noting that Lyft is clearly the lesser service.
LyftSprintBert KreischerWest HollywoodLA River
- 6 min
The Lift Driver Who Couldn't Find Sprint
#Tim details his chaotic Lyft ride with a driver who kept calling him "Papa," driving in circles unable to locate a Sprint store despite Ben giving directions.
11moments
- Lift drivers are mentally deficient and shouldn't have licenses because you're taking your life in your hands getting in one.
- Tim recalls a Twitter video about the chaos of getting an Uber while skating in a lift.
- Tim gets in a Lyft with a dead phone and MacBook to go to Sprint, driven by a guy in a bright red Chevy Cruze.
- The Chevy Cruze looks like somebody defecated a car onto the street, shaped like it just plopped down.
- Driver pulls up to a corner and calls Tim 'Papa,' then reveals there's no Sprint store at the location.
- Tim asks a random guy if he knows of a Sprint store; the guy says no and keeps walking.
- Driver suggests they drive around looking for the Sprint store instead of using the GPS address.
- Driver thinks the Sprint store might be inside a large parking garage, but Tim doesn't see any signs.
- Driver insists this is a shared pool ride and the location can't be changed; Tim argues he selected a direct route feature.
- Tim explains he can't walk around LA with a MacBook like a psychopath getting on random Wi-Fi to FaceTime for a new Lyft.
- It's Sunday at 7 PM and Sprint closes soon, but apparently nobody in this country wants to work or needs hours.
Fleetwood MacElisa Lim ParisStevie Nixon
- 4 min
Hurricane Sandy and Life in Hell's Kitchen
#Tim describes his cramped five-story-walkup tenement apartment with a kitchen shower and hallway toilet, and recalls Hurricane Sandy devastating Long Island while he rode it out watching Breaking Bad.
7moments
- Tim lost his phone during Hurricane Sandy and had to go to Sprint the next morning.
- The first time he lost his phone was in 2013 when he moved to a five-story walk-up tenement in New York City with two comedians who were married and fighting bitterly.
- The 1911 building had no elevators, just five flights of stairs, and his railroad apartment had a room with no door and a steam pipe at the foot of his bed that would burn his foot.
- The kitchen had a shower in it with just a curtain, so someone would be washing while he was frying eggs or heating baked beans.
- Tim was 25, thrilled to be living in the city after the mortgage collapse, and had been doing comedy for two years when God decided to destroy Long Island with Hurricane Sandy.
- Hurricane Sandy ruined homes throughout his town of Island Park, with boats floating down Main Street and four feet of water in lower Manhattan.
- His loser friends are still using Hurricane Sandy as an excuse in 2019, claiming they were going to do things but got delayed by the hurricane.
- 6 min
Melanie, His Grifter Roommates, and Dark Comedy
#Tim reminisces about his old comedy friend Melanie, her morbid plane-crash jokes, the grifter married couple he lived with, and their shared disdain for delusional Long Island comedians.
10moments
- Tim couldn't get his business off the ground because of Hurricane Sandy, which hit while he was living on the fifth floor of a building in Hell's Kitchen.
- When his roommates fought, Tim would walk around Times Square at 2 a.m. talking to hot dog vendors and guys dressed like Tigger and Winnie the Pooh.
- The neighborhood near the Port Authority Bus Terminal had occasional bricks of coke, human trafficking, smash-and-grabs, and slashings—a little flavor of the old New York.
- A woman would regularly come to their block and just scream at the sky, which Tim saw as emblematic of living in that era of the city.
- The apartment had bedbugs twice and a rat that lived permanently in the lobby, but it worked for Tim because he was always out doing comedy.
- During Hurricane Sandy, Tim didn't leave the apartment for a week except to go downstairs—he stayed in and watched Breaking Bad instead of helping people.
- Tim's two roommates went to Staten Island to help during the hurricane, though Tim suspects they were probably running people's pockets or stealing copper wiring from buildings.
- Melanie was a woman comedian friend who did very dark comedy mainly about plane crashes, with a deep voice and specific airline references like Delta Flight 1791.
- Melanie had a bit about the last thing a pilot said when crashing in San Diego: 'This is it, Bobby, love your mom,' before the plane went down.
- Melanie loved talking trash, driving into the city for open mics, having dinners they couldn't afford, and driving home in her old Volvo that she worked on herself.
MelanieHell's KitchenBrooklyn BridgeManhattanMartha's VineyardTimes SquareHurricane SandyPort Authority Bus Terminal+3 more
- 2 min
The Bathroom in the Hallway and Riding the Subway to a Telemarketing Job
#More detail on the apartment's hallway toilet setup, leading into Tim explaining how he got a copier telemarketing job in Staten Island while on unemployment.
5moments
- Tim's ex-girlfriend used to call a Long Island comedian "fat mouth" because he never shut up.
- Melanie helped Tim move into an apartment during Hurricane Sandy where grifters were living illegally in a rent-controlled unit.
- The toilet wasn't inside the apartment—it was in the hallway, a tiny bathroom where you had to hold the seat up while using it.
- After Hurricane Sandy, Tim took the subway to a job selling copiers and office equipment.
- Tim jokes that he makes good decisions and surrounds himself with great people—two things everyone knows about him.
- 9 min
Selling Copiers in Staten Island: Ida, Al, and the Big Leagues
#A long saga about his telemarketing/copier sales job — the brutal commute via ferry and bus, his sales script, top producer Ida still riding the bus, and getting promoted to Al's Manhattan office with unhinged coworkers like Nikita and Madeline.
15moments
- Tim wanted a Craigslist job posting for telemarketing because he'd been a loser his whole career.
- He called a man named James in Staten Island who offered him a 9-to-1 telemarketing shift.
- His unemployment benefits were running out—two years of the Obama plan, 99 weeks total.
- At 27, he had to go back to Nassau Community College just to stay a full-time student and keep collecting unemployment.
- Tim was in gym class at 28, self-conscious about not being picked as anyone's tennis partner.
- His commute to the telemarketing job in Tottenville was two and a half hours each way.
- He'd take the R train down to South Ferry, then the Staten Island Ferry—a boat that runs 24 hours and takes people the wrong direction from the Statue of Liberty.
- The S 74 bus would then sit for an hour and a half before dropping him off at Reliable Office Systems for his $12-an-hour copier sales job.
- Tim's pitch: he'd call companies claiming to be with Reliable, asking if they still had their Ricoh copiers leasing and wanted to go paperless.
- His approach was to overwhelm the customer—everyone hates their copier anyway, and his Canon machine would break just as fast.
- The office was depressing; you walk into sales expecting to see nice cars in the lot and think you could make it too.
- The top producer was named Ida, an older woman who was saving up to finally afford a car after six months of hard work.
- Ida was taking the bus—the same bus as Tim—even though she was the top salesman at the office.
- Ida's sales technique was to talk extremely fast and overwhelm people with phrases like 'cannon cannon copier scanner fax' until they agreed to Wednesday appointments.
- When reps actually showed up to the appointments Ida booked, customers would say they had no idea what she was talking about and didn't need anything.
Staten IslandStaten Island FerrytelemarketingNassau Community CollegeReliable Office SystemsStatue of LibertyPatrice O'Neal
- 4 min
Losing His Phone (Round Two) on the Subway
#Two days into the new job, Tim loses his phone again, this time on the subway, forcing him to borrow a roommate's phone and figure out what to do.
7moments
- Tim got promoted from Staten Island copier sales to Manhattan office, meeting his new boss Al who praised his noise-making ability.
- Sales company hired people fresh out of prison who barely understood what they were selling, including a woman who cried during a call and hung up.
- Coworker Madeline was making six grand a month and got excited about company trip eligibility, diving into a salad with excessive toppings.
- Sales companies use trip incentives for good performers, which Tim notes creates drunk liability at company events.
- Tim sat silently through Al's rapid-fire questions about sports teams because he needed the job, naming dozens of teams without committing to any preference.
- Copier sales is the lowest level of office equipment sales, where even the good salesmen are disrespected and winning feels like losing.
- Al's daughter Nikita squared up with a pizza delivery guy, prompting Al to brag about her toughness to Tim.
- 4 min
Melanie's Find My iPhone Stakeout and the Rich Kid's House
#Melanie uses Find My iPhone to track the phone to a nice neighborhood, convinces Tim a rich kid stole it, and they call police to back them up before confronting the house.
5moments
- Tim loses his phone on the subway while working as a copier salesman to hedge funds and high-end lawyers.
- His father gave him a jacket he found, covered in bird shit and holes, which Tim wore to client meetings.
- Melanie introduces Find My iPhone to track down the lost phone.
- They discover the phone is in a nice area—a rich kid stole it.
- Melanie declares this the oldest story in the book and decides they're going to get the phone back from the rich kid's house.
- 7 min
The Kid Who Actually Just Wanted to Return the Phone
#The twist ending: the wealthy kid had genuinely tried to return the phone by calling all of Tim's drug-dealer friends, leaving him and Melanie looking like the disreputable ones in front of the cops.
9moments
- Tim explains why the kid stole the phone: thrill-seeking and endorphin rush from theft.
- Melanie suggests calling police first to avoid being caught trespassing in the rich neighborhood.
- Police arrive and Tim reports the phone stolen, claiming the suspect lives in the house.
- Cops suspect Tim and Melanie are running a scam, nearly ready to breathalyze them.
- The kid who answers the door is actually honest—he found the phone on the subway and tried calling Tim's friends.
- Tim offers the kid a restaurant connection as an awkward thank-you while standing on the mansion steps.
- Police are disgusted with Tim and Melanie as they walk back to the car, the kid shuts the door.
- Tim realizes there are good people in the world, though not many and not him or his friends.
- Tim reflects that this was the first time he lost a phone and he's never had a nice wallet.
- 10 min
Tim transitions into the Ridge Wallet ad, riffing extensively on his own overstuffed Greg Norman wallet, his mother's hoarding, and the idea that minimalism signals wealth and competence.
10moments
- Tim describes his embarrassing, overloaded wallet stuffed with business cards and cash that's been through the washer.
- A fat wallet now signals mental illness, crammed with loyalty cards from froyo shops and delis instead of money.
- Tim's mother was a hoarder with rooms stacked floor to ceiling with McDonald's toys, Beanie Babies, and collectible garbage.
- Tim admits his wallet is the last part of his mother's hoarding tendency he carries with him—a fat, disgusting Greg Norman shark wallet.
- He has absolute zeros as business contacts crammed into his wallet with nothing essential except a debit card and license.
- Tim is mortified taking out his wallet at restaurants because it's beat-up with everything stuffed into one section.
- Nobody gets laid taking out a big hunk of stuff on a bar; people want someone who has a few cards and nothing else.
- Tim's father didn't have a Ridge wallet and ended up a second-rate salesman living his life in debt because people didn't respect him.
- You can change your life starting with a sleek, slender wallet—it leads to the wife, kids, house, gates, heated kitchen floors, and eventually a mansion.
- Nobody in a mansion carries an old crap wallet; minimalism is the path to hustling success.
- 1 min
Wanting to Call Melanie in Martha's Vineyard
#Tim muses about Melanie's current life on Martha's Vineyard, friendly with Quint's real-life inspiration's daughter, and considers calling her before deciding it's too late.
3moments
- Melanie moved to Martha's Vineyard and befriended the daughter of the man who inspired the character Quint in Jaws, now lives in a barn and fixes Bill Murray's car.
- Tim considers calling Melanie right now since he has her number, realizes it's 1:42 in the morning on the East Coast, decides against it.
- Tim reflects that this is what happens with friends over time.
- 16 min
On Conspiracies, Epstein, and Political Burnout
#A sprawling rant about being exhausted by conspiracy culture and politics, arguing that both political sides are corrupt, that violence changes nothing, and that Epstein's death felt like a series finale to him personally.
13moments
- Tim joked years ago about killing Epstein, then the government actually did it, giving conspiracy theorists permanent credibility.
- For a decade he's been saying elections matter less than the bigger picture, ringing that bell constantly in every conversation.
- Young people on both far left and far right are experiencing their first awakening to how corrupted the system is, getting radicalized in different directions.
- Tim's position: he's not blackpilling or telling people not to be active, just speaking from experience that nothing meaningful changes.
- He's had the people on his show, conducted interviews, recommended books—what more do people want from him?
- Working within the system might improve things marginally, but it won't stop powerful people from killing to protect secrets.
- The people on the other side will go to any lengths and have unlimited resources; regular people won't match that commitment.
- He's watching young family members get radicalized because figuring out how they're being screwed short every day has become boring.
- The government brought Nazi doctors over after the war to experiment on children; these are the people you're actually up against.
- Live a meaningful life doing what you want—Bernie might be good, Trump isn't addressing Epstein or war, and having faith in any political leader is naive.
- Gore was on Epstein's plane and his wife loved war, so even if Gore would have been better than Bush, let's not pretend he was going to change everything.
- Young activists are choosing between two terrible options: one side wants to restore the Holy Roman Empire, the other rehabilitates Stalin's legacy.
- David Hogg tweets vague meaningless platitudes all day while a PR team fires them out—anyone can tweet horseshit, but it takes a special person to return a found phone.
Al GoreDavid HoggJeffrey EpsteinBernie SandersDonald TrumpBill ClintonGeorge W. Bush
- 7 min
Climate Doom, First Reformed, and America in 30 Years
#Tim speculates about America becoming uninhabitable from climate change, references the Ethan Hawke film First Reformed, and wonders if the country will fracture into regions.
8moments
- People who realize how messed up the world is often respond by concocting conspiracy theories and fairy tales that things are secretly getting better.
- Trump dancing with Epstein at a party means he wasn't making waves for the people involved in that world.
- Maybe humanity needs an outside threat like aliens to start seeing each other as human beings and stop dividing by race and class.
- The future is just going to be fat robots running around.
- Stavros reads a joke: Prince Andrew's latest trip to Epstein was to end their friendship, just like his latest trip to Buffalo Wild Wings was to tell them he's no longer eating wings.
- Fat people know why they're fat; they don't wake up one day wondering what happened.
- Tim predicts the future of the country will dissolve and break up into regions, or become like Great Britain past its peak.
- America will cycle through symbolic diversity—a gay president, a trans president, a woman of color—while remaining ceremonial like the royal family.
- 4 min
Everybody Already Knows: Prince Andrew and Epstein
#Discussion of a friend in London saying everyone already knows the royal family and Epstein connections are corrupt, plus a bit about a GrubHub driver stealing his food.
10moments
- Tim criticizes people who concoct crazy conspiracy theories to feel better about the world.
- Former drug users Tim knew are now obsessed with QAnon on Facebook instead of addressing real problems.
- Start with achievable goals like insulin access and health insurance rather than elaborate theories.
- Tim imagines what the country looks like in 30 years: hotter, with Alaska as beachfront property and most people in Montana.
- A movie with Ethan Hawke depicts a climate activist who kills himself rather than bring a child into a dying world.
- The protagonist discovers his church is backed by an oil company destroying the earth and plans terrorism.
- Tim questions whether people should have kids given economic collapse and climate uncertainty.
- Tim deciding whether to spend a week in New York or just four days to see his mother and perform.
- Grubhub driver stole his food for the second time, raising the question of desperate people signing up to steal deliveries.
- You can get away with stealing food as a delivery driver if you do it enough different times.
Ethan Hawkeclimate change
- 7 min
Wanting to Leave LA for New York Juice
#Tim talks about needing to get back to New York for energy and sharpness, contrasted with his odd, drama-filled living situation in LA and feeling he needs to live alone.
10moments
- New York diners serve competence: bacon and eggs made quick, sandwiches ready before you order them.
- Tim's currently living in a separation or divorce situation in LA with bad communication and drama.
- Crazy people are funny and good for material, but the price gets real eventually.
- He's spent his life around hucksters, thieves, liars, cheaters, circus crazies, and drunks, and wouldn't change it.
- At 35, wondering if this is it—just Looney Tunes and insanity, or if there's something else.
- People work Monday-to-Friday just to get shit-faced on weekends; an Uber driver uses smelling salts to wake passed-out passengers.
- Tim deliberately befriends people he recognizes as clinically psychopathic because they're fun.
- Fun has a real price tag on it; fun is very expensive.
- People around him can't even control how crazy they are anymore; they're just trying to smile while the ride spirals.
- He's planning to transition to living with a woman to get out of the chaos.
- 6 min
The Price of Fun and Surrounding Yourself with Psychopaths
#Tim reflects on his lifelong habit of befriending psychopathic, chaotic people for the entertainment value, and the toll that eventually takes as he gets older.
10moments
- Tim describes the contentment of someone 350-400 pounds who embraces their dysfunction and immobility completely.
- Overweight people at casinos and restaurants across America sit in mansions eating tater tots, which he claims appear on 30-40 percent of American restaurant menus.
- These men go to steakhouses nightly, get hammered and fatter, their penises shrink into their bodies, yet they're heroes to themselves because Trump blames Mexicans.
- Tim plugs live tickets at timdelcomedy.com and complains his Jewish nerd tech guy built a site that doesn't even work on mobile.
- Dennis, if alive, would address the absent accusers and say "life in the big city" while drinking cheap wine from a Burger King cup and smoking Marlboros.
- Tim hopes listeners' dreams come true except for those planning to kill him, others, or detonate a suitcase nuke.
- He's showered on animals and doesn't want dogs and cats in homes anymore—they're filthy and he wants nothing to do with them despite liking them.
- China does it right eating dogs and people, which is why they're number one, and Tim considers moving there or touring.
- Malaysia's Pizza Hut puts fish heads in stuff-crust pizza so locals can get fat while eating their native food—an ingenuity Tim respects for creative marketing.
- He lost his phone and spent four days through insurance getting a replacement by mail, now can't repeat that process and asks listeners to mail him phones.
Donald Trumplife in the big cityDennis
- 4 min
Sign-Off and Phone Plea, Then Politics as Reptile Brain
#Tim closes the main episode joking about needing a new phone, then delivers an addendum arguing politics is base, predictable, and boring compared to real human interests.
7moments
- Tim's morning thought: how people vote is the most predictable and least interesting thing about them.
- Politics comes from the reptile brain — base level, ugly, primordial.
- Tim interested in transformation, business-building, great art, and food — not the retail brand of American politics.
- Fixating on the Democrat-Republican horse race for your entire life is wasting your brain.
- Every show that's simply about politics hits a wall — Joe Rogan's succeeds because of varied interests and genuine curiosity.
- Political patterns feel cyclical, like a television show with a rotating cast that becomes predictable.
- Donald Trump was exciting because he was unpredictable and said things no politician had said before.
- 8 min
Beto O'Rourke and Why People Actually Vote
#Tim argues most people want to be herded like cattle, mocks Beto O'Rourke's manufactured Hispanic-sounding name and Spanish-speaking pandering, and says politics is exactly as shallow as it appears.
10moments
- Tim argues most people want to be herded like cattle, and he's better than other people.
- What politicians and celebrities are really like behind closed doors — whether they actually believe in anything or just take the shape of their container.
- Tim quotes Succession on politics: egos coming out of the toilet, a boring expression of human darkness run by fear.
- People who genuinely walked away from lucrative careers to help others are never the ones on Twitter or highlighted by media.
- Why people voted for Trump or Hillary is simple — it breaks apart with a butter knife, like guns and abortion: people just pick a side.
- Tim and his friends watched the Bush-Kerry election on MSNBC late night, seeing Chris Matthews host Ron Reagan's gay son alongside Steve Earle and Pat Buchanan — everybody collecting a check.
- Tim's advice: seek beauty and truth, avoid the American political gutter, have self-respect, stop wasting life staring at Rachel Maddow.
- Political figures don't care about you — your best friends and family barely care, so why would Beto O'Rourke.
- Beto's father named him that to sound Mexican for politics, but O'Rourke is Irish — it sounds like a dumb Mexican restaurant mixed with an Irish pub.
- At what point do people get real and realize it's all a circus instead of treating politicians like Beto as a nice change.
Beto O'RourkeRachel MaddowBill O'ReillyDonald TrumpChris MatthewsElizabeth WarrenPat BuchananKatrina vanden Heuvel+2 more
- 8 min
Epstein's Death as the Series Finale
#Tim compares following the Epstein saga to watching a TV show whose main character just got killed off, and says he's checked out emotionally from mainstream political theater.
11moments
- Tim describes people sitting down angry and ready to argue about politics without knowing any actual facts about what they're upset about.
- Someone recently ranted about pulling out of the Paris Accord without even knowing what it is—just repeating what they heard because they're angry about something else entirely.
- Epstein getting killed is like the series finale to Tim's interest in conspiracy; he's now a passenger watching a movie where they killed off a main character.
- Since Epstein's death, Tim has decided to stop engaging and just watch cat videos instead—the bottom line is to turn it off.
- Beto O'Rourke failed as a candidate and is out there speaking Spanish to pander, revealing how little respect politicians have for voters' intelligence.
- Politicians have zero respect for people as thinking organisms, yet viewers keep giving them power and attention instead of turning the channel off.
- Tim compares people paying attention to current politics to employees going into Enron two months after it imploded—you already know the system is corrupt.
- Joe Biden is senile and Bernie is 90 years old; even if Bernie won, he'd probably last a month before something happens to him.
- After traveling around the country, Tim observes that most people don't actually want things to get better—they just want to beat other people and remain selfish.
- Tim has more respect for human traffickers and coyotes bringing people over the border than for anyone at the New York Times or Yale, because the traffickers actually understand what's happening on the ground.
- People who went to Harvard's Kennedy School of Government have worse takes on reality than literal retards; the advice is to change the channel and embrace what's actually happening.
Donald TrumpJeffrey EpsteinJoe BidenCBSNew York TimesBeto O'RourkeHarvard Kennedy SchoolBernie Sanders+6 more
- 4 min
Bill Eating His Own Sh*t in the Parking Lot
#An extended metaphor comparing dysfunctional coworkers who refuse to shape up to citizens who won't engage productively with the country's problems, tying back to political apathy.
9moments
- Tim on living as things slip away: the economy is based on gambling, people are too fat to fit in cars.
- Uninsured citizens think it's fine because Trump's draining the swamp and putting Obama in Gitmo based on Reddit poems.
- Bill eating his own shit in the parking lot — a parable about coworkers too far gone to reach or fire.
- Bill doesn't care and you can't fire him because they're not even paying him.
- People have zero interest in fixing anything, especially those with nice homes, cars, and kids in good schools.
- The totally fucked have no idea how to fix things, and anyone trying to teach them gets co-opted or murdered.
- Tim's solution: start calling yourself a ho and dress like a fifteen-year-old whenever politics comes up.
- When someone brings up politics, respond by saying 'I'm a cow, I'm not a cat, I don't say meow.'
- Tim plugs TimDillon Comedy dot com for live dates.