Episode 222 · The Ben Avery Era
#222 - Running Out The Clock | The Tim Dillon Show
Oct 18, 2020 · 1:13:11 · 613,000 views · 24 segments, 151 moments indexed
Tim explains why many of you are wasting your life, and how you should be more effectively doing so.
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- 3 min
Fall Marketing While the World Burns
#Tim riffs on companies marketing autumn and pumpkin products while civil unrest, wildfires, and COVID chaos continue in the background, mocking the disconnect between cheerful fall branding and societal collapse.
6moments
- Companies market fall products despite the world falling apart, everyone still into autumn anyway.
- The crisp smell in the air comes from fires burning homes in Oregon and people burning down courthouses.
- Tim on returning to normalcy through pumpkin spice lattes while things remain batshit crazy.
- Quarantine ending and not ending simultaneously, with unpredictable lockdowns in parts of New York.
- Locking down hospitals in areas with more COVID cases raises questions about targeting specific populations.
- Hasidic and Orthodox Jews in New York are done with restrictions and want to go back to normal.
Hasidic JewsNew YorkWilliamsburg
- 3 min
He reacts to news of targeted COVID lockdowns in Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods of New York, questioning why 'progressive' policy is locking down a specific religious/ethnic community and demanding hospitals actually be overwhelmed before further lockdowns.
6moments
- Tim expresses discomfort with locking down Hasidic neighborhoods in New York, questioning whether targeting a specific ethnic group is the progressive approach.
- Hospitals need to be completely full—every floor packed—to justify shutting down again; he knows nurses who are off, suggesting occupancy claims don't add up.
- Locking down specific areas like Williamsburg strikes him as the wrong move.
- Tim proposes the only lockdown he'd support: a Thanksgiving quarantine where everyone stays home for one day.
- He expresses genuine sadness about missing Thanksgiving with family despite not having attended for five years—he's been deliberately weaning himself off them.
- Getting COVID from your Aunt Cheryl would be worse than contracting it from a stranger; he'd rather buy tickets to something.
WilliamsburgAunt Cheryl
- 3 min
Skipping Thanksgiving and Getting COVID from Aunt Cheryl
#Tim jokes about avoiding his own family for Thanksgiving to dodge COVID, comparing getting COVID from a relative unfavorably to getting AIDS from a fun orgy, and advises childless adults to skip family holidays entirely.
6moments
- Tim lists absurd places you should go instead of getting COVID from your family at Thanksgiving.
- Imagining AIDS spread through family gatherings, but at least people had fun getting it—unlike boring COVID.
- COVID origin stories are depressing: taking a bus to work isn't a fun acquisition story like some other diseases.
- Tim argues the holidays are worthless if you don't have children—stay home with Chinese food and NCIS instead.
- He describes his confusion about popular TV shows like NCIS where everyone's getting court-martialed and nobody knows why.
- The aftermath: two days later your family calls to report Aunt Kathleen was a super spreader and everyone's going to die.
Kamala HarrisNCISMark Harmon
- 1 min
Antifa and Proud Boys at Thanksgiving
#Riffing on Thanksgiving as a uniquely gift-free, universal American holiday, he imagines antifa members being dragged to family dinners and Proud Boys aggressively pushing football at the table.
2moments
- Antifa members are probably forced by their parents to attend Thanksgiving before they blow up banks.
- Proud Boys love Thanksgiving and are annoying about it, aggressively insisting on football and calling people trans for not wanting to play.
- 5 min
The McCloskeys and the Halloween Costume Video
#Tim discusses the viral McCloskey gun photo and the charges they faced, praises them as a couple who 'share values,' then describes dressing as them for a Halloween video and reminisces about last year's Jeffrey Epstein Temple costume shopping trip to Lane Bryant.
11moments
- Tim made a Halloween costume video where he dressed as the McCloskeys at the end.
- The McCloskeys were the St. Louis couple photographed outside their home with weapons during a protest.
- Tim argues the McCloskeys were just being cautious in case the protest turned wild, calling them a fun couple.
- Tim describes the McCloskeys' marriage as a model of shared values while identifying their guns.
- If protesters were chanting "eat the rich," the McCloskeys were essentially saying "if you're going to eat us, we're going to eat you."
- Patricia McCloskey's pistol turned out to be a prop from a federal trial, not a real weapon.
- Police found no ammunition at the McCloskeys' home and the rifle wasn't loaded when seized.
- Tim's McCloskey costume was part of a fun Halloween video made to follow up last year's famous Epstein Temple costume.
- Last year's Epstein Temple costume required hunting for white tights for two days, which was a nightmare.
- Tim would go to Lane Bryant in LA pretending to be Meghan McCain to get tights without being questioned.
- Lane Bryant employees in LA would help Tim find tights that made him look svelte without complaint.
Mark and Patricia McCloskeyJeffrey EpsteinSt LouisMeghan McCainLyda Krewson
- 3 min
Zoom Easter with Overdosing Relatives
#He describes his dysfunctional family's Zoom Easter call, joking about relatives who appear to be mid-overdose on camera, and his refusal to participate.
5moments
- Tim describes shopping at Lane Bryant and how the fat theater chicks there were kind and didn't care that he was trying on women's clothes.
- After every theater show, fat theater chicks at the diner obsessively draw attention to how many mozzarella sticks they've eaten.
- Tim's family did a Zoom Easter a few months ago where half the relatives are drug addicts staring blankly at the camera.
- Some family members appear mid-overdose during the Zoom Easter call, foaming at the mouth while trying to say happy Easter.
- Tim's stepmother asks him to make a birthday video for his mother's 80th birthday, leaving him confused about what she wants.
- 3 min
The Dorothea Birthday Video Disaster
#Tim recounts being asked to record a birthday video message for his stepmother's mother, Dorothea, and describes the bizarre, cryptic, 'stay strong, see you on the other side' message he sent instead of a normal happy birthday.
7moments
- Tim describes the modern ritual of birthday video messages where everyone sends wishes to the celebrant.
- He records himself in black glasses telling Dorothea to "stay strong" and "better days ahead" as if she's gravely ill, though she's actually in good health.
- Tim adds "see you on the other end" to the message, making it sound like a farewell from someone in witness protection.
- The complete video message reads as a cryptic warning sandwiched between cheerful birthday wishes from others, creating tonal whiplash.
- Tim describes looking like he's in a safe house, barely able to breathe, wearing dark sunglasses because he was outside by the pool.
- His divorced family structure means they had to ask his cousins—who are on heroin and have only met Dorothea twice—to contribute videos.
- One of the heroin-addicted cousins uses the birthday video to ask Dorothea for a wire transfer, claiming he's in hard times and needs financial help.
Dorothea
- 4 min
Uncle Henry's Impossible Guessing Game
#He tells the story of his step-relative Henry, a brilliant and rude Cuban-orphan attorney, who invented a maddeningly specific object-guessing game at family gatherings that got him banned, plus a bit about his aunt's fake law practice in her basement.
9moments
- Uncle Henry's guessing game: he'd bring an unknown object to family gatherings and let people ask yes-or-no questions until someone guessed what it was.
- Henry answered questions with lawyer precision, parsing language to such absurd degrees that he'd say something wasn't in food production when it was actually used in harvesting.
- He was banned from playing the game because the competitive arguing got so bad that people would storm off insulted.
- At parties Henry would ask if anyone wanted to play the game, and people would commit to rounds that went thirty or forty minutes with no one guessing, and he'd refuse to let it end.
- Tim's family members asking the questions were often too drunk or stupid to generate useful clues, asking things like 'Did you find it in outer space?'
- Tim's aunt has a law degree she doesn't practice and has set up a fake law office in the basement where she pretends to work as an attorney.
- The aunt sits in the basement getting wine drunk and pretending to do law, with files on a desk and phones she insisted they install for the business.
- Henry is a fiercely liberal guy and genuinely smart—a Cuban orphan with a hard life story who earned the right to be a dick because he's so intelligent.
- Despite his accomplishments, Henry would throw the entire family into a rage with that guessing game.
HenryFake business
- 4 min
How to Actually Respond to a Birthday Video Request
#Continuing the birthday video bit, Tim suggests using the forced video message opportunity to guilt-trip or ask distant relatives for money instead, and reflects on the low bar for love in families and how people drift apart without seeing each other.
9moments
- Tim demonstrates how to actually do a birthday video request—opening with cheerful greeting, then pivoting to asking the birthday person for money because the kids are going hungry.
- It's rude to ask people for video messages; you should just assume people kind of love you, which is what a family is.
- The standard of love in most families is just that you don't want to see anyone die or get demolished in a car wreck.
- Tim says if a family member gets mangled in a wreck, he would call Benjamin and say that's not good, then move on to talking about sponsors.
- People are asking Tim to do birthday videos for folks he hasn't seen in six months—at that point you're already done with each other.
- If you skip seeing people for a full year during the holidays, you'll realize you can do holidays on your own and most people don't think they can.
- Tim's mother didn't like his father's family because they drank, so instead she'd take pills and go have Thanksgiving alone at 3 p.m. at a diner in Long Island.
- Whether you're sitting next to a drunk family member relitigating old grievances or sitting alone at a diner eating piled-up cranberry sauce, whichever way you cut it, it's a shit day.
- Make choices and live by the choices—you see what I'm getting at here, folks.
- 2 min
A BlueChew ad that drifts into a riff about the history of pills, joking that heroin (1898) was invented before aspirin and that pharmaceutical innovation basically peaked immediately.
4moments
- Tim jokes you don't need to have sex to enjoy a BlueChew pill—you can just take it, wake up, and admire the results before going back to sleep.
- Tim notes that pills have existed for a long time specifically to make things work better, then wonders what the first pill in history actually was.
- Heroin was introduced in 1898 and initially thought to be non-addicting, making it apparently the first major pharmaceutical pill.
- Tim observes that aspirin came out a year after heroin and remarks it's amazing the best one came first, questioning whether any real advancements have been made since.
- 2 min
An ExpressVPN ad explaining streaming/location features that turns into a bit about Tim not using computers at all and relying entirely on Ben to operate his digital life.
3moments
- Tim vouches for ExpressVPN's quality and notes that Ben uses it.
- Tim describes asking Ben about the Sonoran Desert owl the night before, and Ben responding that it's horned.
- Tim emphasizes that Ben is the one actually online and surfing the web, so he knows the deal.
- 5 min
America as a Failing Pog Company
#Tim frames the 2020 election as a choice between two bad CEOs running a company (America) that makes a product nobody wants anymore, comparing the country's output to obsolete Pogs and criticizing Trump's lack of managerial decorum via a Long Island mortgage-company boss anecdote.
9moments
- Tim compares the country to a corporation where half the employees think the CEO is trying to kill them.
- The CEO tweets "Maybe I'll kill you" while the alternative candidate sniffs people's heels and is asleep.
- America as a failing company manufactures Pogs—a toy nobody wants anymore, like the country itself.
- Trump hasn't done a great job leading the company, and it's not just about ideology but the day-to-day atmosphere.
- Tim recalls working for a mortgage company run by Mike McKew, a respectable guy who acted like a CEO should.
- The difference: McKew didn't get drunk at the Christmas party and threaten to kill the staff or attack competitors.
- Tim criticized Trump for telling people specific states have gone to hell, saying that signals weakness to enemies.
- When the president publicly lists failing states, it suggests the country is fractured to those who wish to do harm.
- Trump's pitch reduces to a threat: vote for me or go to hell.
- 3 min
Wishing for a Return to Apathy
#He argues that neither Trump winning nor Biden/Harris winning will meaningfully change anything, longs for the country to return to political apathy, and mocks activists who were checked out during Obama's presidency.
6moments
- If Trump loses, Kamala Harris will become president and the country will be destroyed, but it'll be somewhat livable during that period.
- Trump isn't turning the country around, and the forces and mechanics prevent him from getting anything done because he's too volatile.
- Tim expresses a desire to return to apathy and stop caring about politics entirely.
- During the Obama years, the same people claiming activism now were doing comedy in Brooklyn dressed as flappers, completely apathetic.
- Nothing has ever changed through elections, and Tim asks what will make people happy since no politician can do it for them.
- Political change isn't up to the president—it's up to individuals to do something they like with their own lives.
- 4 min
Fake Wars, Health Care, and the Supreme Court's Real Job
#Tim argues health care is a better reason to pay taxes than foreign wars, calls the war on terror a fake 'school play for billionaires,' and says the Supreme Court's real function is protecting corporate interests behind the cover of social-issue debates.
7moments
- Tim's election take: if Trump wins he'll notice, if Biden and Kamala win he'll notice, and if things are burning he'll drive away or get beaten to death in the street.
- The political war people are fighting isn't real—it exists only on computers.
- Politics is a school play for billionaires while ordinary people waste time getting invested in it.
- Tim wants apathy to win the election, noting that when people stopped caring it was because their caring did nothing.
- On abortion and the Supreme Court: Tim doesn't know what effect anyone thinks they're having with their activism.
- The Supreme Court's real job is protecting multinational corporation interests, which gets obscured by debate over social issues like transition and gender.
- Tim asks the audience to get politics out of their heads and enjoy the descent instead.
- 5 min
The 50-Year Party Extended Metaphor
#An extended bit imagining America as a decades-long house party funded by credit and war that's now ending, with partygoers forced to choose between an authoritarian mask-and-censorship room or a chaotic no-rules room before China ('the parents') arrives to shut it down.
9moments
- Tim compares America's situation to throwing a party and hearing your parents' car doors shut—that moment of terror followed by acceptance that you're caught.
- The 50-year party: financed on cheap credit, mortgages, and expansion funded by war, deceit, and fraud, with wages paid to immigrants at slave labor rates.
- The party's music has stopped being fun because everyone's crying for help instead of singing.
- TV at the party isn't fun anymore either—just Chelsea Handler yelling about race at you.
- People are offering to keep the party going by herding you into a room where you can't speak, can't have thoughts, and they're implanting chips in your ass.
- Another group wants to keep the party going too, but in their room you just jump around without music and they'll kill you if you say the music is gone.
- Your only real choice is to sit in the living room and wait for the parents—and the parents are going to be President Xi and China.
- When China opens that door, you're begging for forgiveness, explaining you just wanted to get your dick sucked in the closet and happened to be trans.
- Mommy and Daddy say something in Chinese, zap you, give you a social credit score, and that's when you realize the party's fucking over.
- 1 min
Wanting to Be Invited to the TikTok House Parties
#Tim jokes about wanting to be included in Hollywood/TikTok influencer party culture (hype house, sway house) as everything collapses, and criticizes celebrities using nudity as a voting PSA.
5moments
- Tim complains about not being invited to Hollywood parties, TikTok houses, and content creator events.
- He wants to be at these parties dancing as civilization collapses around him.
- Tim pivots to say people should run for local office and make real change instead of sitting at home cynically.
- He attacks celebrities like Amy Schumer taking their clothes off to encourage voting.
- Tim recommends skipping Thanksgiving because of coronavirus threat.
- 3 min
An ad for Lucy nicotine gum/lozenges as a smoking cessation alternative, describing flavors, the subscription model, and the ritual aspect of quitting cigarettes.
4moments
- Tim calls smokers disgusting and hopelessly addicted, then pitches Lucy nicotine gum.
- Lucy products can be used anywhere—flights, work, the gym—and they're not vapes or e-cigarettes.
- Cold turkey makes you fat, but Lucy lets you step down gradually without gaining weight.
- The ritual of lighting a cigarette is the hardest part of smoking to break.
- 1 min
Dairy Queen Blizzard Taste Test
#Tim and Ben discuss their habit of ordering three Dairy Queen Blizzards at once and critique how overly intense coffee-flavored desserts have become compared to Häagen-Dazs.
3moments
- Tim and guest taste three small Dairy Queen Blizzards: pumpkin, mocha fudge, and chocolate-covered strawberry.
- Coffee-flavored desserts now assault you with espresso instead of offering a light touch like Häagen-Dazs coffee ice cream.
- The Dairy Queen mocha fudge Blizzard grinds coffee beans down your throat — too intensely coffee when a latte feel with cream and milk would work better.
Yes or yesHäagen-DazsDairy Queen
- 5 min
A Ridge Wallet ad demonstrating the metal wallet's features and discount code, derailing into a dark joke about giving one to a friend who later lost limbs to flesh-eating bacteria and was still upset about losing the wallet.
8moments
- Tim pitches Ridge wallet as a metal front-pocket minimal wallet that you can fit multiple credit cards into.
- Red Robin's slogan 'Yum' sounds like the company is advertising to a dog, and Tim interprets it as 'Red Robin, you're fat.'
- Tim demonstrates the titanium Ridge wallet and compares it to brass knuckles for punching someone in the face.
- Metal wallets can be easily sanitized by wiping them down, unlike leather wallets.
- His father bought four Ridge wallets without using the promo code, and Tim criticizes parents for constantly sabotaging their children financially.
- Customers get 10% off and free worldwide shipping and returns with the code TIM at ridge.com/tim.
- Tim gave a Ridge wallet to someone who later contracted necrotizing fasciitis, lost one leg and two arms, and couldn't find the wallet afterward.
- When Tim asked the person with necrotizing fasciitis how they liked the wallet, they responded angrily that they had no arms and called him selfish.
- 1 min
Tim runs through his fall tour schedule including Tampa, West Palm Beach, Chicago, Oklahoma City, Kansas City, and Denver before going into winter hibernation.
2moments
- Tour dates announced: Side Splitters in Tampa October 20th-21st, West Palm Beach October 22nd-24th, Chicago October 27th-28th, Oklahoma City October 29th-31st, Kansas City November 10th-11th, Denver November 12th-14th.
- Tim pitches the shows as a way to avoid your family, or do a Zoom call with them if you prefer.
- 6 min
You're Not Going to Ruin My Life: On Not Caring
#Tim declares he refuses to let politics, quarantine rules, or election anxiety control his life, urging listeners to stop fighting with family over politicians like Nancy Pelosi and Amy Coney Barrett who don't care about them, and to instead enjoy the time they have.
10moments
- Tim's philosophy: you're not going to ruin my life, and he refuses to waste his remaining time on things outside his control.
- New York quarantine absurdities—filling out forms and putting them in suggestion boxes that no one reads.
- The U.S. government is too incompetent and obese to become truly fascist; the restrictions don't have real teeth.
- Tim won't waste the unknown amount of time he has left reading tweets about Amy Coney Barrett or political outrage.
- Hunter Biden smoked crack and had fun—the one who didn't smoke crack died, which Tim finds darkly funny.
- His aunt sent him a pumpkin with an "I voted" sticker, treating activism like a civic costume.
- Go swimming, hiking, fishing, and enjoying dinner with friends while you can—we might not have that many years left.
- COVID-20 might be the strain where you collapse in the street; nobody knows what the next pandemic will bring.
- Most activism is fake; actual friendship with people like Dan the Patreon guest matters more than Twitter arguments.
- Tim travels doing stand-up and laughing with his opening act, refusing to waste energy hating Nancy Pelosi or fighting family over politicians who don't care about them.
- 4 min
Nancy Pelosi's Freezer and the Speaker's Gelato
#He mocks Nancy Pelosi's viral freezer tour showing off gelato during the pandemic, imagines her as an ancient witch-like figure, and riffs on people fighting over politicians who are detached from ordinary life.
9moments
- Nancy Pelosi keeps fancy gelato in her freezer while the world burns, showing no regard for the chaos around her.
- Visiting his mother's mental institution taught Tim that the patients were actually right about the world.
- Life isn't meant to be an endless procession of misery, and Tim credits his immigrant friend Danny for constantly wanting a great quality of life.
- Tim advises people to find situations where they feel excited about something, because life ends and people die.
- After eleven years, Tim just started doing well and doesn't want this to be his last episode.
- During the 2000 Bush-Gore election, 7-Eleven sold coffee cups identifying who you voted for, and people threw hot coffee at each other over them.
- Tim questions whether we could ever return to a healthy democracy where people could safely wear or carry items openly identifying their political choice.
- The fact that you can't sell a hot beverage with your vote printed on it anymore shows how scary the current state of politics has become.
- Tim closes by telling listeners to go enjoy the land safely.
Nancy PelosiBush Gore electionOz
- 3 min
7-Eleven Election Coffee Cups and Running Out the Clock
#Tim recalls 7-Eleven selling candidate-branded coffee cups during Bush v. Gore that led to people throwing coffee at each other, and pivots to a philosophy that most modern content (YouTubers, TikTokers) exists to distract people from violence, calling it 'running out the clock.'
8moments
- YouTubers figured out the secret: review cereals and get rich instead of trying to understand the world.
- TikTokers are actually right—social media should be dumb dances, not 300-comment threads about trade policy you don't understand.
- YouTube creators are doing a public service: giving people content so they don't form militias and blow each other's brains out.
- The best YouTube intervention: don't join ISIS, instead watch me give someone a Lamborghini.
- Probably a lot of kids don't shoot up schools because they're watching David Dobrik give away cars.
- Tim lays out the actual strategy: we're just running out the clock, preventing an explosion of violence through distraction.
- The problems have been around forever, so you're not going to solve them—we're just trying to waste time until we die.
- He'd prefer more Woody Allen movies and actual thinkers, but the country wants garbage, so that's what we feed them.
David DobrikWoody AllenYouTubersTikTokers
- 1 min
Closing Riff: Enjoy the Party While It Lasts
#Closing metaphor returning to the house-party analogy, telling listeners to embrace whatever fun and chaos they create before the 'party' (life, or society) ends, accepting the consequences without regret.
3moments
- All art, including this show, is just running out the clock to keep the demons at bay.
- You do your little dances and Zoom Thanksgivings until you hear your parents' car door shut and realize the party's over.
- When that moment comes, you want to have actually lived—thrown up rum in the pool, broken lamps, gotten away with it—rather than regret missing out.