Episode 20 – Eddie Kaye “LAEF” Thomas (Annotated)
Hi, I’m Craig The Intern, and they make me transcribe these every week. Everything’s going great so far! Like a warm, fuzzy memory of a junior-high friendship.
The Guest:
Eddie Kaye Thomas.
The Lowdown:
Eddie Kaye Thomas has known Mack since middle school. Eddie also knows Stew, and they all discuss their first impressions of one another, and how pot and Drakkar cologne changed everything.
Sticky Fingers, Roots, Chicken, and Diamonds: those were the names of their former dealers. And every one owned a crappy Acura. Eddie recalls a time he just got into someone’s car at random thinking it was the dealer…and the driver just let him in, a strange 15 year-old. Matt recalls a dealer who insisted on being known as Three, but caller ID kept ID’ing him as “Alphonso,” and he couldn’t figure out how Matt knew his real name.
Eddie recalls some of the video games of the Culkins’ youth: Rory had Wave Racer, and Mack had a full-size Mortal Kombat cabinet and Demolition Man pinball. NBA games were also faves; Mack was turned on to the Beatles and Bob Dylan music all the while by Eddie. Plus Liz Phair. They reminisce more about high school, and how then they moved to different parts of the country. Planet Hollywood comes up as a topic, and how one of them had the frozen naked dummy of Sylvester Stallone from Demolition Man hanging from the ceiling. With its junk censored.
They talk about holding surprise Bar Mitzvahs; maybe a redundant extra one for Matt, and the first one ever for Eddie, who was planning to maybe have one at age 30 and has not had his yet. Matt reiterates the anecdote about how he got a football jersey with a bat on the sleeve.
Eddie and Mack were in a class of about eight people at their school, PCS, which was a school for people who were already working, that they basically were the party, so their circle also included Mack’s brothers’ friends, and dealers. They drank many forties, smoked a lot of pot, and basically did what other kids did. Matt thinks his high school was mostly a fraud, but he’s glad he took Spanish.
Mack lived literally right next door to the school, which feels in hindsight like a sitcom contrivance. Matt asks what it was like to be in class with the most famous kid actor in the world; Eddie says he was aware that was a thing, but he thought it would be weird to lead with that all the time. We learn the origins of Eddie’s nickname, Laef, which stands for Lovely Animals Entering the Forest, and comes from doing acid in the national history museum.
Stew weighs in to talk about how running with the bulls in Pamplona and participating in the highland games are on his bucket list. Mack and Eddie say dropping acid was their version of that. Mack and Eddie’s PCS basketball team were called the Geese, and they went 0-2. They discuss various team line-ups, which included a ballerina, and Duke Ellington’s great-grandson. There were no official sports teams, but somehow Mack and Eddie managed to assemble a basketball lineup in a “gym” that was half of the cafeteria. Matt, meanwhile, played football for two years and the team never scored a single point. He played lacrosse for half a season, and the only point ever scored on them was an own-goal he did because he didn’t care any more. He actually made other teenage boys cry by blowing the game that way. He’s making me cry right now, FYI.
Matt recalls a Hawaii trip he took for his Bar Mitzvah, where he spent 80% of his time indoors playing Mario with a Japanese kid. Eddie and Mack say there’d be years when they never left Manhattan island, then Eddie talks about how isolated his former home of Staten Island felt, and how it was a world unto itself. Matt gets confused about the various islands. So am I, even after listening to the explanations. New York geography, man…
Mack and Eddie still remember the old-fashioned, porny peepshow version of Times Square, and liked the in-between period when there were cool art places. Eddie has been an LA guy now for four years, and found it really hard to adjust as a New Yorker, not driving. It took him two years. Mack is never going to get a license, because he thinks he’ll win at life if he doesn’t.
Eddie was in The Diary of Anne Frank onstage, playing a Nazi, opposite Natalie Portman. Matt went to high school with Natalie, and got tickets to the show and an advance Q&A with cast, though Eddie thinks he wasn’t part of that because they usually “don’t ask the Nazi.” But since Eddie’s Nazi is the one who takes and saves her diary at the end, does that make him the hero? It’s up for debate, but the answer is “probably not.”
For this week, they decide to name THE CONTEST “Ass Cheeks,” because it doesn’t have a specific name normally. I can get behind that.
Categories today: Lovely animals. Cities of the world.
They pause briefly to debate whether or not a wolverine is an animal. It’s okay: Hugh Jackman didn’t know either, originally. The game ends right at 4:20.
Eddie has Googled Devon Sawa recently, and thinks he would beat Mack in a fight.
Finally, Eddie plugs his show Scorpion, which he describes as the nerdy A-team. Mondays at 10pm on CBS. He’s also Barry on American Dad. He has no social media.
The Highlights:
7:36-11:00 Eddie remembers the last phone call from his high school drug dealer, and the deal he swindled them on.
18:48-19:30 How Matt got kicked out of Hebrew school for messing around with the Torah.
28:00 –31:21 The origin of “LAEF” and how old is okay to take acid.
The Links:
Eddie Kaye Thomas isn’t in this clip, but here’s a look at Natalie Portman as Anne Frank:
But here he is on Scorpion, buried alive:
And here he is being evil on American Dad:
If you would like to be like Mack and Eddie and apply to PCS, here is their official website.
Contact the Guest!
Eddie Kaye Thomas has no social media presence. But his TV show does.
Twitter: @ScorpionCBS
Facebook: ScorpionCBS
Contact The Guys!
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @bunnyearspod
Instagram: @bunnyearspodcast
Telephone: 845-EZE-HOAX
Mack
Twitter @IncredibleCulk
Instagram: Culkamania
Stew
Twitter: @SuaveAdventurer
Instagram: @SuaveAdventurer
Matt Cohen
Twitter: @Cameltoad
Instagram: @Cameltoad
Image: CBS
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This was my absolute favorite podcast. I have this weird little connection to PCS and it brought back a lot of memories for me. I tried my hand at acting/modeling as a kid and kind of developed a false sense of reality being from Utah and feeling like a big fish in a little pond. My parents were super supportive of me and we planned to move to New York in the fall of 96 to help support my dreams. I went to PCS for a few days while my Dad worked in the city. Hillary Hawkins was my “guide” and even though I’m sure you don’t remember meeting me, I met Mack, and I remember being so impressed with how down to earth he was. We were looking into living in the apartment building right next door to the school. It was a weird little school, but I loved my experience there, and everyone was so nice to this little girl from a small town wanting to make it in the big city. Long story short, my Dad’s job potentials fell through. I was still going to try and fulfill my dream and live with a violinist from China when I chickened out and backed out of the whole deal. I’ve always wondered what may have happened had I taken that chance and that journey. Instead, I’ve ended up hosting a morning show in Salt Lake City and now in Boise, Idaho for the past 14 years. Love the podcast.