Anthony Carrino and John Colaneri from HGTV’s Cousins on Call talk with MyFixitUpLife hosts Mark and Theresa about cranes, American Cancer Society, a new show with Ellen DeGeneres, and nicknames.
Theresa: And you are inside MyFixitUpLife with my husband Mark.
Mark: And my wife Theresa. And John and Anthony from Cousins on Call, also known as the Kitchen Cousins.
Theresa: Yes.
Mark: You can find them on Twitter @cousinstv.
Theresa: And I’m just sitting here with all these handsome guys today, and I’m kind of probably a super lucky girl.
Mark: Wow! Wow! Here’s one thing I’m lucky about. I was included.
Theresa: You were included.
Mark: Aw, that’s awfully nice of you.
Anthony: See, your wife, your wife loves you.
Theresa: I, I do.
Mark: Sometimes. Sometimes.
Theresa: Most of the time.
John: Most of the time.
Mark: Then there’s the time when I can only think about sliding down that fire pole, and I just, just I’m gone from the rest of the conversation, and she’s..
Theresa: He’s going to actually like Spider-man up it probably a little bit later.
John: All right. That’s when we’ll roll our cameras.
Anthony: That will be interesting.
Theresa: Yes.
Anthony: That will be interesting.
Theresa: Yes. He’s that kind of guy. He monkeys around, I swear.
Mark: There’s a lot of climbing involved, because we do projects and stuff. We’re climbing ladders all the time.
John: Right on.
Theresa: Yeah.
Mark: And now, speaking of ladders, one of you does or does not have a fear of heights? Is that right?
John: I have fear of heights.
Anthony: He’s got it. I don’t.
John: I do.
Mark: You say “I don’t” like 1) I win, 2) what are we talking about?
Theresa: I’m cautious of heights.
John: No. I recently scared myself pretty good. You know, I thought, no big deal. No fear of heights. And I climbed a 12-story tower crane in Mexico.
Anthony: Insane.
John: And it wasn’t bad on the way up. But what you don’t realize about a tower crane is, you are, you are really in there. The ladder is not a lot of room. So where you usually climb a ladder and you can extend your arms.
Mark: Sure.
John: And you use your leverage and the fulcrum and the whole thing. Well, your forearms are on fire. Your calves are burning, like you’re . . . And when you have to climb back down, and your legs are kind of shaking.
Mark: Whoa.
Anthony: And it’s that nice, quiet, just surreal feeling, where you’re like, wow, I’m 120 feet up in the air, and I’m all by myself for a while.
John: A little interesting.
Mark: So they’re not stairs. It’s a ladder.
John: Oh no, it’s right up the core of the crane.
Mark: Oh my God.
John: Yeah.
Mark: Oh, I’m picturing the zigzag.
John: Oh, no, no, no. Straight. No breaks. No platforms. No. It’s straight up the core.
Anthony: The crane’s that’s higher than the building.
Theresa: Would you do that? Would you do that?
Mark: The reason I’m fiddling with this pen right now is that my palms are so sweaty that I’m going to have to go lay down. There’s no way.
Anthony: Are you kidding me? That’s what I said. That’s exactly what I said.
Mark: Do you carabiner off to it or anything? Or did you just like . . .
John: Uh, yes.
Anthony: Right. Right.
Theresa: Yes, he did, because he’s a safety boy, everyone, and that’s the things you should do, children listening.
Mark: We built a high-rise scaffold for one of my early construction jobs, and we had carabiners, too, right on our tool pouches.
Theresa: Because you’re a safety guy.
Mark: That weren’t attached to anything but our tool pouches.
Theresa: I would be covered in like bubble wrap.
Anthony: Bubble wrap!
Theresa: There would be all kinds of things attached to me. I’d probably have a large man doing this behind me, going up.
John: Oh my God.
Theresa: So he could catch me.
Mark: Yeah. I’ll never forget one time this guy says. It was the company that scaffolded the Statue of Liberty. So they’re way, way up. And this was some podunk like 12-story building. It was a joke to this guy. And we’re carrying these staging planks across and he says, “Now if you freeze up, don’t worry about it. I’m right here.”
John: Like what the heck are you going to do?
Mark: Okay. Good to know. Good to know now.
Theresa: So, just to put it perspective. My husband’s a guy who runs up and down roofs when he’s like working on a roof. He literally will run, and I’m standing there like almost in tears going, really.
John: Yeah, roofs don’t bother me either. That’s why I thought it was a good idea to go up the crane. I’m like, yeah, I could drive the crane, no problem. I love machines and all that. Whoo! On the way down, it was, there was . . .
Mark: Wow! Now you get up there.
Theresa: So we’ll go and have a nice cup of coffee
John: You and I can hang out on stationary ground at the bottom.
Mark: I will watch you from up top and say, “You’re doing a great job, guys.”
John: I’m talking on the radio the whole way up. You all right?
Mark: Now you get up there, like, how do you know what to do?
John: Let me tell you something. The cab of that crane is . . . You have 360 degree views. And, I mean, if you ever played with . . .
Mark: Not too bad that you were in Mexico also.
John: No. No. On the water. It was pretty cool.
Mark: On the water. Wow!
John: If you ever played with Constructs or Legos or any of that stuff growing up, I mean, it’s just the big kids version.
Mark: Wow.
John: So, you know, I have a Bobcat. We have a 442 excavator. So it’s all levers, right? So you tap something. You make sure. You get a feel for it. And then it’s just taking your time. And we got this huge screen upon the 10th floor balcony was it? I forget.
Anthony: It was the top. It was the penthouse. It was the 12th.
John: It was the . . . So the crane was on 13, which wasn’t built yet, and, yeah. So, yeah, I just took one nice, slow, step at a time, and we got it up there.
Mark: Wow.
John: It was pretty cool.
Mark: So unreal. So skid steer loader and a 442.
John: Yeah.
Mark: When are we driving those? How about now?
John: The skid steer is down at 80. You’re welcome to get down there.
Theresa: Oh my goodness.
John: We got a big breaker on it. We’ve been taking down walls all week.
Mark: Nice.
John: You might have to fight G, who is our site super. He loves his toys as much as I do.
Mark: Nice.
John: But if you can get him off, you’re welcome to drive it.
Mark: There you go. All right. Well, we’ll be back with more. No we won’t be back.
Theresa: Now I would ask about something completely different.
John: Okay.
Theresa: I read that you guys were doing a project for the American Cancer Society.
John: Yes.
Anthony: Yes.
Theresa: Is that Cousins on Call?
Anthony: That is.
John: That’s Cousins on Call, and that airs the first week in May.
Theresa: Okay.
John: Because the month of May is the 100th anniversary of the American Cancer Society, and that was an amazing project. We actually went out toBuffalo. We surprised the family. The son had cancer. He was cancer free when we shot the episode. We just recently found out that it actually came back again, so . . . He’s fighting again.
Anthony: He’s fighting again.
John: He’s fighting again. He’s young. He’s 21. But he wanted to give back to his parents. His parents brought him nonstop for a couple of years back and forth to the cancer center that was up in Buffalo.
Anthony: The Hope Lodge, yeah.
John: The Hope Lodge. So they would do an hour and a half drive back and forth from their town, because they were in Jamestown,New York, which was about an hour, hour and a half out.
Anthony: Right.
John: And he wanted to give back to his family. And we went there and we redid their entire house. His mother had no clue. His father was just floored. His father was crying. It was a moving, moving moment.
Anthony: It was a powerful episode, very powerful episode. I’m really excited for that to air, and everyone to see that one.
Theresa: And what is his name?
John: Aaron.
Anthony: Aaron.
Theresa: Aaron. Wow. I hope he’s doing well.
John: He’s fighting. We got his mother.
Anthony: We stay in touch.
John: She stays in touch with us all the time, because we shot that episode in October. And she has been in touch with us nonstop, and she’s constantly telling us, giving us updates. She said, “Listen.” She’s like, “You guys have changed our lives. And one thing we’ve learned is that we will never stop fighting.” And Aaron has said, “You know, Mom, I’m always going to fight. I’m a fighter, and this isn’t going to get me.” So, you know, we’re behind them. We’re behind them, and we’re hoping for the best.
Theresa: Well speaking of, you know, doing good things for good people, your new show that’s coming out this fall, Undercover Overhaul, I’m really excited about.
John: Indeed.
Theresa: And I know that everybody listening is excited too.
Anthony: Yeah, we’re, we can’t wait. Did you have a…
Theresa: No. The only thing that I really know about it is that, you know, you’re doing projects for neighborhood heroes. How are you finding these heroes?
Anthony: Well, you know, the relationship between our show and the Ellen Show is really a great one. And she does so much good. And being a design buff herself, you know, she’s been very complimentary of our work, and likes the passion that we put into it. Ellen has actually signed on to do three episodes with us. So they’re helping us find, you know, these great neighborhood heroes. And, aside from doing something great for a neighborhood hero, to do it as a surprise just adds a whole other element to the show. So these people are literally, with the help of their family and friends we’re getting them out of town for a weekend. We’ve got three to four days, tight time frames, hectic schedules, big builds, and then we deliver a crazy, crazy surprise by the end of it.
Mark: Wow. So is there all kind of subterfuge going on with the family. Like they think they’re going somewhere?
Anthony: Uh, we’re still working on concept and stuff. I think it’s more about just getting them away, whether it’s to a vineyard to a weekend, or a bed and breakfast. John and I may or may not be showing up at that bed and breakfast and saying, “Oh, hey, you know guy.” You run into people. And surprise element.
John: Like, “It’s so crazy to see you here!”
Theresa: Now, wait. So is she going to have like one of those mics. Like she always puts like something . . .
Anthony: Nothing is out of bounds.
Mark: Wow.
Theresa: And then she tells people what to do in public places, you know, like dancing behind people.
John: I told her we’ll do just about anything.
Anthony: I’ll do anything.
John: It doesn’t take much to get me to do something.
Theresa: There’s the girl that like, that one girl that says lyrics to songs to random people in supermarkets and at the home center and stuff. She should be telling you to do wildly crazy things to these people.
Anthony: No. I don’t think Ellen’s going to be on the show, per se. She’s going to be helping us with casting, and we’re going to be doing a lot of surprises on the Ellen Show, along with our show. Kind of the same format that you’ve seen through Cousins on Call, with the Sandy Relief episode, just on a bigger scale and a bigger surprise.
Mark: Now we’ve been sitting here talking about, you know, heavy equipment and joking around and climbing up stuff and doing all this other stuff. But on one of the Sandy episodes, I saw you with Ellen. I got a sense that you guys are actually kind of, might be a little emotional. Is that fair to say? I’m not trying to trap you in . . .
Anthony: No, absolutely.
John: You want to know my nickname?
Mark: Would you cry right now?
Theresa: What’s your nickname?
John: Passionate John.
Anthony: Passionate John.
Theresa: Aww.
Anthony: That’s it.
John: That comes, it comes from the heart.
Theresa: Can I tell them your nickname from college?
Mark: Boy, am I ever proud of that. Why, sure, like I have a choice.
Theresa: It’s embarrassing. Chicken legs.
John: Well, I guess, I guess everyone’s got to have a nickname.
Mark: Yeah. Mine’s not awesome.
Theresa: It’s actually embroidered on the side of his rugby jacket.
Anthony: That’s really funny.
John: Chicken legs on the side of your rugby jacket?
Mark: Chicken legs.
Theresa: And they called his mom Mrs. Chicken Legs, too. Poor lady.
Mark: Which means we’ve got to scurry out on. I did it! Yes!
Theresa: You got out of this before I embarrassed you anymore.
Mark: We’ll be back with more of MyFixitUpLife.
Check out more interviews with hosts Mark and Theresa.
