Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim aren’t just television personalities. They want to make your life better with their innovative new Zone Theory program, which they describe in detail in their new book Tim and Eric’s Zone Theory: 7 Easy Steps to Achieve a Perfect Life. We recently sat down with the two aspiring gurus to discuss Zone Theory, and came away looking at the world in a different light.
Paste: Could you introduce yourself, and say what Zone Theory means to you in a sentence or two?
Tim Nagrume Heidecker: Well, my name is Tim Nagrume Heidecker. I’m one of the co-founders of The Zone Theory. Zone Theory is a simple, seven step process to improve your life, to make you a happier, healthier, more productive man.
Paste: Great. It seems like the book mostly functions as an explanation of Zone Theory—getting the word out, trying to help people. How did you guys get the word out about Zone Theory before you conceived a book?
Heidecker: This is the first time we’ve attempted to get the word out. It’s a brand new system that we’ve been working on for a long time. We really haven’t been talking about Zone Theory specifically up ‘til this point.
Paste: It’s just been in development a long time now.
Eric Sharm Wareheim (joining the call): Correct.
Paste: Is this Eric that just joined?
Wareheim: Yes, it’s Eric Sharm Wareheim.
Paste: Hi. Eric, in your own words, I was wondering if you could describe Zone Theory in just a sentence or two.
Wareheim: Yes, absolutely. We live in a world with a lot of shitbirds, lot of garbage people that walk around and aren’t annoying because of their substance and intellect. We develop with the help of Ba’hee, who’s a turkey man, and he helps us find these seven zones, these quick little exercises you could do to change your life, have a beautiful life, and be a smart person in society.
Paste: Excellent. Where do you guys figure that Zone Theory stacks up versus other books in the kind of self-help or self-actualization genre?
Heidecker: It stacks up as superior to all of them.
Paste: How so?
Wareheim: The one thing we like to say is, once you buy Zone Theory, you can throw all of your books away. We’re not just saying self-help books, we’re saying all of the fiction, and all of the non-fiction. You won’t need that anymore, because your mind will be expanding, you’ll be an enlightened individual.
Paste: With that amount of content, who’s one specific person you hope to reach with Zone Theory that hasn’t already been reached by it?
Wareheim: You.
Paste: Me?
Wareheim: Yeah, I could tell right away that, I don’t know how closely you read the book, but it’s probably something you want to be reading more than once.
Paste: What’s something I could do with the rest of my afternoon that would help my zone level?
Wareheim: Well, the first thing you could do is find your closest nude recreation center.
Paste: Right.
Wareheim: Might want to start with some masked horse play. Then you can find other Zone Theory members. I would try to find someone that could help you. If you’ve already read the book and you’re still this confused, you might need the help of another— a Zone Priest, or just another member of the Zone Theory community to help you through it.
Paste: What would you say to someone who claim to not need Zone Theory?
Heidecker: It’s that they belong in a dumpster with their—I hate to be crude, but they should be disembodied and torn to pieces. The bodies should be completely destroyed. Unless they’re a woman in which case it doesn’t apply to them.
Paste: Right, because this specific Zone Theory book is not intended for women, right?
Heidecker: Right.
Wareheim: We support women buying the book, just not reading it. We prefer them putting it on their shelves, showing it off to guests when they have dinner parties. Then next year, when the supplemental Zone systems will be released, there will be one for women, which they’ll be able to purchase as well as actually read.
Paste: I don’t know how far along this is, but will the women’s Zone Theory book be able to be read by men?
Heidecker: No.
Paste: Are there any discrepancies between the way that the two of you conceive or think about Zone Theory?
Heidecker: Not at this time.
Paste: Not right now?
Heidecker: You know, there are some disagreements over some of the fundamental zones amongst us. I think a lot of that has to do with the deadline, the rush nature of [the book] putting itself together, that we didn’t have a lot of time to thoroughly examine the content. Now that the book’s out, we’ve had a chance to absorb it more thoroughly, [and] there are issues. Those issues are unfortunately going to be concealed until we have developed a better strategy for handling them. There is an internal Zone Theory document that’s being prepared at the moment through my people and my associates entitled “Discrepancies in Zone Theory.” As soon as that’s prepared it will be sealed and filed away.
Paste: So there’s an almost mystic aspect to Zone Theory? The contradictions and mysteries are inherent in the book itself?
Heidecker: Correct.
Paste: Now that the book is out and the word is out about Zone Theory, what’s next for you guys besides a possible female-only Zone Theory book?
Wareheim: It’s time to rake in the cash. We’ve been on the road selling the book. We’ve been doing promotions and we are seeing the numbers skyrocket. At this point, we’re just going to start counting our money.
Heidecker: One issue is that a lot of these orders have been through credit cards and PayPal and things. You don’t actually get that cash in hand right away. As soon as some of those orders get filled and the money comes in, we will be well on our way to stacking up ten thousand-dollar increments of cash and piling up all around where we live.
Joe Bernardi is on Twitter.