Top Shelf Stories
In a world that often shuns the uncomfortable, we embrace it with open arms—and open laughs. Our candid narratives around our stories assure you that awkwardness is a shared human experience. Tune in, enjoy the ride, and maybe learn a thing or two.
Top Shelf Stories
Graffiti Rivalries and Unexpected Friendships
The latest Top Shelf Stories episode explores identity, vulnerability, and the complex nature of fights—both physical and metaphorical. Through personal anecdotes and humorous exchanges, the hosts examine how perceptions of size and strength influence relationships and the narratives we create around our experiences.
• Discussing the feelings associated with baldness and identity
• Examining personal experiences with fights and confrontations
• Telling a story of being jumped and its lasting effects
• Exploring the role of graffiti as a form of expression
• Connecting vulnerability and self-acceptance in personal narratives
Top Shelf Stories with J, chris and Tony.
Jay:You, being bald like I, feel like that would make you feel inferior.
Chris:Have you ever shaved your head bald?
Jay:Yeah, okay, no, you feel like, hey, I'm losing a little bit of hair, let's just shave it, because now people won't fuck with me, because I'm six foot one and a half and people are afraid of bald guys I don't look at myself as a big dude. You are a big fucking dude.
Tony:I'm told I'm a big dude all the time, but I don't.
Chris:it doesn't compute to me, You're not that much bigger than me, you are, but not that much I don't.
Tony:it doesn't compute in my head that I'm bigger than anybody.
Jay:Dog is way bigger than you.
Tony:Like when me and you are together, I feel like we're equal in size until we walk, that's ridiculous, for real what do you got? You know, I had, I had a really good friend rest your arm on his fucking head standing next to him. I had a really good friend, uh, about 20 years ago, that I used to work with. That was much smaller than jay. It was jay when he was younger. He was no, his name was jason. Ironically, we just call him jason w stop it stop it.
Tony:But no, I I had a really good friend who was much smaller than jay and I never, I never, felt like I was a fucking inch bigger or a pound heavier than him. And then one day we were walking, we were in a strip club and we're walking by the big wall of mirrors and I looked at us and I'm like we are ridiculous together like we should not be in fucking public together. I look like your father and you're six months older than me why don't you have that?
Jay:that's wild, I look I look like I just gave birth to you out of my birth canal, like I'm literally carrying you as a baby, but you're walking, walking. It's fucking weird yeah.
Tony:No, like when you look at other people. Do you look at other people like, wow, they're so much bigger than me. Yeah, for real, yeah.
Chris:Of course he does, yeah.
Jay:Especially when I get really close. He's got to lay down on the back of his neck for looking up at everyone all day long.
Tony:It's kind of funny. Your brother actually mentioned that today. What did he say? We were talking about fighting and I was talking about the fact that he's shorter than you. Yeah, I was talking about the fact that I've never been in a real fight. Yeah, I've been in scuffles. I broke a cousin, a couple of my cousin's ribs one time. I also that same cousin.
Chris:What makes a real?
Tony:fight a knife? Yeah, like there was no threat of being stabbed. No, it was just one sided. Like I don't know, maybe it was asided, like I don't know, maybe it was a fight, I don't know. Looking back at it, you just beat the fucking guys up. I've definitely been in two fights you just beat people up.
Chris:Let's do the example of a fight a fight in a fight because you won, because you're bigger than them a fight is someone finishes and the other one is down on the ground gurgling.
Tony:No, no, so like my picking them up.
Chris:You better get out of here. The cops are coming.
Tony:No, my, my right shoulder, did not touch the other person's right shoulder, and then we walked in a circle. I think that's how fights start. I don't know about that. Back in the day.
Jay:Yeah, I think I call the push fight. Yeah, I, you keep pushing each other until someone that happened, like you stop pushing me, you stop pushing me something happened and I defended it and that was it.
Tony:But it wasn't a like. We didn't start throwing punches at each other. The it was the same dude twice I want.
Chris:Once I just choked him. I want to hear any other.
Tony:I pushed him against the wall. I want to hear while my hands were still on him, and my hand went through three of his ribs I want to hear what you were talking about with my brother um well, I said something about I'd never really been in a fight and he said well, it's probably because you're so big that normal-sized people would be afraid to start shit with you Don't, you notice it when you get on a boat that it fucking moves, and then when your kid gets on, it fucking doesn't.
Jay:No, I like how that Chris brings something into the conversation that has nothing to do with the conversation.
Chris:Well, the size he gets on.
Jay:No, I'm just saying your aspect of of reference was amazing.
Tony:No, I mean, I I don't find myself having to do things that I think, like when I see somebody that's really big and they gotta like duck to get through a door, like I don't have to do any of that shit. That's true, I feel like you're not enormous. I'm six foot two. I'm about 235 237, depending on where I eat for lunch. That day.
Jay:Okay, what my brother was telling you is that the fact that you're bigger, people are not afraid, okay, intimidated they're not interested, it's a calculation Nine out of ten people cannot fight or never been in a fight, and that's like a proven fact.
Chris:Not that I know.
Jay:Maybe seven out of ten. Maybe seven out of ten, I don't fucking know.
Tony:I believe that more people have not been in a fight than in an actual fight and maybe, maybe, when I picture a fight in my head, I'm picturing like the movie version of a like seven minutes I was in one of those and I remember what it was like when I woke up the next day and my face was looked like I was fucking allergic to the world I'm I'm picturing.
Tony:When I think of a fight, I picture the front lawn on the movie step brothers, like no, that you're looking like a gang fight, like nine people fighting nine different people.
Jay:No, the movie step brothers you know, will ferrell digging a fucking hole or rolling around until they can't breathe and fall asleep. Is that what you're talking about, kind of, and then they could wait, wait. Or the one you're talking about where they're fighting in the front when they both hit each other in the head.
Tony:And the mom's screaming what the fuck, fuck. And you know Will Ferrell's screaming he's trying to rape me like he's like I'm so now a raper. You know, I I just I have a picture in my head like like I feel like a fight, like you're at a bar and some dude's like, did you just fucking look at my girl? And I'm like, fuck you bitch yeah and then he pushes me and then I jump. I jump over two bar stools and three women to like, punch him in his face.
Tony:And then somebody breaks a bottle on the edge of the bar and they're fucking stabbing it at me and I take a pool stick and I hit him right in the dick like, okay, now this is a fight to me, gotta go out more dude if you want to get in those type of altercations.
Chris:But, I don't want to.
Jay:No, I think that your thoughts and your like. What you're thinking about is like not practical, like not practical at all.
Tony:You're telling me all these years of me saying I've never been in a fight. I've been in two legitimate fights, just not the fights I imagined in my head.
Jay:I'll tell you what about. I'll tell you a fight in whatever it is a fight in a bar, fight on the street, whatever it is. It's 10 seconds or less, yes, but feels like a minute or five, and then it's like someone gets hurt and then another person runs away. Basically, that's a fucking fight.
Chris:Oh dude, I didn't know the cops come.
Tony:Not at bars, maybe with family.
Jay:Someone gives up. Someone gives up and runs away because they just like, oh, I don't want to get hurt, no more.
Chris:They run away or a wife intervenes and is like God damn it.
Jay:Johnny, Get out of the fucking shit, Just leave sleep alone. Fights are so brief like unbelievably brief that you can't even comprehend it.
Chris:Even a boxing match is only a three-minute round, two-minute round, five rounds at two minutes. It's a ten-minute fight with breaks. Dude, you can't fight for that long in real life.
Jay:You tried to describe a fight and it feels like you're describing a whole marathon of like spartans killing each other, but literally it's like two seconds of you punching someone and like, oh, I don't like that, and then another guy running away.
Chris:Yeah, pretty much that's that's a fight or some girl gets in the middle of it.
Jay:Yeah, or a girl gets in the middle of it or someone really gets really hurt and then the fucking guy that hurt really hurt you.
Tony:It feels bad alright, man, time out, time out, sorry man, no, okay, I think it would be more fair to say that I've been in fights but I've never been punched, okay. So Wait a minute. That's not true either. I got jumped one time in an alley.
Jay:I got punched a lot of times. Where did they punch you All over the entire?
Tony:body.
Jay:Or was it the head? Because the head makes I got hit in the head.
Tony:I got I'm pretty sure I got hit in the head. I got I'm pretty sure I got hit in the foot. Okay, so I think these three dudes just laid out everything they had on me. They each took a section and just went to town for like so there's seconds, there's different parts of your body.
Jay:That makes a huge difference. And how much pain or a debility, debilitybility.
Tony:There was padding. They put a backpack over my head while they beat the shit out of me Wild.
Chris:Yeah.
Jay:I'm talking about, like kidney shots they didn't want you to see who they were or what?
Tony:No, I knew who they were. They walked up to me, they put a fucking backpack over my head and just went to town on me. What did they want from you? Nothing. So they're like hey, this guy looks a little too suspicious.
Jay:I don't like him. No, let's beat the fuck out of him. Wait what I knew? Them Now start over, because this story is getting too compelling.
Tony:All right. So so early in high school, like freshman year-ish, I was like I was involved in normal street graffiti, just like everybody.
Chris:Fucking graffiti.
Tony:Hey, Tony, you are a good artist and I was a part of a crew you are a great artist.
Tony:I've seen your work and a rivaling crew who just a year before, when we weren't in these crews, we were friends, but now we're sworn enemies. So when they see my cruise tags, they put an X through it and they write their crew's name next to it Makes sense. And one of them Fucking 80s. One of them wasn't actually in that crew, but he out with them, but he also hung out with us. That's trouble. And I seen him and he said what's up to me? I said what's up back and then they started walking up to me and I I knew right away this trouble and it was right behind my garage. So I was almost on my property. I could have jet for the door, but instead I just stood there by myself and they put a backpack over my head and beat the shit out of me.
Tony:I'm sorry For a brief amount of time was fine, pretty ridiculous, so sorry so. And there was. There was no like real gang behind this, but we were all just tagging crews and my best friend whose house I was walking from home um, he, he was my best friend and he was a dj and the rest of my tagging crew my friend who's the dj, and then all his I, I, I don't know what you want to call them, but kind of gangbanger friends were hanging out in his, as some would say, beat laboratory that he had a big studio in his attic where we all sat around in high school and got drunk and smoked cigarettes and, uh, you know, tried to bring girls over that never, worked, at least for me.
Tony:I mean, I'm sure somebody got laid up there, but I was the fat kid, I wasn't getting any pussy, but uh I ran, instead of running back home and putting ice on my fucking face.
Tony:I run back to my buddy's house and then they fucking just cockroached the whole neighborhood. They just fucking spread out to go find these guys and uh, I don't know whatever happened. I don't know if they got caught. I didn't go back over to my friend's house to find out the end results of the fucking fight deal, but, uh, those guys never fucked with me anymore. This just got hopped once so I don't know.
Tony:Yeah, I don't know, that was that I don't know if they were, if the, if this was like an experimental jumping to see if they like jumping people and I was an easy target because I was a slow fat kid, did you have anything of value with you that they took?
Jay:no, did they grab your titties when they were beating your ass?
Tony:I did get a couple titty twisters.
Jay:Maybe they kind of had sexual deviant problems that they wanted to declare. I don't know.
Tony:Maybe that's why they put the bag over my head. Maybe I was a double bagger? Oh, maybe you just opened my eyes to the fact that I might have been they might have been trying to rape me.
Jay:You almost been raped, fuck that's okay.
Tony:Now, if I ever see matt breed in the street, I'm gonna ask him did you try raping me that day, is that?
Chris:what that was. No, they probably had to, because you like tagged over their shit and they're like let's go get that fucker.
Tony:And that one guy who you thought was your friend wasn't well, there's a very good possibility I might have tagged over his shit. Yeah, that'll do it and sometimes they don't like that yeah fucking so gang violence. So now, now looking back on it and and what I was involved in, it sounds, I mean, kind of like I had it coming.
Jay:Yep. So basically you were wearing something tight, your titties are showing and he has something coming. Bro, this is 1994.
Tony:Ad 94. I'm listening to exclusively Wu-Tang Clan TLC Wearing Jankos Because you can fit spray cans in your socks.
Chris:And they were in your favorite college.
Jay:I'm wearing Football teams jacket.
Tony:No, no, I'm wearing a black hoodie Because I love.
Jay:Wolverine.
Tony:That has my tagging crew's name on across the back. That doesn't seem like a very good idea In white old English letters.
Jay:All right, so you're fat, you can't run, you're wearing fucking gang.
Chris:Oh, it's all in English letters so no one can read it. I mean I wasn't.
Jay:You're wearing gang signs.
Tony:What the fuck do you't? I wasn't that fat. I was exactly the same weight I am now you?
Jay:what do you think's gonna happen to you? You can't run fast.
Tony:You're wearing fucking gang signs on your jacket and matt breed was tall and thin, that guy could run like the wind, so explain to me what your thought was I'm about to get fucked up, so let let me ask you when you got jumped, did you fight back? No, I had a bag over my head, bro. You kind of lose your sense of where you are. I might have threw some air swings, I don't know. Wait, is this a pick and save bag, or is this a?
Jay:Walmart bag. I can't get out of it.
Tony:And the funny thing is is I can remember the smell of the backpack to this day. Yeah, because, because it smelled, was it a jan sport, more than likely probably smell like I grew up in a pretty poor neighborhood. Yeah, it smelled like shitty weed and spray paint.
Jay:Well, I can do that for you right now in the bag, and then make you feel that traumatizing vent again I'm about to be 44, and I still fucking love spray painting. Wow, you're old yeah you're good at it, I love it too. Oh yeah, tony. Hey, any artist I've ever met in my life, you are the best one. Stop it seriously, though.
Chris:Another one he is oriental, very amazing, been to jail if you can find a wall and I'll show you this pork stuff and you paint pork thing, I can get 15,000 eyes on your shit what's the pork? I asked to see the pork thing it's the pink pepe.
Jay:Why can't you get 15 000 eyes on our podcast? Because it's not pork. What was making pork?
Chris:that's the fucking crypto.
Jay:How about this? You bring your friend in that is from a different country, that wants me to eat a fucking head. That's a pork and I'll do it because I lost. You do have to still do that.
Chris:Yeah, then tell him to bring it in. He's got to do Tony's air first before he does it.
Tony:Well, he's got to do my furnace. Yeah, all right, fine Furnace, then pork head. Don't you fucking dare say a bad word about douche call.
Jay:I don't know who he is.
Chris:That's the pork. I don't know who he is. He's a Pepe pink with a fork.
Jay:Tony will not describe it.
Tony:Tony tony will not describe it. Tony, it looks like. It looks like what I imagine every pussy in a retirement home.
Chris:Looks like it's pretty rough.
Jay:Is it smiling?
Tony:at you. This is a hold on a minute here nearly all of my net worth is in that hold on, you invested real money nearly all my net worth is in that meme. Hold on. You invested real money. Nearly all my net worth is in that meme and there's something with this graphic. Let me see it again.
Jay:Oh God, I can't get up.
Chris:Yeah, jay's over here laying on the couch. He forgot that. Tony told us that he has sex on that couch all the time. God, that looks like a weird vagina.
Jay:Got him Dude like a weird vagina Got it.
Tony:Dude, this is so fucked.
Chris:No, but for real, you're painting your art in general, your graffiti styling. It's good stuff. I do like it.
Jay:I'll tell you what though I mean. I do.
Tony:Tony. So I have about 30 cans of graffiti spray paint in back and I have a sheet cans of graffiti spray paint in back and I have a sheet of plywood that I painted black for specific graffiti reasons. We can go back and drop that bomb right now.
Jay:Listen to me, though. What'd you do, Tony? Listen to me.
Tony:I think I have to Tony listen to me right now.
Jay:What is that going to prove?
Tony:Well, it's going to make me happy why?
Jay:is it going to make you happy?
Tony:And since I didn't get to go to the casino tonight, I might as well do something. You could have went I know I could have Two hours ago. I am an adult, I can make my own decisions.
Jay:Yeah, but why did you not?
Tony:Jay, I chose you. Does that make you feel good? It sounds like a movie, I know. Didn't that make you feel?
Jay:good though. Yeah, sometimes like I like you, sometimes I hate you, you're like.
Tony:But now I kind of like you, he fucking chose me.
Jay:Yeah, right now I like you, but like 67% of the time.
Tony:That can all change.
Jay:Almost immediately.
Tony:I don't like you, I don't want to hurt you, but you're bigger than see. The thing is is I wouldn't even fight back, so you might as well, you might as well, go get an empty backpack, toss that bitch over my eyes and go to work. Tony's got like carpets galore here, so I'm laying out the path to victory and you're laughing. All I have you could be winning.
Jay:Right now, all I have to do is find a carpet, put it over his head.
Tony:Start punching him in his kidney yeah, give me a good old-fashioned blanket party.
Jay:So here's the thing what the fuck did. What was this episode? What was it about? I don't know.
Tony:You started. It Did I Talking about I don't know when did it start, tony got jumped, tony got jumped.
Jay:I don't think that wasn't the way it started, though.
